The President's Daughter (24 page)

Blake picked up a photo in a silver frame from the desk. It was very old-fashioned and in black and white. The woman was in a chiffon dress, the man in dark suit and stiff collar. There was a boy of perhaps ten or twelve, a girl of five or six. It was strange, remote, something from another age.

“Family group?” Blake said.

“He’s probably the kid in the short pants,” Dillon told him.

Blake replaced the photo carefully. “Now what?”

“Better leave quietly. We can try again in case he does come back late afternoon. Otherwise we’ll just have to fill in the time.” He smiled. “In Paris, that usually means having a really great lunch.”

They left the apartment, paused while Dillon relocked the door, then went downstairs. Outside it was still raining and they paused, looking across at the Bois de Boulogne.

“A good address,” Dillon commented.

“For a successful man,” Blake nodded.

“The man who had everything and in the end found he had nothing.”

“Until Judas came along?”

“Something like that.”

“So what do we do now?”

Dillon smiled. “We’ll go and see if my barge is still in one piece.”

It was moored in a small basin on the Quai St Bernard. There were pleasure boats tied up to the stone wall, motor cruisers with canvas awnings up against the rain and mist drifting across the Seine. Notre Dame was not too far away. There were a number of flower pots on the stern deck with no flowers in them. Dillon lifted one and found a key.

“How long since you were here last?” Blake asked.

“A year or eighteen months, something like that.” Dillon went down the small companionway and unlocked the door.

He stood just inside. “Jesus, smell the damp. It could do with a good airing.”

It wasn’t what Blake had expected, a stateroom lined with mahogany, comfortable sofas, a television, and a desk. There was another cabin with a divan bed and a shower room and a kitchen galley.

“I’ll find us a drink.” Dillon went into the galley and searched the cupboards. When he came back with a bottle of red wine and two glasses, he found the American looking at a faded newspaper clipping.

“I found this on the floor. The Prime Minister. It’s from the
London Times,
but I can’t make out the date.”

“Good old John Major. Must have slipped down the back of the desk when I cleared the rest of the material.
February nineteen ninety-one, the mortar attack on Downing Street.”

“So it really is true and you were responsible for that. You nearly brought it off, you bastard.”

“That’s true. It was a rush job, no time to weld guidance fins to the mortars, so they weren’t quite accurate enough. Come up this way.”

He had been very calm, very matter-of-fact as he had spoken. He opened another door that gave access to the aft deck. There was an awning, rain dripping from the edges, a small table and two chairs in wicker. Dillon poured claret into the glasses.

“There you go.”

Blake sat down and savored it. “Excellent. I’m supposed to have stopped, but I could use a cigarette.”

“Sure.” Dillon gave him one and a light and took another himself. He stood by the rail, sipping the wine and looking toward Notre Dame.

“Why, Sean?” Blake said. “Hell, I know your record backwards, but I still don’t understand. All those hits, all those jobs for people like the PLO, the KGB. Okay, so your father was caught in the crossfire in some Belfast street battle and you blamed the British Army and joined the IRA. You were what, nineteen? I understand that, but afterwards.”

Dillon turned, leaning on the rail. “Remember your American Civil War history. People like Jesse and Frank James? Raiding, fighting, and killing for the glorious cause and that was all they knew, so what came afterwards, when the war was over? They robbed banks and trains.”

“And when you left the IRA, you offered yourself as a gun for hire.”

“Something like that.”

“But when the Serbs shot you down in Bosnia, you were flying in medical supplies for children.”

“A good deed in a naughty world, isn’t that what Shakespeare said?”

“And Ferguson saved you from yourself, pulled you in on the side of right.”

“What a load of cobblers.” Dillon laughed out loud. “I do exactly what I was doing before, only now I do it for Ferguson.”

Blake nodded, serious. “I take your point, but isn’t anything serious business to you?”

“Certainly. Saving Marie de Brissac and Hannah from Judas, for instance.”

“But nothing else?”

“Like I’ve said before, sometimes situations need a public executioner and it happens to be something I’m good at.”

“And otherwise?”

“Just passing through, Blake, just passing through,” and Dillon turned and looked along the Seine.

