Eye of the Storm

by Jack Higgins

  “Because the bastard cheated me. Because he wouldn’t pay his debts.”

  They turned and found Mary at the door, Dillon behind her, the Walther in his left hand, the briefcase in the other. Brosnan raised the Browning. Dillon said, “On the floor and kick it over, Martin, or she dies. You know I mean it.”

  Brosnan put the Browning down carefully then kicked it across the parquet floor.

  “Good,” Dillon said. “That’s much better.” He pushed Mary toward them and sent the Browning sliding into the outer hall with the toe of his boot.

  “Aroun we recognize, but as a matter of interest, who was this one?” Brosnan indicated Makeev.

  “Colonel Josef Makeev, KGB, Paris Station. He was the fella that got me into this. A hardliner who didn’t like Gorbachev or what he’s been trying to do.”

  “There’s another body in the study,” Mary told Brosnan.

  “An Iraqi Intelligence captain named Ali Rashid, Aroun’s minder,” Dillon said.

  “Gun for sale, is that what it’s come down to, Sean?” Brosnan nodded to Aroun. “Why did you really kill him?”

  “I told you, because he wouldn’t pay his debts. A matter of honor, Martin. I always keep my word, you know that. He didn’t. How in the hell did you find me?”

  “A lady called Myra Harvey had you followed last night. That led us to Cadge End. You’re getting careless, Sean.”

  “So it would seem. If it’s any consolation to you, the only reason we didn’t blow the entire British War Cabinet to hell was because you and your friends got too close. That pushed me into doing things in a hurry, always fatal. Danny wanted to fit stabilizing fins on those oxygen cylinders that we used as mortar bombs. It would have made all the difference as regards their accuracy, but there wasn’t time, thanks to you.”

  “I’m delighted to hear it,” Brosnan said.

  “And how did you find me here?”

  “That poor, wretched young woman told us,” Mary said.

  “Angel? I’m sorry about her. A nice kid.”

  “And Danny Fahy and Grant at the airfield? You’re sorry about them, too?” Brosnan demanded.

  “They shouldn’t have joined.”

  “Belfast and the Tommy McGuire shooting, it was you?” Mary said.

  “One of my better performances.”

  “And you didn’t come back on the London train,” she added. “Am I right?”

  “I flew to Glasgow, then got the shuttle to London from there.”

  “So what happens now?” Brosnan asked.

  “To me?” Dillon held up the briefcase. “I’ve got a rather large sum in cash that was in Aroun’s safe in here and a choice of airplanes. The world’s my oyster. Anywhere, but Iraq.”

  “And us?” Harry Flood looked ill, his face drawn with pain and he eased his left arm in the sling.

  “Yes, what about us?” Mary demanded. “You’ve killed everyone else, what’s three more?”

  “But I don’t have any choice,” Dillon said patiently.

  “No, but I do, you bastard.”

  Harry Flood’s right hand slipped inside the sling, pulled out the Walther he had been concealing in there and shot him twice in the heart. Dillon staggered back against the paneling, dropping his briefcase and slid to the floor, turning over in a kind of convulsion. Suddenly he was still and lay there, facedown, the Walther with the Carswell silencer still clutched in his left hand.

  Ferguson was in his car and halfway back to London when Mary called him using the phone in Aroun’s study.

  “We got him, sir,” she said simply when he replied.

  “Tell me about it.”

  So she did, Michael Aroun, Makeev, Ali Rashid, everything. When she was finished, she said, “So that’s it, sir.”

  “So it would appear. I’m on my way back to London, just passed through Epsom. I left Detective Inspector Lane to clear things up at Cadge End.”

  “What now, Brigadier?”

  “Get back on your plane and leave at once. French territory, remember. I’ll speak to Hernu now. He’ll take care of it. Now go and get your plane. Contact me in mid-flight and I’ll give you landing arrangements.”

  The moment she was off the line he phoned Hernu’s office at DGSE’s headquarters. It was Savary who answered. “Ferguson here, have you got an arrival time for Colonel Hernu at Saint-Denis?”

  “The weather isn’t too good down there, Brigadier. They’re landing at Maupertus Airport at Cherbourg and will proceed onwards by road.”

  “Well what he’s going to find there rivals the last act of Macbeth,” Ferguson said, “so let me explain and you can forward the information.”

  Visibility was no more than a hundred yards at the airstrip, mist drifting in from the sea as Mary Tanner taxied the Navajo to the end of the runway, Brosnan sitting beside her. Flood leaned over from his seat to peer into the cockpit.

  “Are you sure we can make it?” he asked.

  “It’s landing in this stuff that’s the problem, not taking off,” she said and took the Navajo forward into the gray wall. She pulled the column back and started to climb and gradually left the mist behind and turned out to sea, leveling at nine thousand feet. After a while she put on the automatic pilot and sat back.

  “You all right?” Brosnan asked.

  “Fine. Slightly drained, that’s all. He was so—so elemental. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  “He’s gone all right,” Flood said cheerfully, a half-bottle of Scotch in one hand, a plastic cup held awkwardly in the other, for he had discovered the Navajo’s bar box.

  “I thought you never drank?” Brosnan said.

  “Special occasion.” Flood raised his cup. “Here’s to Dillon. May he roast in hell.”

  Dillon was aware of voices, the front door closing. When he surfaced it was like coming back from death to life. The pain in his chest was excruciating, but that was hardly surprising. The shock effect of being hit at such close quarters was considerable. He examined the two ragged holes in his biker’s jacket and unzipped it, putting the Walther on the floor. The bullets Flood had fired at him were embedded in the Titanium and nylon vest Tania had given him that first night. He unfastened the Velcro tabs, pulled the vest away and threw it down, then he picked up the Walther and stood.

