The Midnight Bell

by Jack Higgins

IN THE RESTAURANT, Hannah was seated at the white Bechstein, working her way through some favorites, when she was shocked by the sound of angry voices outside and sudden gunfire. Everyone in the room sprang to their feet, Harry first to the French windows of the terrace that revealed the melee in the courtyard. McGuire, having fired three or four shots in the air, had departed.

  Two men had also cleared off, which left five determined and very drunk individuals with fence posts in their hands to be used as crude clubs as Harry, Tad, Dillon, and Holley faced them.

  The leader, a red-haired man with a bloated face, raised his fence post high as he stood behind the Aston Martin. “I’ll show you what I think of this car.”

  Dillon drew his Colt on the instant and shot the lobe off the man’s right ear. The man cried out, dropping his post, and so did the others. Dillon approached the man, took out a handkerchief, and gave it to him.

  “Hold that against it. Try your stupidity again and I’ll kill you.” He turned to Harry. “Get Fernando to pack them into one of your vans, take them downtown, and drop them at one of the hospitals. Let’s get on with the festivities, shall we? I could do with another glass of champagne.”

  —

  UNAWARE OF EVENTS at Harry’s Place, George Moon and Harold sat at the kitchen table in the pub dressed in their oilskins and drinking their second hot toddy. The rain pounded down, the wind that had stirred up rattling the windows. There was a reluctance to move on the part of both of them and even more reluctance on the part of George Moon to answer his mobile when it rang.

  The Master said, “A night for farce or villainy, it would seem. It was a total disaster at Harry’s Place; Barry McGuire and his men dispersed. No reply when I try calling him. Remember that line about the Scarlet Pimpernel, is he in heaven or is he in hell? In this case, I suppose it’s hell.”

  “Look, this whole affair has been a disaster,” Moon said. “It’s nobody’s fault. Let’s just regroup and think of a new plan.”

  “A new plan? Oh, my dear Mr. Moon. If I want, I can have you kidnapped and deposited in a Middle Eastern prison, where you will share a cell with fifteen people. Should I do that?”

  And it was Harold who intervened, crying hoarsely, “For God’s sake, shut up, George, and let’s get on with the rest of what we’re supposed to do.”

  “How sensible,” the Master said. “I suggest you do exactly that, or you will come to regret it very, very much.”

  He was gone, and Moon stood up wearily. “Nothing to be done except go.”

  “Exactly,” Harold said. “So come on. No point in taking that jerry can of petrol with us. Not much chance of a fire in this weather, but I’ve brought this just in case we meet anybody.”

  The weapon he held was an Israeli Uzi submachine gun.

  “An ugly weapon,” Moon said. “But I suppose that sometimes there’s no choice.”

  They went out into the storm and descended the steps to the jetty, where the motor launch was jerking against the chains, the inflatable bobbing beside her. They stepped in, Harold cast off, and Moon switched on the engine, which responded with a deep and hungry roar, their lights cutting into the darkness as they forged ahead.

  —

  BARRY MCGUIRE HAD ARRIVED after a long walk on foot, his light overcoat soaked and useless for such weather. From the pub, he had seen them boarding the inflatable in the pool of light from the single lamp standard on the jetty. He started down the steps, shouting, but the inflatable was already turning away.

  He descended to the bottom of the steps, cursing, approached the door of the motor launch, tried stamping at it without success, so he gave in, went up the steps to the pub, and had better success with an assault on the kitchen door.

  It was warm in there, and he struggled out of his sodden overcoat and jacket; went to the bar, where he purloined a bottle of whiskey; and returned to the kitchen to sit by the ancient potbellied stove in which a fire burned.

  He sat there, enjoying the heat, and suddenly noticed a felling axe propped in a corner behind the stove, reached for it, weighing it in one hand, wondering how long the door to the motor launch would stand up to it. Well, he’d soon see.

