“He’ll come.” Hannah embraced her fiercely. “He’s never let me down, not ever. You must believe that.”
She held Marie close, and looked out at the falling rain and in her head she was saying, Oh Sean, you bastard, where are you? Don’t fail me now.
Raphael was on the battlements, his MI6 slung from one shoulder, examining the fishing fleet through night glasses. Their red and green riding lights were plain and each had a pool of light in the stern from a deck light. There were footsteps and he turned and found Aaron and Levy approaching.
“Nothing to report, Colonel,” Raphael said. “The fishing fleet, but everything else quiet.”
Levy was holding a golfing umbrella against the rain. He handed it to Aaron. “Give me those,” he said and took the night glasses from Raphael.
He adjusted them, bringing the images of the boats into sharp focus, the fishermen at their nets. It was the same with the Cretan Lover, Yanni and Dimitri working away in the rain. What he didn’t see were Blake Johnson and Aleko on the starboard side facing out to sea, slipping the Aquamobile over to float, half-submerged, beside the inflatable.
He handed the glasses back to Raphael. “Stay alert,” then turned, walked to the end of the battlements, and re-entered the castle on the third floor level. Aaron put down the umbrella and followed him and, at that moment, David Braun came out of Marie de Brissac’s room with the dining trolley.
“So, they’ve eaten?” Levy said.
“Yes, Colonel.”
Levy assumed his Judas identity again, pulled on the hood, and stepped into the room. The two women were seated opposite each other at the table by the window.
“There you are,” he said. “The clock ticks faster and faster, but then, as Einstein said, all time is relative.” He laughed. “Especially when you don’t have too much to play with.”
“How kind of you to remind us,” Marie de Brissac told him.
“Always a pleasure to do business with a real lady, Countess.” He made a mock bow and turned to Braun. “Lock them up tight for the night, David,” and he went out followed by Aaron.
There was a moment’s silence, then David Braun said, “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to return to your own room, Chief Inspector.”
Hannah kissed the other woman on the cheek. “Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She walked past Braun into the corridor, and he said to Marie, “I can do nothing – nothing.”
“Of course you can’t, David. Wasn’t it Kennedy who said for evil to triumph, all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing.”
He winced, then went out, locking the door behind him, and took Hannah down the corridor to her own room.
On the Cretan Lover, they had just finished getting ready in the cabin. Dillon and Blake were in the black jump suits, festooned with stun grenades and black packs containing extra ammunition and the Semtex door charges and a couple of quarter-pound blocks for emergencies. Each had a holstered Browning and wore night goggles pushed up on the forehead. An Uzi slung around the neck completed the picture.
Aleko fastened a weight belt around his waist, and Stavros clipped an air tank to his jacket. “Anything else?” he asked.
Aleko nodded. “Pass me that dive bag. I’m going to take them a surprise present. You said you’d be half an hour?” he said to Dillon.
“That’s right.”
“Then I’ll drop a little Semtex in the motor cruiser and the speedboat with forty-minute timing pencils. That way they can’t come after us.”
He put some Semtex and timers in the dive bag and hung it around his neck. Ferguson picked up the heavy coil of rope the boys had prepared and draped it around Dillon’s neck diagonally to his waist.
Dillon smiled. “Don’t forget to put the other flak jacket on, you old sod, just in case it gets a little warm later.”
“Mind your back, Sean,” Ferguson told him.
“There you go, on first-name terms,” Dillon said. “I mean, where’s it all going to end?” and he turned and followed Blake and Aleko out through the starboard sliding panel in the cabin wall.
Aleko adjusted his air and went over the rail backwards. He surfaced and fastened the line to the Aquamobile. Stavros hauled in the inflatable, and Blake went over and then Dillon. They crouched there together, keeping low. A moment later, there was a tug as the Aquamobile took the slack and they moved away.
The rain was relentless and the waves broke over the side, so that they were soon soaked. There was no light on the jetty, but lights up in the castle. When Dillon pulled down the night goggles, he could see the jetty clearly. They coasted in and beached, getting out and pulling the inflatable and the Aquamobile up on the sand.
“Good luck!” Aleko whispered, and Blake and Dillon moved away.
Aleko slipped off his jacket, tank and fins, swam alongside the jetty, then went up the short ladder to the motor cruiser. He took a block of Semtex from his dive bag, found a forty timing pencil, broke the end, and thrust it into the block. He opened the hatch to the engine room and dropped it inside.
He slipped across the jetty to the speedboat, repeated the operation, then lowered himself into the water, swam to the beach to retrieve his jacket, tank and fins, and pulled them on quickly. A few moments later and he was making his way back to the Cretan Lover, hanging on to the Aquamobile.
Arnold, patrolling the garden, was miserable and wet, so he went up the steps to the terrace and stood in the shelter of the portico. He managed to light a cigarette and stood with the MI6 slung from his shoulder, the cigarette cupped in his hand.
Dillon and Blake, approaching the frontage, paused to take stock, their night goggles giving them a remarkably clear picture. Dillon, looking up, saw Raphael on the battlements leaning over. He crouched down and pulled Blake with him.
“Hey, Arnold, are you there?” Raphael called in Hebrew.
“Yes, I’m under the portico.”
“And smoking a cigarette, I can smell it from here. Don’t let the colonel catch you. I’m going inside to do the corridor rounds.”
“Okay.”
Arnold stepped back into the portico and Dillon whispered, “I’ll go left and attract his attention and you take him from the rear. Don’t kill him. He’s too useful.”
He slipped away, pulled himself up over an ornamental flower bed, and reached the terrace. He walked towards the portico, Arnold very clear in the night goggles.
“Hey, Arnold,” he called in Hebrew. “Where are you?”
“Who’s that?” Arnold called, taking a step forward, and Blake had him in the same moment, an arm around his neck, the other hand over his mouth.
In the jump suit and the goggles, Dillon presented a terrifying spectacle. He took out his Browning, cocked it, and touched Arnold under the chin. When he spoke, it was in English.
“This is silenced, so I can put one in your heart, kill you instantly, and no one will hear a thing. Now you’re going to answer some questions, and if you don’t, I will kill you and we’ll go and find your friend, the one we saw on the battlements. Do you understand?”
Arnold tried to nod and Blake took his hand from the young man’s mouth. “I’d do as he says if I were you.”
“Who are you?” Arnold asked.
“I’ve come back to haunt you. It’s me, Dillon.”
“Oh, my God, but it can’t be. The colonel told us you were dead.”
“The colonel, is it now? Well, he’ll always be Judas to me. Now, answers. The countess, is she still in the same room on the third floor?”
“Yes.”
“And Chief Inspector Bernstein?”
“She’s on the same corridor in the room you were in.”
“How many are you? The same number?”
Arnold hesitated and Dillon jabbed the Browning into his side painfully. “Come on. Judas and five of you. Is that it?”