Eye of the Storm

by Jack Higgins

  He packed the things carefully for her. “I’ll put them on Professor Brosnan’s account as usual.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He opened the door for her. “A pleasure, mademoiselle.”

  She started back along the frosty pavement feeling suddenly unaccountably cheerful.

  “Jesus, Martin, and the years have been good to you.” Dillon pulled the glove off his right hand with his teeth and found a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. Brosnan, a yard from the table drawer and the Browning High Power, made a cautious move. “Naughty.” Dillon gestured with the Walther. “Sit on the arm of the sofa and put your hands behind your head.”

  Brosnan did as he was told. “You’re enjoying yourself, Sean.”

  “I am so. How’s that old sod Liam Devlin these days?”

  “Alive and well. Still in Kilrea outside Dublin, but then you know that.”

  “And that’s a fact.”

  “The job at Valenton, Mrs. Thatcher,” Brosnan said. “Very sloppy, Sean. I mean, to go with a couple of bums like the Joberts. You really must be losing your touch.”

  “You think so?”

  “Presumably it was a big payday?”

  “Very big,” Dillon said.

  “I hope you got your money in advance.”

  “Very funny.” Dillon was beginning to get annoyed.

  “One thing does intrigue me,” Brosnan said. “What you want with me after all these years?”

  “Oh, I know all about you,” Dillon said. “How they’re pumping you for information about me. Hernu, the Action Service colonel, that old bastard Ferguson and this girl side-kick of his, this Captain Tanner. Nothing I don’t know. I’ve got the right friends, you see, Martin, the kind of people who can access anything.”

  “Really, and were they happy when you failed with Mrs. Thatcher?”

  “Just a tryout, that, just a perhaps. I’ve promised them an alternative target. You know how this game works.”

  “I certainly do, and one thing I do know is that the IRA doesn’t pay for hits. Never has.”

  “Who said I was working for the IRA?” Dillon grinned. “Plenty of other people with enough reason to hit the Brits these days.”

  Brosnan saw it then, or thought he did. “Baghdad?”

  “Sorry, Martin, you can go to your Maker puzzling over that one for all eternity.”

  Brosnan said, “Just indulge me. A big hit for Saddam. I mean, the war stinks. He needs something badly.”

  “Christ, you always did run on.”

  “President Bush stays back in Washington, so that leaves the Brits. You fail on the best known woman in the world, so what’s next? The Prime Minister?”

  “Where you’re going it doesn’t matter, son.”

  “But I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Damn you, Brosnan, you always were the clever bastard!” Dillon exploded angrily.

  “You’ll never get away with it,” Brosnan said.

  “You think so? I’ll just have to prove you wrong, then.”

  “As I said, you must be losing your touch, Sean. This bungled attempt to get Mrs. Thatcher. Reminds me of a job dear old Frank Barry pulled back in seventy-nine when he tried to hit the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, when he was passing through Saint-Étienne. I’m rather surprised you used the same ground plan, but then you always did think Barry was special, didn’t you?”

  “He was the best.”

  “And at the end of things, very dead,” Brosnan said.

  “Yes, well, whoever got him must have given it to him in the back,” Dillon said.

  “Not true,” Brosnan told him. “We were face-to-face as I recall.”

  “You killed Frank Barry?” Dillon whispered.

  “Well, somebody had to,” Brosnan said. “It’s what usually happens to mad dogs. I was working for Ferguson, by the way.”

  “You bastard.” Dillon raised the Walther, took careful aim and the door opened and Anne-Marie walked in with the shopping bags.

  Dillon swung toward her. Brosnan called, “Look out!” and went down and Dillon fired twice at the sofa.

  Anne-Marie screamed, not in terror, but in fury, dropped her bags and rushed at him. Dillon tried to fend her off, staggered back through the French windows. Inside, Brosnan crawled toward the table and reached for the drawer. Anne-Marie scratched at Dillon’s face. He cursed, pushing her away from him. She fell against the balustrade and went over backwards.

