He stood to one side. Dillon swung his legs to the floor, was starting to get up and Ferguson entered the room followed by Jack Lane.
“Holy Mother of God!” Dillon said and Branko went out and closed the door behind him.
“Dear me, Dillon, but you are up the creek without a paddle, aren’t you?” Ferguson dusted the only chair with his hat and sat. “We’ve never actually made it face to face before, but I imagine you know who I am?”
“Brigadier Charles bloody Ferguson,” Dillon said. “Head of Group Four.”
“And this is Detective Inspector Jack Lane, my assistant, on loan from Special Branch at Scotland Yard so he doesn’t like you.”
Lane’s face was like stone. He leaned against the wall, arms folded, and Dillon said, “Is that a fact?”
“Look at him, Jack,” Ferguson said. “The great Sean Dillon, soldier of the IRA in his day, master assassin, better than Carlos the Jackal, some say.”
“I am looking at him, sir, and all I see is just another killer.”
“Ah, but this one is special, Jack, the man of a thousand faces. Could have been another Olivier if he hadn’t taken to the gun. He can change before your very eyes. Mind you, he cocked up his attempt to blow up the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet at Number Ten during the Gulf War as nobody knows better than you, Jack. By God, you gave us a hard time on that one, Dillon.”
“A pleasure.”
“But you’re behind walls now,” Lane said.
Ferguson nodded. “Twenty years, Jack, twenty years without getting his collar felt once and where does he end up?” He looked around the room. “You must have been out of your mind, Dillon. Medical supplies for the sick and the dying? You?”
“We all have our off days.”
“Stinger missiles as well so you didn’t even check your cargo properly. You must be losing your touch.”
“All right, the show’s over,” Dillon told him. “What do you want?”
Ferguson got up and went to the window. “They’ve been shooting Croatians down there in the courtyard. We heard them as we drove over from the airstrip. They were clearing the bodies away in a truck as we drove in.” He turned. “It’ll be your turn one of these fine mornings, Dillon. Unless you’re sensible, of course.”
Dillon got a cigarette from one of the Rothmans packets and lit it with his Zippo. “You mean I have a choice?” he asked calmly.
“You could say that.” Ferguson sat down again. “You shoot guns rather well, Dillon, fly a plane, speak a number of languages, but the thing I’m interested in at the moment was that underwater job you did for the Israelis. It was you, wasn’t it, who blew up those PLO boats off Beirut?”
“Do you tell me?” Dillon said, sounding very Irish.
“Oh, for God’s sake, sir, let’s leave the bastard to rot,” Lane said.
“Come on, man, don’t be stupid. Was it you, or wasn’t it?” Ferguson demanded.
“As ever was,” Dillon told him.
“Good. Now here’s the situation. I have a job that requires a man of your peculiar talents.”
“A crook he means,” Lane put in.
Ferguson ignored him. “I’m not sure exactly what’s going on at the moment, but it could demand a man who can handle himself if things get rough. What I am certain of is that it would require, at the right moment, considerable diving skills.”
“And where would all this take place?”
“The American Virgin Islands.” Ferguson stood up. “The choice is yours, Dillon. You can stay here and be shot or you can leave now and fly back to London in the Learjet we have at the airstrip with the Inspector and me.”
“And what will Major Branko have to say about it?”
“No problem there. Nice boy. His mother lives in Hampstead. He’s had enough of this Yugoslavian mess, and who can blame him. I’m going to arrange political asylum for him in England.”
Dillon said, “Is there nothing you can’t do?”
“Not that I can think of.”
Dillon hesitated. “I’m a wanted man over there in the UK, you know that.”
“Slate wiped clean, my word on it, which disgusts Inspector Lane here, but that’s the way it is. Of course it also means you’ll have to do exactly as you’re told.”
“Of course.” Dillon picked up his flying jacket and pulled it on. “Yours to command.”
“I thought you’d see sense. Now let’s get out of this disgusting place,” and Ferguson rapped on the door with his Malacca cane.
Dillon finished the diary and closed it. Lane was dozing, his head on a pillow, and the Irishman passed the diary to Ferguson, who sat on the other side of the aisle, but facing him.
“Very interesting,” Dillon said.
“Is that all you’ve got to say?”
The Irishman reached for the bar box, found a miniature of Scotch, poured it into one of the plastic cups provided and added water. “What do you expect me to say? All right, Henry Baker’s death was unfortunate, but he died happy, by God. Finding U180 must have been the biggest thing that ever happened to him.”
“You think so?”
“Every diver’s dream, Brigadier, to find a wreck that’s never been discovered before, preferably stuffed with Spanish doubloons, but if you can’t have that, the wreck on its own will do.”
“Really.”
“You’ve never dived?” Dillon laughed. “A silly question. It’s another world down there, a special feeling, nothing quite like it.” He swallowed some of his whisky. “So this woman you mentioned, this Jenny Grant, she says he didn’t tell her where the U-boat is located?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you believe her?”
Ferguson sighed. “I’m afraid I do. Normally I don’t believe in anyone, but there’s something about her, something special.”
“Falling for a pretty face in your old age,” Dillon said. “Always a mistake that.”
“Don’t be stupid, Dillon,” the Brigadier replied sharply. “She’s a nice girl and there’s something about her, that’s all I mean. You can judge for yourself. We’ll have dinner with Garth Travers and her this evening.”
“All right.” Dillon nodded. “So if she doesn’t know where the damn thing is, what do you expect me to do?”
“Go to the Virgin Islands and find it, that’s what I expect you to do, Dillon. It’s no great hardship, I assure you. I visited St. John a few years back. Lovely spot.”
“For a holiday?”
“You won’t be on holiday, only pretending. You’ll earn your keep.”
“Brigadier,” Dillon said patiently, “the sea is a hell of a big place. Have you any idea how difficult it is to locate a ship down there on the bottom? Even in Caribbean waters with good visibility, you could miss seeing it at a hundred yards.”
“You’ll think of something, you always do, Dillon, isn’t that your special talent?”
“Jesus, but you have the most touching faith in me. All right, let’s get down to brass tacks. Baker’s death? Are you sure that was an accident?”
“Absolutely no question. There were witnesses. He simply looked the wrong way and stepped into the path of the bus. The driver, I might add, is beyond reproach.”
“All right, so what about the burglary at this Admiral Travers’ house, the bug in the telephone?”
Ferguson nodded. “A smell of stinking fish there. All the hallmarks of an opportunistic housebreaking, but the bug says otherwise.”
“Who would it be?”
“God knows, Dillon, but all my instincts tell me there’s someone out there and they’re up to no good.”
“But what?” Dillon said. “That’s the point.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with an answer.”
