“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.”