and shot one dead, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment on Belle Isle."
"Belle Isle, sir?"
"The French don't have Devil's Island anymore, Harry. They just have Belle Isle. In the Mediterranean, of course, which sounds pleasanter, but it isn't."
Fox closed the files. "All right, sir, but where is all this getting us?"
"Set a thief to catch a thief, Harry. You said it."
Fox gazed at him in astonishment. "But he's in prison, sir. You said so yourself."
"For the past four years," Ferguson said. "But what if we could do something about that?"
The internal phone rang, and Ferguson picked it up. "Fine," he said. "Tell him we'll be straight down." He turned to Fox. "Right, Harry, grab your coat and let's get moving. We haven't got much time."
He moved to the door and Fox followed him. "With respect, sir, where to?"
"Bradbury Lines Barracks at Hereford, Harry. Headquarters of Twenty-second Special Air Service, to be precise. I'll explain it on the way," and he hustled on through the door like a strong wind.
It was cold in the street outside, rain reflecting on the black asphalt, and as the big black Bentley pulled away Harry Fox leaned back against the seat and buttoned his old cavalry overcoat one-handed. So many things circling in his mind, so much had happened. Thoughts of Brosnan simply wouldn't go away--this man he had never met, and yet he felt he knew him as intimately as a brother. He closed his eyes and wondered what Brosnan was doing now.
Belle Isle is a rock situated forty miles to the east of Marseilles an d s ome ten miles from the coast. The fortress, an eighteenth-centur y a nachronism, seems to grow out of the very cliffs themselves, on e o f the grimmest sights in the whole Mediterranean. There is the fortress, there is the granite quarry, and there are some six hundred prisoners, political offenders or criminals of the most dangerous kind. Most of them are serving life sentences and, the French authorities taking the term seriously, most of them will die there. One thing is certain. No one has ever escaped from Belle Isle.
The reasons are simple. No vessel may approach closer than four miles, and the designated clear area around the island is closely monitored by an excellent approach-radar system. And Belle Isle has another highly efficient protection system provided by nature itself, a phenomenom known to local fishermen as the Mill Race, a ferocious ten-knot current that churns the water into white foam even on a calm day. It is hell on earth in a storm.
Martin Brosnan lay on his bed in a cell on the upper tier, reading, head pillowed on his hands. He was stripped to the waist, strong and muscular, his body toughened by hard labor in the granite quarry. There were the ugly puckered scars of two old bullet wounds in his left breast. His dark hair was too long, almost shoulder-length. In such matters, the authorities were surprisingly civilized, as the books on the wooden shelf above the bed indicated.
The man on the opposite bed tossed a pack of Gitanes across. "Have a smoke, Martin," he said in French.
He looked about sixty-five, with very white hair and eyes a vivid blue in a wrinkled humorous face. His name was Jacques Savary, a Union Corse godfather and one of the most famous gangsters in Marseilles in his day. He had been a prisoner in Belle Isle since 1965, would remain there until he died, an unusual circumstance for one of his background. Usually the Union Corse, the largest organized crime syndicate in France, was able to use its formidable influence with the judiciary to pull strings on behalf of members of Jacques Savary's standing who found themselves in trouble.
But Savary was different. He had chosen to ally himself to the cause of the OAS. It has been said that Charles de Gaulle survived at least thirty attempts on his life, but he had never been closer to death than during the attack masterminded by Jacques Savary in March 1965. The Union had at least saved him from
"Belle Isle, sir?"
"The French don't have Devil's Island anymore, Harry. They just have Belle Isle. In the Mediterranean, of course, which sounds pleasanter, but it isn't."
Fox closed the files. "All right, sir, but where is all this getting us?"
"Set a thief to catch a thief, Harry. You said it."
Fox gazed at him in astonishment. "But he's in prison, sir. You said so yourself."
"For the past four years," Ferguson said. "But what if we could do something about that?"
The internal phone rang, and Ferguson picked it up. "Fine," he said. "Tell him we'll be straight down." He turned to Fox. "Right, Harry, grab your coat and let's get moving. We haven't got much time."
He moved to the door and Fox followed him. "With respect, sir, where to?"
"Bradbury Lines Barracks at Hereford, Harry. Headquarters of Twenty-second Special Air Service, to be precise. I'll explain it on the way," and he hustled on through the door like a strong wind.
It was cold in the street outside, rain reflecting on the black asphalt, and as the big black Bentley pulled away Harry Fox leaned back against the seat and buttoned his old cavalry overcoat one-handed. So many things circling in his mind, so much had happened. Thoughts of Brosnan simply wouldn't go away--this man he had never met, and yet he felt he knew him as intimately as a brother. He closed his eyes and wondered what Brosnan was doing now.
Belle Isle is a rock situated forty miles to the east of Marseilles an d s ome ten miles from the coast. The fortress, an eighteenth-centur y a nachronism, seems to grow out of the very cliffs themselves, on e o f the grimmest sights in the whole Mediterranean. There is the fortress, there is the granite quarry, and there are some six hundred prisoners, political offenders or criminals of the most dangerous kind. Most of them are serving life sentences and, the French authorities taking the term seriously, most of them will die there. One thing is certain. No one has ever escaped from Belle Isle.
The reasons are simple. No vessel may approach closer than four miles, and the designated clear area around the island is closely monitored by an excellent approach-radar system. And Belle Isle has another highly efficient protection system provided by nature itself, a phenomenom known to local fishermen as the Mill Race, a ferocious ten-knot current that churns the water into white foam even on a calm day. It is hell on earth in a storm.
Martin Brosnan lay on his bed in a cell on the upper tier, reading, head pillowed on his hands. He was stripped to the waist, strong and muscular, his body toughened by hard labor in the granite quarry. There were the ugly puckered scars of two old bullet wounds in his left breast. His dark hair was too long, almost shoulder-length. In such matters, the authorities were surprisingly civilized, as the books on the wooden shelf above the bed indicated.
The man on the opposite bed tossed a pack of Gitanes across. "Have a smoke, Martin," he said in French.
He looked about sixty-five, with very white hair and eyes a vivid blue in a wrinkled humorous face. His name was Jacques Savary, a Union Corse godfather and one of the most famous gangsters in Marseilles in his day. He had been a prisoner in Belle Isle since 1965, would remain there until he died, an unusual circumstance for one of his background. Usually the Union Corse, the largest organized crime syndicate in France, was able to use its formidable influence with the judiciary to pull strings on behalf of members of Jacques Savary's standing who found themselves in trouble.
But Savary was different. He had chosen to ally himself to the cause of the OAS. It has been said that Charles de Gaulle survived at least thirty attempts on his life, but he had never been closer to death than during the attack masterminded by Jacques Savary in March 1965. The Union had at least saved him from
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