Eye Of The Storm aka Midnight Man

by Jack Higgins

  The other four paused and circled, bats ready. “That won’t do you any good,” Billy Watson said. “It’s leg-breaking time.”

  There was a shot behind them, loud in the frosty air and then another. As they turned, Charlie Salter moved out of the darkness reloading a sawed-off shotgun. “Now drop ’em,” he said. “Unless you want to be jam all over the pavement.”

  They did as they were told and stood there waiting for what was to come. Mordecai moved close and looked them over, then he grabbed the nearest one by the hair. “Who are you working for, sonny?”

  “I don’t know, mister.”

  Mordecai turned him and ran him up against the railings, holding his face just above the spikes. “I said who are you working for?”

  The youth cracked instantly. “Jack Harvey. It was just a wages job. It was Billy who pulled us in.”

  Billy said, “You bastard. I’ll get you for that.”

  Mordecai glanced at Flood, who nodded. The big man said to Billy, “You stay. The rest of you, piss off.”

  They turned and ran for it. Billy Watson stood looking at them, his face wild. Salter said, “He needs a good slapping, this one.”

  Billy suddenly picked up one of the baseball bats and raised it defensively. “All right, let’s be having you. Harry Flood-big man. No bloody good on your own are you, mate?”

  Mordecai took a step forward and Flood said, “No,” and moved in himself. “All right, son.”

  Billy swung, Flood swayed to one side, found the right wrist, twisting. Billy cried out and dropped the baseball bat and in the same moment, the American half-turned, striking him hard across the face with his elbow, sending him down on one knee.

  Mordecai picked up the baseball bat. “No, he’s got the point, let’s get going,” Flood said.

  He lit a cigarette as they went along the street. Mordecai said, “What about Harvey? You going to stitch him up?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Flood said, and they moved across to the car park.

  Billy Watson got himself together, held onto the railings for a while. It was snowing a little as he turned and limped across the road to the van. As he went round to the driver’s side, Myra Harvey stepped out of the entrance of a narrow alley, holding the collar of her fur coat up around her neck.

  “Well that didn’t go too well, did it?”

  “Miss Harvey,” he croaked. “I thought you’d gone.”

  “After my uncle dropped me off, I got a taxi back. I wanted to see the fun.”

  “Here,” he said. “Are you telling me you expected it to go like it did?”

  “I’m afraid so, sunshine. My uncle gets it wrong sometimes. Lets his emotions get the better of him. You really think five young punks like you could walk all over Harry Flood?” She opened the driver’s door and pushed him in. “Go on, get over. I’ll drive.”

  She climbed behind the wheel, the fur coat opened, and the miniskirt went about as high as it could.

  As she switched on, Billy said, “But where are we going?”

  “Back to my place. What you need is a nice hot bath, sunshine.” Her left hand squeezed his thigh hard and she drove away.

  SEVEN

  THE FLIGHT FROM Jersey got into Heathrow Terminal One just after eleven the following morning. It took half an hour for Dillon’s case to come through and he sat smoking and reading the paper while he waited. The war news was good for the coalition forces. A few pilots down in Iraq, but the airstrikes were having a terrible effect.

  His case came and he walked through. There was a rush of customers, as several planes had come in at around the same time. Customs didn’t seem to be stopping anyone that morning, not that they’d have found anything on him. His suitcase contained a change of clothes and toilet articles, no more, and there were only a couple of newspapers in the briefcase. He also had two thousand dollars in his wallet, which was in twenty hundred-dollar bills. Nothing wrong with that. He’d destroyed the French passport at the hotel in Jersey. No turning back now. When he went back to France it would be very definitely a different route, and until then the Jersey driving license in the name of Peter Hilton was all the identification he needed.

  He took the escalator to the upper concourse and joined the queue at one of the bank counters, changing five hundred dollars for sterling. He repeated the exercise at three other banks, then went downstairs to get a taxi, whistling softly to himself.

  He told the driver to drop him at Paddington Station, where he left the suitcase in a locker. He phoned Tania Novikova on the number Makeev had given him, just on the chance she was at home, and got her answering machine. He didn’t bother to leave a message, but went out and hailed a cab and told the driver to take him to Covent Garden.

  In his tinted glasses, striped tie and navy blue Burberry trenchcoat he looked thoroughly respectable.

  The driver said, “Terrible weather, guv. I reckon we’re going to see some real heavy snow soon.”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised.” Dillon’s accent was impeccable public school English.

  “You live in London, guv?”

  “No, just in town for a few days on business. I’ve been abroad for some time,” Dillon said glibly. “New York. Haven’t been in London for years.”

  “A lot of changes. Not like it used to be.”

  “So I believe. I was reading the other day that you can’t take a walk up Downing Street anymore.”

  “That’s right, guv. Mrs. Thatcher had a new security system installed, gates at the end of the street.”

  “Really?” Dillon said. “I’d like to see that.”

  “We’ll go that way if you like. I can take you down to Whitehall, then cut back to Covent Garden.”

  “Suits me.”

  Dillon sat back, lit a cigarette and watched. They moved down Whitehall from Trafalgar Square past Horse Guards with the two Household Cavalrymen on mounted duty, wearing greatcoats against the cold, sabers drawn.

