Eye of the Storm

by Jack Higgins

  Dillon paid him and picked up the bags. “Thanks a lot.”

  Clayton opened the door for him. “Have a good show, luv, give ’em hell.”

  “Oh, I will,” Dillon said and he hurried down to the corner, hailed a cab and told the driver to take him back to the hotel.

  When Tania Novikova went down to answer the bell and opened the door to find Gordon Brown there, she knew, by instinct, that something was wrong.

  “What’s this, Gordon? I told you I’d come round to your place.”

  “I must see you, Tania, it’s essential. Something terrible has happened!”

  “Calm down,” she said. “Just take it easy. Come upstairs and tell me all about it.”

  Lane and Mackie were parked at the end of the street and the Inspector was already on the car phone to Ferguson, giving him the address.

  “Sergeant Mackie’s done a quick check at the door, sir. The card says a Miss Tania Novikova.”

  “Oh, dear,” Ferguson said.

  “You know her, sir?”

  “Supposedly a secretary at the Soviet Embassy, Inspector. In fact she’s a captain in the KGB.”

  “That means she’s one of Colonel Yuri Gatov’s people, sir. He runs London Station.”

  “I’m not so sure. Gatov is a Gorbachev man and very pro-West. On the other hand, I always understood the Novikova woman to be to the right of Genghis Khan. I’d be surprised if Gatov knew about this.”

  “Are you going to notify him, sir?”

  “Not yet. Let’s see what she’s got to say first. It’s information we’re after.”

  “Shall we go in, sir?”

  “No, wait for me. I’ll be with you in twenty minutes.”

  Tania peered cautiously through a chink in the curtains. She saw Mackie standing by his car at the end of the street and it was enough. She could smell policemen anywhere in the world, Moscow, Paris, London—it was always the same.

  “Tell me again, Gordon, exactly what happened.”

  Gordon Brown did as he was told and she sat there listening patiently. She nodded when he’d finished. “We were lucky, Gordon, very lucky. Go and make us a cup of coffee in the kitchen. I’ve got a couple of phone calls to make.” She squeezed his hand. “Afterwards we’ll have a very special time together.”

  “Really?” His face brightened and he went out.

  She picked up the phone and called Makeev at his Paris apartment. It rang for quite a time and she was about to put it down when it was picked up at the other end.

  “Josef, it’s Tania.”

  “I was in the shower,” he said. “I’m dripping all over the carpet.”

  “I’ve only got seconds, Josef. I just wanted to say goodbye. I’m blown. My mole was exposed. They’ll be kicking in the door any minute.”

  “My God!” he said. “And Dillon?”

  “He’s safe. All systems go. What that man has planned will set the world on fire.”

  “But you, Tania?”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t let them take me. Goodbye, Josef.”

  She put the phone down, lit a cigarette, then called the hotel and asked for Dillon’s room. He answered at once.

  “It’s Tania,” she said. “We’ve got trouble.”

  He was quite calm. “How bad?”

  “They rumbled my mole, let him go, and the poor idiot came straight here. I smell Special Branch at the end of the street.”

  “I see. What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t be around to tell them anything.

  One thing: They’ll know that Gordon gave me the contents of tonight’s report. He was in the telephone booth in the Ministry canteen when Ferguson arrested him.”

  “I see.”

  “Promise me one thing,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Blow them away, all of them.” The doorbell rang. She said, “I’ve got to go. Luck, Dillon.”

  As she put down the phone, Gordon Brown came in with the coffee. “Was that the door?”

  “Yes. Be an angel, Gordon, and see who it is.”

  He opened the door and started downstairs. Tania took a deep breath. Dying wasn’t difficult. The cause she believed in had always been the most important thing in her life. She stubbed out her cigarette, opened a drawer in the desk, took out a Makarov pistol and shot herself through the right temple.

  Gordon Brown, halfway down the stairs, turned and bounded up, bursting into the room. At the sight of her lying there beside the desk, the pistol still in her right hand, he let out a terrible cry and fell on his knees.

