Eye Of The Storm aka Midnight Man

by Jack Higgins

  Eye Of The Storm aka Midnight Man

  Jack Higgins

  Sean Dillon is an assassin, a hired hand who, despite working for the IRA, PLO and ETA, has not seen the inside of a prison cell. He’s just the man that Iraqi, Michael Aroun has been looking for – the kind of professional who won’t flinch from an attack on the offices of British government.

  Jack Higgins

  Eye Of The Storm aka Midnight Man

  The first book in the Sean Dillon series, 1992

  In memory of my grandfather, Robert Bell, M.M., Gallant Soldier

  The winds of heaven are blowing. Implement all that is on the table. May God be with you.

  – Coded message,

  Iraq Radio, Baghdad

  January 1991

  The mortar attack on Number Ten Downing Street when the War Cabinet was meeting at 10:00 A.M. on Thursday, 7 February 1991, is now a matter of history. It has never been satisfactorily explained. Perhaps it went something like this…

  ONE

  IT WAS JUST before dark as Dillon emerged from the alley and paused on the corner. Rain drifted across the Seine in a flurry of snow, sleet mixed with it and it was cold, even for January in Paris. He wore a reefer coat, peaked cap, jeans and boots, just another sailor off one of the barges working the river, which he very definitely was not.

  He lit a cigarette in cupped hands and stayed there for a moment in the shadows, looking across the cobbled square at the lights of the small café on the other side. After a while, he dropped the cigarette, thrust his hands deep in his pockets and started across.

  In the darkness of the entrance two men waited, watching his progress. One of them whispered, “That must be him.”

  He made a move. The other held him back. “No, wait till he’s inside.”

  Dillon, his senses sharpened by years of entirely the wrong kind of living, was aware of them, but gave no sign. He paused at the entrance, slipped his left hand under the reefer coat to check that the Walther PPK was securely tucked into the waistband of his jeans against the small of his back, then he opened the door and went in.

  It was typical of the sort of place to be found on that part of the river: half a dozen tables with chairs, a zinc-topped bar, bottles lined against a cracked mirror behind it. The entrance to the rear was masked by a bead curtain.

  The barman, a very old man with a gray moustache, wore an alpaca coat, the sleeves frayed at the cuffs and there was no collar to his shirt. He put down the magazine he was reading and got up from the stool.

  “Monsieur?”

  Dillon unbuttoned his reefer coat and put his cap on the bar, a small man, no more than five feet five with fair hair and eyes that seemed to the barman to be of no particular color at all except for the fact that they were the coldest the old man had ever looked into. He shivered, unaccountably afraid, and then Dillon smiled. The change was astonishing, suddenly nothing but warmth there and immense charm. His French, when he spoke, was perfect.

  “Would there be such a thing as half a bottle of champagne in the house?”

  The old man stared at him in astonishment. “ Champagne? You must be joking, monsieur. I have two kinds of wine only. One is red and the other white.”

  He placed a bottle of each on the bar. It was stuff of such poor quality that the bottles had screw tops instead of corks.

  “All right,” Dillon said. “The white it is. Give me a glass.”

  He put his cap back on, went and sat at a table against the wall from where he could see both the entrance and the curtained doorway. He got the bottle open, poured some of the wine into the glass and tried it.

  He said to the barman, “And what vintage would this be, last week’s?”

  “Monsieur?” The old man looked bewildered.

  “Never mind.” Dillon lit another cigarette, sat back and waited.

  The man who stood closest to the curtain peering through was in his mid-fifties, of medium height with a slightly decadent look to his face, the fur collar of his dark overcoat turned up against the cold. He looked like a prosperous businessman right down to the gold Rolex on his left wrist, which in a way he was as a senior commercial attaché at the Soviet Embassy in Paris. He was also a colonel in the KGB, one Josef Makeev.

