On Dangerous Ground

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 1994

Copyright © Harry Patterson 1994

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Photography and illustration © Nik Keevil

Harry Patterson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Certain elements of this book are inspired by an earlier work, Midnight Never Comes, published in 1966.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008132385

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007352302

Version: 2015-04-01

For Sally Palmer with love

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

1993 LONDON

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

About the Author

Also by Jack Higgins

Further Reading

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

CHUNGKING

August 1944

The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Joe Caine of RAF Transport Command, was tired, frozen to the bone, his hands clamped to the control column. He eased it forward and took the plane down, emerging from low cloud at three thousand feet into driving rain.

The aircraft ploughing its way through heavy cloud and thunderstorm was a Douglas DC3, the famous Dakota, as much a workhorse for the American Air Force as for the RAF who together operated them out of the Assam airfields of north India, flying supplies to Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Army. On their way they had to negotiate the infamous Hump, as it was known to Allied aircrews, the Himalayan mountains, trying to survive in some of the worst flying conditions in the world.

‘There she is, Skipper,’ the second pilot said. ‘Dead ahead. Three miles.’

‘And the usual lousy blackout,’ Caine said, which was true enough. The inhabitants of Chungking were notoriously lazy in that respect and there were lights all over the place.

‘Well, here we go,’ he said.

‘Message from control tower,’ the wireless operator called from behind.

Caine switched on to VHF and called the tower. ‘Sugar Nan here. Is there a problem?’

‘Priority traffic coming in. Please go round,’ a neutral voice said.

‘For God’s sake,’ Caine replied angrily, ‘I’ve just clocked one thousand miles over the Hump. We’re tired, cold and almost out of fuel.’

‘VIP traffic to starboard and below you. Go round. Please acknowledge.’ The voice was firm.

The second pilot looked out of the side, then turned. ‘About five hundred feet below, Skipper. Another Dakota. A Yank from the look of it.’

‘All right,’ Caine said wearily and banked to port.

The man who stood on the porch of the Station Commander’s office staring up into the rain, listening to the sound of the first Dakota coming in, wore the uniform of a Vice-Admiral of the Royal Navy, a trenchcoat over his shoulders. His name was Lord Louis Mountbatten and he was cousin to the King of England. A highly decorated war hero, he was also Supreme Allied Commander Southeast Asia.

The American General in steel-rimmed spectacles who emerged behind him, pausing to light a cigarette, was General ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell, Mountbatten’s deputy and also Chief of Staff to Chiang Kai-shek. The greatest expert on China of anyone in the Allied forces, Stilwell was also fluent in Cantonese.

He perched on the rail. ‘Well, here he comes, the great Chairman Mao.’

‘What happened to Chiang Kai-shek?’ Mountbatten asked.

‘Found an excuse to go up-country. It’s no use, Louis, Mao and Chiang will never get together. They both want the same thing.’

‘China?’ Mountbatten said.

‘Exactly.’

‘Yes, well, I’d like to remind you this isn’t the Pacific, Joe. Twenty-five Jap divisions in China and, since the start of their April offensive, they’ve been winning. No one knows that better than you. We need Mao and his Communist Army. It’s as simple as that.’

They watched the Dakota land. Stilwell said, ‘The Washington viewpoint is simple. We’ve given enough lend-lease to Chiang.’

‘And what have we got for it?’ Mountbatten asked. ‘He sits on his backside doing nothing, saving his ammunition and equipment for the civil war with the Communists when the Japs are beaten.’

‘A civil war he’ll probably win,’ Stilwell said.

‘Do you really think so?’ Mountbatten shook his head. ‘You know, in the West Mao and his people are looked upon as agrarian revolutionaries, that all they want is land for the peasants.’

‘And you don’t agree?’

‘Frankly, I think they’re more Communist than the Russians. I think they could well drive Chiang Kai-shek out of mainland China and take over after the war.’

‘An interesting thought,’ Stilwell told him, ‘but if you’re talking about making friends and influencing people, that’s up to you. Washington won’t play. Fresh supplies of arms and ammunition must come from your people, not American sources. We’ll have a big enough problem handling Japan after the war. China is your baby.’

The Dakota came towards them and stopped. A couple of waiting ground crew wheeled steps forward and waited for the door to open.

‘So you don’t think I’m asking dear old Mao too much?’

‘Hell, no!’ Stilwell laughed. ‘To be honest, Louis, if he agrees, I don’t see how you’ll be getting very much in return for all that aid you intend to give him.’

‘Better than nothing, old sport, especially if he agrees.’

The door swung open; a young Chinese officer emerged. A moment later Mao Tse-tung appeared. He paused for a moment, looking towards them, wearing only a simple uniform and cap with the red star, then he started down the steps.

Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, was at that time fifty-one, a brilliant politician, a master of guerrilla warfare and a soldier of genius. He was also the implacable foe of Chiang Kai-shek and the two sides had been engaged in open warfare instead of taking on the Japanese together.

In the office he sat behind the Station Commander’s desk, the young officer behind him. To one side of Mountbatten and Stilwell stood a British Army major. His left eye was covered by a black eye-patch and the badge in his cap was that of the Highland Light Infantry. A Corporal wearing the bonnet of the same regiment stood against the wall behind him, a cardboard office file under his left arm.

Stilwell said in fluent Cantonese, ‘I’ll be happy to translate for these proceedings, Chairman Mao.’

Mao sat facing him, face enigmatic, then said in excellent English, an ability he seldom advertised, ‘General, my time is limited.’ Stilwell stared at him in astonishment and Mao said to Mountbatten, ‘Who is this officer and the man with him?’

Mountbatten said, ‘Major Ian Campbell, Chairman, one of my aides. The Corporal is his batman. Their regiment is the Highland Light Infantry.’

‘Batman?’ Mao enquired.

‘A soldier servant,’ Mountbatten explained.

‘Ah, I see.’ Mao nodded enigmatically and turned to Campbell. ‘The Highlands of Scotland, am I right? A strange people. The English put you to the sword, turned your people off their land and yet you go to war for them.’

Ian Campbell said, ‘I am a Highlander, flesh and bone, a thousand years behind me, Laird of Loch Dhu Castle and all around, like my father and his before me, and if the English need a helping hand now and then, why not?’

Mao actually smiled and turned to Mountbatten. ‘I like this man. You should lend him to me.’

‘Not possible, Chairman.’

Mao shrugged. ‘Then to business. I have little time. I must make the return journey in no more than thirty minutes. What do you offer me?’

Mountbatten glanced at Stilwell, who shrugged, and the Admiral said to Mao, ‘Our American friends are not able to offer arms and ammunition to you and your forces.’

‘But everything the Generalissimo needs they will supply?’ Mao asked.

He stayed surprisingly calm and Mountbatten said, ‘I believe I have a solution. What if the RAF flew in ten thousand tons a month over the Hump to Kunming, assorted weapons, ammunition and so forth.’

Mao selected a cigarette from an old silver case and the young officer lit it for him. The Chairman blew out a long plume of smoke. ‘And what would I have to do for such munificence?’

‘Something’ Mountbatten said. ‘I mean, we have to have something. That’s only fair.’

‘And what would you have in mind?’

Mountbatten lit a cigarette himself, walked to the open door and looked out at the rain. He turned. ‘The Hong Kong Treaty, the lease to Britain. It expires 1 July 1997.’

‘So?’

‘I’d like you to extend it by one hundred years.’

There was a long silence. Mao leaned back and blew smoke to the ceiling. ‘My friend, I think the rains have driven you a little crazy. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek rules China, the Japanese permitting, of course.’

‘But the Japanese will go,’ Mountbatten said.

‘And then?’

The room was very quiet. Mountbatten turned and nodded. The Corporal clicked his heels and passed the file to Major Campbell who opened it and took out a document which he passed across the desk to the Chairman.

‘This is not a treaty but a covenant,’ Mountbatten said. ‘The Chungking Covenant, I call it. If you will read it and approve it with your signature above mine, you will agree to extend, if you ever control China, the Hong Kong Treaty by a hundred years. In exchange, His Majesty’s Government will supply you with all your military needs.’

Mao Tse-tung examined the document, then glanced up. ‘Have you a pen, Lord Mountbatten?’

It was the Corporal who supplied one, moving in quickly. Mao signed the document. Major Campbell produced three more copies and laid them on the table. Mao signed each one, Mountbatten countersigned.

He handed the pen back to the Corporal and stood up. ‘A good night’s work,’ he said to Mountbatten, ‘but now I must go.’

He started for the door and Mountbatten said, ‘A moment, Mr Chairman, you’re forgetting your copy of the covenant.’

Mao turned. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘When it has been countersigned by Churchill.’

Mountbatten stared at him. ‘Churchill?’

‘But of course. Naturally this should not delay the flow of arms, but I do look forward to receiving my copy signed by the man himself. Is there a problem?’

‘No.’ Mountbatten pulled himself together. ‘No, of course not.’

‘Good. And now, I must go. There is work to do, gentlemen.’

He went out and down the steps followed by the young officer, crossed to the Dakota and climbed in. The door was closed, the steps wheeled away, the plane started to taxi and Stilwell burst into laughter.

‘God help me, that’s the weirdest thing I’ve seen in years. He certainly is a character. What are you going to do?’

‘Send the damn thing to London for Churchill’s signature, of course.’ Mountbatten turned back in the entrance and said to Major Campbell, ‘Ian, I’m going to give you a chance to have dinner at the Savoy. I want you on your way to London as soon as possible with a dispatch from me for the Prime Minister. Did I hear another plane land?’

‘Yes, sir, a Dakota from Assam.’

‘Good. Give orders for it to be refuelled and turned around.’ Mountbatten glanced at the Corporal. ‘You can take Tanner with you.’

‘Fine, sir.’

Campbell shuffled the papers to put them in the file and Mountbatten said, ‘Three copies. One for Mao, another for the Prime Minister and the third for President Roosevelt. Didn’t I sign four?’

‘I took the liberty of making an extra copy, sir, just in case of accidents,’ Campbell said.

‘Good man, Ian,’ Mountbatten nodded. ‘On your way then. Only one night out at the Savoy then straight back.’

‘Of course, sir.’

Campbell saluted and went out followed by Tanner. Stilwell lit a cigarette. ‘He’s a strange one, Campbell.’

‘Lost his eye at Dunkirk,’ Mountbatten said. ‘Got a well-earned Military Cross. Best aide I ever had.’

‘What’s all this Laird of Loch Dhu crap?’ Stilwell said. ‘You English are really crazy.’

‘Ah, but Campbell isn’t English, he’s Scots and, more than that, he’s a Highlander. As Laird of Loch Dhu he heads a sect of Clan Campbell and that, Joe, is a tradition that existed before the Vikings sailed to America.’

He walked to the door and stared out at the driving rain. Stilwell joined him. ‘Are we going to win, Louis?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Mountbatten nodded. ‘It’s what will come after that bothers me.’

In Campbell’s quarters, Tanner packed the Major’s holdall with military thoroughness while Campbell shaved. They had been together since boyhood, for Tanner’s father had been a gamekeeper on the Loch Dhu estate, and together they endured the shattering experience of Dunkirk. When Campbell had first worked for Mountbatten at Combined Operations Headquarters in London he had taken the Corporal with him as his batman. The move to Southeast Asia Command had followed that. But to Jack Tanner, a good soldier with a Military Medal for bravery in the field to prove it, Campbell would never be anything else but the Laird.