  “Tania, my darling,” he moaned.

  And then he knew what he must do as he heard something heavy crash against the door below. He pried the Makarov from her hand and as he raised it, his own hand was trembling. He took a deep breath to steady himself and pulled the trigger in the same moment that the front door burst open and Lane and Mackie started upstairs, Ferguson behind them.

  There was a small crowd at the end of the street exhibiting the usual public curiosity. Dillon joined in, his collar up, hands in pockets. It started to snow slightly as they opened the rear doors of the ambulance. He watched as the two blanket-covered stretchers were loaded. The ambulance drove away. Ferguson stood on the pavement for a few moments talking to Lane and Mackie. Dillon recognized the Brigadier straight away, had been shown his photo many years previously. Lane and Mackie were obviously policemen.

  After a while, Ferguson got in his car and was driven away, Mackie went into the flat and Lane also drove away. The stratagem was obvious: For Mackie to wait just in case someone turned up. One thing was certain. Tania Novikova was dead and so was the boyfriend, and Dillon knew that thanks to her sacrifice, he was safe.

  He went back to the hotel and phoned Makeev at his flat in Paris. “I’ve got bad news, Josef.”

  “Tania?”

  “How did you know?”

  “She phoned. What’s happened?”

  “She was blown or rather her mole was. She killed herself, Josef, rather than get taken. A dedicated lady.”

  “And the mole? The boyfriend?”

  “Did the same. I’ve just seen the bodies carted out to an ambulance. Ferguson was there.”

  “How will this affect you?”

  “In no way. I’m off to Belfast in the morning to cut off the only chance of a lead they have.”

  “And then?”

  “I’ll amaze you, Josef, and your Arab friend. How does the entire British War Cabinet sound to you?”

  “Dear God, you can’t be serious?”

  “Oh, but I am. I’ll be in touch very soon now.”

  He replaced the phone, put on his jacket and went down to the bar, whistling.

  Ferguson was sitting in a booth in the lounge bar of the pub opposite Kensington Park Gardens and the Soviet Embassy, waiting for Colonel Yuri Gatov. The Russian, when he appeared, looked agitated, a tall, white-haired man in a camel overcoat. He saw Ferguson and hurried over.

  “Charles, I can’t believe it. Tania Novikova dead. Why?”

  “Yuri, you and I have known each other for better than twenty-five years, often as adversaries, but I’ll take a chance on you now, a chance that you really do want to see change in our time and an end to East-West conflict.”

  “But I do, you know that.”

  “Unfortunately, not everyone in the KGB would agree with you and Tania Novikova was one.”

  “She was a hardliner, true, but what are you saying, Charles?”

  So Ferguson told him—Dillon, the attempt on Mrs. Thatcher, Gordon Brown, Brosnan, everything.

  Gatov said. “This IRA wild card intends to attempt the life of the Prime Minister, that’s what you’re telling me, and Tania was involved?”

  “Oh, very directly.”

  “But, Charles, I knew nothing, I swear.”

  “And I believe you, old chap, but she must have had a link with someone. I mean she managed to convey vital information to Dillon in Paris. That�
�s how he knew about Brosnan and so on.”

  “Paris,” Gatov said. “That’s a thought. Did you know she was in Paris for three years before transferring to London? And you know who’s head of Paris Station for the KGB?”

  “Of course, Josef Makeev,” Ferguson said.

  “Anything but a Gorbachev man. Very much of the old guard.”

  “It would explain a great deal,” Ferguson said. “But we’ll never prove it.”

  “True.” Gatov nodded. “But I’ll give him a call anyway, just to worry him.”

  Makeev had not strayed far from the phone and picked it up the moment it rang.

  “Makeev here.”

  “Josef? Yuri Gatov. I’m phoning from London.”

  “Yuri. What a surprise,” Makeev said, immediately wary.

  “I’ve got some distressing news, Josef. Tania, Tania Novikova.”

  “What about her?”

  “She committed suicide earlier this evening along with some boyfriend of hers, a clerk at the Ministry of Defence.”

