The Wolf at the Door

by Jack Higgins

  Sitting in the study, darkness falling outside, a gas fire burning in the Victorian fireplace, Holley fidgeted while waiting for the call. Selim had once again provided champagne, but Holley’s was untouched.

  “You really should drink up, Daniel,” said Selim. “It’ll help you relax. What’s wrong? Can you tell me?”

  “Not in any detail,” said Holley. “It’s just . . . I’m on the verge of satisfactory resolution to my job here, but—”

  “But someone is interfering?”

  “How do you know?” Holley asked.

  “Because you always do things on your own. You hate any interference, and I can just bet that whoever you’re doing this job for doesn’t see it the same way.”

  “We agreed that we should never meet, that we should only make contact by encrypted mobile, and just now I had some eager young bastard, together with a sergeant the size of a brick wall, try to put me in a car in Kilburn.”

  “Ah, a sergeant. The military’s involved, then. Men in uniform, they need to take charge, give orders.”

  “Well, not to me.” Holley took the glass and drank it down in one gulp.

  “So what did you do?”

  Holley reached to the ankle holster and took out the Colt .25 and laid it on the brass table. “Shot the Sergeant in the back of the hand as he gripped the wheel and left his captain to struggle back to the Embassy with him.”

  “Wonderful.” Selim smiled. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard in years. You’re a lone wolf, Daniel, the most dangerous beast in the forest.”

  Holley’s mobile sounded. It was Caitlin. “Can we talk?”

  Holley glanced at Selim, who pointed to the kitchen, picked up the bottle of champagne, and went out.

  “I’m with a friend, but you can speak now. How did it go?”

  “They went for it completely. And listen to this: we’ve already had a stroke of luck. It seems that Ferguson’s usual car was damaged in a minor accident last week, so it’s away for repair. Henry Pool said it’s common knowledge amongst the other drivers because Ferguson was very angry.”

  “So he thinks he can be the replacement car?”

  “Absolutely certain. Pool says if he asks for it, he’ll get it. The dispatcher is an old pal of his.”

  “He’s not concerned about the hazard?”

  “He said it’s common to leave passengers in the limousine to run errands for them, get a newspaper or cigarettes or sometimes a bottle. He’ll nip out, set off the bomb, and no one will be the wiser.”

  “And the others are just as enthusiastic?”

  “Yes, Docherty is quite happy about handling the Dark Man situation. He lived in Wapping years ago and knows his way round down there.”

  “And Murray?”

  “No problem. He’s going to put a suit and tie on, drive up to Cambridge in the morning with the photo, find where Monica Starling lives, and put a face to the name.”

  “And Cochran?”

  “He said that he seemed to have less to do than anyone. If I can’t find a way to break into a house inhabited by two spinster ladies, he said, I should be ashamed of myself.”

  “Excellent. Call Barry and Flynn, too, tell them the good news, and give them the following name: Mikhail Potanin. Have you got that?”

  “I’ve written it down.”

  “He is a very experienced guy in this kind of business, and he’ll be in touch with them. They have nothing to fear. He’ll help in any way he can. This Friday in New York is definitely on.”

  “Yes, I’ve got all that.”

  “Get on to them right now. And . . . thanks, Caitlin.”

  He called Chekhov next. It sounded like there was a party going on in the Park Lane apartment: music, female laughter.

  “It’s me,” Holley told him. “What’s going on over there?”

  “Daniel, old son. Just a few friends.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Never that, Daniel. You insult me as a Russian.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “And we shall. I’ll go into my study, close the door, and silence the chattering of fools.” There was a movement, a certain banging, and the noise died. “How can I help?”

  “Everything’s dropped into place. Caitlin and her cell will swing into action here on Friday. As we speak, she’s confirming with Barry and Flynn that it’s on for Friday. I’ll give you their phone numbers.”

  Chekhov said, “If I press a button, I’m recording this, so just tell me.”

  Holley did. “I’m dropping this in Potanin’s lap to watch over them, make sure they’re up to it—and, if necessary, clean up any messes.”

  “Don’t worry, Daniel, he’s done this kind of thing many times before,” Chekhov said.

  “I gathered that, but make sure he realizes it’s serious business. I hear you had Ivanov on your case?”

  “He gave me a call, I asked him if he’d spoken to you, and he said not yet. I get the impression he doesn’t exactly trust you.”

  “And I don’t trust him. He called me, demanding that I fill him in on everything. I gave him short shrift. I had a package to deliver to Caitlin Daly.”

  “And don’t tell me: he followed you?”

  “He didn’t need to. He just popped up. But he wasn’t supposed to approach her or me in any way—that was the plan. He turned up in the graveyard at the church with some thug called Kerimov in tow. Tried to force me into his car.”

  “Oh, dear, tell me what happened.”