The Major came out of the bathroom drying his hands. He adjusted the black eye-patch and smoothed his hair then pulled on his tunic. ‘Got the briefcase, Jack?’

Tanner held it up. ‘The papers are inside, Laird.’

He always gave Campbell the title when they were alone. Campbell said, ‘Open it. Take out the fourth copy, the extra copy.’

Tanner did as he was told and passed it to him. The single sheet of paper was headed Supreme Allied Commander Southeast Asia Command. Mao had signed it, not only in English, but in Chinese, with Mountbatten countersigning.

‘There you are, Jack,’ Campbell said as he folded it. ‘Piece of history here. If Mao wins, Hong Kong will stay British until 1 July 2097.’

‘You think it will happen, Laird?’

‘Who knows? We’ve got to win the war first. Pass me my Bible, will you?’

Tanner went to the dresser where the Major’s toilet articles were laid out. The Bible was about six inches by four with a cover of embossed silver, a Celtic cross standing out clearly. It was very old. Campbells had carried it to war for many centuries. It had been found in the pocket of the Major’s ancestor who had died fighting against Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden. It had been recovered from the body of his uncle, killed on the Somme in 1916. Ian Campbell took it everywhere.

Tanner opened it. The inside of the Bible’s cover was also silver. He felt carefully with his nail, it sprang open, revealing a small hidden compartment. Campbell folded the sheet of paper to the appropriate size and fitted it in, closing the lid.

‘Top secret, Jack, only you and I know it’s there. Your Highland oath on it.’

‘You have it, Laird. Shall I put it in the holdall, Laird?’

‘No, I’ll carry it in my map pocket.’ There was a knock at the door, Tanner went to open it and Flight Lieutenant Caine stepped in. He was carrying heavy flying jackets and boots.

‘You’ll need these, sir. We’ll probably have to go as high as twenty thousand over part of the Hump. Bloody freezing up there.’

The young man looked tired, dark circles under his eyes. Campbell said, ‘I’m sorry about this. I know you’ve only just got in.’

‘That’s all right, sir. I carry a co-pilot, Pilot Officer Giffard. We can spell each other. We also have a navigator and wireless operator. We’ll make out.’ He smiled. ‘One can hardly say no to Lord Mountbatten. All the way to Delhi on this one I see?’

‘That’s right. Then onwards to London.’

‘Wish I was doing that leg of the trip.’ Caine opened the door and looked out at the rain. ‘Never stops, does it? What a bloody country. I’ll see you at the plane, sir.’ He went out.

Campbell said, ‘Right, Jack, let’s get moving.’

They pulled on the flying boots, the heavy sheepskin jackets. Finally ready, Tanner picked up his holdall and the Major’s.

‘On your way, Jack.’

Tanner moved out. Campbell glanced around the room, reached for his cap and put it on, then he picked up the Bible, put it in the map pocket of his flying jacket and fastened the flap. Strange, but he felt more than tired. It was as if he had reached the end of something. His Highland blood speaking again. He shrugged the feeling off, turned and went out into the rain, following Tanner to the Dakota.

To Kunming from Chungking was four hundred and fifty miles. They took the opportunity of refuelling and then pressed on to the most hazardous section of the trip, the five hundred and fifty miles over the Hump to the Assam airfields.

Conditions were appalling – heavy rain and thunderstorms and the kind of turbulence that threatened to break the plane up. Several hundred aircrew had died making this run over the past couple of years; Campbell knew that. It was probably the most hazardous flying duty in the RAF or the USAF. He wondered what persuaded men to volunteer for such work and, while thinking about it, actually managed some sleep, only surfacing as they came into their Assam destination to refuel.

The onward trip to Delhi was another eleven hundred miles and a completely different proposition. Blue skies, considerable heat and no wind to speak of. The Dakota coasted along at ten thousand feet and Caine left the flying to Giffard, came back and tried to get a couple of hours’ sleep.

Campbell dozed again and came awake to find the wireless operator shaking Caine by the shoulder. ‘Delhi in fifteen minutes, Skipper.’

Caine got up, yawning. He grinned at Campbell. ‘Piece of cake this leg, isn’t it?’

As he turned away there was an explosion. Pieces of metal flew off the port engine, there was thick black smoke and, as the propeller stopped turning, the Dakota banked and dived steeply, throwing Caine off his feet.

Campbell was hurled against the bulkhead behind with such force that he was almost knocked senseless. The result was that he couldn’t really take in what was happening. It was a kind of nightmare, as if the world was breaking up around him, the impact of the crash, the smell of burning and someone screaming.

He was aware of being in water, managed to focus his eyes and found himself being dragged through a paddy field by a wild-eyed Tanner, blood on his face. The Corporal heaved him on to a dyke then turned and hurried back, knee-deep in water, to the Dakota, which was burning fiercely now. When he was halfway there it blew up with a tremendous explosion.

Debris cascaded everywhere and Tanner turned and came back wearily. He eased the Major higher on the dyke and found a tin of cigarettes. His hand shook as he lit one.

‘Are we it?’ Campbell managed to croak.

‘So it would appear, Laird.’

‘Dear God.’ Campbell’s hands moved over his chest. ‘The Bible,’ he whispered.

‘Dinna fash yourself, Laird, I’ll hold it safe for you.’

Tanner took it from the map pocket and then all sounds faded for Campbell, all colour, nothing now but quiet darkness.

In Chungking Mountbatten and Stilwell were examining on the map the relentless progress of the advancing Japanese, who had already overrun most of the Allied airfields in eastern China.

‘I thought we were supposed to be winning the war,’ Stilwell said.

Mountbatten smiled ruefully. ‘So did I.’

Behind him, the door opened and an aide entered with a signal flimsy. ‘Sorry to bother you, sir, but this is from Delhi, marked urgent.’

Mountbatten read it then swore softly. ‘All right, you can go.’

The aide went out. Stilwell said, ‘Bad news?’

‘The Dakota Campbell was travelling in lost an engine and crashed just outside Delhi. It fireballed after landing. By all accounts the documents and my dispatches went with it.’

‘Is Campbell dead?’

‘No, that Corporal of his managed to get him out. All the crew were killed. It seems Campbell received a serious head injury. He’s in a coma.’

‘Let’s hope he hangs in there,’ Stilwell said. ‘Anyway, something of a setback for you, your Chungking Covenant going up in flames. What will you do? Try to get Mao to sign another one?’

‘I doubt if I’ll ever get close enough to him again. It was always an “anything is better than nothing” situation. I didn’t really expect much to come out of it. Anyway, in my experience Chinese seldom give you a second bite at the cherry.’

‘I agree,’ Stilwell said. ‘In any case, the wily old bastard is probably already regretting putting his signature to that thing. But what about his supplies?’

‘Oh, we’ll see he gets those because I want him actively on our side taking on the Japanese. The Hong Kong business was never serious, Joe. I thought we ought to get something out of the deal if we could and the Hong Kong thing was all that the Prime Minister and I could come up with. Not that it matters now, we’ve got far more serious things to consider.’ He walked back to the wall map. ‘Now, show me exactly where those Japanese forward units are.’

1993

1

Norah Bell got out of the taxi close to St James’s Stairs on Wapping High Street. She paid off the cab driver and walked away, a small, hippy, dark-haired girl in leather jacket, tight black mini-skirt and high-heeled ankle boots. She walked well with a sort of total movement of the whole body. The cab driver watched her put up her umbrella against the heavy rain, sighed deeply and drove away.

She paused on the first corner and bought an Evening Standard. The front page was concerned with only one thing, the arrival of the American President in London that day to meet with both the Israeli and British prime ministers to discuss developments in the Palestinian situation. She folded the newspaper, put it under her left arm and turned the corner of the next street, walking down towards the Thames.

The youth standing in a doorway opposite was perhaps eighteen and wore lace-up boots, jeans and shabby bomber jacket. With the ring in his left nostril and the swastika tattooed on his forehead, he was typical of a certain type of gang animal that roamed the city streets in search of prey. She looked easy meat and he went after her quickly, only running in at the last minute to grab her from behind, one hand over her mouth. She didn’t struggle, went completely still, which should have told him something, but by then he was beyond reason, charged with the wrong kind of sexual excitement.

‘Just do as you’re told,’ he said, ‘and I won’t hurt you.’

He urged her into the porch of a long-disused warehouse, pushing against her. She said, ‘No need to be rough.’

To his amazement she kissed him, her tongue flickering in his mouth. He couldn’t believe his luck as, still clutching her umbrella, she moved her other hand down between them, brushing against his hardness.

‘Jesus,’ he moaned and kissed her again, aware that her hand seemed to be easing up her skirt.

She found what she was looking for, the flick knife tucked into the top of her right stocking. It came up, the blade jumped and she sliced open the left side of his face from the corner of the eye to the chin.

He screamed, falling back. She said calmly, putting the point under his chin, ‘Do you want some more?’

He was more afraid than he had ever been in his life. ‘No, for God’s sake, no!’

She wiped the blade on his jacket. ‘Then go away.’

He moved out into the rain, then turned, holding a handkerchief to his face. ‘Bitch! I’ll get you for this.’

‘No you won’t.’ Her accent was unmistakably Ulster Irish. ‘You’ll find the nearest casualty department as fast as you can, get yourself stitched up and put the whole thing down to experience.’

She watched him go, closed the knife, slipping it back in the top of the stocking, then she turned and continued down towards the Thames, moving along the waterfront, finally pausing at an old warehouse. There was a small Judas gate in the main entrance. She opened it and went in.

It was a place of shadows, but at the far end there was a glass office with a light in it. It was reached by a flight of wooden stairs. As she moved towards it, a young, dark-skinned man moved out of the darkness, a Browning Hi-Power in one hand.

‘And who might you be?’ she asked.

The door of the office was opened and a small man with dark tousled hair wearing a reefer jacket appeared. ‘Is that you, Norah?’

‘And who else?’ she replied. ‘Who’s your friend?’

‘Ali Halabi, meet Norah Bell. Come away up.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the Arab said.

She ignored him and went up the stairs; he followed, noting with approval the way her skirt tightened over her hips.

When she went into the office the man in the reefer coat put his hands on her shoulders. ‘God help me, but you look good enough to eat,’ and he kissed her lightly on the lips.

‘Save the blarney.’ She put her umbrella on the desk, opened her handbag and took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Anything in a skirt, Michael Ahern. I’ve known you too long.’

She put a cigarette in her mouth and the Arab hurriedly took out a lighter and lit it for her. He turned to Ahern. ‘The lady is part of your organization?’

‘Well, I’m not with the bloody IRA,’ she said. ‘We’re Prods, mister, if you know what that means.’

‘Norah and I were in the Ulster Volunteer Force together and then the Red Hand of Ulster,’ Ahern said. ‘Until we had to move on.’

Norah laughed harshly. ‘Until they threw us out. A bunch of old women, that lot. We were killing too many Catholics for their liking.’

