The wolf at the door sd-17

by Jack Higgins

  "So it's all over?" Chelek said.

  "Not at all," Lermov replied. "I must make my report to the Prime Minister, but what do I tell him? That Alexander Kurbsky is alive and well and safe in the hands of a most bitter enemy of Russia, and that Charles Ferguson has won again?"

  "When can I expect to see you in London?" Chelek asked.

  "I'll only know that when I've seen him and he confirms my task. Then I'll need time to work out a plan of action. In the meantime, you must continue to run things over there, Ivan. How did you end things with Hussein?"

  "I told him that I had it on good authority that Ali Selim was dead."

  "And what did he say to that?"

  "He shrugged, and said in Arabic it was his time."

  "I suppose it was. Take care, old friend."

  Ivanov switched off his mobile. "So what now, the Prime Minister?"

  "No avoiding it." Lermov patted him on the shoulder. "You've done well, and I definitely intend to take you with me to London when I go, but there's still work to be done here, so let's get started. I'll summarize what's happened, and you can take it down on your laptop."

  "Then what?"

  "Forward it to the Prime Minister's Office and request an i nterview."

  It was lightly snowing on the way to the Kremlin but pleasantly warm in what had once been Volkov's office. They'd presented themselves in good time for the interview, but were still waiting an hour after the designated time.

  "Do you think he's making us wait deliberately?"

  "We're not important enough, Peter."

  "Well, I believe that we are still one of the greatest nations on earth," Ivanov said. "And considering the state of the world today, that he has time for us at all surprises me."

  "I agree, but I think it only proves how passionately he is involved with events in London."

  The door in the paneled wall swung open, and Vladimir Putin entered, immaculate in the black suit and white shirt he favored.

  "My apologies, gentlemen, one economic crisis after another seems to be the norm for the world we live in. I did find time to read your resume of the Kurbsky affair. Succinct and to the point, Colonel."

  "Captain Ivanov's help has been invaluable, and I intend to take him with me when I take up my duties in London."

  "Excellent." He sat down at the desk. "I agree with the conclusions in your report, Colonel. Luzhkov was foolish and stupid, and, like you, I believe he has paid the ultimate price. Kurbsky and possibly Bounine are alive and well and in the care of Charles Ferguson and his people. They have all been a thorn in our side for too long. One attempt after another to eliminate them has failed, and it's time we do it right."

  "So what do you want me to do?"

  "As I said before, Colonel, destroy them, Charles Ferguson and all his people. Finish them off, Colonel, once and for all. The British are not our friends, they grant asylum to dissidents, traitors to our country. The British Government allows their territory to be used as a launching pad to fight Russia. This will send them a message."

  "If I may, there are still many Russians living in London, many of them oligarchs and friends," Lermov said. "But the world financial crisis has altered things. Many who had billions have lost billions. They're keeping their heads down and trying to recoup. They wouldn't like an ill wind blowing in from the Motherland."

  "I haven't the slightest sympathy for those bastards. If you do need help in that area, remember that the State owns Belov International, and the chief executive officer is Max Chekhov. He's the only oligarch I have any time for and that's because he's in my pocket."

  "I'll bear that in mind."

  "Think of the Moscow Mafia, Colonel. Someone tries to rock the boat by moving into someone else's territory, and what does the boss do? He sends for an expert, a specialist, usually a stranger from out of town, to handle it."

  "I'll take that on board and consider it, Prime Minister."

  "But at your soonest, Colonel, at your soonest. You have my letter. Use it. Don't allow anyone to stand in your way." He got up to go, opened the door in the paneling, and paused. "Those fools, Oleg and Petrovich, I approve of you dumping them in a penal regiment."

  "It seemed appropriate," Lermov said.

  "But what about this Greta Bikov? That her confessions have been of great assistance can't be denied, but she is totally untrustworthy. Her behavior speaks for itself."

  "And what would you suggest, Prime Minister?"

