The President's Daughter (30 page)

“Hey, Arnold, are you there?” Raphael called in Hebrew.

“Yes, I’m under the portico.”

“And smoking a cigarette, I can smell it from here. Don’t let the colonel catch you. I’m going inside to do the corridor rounds.”

“Okay.”

Arnold stepped back into the portico and Dillon whispered, “I’ll go left and attract his attention and you take him from the rear. Don’t kill him. He’s too useful.”

He slipped away, pulled himself up over an ornamental flower bed, and reached the terrace. He walked towards the portico, Arnold very clear in the night goggles.

“Hey, Arnold,” he called in Hebrew. “Where are you?”

“Who’s that?” Arnold called, taking a step forward, and Blake had him in the same moment, an arm around his neck, the other hand over his mouth.

In the jump suit and the goggles, Dillon presented a terrifying spectacle. He took out his Browning, cocked it, and touched Arnold under the chin. When he spoke, it was in English.

“This is silenced, so I can put one in your heart, kill you instantly, and no one will hear a thing. Now you’re going to answer some questions, and if you don’t, I will kill you and we’ll go and find your friend, the one we saw on the battlements. Do you understand?”

Arnold tried to nod and Blake took his hand from the young man’s mouth. “I’d do as he says if I were you.”

“Who are you?” Arnold asked.

“I’ve come back to haunt you. It’s me, Dillon.”

“Oh, my God, but it can’t be. The colonel told us you were dead.”

“The colonel, is it now? Well, he’ll always be Judas to me. Now, answers. The countess, is she still in the same room on the third floor?”

“Yes.”

“And Chief Inspector Bernstein?”

“She’s on the same corridor in the room you were in.”

“How many are you? The same number?”

Arnold hesitated and Dillon jabbed the Browning into his side painfully. “Come on. Judas and five of you. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Who was on the battlements?”

“Raphael.”

“We heard him talking to you.”

“You couldn’t, he spoke Hebrew.”

“So do I, in a manner of speaking, something Judas didn’t know. Raphael said he was doing the corridor rounds. What’s that mean?”

“What it sounds like. He patrols corridors and stairs.”

“And the others, where are they?”

“Braun is usually in the kitchen on the ground floor. He does all the cooking. There’s a small lift to serve the other floors. That’s how he gets food to the women.”

“And the rest?”

“The colonel is usually in his study.”

“Which leaves Aaron and Moshe.”

Arnold hesitated. “Aaron and Moshe?”

Dillon screwed the silencer on the end of the Browning into Arnold’s neck.

“I’m not sure. There’s a billiards room by the library, that’s off the main hall. Sometimes they play.”

“Anywhere else?”

“The recreation room on the first floor. Satellite television, that kind of thing.”

Dillon nodded. “All right, so to get to the stairs up to each floor, we need the main hall?”

“Yes, you take the stairs from there.”

“Good.” Dillon turned him round. “Then show us the way.”

They moved along the terrace through the rain and Arnold opened an iron-studded door leading the way into a corridor. There was a light on, another oaken door at the end.

Dillon pushed up his goggles. “Where are we?”

“The entrance hall is through there.”

“Then lead on.”

Arnold reached the door, turned the iron-ringed handle and opened it, revealing a massive hall beyond. There was a flagged floor, a log fire in an open fireplace, an array of flags hanging from poles above the fireplace, the ceiling vaulted. Why he did what he did next was probably a mystery to himself as much as anyone, for he swung the door back behind him and ran across the hall.

“Colonel!” he screamed. “Intruders! Dillon!”

Dillon pulled back the door and shot him in the spine. A moment later, a door opened on the opposite side of the hall, and Aaron and Moshe appeared carrying handguns. Dillon was aware of the billiard table in the room behind them and fired twice to keep their heads down. Blake backed him with a quick burst from his Uzi that sent them into the billiard room, slamming the door.

“Here we go!” Dillon cried and started up the great stone stairway fast, Blake following.

They reached the first landing and began to climb further. As they came out on the second landing, Raphael appeared at the far end, clutching his M16. He raised it
to fire and Blake loosed off another wild burst that drove Raphael diving for cover.

“Come on!” Dillon said and made for the third floor and Blake went after him.