‘I see,’ Ali Halabi said. ‘Is it Catholics who are your target or the IRA?’

‘The same difference,’ she said. ‘I’m from Belfast, Mr Halabi. My father was an Army Sergeant, killed in the Falklands War. My mother, my kid sister, my old grandad, all the family I had in the world, were killed in a street bomb planted by the IRA back in eighty-six. You might say I’ve been taking my revenge ever since.’

‘But we are open to offers,’ Ahern said amiably. ‘Any revolutionary organization needs money.’

The Judas gate banged below. Ali took the gun from his pocket and Ahern moved to the door. ‘Is that you, Billy?’

‘As ever was.’

‘Would that be Billy Quigley?’ Norah asked.

‘Who else?’ Ahern turned to Ali. ‘Another one the Red Hand threw out. Billy and I did some time together in the Maze prison.’

Quigley was a small, wiry man in an old raincoat. He had faded blond hair and a careworn face that was old beyond his years.

‘Jesus, is that you, Norah?’

‘Hello, Billy.’

‘You got my message?’ Ahern said.

‘Yes, I drop in to the William of Orange in Kilburn most nights.’

Ahern said to Ali, ‘Kilburn is what you might call the Irish quarter of London. Plenty of good Irish pubs there, Catholic and Protestant. This, by the way, is Ali Halabi from Iran.’

‘So what’s it all about?’ Quigley demanded.

‘This.’ Ahern held up the Evening Standard with the headline about the American President. ‘Ali here represents a group of fundamentalists in Iran called the Army of God. They, shall we say, deeply deplore Arafat’s deal with Israel over the new status of Palestine. They are even more unhappy with the American President presiding over that meeting at the White House and giving it his blessing.’

‘So?’ Quigley said.

‘They’d like me to blow him up for them while he’s in London, me having a certain reputation in that field.’

‘For five million pounds,’ Ali Halabi said. ‘Don’t let us forget that.’

‘Half of which is already on deposit in Geneva.’ Ahern smiled. ‘By God, Billy, couldn’t we give the IRA a run for their money with a million pounds to spend on arms?’

Quigley’s face was pale. ‘The American President? You wouldn’t dare, not even you.’

Norah laughed that distinctive harsh laugh. ‘Oh, yes he would.’

Ahern turned to her. ‘Are you with me, girl?’

‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

‘And you, Billy?’ Quigley licked dry lips and hesitated. Ahern put a hand on his shoulder. ‘In or out, Billy?’

Quigley smiled suddenly. ‘Why not. A man can only die once. How do we do it?’

‘Come down below and I’ll show you.’

Ahern led the way down the steps and switched on a light at the bottom. There was a vehicle parked in a corner covered by a dust sheet which he pulled away, revealing a grey British Telecom van.

‘Where in the hell did you get that?’ Quigley demanded.

‘Someone knocked it off for me months ago. I was going to leave it outside one of those Catholic pubs in Kilburn with five hundred pounds of Semtex inside and blow the hell out of some Sinn Fein bastards, but I decided to hang on to it until something really important turned up.’ Ahern smiled cheerfully. ‘And now it has.’

‘But how do you intend to pull it off?’ Ali demanded.

‘Hundreds of these things all over London. They can park anywhere without being interfered with because they usually have a manhole cover up while the engineers do what they have to do.’

‘So?’ Quigley said.

‘Don’t ask me how, but I have access through sources to the President’s schedule. Tomorrow he leaves the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square at ten o’clock in the morning to go to Number Ten Downing Street. They take the Park Lane route, turning into Constitution Hill beside Green Park.’

‘Can you be sure of that?’ Norah asked.

‘They always do, love, believe me.’ He turned to Quigley and Ali. ‘You two, dressed in Telecom overalls which are inside the van, will park halfway along Constitution Hill. There’s a huge beech tree. You can’t miss it. As I say, you park, lift the manhole cover, put up your signs and so on. You’ll be there at nine-thirty. At nine-forty-five you walk away through Green Park to Piccadilly. There are some men’s toilets. You can get rid of your overalls there.’

‘And then what?’ Ali demanded.

‘I’ll be in a car, waiting with Norah for the golden moment. As the President’s cavalcade reaches the Telecom van I’ll detonate by remote control.’ He smiled. ‘It’ll work, I promise you. We’ll probably kill everyone in the cavalcade.’

There was silence; a kind of awe on Quigley’s face and Norah was excited, face pale. ‘You bastard,’ she said.

‘You think it will work?’

‘Oh, yes.’

He turned to Ali. ‘And you? You’re willing to take part?’

‘An honour, Mr Ahern.’

‘And you, Billy?’ Ahern turned to him.

‘They’ll be singing about us for years,’ Quigley said.

‘Good man yourself, Billy.’ Ahern looked at his watch. ‘Seven o’clock. I could do with a bite to eat. How about you, Norah?’

‘Fine,’ she said.

‘Good. I’m taking the Telecom van away now. I shan’t be returning to this place. I’ll pick you two up in the Mall at nine o’clock in the morning. You’ll arrive separately and wait at the park gates across from Marlborough Road. Norah will be behind me in a car. You two will take over and we’ll follow. Any questions?’

Ali Halabi was incredibly excited. ‘I can’t wait.’

‘Good, off you go now. We’ll leave separately.’ The Arab went out and Ahern turned to Quigley and held out his hand. ‘A big one this, eh, Billy?’

‘The biggest, Michael.’

‘Right, Norah and I will go now. Come and open the main gate for us. I’ll leave you to put out the lights and follow on.’

Norah climbed into the passenger seat, but Ahern shook his head. ‘Move into the rear out of sight and pass me one of those orange jackets. We’ve got to look right. If a copper sees you he might get curious.’

It said British Telecom across the back of the jacket. ‘It’ll never catch on,’ she told him.

He laughed and drove out into the street, waving at Quigley who closed the gate behind them. He travelled only a few yards then swung into a yard and switched off the engine.

‘What is it?’ she demanded.

‘You’ll see. Follow me and keep your mouth shut.’

He opened the Judas gate gently and stepped in. Quigley was in the office; they could hear his voice and, when they reached the bottom of the stairs, they could even hear what he was saying.

‘Yes, Brigadier Ferguson. Most urgent.’ There was a pause. ‘Then patch me through, you silly bugger, this is life or death.’

Ahern took a Walther from his pocket and screwed on a silencer as he went up, Norah behind him. The door was open and Quigley sat on the edge of the desk.

‘Brigadier Ferguson?’ he said suddenly. ‘It’s Billy Quigley. You said only to call you when it was big. Well this couldn’t be bigger. Michael Ahern and that bitch Norah Bell and some Iranian named Ali Halabi are going to try to blow up the American President tomorrow.’ There was a pause. ‘Yes, I’m supposed to be in on it. Well, this is the way of it.…’

‘Billy boy,’ Ahern said, ‘that’s really naughty of you.’ As Quigley turned he shot him between the eyes.

Quigley fell back over the desk and Ahern picked up the phone. ‘Are you there, Brigadier? Michael Ahern here. You’ll need a new man.’ He replaced the receiver, turned off the office light and turned to Norah. ‘Let’s go, my love.’

‘You knew he was an informer?’ she said.

‘Oh, yes, I think that’s why they let him out of the Maze prison early. He was serving life, remember. They must have offered him a deal.’

‘The dirty bastard,’ she said. ‘And now he’s screwed everything up.’

‘Not at all,’ Ahern said. ‘You see, Norah, it’s all worked out exactly as I planned.’ He opened the van door and handed her in. ‘We’ll go and get a bite to eat and then I’ll tell you how we’re really going to hit the President.’

In 1972, aware of the growing problem of terrorism, the British prime minister of the day ordered the setting up of a small élite intelligence unit which became known rather bitterly in intelligence circles as the Prime Minister’s private army, as it owed allegiance only to the office.

Brigadier Charles Ferguson had headed the unit since its inception, had served many prime ministers and had no political allegiance whatsoever. His office was on the third floor of the Ministry of Defence, overlooking Horseguards Avenue. He had been working late when Quigley’s call was patched through. He was a rather untidy looking man in a Guards tie and tweed suit and was standing looking out of his window when there was a knock at the door.

The woman who entered was in her late twenties and wore a fawn trouser suit of excellent cut and black horn-rimmed glasses that contrasted with close-cropped red hair. She could have been a top secretary or PA. She was in fact a Detective Chief Inspector of Police from Special Branch at Scotland Yard, borrowed by Ferguson as his assistant after the untimely death in the line of duty of her predecessor. Her name was Hannah Bernstein.

‘Was there something, Brigadier?’

‘You could say so. When you worked with antiterrorism at Scotland Yard did you ever come across a Michael Ahern?’

‘Irish terrorist, Orange Protestant variety. Wasn’t he Red Hand of Ulster?’

‘And Norah Bell?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Hannah Bernstein said. ‘A very bleak prospect, that one.’

‘I had an informer, Billy Quigley, in deep cover. He just phoned me to say that Ahern was masterminding a plot to blow up the American President tomorrow. He’d recruited Quigley. Bell is involved and an Iranian named Ali Halabi.’

‘Excuse me, sir, but I know who Halabi is. He belongs to the Army of God. That’s an extreme fundamentalist group very much opposed to the Israeli-Palestine accord.’

‘Really?’ Ferguson said. ‘That is interesting. Even more interesting is that Quigley was shot dead while filling me in. Ahern actually had the cheek to pick up the phone and speak to me. Told me it was him. Said I’d need a new man.’

‘A cool bastard, sir.’

‘Oh, he’s that all right. Anyway, notify everyone. Scotland Yard antiterrorist unit, MI5 and security at the American Embassy. Obviously the Secret Servicemen guarding the President will have a keen interest.’

‘Right, sir.’

She turned to the door and he said, ‘One more thing. I need Dillon on this.’

She turned. ‘Dillon, sir?’

‘Sean Dillon. Don’t pretend you don’t know who I mean.’

‘The only Sean Dillon I know, sir, was the most feared enforcer the IRA ever had and, if I’m right, he tried to blow up the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet in February nineteen ninety-one during the Gulf War.’

‘And nearly succeeded,’ Ferguson said; ‘but he works for this Department now, Chief Inspector, so get used to it. He only recently completed a most difficult assignment on the Prime Minister’s orders that saved the Royal Family considerable grief. I need Dillon, so find him. Now, on your way.’

Ahern had a studio flat in what had been a warehouse beside the canal in Camden. He parked the Telecom van in the garage then took Norah up in what had been the old freight hoist. The studio was simply furnished, the wooden floor sanded and varnished, a rug here and there, two or three large sofas. The paintings on the wall were very modern.

‘Nice,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t seem you.’

‘It isn’t. I’m on a six months’ lease.’

He opened the drinks cabinet, found a bottle of Jameson Irish whiskey and poured some into two glasses. He offered her one, then opened a window and stepped out on to a small platform overlooking the canal.

‘What’s going on, Michael?’ she said. ‘I mean, we don’t really stand much of a chance of blowing up the President on Constitution Hill. Not now.’

‘I never thought for a moment that I could. You should remember, Norah, that I never let my left hand know what my right is doing.’

‘Explain,’ she said.

