The Valhalla Exchange - Jack Higgins [98]
There was a long silence. Rain continued to tap at the window. General Canning said, 'As we know, that bizarre condition is only too possible. I need hardly point out that it would also explain a great many puzzling features of the Bormann affair over the years.'
He went to the bar and poured himself another drink.
'So what now?' I asked him.
'God knows. All of a sudden I feel old. All used up. I thought I was close this time. Thought it would finally be over, but now ...' He turned on me, a surprisingly fierce expression on his face. 'I never married, did you know that? Never could, you see. Oh, there were women, but I could never really forget her. Strange.' He sighed. 'I think I'll go home to Maryland for a while and sit by the fire.'
'And Strasser - or Bormann?'
'They can go to hell - both of them.'
'It would make a beautiful story,' I said.
He turned on me, that fierce expression on his face again. 'When I'm dead, not before. You understand me?'
It was an order, not a request, and I treated it as such. 'Just as you say, General.'
I hadn't heard the car draw up, but there was a quick step in the hall and Rafael entered. 'They have sent the taxi for you from the airstrip, Senor Smith. Your pilot says it would be possible to leave now, but only if you hurry.'
'That's for me.' Canning emptied his glass and placed it on the bar. 'Can I offer you a lift?'
'No thanks,' I said. 'Different places to go.'
He nodded. 'Glad we met, O'Hagan. It passed a lonely night at the tail-end of nowhere.'
'You should have been a writer, General.'
'I should have been a lot of things, son.' He walked to the door, paused and turned. 'Remember what I told you. When I'm gone, you can do what the hell you like with it, but until then ...'
His steps echoed on the parquet floor of the hall. A moment later, a door slammed and the taxi drove away across the square.
I never saw him again. As the world knows, he was killed flying out of Mexico City three days later when his plane exploded in midair. There was some wild talk of sabotage in one or two newspapers, but the Aviation Authority's inspectors turned over the wreckage and soon knocked that little story on the head.
They buried him at Arlington, of course, with full honours, as was only proper for one of his country's greatest sons. They were all there. The President himself, anybody who was anybody at the Pentagon. Even the Chinese sent a full general.
I was still in South America when it happened and had a hell of a time arranging flights out, so that I almost missed it, and when I arrived at Arlington, the high and the mighty had departed.
There were one or two gardeners about, no one else, and the grave and the immediate area was covered with flowers and bouquets and wreaths of every description.
It started to rain and I moved forward, turning up the collar of my trenchcoat, examining the sentiment on the temporary headstone they'd put up.
'Well, old man, they all remembered,' I said softly. 'I suppose that should count for a lot.'
I started to turn away and then my eye caught sight of something lying close to the base of the stone and the blood turned to ice-water inside me.
It was a single scarlet rose. What some people would call a winter rose. When I picked it up, the card said simply: As Promised.
A Biography of Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins is the pseudonym of Harry Patterson (b. 1929), the New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy thrillers, including The Eagle Has Landed and The Wolf at the Door. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Patterson grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. As a child, Patterson was a voracious reader and later credited his passion for reading with fueling his creative drive to be an author. His upbringing in Belfast also exposed him to the political and religious violence that characterized the city at the time. At seven years old, Patterson was caught in gunfire while riding a tram, and later was in a Belfast movie theater when it was bombed. Though he escaped