  “Good heavens.” Makeev tried to sound convincing.

  “He was feeding her classified information. I’ve just had a session with Charles Ferguson of Group Four. You know Charles?”

  “Of course.”

  “I was quite shocked. I must tell you I had no knowledge of Tania’s activities. She worked for you for three years, Josef, so you know her as well as anyone. Have you any thoughts on the matter?”

  “None, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, well, if you can think of anything, let me know.”

  Makeev poured himself a Scotch and went and looked out into the frostbound Paris street. For a wild moment he’d had an impulse to phone Michael Aroun, but what would be the point, and Tania had sounded so certain. Set the world on fire, that had been her phrase.

  He raised his glass. “To you, Dillon,” he said softly. “Let’s see if you can do it.”

  It was almost eleven in the River Room at the Savoy, the band still playing, and Harry Flood, Brosnan and Mary were thinking of breaking up the party when Ferguson appeared at last.

  “If ever I’ve needed a drink I need one now. A Scotch, and a very large one.”

  Flood called a waiter and gave the order and Mary said, “What on earth’s happened?”

  Ferguson gave them a quick résumé of the night’s events. When he was finished, Brosnan said, “It explains a great deal, but the infuriating thing is it gets us no closer to Dillon.”

  “One point I must make,” Ferguson said. “When I arrested Brown in the canteen at the Ministry he was on the phone and he had the report in his hand. I believe it likely he was speaking to the Novikova woman then.”

  “I see what you’re getting at,” Mary said. “You think she, in her turn, may have transmitted the information to Dillon?”

  “Possibly,” Ferguson said.

  “So what are you suggesting?” Brosnan asked. “That Dillon would go to Belfast, too?”

  “Perhaps,” Ferguson said. “If it was important enough.”

  “We’ll just have to take our chances, then.” Brosnan turned to Mary. “Early start tomorrow. We’d better get moving.”

  As they walked through the lounge to the entrance, Brosnan and Ferguson went ahead and stood talking. Mary said to Flood, “You think a lot of him, don’t you?”

  “Martin?” He nodded. “The Vietcong had me in a pit for weeks. When the rains came, it used to fill up with water and I’d have to stand all night so I didn’t drown. Leeches, worms, you name it, and then one day, when it was as bad as it could be, a hand reached down and pulled me out, and it was Martin in a headband, hair to his shoulders and his face painted like an Apache Indian. He’s special people.”

  Mary looked across at Brosnan. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose that just about sums him up.”

  Dillon ordered a taxi to pick him up at six o’clock from the hotel. He was waiting for it on the steps, his case in one hand when it arrived, a briefcase in the other. He was wearing his trenchcoat, suit, striped tie and glasses to fit the Peter Hilton persona, carried the Jersey driving license and the flying license as proof of identity. In the case was a toilet bag and the items he had obtained from Clayton at Covent Garden, all neatly folded. He’d included a towel from the hotel, socks and underpants. It all looked terribly normal and the wig could be easily explained.

  The run to Heathrow was fast at that time in the morning. He went and picked up his ticket at the booking desk, then put his case through and got his seat assignment. He wasn’t carrying a gun. No possible way he could do that, not with the kind of maximum security that operated on the Belfast planes.

  He got a selection of newspapers, went up to the gallery restaurant and ordered a full English breakfast, then he started to work his way through the papers, checking on how the war in the Gulf was doing.

  At Gatwick, there was a light powdering of snow at the side of the runway as the Lear jet lifted off. As they leveled off, Mary said, “How do you feel?”

  “I’m not sure,” Brosnan said. “It’s been a long time since I was in Belfast. Liam Devlin, Anne-Marie. So long ago.”

  “And Sean Dillon?”

  “Don’t worry, I wasn’t forgetting him, I could never do that.”

  He turned and stared far out into the distance as the Lear jet lifted up out of the clouds and turned north-west.