‘Because of Quigley’s phone call, wherever the President goes tomorrow they’ll be on tenterhooks. Now, follow my reasoning. If there is an abortive explosion on his intended route to Number Ten Downing Street, everyone heaves a sigh of relief, especially if they find what’s left of Halabi there.’

‘Go on.’

‘They won’t expect another attempt the same day in an entirely different context.’

‘My God,’ she said. ‘You planned this all along; you used Quigley.’

‘Poor sod.’ Ahern brushed past her and helped himself to more whiskey. ‘Once they have their explosion they’ll think that’s it, but it won’t be. You see, tomorrow night at seven-thirty, the American President, the Prime Minister and selected guests board the river boat Jersey Lily at Cadogan Pier on the Chelsea Embankment for an evening of frivolity and cocktails, cruising the Thames past the Houses of Parliament, ending up at Westminster Pier. The catering is in the hands of Orsini and Co., by whom you and I are employed as waiters.’ He opened a drawer and took out two security cards. ‘My name is Harry Smith – nice and innocuous. You’ll note the false moustache and horn-rimmed glasses. I’ll add those later.’

‘Mary Hunt,’ Norah said. ‘That does sound prim. Where did you get my photo?’

‘An old one I had. I got a photographer friend to touch it up and add the spectacles. They intend a cocktail party on the forward deck, weather permitting.’

‘What about weapons? How would we get through security?’

‘Taken care of. An associate of mine was working as a crew member until yesterday. He’s left two silenced Walthers wrapped in cling film at the bottom of the sand in a fire bucket in one of the men’s restrooms and that was after the security people did their checks.’

‘Very clever.’

‘I’m no kamikaze, Norah, I intend to survive this. We hit from the upper decks. With silenced weapons, he’ll go down as if he’s having a heart attack.’

‘And what happens to us?’

‘The ship has an inflatable tender on a line at the stern. My associate checked it out. It has an outboard motor. In the confusion, we’ll drop in and head for the other side of the river.’

‘As long as the confusion is confusion enough.’

‘Nothing’s perfect in this life. Are you with me?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘To the end, Michael, whatever comes.’

‘Good girl.’ He put an arm round her and squeezed.

‘Now, could we go and get something to eat? I’m starving.’

2

‘A strange man, Sean Dillon,’ Ferguson said.

‘I’d say that was an understatement, sir,’ Hannah Bernstein told him.

They were sitting in the rear of Ferguson’s Daimler, threading their way through the West End traffic.

‘He was born in Belfast, but his mother died in childbirth. His father came to work in London, so the boy went to school here. Incredible talent for acting. He did a year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and one or two roles at the National Theatre. He also has a flair for languages, everything from Irish to Russian.’

‘All very impressive, sir, but he still ended up shooting people for the Provisional IRA.’

‘Yes, well that was because his father, on a trip home to Belfast, got caught in some crossfire and was killed by a British Army patrol. Dillon took the oath, did a fast course on weaponry in Libya and never looked back.’

‘Why the switch from the IRA to the international scene?’

‘Disenchantment with the glorious cause. Dillon is a thoroughly ruthless man when he has to be. He’s killed many times in his career; but the random bomb that kills women and children? Let’s say that’s not his style.’

‘Are you trying to tell me he actually has some notion of morality?’

Ferguson laughed. ‘Well, he certainly never played favourites. Worked for the PLO, but also as an underwater specialist for the Israelis.’

‘For money, of course.’

‘Naturally. Our Sean does like the good things in life. The attempt to blow up Downing Street, that was for money. Saddam Hussein was behind that. And yet eighteen months later he flies a light plane loaded with medical supplies for children into Bosnia and no payment involved.’

‘What happened, did God speak down through the clouds to him or something?’

‘Does it matter? The Serbs had him, and his prospects, to put it mildly, looked bleak. I did a deal with them which saved him from a firing squad. In return he came to work for me, slate wiped clean.’

‘Excuse me, sir, but that’s a slate that will never wipe clean.’

‘My dear Chief Inspector, there are many occasions in this line of work when it’s useful to be able to set a thief to catch one. If you are to continue to work for me, you’ll have to get used to the idea.’ He peered out as they turned into Grafton Street. ‘Are you sure he’s at this place?’

‘So they tell me, sir. His favourite restaurant.’

‘Excellent,’ Ferguson said. ‘I could do with a bite to eat myself.’

Sean Dillon sat in the upstairs bar of Mulligan’s Irish Restaurant and worked his way through a dozen oysters and half a bottle of Krug champagne to help things along as he read the evening paper. He was a small man, no more than five feet five, with hair so fair that it was almost white. He wore dark cord jeans, an old black leather flying jacket, a white scarf at his throat. The eyes were his strangest feature, like water over a stone – clear, no colour – and there was a permanent slight ironic quirk to the corner of his mouth, the look of a man who no longer took life too seriously.

‘So there you are,’ Charles Ferguson said and Dillon glanced up and groaned. ‘No place to hide, not tonight. I’ll have a dozen of those and a pint of Guinness.’

A young waitress standing by had heard. Dillon said to her in Irish, ‘A fine lordly Englishman, a colleen, but his mother, God rest her, was Irish, so give him what he wants.’

The girl gave him a smile of true devotion and went away. Ferguson sat down and Dillon looked up at Hannah Bernstein. ‘And who might you be, girl?’

‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein, Special Branch, my new assistant and I don’t want you corrupting her. Now, where’s my Guinness?’

It was then that Hannah Bernstein received her first shock for, as Dillon stood, he smiled and it was like no smile she had ever seen before, warm and immensely charming, changing his personality completely. She had come here wanting to dislike this man, but now.…

He took her hand. ‘And what would a nice Jewish girl like you be doing in such bad company? Will you have a glass of champagne?’

‘I don’t think so, I’m on duty.’ She was slightly uncertain now and took a seat.

Dillon went to the bar, returned with another glass and poured Krug into it. ‘When you’re tired of champagne, you’re tired of life.’

‘What a load of cobblers,’ she said, but took the glass.

Ferguson roared with laughter. ‘Beware this one, Dillon, she ran across a hoodlum emerging from a supermarket with a sawn-off shotgun last year. Unfortunately for him she was working the American Embassy detail that week and had a Smith and Wesson in her handbag.’

‘So you convinced him of his wicked ways?’ Dillon said.

She nodded. ‘Something like that.’

Ferguson’s Guinness and oysters appeared. ‘We’ve got trouble, Dillon, bad trouble. Tell him, Chief Inspector.’

Which she did in a few brief sentences. When she was finished, Dillon took a cigarette from a silver case and lit it with an old-fashioned Zippo lighter.

‘So, what do you think?’ she asked.

‘Well, all we know for certain is that Billy Quigley is dead.’

‘But he did manage to speak to the Brigadier,’ Hannah said. ‘Which surely means Ahern will abort the mission.’

‘Why should he?’ Dillon said. ‘You’ve got nothing except the word that he intends to try and blow up the President sometime tomorrow. Where? When? Have you even the slightest idea, and I’ll bet his schedule is extensive!’

‘It certainly is,’ Ferguson said. ‘Downing Street in the morning with the PM and the Israeli Prime Minister. Cocktail party on a river steamer tomorrow night and most things in between.’

‘None of which he’s willing to cancel?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ Ferguson shook his head. ‘I’ve already had a call from Downing Street. The President refuses to change a thing.’

Hannah Bernstein said, ‘Do you know Ahern personally?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Dillon told her. ‘He tried to kill me a couple of times and then we met for face-to-face negotiations during a truce in Derry.’

‘And his girlfriend?’

Dillon shook his head. ‘Whatever else Norah Bell is, she isn’t that. Sex isn’t in her bag. She was just an ordinary working-class girl until her family was obliterated by an IRA bomb. These days she’d kill the Pope if she could.’

‘And Ahern?’

‘He’s a strange one. It’s always been like a game to him. He’s a brilliant manipulator. I recall his favourite saying. That he didn’t like his left hand to know what his right hand was doing.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Ferguson demanded.

‘Just that nothing’s ever what it seems with Ahern.’

There was a small silence then Ferguson said, ‘Everyone is on this case. We’ve got them pumping out a not very good photo of the man himself.’

‘And an even more inferior one of the girl,’ Hannah Bernstein said.

Ferguson swallowed an oyster. ‘Any ideas on finding him?’

‘As a matter of fact I have,’ Dillon said. ‘There’s a Protestant pub in Kilburn, the William of Orange. I could have words there.’

‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Ferguson swallowed his last oyster and stood up. ‘Let’s go.’

The William of Orange in Kilburn had a surprising look of Belfast about it, with the fresco of King William victorious at the Battle of the Boyne on the whitewashed wall at one side. It could have been any Orange pub in the Shankill.

‘You wouldn’t exactly fit in at the bar, you two,’ Dillon said as they sat in the back of the Daimler. ‘I need to speak to a man called Paddy Driscoll.’

‘What is he, UVF?’ Ferguson asked.

‘Let’s say he’s a fundraiser. Wait here. I’m going round the back.’

‘Go with him, Chief Inspector,’ Ferguson ordered.

Dillon sighed. ‘All right, Brigadier, but I’m in charge.’

Ferguson nodded. ‘Do as he says.’

Dillon got out and started along the pavement. ‘Are you carrying?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’

‘Good. You never know what will happen next in this wicked old world.’

He paused in the entrance to a yard, took a Walther from his waistband at the rear, produced a Carswell silencer and screwed it into place; then he slipped it inside his flying jacket. They crossed the cobbled yard through the rain, aware of music from the bar area where some loyalist band thumped out ‘The Sash My Father Wore’. Through the rear window was a view of an extensive kitchen, and a small, grey-haired man seated at a table doing accounts.

‘That’s Driscoll,’ Dillon whispered. ‘In we go.’ Driscoll, at the table, was aware of some of his papers fluttering in a sudden draught of wind, looked up and found Dillon entering the room, Hannah Bernstein behind him.

‘God bless all here,’ Dillon said, ‘and the best of the night yet to come, Paddy, me old son.’

‘Dear God, Sean Dillon.’ There was naked fear on Driscoll’s face.

‘Plus your very own Detective Chief Inspector. We are treating you well tonight.’

‘What do you want?’

Hannah leaned against the door and Dillon pulled a chair over and sat across the table from Driscoll. He took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘Michael Ahern. Where might he be?’

‘Jesus, Sean, I haven’t seen that one in years.’

‘Billy Quigley? Don’t tell me you haven’t seen Billy because I happen to know he drinks here regularly.’

Driscoll tried to tough it out. ‘Sure, Billy comes in all the time, but as for Ahern.…’ He shrugged. ‘He’s bad news that one, Sean.’

‘Yes, but I’m worse.’ In one swift movement Dillon pulled the Walther from inside his flying jacket, levelled it and fired. There was a dull thud, the lower half of Driscoll’s left ear disintegrated and he moaned, a hand to the ear, blood spurting.

‘Dillon, for God’s sake!’ Hannah cried.

‘I don’t think He’s got much to do with it.’ Dillon raised the Walther. ‘Now the other one.’

‘No, I’ll tell you,’ Driscoll moaned. ‘Ahern did phone here yesterday. He left a message for Billy. I gave it to him around five o’clock when he came in for a drink.’