  The younger, dark-haired man in the expensive vicuña overcoat who peered over his shoulder was called Michael Aroun. He whispered in French, “This is ridiculous. He can’t be our man. He looks like nothing.”

  “A serious mistake many people have made, Michael,” Makeev said. “Now wait and see.”

  The bell tinkled as the outer door swung open, rain blowing in, and the two men entered who had been waiting in the doorway as Dillon crossed the square. One of them was over six feet tall, bearded, an ugly scar running into the right eye. The other was much smaller, and they were dressed in reefer coats and denims. They looked exactly what they were, trouble.

  They stood at the bar and the old man looked worried. “No trouble,” the younger one said. “We only want a drink.”

  The big man turned and looked at Dillon. “It seems as if we’ve got one right here.” He crossed to the table, picked up Dillon’s glass and drank from it. “Our friend doesn’t mind, do you?”

  Without getting out of his chair Dillon raised his left foot and stamped downwards against the bearded man’s kneecap. The man went down with a choked cry, grabbing at the table, and Dillon stood. The bearded man tried to pull himself up and sank into one of the chairs. His friend took a hand from his pocket, springing the blade of a gutting knife, and Dillon’s left hand came up holding the Walther PPK.

  “On the bar. Christ, you never learn, people like you, do you? Now get this piece of dung on his feet and out of here while I’m still in a good mood. You’ll need the casualty department of the nearest hospital, by the way. I seem to have dislodged his kneecap.”

  The small man went to his friend and struggled to get him on his feet. They stood there for a moment, the bearded man’s face twisted in agony. Dillon went and opened the door, the rain pouring relentlessly down outside.

  As they lurched past him, he said, “Have a good night,” and closed the door.

  Still holding the Walther in his left hand, he lit a cigarette using a match from the stand on the bar and smiled at the old barman, who looked terrified. “Don’t worry, Dad, not your problem.” Then he leaned against the bar and called in English, “All right, Makeev, I know you’re there, so let’s be having you.”

  The curtain parted and Makeev and Aroun stepped through.

  “My dear Sean, it’s good to see you again.”

  “And aren’t you the wonder of the world?” Dillon said, just the trace of an Ulster accent in his voice. “One minute trying to stitch me up, the next all sweetness and light.”

  “It was necessary, Sean,” Makeev said. “I needed to make a point to my friend here. Let me introduce you.”

  “No need,” Dillon told him. “I’ve seen his picture often enough. If it’s not on the financial pages, it’s usually in the society magazines. Michael Aroun, isn’t it? The man with all the money in the world.”

  “Not quite all, Mr. Dillon.” Aroun put a hand out.

  Dillon ignored it. “We’ll skip the courtesies, my old son, while you tell whoever is standing on the other side of that curtain to come out.”

  “Rashid, do as he says,” Aroun called, and said to Dillon, “It’s only my aide.”

  The young man who stepped through had a dark, watchful face, and wore a leather car coat, the collar turned up, his hands thrust deep in the pockets.

  Dillon knew a professional when he saw one. “Plain view.” He motioned with the Walther. Rashid actually smiled and took his hand
s from his pockets. “Good,” Dillon said. “I’ll be on my way, then.”

  He turned and got the door open. Makeev said, “Sean, be reasonable. We only want to talk. A job, Sean.”

  “Sorry, Makeev, but I don’t like the way you do business.”

  “Not even for a million, Mr. Dillon?” Michael Aroun said.

  Dillon paused and turned to look at him calmly, then smiled, again with enormous charm. “Would that be in pounds or dollars, Mr. Aroun?” he asked and walked out into the rain.

  As the door banged Aroun said, “We’ve lost him.”

  “Not at all,” Makeev said. “A strange one this, believe me.” He turned to Rashid. “You have your portable phone?”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Good. Get after him. Stick to him like glue. When he settles, phone me. We’ll be at Avenue Victor Hugo.”