  "I have a perfect solution. There is a small GRU detachment at Station Gorky, am I right?"

  "I understand so."

  "Transfer her to it on a one-year detachment."

  He was gone. Ivanov turned. "Poor, silly little bitch. Will you tell her or do you want me to do it?"

  "I'll do it, and, in a way, Putin's right. It could be the making of her. At least she's not being kicked out of the army. Let's get out of here. We've got a lot to do."

  "Anything special for me?"

  "Yes, Max Chekhov. Dig out everything about him."

  "And what are you going to do?"

  "Give Greta Bikov her new orders."

  Which was not as bad as he expected. Sergeant Stransky had brought her into the interrogation cell again, where she had found Lermov waiting, and he told her the worst.

  Her face was blank, eyes fixed and staring, as he delivered the news. "This is the personal decision of the Prime Minister."

  Of all things, there was not only a kind of relief but a slight smile. "Putin himself? I'm honored. I'm sure that he's only thinking what's best for me. I know I did wrong." She smiled fully. "After all, it's only a year. You've been very kind, Colonel."

  She rose and turned to Stransky, who took her arm and led her away. "My God," Lermov said softly. "She thinks she's got away with it."

  He laughed wryly as it suddenly occurred to him that she had, and he got up and went in search of Ivanov.

  He found him sitting at his computer. Lermov paused, and then asked, "How did it go with Greta?"

  "I got the impression she thinks she's come up smelling of roses. God help the male members of staff at Station Gorky, she'll wreak havoc. What have you got?"

  "Max Chekhov, age fifty, married but no children. Wife lives with her widowed mother in St. Petersburg, but he never visits. A university degree in general engineering, He worked as a road builder and military engineer in Afghanistan. Wounded in a roadside ambush and sent home when we still thought we were winning the war. Worked for many construction firms, and then came the crazy years, oil and gas in Siberia and all the other things. Like with most oligarchs, it just happened, and, there he was, a billionaire. He loves London, booze, and women, in that order, but he's a shrewd operator, which is why Putin made Chekhov chief executive officer when the State took over Belov International."

  "I suppose the argument is that as a rich man in his own right, he's to be trusted," Lermov said. "Where does he live?"

  "There's a company house off South Audley Street in Mayfair, which he never uses personally but leaves to visiting dignitaries. His personal treat is an exclusive apartment on Park Lane-where, apparently, he was shot in the knee one night by a hit man delivering flowers. It's thought to be the work of these gangsters, the Salters."

  "Well, they do get round, don't they? Anything else?"

  "A place off the West Sussex coast called Bolt Hole. It's reached by a causeway passing through a marsh, and it's private. There was an article about Chekhov buying the place and wanting to build a helicopter pad and the authorities forbidding it because of the marsh and the birds being protected. There's a photo of him, if you want to see it. He agreed not to build the helicopter pad and said he's fallen in love with the island."

  "Show me," Lermov said, and Ivanov obeyed. Chekhov wore a reefer coat and leaned on a walking stick, had long hair and dark glasses. "He looks pleased with himself."

  "Well, he would be, having bought that place," Ivanov said. "It looks bloody marvelous to me. Here's another photo fro
m the same newspaper. A strange name, Bolt Hole. I wonder what it means?"

  "Probably Saxon or something like that," Lermov said. "I think I'd like to see Chekhov. Handle it for me. Speak to him and get him here. Now, let's go have a drink."

  In the bar, Ivanov said, "So it seems the Prime Minister won't be content with anything less than the destruction of Ferguson and his entire group."

  "Which has been tried before."

  "And failed."

  "But it doesn't have to. You just need the right weapon. If you want to be certain of hitting the bull's-eye, you must be able to put the muzzle of your weapon against it and pull the trigger."

  "Difficult when the target is people."

  "Not really. The man who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan walked right up to him and fired, in spite of the crowds and the security people," Lermov pointed out.

