The wolf at the door sd-17

by Jack Higgins

  Which proved true, because before he could open his mouth a voice said in Arabic, "Praise be to Allah."

  A moment later, the door opened, and he was pulled inside to a tight embrace. "Daniel, it is you. Six years since I've seen you, and you look good."

  "Older, Selim, older, but you never change."

  Selim was small, perhaps five-five, with long, curling hair that had once been black but was now silvery gray and swept behind the ears, no mustache but a fringe of beard, and a dark olive face. He had good-humored eyes that lit up his personality when he was happy, as he was now. He wore a velvet jacket from another age, a ruffled shirt, and baggy velvet trousers.

  "Everything is change, Daniel. I was sixty-five this year, imagine that. Come into my study and have a glass of champagne with me to celebrate."

  "So you're still that kind of Arab?"

  "Allah is merciful. You've booked in at the hotel? Everything is taken care of? I have a running account there. They're very good."

  The study was partly rococo and partly Victorian, with overstuffed chairs and two enormous sofas and an Axminster carpet that must have cost a fortune. A large round table in beaten brass was almost at floor level, and a bottle of Cristal champagne in an ice bucket sat upon it, with seventeenth-century Venetian goblets to drink it with.

  "Sit down," he urged. "And you do the honors. I'll be back." He went out, and Daniel thumbed off the cork and poured. Selim returned with a black bag and a laptop, which he put on the table. "A present for you. But let's have a drink first."

  He drank it straight down and poured another. "Allah be praised to see you out of that terrible prison. You must feel like Edmond Dantes escaping from the Chateau d'If."

  "I think he did sixteen years, but I may be wrong," Daniel said.

  "You haven't seen Hamid?" He chuckled. "Forgive me. To you, he was always Malik."

  "An old habit. No, I haven't seen him, but we've spoken. I can buy my freedom. The Russians want me to do them a big favor right here in London. If I can bring it off, I'm rid of them for good."

  "You think you can trust them?"

  "Not really, but I must go with the flow, and hope."

  "You know best. Don't tell me anything-I would rather not know what it is. Please open the bag and see if it's what you wanted."

  Holley did and pulled out an ankle holster and a Colt.25 with a couple of boxes of ammunition. "Hollow-point," Selim said.

  Next was a cardboard box containing a Walther PPK with a Carswell silencer, the new, short version. Last of all came a nylon-and-titanium bulletproof vest.

  "This is wonderful," Holley told him.

  "There should be a knife in there as well."

  Holley groped around and found it, slim, dark, and deadly, with a razor-sharp blade leaping to attention when a button was pressed.

  "Excellent. That's taken care of me perfectly."

  "Not quite." Selim leaned over and opened a zip to a side pocket of the bag. He took out an envelope. "Expense money. Ten fifty-pound notes, and another five hundred pounds in twenties. There is more where that came from, so ask when you need it. Here's a company credit card. I've taped the PIN number on the back. Learn it and destroy. There's always the chance that you're going to need a credit card these days."

  "What can I say?"

  "Not much. Have you eaten?"

  "No."

  "Well, let me buy you a late lunch round the corner at the Lebanese. Great, great cooking, unless you have other plans."

  "No, not for a while yet. I'd love to have a meal with you." He stowed the items back into the bag. "I'll leave these here for the moment and get them when I come back."

  "That's fine." As they went through the shop, Selim said, "What's the plan, to get started at once or take your time?"

  "Actually, I'm probably going to Mass," Daniel Holley said. "But don't ask me to explain."

  He left the hotel in the early-evening rain, borrowing an umbrella, walked to the end of Curzon Street, hailed a black cab, and told the driver to take him to Kilburn. Darkness was falling and the traffic busy, but they were there quite quickly, and he asked to be dropped at Kilburn High Road. He walked the rest of the way.

  Unfortunately, according to the times inscribed on the board at the gate, he was already too late for that evening's services. He hesitated, but a hint of light at the church windows encouraged him to go forward.