  Rashid didn’t say a word, simply went. Aroun took out his wallet and extracted a thousand-franc note, which he placed on the bar. He said to the barman, who was looking totally bewildered, “We’re very grateful,” then turned and followed Makeev out.

  As he slid behind the wheel of the black Mercedes saloon, he said to the Russian, “He never even hesitated back there.”

  “A remarkable man, Sean Dillon,” Makeev said as they drove away. “He first picked up a gun for the IRA in nineteen seventy-one. Twenty years, Michael, twenty years and he hasn’t seen the inside of a cell once. He was involved in the Mountbatten business. Then he became too hot for his own people to handle so he moved to Europe. As I told you, he’s worked for everyone. The PLO, the Red Brigade in Germany in the old days. The Basque national movement, the ETA. He killed a Spanish general for them.”

  “And the KGB?”

  “But of course. He’s worked for us on many occasions. We always use the best and Sean Dillon is exactly that. He speaks English and Irish, not that that bothers you, fluent French and German, reasonable Arabic, Italian and Russian.”

  “And no one has ever caught him in twenty years. How could anyone be that lucky?”

  “Because he has the most extraordinary gift for acting, my friend. A genius, you might say. As a young boy, his father took him from Belfast to London to live, where he was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He even worked for the National Theatre when he was nineteen or twenty. I have never known anyone who can change personality and appearance so much just by body language. Makeup seldom enters into it, although I admit that it helps when he wants. He’s a legend that the security services of most countries keep quiet about because they can’t put a face to him, so they don’t know what they’re looking for.”

  “What about the British? After all, they must be the experts where the IRA are concerned.”

  “No, not even the British. As I said, he’s never been arrested, not once, and unlike many of his IRA friends, he never courted media publicity. I doubt if there’s a photo of him anywhere except for the odd boyhood snap.”

  “What about when he was an actor?”

  “Perhaps, but that was twenty years ago, Michael.”

  “And you think he might undertake this business if I offer him enough money?”

  “No, money alone has never been enough for this man. It always has to be the job itself where Dillon is concerned. How can I put it? How interesting it is. This is a man to whom acting was everything. What we are offering him is a new part. The Theatre of the Street perhaps, but still acting.” He smiled as the Mercedes joined the traffic moving around the Arc de Triomphe. “Let’s wait and see. Wait until we hear from Rashid.”

  At that moment, Captain Ali Rashid was by the Seine at the end of a small pier jutting out into the river. The rain was falling very heavily, still plenty of sleet in it. The floodlights were on at Notre Dame and the effect was of something seen partially through a net curtain. He watched Dillon turn along the narrow pier to the building on stilts at the far end, waited until he went in and followed him.

  The place was quite old and built of wood, barges and boats of various kinds moored all around. The sign over the door said Le Chat Noir. He peered through the window cautiously. There was a bar and several tables just like the other place. The only difference was that people were eating. There was even a man sitting on a stool against the wall playing an accordion. All very Parisian. Dillon was standing at the bar speaking to a young woman.

  Rashid moved back, walked to the end of the pier, paused by the rail in the shelter of a small terrace and dialed the number of Aroun’s house in the Avenue Victor Hugo on his portable phone.

  There was a slight click as the Walther was cocked and Dillon rammed the muzzle rather painfully into Rashid’s right ear. “Now then, son, a few answers,” he demanded. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Rashid,” the young man said. “Ali Rashid.”

  “What are you then? PLO?”

  “No, Mr. Dillon. I’m a captain in the Iraqi Army, assigned to protect Mr. Aroun.”

  “And Makeev and the KGB?”

  “Let’s just say he’s on our side.”

  “The way things are going in the Gulf, you need somebody on your side, my old son.” There was the faint sound of a voice from the portable phone. “Go on, answer him.”

  Makeev said, “Rashid, where is he?”

  “Right here, outside a café on the river near Notre Dame,” Rashid told him. “With the muzzle of his Walther well into my ear.”