At the same moment and six hours back in time, Teddy boarded an Air Force Lear jet at Andrews. They took off, climbed to thirty thousand feet, and the senior pilot came over the speaker.

“Just over an hour, Mr. Grant, and it should be pretty smooth. We’ll put down at Mitchell Field. That’s about forty minutes by road to Fort Lansing.”

He switched off and Teddy tried to read the
Washington Post
but couldn’t take it in. He was on too big a high. He had the strangest feeling about this. There was something waiting for him at Fort Lansing. There had to be, but what? He reached to the bar, made a cup of instant coffee, and sat there, thinking about things as he drank it.

• • •

Marie de Brissac was doing a charcoal sketch of Hannah. “You’ve got good bone structure,” she said. “That always helps. Were you and Dillon lovers?”

“That’s a leading question.”

“I’m half French. We’re very direct. Were you?”

Hannah Bernstein was careful to stay in the past tense where Dillon was concerned, just in case. “Good God, no. He was the most infuriating man I ever knew.”

“But you liked him in spite of that?”

“There was plenty to like. He had a ready wit, bags of charm, enormous intelligence. There was only one flaw. He killed too easily.”

“I suppose the IRA got to him early.”

It was a statement, not a question, and Hannah said, “I used to believe that, but only at first. It was his nature. He was too good at it, you see.”

The door rattled and David Braun came in with a tray. “Coffee and cookies, ladies. It’s a beautiful day.”

“Just put it on the table, David, and go,” Marie told him. “Don’t let us pretend that things aren’t as they are.”

It was as if she had slapped him, and his shoulders slumped as he went out.

“He really does like you,” Hannah told her.

“I’ve no time for false sentiment, not at this stage.”

She started to fill in the sketch and Hannah poured a couple of cups of coffee and placed one at Marie’s hand. She took her own and went to the open window and looked out through the bars.

“Come on, Dillon,” she said softly. “Sort the bastards.”

Teddy’s Presidential authorization had the same magical effect at Mitchell Field that it had had at Andrews. The
duty officer, a Major Harding, had an Air Force limousine with a sergeant driver over from the vehicle pool in fifteen minutes.

“You look after Mr. Grant real good now, Hilton,” he said.

“Consider it done, sir.”

They moved out of the base and took a road that led through rolling green countryside. “Very pretty,” Teddy said.

“I’ve seen worse,” Hilton told him. “My last posting was Kuwait. I’ve only been back two months.”

“I thought you had a tan,” Teddy said.

Hilton appeared to hesitate. “Were you in the military, Mr. Grant?”

“My arm, you mean?” Teddy laughed. “Don’t be embarrassed. I was an infantry sergeant in ’Nam. Left the arm there.”

“Life’s a bitch,” Hilton told him.

“It’s been said before. Now tell me about Fort Lansing.”

“During the Vietnam War, there was one regiment after another through there, but when the conflict was over it was rundown. There was some kind of resurrection at the time of the Gulf, but it’s just a primary infantry training base these days.”

“I just want the museum.”

“Hell, no problem. It’s open to the public.” They pulled onto a freeway. As he picked up speed, he said, “There’s a diner five miles along the way, and after that nothing for thirty miles. Do you want a coffee or a pit stop or something?”

“Good idea,” Teddy said. “But only for ten minutes. I want to get going,” and he sat back and tried to concentrate on the
Post
again.

• • •

In Paris, Michael Rocard parked as close as he could get to his apartment and walked to the front door. He hurried upstairs, only a satchel in one hand, and unlocked the door of his apartment.

Considering his age, his hair had a considerable amount of color in it and he looked ten years younger than he was, although the excellent suit he wore helped in that respect.

He checked the messages on his answering machine, listening to them one by one, then froze almost in panic as he came to Judas’s message in Hebrew.
Berger dead.
He went to the sideboard and poured cognac. What even Judas didn’t know was that Rocard and Berger had been occasional lovers. In fact, Rocard had developed a genuine and considerable affection for him. He unlocked a drawer in his desk, took out the special mobile, and punched out the numbers. Judas answered almost immediately.