  Walking through the Victorian-Gothic cemetery, with angels and effigies of one kind or another looming out of the darkness, he realized that he couldn't remember much from his first visit, but, then, it had been so brief. He turned the ring on the door and went in.

  It was incredibly peaceful, the lights very low, and the church smelt of incense and candles, the Mary Chapel to one side. Money had been spent here, mostly during the high tide of Victorian prosperity that had coincided with the church-building period when the anti-Catholic laws changed. The stained-glass windows were lovely, the pews beautifully carved, and the altar and choir stalls ornate. Flowers were stacked all around the altar steps in polished brass vases.

  Music was playing very softly and almost beyond hearing, but suddenly it stopped. A door creaked open and closed, the noise echoing, there was the sound of footfalls on tiles, and Caitlin Daly walked in from the right-hand side carrying a watering can, and he recognized her instantly.

  Holley stayed back in the shadows and watched. The photo he'd seen of her on the Internet was perfectly recognizable but didn't do her full justice. The woman in the green smock and gray skirt, rearranging flowers at the altar and watering them, had been beautiful when he had last seen her in her mid-thirties. At fifty, she was still attractive, her face enhanced by the copper-colored hair that had been cropped in a style Holley remembered from an old Ingrid Bergman movie.

  She finished, bowed to the altar, crossed herself, picked up the watering can, turned, and detected movement in the shadows. "Is someone there?" she called, and her voice echoed in the empty church.

  He hesitated, then stepped forward. "Can I help you?" she asked.

  "I'm not sure. I last saw you in 1995, when I gave you the message: 'Liam Coogan sends you his blessing and says hold yourself ready.' "

  She stared at him for a moment, obviously shocked. "Oh, dear God. Who are you?"

  "You asked me that last time, and I said: 'Just call me Daniel. I'm Liam's cousin.' You said I didn't sound Irish."

  "You don't, you have a tinge of Yorkshire in your voice."

  "That's not surprising, since I was born in Leeds."

  She shook her head. "I still can't believe it."

  "I phoned you at the presbytery and said I was sitting in a rear pew in the church and asked to see you. I said my time was limited, as I had to catch a plane to Algiers."

  She nodded. "Yes, I remember so well, and the thrill of it."

  "And the disappointment?"

  "Oh, yes, but we can't talk here. Monsignor Murphy is at a dinner tonight. We'll use the sacristy."

  It was warm and enclosed in there, a desk and a couple of chairs, a laptop, religious vestments hanging from the rails, registers of all kinds-marriages, deaths-and a church smell to everything that would never go away.

  She leaned against the wall by the window, arms folded, and he sat opposite. "Tell me about yourself," she said.

  "I'm using an alias at the moment: Daniel Grimshaw."

  "A sound Yorkshire name that suits your voice."

  "My mother was a Coogan from Crossmaglen, and I was a volunteer with the PIRA."

  "So was I, and proud of it."

  "I know. Liam told me about your sleeper cell and how he activated you in 1991. Twelve explosions that resonated in the West End of London for months."

  Her face was glowing. "Great days, they were."

  "Then you went back to waiting? Did that bother you?"

  "It's what sleepers do, Daniel, wait to strike again."

  "And hopefully for the big one. Back then, Liam asked me that if he activate
d you again, would I be your controller, and I said yes. Liam died, of course, from a heart attack, but I'm here now."

  She nodded gravely. "God rest Liam's soul. He was a good man."

  "Were your cell members disappointed not to have a role in the 1996 bombings?"

  "Yes, but at least we had the satisfaction of seeing the British suffer such a great defeat. It's strange, but seeing you like this brings your last visit vividly back to me. We always met weekly in the chapel at Hope of Mary. The day you gave me Liam's message, I called a special meeting and gave them the good news."

  "And how did they take it?"

  "Excitement. Awe. We knelt and recited our own special prayer together."

  " ' Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, we who are ourselves alone'?" Daniel said.

  She was amazed. "But how do you know that?"