  —

  IN GOGGLES AND HOOD against the rain, George Moon loved every minute of piloting the inflatable. Strange in a man who was a timid soul in so many ways, yet he could respond to every demand of this craft and always had done.

  Other boats did pass by, but not many, for it was black and dirty enough to encourage most folks to stay home, and there was the rumble of thunder to go with the rain now.

  On the Linda Jones, Billy and Hasim drank coffee and waited, and it was Billy who suddenly said, “They’re coming.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Twelve or fifteen years of doing this kind of thing with a gentleman called Sean Dillon, a grand master of the art of skullduggery.”

  “You think a lot of him, don’t you?”

  “I sure do. I was a real bad guy when I was your age. I’d been to prison twice, just a small-time hoodlum, and Harry couldn’t control me.”

  “And Dillon did?”

  “Absolutely. He made me face the error of my ways, all right.” He raised a hand. “Listen. They are coming now.” He took a Colt .25 from an inside pocket and handed it over. “You’ve been shown what to do with one of these on the firing range at Holland Park.”

  “And what about you?” Hasim said.

  “Oh, I’ve got one as well, but they’ll be here in a couple of minutes, so we’ll surprise them.” He switched on the stern lights of the Linda Jones, and as Moon did the same to his engine, the inflatable drifted in.

  Hasim was already holding the Colt at waist level, and Billy was drawing his. “You can stop right there, Moon,” he shouted.

  Harold pulled out the Uzi, and Billy slipped on the wet deck, his shot going wide as the other man’s bullet sliced across the top of his left shoulder.

  Harold raised the Uzi for a second shot, and Hasim fired quickly, catching him in the chest, knocking him back into the well of the inflatable, and Moon revved up his engine, swung the inflatable around, and sped away.

  “Oh, God, it hurts,” Harold moaned. “Get me back to the pub.” And Moon, terrified in a way he had never been before in his life, tried to control the bouncing inflatable.

  —

  “YOU’RE SHOT,” Hasim said to Billy, who was taking an American battle pack from his pocket, opening it with his teeth, and tightening it in place.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Top speed, Hasim, get after them.” And he leaned forward, clutching the grab rail, conscious of the severe pain of his wound but denying it. “They can be going to only one place.”

  A moment later, the engine stopped dead, and Hasim cursed and started to go through the checklist in his head.

  —

  HAROLD COULD NO LONGER STAND and had slumped onto the rear bench, clutching his chest, blood oozing through his fingers. Moon coasted in, scrambling out and tying up the inflatable at the bottom of the stone steps leading up to the jetty. He gave an arm to Harold, and with great difficulty, they made it, but it was apparent that the steps up to the pub were an impossibility, so Moon took out his key and unlocked the cabin door of the motor launch.

  “You need to lie down, love,” he said to Harold. “You wait here, and I’ll find you a doctor.”

  “Waste of time,” Harold said. “I’m dying and something is wrong here. The boat is rolling all over the place. Why is that?”

  “Because somebody seems to have cut the chains,” Moon said. “We’ve only got a single line holding us in. Rather dangerous in weather like this.”

  The door to the saloon was flung open, and McGuire stepped inside, holding his Belgian Leon automatic at the ready.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to get back. The Master had words with me.
I must say you look in a damn bad way, Harold.”

  “He’s dying, poor soul,” Moon said. “A young Muslim boy shot him. Mind you, Harold managed to shoot Billy Salter.”

  “Well, the only thing I’m interested in is the secret safe somewhere on this boat that’s crammed with money.”

  “It’s a lie,” Harold said.

  “And even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t tell you,” Moon added.

  McGuire leaned forward, poked with his gun at Harold’s left kneecap, and pulled the trigger. Harold didn’t cry out, only slumped, and Moon said, “What a cruel man you are.”

  “Oh, that’s nothing to what you’ll get if you don’t show me where the bloody safe is damn quick.”

  “No need to get nasty,” Moon said. He got up, went to the old Victorian desk, opened the secret drawer, and turned with the Walter PPK in his hand. “No cash, you bastard, but you can settle for this.”