“It’s Rocard.”

“You fool,” Judas told him. “Running off to Morlaix like a dog in heat and at a time like this.”

“What can I say?”

“So, Berger is dead, knocked down by a London bus. What’s the saying? Everyone is entitled to fifteen minutes of fame? Well, Berger got his, only it was a fifteen-second announcement of how he met his death on London local television.”

The cruelty was devastating, but what came next was worse. “You’ll need a new boyfriend for your London trips.”

Was there anything the bastard didn’t know?

Rocard mumbled, “What can I do?”

“Nothing. If I need you, I’ll phone. Three days, Rocard, only three days to go.”

He switched off and Rocard stood there, clutching the mobile, thinking of Paul Berger, and there were tears in his eyes.

When Teddy went into the museum complex at Fort Lansing, he was impressed. It was modern and airconditioned, with tiled floors and great murals of combat scenes on the walls. He avoided reception and walked along the main corridor until he came to an office with a sign saying Curator on it. He knocked and opened the door and found a highly attractive black woman seated behind a desk at the window.

She glanced up. “Can I help you?”

“I was looking for the curator, Mary Kelly.”

“That’s me.” She smiled. “Are you Mr. Grant from Columbia?”

“Well, yes . . . and no. I am Mr. Grant, but I’m not from the history department at Columbia.” Teddy opened his wallet and took out his card and dropped it in front of her.

Mary Kelly examined the card and the shock was physical, that much was obvious. “Mr. Grant, what is this?”

“I’ve got a Presidential authorization here if you’d like to see it.”

He took it from an envelope, unfolded it, and passed it across. Mary Kelly read it aloud. “My secretary, Mr. Edward Grant, is on a mission on behalf of the White House that is of the utmost importance. Any help offered would be deeply appreciated by the President of the United States.”

She looked up. “Oh, my God!”

He removed the authorization from her fingers, refolded
it, and put it back in the envelope. “I shouldn’t have told you, but I’m taking a chance because I don’t have time to fool around. Even now I can’t tell you the full story. Maybe one day.”

She smiled slowly. “How can I help?”

“You have the records of a number of airborne regiments that passed through here during the Vietnam War.”

“That’s right.”

“One of them was the 801st. I’d like to check the list of officers serving with that regiment from, say, nineteen sixty-seven until seventy.”

“What name are you looking for?”

“I don’t have a name.”

“Then what do you have?”

“Only that he’s Jewish.”

“Well, that covers quite a bit of territory. There were a
lot
of Jewish people in the army during the war. The draft affected everybody, Mr. Grant.”

“I know. It’s an incredible long shot. Will you help me?”

She took a deep breath. “Of course I will. This way,” and she led the way out.

The archives were in the basement and they had it to themselves. There was only the gentle hum of airconditioning as Mary Kelly examined the microfilm record, listing names on a pad with her right hand. She sat back.

“There you are. For the four years, nineteen sixty-seven up to and including seventy, there are twenty-three officers listed as being of the Jewish faith.”

Teddy examined the list name by name, but it was meaningless. He shook his head. “No damn good. I should have known.”

She was distressed for him and it showed. “And you’ve no other information?”

“Well, he served in the Israeli Army in the Yom Kippur War in nineteen seventy-three.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? We’ll have that on his back-up record. The Pentagon requires that a record be kept when American military personnel serve with another country’s army.”

Teddy said, “And you can check on that?”

“Quite simply. I have a small internal computer here. It’s not mainline. It’s to facilitate our own records. Over here.” She went and sat in front of a screen and tapped the keys. “Yes, here we are. Only one officer serving with the 801st went on to serve with the Israeli Army. Captain Daniel Levy, born nineteen forty-five in New York, left the army in nineteen-seventy.”

“Bingo!” Teddy said, a kind of awe in his voice. “That’s got to be him.”

“A hero,” she said. “Two Silver Stars. Father Samuel, mother Rachel, are listed as next of kin, but that was a long time ago. The father was a New York attorney. The address was Park Avenue, so they must be pretty wealthy with an address like that.”

“Is that it?” Teddy said. “No more?”