  "But that implies sacrifice," Ivanov suggested.

  "Of course, the principle beloved of suicide bombers, but your truly professional assassin plans to perform the act and survive to do it again, like Carlos the Jackal. Look how long he lasted."

  "I see what you mean," Ivanov said.

  "My studies of revolutionary movements and terrorism covers anarchist bombings in tsarist times, Fenian dynamiters when Queen Victoria was on the throne, and, in the twentieth century, everyone from the IRA to Al Qaeda. One thing is clear. Except for religiously motivated suicide bombers seeking an imagined salvation, the majority of terrorists would much prefer to survive."

  "And live to fight another day?"

  "Exactly."

  "So how many are we talking about? Ferguson, Roper, the Salters, Dillon, and Miller…" Ivanov began.

  "Plus Miller's sister, Monica Starling. She's Dillon's girlfriend now but working for Ferguson." Lermov nodded. "Blake Johnson."

  "That adds up to eight," Ivanov said.

  "Ten, if Kurbsky and Bounine are still alive and well and in Ferguson's hands."

  "An invitation to a dinner party and a bomb under the table would take care of it," Ivanov said.

  "Very amusing, but nothing is that certain in life. Somebody tried a bomb under a table at Wolf's Lair in the hope of catching Hitler out, and it was a conspicuous failure."

  "Sorry, Colonel, I was obviously joking and the Prime Minister isn't. What do you make of that advice he gave you, when he said think of the Moscow Mafia and what they do when somebody's giving them a problem?"

  "Send for an expert, a specialist, usually a stranger from out of town who nobody knows? Yes, I've been thinking about that."

  "It sounds like a plot from a movie."

  "But life often is," Lermov said. "Because cinema, in its simplicity, gets straight to the point by leaving out all the boring bits."

  "I'm not certain what you mean, Colonel," Ivanov said warily.

  "That the Prime Minister could be right. What we need is just such a man… and I know where he is."

  "And where is that?" Ivanov was totally bewildered.

  "The Lubyanka Prison. His name is Daniel Holley."

  "He's British?" Ivanov asked.

  "Oh, yes, an extraordinary man. And an even more extraordinary killer."

  DANIEL HOLLEY

  HIS STORY

  8

  Looking back at his life, Daniel Holley always felt it had started when he was twenty-one, when he had gone to Belfast to take a master's degree in business, but that was only because what had happened before was so ordinary.

  He had been born in the city of Leeds in Yorkshire, where his father, Luther Holley, taught at the grammar school, an occupation he could afford, for there was money in the family and he had inherited early. At a rugby club dance one night, he had met a young nurse who had just finished her training at Leeds Infirmary. Her name was Eileen Coogan, and she came from a town called Crossmaglen in Ulster, a hotbed of nationalism, just across the border from the Irish Republic.

  In spite of the fact that she was a Roman Catholic, he married her, for, as his first name implied, he was a Protestant, though no one had ever known him to go to church. It was enough to make him refuse to allow the boy to be christened into the Catholic faith. "No Popery here," was his rather illogical cry, but his wife, well used to his bullying ways, let it be.

  She exacted payment from him when she discovered that she could have no more children and insisted on returning to nursing-a kind of victory, as it turned out, for she did well over the years, and was a nursing sister when her husband suffered a pulmonary embolism one night, was rushed to hospital, and pronounced dead on arrival.

  Daniel, a bright boy, was accepted at Leeds University at seventeen, and, by the time he was twenty, he was halfway through his final year, studying business and financial planning. He took those subjects not because they were the greatest things in life but because he seemed to have a talent for it. In actuality, having served in the OTC at school, he was attracted to the idea of joining the army and entering Sandhurst, for the weapons training he'd undergone in OTC appealed to him. But, once again, his father had said no. And then his father had died.