  “Put him on,” Makeev ordered.

  Rashid handed the phone to Dillon, who said, “Now then, you old sod.”

  “A million, Sean. Pounds if you prefer that currency.”

  “And what would I have to be doing for all that money?”

  “The job of a lifetime. Let Rashid bring you round here and we’ll discuss it.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dillon said. “I think what I’d really like is for you to get your arse into gear and come and pick us up yourself.”

  “Of course,” Makeev said. “Where are you?”

  “The left bank opposite Notre Dame. A little pub on a pier called Le Chat Noir. We’ll be waiting.”

  He slipped the Walther into his pocket and handed the phone to Rashid who said, “He’s coming, then?”

  “Of course he is.” Dillon smiled. “Now let’s you and me go inside and have ourselves a drink in comfort.”

  In the sitting room on the first floor of the house in Avenue Victor Hugo overlooking the Bois de Boulogne, Josef Makeev put down the phone and moved to the couch where his overcoat was.

  “Was that Rashid?” Aroun demanded.

  “Yes. He’s with Dillon now at a place on the river. I’m going to get them.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  Makeev pulled on his coat. “No need, Michael. You hold the fort. We won’t be long.”

  He went out. Aroun took a cigarette from a silver box and lit it, then he turned on the television. He was halfway into the news. There was direct coverage from Baghdad, Tornado fighter bombers of the British Royal Air Force attacking at low level. It made him bitterly angry. He switched off, poured himself a brandy and went and sat by the window.

  Michael Aroun was forty years of age and a remarkable man by any standards. Born in Baghdad of a French mother and an Iraqi father who was an army officer, he’d had a maternal grandmother who was American. Through her, his mother had inherited ten million dollars and a number of oil leases in Texas.

  She had died the year Aroun had graduated from Harvard law school leaving everything to her son because his father, retired as a general from the Iraqi army, was happy to spend his later years at the old family house in Baghdad with his books.

  Like most great businessmen, Aroun had no academic training in the field. He knew nothing of financial planning or business administration. His favorite saying, one much quoted, was: When I need a new accountant, I buy a new accountant.

  His friendship with Saddam Hussein had been a natural development from the fact that the Iraqi President had bee
n greatly supported in his early days in politics by Aroun’s father, who was also an important member of the Baath Party. It had placed Aroun in a privileged position as regards the development of his country’s oilfields, brought him riches beyond calculation.

  After the first billion you stopped counting, another favorite saying. And now he was faced with disaster. Not only the promised riches of the Kuwait oilfields snatched from him, but that portion of his wealth which stemmed from Iraq dried up, finished as a result of the Coalition’s massive airstrikes that had devastated his country since the seventeenth of January.

  He was no fool. He knew that the game was over, should probably have never started, and that Saddam Hussein’s dream was already finished. As a businessman he played the percentages and that didn’t offer Iraq too much of a chance in the ground war that must eventually come.

  He was far from ruined in personal terms. He had oil interests still in the USA, and the fact that he was a French as well as an Iraqi citizen gave Washington a problem. Then there was his shipping empire and vast quantities of real estate in various capital cities around the world. But that wasn’t the point. He was angry when he switched on the television and saw what was happening in Baghdad each night, for, surprising in one so self-centered, he was a patriot. There was also the fact, infinitely more important, that his father had been killed in a bombing raid on the third night of the air war.

  And there was a great secret in his life, for in August, shortly after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi forces, Aroun had been sent for by Saddam Hussein himself. Sitting here by the French window, a glass of brandy in one hand, rain slanting across the terrace, he gazed out across the Bois de Boulogne in the evening light and remembered that meeting.

  There was an air-raid practice in progress as he was driven in an army Land-Rover through the streets of Baghdad, darkness everywhere. The driver was a young intelligence captain named Rashid, whom he had met before, one of the new breed, trained by the British at Sandhurst. Aroun gave him an English cigarette and took one himself.