‘What was it?’

‘He was to meet him at a place off Wapping High Street, a warehouse called Olivers. Brick Wharf.’

Driscoll fumbled for a handkerchief, sobbing with pain. Dillon slipped the gun inside his flying jacket and got up. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘That didn’t take long.’

‘You’re a bastard, Dillon,’ Hannah Bernstein said as she opened the door.

‘It’s been said before.’ Dillon turned in the doorway. ‘One more thing, Paddy, Michael Ahern killed Billy Quigley earlier tonight. We know that for a fact.’

‘Dear God!’ Driscoll said.

‘That’s right. I’d stay out of it if I were you,’ and Dillon closed the door gently.

‘Shall I call for back-up, sir?’ Hannah Bernstein said as the Daimler eased into Brick Wharf beside the Thames.

Ferguson put his window down and looked out. ‘I shouldn’t think it matters, Chief Inspector. If he was here, he’s long gone. Let’s go and see.’

It was Dillon who led the way in, the Walther ready in his left hand, stepping through the Judas gate, feeling for the switch on the wall, flooding the place with light. At the bottom of the steps he found the office switch and led the way up. Billy Quigley lay on his back on the other side of the desk. Dillon stood to one side, shoving the Walther back inside his flying jacket, and Ferguson and Hannah Bernstein moved forward.

‘Is that him, sir?’ she asked.

‘I’m afraid so,’ Ferguson sighed. ‘Take care of it, Chief Inspector.’

She started to call in on her mobile phone and Ferguson turned and went down the stairs followed by Dillon. He went out into the street and stood by a rail overlooking the Thames. As Dillon joined him, Hannah Bernstein appeared. Ferguson said, ‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I can’t believe he didn’t know that Billy was an informer,’ Dillon said.

Ferguson turned to Hannah. ‘Which means?’

‘If Dillon’s right, sir, Ahern is playing some sort of game with us.’

‘But what?’ Ferguson demanded.

‘There are times for waiting, Brigadier, and this is one of them,’ Dillon said. ‘If you want my thoughts on the matter, it’s simple. We’re in Ahern’s hands. There will be a move tomorrow, sooner rather than later. Based on that, I might have some thoughts, but not before.’

Dillon lit a cigarette with his old Zippo, turned and walked back to the Daimler.

It was just before nine the following morning when Ahern drove the Telecom van along the Mall, stopping at the park gates opposite Marlborough Road. Norah followed him in a Toyota saloon. Ali Halabi was standing by the gates dressed in a green anorak and jeans. He hurried forward.

‘No sign of Quigley.’

‘Get in.’ The Arab did as he was told and Ahern passed him one of the orange Telecom jackets. ‘He’s ill. Suffers from chronic asthma and the stress has brought on an attack.’ He shrugged. ‘Not that it matters. All you have to do is drive the van. Norah and I will lead you to your position. Just get out, lift the manhole cover then walk away through the park. Are you still on?’

‘Absolutely,’ Halabi said.

‘Good. Then follow us and everything will be all right.’

Ahern got out. Halabi slid behind the wheel. ‘God is great,’ he said.

‘He certainly is, my old son.’ Ahern turned and walked back to Norah parked at the kerb in the Toyota.

Norah went all the way round, passing Buckingham Palace, turning up Grosvenor Place and back along Constitution Hill by the park. On Ahern’s instructions she pulled in at the kerb opposite the beech tree and paused. Ahern put his arm out of the window and raised a thumb. As they moved away, the Telecom van eased into the kerb. There was a steady flow of traffic. Ahern let her drive about fifty yards then told her to pull in. They could see Halabi get out. He went round to the back of the van and opened the doors. He returned with a clamp, leaned down and prised up the manhole cover.

‘He’s working well, is the boy,’ Ahern said.

He took a small plastic remote-control unit from his pocket and pressed a button. Behind them the van fireballed and two cars passing it, caught in the blast, were blown across the road.

‘That’s what dedication gets for you.’ Ahern tapped Norah on the shoulder. ‘Right, girl dear. Billy told them they’d get an explosion and they’ve got one.’

‘An expensive gesture. With Halabi gone we won’t get the other half of the money.’

‘Two and a half million pounds on deposit in Switzerland, Norah, not a bad pay day, so don’t be greedy. Now let’s get out of here.’

It was late in the afternoon, with Ferguson still at his desk at the Ministry of Defence, when Hannah Bernstein came in.

‘Anything new?’ he asked.

‘Not a thing, sir. Improbable though it sounds, there was enough of Halabi left to identify, his fingerprints anyway. It seems he must have been on the pavement, not in the van.’

‘And the others?’

‘Two cars caught in the blast. Driver of the front one was a woman doctor, killed instantly. The man and woman in the other were going to a sales conference. They’re both in intensive care.’ She put the report on his desk. ‘Quigley was right, but at least Ahern’s shot his bolt.’

‘You think so?’

‘Sir, you’ve seen the President’s schedule. He was due to pass along Constitution Hill at about ten o’clock on the way to Downing Street. Ahern must have known that.’

‘And the explosion?’

‘Premature. That kind of thing happens all the time, you know that, sir. Halabi was just an amateur. I’ve looked at his file in depth. He had an accountancy degree from the London School of Economics.’

‘Yes, it all makes sense – at least to me.’

‘But not to Dillon. Where is he?’

‘Out and about. Nosing around.’

‘He wouldn’t trust his own grandmother, that one.’

‘I suppose that’s why he’s still alive,’ Ferguson told her. ‘Help yourself to coffee, Chief Inspector.’

At the studio flat in Camden Ahern stood in front of the bathroom mirror and rubbed brilliantine into his hair. He combed it back, leaving a centre parting, then carefully glued a dark moustache and fixed it in place. He picked up a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and put them on, then compared himself with the face on the security pass. As he turned, Norah came in the room. She wore a neat black skirt and white blouse. Her hair was drawn back in a tight bun. Like him she wore spectacles, rather large ones with black rims. She looked totally different.’

‘How do I look?’ she said.

‘Bloody marvellous,’ he told her. ‘What about me?’

‘Great, Michael. First class.’

‘Good.’ He led the way out of the bathroom and crossed to a drinks cabinet. He produced a bottle of Bushmills and two glasses. ‘It’s not champagne, Norah Bell, but it’s good Irish whiskey.’ He poured and raised his glass. ‘Our country too.’

‘Our country too,’ she replied, giving him that most ancient of loyalist toasts.

He emptied his glass. ‘Good. All I need is our box of cutlery and we’ll be on our way.’

It was around six-thirty when Ferguson left the Ministry of Defence with Hannah Bernstein and told his driver to take him to his flat in Cavendish Square. The door was opened by Kim, the ex-Gurkha corporal who had been his manservant for years.

‘Mr Dillon has been waiting for you, Brigadier.’

‘Thanks,’ Ferguson said.

When they went into the living room Dillon was standing by the open French window, a glass in his hand. He turned. ‘Helped myself. Hope you don’t mind.’

‘Where have you been?’ Ferguson demanded.

‘Checking my usual sources. You can discount the IRA on this one. It really is Ahern and that’s what bothers me.’

‘Can I ask why?’ Hannah Bernstein said.

Dillon said, ‘Michael Ahern is one of the most brilliant organizers I ever knew. Very clever, very subtle, and very, very devious. I told you, he doesn’t let his left hand know what his right is doing.’

‘So you don’t think he’s simply shot his bolt on this one?’ Ferguson said.

‘Too easy. It may sound complicated to you, but I think everything from Quigley’s betrayal and death to the so-called accidental explosion of the Telecom van on the President’s route was meant to happen.’

‘Are you serious?’ Hannah demanded.

‘Oh, yes. The attempt failed so we can all take it easy. Let me look at the President’s schedule.’

Hannah passed a copy across and Ferguson poured himself a drink. ‘For once I really do hope you’re wrong, Dillon.’

‘Here it is,’ Dillon said. ‘Cocktail party on the Thames river boat Jersey Lily. The Prime Minister, the President and the Prime Minister of Israel. That’s where he’ll strike, that’s where he always intended, the rest was a smokescreen.’

‘You’re mad, Dillon,’ Ferguson said. ‘You must be,’ and then he turned and saw Hannah Bernstein’s face. ‘Oh, my God,’ he said.

She glanced at her watch. ‘Six-thirty, sir.’

‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s get moving. We don’t have much time.’

At the same moment, Ahern and Norah were parking the Toyota in a side street off Cheyne Walk. They got out and walked down towards Cadogan Pier. There were police cars by the dozen, uniformed men all over the place, and at the boarding point a portable electronic arch that everyone had to pass through. Beside it were two large young men in blue suits.

Ahern said, ‘Secret Service, the President’s bodyguard. I think they get their suits from the same shop.’

He and Norah wore their identity cards on their lapels and he grinned and passed a plastic box to one of the Secret Servicemen as they reached the arch. ‘Sorry to be a nuisance, but there’s two hundred knives, spoons and forks in there. It might blow a fuse on that thing.’

‘Give it to me and you go through,’ the Secret Serviceman said.

They negotiated the arch and he opened the plastic box and riffled the cutlery with his hand. At that moment several limousines drew up.

‘For Christ’s sake, man, it’s the Israeli Prime Minister,’ his colleague called.

The Secret Serviceman said to Ahern, ‘You’ll have to leave this box. On your way.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Ahern went up the gangplank followed by Norah. At the top he simply slipped through a door and, following a plan of the ship he had memorized, led the way to a toilet area.

‘Wait here,’ he told Norah and went into the men’s restroom marked number four.

There was a man washing his hands. Ahern started to wash his hands also. The moment the man left, he went to the red fire bucket in the corner, scrabbled in the sand and found two Walthers wrapped in cling film, each with a silencer on the end. He slipped one into the waistband of his trousers at the rear and concealed the other inside his uniform blazer. When he went outside he checked that no one was around for the moment and passed the second Walther to Norah, who slipped it into the inside breast pocket of her blazer under the left armpit.

‘Here we go,’ he said.

At that moment a voice with a heavy Italian accent called, ‘You two, what are you doing?’ When they turned a grey-haired man in a black coat and striped trousers was coming along the corridor. ‘Who sent you?’

Ahern, already sure of his facts, said, ‘Signor Orsini. We were supposed to be at the buffet at the French Embassy, but he told us to come here at the last minute. He thought you might be short-handed.’

‘And he’s right.’ The head waiter turned to Norah. ‘Canapés for you and wine for you,’ he added to Ahern. ‘Up the stairs on the left. Now get moving,’ and he turned and hurried away.

The Prime Minister and the President had already boarded and the crew were about to slip the gangway when Ferguson, Dillon and Hannah drew up in the Daimler. Ferguson led the way, hurrying up the gangway, and two Secret Servicemen moved to intercept him.

‘Brigadier Ferguson. Is Colonel Candy here?’

A large, grey-haired man in a black suit and striped tie hurried along the deck. ‘It’s all right. Is there a problem, Brigadier?’

‘These are aides of mine, Dillon and Chief Inspector Bernstein.’ Behind him the gangway went down as the crew cast off and the Jersey Lily started to edge out into the Thames. ‘I’m afraid there could be. The explosion this morning? We now believe it to be a subterfuge. You’ve had a photo of this man Ahern. Please alert all your men. He could well be on the boat.’