  Brosnan had the drawer open now, knocked the lamp on the table sideways, plunging the room into darkness, and reached for the Browning. Dillon fired three times very fast and ducked for the door. Brosnan fired twice, too late. The door banged. He got to his feet, ran to the terrace and looked over. Anne-Marie lay on the pavement below. He turned and ran through the drawing room into the hall, got the door open and went downstairs two at a time. It was snowing when he went out on the steps. Of Dillon there was no sign, but the night porter was kneeling beside Anne-Marie.

  He looked up. “There was a man, Professor, with a gun. He ran across the road.”

  “Never mind.” Brosnan sat down and cradled her in his arms. “An ambulance, and hurry.”

  The snow was falling quite fast now. He held her close and waited.

  Ferguson, Mary and Max Hernu were having a thoroughly enjoyable time in the magnificent dining room at the Ritz. They were already on their second bottle of Louis Roederer Crystal champagne and the brigadier was in excellent form.

  “Who was it who said that when a man tires of champagne, he’s tired of life?” he demanded.

  “He must certainly have been a Frenchman,” Hernu told him.

  “Very probably, but I think the time has come when we should toast the provider of this feast.” He raised his glass. “To you, Mary, my love.”

  She was about to respond when she saw, in the mirror on the wall, Inspector Savary at the entrance speaking to the headwaiter. “I think you’re being paged, Colonel,” she told Hernu.

  He glanced round. “What’s happened now?” He got up, threaded his way through the tables and approached Savary. They talked for a few moments, glancing toward the table.

  Mary said, “I don’t know about you, sir, but I get a bad feeling.”

  Before he could reply, Hernu came back to them, his face grave. “I’m afraid I’ve got some rather ugly news.”

  “Dillon?” Ferguson asked.

  “He paid a call on Brosnan a short while ago.”

  “What happened?” Ferguson demanded. “Is Brosnan all right?”

  “Oh, yes. There was some gun play. Dillon got away.” He sighed heavily. “But Mademoiselle Audin is at the Hôpital St-Louis. From what Savary tells me, it doesn’t look good.”

  Brosnan was in the waiting room on the second floor when they arrived, pacing up and down smoking a cigarette. His eyes were wild, such a rage there as Mary Tanner had never seen.

  She was the first to reach him. “I’m so sorry.”

  Ferguson said, “What happened?”

  Briefly, coldly, Brosnan told them. As he finished, a tall, graying man in surgeon’s robes came in. Brosnan turned to him quickly. “How is she, Henri?” He said to the others, “Professor Henri Dubois, a colleague of mine at the Sorbonne.”

  “Not good, my friend,” Dubois told him. “The injuries to the left leg and spine are bad enough, but even more worrying is the skull fracture. They’re just preparing her for surgery now. I’ll operate straight away.”

  He went out. Hernu put an arm around Brosnan’s shoulders. “Let’s go and get some coffee, my friend. I think it’s going to be a long night.”

  “But I only drink tea,” Brosnan said, his face bone white, his eyes dark. “Never could stomach coffee. Isn’t that the funniest thing you ever heard?”

  There was a small café for visitors on the ground floor. Not many customers at that time of night. Savary had gone off to handle the police side of the business; the others sat at a table in the corner.

&nb
sp; Ferguson said, “I know you’ve got other things on your mind, but is there anything you can tell us? Anything he said to you?”

  “Oh, yes—plenty. He’s working for somebody and definitely not the IRA. He’s being paid for this one and from the way he boasted, it’s big money.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “When I suggested Saddam Hussein he got angry. My guess is you wouldn’t have to look much further. An interesting point. He knew about all of you.”

  “All of us?” Hernu said. “You’re sure?”

  “Oh, yes, he boasted about that.” He turned to Ferguson. “Even knew about you and Captain Tanner being in town to pump me for information, that’s how he put it. He said he had the right friends.” He frowned, trying to remember the phrase exactly. “The kind of people who can access anything.”

  “Did he, indeed.” Ferguson glanced at Hernu. “Rather worrying, that.”