  "I just do, as I know the names of those men-Barry, Flynn, Pool, Costello, who changed to Docherty, Cochran, and Murray. A hell of a long time ago. I wouldn't imagine they're still round?"

  "Until two years ago, they all attended our weekly meeting, but unfortunately Barry and Flynn had a severe brush with the law. They were both too handy with a gun. Finally, an armed robbery they took part in went sour. They would have probably gotten seven years if caught, but I used a certain influence I have, obtained false American passports for them and other necessary documentation, and packed them off to the States."

  "And you stay in touch?"

  "On a regular basis. We have a Hope of Mary Hospice and Refuge in New York, too. They are both security men there."

  "And the remaining four?"

  "We meet as we've always done, united by prayer and a common commitment to the PIRA. I was recruited at London University, the others in various ways. Liam Coogan used to arrange trips to training camps in the west of Ireland. The IRA version of a holiday, he used to say. We did that many times over the years. Bonded, you might say."

  "But really only got to do your work with that twelve-bomb jolly in Mayfair in 1991. Was it enough?"

  "It always is, if your resolve is strong and you are committed."

  "But you need more than that, I think, some deep-seated reason, perhaps some great wrong that urges you on."

  "That's true. Take Henry Pool. He's a self-employed private-hire driver. Like you, he had an English father and Irish mother, but her father was murdered by English Black and Tans in 1921 when she was only six months old and her mother fled here to Kilburn. It was a strong motive for him to not exactly care for the English."

  "I shouldn't imagine his mother would ever let him forget it."

  "Is there something wrong with that?" she asked.

  "Not at all. For a ten-year-old child to see her father gunned down by masked intruders in front of her and her mother would, I imagine, be a memory that would last forever."

  Her face was surprisingly calm. "So you know about that? Exactly who are you, Daniel, this half Irishman who claims to have been a member of the Provisional IRA? You not only sound Yorkshire, you look like some prosperous businessman. What on earth would ever have made you join?"

  So he told her all about Rosaleen Coogan.

  Afterwards, she sat down on the other side of the desk from him, her face like stone, her eyes burning, and it was obvious that she accepted the truth of what he had told her.

  "Those foul creatures. God's curse on them for what they did to that poor girl."

  "Some kind of curse on me ever since," Daniel told her. "I've killed a number of times for the Provos and other times for myself." He stood up, put his foot on the chair, and hitched his trousers up, revealing the ankle holster. "The way of the gun has become rather permanent in my life."

  "But you don't regret what you did, you can't!" She banged on the desk with her clenched fist. "Damn all of them."

  And now she was really upset, and Daniel said, "Take it easy. It's not always good for us to let the past intrude."

  "You don't understand. It's brought it all back to me. The night the men with guns smashed their way in and murdered my father. They forced themselves on my mother, two of them. It was only my age saved me."

  Holley, aghast at the horror of it, could only say, "I'm so sorry, girl."

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. "What I need is a drink, and I don't think it a sin in the circumstances to raid Monsignor Murphy's cupboard in search of Communion wine." She found a bottle and two coffee cups and poured a generous measure into each. She handed one to him and drank deeply herself. "Now, tell me everything properly, who you are really and what you're doing here."

  "There's a man named General Charles Ferguson who runs a special security outfit for the Prime Minister. His right-hand man is Sean Dillon, once a top enforcer for the PIRA, and a good one. In 1991, he was in a Serb prison when Ferguson turned up and made him an offer he couldn't refuse: to join him or face a firing squad."

  "So Dillon chose the traitor's path?"

  "You could put it that way."

  She poured more wine for both of them. "There's no other way of putting it. Tell me more-everything."

  "You're quite a man, Daniel," she said an hour later when he was finished. "Probably the most remarkable one I've met in my entire life."

  "So what do you think about the Russians?"

  "A means to an end. I've nothing against them. In the early years of the Troubles, they provided arms for the PIRA on more than one occasion. I know that for a fact."

  "And Charles Ferguson and company?"