‘Right.’ Candy didn’t argue and turned to the two Secret Servicemen. ‘Jack, you take the stern, George, go up front. I’ll handle the President. Alert everybody.’

They all turned and hurried away. Ferguson said, ‘Right, let’s try to be useful in our own small way, shall we?’

There was music on the night air provided by a jazz quartet up in the prow, people crowding around, mainly politicians and staff from the London embassies, the President, the Prime Minister and the Israeli Prime Minister moving among them, waiters and waitresses offering wine and canapés to everyone.

‘It’s a nightmare,’ Ferguson said.

Candy appeared, running down a companionway. ‘The big three will all say a few words in about ten minutes. After that we continue down past the Houses of Parliament and disembark at Westminster Pier.’

‘Fine.’ Ferguson turned to Dillon as the American hurried away. ‘This is hopeless.’

‘Maybe he’s not here,’ Hannah said. ‘Perhaps you’re wrong, Dillon.’

It was as if he wasn’t listening to her. ‘He’d have to have a way out.’ He turned to Ferguson. ‘The stern, let’s look at the stern.’

He led the way to the rear of the ship quickly, pushing people out of the way, and leaned over the stern rail. After a moment he turned. ‘He’s here.’

‘How do you know?’ Ferguson demanded.

Dillon reached over and hauled in a line and an inflatable with an outboard motor came into view. ‘That’s his way out,’ he said. ‘Or it was.’ He reached over, opened the snap link that held the line, and the inflatable vanished into the darkness.

‘Now what?’ Hannah demanded.

At that moment a voice over the Tannoy system said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the Prime Minister.’

Dillon said, ‘He isn’t the kind to commit suicide, so he wouldn’t walk up to him in the crowd.’ He looked up at the wheelhouse perched on top of the ship, three levels of decks below it. ‘That’s it. It has to be.’

He ran for the steps leading up, Hannah at his heels, Ferguson struggling behind. He looked along the first deck, which was deserted, and started up the steps to the next. As he reached it, the Prime Minister said over the Tannoy, ‘I’m proud to present to you the President of the United States.’

At the same moment as Dillon reached the deck he saw Michael Ahern open the saloon door at the far end and enter, followed by Norah Bell carrying a tray covered by a white napkin.

The saloon was deserted. Ahern moved forward and looked down through the windows to the forward deck where the President stood at the microphone, the British and Israeli Prime Ministers beside him. Ahern eased one of the windows open and took out his gun.

The door opened gently behind him and Dillon moved in, his Walther ready. ‘Jesus, Michael, but you never give up, do you?’

Ahern turned, the gun against his thigh. ‘Sean Dillon, you old bastard,’ and then his hand swung up.

Dillon shot him twice in the heart, a double thud of the silenced pistol that drove him back against the bulkhead. Norah Bell stood there, frozen, clutching the tray.

Dillon said, ‘Now, if there was a pistol under that napkin and you were thinking about reaching for it, I’d have to kill you, Norah, and neither of us would like that, you being a decent Irish girl. Just put the tray down.’

Very slowly, Norah Bell did as she was told and placed the tray on the nearest table. Dillon turned, the Walther swinging from his right hand, and said to Ferguson and Hannah, ‘There you go, all’s well that ends well.’

Behind him Norah hitched up her skirt, pulled the flick knife from her stocking and sprang the blade, plunging it into his back. Dillon reared up in agony and dropped his Walther.

‘Bastard!’ Norah cried, pulled out the knife and thrust it into him again.

Dillon lurched against the table and hung there for a moment. Norah raised the knife to strike a third blow and Hannah Bernstein dropped to one knee, picked up Dillon’s Walther and shot her in the centre of the forehead. At the same moment Dillon slipped from the table and rolled on to his back.

It was around midnight at the London Clinic, one of the world’s greatest hospitals, and Hannah Bernstein sat in the first-floor reception area close to Dillon’s room. She was tired, which in the circumstances was hardly surprising, but a diet of black coffee and cigarettes had kept her going. The door at the end of the corridor swung open and, to her astonishment, Ferguson entered followed by the President and Colonel Candy.

‘The President was returning to the American Embassy,’ Ferguson told her.

‘But in the circumstances I felt I should look in. You’re Chief Inspector Bernstein, I understand.’ The President took her hand. ‘I’m eternally grateful.’

‘You owe more to Dillon, sir. He was the one who thought it through, he was the one who knew they were on board.’

The President moved to the window and peered in. Dillon, festooned with wires, lay on a hospital bed, a nurse beside him.

‘How is he?’

‘Intensive care, sir,’ she said. ‘A four-hour operation. She stabbed him twice.’

‘I brought in Professor Henry Bellamy of Guy’s Hospital, Mr President,’ Ferguson said. ‘The best surgeon in London.’

‘Good.’ The President nodded. ‘I owe you and your people for this, Brigadier, I’ll never forget.’

He walked away and Colonel Candy said, ‘Thank God it worked out the way it did; that way we can keep it under wraps.’

‘I know,’ Ferguson said. ‘It never happened.’

Candy walked away and Hannah Bernstein said, ‘I saw Professor Bellamy half an hour ago. He came to check on him.’

‘And what did he say?’ Ferguson frowned. ‘He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?’

‘Oh, he’ll live, sir, if that’s what you mean. The trouble is Bellamy doesn’t think he’ll ever be the same again. She almost gutted him.’

Ferguson put an arm round her shoulder. ‘Are you all right, my dear?’

‘You mean am I upset because I killed someone tonight? Not at all, Brigadier. I’m really not the nice Jewish girl Dillon imagines. I’m a rather Old Testament Jewish girl. She was a murderous bitch. She deserved to die.’ She took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘No, it’s Dillon I’m sorry for. He did a good job. He deserved better.’

‘I thought you didn’t like him,’ Ferguson said.

‘Then you were wrong, Brigadier.’ She looked in through the window at Dillon. ‘The trouble is I liked him too much and that never pays in our line of work.’

She turned and walked away. Ferguson hesitated, glanced once more at Dillon, then went after her.

3

And two months later in another hospital, Our Lady of Mercy in New York, on the other side of the Atlantic as darkness fell, young Tony Jackson clocked in for night duty. He was a tall, handsome man of twenty-three who had qualified as a doctor at Harvard Medical School the year before. Our Lady of Mercy, a charity hospital mainly staffed by nuns, was not many young doctors’ idea of the ideal place to be an intern.

But Tony Jackson was an idealist. He wanted to practise real medicine and he could certainly do that at Our Lady of Mercy, who could not believe their luck at getting their hands on such a brilliant young man. He loved the nuns, found the vast range of patients fascinating. The money was poor, but in his case money was no object. His father, a successful Manhattan attorney, had died far too early from cancer, but he had left them well provided for. In any case, his mother, Rosa, was from the Little Italy district of New York with a doting father big in the construction business.

Tony liked the night shift, that atmosphere peculiar to hospitals all over the world, and it gave him the opportunity to be in charge. For the first part of the evening he worked on the casualty shift, dealing with a variety of patients, stitching slashed faces, handling as best he could junkies who were coming apart because they couldn’t afford a fix. It was all pretty demanding, but slackened off after midnight.

He was alone in the small canteen having coffee and a sandwich when the door opened and a young priest looked in. ‘I’m Father O’Brien from St Mark’s. I had a call to come and see a Mr Tanner, a Scottish gentleman. I understand he needs the last rites.’

‘Sorry, Father, I only came on tonight, I wouldn’t know. Let me look at the schedule.’ He checked it briefly then nodded. ‘Jack Tanner, that must be him. Admitted this afternoon. Age seventy-five, British citizen. Collapsed at his daughter’s house in Queens. He’s in a private room on level three, number eight.’

‘Thank you,’ the priest said and disappeared.

Jackson finished his coffee and idly glanced through the New York Times. There wasn’t much news, an IRA bomb in London in the city’s financial centre, an item about Hong Kong, the British colony in China which was to revert to Chinese control on 1 July 1997. It seemed that the British governor of the colony was introducing a thoroughly democratic voting system while he had the chance and the Chinese government in Peking were annoyed, which didn’t look good for Hong Kong when the change took place.

He threw the paper down, bored and restless, got up and went outside. The elevator doors opened and Father O’Brien emerged. ‘Ah, there you are, Doctor. I’ve done what I could for the poor man, but he’s not long for this world. He’s from the Highlands of Scotland, would you believe? His daughter is married to an American.’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Jackson. ‘I always imagined the Scots as Protestant.’

‘My dear lad, not in the Highlands,’ Father O’Brien told him. ‘The Catholic tradition is very strong.’ He smiled. ‘Well, I’ll be on my way. Good night to you.’

Jackson watched him go then got in the elevator and rose to the third level. As he emerged, he saw Sister Agnes, the night duty nurse, come out of room eight and go to her desk.

Jackson said, ‘I’ve just seen Father O’Brien. He tells me this Mr Tanner doesn’t look good.’

‘There’s his chart, Doctor. Chronic bronchitis and severe emphysema.’

Jackson examined the notes. ‘Lung capacity only twelve per cent and the blood pressure is unbelievable.’

‘I just checked his heart, Doctor. Very irregular.’

‘Let’s take a look at him.’

Jack Tanner’s face was drawn and wasted, the sparse hair snow white. His eyes were closed as he breathed in short gasps, a rattling sound in his throat at intervals.

‘Oxygen?’ Jackson asked.

‘Administered an hour ago. I gave it to him myself.’

‘Aye, but she wouldn’t give me a cigarette.’ Jack Tanner opened his eyes. ‘Is that no the terrible thing, Doctor?’

‘Now, Mr Tanner,’ Sister Agnes reproved him gently. ‘You know that’s not allowed.’

Jackson leaned over to check the tube connections and noticed the scar on the right side of the chest. ‘Would that have been a bullet wound?’ he asked.

‘Aye, it was so. Shot in the lung while I was serving in the Highland Light Infantry. That was before Dunkirk in nineteen forty. I’d have died if the Laird hadn’t got me out, and him wounded so bad he lost an eye.’

‘The Laird, you say?’ Jackson was suddenly interested, but Tanner started to cough so harshly that he almost had a convulsion. Jackson grabbed for the oxygen mask. ‘Breathe nice and slowly. That’s it.’ He removed it after a while and Tanner smiled weakly. ‘I’ll be back,’ Jackson told him and went out.

‘You said the daughter lives in Queens?’

‘That’s right, Doctor.’

‘Don’t let’s waste time. Send a cab for her now and put it on my account. I don’t think he’s got long. I’ll go back and sit with him.’

Jackson pulled a chair forward. ‘Now, what were you saying about the Laird?’

‘That was Major Ian Campbell, Military Cross and Bar, the bravest man I ever knew. Laird of Loch Dhu Castle in the Western Highlands of Scotland, as his ancestors had been for centuries before him.’

‘Loch Dhu?’

‘That’s Gaelic. The black loch. To us who grew up there it was always the Place of Dark Waters.’

‘So you knew the Laird as a boy?’