  “And you’ve got another problem. He spoke of the Thatcher affair as being just a tryout, that he had an alternative target.”

  “Go on,” Ferguson said.

  “I managed to get him to lose his temper by needling him about what a botch-up the Valenton thing was. I think you’ll find he intends to have a crack at the British Prime Minister.”

  Mary said, “Are you certain?”

  “Oh, yes.” He nodded. “I baited him about that, told him he’d never get away with it. He lost his temper. Said he’d just have to prove me wrong.”

  Ferguson looked at Hernu and sighed. “So now we know. I’d better go along to the Embassy and alert all our people in London.”

  “I’ll do the same here,” Hernu said. “After all, he has to leave the country some time. We’ll alert all airports and ferries. The usual thing, but discreetly, of course.”

  They got up and Brosnan said, “You’re wasting your time. You won’t get him, not in any usual way. You don’t even know what you’re looking for.”

  “Perhaps, Martin,” Ferguson said. “But we’ll just have to do our best, won’t we?”

  Mary Tanner followed them to the door. “Look, if you don’t need me, Brigadier, I’d like to stay.”

  “Of course, my dear. I’ll see you later.”

  She went to the counter and got two cups of tea. “The French are wonderful,” she said. “They always think we’re crazy to want milk in our tea.”

  “Takes all sorts,” he said and offered her a cigarette. “Ferguson told me how you got that scar.”

  “Souvenir of old Ireland.” She shrugged.

  He was desperately trying to think of something to say. “What about your family? Do they live in London?”

  “My father was a professor of surgery at Oxford. He died some time ago. Cancer. My mother’s still alive. Has an estate in Herefordshire.”

  “Brothers and sisters?”

  “I had one brother. Ten years older than me. He was shot dead in Belfast in nineteen eighty. Sniper got him from the Divis Flats. He was a Marine Commando Captain.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “A long time ago.”

  “It can’t make you particularly well disposed toward a man like me.”

  “Ferguson explained to me how you became involved with the IRA after Vietnam.”

  “Just another bloody Yank sticking his nose in, is that what you think?” He sighed. “It seemed the right thing to do at the time, it really did, and don’t let’s pretend. I was up to my neck in it for five long and bloody years.”

  “And how do you see it now?”

  “Ireland?” he laughed harshly. “The way I feel I’d see it sink into the sea with pleasure.” He got up. “Come on, let’s stretch our legs,” and he led the way out.

  Dillon was in the kitchen in the barge heating the kettle when the phone rang. Makeev said, “She’s in the Hôpital St-Louis. We’ve had to be discreet in our inquiries, but from what my informant can ascertain, she’s on the critical list.”

  “Sod it,” Dillon said. “If only she’d kept her hands to herself.”

  “This could cause a devil of a fuss. I’d better come and see you.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Dillon poured hot water into a basin, then he went into the bathroom. First he took off his shirt, then he got a briefcase from the cupboard under the sink. It was exactly as Brosnan had forecast. Inside he had a range of passports, all of himself suitably disguised. There was also a first-class makeup kit.

  Over the years he had traveled backwards and forwards to England many times, frequently through Jersey in the Channel Islands. Jersey was British soil. Once there, a British citizen didn’t need a passport for the flight to the English mainland. So, a French tourist holidaying in Jersey. He selected a passport in the name of Henri Jacaud, a car salesman from Rennes.

  To go with it, he found a Jersey driving license in the name of Peter Hilton with an address in the Island’s main town of Saint Helier. Jersey driving licenses, unlike the usual British mainland variety, carry a photo. It was always useful to have positive identification on you, he’d learned that years ago. Nothing better than for people to be able to check the face with a photo, and the photos on the driving license and on the French passport were identical. That was the whole point.

  He dissolved some black hair dye into the warm water and started to brush it into his fair hair. Amazing what a difference it made, just changing the hair color. He blow-dried it and brilliantined it back in place, then he selected, from a range in his case, a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, slightly tinted. He closed his eyes, thinking about the role, and when he opened them again, Henri Jacaud stared out of the mirror. It was quite extraordinary. He closed the case, put it back in the cupboard, pulled on his shirt and went into the stateroom carrying the passport and the driving license.