  “Must be bleeding cold for the horses,” the cabby said and then added, “Here we are, guv, Downing Street.” He slowed a little. “Can’t stop. If you do, the coppers come up and ask you what you’re doing.”

  Dillon looked across at the end of the street. “So those are the famous gates?”

  “Thatcher’s folly, some twerps call it, but if you ask me, she was usually right. The bloody IRA have pulled off enough stunts in London during the past few years. I’d shoot the lot of them, I would. If I drop you in Long Acre, will that do, guv?”

  “Fine,” Dillon told him and sat back, thinking about those rather magnificent gates at the end of Downing Street.

  The taxi pulled into the curb and Dillon gave him a ten-pound note. “Keep it,” he said, turned and walked briskly away along Langley Street. The whole Covent Garden area was as busy as usual, people dressed for the extreme cold, more like Moscow than London. Dillon went with the throng and finally found what he wanted in an alley near Neal’s Yard, a small theatrical shop, the window full of old costume masks and makeup. A bell tinkled when he went in. The man who appeared through a curtain at the rear was about seventy, with snow-white hair and a round, fleshy face.

  “And what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “Some makeup, I think. What have you got in boxes?”

  “Some very good kits here,” the old boy said. He took one down and opened it on the counter. “They use these at the National Theatre. In the business, are you?”

  “Amateur, that’s all, I’m afraid, church players.” Dillon checked the contents of the box. “Excellent. I’ll take an extra lipstick, bright red, some black hair dye and also some solvent.”

  “You are going to town. Clayton’s my name, by the way. I’ll give you my card in case you ever need anything else.” He got the required items and put them inside the make-up box and closed it. “Thirty quid for cash and don’t forget, anything you need…”

  “I won’t,” Dillon said and went out whistling.

  In the village of Vercors it was
snowing as the cortege drove down from the chateau. In spite of the weather, villagers lined the street, men with their caps off, as Anne-Marie Audin went to her final rest. There were only three cars behind the hearse, old Pierre Audin and his secretary in the first, a number of servants in the other. Brosnan and Mary Tanner, with Max Hernu following, walked up through the tombstones and paused as the old man was lifted from the car into his wheelchair. He was pushed inside, the rest followed.

  It was very old, a typical village church, whitewashed walls, the Stations of the Cross, and it was cold, very cold. In fact Brosnan had never felt so cold and sat there, shaking slightly, hardly aware of what was being said, rising and kneeling obediently with everyone else. It was only when the service ended and they stood as the pallbearers carried the coffin down the aisle that he realized that Mary Tanner was holding his hand.

  They walked through the graveyard to the family mausoleum. It was the size of a small chapel, built in gray granite and marble with a steep Gothic roof. The oaken doors stood open. The priest paused to give the final benediction, the coffin was taken inside. The secretary turned the wheelchair and pushed it down the path past them, the old man huddled over, a rug across his knees.

  “I feel so sorry for him,” Mary said.

  “No need, he doesn’t know what time of day it is,” Brosnan told her.

  “That’s not always true.”

  She walked to the car, and put a hand on the old man’s shoulder as he sat there in his wheelchair. Then she returned.

  “So, my friends, back to Paris,” Hernu said.

  “And then London,” Brosnan said.

  Mary took his arm as they walked toward the car. “Tomorrow, Martin, tomorrow morning will be soon enough, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “All right,” he said. “Tomorrow it is,” and he got in the rear of the car and leaned back, suddenly drained, and closed his eyes, Mary sitting beside him as Hernu drove away.

  It was just after six when Tania Novikova heard the doorbell. She went downstairs and opened the door. Dillon stood there, suitcase in one hand, briefcase in the other. “Josef sends his regards.”

  She was amazed. Since Makeev had spoken to her she had accessed KGB files in London to discover as much about Dillon as she could and had been astonished at his record. She had expected some kind of dark hero. Instead, she had a small man in a trenchcoat with tinted glasses and a college tie.

  “You are Sean Dillon?” she said.

  “As ever was.”

  “You’d better come in.”

  Women had never been of great importance to Dillon. They were there to satisfy a need on occasions, but he had never felt the slightest emotional involvement with one. Following Tania Novikova up the stairs, he was aware that she had a good figure and that the black trouser suit became her. Her hair was caught up at the nape of the neck in a velvet bow, but, when she turned to him in the full light of her sitting room, he realized that she was really rather plain.

  “You had a good trip?” she asked.

  “All right. I was delayed in Jersey last night because of fog.”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “Tea would be fine.”

  She opened a drawer, produced a Walther, two spare clips and a Carswell silencer. “Your preferred weapon according to Josef.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Also, I thought this might come in useful.” She handed him a small bundle. “They say it can stop a.45 bullet at point-blank range. Nylon and titanium.”

  Dillon unfolded it. Nothing like as bulky as a flak jacket, it was designed like a small waistcoat and fastened with Velcro tabs.

  “Excellent,” he said and put it in his briefcase together with the Walther and the silencer. He unbuttoned his trenchcoat, lit a cigarette and stood in the kitchen door and watched her make the tea. “You’re very convenient for the Soviet Embassy here?”

