The Wolf at the Door

by Jack Higgins

Daniel turned to Omar, and said in Arabic, “I’m sure you like a neat and tidy ship, so I suggest the crew dispose of these two over the side and wash the deck down, and that you get up that ladder and behind the wheel. We appear to be going round in circles, and that won’t do, because my destination is Northern Ireland.”

  Eight days later, they drifted in to the County Down coast, fishing nets draping the deck as per Liam’s instructions in the letter that Malik had given Daniel. In the early darkness, two trawlers came alongside and tied up, Liam leading the way, the man with him joining with the crew of the Kantara to transfer the cargo.

  Liam embraced Daniel and followed him to his cabin, where the bag was passed over. “What the hell’s been going on? This radio message to Malik? ‘Two men lost overboard but proceeding’?”

  “I had trouble with the crew, but I made my point early.”

  “You mean the two over the side had a bullet in them?”

  “I do. Anyway, I don’t feel disposed to the return passage.”

  “That’s fine, we can send you back by air. I don’t know what happened here, Daniel, but Malik is straight as a die.”

  “Then he should take more care about who he hires in future. Can I stay, Liam? Is there anything active I can do?”

  “Not in Ireland. We invented the term ‘informer,’ and, sooner or later, most things surface. If what you did at the Bagley Ironworks that night ever came out, there are those on the other side who’d hunt you down if it was the last thing they ever did. In any case, the army is bringing in the SAS more and more, and we’re feeling the effects, good men being killed or ending up in Maze Prison.”

  “You’ve trained me to be a soldier, remember that.”

  “Yes, and a hard man you can be, we know, but you’ve a top brain in that skull, especially in the ways of business, finance, and the like. You can serve us in other ways. There are people like us all over the world with aspirations in their own country. I want you to go into partnership with Hamid Malik. He’s got a genuine business, and one that makes money, but with something else underneath, as you know. You’re too valuable to be a foot soldier.”

  “And what will Malik think about the idea?”

  “I think you’ll find he’ll discover it impossible to resist.”

  They walked out on deck, Liam carrying the bag, and found one trawler sailing away, the other still alongside. Someone shouted, “Are you coming or not, Liam? We’re loaded.”

  “We’re on our way.” Liam crossed to the other deck, and Daniel glanced at Omar, standing at the bridge rail. “Look for me in Algiers, you bastard, and behave yourself.”

  As Liam had said, Hamid Malik agreed to the idea at once, and Daniel proved his worth very quickly, reorganizing the administrative side of the shipping business, introducing modern methods, technology, and computers. It meant a growth in the company’s legitimate side that Malik had never anticipated. There were plenty of old-fashioned freighters available—rust buckets, perhaps, but improved at small cost—and they were perfect for the trade that Daniel expanded, working every port in the Mediterranean.

  Underneath, with much assistance from Libyan sources, they supplied more arms to the PIRA, to ETA in Spain, and, on one memorable occasion, dealt with a contract brokered by Liam for a weapons expert to go to South America on behalf of the Colombian terrorist organization, FARC.

  Daniel had gone himself, invoking Liam’s wrath. He had ended up on the run in deep jungle, engaged in one firefight after another with pursuing Colombian special forces, and finally managed to escape across the Peruvian border.

  Back in Algiers, it was business as usual, the rise of Islam inexorable. Pushed by their contacts in Libya, the firm had to concentrate on supplying the demands of people like the PLO and Fatah, and Ireland was less and less important. Besides, the SAS special forces of the British Army had affected the PIRA so much that seventy to eighty percent of the latter’s planned operations had to be aborted.

  The First Gulf War came and went in 1991, and, in February of that year, an attempt to fire rockets on Downing Street from a parked van narrowly failed. Daniel read about it, then phoned Liam on the same old number. It was an hour before he called back.

  Daniel said, “The Downing Street business. Is it one of yours? It looks like a typical PIRA hit.” Over the years, their calls had been sparing.