‘We were boys together. Learned to shoot grouse, deer, and the fishing was the best in the world, and then the war came. We’d both served in the reserve before it all started, so we went out to France straightaway.’

‘That must have been exciting stuff?’

‘Nearly the end of us, but afterwards they gave the Laird the staff job working for Mountbatten. You’ve heard of him?’

‘Earl Mountbatten, the one the IRA blew up?’

‘The bastards, and after all he did in the war. He was Supreme Commander in Southeast Asia with the Laird as one of his aides and he took me with him.’

‘That must have been interesting.’

Tanner managed a smile. ‘Isn’t it customary to offer a condemned man a cigarette?’

‘That’s true.’

‘And I am condemned, aren’t I?’

Jackson hesitated then took out a pack of cigarettes. ‘Just as we all are, Mr Tanner.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Tanner said. ‘Give me one of those and I’ll tell you about the Chungking Covenant. All those years ago I gave the Laird my oath, but it doesn’t seem to matter now.’

‘The what?’ Jackson asked.

‘Just one, Doc, it’s a good story.’

Jackson lit a cigarette and held it to Tanner’s lips. The old man inhaled, coughed then inhaled again. ‘Christ, that’s wonderful.’ He lay back. ‘Now, let’s see, when did it all start?’

Tanner lay with his eyes closed, very weak now. ‘What happened after the crash?’ Jackson asked.

The old man opened his eyes. ‘The Laird was hurt bad. The brain, you see. He was in a coma in a Delhi hospital for three months and I stayed with him as his batman. They sent us back to London by sea and by then the end of the war was in sight. He spent months in the brain-damage unit for servicemen at Guy’s Hospital, but he never really recovered and he had burns from the crash as well and almost total loss of memory. He came so close to death early in forty-six that I packed his things and sent them home to Castle Dhu.’

‘And did he die?’

‘Not for another twenty years. Back home we went to the estate. He wandered the place like a child. I tended his every want.’

‘What about family?’

‘Oh, he never married. He was engaged to a lassie who was killed in the London blitz in forty. There was his sister, Lady Rose, although everybody calls her Lady Katherine. Her husband was a baronet killed in the desert campaign. She ran the estate then and still does, though she’s eighty now. She lives in the gate lodge. Sometimes, she rents the big house for the shooting season to rich Yanks or Arabs.’

‘And the Chungking Covenant?’

‘Nothing came of that. Lord Louis and Mao never managed to get together again.’

‘But the fourth copy in the Laird’s Bible; you saved that. Wasn’t it handed over to the authorities?’

‘It stayed where it was in his Bible. The Laird’s affair after all and he not up to telling anyone much of anything.’ He shrugged. ‘And then the years had rolled by and it didn’t seem to matter.’

‘Did Lady Katherine ever come to know of it?’

‘I never told her. I never spoke of it to anyone and he was not capable and, as I said, it didn’t seem to matter any longer.’

‘But you’ve told me?’

Tanner smiled weakly. ‘That’s because you’re a nice boy who talked to me and gave me a cigarette. A long time ago, Chungking in the rain and Mountbatten and your General Stilwell.’

‘And the Bible?’ Jackson asked.

‘Like I told you, I sent all his belongings home when I thought he was going to die.’

‘So the Bible went back to Loch Dhu?’

‘You could say that.’ For some reason Tanner started to laugh and that led to him choking again.

Jackson got the oxygen mask and the door opened and Sister Agnes ushered in a middle-aged couple. ‘Mr and Mrs Grant.’

The woman hurried forward to take Tanner’s hand. He managed a smile, breathing deeply, and she started to talk to him in a low voice and in a language totally unfamiliar to Jackson.

He turned to her husband, a large amiable looking man. ‘It’s Gaelic, Doctor; they always spoke Gaelic together. He was on a visit. His wife died of cancer last year back in Scotland.’

At that moment Tanner stopped breathing. His daughter cried out and Jackson passed her gently to her husband and bent over the patient. After a while he turned to face them. ‘I’m sorry, but he’s gone,’ he said simply.

There it might have ended except for the fact that, having read the article in the New York Times on Hong Kong and its relations with China, Tony Jackson was struck by the coincidence of Tanner’s story. This became doubly important because Tanner had died in the early hours of Sunday morning and Jackson always had Sunday lunch, his hospital shifts permitting, at his grandfather’s home in Little Italy where his mother, since the death of his grandmother, kept house for her father in some style.

Jackson’s grandfather, after whom he had been named, was called Antonio Mori and he had been born by only a whisker in America because his pregnant mother had arrived from Palermo in Sicily just in time to produce her baby at Ellis Island. Twenty-four hours only, but good enough and little Antonio was American born.

His father had friends of the right sort, friends in the Mafia. Antonio had worked briefly as a labourer until these friends had put him into first the olive oil and then the restaurant business. He had kept his mouth shut and always done as he was told, finally achieving wealth and prominence in the construction industry.

His daughter hadn’t married a Sicilian, he accepted that, just as he accepted the death of his wife from leukaemia. His son-in-law, a rich Anglo-Saxon attorney, gave the family respectability. His death was a convenience. It brought Mori and his beloved daughter together again, plus his fine grandson, so brilliant that he had gone to Harvard. No matter that he was a saint and chose medicine. Mori could make enough money for all of them because he was Mafia, an important member of the Luca family whose leader, Don Giovanni Luca, in spite of having returned to Sicily, was Capo di tutti Capi: Boss of all the Bosses in the whole of the Mafia. The respect that earned for Mori couldn’t be paid for.

When Jackson arrived at his grandfather’s house, his mother, Rosa, was in the kitchen supervising the meal with the maid, Maria. She turned, still handsome in spite of grey in her dark hair, kissed him on both cheeks then held him off.

‘You look terrible. Shadows under the eyes.’

‘Mama, I did the night shift. I lay on my bed three hours then I showered and came here because I didn’t want to disappoint you.’

‘You’re a good boy. Go and see your grandfather.’

Jackson went into the sitting room where he found Mori reading the Sunday paper. He leaned down to kiss his grandfather on the cheek and Mori said, ‘I heard your mother and she’s right. You do good and kill yourself at the same time. Here, have a glass of red wine.’

Jackson accepted it and drank some with pleasure. ‘That’s good.’

‘You had an interesting night?’ Mori was genuinely interested in his grandson’s doings. In fact he bored his friends with his praises of the young man.

Jackson, aware that his grandfather indulged him, went to the French window, opened it and lit a cigarette. He turned. ‘Remember the Solazzo wedding last month?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were talking with Carl Morgan; you’d just introduced me.’

‘Mr Morgan was impressed by you, he said so.’ There was pride in Mori’s voice.

‘Yes, well you and he were talking business.’

‘Nonsense, what business could we have in common?’

‘For God’s sake, grandfather, I’m not a fool and I love you, but do you think I could have reached this stage in my life and not realized what business you were in?’

Mori nodded slowly and picked up the bottle. ‘More wine? Now tell me where this is leading.’

‘You and Mr Morgan were talking about Hong Kong. He mentioned huge investments in skyscrapers, hotels and so on and the worry about what would happen when the Chinese Communists take over.’

‘That’s simple. Billions of dollars down the toilet,’ Mori said.

‘There was an article in The Times yesterday about Peking being angry because the British are introducing a democratic political system before they go in ninety-seven.’

‘So where is this leading?’ Mori asked.

‘I am right in assuming that you and your associates have business interests in Hong Kong?’

His grandfather stared at him thoughtfully. ‘You could say that, but where is this leading?’

Jackson said, ‘What if I told you that in nineteen forty-four Mao Tse-tung signed a thing called the Chungking Covenant with Lord Louis Mountbatten under the terms of which he agreed that, if he ever came to power in China, he would extend the Hong Kong Treaty by one hundred years in return for aid from the British to fight the Japanese?’

His grandfather sat there staring at him, then got up, closed the door and returned to his seat.

‘Explain,’ he said.

Jackson did so and, when he was finished, his grandfather sat thinking about it. He got up and went to his desk and came back with a small tape recorder. ‘Go through it again,’ he said. ‘Everything he told you. Omit nothing.’

At that moment Rosa opened the door. ‘Lunch is almost ready.’

‘Fifteen minutes, cara,’ her father said. ‘This is important, believe me.’

She frowned, but went out, closing the door. He turned to his grandson. ‘As I said, everything,’ and he switched on the recorder.

When Mori reached the Glendale polo ground later that afternoon it was raining. There was still a reasonable crowd huddled beneath umbrellas or the trees because Carl Morgan was playing and Morgan was good, a handicap of ten goals indicating that he was a player of the first rank. He was fifty years of age, a magnificent-looking man, six feet in height with broad shoulders and hair swept back over his ears.

His hair was jet black, a legacy of his mother, niece of Don Giovanni, who had married his father, a young army officer, during the Second World War. His father had served gallantly and well in both the Korean and Vietnam wars, retiring as a brigadier general to Florida where they enjoyed a comfortable retirement thanks to their son.

All very respectable, all a very proper front for the son who had walked out of Yale in 1965 and volunteered as a paratrooper during the Vietnam War, emerging with two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Vietnamese Cross of Valour. A war hero whose credentials had taken him into Wall Street and then the hotel industry and the construction business, a billionaire at the end of things, accepted at every social level from London to New York.

There are six chukkas in a polo game lasting seven minutes each, four players on each side. Morgan played forward because it gave the greatest opportunity for total aggression, and that was what he liked.

The game was into the final chukka as Mori got out of the car and his chauffeur came round to hold an umbrella over him. Some yards away, a vividly pretty young woman stood beside an estate car, a Burberry trenchcoat hanging from her shoulders. She was about five foot seven with long blonde hair to her shoulders, high cheekbones, green eyes.

‘She sure is a beautiful young lady, Mr Morgan’s daughter,’ the chauffeur said.

‘Stepdaughter, Johnny,’ Mori reminded him.

‘Sure, I was forgetting, but with her taking his name and all. That was a real bad thing her mother dying like that. Asta, that’s kind of a funny name.’

‘It’s Swedish,’ Mori told him.

Asta Morgan jumped up and down excitedly. ‘Come on, Carl, murder them!’

Carl Morgan glanced sideways as he went by, his teeth flashed and he went barrelling into the young forward for the opposing team, slamming his left foot under the boy’s stirrup and lifting him, quite illegally, out of the saddle. A second later he had thundered through and scored.

The game won, he cantered across to Asta through the rain and stepped out of the saddle. A groom took his pony, Asta handed him a towel then lit a cigarette and passed it to him. She looked up, smiling, an intimacy between them that excluded everyone around.

‘He sure likes that girl,’ Johnny said.

Mori nodded. ‘So it would appear.’

Morgan turned and saw him and waved and Mori went forward. ‘Carl, nice to see you. And you, Asta.’ He touched his hat.

‘What can I do for you?’ Morgan asked.

‘Business, Carl; something came up last night that might interest you.’

Morgan said, ‘Nothing you can’t talk about in front of Asta, surely?’

Mori hesitated. ‘No, of course not.’ He took the small tape recorder from his pocket. ‘My grandson, Tony, had a man die on him at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital last night. He told Tony a hell of a story, Carl. I think you could be interested.’