  Moon pulled the trigger; McGuire did the same as he was hurled backward by the force of the PPK, his own bullet striking Moon between the eyes, knocking him back against Harold so that they tumbled to the floor together.

  It was perhaps ten minutes later that the other inflatable coasted in and discovered the carnage and Hasim said, “What happened here?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Billy said. “It just did.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “If we were Vikings, we’d burn the boat. We are not, but we can open the seacocks and send them below.”

  “If that’s what you’d like, but you’re not fit to do that. I’ll handle it, and you go and wait in the inflatable,” which Billy did, suddenly more tired than he had ever been, Hasim coming down the steps and the Moonglow already settling in her last resting place fifty feet below.

  Hasim started the engine and turned the inflatable toward Harry’s Place.

  Billy said, “So you’ve killed your first man.”

  “He was trying to kill us. No problem. He shot you and was going to shoot you again.”

  “Dora won’t be pleased.”

  “She’ll have to get used it. I’d like to be like you and work for MI5. I know I haven’t had a fancy schooling, but my Arabic is fluent. Do you think they’d be interested in me?”

  “Hasim, they’d grab you with both hands.”

  “Well, that’s what I want, but never mind for now. What you need is Rosedene and Professor Bellamy. Your face is wet with sweat, so let’s get you back to Harry’s Place.”

  —

  THEIR ARRIVAL WAS MET with dismay when the circumstances were made clear. Roper, who was titular head of operations at Holland Park, took it upon himself to have Billy immediately placed in Bellamy’s charge for, as the professor pointed out, it was the fifth occasion in fifteen years of service that Billy had suffered a gunshot wound.

  As Bellamy said to Roper, “You of all people, suffering as you have done over many years, should appreciate more than most human beings that there is a limit to the amount of violent trauma any individual can take, and Billy Salter is only thirty-five years of age.”

  “And seems more concerned about young Hasim being forced to kill for the first time at nineteen,” Roper pointed out.

  “A brave young man, who I understand has his eye on MI5. Do you think this likely?”

  “I imagine so. His fluency in Arabic alone makes him invaluable.”

  “Then I would have thought that Dr. Ali Sharif and his people at Tenby Street safe house might provide what he’s looking for. This won’t give him a problem with the Salters at the Dark Man?” Bellamy asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Roper said. “They are the only family he knows. Can I ask how long Billy will be hospitalized?”

  “Five or six weeks with appropriate therapy.”

  Roper laughed. “Well, he won’t like that.”

  “Well, he’ll have to. Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. Long overdue. How’s your health? Any problems?”

  “Oh, fine,” Roper told him. “Except that I’d like to have various new bits and pieces, but as you aren’t Dr. Frankenstein, I know it is impossible.”

  Bellamy said, “Giles, in all my years of experience in the medical profession, you’re the bravest man I’ve ever known.”

  “Come off it, Charles, now you’re trying to flatter me.”

  “Of course I am, old lad,” Bellamy told him, “but now you’ll have to excuse me. Duty calls,” and he moved on.

  —

  LATER, TONY DOYLE, Hannah, and Sara were in the computer room when Roper’s Codex came to life and the Master’s voice echoed around the room.

  “Lieutenant colonel now,” he told Roper. “My sincere congratulations. I believe you’re my favorite adversary.”

  “And that really does worry me,” Roper told him.

  “To be honest, I have a fondness for you all. George Moon and his cousin Harold were stupid people who deserved what they got, and Barry McGuire, a murderous thug. Billy Salter has always killed with style, and Hasim is set to follow in his footsteps. MI5 will be delighted to have him.”

  “All right, mister,” Hannah called. “You’re supposed to be able to tell us everything, but most of the time you’re talking about things we already know.”

  “My dear girl, here goes. With the support of the White House, President Jake Cazalet is about to be named to chair a committee based in New York to investigate the spread of ISIS in the Western world. Both Johnson and Ferguson will be going over for it, and Lieutenant Colonel Roper will then be in charge of Holland Park. Have I missed anything out?”