  “Absolutely not. We’ve no bloody idea whose it is. How’re things at your end?”

  “How do you think? The death business has been booming in the Middle East, haven’t you noticed?”

  “I’ve been thinking we might have to consider taking the fight to the British mainland again. The SAS are bleeding us dry. We may have to try something else.”

  “Such as?”

  “Hitting at the British economy. I’ve got sleepers in London, Daniel, people who have ordinary jobs, ordinary lives, who just wait.”

  “For what?”

  “To be needed. Over the years, many of them have attained a reasonable level of expertise in weaponry and the handling of explosives, by spending what we call a holiday at one of our training camps in the remote part of the west of Ireland.”

  “And you have lists?”

  “I have indeed. The thing is, if there was ever a special job, when we needed to call some of them to action, would you be interested in being their controller?”

  Daniel answered without hesitation. “Of course. When would it be?”

  “Perhaps never. I just wanted to know what you thought. Have they got those newfangled mobile phones in Algiers yet?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “Well, we’ve got them here, and they’ll change your life. Stay well. I’ll be in touch.”

  But it was November 1995 when he heard from Liam again. “A long time since you called,” Daniel told him.

  “I’ve been banged up in Maze Prison for four years, missed out on the City of London bombing, but they gave me a compassionate early release. Lung cancer.”

  “Dammit, Liam, you should have told me. What are you up to?”

  “The usual thing, organizing trouble for the enemy. We’re going ahead with the idea we talked about before, a campaign in London next year that will shock the world. There’s a courier package on its way to you.”

  “It was just delivered. I haven’t had a chance to open it.”

  “Years ago, I organized my sleepers in cells of seven. There’s one in particular, a woman and six men. I last activated them four years ago. Twelve small explosions rocked the West End of London for a two-week period. They got away with it, and I closed them down. The effect was incredible. People were walking on tiptoe for months. They all live in the Kilburn area of London. The package gives you their names and last-known addresses. I want you to go to London, speak to the woman in charge, and activate the cell. At this stage, I can’t give them details of what they are required to do.”

  “Just hold themselves ready?”

  “That’s right. The whole purpose of the cell system is to maintain absolute security. I share no information about my sleepers with anyone on the Army Council, even the chief of staff.”

  “How do I persuade this woman I am from the right people?”

  “She knows my name. What you say is: ‘Liam Coogan sends you his blessing and says hold yourself ready.’”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Tell her that when the time comes to strike, the word will be:

  ‘The day of reckoning is here.’ I’ll call you and you will pass it on.” He had a fit of coughing. “Jesus, I should give up the smoking. Do this for me, son.”

  “Of course I will, Liam.”

  “Take care.”

  Daniel thought about it for a while, then phoned the airport and booked a flight, trying to open the package with one hand as he did so.

  It was Saturday, and Caitlin Daly was in the kitchen at the presbytery, enjoying a cup of tea with her mother, when the phone rang. She answered, and the voice with the slightes
t touch of a Yorkshire accent said, “Caitlin Daly?”

  “Yes, who am I speaking to?”

  “Liam Coogan sends you his blessing and says hold yourself ready.”

  The shock was immense, and she put a hand on the table to steady herself. “Who are you?”

  “Just call me Daniel. I’m Liam’s cousin.”

  “You don’t sound Irish.”

  “My mother was from Crossmaglen. I’m sitting in a rear pew in the Church of the Holy Name. It’s very peaceful, and not a soul here. Can I see you? My time is limited. I have a plane to catch to Algiers.”

  “Five minutes.” She put down the phone, and her mother said, “Who was that, dear?”

  “Business,” Caitlin told her. “I’ve just got to go round to the hospital.” She reached for her coat and put it on. “I shan’t be long.”

