The President's Daughter Read Online Free PDF

black curling hair, a pleasant, open face and horn-rimmed spectacles. He looked around forty.
    “Ah, Mr. Riley. I don’t know whether you willremember me. I was in court the day you were sentenced. George Brown.”
    Riley played it very cool indeed. “Oh, yes.”
    “I’ve been retained by the Defense League to go into the question of an appeal on your case. There were certain irregularities, statements by witnesses which might well have been tainted.” He turned to Jackson, who stood by the door. “I wonder if you’d mind stepping outside, Mr. . . . ?”
    “Jackson, sir.”
    “I think you’ll find if you check Section Three regulations, that where a question of appeal is being considered, a lawyer and his client are entitled to privacy.”
    “Suit yourself,” Jackson said.
    The door closed behind him, and Riley said, “What the hell is going on? I’ve never seen you in my life before, and I’ve already had any hope of an appeal turned down by the Public Defender.”
    Brown took a leather cigarette case from his inside pocket and offered him one. “Fifteen years,” he said as he gave Riley a light. “That’s a long time. Bad enough here, but they’ll be sending you to Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight soon. Toughest nick in Britain and the hardest cons. Like the coffin lid closing when they get you in there. I know about these things. I am a lawyer, although naturally, my name isn’t Brown.”
    “What’s your game, fella?” Riley demanded.
    “Sit down and I’ll tell you.” Riley did as he was told and Brown carried on. “I’d like to make you an offer you can’t refuse, just like the Godfather.”
    “And what might that be? A fresh appeal?”
    “No.” Brown walked to the window and peered out. “How would you like to be free?”
    “Escape, you mean?” Riley said.
    “No, I mean really free. Slate wiped clean.”
    Riley was stunned and his voice was hoarse as he said, “I’d do anything for that—anything.”
    “Yes, somehow I thought you might, but there’s even more to it. Do as I tell you and you’ll not only be a free man once more, you’ll have twenty thousand pounds in your hand to start fresh again.”
    “My God,” Riley whispered. “And who would I have to kill?”
    Brown smiled. “No one, I assure you, but let me ask you a question. Do you know Brigadier Charles Ferguson?”
    “Not personally, no,” Riley said, “but I know of him. He runs an intelligence unit specializing in antiterrorism. They call it the Prime Minister’s private army. It’s got nothing to do with the SIS or MI5. I know one thing; it’s given the IRA a bad time in the last few years.”
    “And Sean Dillon?”
    “Jesus, is that bowser in this?” Riley laughed. “Sure and I know Sean like my own self. We fought the bloody war together in Derry back in the seventies, and little more than boys. Led those Brit soldiers a right old dance through the sewers, but the word is Sean works for Ferguson these days.”
    “Tell me about him.”
    “His mother died giving birth to him and he and his dad went to London. Sean had a genius for acting. He could change himself even without makeup. I’ve seen him do it. The Man of a Thousand Faces, that’s what Brit Intelligence called him, and they never managed to put a finger on him in twenty years.”
    “His father was killed by British soldiers on a visit to Belfast, I understand,” Brown said.
    “That’s right. Sean was nineteen, as I remember. Hewent home, joined the Movement, and never looked back. At one time he was the most feared enforcer the Provisional IRA had.”
    “So what went wrong?”
    “He never liked the bombing, though they say he was behind that mortar attack on Ten Downing Street during the Gulf War. After that, he cleared off to Europe and offered himself as a sort of gun for hire to anybody who’d pay, and he was even-handed. One minute he’d be working for the PLO, the next blowing up Palestinian gunboats in Beirut.”
    “And