  "To hell with him. Over the years, as you tell it, he's been responsible for the death of many of our comrades one way or the other. Major Giles Roper may look like a tragic and romantic hero in his wheelchair, but his exploits in bomb disposal did us great harm."

  "By God, but you're a hard woman, Caitlin."

  "As for Dillon, a damn traitor, and I've no time for him. The fact that his own father was killed by British soldiers should have been bad enough for him."

  "He did great work for the cause for years until Ferguson appeared on the scene."

  "He's the worst kind of turncoat, I can't see it any other way, and these gangster friends of his, the Salters, they've done us great harm also."

  "And then we have Harry Miller?"

  "The Prince of Darkness himself. He appears to have made a hobby out of murdering members of the PIRA for years."

  "His luck is obviously good. His wife's wasn't, but that's the price you pay. What do you think of his sister?" Holley asked her.

  "From what you tell me, she killed a Provo. The kind of upper-class English woman who thinks everything's a jolly jape. She deserves to meet the same end as everyone else."

  "And you really mean that?"

  It was as direct a challenge as he could make. She said, "I'm very old-fashioned, Daniel. I still believe in a United Ireland, and the Peace Process hasn't given us that, so to hell with it. You and your problem, if I can put it that way, mean there's a chance to go active once more and dispose of some very bad people who've done my side nothing but harm."

  "So you're with me on this?"

  "You can depend on it," she said firmly.

  "And what about the others? Can you talk them round?"

  "I don't think I'll have much trouble. Pool has lived on his own since his mother died. Docherty is on his own. He served time as Costello, so I obtained an Irish passport for him as Docherty. He's a drunkard every so often, so no woman will put up with him. Matthew Cochran lives in one lodging home after another since his wife died of breast cancer, and Patrick Murray is a long-distance truck driver. He's never married. Just has one girl after the other. Barry and Flynn, I've already told you about, but, as they're in New York, whatever you're planning won't concern them."

  "An assorted bunch."

  "But committed, Daniel, committed. The oath, our special prayer, the comradeship-all these things make us what we are-and going active again would only affirm it."

  Daniel
said, "I'll take your word on that." He stood and took a Codex and its charger out of his raincoat pocket. "This is an encrypted mobile. I've stuck a tab on it with your number and mine. Memorize them and destroy. Call me anytime, and I'll be in touch with you very soon. When will you speak to your people?"

  "I'll start phoning round tonight. Daniel, it's been marvelous to see you again." She meant it, her eyes shining, and actually shook hands.

  Outside, it was pouring, so he raised his umbrella and walked down the path through the gravestones and effigies of the cemetery, pausing for a moment in the roofed gateway to the street.

  "Dear God," he said softly. "Am I out of my bloody mind or is she?" But there was no answer to that, and he walked down to the main road and hailed a cab.

  It was nine o'clock, and a thought struck him. The Salters and their pub, the Dark Man on Cable Wharf. This could be a good time to check it over. It'd be reasonably busy, so he would be able to blend in with the crowd. His knowledge of London, learned on many visits in the old days, stood him in good stead now. He told the driver to drop him off in Wapping High Street, found a lane with a sign that read "Cable Wharf," and went down.

  There was a new development of flats on one side, decaying warehouses on the other, eager for the builders, much of the area begging to be developed. He moved out of the darkness onto Cable Wharf, and it was interesting and attractive. The other side of the Thames was a panorama of streetlights, the Dark Man to his right, the sound of music drifting up. Beyond, there was what looked like a multistory luxury apartment development, the jetty of the old wharf running out into the river, several boats moored there. Things were busy at the Dark Man if the car park was anything to go by, and he ventured into the bar.

  It was very crowded, a pretty mixed slice of humanity, all ages, men and women, the roar of voices coupled with taped music. It was like a Victorian-themed pub-mirrors, mahogany, and porcelain beer pumps.

  Harry Salter and his nephew, Billy, were familiar to him from pictures, and he saw them sitting in a corner booth, seemingly oblivious to the noise. Holley stayed down at the end of the bar, squeezed against it by those standing around and indifferent to him.