Exocet - Jack Higgins [52]
'Dear God in heaven,' he said. 'What a creature. I've never seen anything like her.'
Wanda knew panic then, as she had never known it before, at the look on his face and in his eye.
'Anybody can look good in a dress like that.'
'Fuck the dress,' Donner said simply. 'She'd look good in anything - or nothing.'
As the music faded, several people applauded, but Montera and Gabrielle stayed together for a moment, oblivious.
'You really do love me very much,' she said softly, a wonder in her voice.
'I have no choice,' he said. 'You asked me why I fly. I told you it's what I am. Ask me why I love you. I can only give the same answer. It's what I am.'
The feeling of certainty, of serenity that flooded through her, was incredible. She took his hand. 'Let's sit down.'
At the table, he ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon. 'Yes, tango is a way of life in Buenos Aires. I'll take you to San Telmo, the old quarter. The best tango bars in the world. We'll go to El Viejo Almacen. They'll turn you into an expert there in one night.'
'When?' he said. 'When does all this happen?'
'Well, I'll be damned,' Donner said. 'Senor Montera. What a pleasant surprise.'
He stood there looking down at them, Wanda at his side, and reluctantly Montera got to his feet.
* * *
It was raining when Paul Bernard alighted from the cab on the corner of the street beside the Seine and paid off the driver. It was an area of offices and tall warehouses, busy during the day, but deserted by night. He moved along the pavement, searching for the address Garcia had left for him in the phone message he'd received in his office at the Sorbonne earlier that evening.
He found what he was looking for, a sign over a warehouse that said Lebel & Company, Importers. He tried the small judas gate in the main entrance. It opened to his touch. He slipped through. The warehouse inside was in darkness but there was a light on in the glass-walled office high above.
'Garcia?' he called. 'Are you there?'
He saw a shadow behind the frosted glass of the office, the door opened, a voice said, 'Up here.'
He mounted the rickety wooden steps cheerfully. 'I haven't got much time. One of my post-graduate students, a girl of rather interesting proportions, has asked me round to have supper and check her thesis over with her. With any luck it should take me till morning.'
He went in through the door and found Tony Villiers sitting at the desk in front of him.
'Who are you?' Bernard demanded. 'Where's Garcia?'
'He couldn't make it.'
The door closed behind Bernard and he turned to find Harvey Jackson there. For the first time, he knew a certain fear.
'What's going on here?'
Jackson grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him into a chair. 'Sit down and speak when you're spoken to.'
Villiers took a Smith & Wesson from one pocket, a Carswell silencer from another and screwed it in place. 'That means it won't make a sound when I fire it, Professor, but then I'm sure you know that.'
'Look, what's all this about?' Bernard demanded.
Villiers laid the Smith & Wesson down on the desk. 'It's about the size of your phone bill to the Argentine. Cabbages and Kings, Exocet missiles. Oh, and people called Donner.'
Bernard was still frightened, but also angry. 'Who are you?'
'Until three days ago I was in the Falklands so I've seen the dead. I'm an officer of the British Special Air Service Regiment.'
'Bastard!' Bernard said, his anger overflowing.
'That's it. As someone once rather unfairly put it, we're the nearest thing to the SS the British Army has. I don't know about that. What I do know is that if you don't tell me what I want to know, I'm going to blow your left kneecap off with this.' He picked up the Smith & Wesson. 'Very nasty trick we picked up from the IRA in Ulster. If that doesn't work, I'll go to work on the right. That should put you on sticks for the rest of your life.'
There was a pottery vase with a plant in it on the top shelf at the other end of the room. His hand swung up holding the Smith