Exocet - Jack Higgins [25]
His mother and Linda were sitting at a table beside a fountain on the lower terrace and it was the child who saw him first. She cried out in delight and came running towards him, arms outstretched, dressed for riding in jodhpurs and a yellow sweater, hair tied back in a ponytail.
'Papa, we didn't know! We didn't know.'
She clutched him and he held her tightly and she smiled up at him, fierce and proud. 'You were on the television at Rio Gallegos with General Dozo. I saw you. So did all the girls at school.'
'Is that so?'
'And the Skyhawks at Death Valley, we saw that too and I knew you must be flying one of them.'
'Death Valley?' He stopped short. 'How did you know about that?'
'Isn't that what the pilots call it, the place where they make their run on the British fleet? Two girls in my class at school have lost brothers.' She hugged him again. 'Oh, I'm so pleased you're safe. Will you be going back?'
'No, not to Gallegos, but I'm going to France in the morning.'
They reached the table. His mother sat watching him calmly, cool, elegant, perfectly groomed as usual, looking fifteen years younger than her seventy years.
'I'm supposed to be going riding,' Linda said. 'I'll cancel it.'
'Nonsense,' Donna Elena told her. 'Run along now. Your father will be here when you get back.'
Linda turned to him. 'Promise?'
'On my honour.'
She hurried up the steps and Montera turned and reached for Donna Elena's hands. 'Mother,' he said formally as he kissed them. 'It's good to see you.'
Her eyes took in every aspect of the face, so finely drawn, the haunted eyes. 'Oh God,' she whispered. 'My dearest boy, what have they done to you?'
She was, by nature, self-sufficient, controlled, had learned many years before never to give too much of herself away. The result was that they had always enjoyed a highly formalised relationship.
She tossed all that out of the window now, jumped to her feet and flung her arms around him. 'It's so good to have you back safe and well, Raul. So good.'
'Mama.' He hadn't used that term since he was a little boy and felt hot tears of emotion cloud his eyes.
'Come, sit down. Talk to me.'
He lit a cigarette and sprawled back, letting everything go. 'This is wonderful.'
'So, you're not going back?'
'No.'
'I must thank the Virgin for that in some suitable way. A man of your age flying jet planes. What nonsense, Raul. A miracle you are here.'
'Yes, it is, when you come to think of it,' Montera said. 'I'd better light a few candles to someone myself.'
'To the Virgin or to Gabrielle?' He frowned warily, and she said, 'Here, give me a cigarette. I'm not a fool, you know. I've seen you on television three times now in that Skyhawk of yours. One can hardly miss the inscription just below the cockpit. Who is she, Raul?'
'The woman I love,' he said simply, repeating the words he had used to Lami Dozo.
'Tell me about her.'
So he did, pacing up and down the terrace beside her restlessly. When he was finished, she said, 'She sounds a remarkable young woman.'
'An understatement,' Montera told her. 'The most extraordinary human being I have ever met. Extraordinary for me, that is. I plunged head first in love with her the very first moment. It isn't just her quite astonishing beauty; there's a joy to her that goes way beyond physical passion.' He suddenly laughed out loud and the lines seemed to vanish from his face and he no longer looked tired. 'She's so bloody marvellous in every way, Mama. I always had faith that there was something special about life and she's it.'
Donna Elena Llorca de Montera took a deep breath. 'There's no more to be said then, is there? I presume I'll be introduced in your own good time. Now, tell me why you're going to France.'
'Sorry,' he told her. 'Top secret. All I can say is that it's for what our President is pleased to call the cause. He also believes that if I'm successful, it could win us the war.'
'And will it?'
'If he believes that, he'll believe anything. The cause.' He walked to the edge of the terrace and looked out across the river.