  There was a good turnout at Lawnswood Cemetery, where they had the funeral, a few teachers from the school and old pupils. Through the forest of umbrellas, as people paused outside the entrance to the crematorium, he noticed a stranger standing on the edge of the crowd, about thirty years old from the look of him, with a handsome, rugged face. He wore a raincoat and tweed cap, and he looked like he was waiting for someone, and then Daniel's mother rushed to him, flung her arms around his neck, and hugged him fiercely. Daniel hesitated, then approached.

  She turned, crying, "Oh, what a blessing this is. My nephew, Liam Coogan, come to pay his respects all the way from Crossmaglen."

  He was smiling as he took Daniel's hand in a strong grip. "A bad day for it with the rain, but grand to see my only aunt after all these years, and to meet you, Daniel." He gave Daniel a strong hug. "To be honest, I didn't make a special trip. Your mother phoned mine with the news, and me on the ferry from Belfast to Heysham en route to London. Lucky I called home. They gave me the sad news, so I've diverted, as you can see."

  "You'll stay the night with us," Eileen said.

  "God bless you, I can't even come with you for the wake. I'm delayed already for important business in London, so I must be away. It was just that, as I was over by chance, maybe it was a sign from God that I came to you in your hour of need."

  "And bless you for a kind deed." She kissed him, and turned to Daniel. "Take the car and see your cousin to the railway station."

  "Now, that would be wonderful," Liam said. "There's an express to London in forty-five minutes."

  "Then let's get going," Daniel said, and led him to the car.

  As he was driving, Daniel started to speak. "There's something I want to get straight," he said. "All these years when we never saw you, never had any contact-that wasn't us, my mother and me. It was my father and his obsessive hatred of Catholics."

  "Daniel, don't we all know that at Crossmaglen? God help us, but the old bugger must have really loved her to marry her in the first place."

  "He was an overbearing bully who liked his own way, but I never doubted his love for her and hers for him."

  "He never allowed you to be christened, I heard."

  "That's right."

  "Jesus, I've got a bloody Prod for a cousin. Your mother did keep in contact over the years. Writes regularly to my mother, always telling her not to write back, but she made telephone calls."

  "Maybe they can get together now," Daniel said. "My mother could visit in Crossmaglen."

  Liam was still smiling but different now. "You wouldn't want to do that. Crossmaglen is IRA to the hilt, Daniel. It's what the army calls bandit country. It'd be a bad idea to come back to Ulster at this stage of the Troubles." He changed tack. "I heard some of the guests talking, and you were mentioned. Only a few more months to your graduation, and you only twenty. Business and financial planning. Well, that's useful."

>   "What about you?"

  "I went to Queen's in Belfast. Economics, politics. I taught for a while."

  "And now?"

  "This and that, wheeling and dealing." They drove into the car park at the main railway station. "You have to turn your hand to anything you can in Belfast these days." He took out a wallet and produced a business card. It said "Liam Coogan, Finance amp; Business Consultant." "You can get me at that number anytime. It's an answering service."

  For some reason, Daniel felt emotional. "If I'm ever over there, I will. It was kind of you to do that for my mother."

  "You and she are family, Daniel, and that's the most important thing in the world."

  He was out and gone, hurrying through the crowd, and Daniel switched on the ignition and drove away.

  In 1981, with a first-class honors degree under his belt, it seemed natural to proceed to an MBA, and when he checked a list of suitable universities Queen's at Belfast jumped out at him. He was, after all, a half Ulsterman, though not born there. But there were roots, and perhaps it was time he sought them out.

  His mother, recently appointed a matron, was slightly dubious. "Some terrible things happen over there," she said. "God knows, it's the country of my birth, but I'm happy to be out of it, and that's the truth."

  "Well, let me see for myself," Daniel told her. "I'll get in touch with your nephew and see what he thinks."

  It was three months since his father's funeral, and he had never tried to call the number on the card his cousin had given him. As Liam had said, it was an answering service, but it took his message, and Liam called back an hour later.

  "It's grand to hear from you, and congratulations on your first-class honors."