In his study, reading a book and drinking cognac, Daniel Levy was instantly alert at the first sound of gunfire. He opened his desk drawer, took out a Beretta which he put in the pocket of his jump suit, and picked up an M16 that was leaning against the wall. His study was on the first floor, and as he emerged, Aaron and Moshe appeared at the end of the corridor, having come up the back stairs. They were each holding AK assault rifles.

“What is it?” Levy demanded.

“We heard Arnold shouting in the hall. He called: Intruders. Dillon. Then we heard gunfire in the hall, went out and saw him dying, two men in black jump suits, night goggles, just like the SAS on a bad night in Belfast,” Aaron said.

“Dillon?” Levy stood there staring at them. “It can’t be. Dillon’s dead.” And then some kind of comprehension dawned. “Berger, knocked down in London. Dillon—it must have been.” There was gunfire on the next floor. “Come on!” he said. “The bastard’s going for the women,” and he ran for the back stairs.

Dillon and Blake hit the third floor fast and moved headlong, pausing at the door to the room in which Dillon had been prisoner. He kicked it again and again.

“Hannah, it’s Sean.” He turned to Blake. “The countess is two doors down. Do it, Blake.”

He heard Hannah call, “Sean, is that you?”

“Stand back, I’m blowing the door.”

He took a door charge from one of his packs, pushing
it into the keyhole of the oak door, Blake doing the same further along the corridor. Dillon twisted the timer cap and stood to one side. Four seconds was all it took. The door rocked and splintered and he was into the room.

Hannah ran to meet him and actually flung her arms about his neck. “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.” The second door charge exploded and she said, “What’s that?”

“Blake Johnson getting to Marie de Brissac.” He took his Browning from its holster. “Take this, we’re not out of the woods yet and there’s only the two of us.”

David Braun had been sleeping in the small bedroom at the end of the third-floor corridor. He awoke, confused and frightened at the first sounds of gunfire, and dressed hurriedly. He picked up an Armalite which he kept by the bed, opened the door, and stepped out.

The first thing he saw was Blake leading Marie out of her room, Dillon and Hannah Bernstein beyond. He raised the Armalite and hesitated, aware of the danger to Marie. Dillon saw him, cried a warning, and pulled the pin on a stun grenade and rolled it down the corridor. Braun jumped into a nearby alcove, and the stun grenade went straight through the archway at the end of the corridor and fell down the stairwell, exploding.

At the same moment, Levy, Aaron, and Moshe appeared at the other end of the corridor and started firing. Dillon pushed Hannah back into her room and Blake and Marie de Brissac followed.

There was silence, then Raphael appeared at the stairhead behind Braun. He called, “Raphael here, Colonel, with David.”

“Good,” Levy shouted back. “I’ve got Aaron and
Moshe here. There’s only two of them and they aren’t going anywhere. You hear that, Dillon?”

“If you say so,” Dillon replied. “I wasn’t going anywhere in Washington, but here I am.” He rolled another stun grenade along the corridor and jumped back.

Levy had already opened the door of the last room in the corridor and shouted, “Inside!” to Aaron and Moshe. They made the shelter of the room, and as he slammed the door the stun grenade exploded on the landing.

Levy opened the door. “Not too good, old buddy. Like I said, you aren’t going anywhere. Hey, when you get time you’ve got to tell me about Washington. That must have been real slick.”

He fired several bursts from his M16, clipping the wall by the broken door of what had been Hannah’s room. Dillon poked the Uzi out one-handed, sprayed along the corridor one way and then the other.

He turned to Blake, who said, “Now what do we do?”

Dillon put down his Uzi and pulled the coil of rope over his head. “A good job I brought this along, it’s our one chance. Everybody get in the bathroom.” Marie de Brissac looked dazed and Dillon said, “Move it, for God’s sake. Hannah, we’re running out of time.”

Hannah urged Marie before her into the bathroom. Blake followed. Dillon fired another burst from his Uzi into the corridor, then put it down again, took a quarter block of Semtex from one of his pouches, jammed it on the windowsill against the bars, and rammed in a two-second pencil timer.

He ran and flung himself flat on his face on the floor beside the bed. The sound of the explosion seemed to make the room sway, and when he looked up through drifting smoke the window, the bars, and some of the
surrounding stonework had disappeared, leaving a jagged hole.