  At that precise moment Makeev came down the companionway. “Good God!” he said. “For a moment I thought it was someone else.”

  “But it is,” Dillon said. “Henri Jacaud, car salesman from Rennes on his way to Jersey for a winter break. Hydrofoil from Saint-Malo.” He held up the driving license. “Who is also Jersey resident Peter Hilton, accountant in Saint Helier.”

  “You don’t need a passport to get to London?”

  “Not if you’re a Jersey resident; it’s British territory. The driving license just puts a face to me. Always makes people feel happier. Makes them feel they know who you are, even the police.”

  “What happened tonight, Sean? What really happened?”

  “I decided the time had come to take care of Brosnan. Come on, Josef, he knows me too damned well. Knows me in a way no one else does and that could be dangerous.”

  “I can see that. A clever one, the professor.”

  “There’s more to it than that, Josef. He understands how I make my moves, how I think. He’s the same kind of animal as I am. We inhabited the same world, and people don’t change. No matter how much he thinks he has, he’s still the same underneath, the same man who was the most feared enforcer the IRA had in the old days.”

  “So you decided to eliminate him?”

  “It was an impulse. I was passing his place, saw the woman leaving. He called to her. The way it sounded I thought she was gone for the night, so I took a chance and went up the scaffolding.”

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, I had the drop on him.”

  “But didn’t kill him?”

  Dillon laughed, went out to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of Krug and two glasses. As he uncorked it he said, “Come on, Josef, face-to-face after all those years. There were things to be said.”

  “You didn’t tell him who you were working for?”

  “Of course not,” Dillon lied cheerfully and poured the champagne. “What do you take me for?”

  He toasted Makeev, who said, “I mean, if he knew you had an alternative target, that you intended to go for Major . . .” He shrugged. “That would mean that Ferguson would know. It would render your task in London impossible. Aroun, I’m sure
, would want to abort the whole business.”

  “Well he doesn’t know.” Dillon drank some more champagne. “So Aroun can rest easy. After all, I want that second million. I checked with Zurich, by the way. The first million has been deposited.”

  Makeev shifted uncomfortably. “Of course. So, when do you intend to leave?”

  “Tomorrow or the next day. I’ll see. Meanwhile something you can organize for me. This Tania Novikova in London. I’ll need her help.”

  “No problem.”

  “First, my father had a second cousin, a Belfast man living in London called Danny Fahy.”

  “IRA?”

  “Yes, but not active. A deep cover man. Brilliant with his hands. Worked in light engineering. Could turn his hand to anything. I used him in nineteen eighty-one when I was doing a few jobs for the organization in London. In those days he lived at number ten Tithe Street in Kilburn. I want Novikova to trace him.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes, I’ll need somewhere to stay. She can organize that for me, too. She doesn’t live in the Embassy I suppose?”

  “No, she has a flat off the Bayswater Road.”

  “I wouldn’t want to stay there, not on a regular basis. She could be under surveillance. Special Branch at Scotland Yard have a habit of doing that with employees of the Soviet Embassy, isn’t that so?”

  “Oh, it’s not like the old days.” Makeev smiled. “Thanks to that fool Gorbachev, we’re all supposed to be friends these days.”

  “I’d still prefer to stay somewhere else. I’ll contact her at her flat, no more than that.”

  “There is one problem,” Makeev said. “As regards hardware, explosives, weapons, anything like that you might need. I’m afraid she won’t be able to help you there. A handgun perhaps, but no more. As I mentioned when I first told you about her, her boss, Colonel Yuri Gatov, the commander of KGB station in London, is a Gorbachev man, and very well disposed to our British friends.”

  “That’s all right,” Dillon said. “I have my own contacts for that kind of thing, but I will need more working capital. If I am checked going through Customs on the Jersey to London flight, I couldn’t afford to be caught with large sums of money in my briefcase.”