The President’s Daughter

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 1997

Copyright © Harry Patterson 1997

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Photography and illustration © Nik Keevil

Harry Patterson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008124847

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007352319

Version: 2015-04-01

In fond memory of my dear friend George Coleman

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

VIETNAM 1969

Chapter 1

LONDON SICILY CORFU EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN 1997

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SICILY LONDON WASHINGTON

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

IRELAND LONDON FRANCE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

EPILOGUE WASHINGTON

About the Author

Also by Jack Higgins

Further Reading

About the Publisher

Jake Cazalet was twenty-six years old when it happened, the incident that was to have such a profound effect on the rest of his life.

His family were Boston Brahmins, well respected, his mother hugely wealthy, his father a successful attorney and senator, which meant that the law seemed the natural way to go for young Jake. Harvard and the privileged life, and as a college student, it was possible to avoid the draft and Vietnam seemed far away.

And Jake did well, a brilliant student who got an excellent degree and moved on to Harvard Law School with enormous success. A great future was predicted, he started on a doctorate, and then a strange thing happened.

For some time, he had been disturbed by the scenes from Vietnam, the way he saw that brutal war portrayed on television each night. Sometimes it seemed like a vision from hell. A sea-change took place as he contrasted his comfortable life with what life seemed like over there. The ironic thing was that he could actually get by in Vietnamese, because at the age of thirteen, he had lived in Vietnam when his father had spent a year at the US embassy.

And then came the day in the cafeteria at college. People were lining up for the lunch counter, lots of new students, and amongst them one who was no more than twenty, dressed in white T-shirt and jeans like anyone else, books under one arm, the difference being that where his right arm had been there was now only a small stump. Most people ignored him, but one guy, a swaggering bully whose last name was Kimberley, turned to look at him.

‘Hey, what’s your name?’

‘Teddy Grant.’

‘You lose that over there in Nam?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘Serves you right.’ Kimberley patted his face. ‘How many kids did you butcher?’

It was the pain on Grant’s face that got to Cazalet and he pulled Kimberley away. ‘This man served his country. What have you ever done?’

‘So what about you, rich boy?’ Kimberley sneered. ‘I don’t see you over there. Only over here.’ He turned and patted Grant’s face again. ‘If I come in anywhere, you step out.’

Jake Cazalet’s only sport was boxing and he was on the team. Kimberley had twenty pounds on him, but it didn’t matter. Spurred on by rage and deep shame, he gave Kimberley a combination punch in the stomach that doubled him over. A boxing club he went to in downtown Boston was run by an old Englishman called Wally Short.

‘If you’re ever in a real punch-up, here’s a useful extra. In England, they call it nutting somebody. Over here it’s head-butting. So, use your skull, nine inches of movement, nice and short, right into his forehead.’

Which was exactly what Cazalet did as Kimberley came up to grapple with him, and the big man went crashing back over a table. Pandemonium followed, girls screaming, and then security arrived and the paramedics.

Cazalet felt good, better than he had in years. As he turned, Grant said, ‘You damn fool, you don’t even know me.’

‘Oh, yes, I do,’ Jake Cazalet said.

Later, in the dean’s office, he stood at the desk and listened to the lecture. The dean said, ‘I’ve heard the facts and it would seem that Kimberley was out of line. However, I can’t tolerate violence, not on campus. I’ll have to suspend you for a month.’