Dillon ran to peer out and Blake joined him, the two women at his shoulder. “Forty feet down to the terrace,” Dillon said. “You lower the countess and Hannah one by one, then tie one end to the bed and go down yourself. I’ll hold the fort and follow when I can.”

Blake didn’t hesitate, simply uncoiled the rope and tied a large loop in the end. As Dillon picked up his Uzi and reloaded, Hannah grabbed his arm.

“Sean, you wouldn’t do anything stupid like going down with the ship or something?”

He grinned. “Hey, genuine concern, and at this stage of our relationship?”

“Damn you!” she said.

“Already taken care of.” He ran to the door, poked the Uzi out again, and fired toward Braun and Raphael, who fired back instantly.

On the
Cretan Lover,
they saw the explosion blossom in the night up there in the castle, and a second or so later, there was the hollow boom as it echoed across the water.

“What in the hell is happening?” Ferguson said as he stood at the rail wearing the third flak jacket, a Browning in one hand.

“Whatever it is, I’m going to be ready,” Aleko said. “We’ll move in close, a hundred yards from the jetty. Dump the nets, just cut them loose, and everyone make sure they’re armed.”

He went into the wheelhouse and took over from Stavros. A moment later, the engines rumbled into life, and as the nets slipped away the
Cretan Lover
moved toward the jetty.

• • •

Hannah went first, finding it surprisingly easy with the loop under her shoulder and the rough stone walls of the castle providing good footholds. She reached the terrace, pulled the loop over her head, tugged, and Blake pulled it up.

He turned to Marie de Brissac. “How about it? You’ll be safe in my hands, I promise you. Just don’t look down.”

“And we haven’t even been introduced.”

“Johnson—Blake Johnson. I’m your father’s special security man.”

“Well, it’s nice to know you, Mr. Johnson, but I’ve no problem with heights. The general climbed in the Swiss Alps every year. I was ten when he first took me with him.” She pulled the loop over her head. “Thank you, Mr. Dillon. I thought you looked like the sort of man who always comes back for the girl.”

“In the last chapter only, Countess, and this isn’t the last chapter. On your way,” and Dillon crouched back as a storm of firing erupted in the corridor.

Marie de Brissac arrived safely on the terrace. This time, Blake left the rope hanging and did as Dillon had suggested, tying the end securely to one of the massive legs of the old bed. There was silence for a moment, and Blake said, “What now?”

“Give me your Uzi, then get the hell down the rope and start for the jetty with the girls.”

“And you?”

“I’ll lay down a suitable field of fire, then I’ll be down that rope myself doing my celebrated imitation of Tarzan of the Apes.” He shoved a fresh clip into his own Uzi and stood there, one in each hand. “Go on, Blake, get moving.”

Blake couldn’t think of a damn thing to say, turned, took the rope in both hands, and went down backwards, and Dillon crossed the room, leaned out, and watched him go, for the rain had stopped, the clouds clearing enough to expose a full moon. In its light, he could see Blake descending and the two women looking up.

Levy called, “Hey, Dillon, listen to me.”

“Why, it’s my old chum Judas or Colonel Dan Levy or whatever you call yourself. Ready to surrender, are you?”

Levy seemed to crack then, rage erupting as he called, “We’ll rush him now.”

Dillon took a deep breath and stepped into the corridor. Raphael had appeared at the far end, his M16 ready, David Braun behind him. Moshe had moved into the open at the other end. Dillon fired the Uzis in sustained bursts, left- and right-handed, pushing Raphael back against Braun and slamming Moshe against the wall, four or five bullets in him.

The Uzis emptied, Dillon dropped them to the floor, ran for that jagged hole, got a grip on the rope, and started down, knot by knot.

As Moshe fell backwards, kicking in death, Levy looked down at that bloodstained body and something happened to him. It was as if it confirmed the fact that he had lost, everything he had worked for down the sewer, and all because of Dillon.

He erupted then, crying, “Dillon, you bastard! Face me!”

He went up the corridor on the run, spraying the walls with his M16, and paused in the entrance of the room, confronted by the gaping hole, the rope. The shock seemed to make him speechless for the moment. Aaron,
coming up behind, pushed him to one side and went to the hole and peered out.

Levy pulled himself together and crossed the room in two quick strides. “Can you see them?”