  “Oh, yes, walking distance.” She brought the tea out on a tray. “I’ve fixed you up with a room in a small hotel just round the corner in the Bayswater Road. It’s the sort of place commercial travelers overnight at.”

  “Fine.” He sipped his tea. “To business. What about Fahy?”

  “No luck so far. He moved from Kilburn a few years ago to a house in Finchley. Only stayed there a year and moved again. That’s where I’ve drawn a blank. But I’ll find him, I’ve got someone on his case.”

  “You must. It’s essential. Does KGB’s London station still have a forgery department?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.” He took out his Jersey driving license. “I want a private pilot’s license in the same name and address. You’ll need a photo.” He slipped a finger inside the plastic cover of the license and pulled out a couple of identical prints. “Always useful to have a few of these.”

  She took one of them. “Peter Hilton, Jersey. Can I ask why this is necessary?”

  “Because when the right time comes, time to get the hell out of it, I want to fly, and they won’t hire a plane to you unless you have a license issued by the Civil Aviation Authority.” He helped himself to some more tea. “Tell your expert I want full instrument rating and twin-engine.”

  “I’ll write that down.” She opened her handbag, took out an envelope, slipped the photo inside and made a note on the cover. “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes, I’d like full details of the present security system at Number Ten Downing Street.”

  She caught her breath. “Am I to take it that is your target?”

  “Not as such. The man inside, but that’s a different thing. The Prime Minister’s daily schedule, how easy is it to access that?”

  “It depends what you want. There are always fixed points in the day. Question time in the House of Commons, for example. Of course, things are different because of the Gulf. The War Cabinet meets every morning at ten o’clock.”

  “At Downing Street?”

  “Oh, yes, in the Cabinet room. But he has other appointments during the day. Only yesterday he did a broadcast on British Forces Network to the troops in the Gulf.”

  “Was that from BBC?”

  “No, they have their own headquarters at Bridge House. That’s near Paddington Station and not too far from here.”

  “Interesting. I wonder what his security was like.”

  “Not much, believe me. A few detectives, no more than that. The British are crazy.”

  “A damn good job they are. This informant of yours, the one who got you all the information on Ferguson. Tell me about him.” Which she did, and when she was finished he nodded. “You’ve got him well and truly by the cobblers then?”

  “I think you could say that.”

  “Let’s keep it that way.” He got up and buttoned his coat. “I’d better go and book in at this hotel.”

  “Have you eaten?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “I have a suggestion. Just along from the hotel is an excellent Italian restaurent, Luigi’s. One of those little family-owned places. You get settled in at the hotel and I’ll walk along to the Embassy. I’ll check on what we have on the Downing Street defences and see if anything’s turned up on Fahy.”

  “And the flying license?”

  “I’ll put that in hand.”

  “Twenty-four hours.”

  “All right.”

  She got a coat and scarf, went downstairs with him and they left together. The pavements were frosty and she carried his briefcase for him and held on to his arm until they reached the hotel.

  “I’ll see you in an hour,” she said and moved on.

  It was the sort of place which had been a thriving pub and hotel in late Victorian times. The present owners had done their best with it and that wasn’t very much. The dining room to the left of the foyer was totally uninviting, no more than half a dozen people eating there. The desk clerk was an old man with a face like a skull who wore a faded brown uniform. He moved with infinite slowness, booking Dillon in and gave hi
m his key. Guests were obviously expected to carry their own cases.

  The room was exactly what he’d expected. Twin beds, cheap coverings, a shower room, a television with a slot for coins and a kettle, a little basket beside it containing sachets of coffee, teabags and powdered milk. Still, it wouldn’t be for long and he opened his suitcase and unpacked.

  Among Jack Harvey’s interests was a funeral business in Whitechapel. It was a sizeable establishment and did well, for, as he liked to joke, the dead were always with us. It was an imposing, three-storeyed Victorian building which he’d had renovated. Myra had the top floor as a penthouse and took an interest in the running of the place. Harvey had an office on the first floor.

  Harvey told his driver to wait, went up the steps and rang the bell. The night porter answered.

  “My niece in?” Harvey demanded.

  “I believe so, Mr. Harvey.”

  Harvey moved through the main shop with coffins on display and along the passage with the little Chapels of Rest on each side where relatives could view the bodies. He went up two flights of stairs and rang the bell on Myra’s door.

  She was ready for him, alerted by a discreet call from the porter, let him wait for a moment, then opened the door. “Uncle Jack.”

  He brushed past her. She was wearing a gold sequined minidress, black stockings and shoes. “You going out or something?” he demanded.

  “A disco, actually.”

  “Well, never mind that now. You saw the accountants? Is there any way I can get at Flood legally? Any problems with leases? Anything?”

  “Not a chance,” Myra said. “We’ve gone through the lot with a fine-tooth comb. There’s nothing.”

  “Right, then I’ll just have to get him the hard way.”

  “That didn’t exactly work last night, did it?”

  “I used rubbish, that’s why, a bunch of young jerks who didn’t deserve the time of day.”