  Reading the notes on Caitlin Daly, her tragic experience as a child in Derry, her life till now in her mid-thirties, Daniel had expected to find her interesting, but he hadn’t been prepared for her beauty. It left him momentarily speechless. But not Daly.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  Recovering his wits, he said, “I’m only here as a mouthpiece for Liam. I’m to tell you that you must consider your cell activated. There will be a campaign in London next year that will shock the world, though at this stage he can’t give you details of what you are required to do.”

  “And how will we know?”

  “When the time comes to strike, the word will be: ‘The day of reckoning is here.’ He will tell me, and I will pass on the order to you. Those are his instructions.”

  “So we wait?”

  “That’s what he told me, and this list for you, the members of your cell. Do the names of these six men still make sense?”

  “Oh, yes, they are all members of the Hope of Mary circle at the refuge here at the hospice.”

  “Some sort of a club?”

  “Much more than that. The sound basis for all our lives. I will call them together tonight and inform them of the situation.”

  He stood up. “You’re a remarkable young woman, Caitlin.”

  “And you are a remarkable young man, Daniel.”

  He left her then and went out, the door banging, and she stood there, leaning on the back of the pew, shaking with emotion. The vestry door opened, and Monsignor Murphy came out. “Oh, it’s you, Caitlin. I thought I heard voices. Who was it?”

  “A stranger from a far-off land, Monsignor, who wandered in by chance. He’s gone now. I sent him on his way.” She took his arm. “Let’s go to the presbytery and join Mother for a cup of tea.”

  That evening, having called the other members of the cell in turn, she met them in the chapel at Hope of Mary. Barry, Flynn, Pool, Costello, Cochran, and Murray joined her, and, filled with excitement and awe, they recited their own special prayer together at roughly the same time that Daniel Holley arrived in Algiers, although it would be many years before he discovered that meeting had taken place.

  Two months later, Liam Coogan died of a sudden heart attack. Daniel was in Hazar at the time, brokering an arms deal for the Bedu Army in that region. Malik reached him on his mobile, but protocol was a delicate matter with Arab rulers, and it was a week before Daniel could get down to the port by Land Rover and find a plane to fly out. There was no possible way he could have got to Crossmaglen to attend the funeral, and there would have been great danger for him anyway. The funerals of Provo leaders like Liam were always very public affairs and attracted a great deal of media attention.

  The real shock hit him when he went in the office, and Malik said, “A terrible tragedy, Liam going like that, but maybe it was a blessing, with a prolonged death from cancer to look forward to. At least, he’ll have a smile on his face, wherever he is now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Daniel asked.

  “The Provisional IRA bombed the Canary Wharf business district in London two weeks ago.”

  Daniel was stunned. “I can’t believe it. Is my mail here?”

  “On your desk.”

  There was no message of any kind from Liam, but, on the other hand, if he’d wanted to speak to Daniel, he could have made contact by mobile, even in such a remote country as Hazar. The truth was that if Liam had been responsible in any way for the London bombing, he would have contacted Daniel and told him to activate the cell. He hadn’t, because somebody else had been responsible. The chief of staff knew Liam was a dying man and had probably taken appropriate steps. So there’d been no message to Daniel to pass on to Caitlin Daly. Her cell would doubtless have taken pleasure in the news from London but been disappointed in their failure to be a part of it.

  Should he phone her? He toyed with the idea and dismissed it. The bombing had had nothing to do with Liam, that was the truth of it. He was a sick man, a dying man, and others had taken care of it.

  So he put his sorrow behind him and got down to work, busy with deals to Pakistan, and then in June 1996 the Provos struck again, the center of Manchester devastated. But in the end, enough was enough, and the cease-fire of 1997 became peace the following year.

  How had Caitlin Daly felt, he used to wonder, waiting for the call that never came, the call that was obviously so important to her? But it was over now and done with, until the next time. He smiled, wryly admitting to himself that nothing had changed, not really. There might be “peace,” but the PIRA still ran the largest crime syndicate in Europe, so to hell with it.

