Midnight Runner. Jack Higgins

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СКАЧАТЬ her cheek with his lips. ‘You’re a remarkable young woman,’ and he went away down the steps. She watched him go, then returned to Jackson.

      At headquarters, he was passed through to General Lee with unusual speed, and soon found himself shown into the great man’s office by a smiling captain. Lee, a large, energetic man, jumped up behind his desk and rushed around. As Quinn tried to salute, Lee stopped him.

      ‘No, that’s my privilege. I’d better get used to it.’ He clicked his heels and saluted.

      ‘General?’ Quinn was bewildered.

      ‘I’ve had a communication this morning from the President. Master Sergeant Daniel Quinn, I am proud to inform you that you have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.’ And he saluted again, gravely.

      And so the legend was born. Quinn was sent home, endured many interviews and ceremonies until he could take no more, and finally, with no interest in a permanent military career, he left the Army. He went back to Harvard and studied philosophy for three years, as if trying to exorcize some kind of demon, and carefully kept out of bars so that he would not become involved in any physical arguments. He did not trust himself enough for that.

      Finally, he agreed to go into the family business. At least it meant he’d be able to help his old friend, Tom Jackson, who’d received a law degree from Columbia after Vietnam and had risen over the years to head the legal department at Quinn Industries.

      He didn’t marry until he was in his thirties. Her name was Monica, and she was the daughter of family friends; it was a marriage of convenience. Their daughter, Helen, was born in 1979, and it was around that time that he decided to follow his grandfather’s dream, and entered politics. He put all his financial interests into a blind trust and ran for an open Congressional seat, won by a narrow margin, and then by ever greater margins, until finally he challenged the incumbent senator, and won there, too. Congress began to wear upon him after a while, though: the backstabbing and deal-making and constant petty crises, and then, when his grandfather died in a private plane accident, he began to rethink all his priorities.

      He wanted out, he decided. He wanted to do something more with his life. And it was at that point that his old friend, fellow veteran and now President, Jake Cazalet, came to him and said that if Daniel wanted to give up his seat, he understood, but he hoped Daniel was not forsaking public service. He needed someone like Daniel to be a troubleshooter, a kind of roving ambassador, someone he trusted absolutely. And Daniel said yes. From then on, wherever there was trouble, from the Far East to Israel, Bosnia, Kosovo, he was there.

      Meanwhile, his daughter followed family tradition and went to Harvard, while his wife held the fort back home. When she was diagnosed with leukaemia, she didn’t tell him until it was too late – she hadn’t wanted to interrupt his work. When she died, the guilt he felt was intolerable. They held a funeral reception at their Boston home, and after the guests had departed, he and his daughter walked in the gardens. She was small and slim, with golden hair and green eyes, the joy of his life, all he had left, he thought, of any worth.

      ‘You’re a great man, Dad,’ she said. ‘You do great things. You can’t blame yourself.’

      ‘But I let her down.’

      ‘No, it was Mum’s choice to play it the way she did.’ She hugged his arm. ‘I know one thing. You’ll never let me down. I love you, Dad, so much.’

      The following year she won a Rhodes Scholarship for two years at Oxford University, at St Hugh’s College, and Quinn went to Kosovo to work for NATO on the President’s behalf. That was where things stood, until one miserable March day when the President asked to see Quinn at the White House, and Quinn went…

WASHINGTON

       2

      Washington, early evening, bad March weather, but the Hay-Adams Hotel, where Daniel Quinn was staying, was only a short walk from the White House.

      Quinn liked the Hay-Adams, the wonderful antiques, the plush interior, the restaurant. Because of the hotel’s location, they all came there, the great and the good, the politicians and the powerbrokers. Daniel Quinn didn’t know where he fitted in on that spectrum any more, but he didn’t much care. He just liked the place.

      Quinn stepped outside and the doorman said, ‘I heard you were here, Senator. Welcome back. Will you be needing a cab?’

      ‘No, thanks, George. The walk will do me good.’

      ‘At least take an umbrella. The rain might get worse. I insist, Sergeant.’

      Quinn laughed. ‘One old Vietnam hand to another?’

      George took an umbrella from his stand and opened it. ‘We saw enough of this stuff back in the jungle, sir. Who needs it now?’

      ‘That was a long time ago, George. I had my fifty-second birthday last month.’

      ‘Senator, I thought you were forty.’

      Quinn laughed, suddenly looking just that. ‘I’ll see you later, you rogue.’

      He crossed to Lafayette Square, and George was right, for the rain increased, sluicing down through the trees, as he passed the statue of Andrew Jackson.

      It gave him the old enclosed feeling. The man who had everything – money, power, a beloved daughter – and yet, too often these days, he felt he had nothing. It was what he called his ‘what’s-it-all-about’ feeling. He was coming to the other side of the square, lost in his own thoughts, when he heard the voices. In the diffused light from a street lamp he saw them clearly enough: two street people wearing bomber jackets, wet with the rain, talking loudly. They were identical except for their hair – one had it down to his shoulders, the other had his skull shaved. They were drinking from cans, and as one of them kicked an empty out to the sidewalk, he saw Quinn and stepped in his way.

      ‘Hey, bitch, where do you think you’re going? Let’s see your wallet, man.’

      Quinn ignored him and moved ahead. The one with long hair produced a knife, and the blade jumped.

      Quinn closed the umbrella and smiled.

      ‘Can I help you?’ he said.

      ‘Yeah, you can give me your money, asshole, unless you want some of this.’ He waved the blade in the air.

      Shaven-head was next to Longhair now and he laughed, an ugly sound, and Quinn swung the umbrella, the tip catching the man under the chin. He dropped to one knee and Quinn stamped in his face, suddenly thirty years younger, a Special Forces sergeant in the Mekong Delta. He turned to the one with the knife.

      ‘You sure about that?’

      The knife swung as Quinn grabbed the wrist, straightened the arm, and snapped it with a hammer blow. The man screamed and staggered back, and as the other started to get up, Quinn stamped in his face again.

      ‘Just not your night, is it?’

      A limousine braked hard and the driver came out, producing a Browning from under his left arm. He was very big and very СКАЧАТЬ