‘OK, let’s get in out of the rain.’ Morgan handed Asta into the estate car and followed her.

Mori joined them. ‘Here we go.’ He switched on the tape recorder.

Morgan sat there after it had finished, a cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, his face set.

Asta said, ‘What a truly astonishing story.’ Her voice was low and pleasant, more English than American.

‘You can say that again.’ Morgan turned to Mori. ‘I’ll keep this. I’ll have my secretary transcribe it and send it to Don Giovanni in Palermo by coded fax.’

‘I did the right thing?’

‘You did well, Antonio.’ Morgan took his hand.

‘No, it was Tony, Carl, not me. What am I going to do with him? Harvard Medical School, the Mayo Clinic, a brilliant student, yet he works with the nuns at Our Lady of Mercy for peanuts.’

‘You leave him,’ Morgan said. ‘He’ll find his way. I went to Vietnam, Antonio. No one can take that away from me. You can’t argue with it, the rich boy going into hell when he didn’t need to. It says something. He won’t be there for ever, but the fact that he was will make people see him as someone to look up to for the rest of his life. He’s a fine boy.’ He put a hand on Mori’s shoulder. ‘Heh, I hope I don’t sound too calculating.’

‘No,’ Mori protested. ‘Not at all. He’s someone to be proud of. Thank you, Carl, thank you. I’ll leave you now. Asta.’ He nodded to her and walked away.

‘That was nice,’ Asta told Morgan. ‘What you said about Tony.’

‘It’s true. He’s brilliant, that boy. He’ll end up in Park Avenue, only, unlike the other brilliant doctors there, he’ll always be the one who worked downtown for the nuns of Our Lady of Mercy, and that you can’t pay for.’

‘You’re such a cynic,’ she said.

‘No, sweetheart, a realist.’ He slid behind the wheel. ‘Now, let’s get going. I’m famished. I’ll take you out to dinner.’

They had finished their meal at the Four Seasons, were at the coffee stage, when one of the waiters brought a phone over. ‘An overseas call for you, sir. Sicily. The gentleman said it was urgent.’

The voice over the phone was harsh and unmistakable. ‘Carlo. This is Giovanni.’

Morgan straightened in his seat. ‘Uncle?’ He dropped into Italian. ‘What a marvellous surprise. How’s business?’

‘Everything looks good, particularly after reading your fax.’

‘I was right to let you know about this business then?’

‘So right that I want you out of there on the next plane. This is serious business, Carlo, very serious.’

‘Fine, Uncle. I’ll be there tomorrow. Asta’s with me. Do you want to say hello?’

‘I’d rather look at her, so you’d better bring her with you. I look forward to it, Carlo.’

The phone clicked off; the waiter came forward and took it from him. ‘What was all that about?’ Asta said.

‘Business. Apparently Giovanni takes this Chungking Covenant thing very seriously indeed. He wants me in Palermo tomorrow. You too, my love. It’s time you visited Sicily,’ and he waved for the head waiter.

The following morning they took a direct flight to Rome, where Morgan had a Citation private jet standing by for the flight to Punta Raisa Airport, twenty miles outside Palermo. There was a Mercedes limousine waiting with a chauffeur and a hard-looking individual in a blue nylon raincoat with heavy cheekbones and the flattened nose of the prize fighter. There was a feeling of real power there, although he looked more Slav than Italian.

‘My uncle’s top enforcer,’ Morgan whispered to Asta, ‘Marco Russo.’ He smiled and held out his hand. ‘Marco, it’s been a long time. My daughter, Asta.’

Marco managed a fractional smile. ‘A pleasure. Welcome to Sicily, signorina, and nice to see you again, signore. The Don isn’t at the town house, he’s at the villa.’

‘Good, let’s get moving then.’

Luca’s villa was outside a village at the foot of Monte Pellegrino, which towers into the sky three miles north of Palermo.

‘During the Punic Wars the Carthaginians held out against the Romans on that mountain for three years,’ Morgan told Asta.

‘It looks a fascinating place,’ she said.

‘Soaked in blood for generations.’ He held up the local paper which Marco had given him. ‘Three soldiers blown up by a car bomb last night, a priest shot in the back of the neck this morning because he was suspected of being an informer.’

‘At least you’re on the right side.’

He took her hand. ‘Everything I do is strictly legitimate, Asta, that’s the whole point. My business interests and those of my associates are pure as driven snow.’

‘I know, darling,’ she said. ‘You must be the greatest front man ever. Grandad Morgan a general, you a war hero, billionaire, philanthropist and one of the best polo players in the world. Why, last time we were in London, Prince Charles asked you to play for him.’

‘He wants me next month.’ She laughed and he added, ‘But never forget one thing, Asta. The true power doesn’t come from New York. It lies in the hands of the old man we’re going to see now.’

At that moment they turned in through electronic gates set in ancient fifteen-foot walls and drove through a semi-tropical garden towards the great Moorish villa.

The main reception room was enormous, black-and-white tiled floor scattered with rugs, seventeenth-century furniture from Italy in dark oak, a log fire blazing in the open hearth and French windows open to the garden. Luca sat in a high-backed sofa, a cigar in his mouth, hands clasped over the silver handle of a walking stick. He was large, at least sixteen stone, his grey beard trimmed, the air of a Roman emperor about him.

‘Come here, child,’ he said to Asta and, when she went to him, kissed her on both cheeks. ‘You’re more beautiful than ever. Eighteen months since I saw you in New York. I was desolated by your mother’s unfortunate death last year.’

‘These things happen,’ she said.

‘I know. Jack Kennedy once said, anyone who believes there is fairness in this life is seriously misinformed. Here, sit beside me.’ She did as she was told and he looked up at Morgan. ‘You seem well, Carlo.’ He’d always insisted on calling him that.

‘And you, Uncle, look wonderful.’

Luca held out his hand and Morgan kissed it. ‘I like it when your Sicilian half floats to the surface. You were wise to contact me on this Chungking business and Mori showed good judgement in speaking to you.’

‘We owe it to his grandson,’ Morgan said.

‘Yes, of course. Young Tony is a good boy, an idealist, and that’s good. We need our saints, Carlo, they make us rather more acceptable to the rest of the world.’ He snapped a finger and a white-coated houseboy came forward.

‘Zibibbo, Alfredo.’

‘At once, Don Giovanni.’

‘You will like this, Asta. A wine from the island of Pantelleria, flavoured with anis.’ He turned to Morgan. ‘Marco took me for a run into the country the other day to that farmhouse of yours at Valdini.’

‘How was it?’

‘The caretaker and his wife seemed to be behaving themselves. Very peaceful. You should do something with it.’

‘Grandfather was born there, Uncle; it’s a piece of the real Sicily. How could I change that?’

‘You’re a good boy, Carlo; you may be half American, but you have a Sicilian heart.’

As Alfredo opened the bottle, Morgan said, ‘So, to the Chungking Covenant. What do you think?’

‘We have billions invested in Hong Kong in hotels and casinos and our holdings will be severely damaged when the Communists take over in ninety-seven. Anything that could delay that would be marvellous.’

‘But would the discovery of such a document really have an effect?’ Asta asked.

He accepted one of the glasses of Zibibbo from Alfredo. ‘The Chinese have taken great care to handle the proposed changes in the status of Hong Kong through the United Nations. These days they want everything from international respectability to the Olympic Games. If the document surfaced with the holy name of Mao Tse-tung attached to it, who knows what the outcome would be.’

‘That’s true,’ Morgan agreed. ‘All right, they’d scream forgery.’

‘Yes,’ Asta put in, ‘but there is one important point. It isn’t a forgery, it’s the real thing; we know that and any experts brought in will have to agree.’

‘She’s smart, this girl.’ Luca patted her knee. ‘We’ve nothing to lose, Carlo. With that document on show we can at least hold the whole proceedings up if nothing else. Even if we still lose millions, I’d like to mess it up for the Chinese and particularly for the Brits. It’s their fault they didn’t sort the whole mess out years ago.’

‘Strange you should say that,’ Asta told him. ‘I’d have thought that was exactly what Mountbatten was trying to do back in forty-four.’

He roared with laughter and raised his glass. ‘More wine, Alfredo.’

‘What do you suggest?’ Morgan asked.

‘Find this silver Bible. When you have that you have the Covenant.’

‘And that must be somewhere at the castle at Loch Dhu, according to what Tanner said,’ Asta put in.

‘Exactly. There’s a problem. I had my London lawyer check on the situation at the castle the moment I received your fax. It’s rented out at the moment to a sheik from Trucial Oman, a prince of the Royal Family, so there’s nothing to be done there. He’s in residence and he won’t be leaving for another month. My lawyer has leased it in your name for three months from then.’

‘Fine,’ Morgan said. ‘That gives me plenty of time to clear the decks where business is concerned. That Bible must be there somewhere.’

‘I instructed my lawyer to get straight up there and see this Lady Katherine Rose, the sister, to do the lease personally. He raised the question of the Bible, told her he’d heard the legend of how all the lairds carried it into battle. When he phoned me he said she’s old and a bit confused and told him she hadn’t seen the thing in years.’

‘There is one thing,’ Asta said. ‘According to Tony Jackson, he said to Tanner, “So the Bible went back to Loch Dhu?”’

Morgan cut in, ‘And Tanner replied, “You could say that.”’

Asta nodded. ‘And then Tony said he started to laugh. I’d say that’s rather strange.’

‘Strange or not, that Bible must be there somewhere,’ Luca said. ‘You’ll find it, Carlo.’ He stood up. ‘Now we eat.’

Marco Russo was standing by the door in the hall and, as they passed him, Luca said, ‘You can take Marco with you in case you need a little muscle.’ He patted Marco’s face. ‘The Highlands of Scotland, Marco, you’ll have to wrap up.’

‘Whatever you say, Capo.’

Marco opened the dining-room door where two waiters were in attendance. Back in the reception room Alfredo cleared the wine bottle and glasses and took them into the kitchen, putting them beside the sink for the maid to wash later. He said to the cook, ‘I’m going now,’ went out, lit a cigarette and walked down through the gardens to the staff quarters.

Alfredo Ponti was an excellent waiter, but an even better policeman, one of the new dedicated breed imported from mainland Italy. He’d managed to obtain the job with Luca three months previously.

Usually he phoned from outside when he wanted to contact his superiors but the other two houseboys, the cook and the maid were working, so for the moment he was alone. In any case, what he had overheard seemed important so he decided to take a chance, lifted the receiver on the wall phone at the end of the corridor and dialled a number in Palermo. It was answered at once.

‘Gagini, it’s me, Ponti. I’ve got something. Carl Morgan appeared tonight with his stepdaughter. I overheard them tell a most curious story to Luca. Have you ever heard of the Chungking Covenant?’

Paolo Gagini, who was a major in the Italian Secret Intelligence Service based in Rome posing as a businessman in Palermo, said, ‘That’s a new one. Let me put the tape recorder on. Thank God for that photographic memory of yours. Right, start talking. Tell me everything.’

Which Alfredo did in some detail. When he had finished, Gagini said, ‘Good work, though I can’t see it helping us much. I’ll be in touch. Take care.’

Alfredo replaced the receiver and went to bed.

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