  Although Dillon wasn’t aware of it, Brosnan and Mary had already landed and were on their way to the Europa Hotel when his flight touched down at Aldergrove airport outside Belfast. There was a half-hour wait for the baggage, and when he got his case, he made for the green line and followed a stream of people through. Customs officers stopped some, but he wasn’t one of them, and within five minutes he was outside and into a taxi.

  “English, are you?” the driver asked.

  Dillon slipped straight into his Belfast accent. “And what makes you think that?”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry,” the driver said. “Anywhere special?”

  “I’d like a hotel in the Falls Road,” Dillon said. “Somewhere near Craig Street.”

  “You won’t get much round there.”

  “Scenes of my youth,” Dillon told him. “I’ve been working in London for years. Just in town for business overnight. Thought I’d like to see the old haunts.”

  “Suit yourself. There’s the Deepdene, but it’s not much, I’m telling you.”

  A Saracen armored car passed then, and as they turned into a main road, they saw an Army patrol. “Nothing changes,” Dillon said.

  “Sure and most of those lads weren’t even born when the whole thing started,” the driver told him. “I mean, what are we in for? Another Hundred Years’ War?”

  “God knows,” Dillon said piously and opened his paper.

  The driver was right. The Deepdene wasn’t much. A tall Victorian building in a mean side street off the Falls Road. He paid off the driver, went in and found himself in a shabby hall with a worn carpet. When he tapped the bell on the desk, a stout, motherly woman emerged.

  “Can I help you, dear?”

  “A room,” he said. “Just the one night.”

  “That’s fine.” She pushed a register at him and took a key down. “Number nine on the first floor.”

  “Shall I pay now?”

  “Sure and there’s no need for that. Don’t I know a gentleman when I see one?”

  He went up the stairs, found the door and unlocked it. The room was as shabby as he’d expected, a single brass bedstead, a wardrobe. He put his case on the table and went out again, locking the door, then went the other way along the corridor and found the back stairs. He opened the door at the bottom into an untidy backyard. The lane beyond backed onto incredibly derelict houses, but it didn’t depress him in the slightest. This was an area he knew like the back of his hand, a place where he’d led the British Army one hell of a dance in his day. He moved along the alley, a smile on his face, remembering, and turned into the Falls Road.

&nbs
p; ELEVEN

  “I REMEMBER THEM opening this place in seventy-one,” Brosnan said to Mary. He was standing at the window of the sixth-floor room of the Europa Hotel in Great Victoria Street next to the railway station. “For a while it was a prime target for IRA bombers, the kind who’d rather blow up anything rather than nothing.”

  “Not you, of course.”

  There was a slight, sarcastic edge which he ignored. “Certainly not. Devlin and I appreciated the bar too much. We came in all the time.”

  She laughed in astonishment. “What nonsense. Are you seriously asking me to believe that with the British Army chasing you all over Belfast you and Devlin sat in the Europa’s bar?”

  “Also the restaurant on occasion. Come on, I’ll show you. Better take our coats, just in case we get a message while we’re down there.”

  As they were descending in the lift, she said, “You’re not armed, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Good, I’d rather keep it that way.”

  “How about you?”

  “Yes,” she said calmly. “But that’s different. I’m a serving officer of Crown Forces in an Active Service zone.”

  “What are you carrying?”

  She opened her handbag and gave him a brief glimpse of the weapon. It was not much larger than the inside of her hand, a small automatic.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Rather rare. An old Colt .25. I picked it up in Africa.”

  “Hardly an elephant gun.”

  “No, but it does the job.” She smiled bleakly. “As long as you can shoot, that is.”

  The lift doors parted and they went across the lounge.

  Dillon walked briskly along the Falls Road. Nothing had changed, nothing at all. It was just like the old days. He twice saw RUC patrols backed up by soldiers and once, two armored troop carriers went by, but no one paid any attention. He finally found what he wanted in Craig Street about a mile from the hotel. It was a small, double-fronted shop with steel shutters on the windows. The three brass balls of a pawnbroker hung over the entrance with the sign Patrick Macey.