  Hannah said, “Giles, is that true?”

  “Not as far as I know, but I’ve a feeling it’s going to be.”

  “Excellent,” the Master said. “I’ve told you that our information service is superior to the CIA’s, but you won’t listen. But never mind. We will speak again, I’m sure.”

  Sara said, “Can’t you speak to Ferguson, Giles? If it’s true, we’re all going to be affected. I think we’re entitled to know.”

  “I expect he’ll do it in his own good time, but protocol is everything to old-timers like him. I’ll see what Blake has to say when I ring him.”

  Which he did, starting with the obvious inquiry when Blake answered. “How’s Alice getting on?”

  “Well, it has only been a few days, remember, and from what I understand, it’s going to be a pretty drawn-out process. I’ve spoken to her several times and she’s cheerful enough.”

  “That’s good. Of course, you’ll be able to visit her when you go over for Cazalet’s ISIS committee.”

  There was a pause, then Blake said, “Who the hell told you that?”

  Sara cut in. “The Master, Blake. Hannah and I were sitting here when he phoned Giles.”

  “This is a breach of security on a monumental scale,” Blake told her. “I must discuss it with General Ferguson,” and he switched off.

  “Well, that’s put the cat amongst the pigeons,” Hannah said, and Roper’s phone system positively rattled.

  Ferguson said, “It’s outrageous the way this bloody man keeps popping up. How in the hell does he do it? A Cabinet decision made at the highest level, not even announced in the press or BBC, and here we have him cheerfully calling you, Giles, and passing the time of day.”

  “Having said that, the important question is where does he get his information from, General.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to try harder to find out. Having said that, yes, it’s true that Blake, President Cazalet, and I depart for New York tomorrow. You, Lieutenant Colonel Roper, are now in command at Holland Park. Major Gideon, you’re number two and I wish you well.”

  Sara said, “As we do you, General, and every success in New York.” But by then, Ferguson had gone and there was only silence.

  “There goes an angry man,” Ha
nnah said.

  “You can understand why.” Sara shrugged. “When Ferguson was a young subaltern, war was a magnificent game played according to the rules. My fifteen years in the army were different. Definitely no rules in Ireland, or Bosnia and Kosovo, and Afghanistan could be hell on earth. The most unbelievably awful game in the world.”

  “Then why play it?” Hannah asked.

  “Because of a fascination that’s been there since Roman times and beyond. It makes the rest of life incredibly boring,” Sara told her.

  “Which it probably is for most people.”

  “So much more sensible to go and get yourself blown up,” Roper said. “I can really recommend that.”

  “So what do we do about the Master?” Hannah demanded.

  “That’s the wrong question,” Roper said. “The question should be: What is he doing about us? That’s his game, you see.”

  —

  AND HE WAS PLAYING it now, calling up Hans Weber at Charnley, who immediately recognized the voice and was actually pleased to hear from him.

  “How’s business?” the Master asked.

  “I’m making a living. Plenty of private pilots are happy to find a home for their plane and the chance to fly. What’s the word on the Dakota flights?”

  “There’s no future trying to make a living from selling religious artifacts. Even thieves recognize it is an affront to Islam.”

  “No longer a future for Havoc, then,” Weber said. “That first and only Dakota flight from Charnley. All that Islamic stuff from Timbuktu. I couldn’t possibly meet the demand with one flight filled with ancient books and manuscripts. Every dealer in London and Paris was begging for more, and then MI5 stepped in. I thought I was going to end up in the Tower of London.”

  “You got off lightly, I think,” the Master said.

  “I’m sure of it. I still have the money in my bank account, and it’s a lot.”

  “The Intelligence Act says you may be arrested and imprisoned as the judge advocate sees fit.”

  “How long for?”

  “As seems appropriate. Thirty years is common.”

  “Which means they’ll keep me because I may be useful.”