  He’d been genuinely unconscious for a while, but that was a common experience when shot at close quarters and wearing any kind of body armor. He went to the drinks cabinet and poured a brandy, looking round the room at the bodies, his briefcase still on the floor where he had dropped it, and when he heard the roar of the Navajo’s engine starting up, he saw it all. Everything was being left to the French, which was logical. It was their patch, after all, and that probably meant Hernu and the boys from Action Service were on their way.

  Time to go, but how? He poured another brandy and thought about it. There was Michael Aroun’s Citation jet, but where could he fly without leaving some sort of trail? No, the best answer, as usual, was Paris. He’d always been able to fade into the woodwork there. There was the barge and the apartment over the warehouse at Rue de Helier. Everything he would ever need.

  He finished the brandy, picked up the briefcase and hesitated, looking down at the Titanium waistcoat with the two rounds embedded in it. He smiled and said softly, “You can chew on that, Martin.”

  He pulled the French windows wide and stood on the terrace for a moment, breathing deeply on the cold air, then he went down the steps to the lawn and walked quickly across to the trees, whistling softly.

  Mary tuned her radio to the frequency Ferguson had given her. She was picked up by the radio room at the Ministry of Defence immediately, a sophisticated scrambling device was brought into operation and then she was patched through to him.

  “Well out over the Channel, sir, heading for home.”

  “We’ll make that Gatwick,” he said. “They’ll be expecting you. Hernu has just phoned me from his car on the way to Saint-Denis. Exactly as I thought. The French don’t w
ant this kind of mess on their patch. Aroun, Rashid and Makeev died in a car crash, Dillon goes straight into a pauper’s grave. No name, just a number. Similar sort of thing at our end over that chap Grant.”

  “But how, sir?”

  “One of our doctors has already been alerted to certify him as having died of a heart attack. We’ve had our own establishment to handle this sort of thing since the Second World War. Quiet street in North London. Has its own crematorium. Grant will be five pounds of gray ash by tomorrow. No autopsy.”

  “But Jack Harvey?”

  “That’s slightly different. He and young Billy Watson are still with us, in bed at a private nursing home in Hampstead. Special Branch are keeping an eye on them.”

  “Do I get the impression that we’re not going to do anything?”

  “No need. Harvey doesn’t want to do twenty years in prison for working with the IRA. He and his motley crew will keep their mouths shut. So, by the way, will the KGB.”

  “And Angel?”

  “I thought she might come and stay with you for a while. I’m sure you can handle her, my dear. The woman’s touch and all that.” There was a pause and then he said, “Don’t you see, Mary, it never happened, not any of it.”

  “That’s it, then, sir?”

  “That’s it, Mary. See you soon.”

  Brosnan said, “What did the old sod have to say?”

  So she told them. When she was finished, Flood laughed out loud. “So it never happened? That’s marvelous.”

  Mary said, “What now, Martin?”

  “God knows.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.

  She turned to Harry Flood who toasted her and emptied his cup. “Don’t ask me,” he said.

  She sighed, switched off the auto pilot, took control of the plane herself and flew onwards toward the English coast.

  Ferguson, writing quickly, completed his report and closed the file. He got up and walked to the window. It was snowing again as he looked out to the left toward the junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall where it had all happened. He was tired, more tired than he had been in a long time, but there was still one thing to do. He turned back to his desk, was reaching for the scrambler phone when it rang.

  Hernu said, “Charles, I’m at Saint-Denis and we’ve got trouble.”

  “Tell me,” Ferguson said and already his stomach was hollow.

  “Three bodies only. Makeev, Rashid and Michael Aroun.”

  “And Dillon?”

  “No sign, just a very fancy bulletproof vest on the floor with two Walther rounds embedded in it.”

  “Oh, my God,” Ferguson said, “the bastard’s still out there.”

  “I’m afraid so, Charles. I’ll put the word out to the police, of course, and all the usual agencies, but I can’t say I’m particularly hopeful.”

  “Why would you be?” Ferguson asked. “We haven’t succeeded in putting a hand on Dillon in twenty years, so why should it be any different now?” He took a deep breath. “All right, Max, I’ll be in touch.”

  He went back to the window and stood looking out at the falling snow. No point in calling the Navajo. Mary, Brosnan and Flood would hear the bad news soon enough, but there was still one thing to be done. He turned reluctantly to his desk, picked up the scrambler, pausing for only a moment before phoning Downing Street and asking to speak to the Prime Minister.

  It was toward evening, snow falling heavily as Pierre Savigny, a farmer from the village of St. Just outside Bayeux, drove carefully along the main road toward Caen in his old Citroën truck. He almost didn’t see the man in biker’s leathers who stepped into the road, an arm raised.

  The Citroën skidded to a halt and Dillon opened the passenger door and smiled. “Sorry about that,” he said in his impeccable French, “but I’ve been walking for quite a while.”

  “And where would you be going on a filthy evening like this?” Savigny asked, as Dillon climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Caen. I’m hoping to catch the night train to Paris. My motorbike broke down. I had to leave it in a garage in Bayeux.”

  “Then you’re in luck, my friend,” Savigny said. “I’m on my way to Caen now. Potatoes for tomorrow’s market.” He moved into gear and drove away.

  “Excellent.” Dillon put a cigarette in his mouth, flicked his lighter and sat there, the briefcase on his knees.

  “You’re a tourist then, monsieur?” Savigny asked as he increased speed.

  Sean Dillon smiled softly. “Not really,” he said. “Just passing through,” and he leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.