The Eagle's Covenant Read Free

Schiller took Joanna by the hand and smiled for what seemed to be the thousandth time at her. He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it gently. Because it was a sunny day, the air conditioning worked noiselessly to keep the interior of the car at a comfortable temperature.
    “We are a family again, meine liebchen .” He said nothing else but just continued to look at her. Many times he had wished he was not an old man. Joanna was so beautiful. Her hair was the colour of obsidian blackness which shone and glittered with each movement of her head. Her eyes were the clearest blue he had ever seen, and she had an Aryan quality about her which belied her Englishness yet somehow strengthened it. No angular features to dull the quality of her face or the smoothness of her porcelain like skin. Her high cheekbones proclaimed the calibre of her breeding, which was so important to German sensibilities.
    Joanna was well aware of Schiller’s feelings and quietly thanked him for never imposing himself upon her, particularly now that she was alone. It would not have surprised her if people suspected, or indeed believed, that she was no more than an uneducated bimbo who would soon find herself a sugar daddy in Manfred Schiller to sustain her luxurious lifestyle once the grieving for her dead husband had come to an end.
    To her Schiller was the kindest man she had known after her own father who was dead now, and she was quite happy to remain part of his family for as long as he wished.
    “Thank you Manfred.” She responded by squeezing his hand. “You are such a treasure to me. We will always be your family. Nothing will ever stop that, ever.”
    *
    The fourth man in the terrorist team was Conor Lenihan. Conor had been born in Catholic Belfast and brought up in the sectarian ways of his peers. He was streetwise at a very early age, and had learned quickly how to stone the men of the security forces and bait the Protestants of the ‘other side’. Conor had also been fortunate enough to spend many weekends on his uncle’s farm in County Fermanagh along the shores of Lough Erne.
    It was there that Conor had learned the skills of the hunter. His uncle had taught him how to stalk game, how to set traps. He had shown the young boy how to bivouac at night and live off the land. He became an expert with a shotgun and rifle. Handling a pistol was as easy to Conor as handling a pen.
    But these skills were not being imparted to Conor to improve his life among the dangerous streets of the city. Conor’s uncle was a recruiting officer for the IRA and the boy’s tenacity, fearlessness and obvious qualities among his peers had been noticed by the local IRA commander.
    Conor, like many of his friends, had always nursed an ambition to serve the Finian masters in whatever capacity they wished. And it was a massive disappointment to him when he learned that his remit was to join the hated British Army. Much to Conor’s surprise, however, he took to the life like a duck to water and it wasn’t long before he was nursing the ambition to join the British Army’s Special Air Service, otherwise known as the ‘Regiment’.
    Conor served the army well and his IRA chiefs, and when his career in the army came to an end, Conor was sent to County Kerry in Ireland where he helped train IRA recruits. Conor’s time in the Parachute Regiment and with the SAS had been peppered with excitement and adrenalin charged moments of tension which had honed him into a refined, fighting machine; the complete soldier. But the change from that lifestyle to one of almost total boredom had taken the edge of Conor’s skills and had almost cost him his life.
    It was a mixture of luck and instinct that helped Conor to escape when an SAS hit team turned up at Conor’s farm in County Kerry posing as tourists. Where Conor would normally have been working out in the fields or around the farm at that time of day, he had gone into the farmhouse for a few minutes. He saw the two