  Wars and rumors of wars, world terrorism, Islam on the march, Chechnya, Bosnia, there was no end to it. Business was business, as far as Malik was concerned, and Daniel went with the flow, operating on the theory that a good product and a pistol in the pocket was all you needed to get by. The life he had led had made him a total cynic, and that was all he believed in anymore.

  His luck ran out in 2004. Always take care in the Balkans, Malik used to say, they kill each other at the drop of a hat. That was certainly true enough for Kosovo. Its Muslim citizens hated Serbs beyond anything else in the world and wanted independence.

  Daniel had brokered three previous deals in Kosovo, for the Muslims had plenty of money to spend on arms, supplied by sympathizers in the oil-rich Gulf States. A Bulgarian agent named Kovac made the arrangements, and they were simple enough. All Daniel needed in the wild backcountry was a smuggler who knew the forest area and a suitable old Land Rover.

  The driver’s name was Mahmud, and he didn’t speak, instead concentrating on his driving on the narrow mud tracks of the forest, a rifle at his feet. He was about fifty, unshaven, and with a walleye. Daniel had met him on one previous occasion and remembered that he’d been surprised at how good his English was, and Mahmud had explained that at nineteen he had gone to England, to Manchester, where his uncle lived.

  “How far to this Lamu place?”

  “Not long now,” Mahmud said.

  “I saw you a year ago. How are things now? Do the Serbs still raid the villages?”

  “Sure they do. They rape our women, kill the children.”

  “Burn the mosques?

  “All those things, and sometimes the Russians come.”

  Daniel frowned. “I hadn’t heard that. The Russians aren’t supposed to be here. The United Nations wouldn’t sanction it.”

  Mahmud shrugged. “They stay round here in the border country, special soldiers they call Spetsnaz.”

  Daniel sat there thinking about it and wondering what the Russian game was. That they were strong supporters of the Serbs was a given, so their presence in this Muslim part of Kosovo gave him pause for thought.

  “Lamu, now, just up ahead.” Mahmud pointed to a crossing of tracks where the trees thinned out, and there was a sudden engine roar as a large armored vehicle plowed through small trees from the right and braked to a halt. It was a Russian storm cruiser. Daniel recognized it at once.

  “We’ve got trouble,” he said as two armed men in uniform leapt out.

  Mahmud picked up
his rifle and scrambled out, firing a wild shot, then turning to run and was immediately shot down.

  The soldiers walked forward slowly, weapons ready. Beyond them, several more had emerged from the storm cruiser and stood watching. Daniel opened the door and got out.

  He’d picked up enough Russian over the years to understand it when one of the soldiers said, “Who are you?”

  So he responded as a reflex, pulling the Browning from his pocket and shooting both of them in the heart, double-tapping, first one and then the other.

  As he turned to run into the forest, there were cries of dismay from the other soldiers and a fusillade of shots as they ran forward. He was hit in the right thigh, he was aware of that, and then the left shoulder. He went down, and they were on him in seconds, boots swinging.

  And then somebody shouted—a voice of real authority, he knew that—and then there was only the blackness.

  He came to on a bed in a room with a beaded ceiling, feeling no pain, only a general numbness. He was heavily bandaged, and a man was sitting at his bedside in a high-back chair, smoking a cigarette. He wore combat fatigues with the tabs of a full colonel, and, when he spoke, his English was excellent.

  “So you return from the dead, I think, Mr. Holley?” He smiled and held up Daniel’s passport. “What an interesting man you are, but then I’ve heard of you before. In fact, many times over the years.”

  “Who are you, Spetsnaz?” Daniel croaked.

  “The unit I’m with is, but I’m Colonel Josef Lermov of the GRU. Both of the men you shot have died.”

  “They usually do.”

  “My men wanted to kill you, but we can’t have that. I’m sure you have a fascinating story to tell. The unit paramedic has patched you up, and we’ll be returning to our base in Bulgaria, where you can have proper treatment. People like Kovac are seldom trustworthy, I find.”