  “I shot him in the hand, not Ivanov, the large peasant. I left them there to sort it out, went along to the main road, and hailed a cab.”

  “If you were here, I would embrace you, my friend,” Max told him. “That’s the most entertaining thing I’ve heard in years.”

  “Glad to oblige. Call Potanin now and tell him to get things moving in New York. I’m relying on you.”

  “The instant we hang up. What about Kurbsky?”

  “I’ve got one of Caitlin Daly’s people investigating the house in Belsize. I’ve been to have a look. There’s something strange there, but I’m not sure what,” Holley told him.

  “Surely Kurbsky couldn’t have been hanging out there. It’s too obvious.”

  “I saw a weird guy coming out, a ghoul, God help him, obviously on chemotherapy.”

  “That couldn’t be Kurbsky. He certainly doesn’t have cancer.”

  “I’m not saying it was him. I just have a hunch about the place, that something’s not quite kosher. Anyway, let’s get moving. Let me know how things go.”

  But Chekhov did not immediately call Potanin. He stood there thinking about it, then he sighed deeply, murmured, “I suppose I’d better,” and called his contact number for Lermov in Moscow.

  The Colonel answered at once. “I wondered when I might hear from you. How’s Holley getting on?”

  “Quite brilliantly,” Chekhov told him. “I’ve got to say, Josef, he’s a remarkable man. Here’s the state of play at the moment.”

  He quickly went through everything Holley had told him, and when he was finished Lermov said, “He certainly works fast.”

  “So I should go through with it, call Potanin in New York and tell him to give Barry and Flynn any help they need?”

  “Of course you should go through with it! This could be an extraordinary coup. Let me know everything—everything!—as it happens, even when I’m with Putin.”

  “I will, of course,” Chekhov told him. “What do you think of this unfortunate business with Ivanov?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Chekhov told him, delighting in it, because he resented Ivanov’s assumption of command and had come to realize that he didn’t like him anyway.

  Lermov said, “Stupid boy. I had high hopes of him, but there you are. I’ll make my displeasure clear when he tells me.”

  “If he tells you,” Chekhov said.

  “Oh, he’ll tell me all right, Max. I’ll see to it.”

  At Shepherd
’s Market, the awnings out against light rain, Daniel and Selim enjoyed a late supper at a restaurant called Al Bustan. It was crowded, a constant buzz of conversation washing over them, but they had a certain privacy in the corner booth where they were sitting.

  “Food is poetry to the people who run this restaurant,” Selim told him, and sipped his wine. “You are calmer now, I think?”

  “Because things are coming together,” Daniel said. “But you’re right about the food. Though anything would taste good after five years of the cooking in the Lubyanka. It’s nice here.” He looked around the restaurant. “It reminds me of Algiers.”

  And that made him think of Shabwa and the desert training camp and all that came since, and his mood darkened.

  “What is it, my friend?”

  Holley told him. “Nothing was ever the same when they’d finished with me. Algiers and Malik and the business became all I had.”

  “And now you think you have nothing?”

  “In a way. I’ve been more disappointed than I’d hoped.”

  “We are all in the hands of Allah. He is responsible for all things.”

  “Then He willed me to exact a terrible vengeance on those four men who murdered that young woman. That deed changed me entirely. A different man took my place, and still does.”

  “This is too sad, Daniel, we must think of something better. Have you some time to spare tomorrow or are you trapped by your affairs? I have a small car in a garage I rent not far from here. A Mini Cooper. We could go out for a drive. Have lunch.”

  Holley thought about it. It wasn’t a good idea, but, really, everything was in motion. New York was in play. The others had their orders. Any remaining communication would be by phone anyway.

  “All right, let’s do it,” Daniel said. “And I’m remembering something about Chekhov. He has a country place called Bolt Hole, located in an interesting part of West Sussex. Salt marshes, lots of sea, a causeway reaching out to a low island with an ancient house. I’ve seen it on television.”

  “It sounds fun. Does he go there a lot?”

  “I don’t think so. He told me he was refused permission for a helicopter pad, so he has to drive.”

  “So what? We could get to West Sussex in two hours. I have friends nearby.” Selim shook his head. “These oligarchs, they are worse than Suleiman the Magnificent. Shall we take that as definite?”

  “Absolutely,” Holley told him. “We’ll leave at ten.”

  “Then I suggest an early night.” Selim raised his hand and called to the waiter for the bill.

  Holley undressed and put on a robe, and Caitlin came on the Codex. “I’ve heard from Barry, and he’s heard from Potanin. He said he’s going to meet them tomorrow, with a friend of his named Bulganin. He suggested Barry take Miller and Flynn do Blake Johnson.”

  “Fine. Quogue should be pretty straightforward, but Miller is more difficult,” Holley said. “Barry shouldn’t underestimate him. Miller’s a killer.”

  “God willing, he prevails,” she said.

  “Or Allah,” he told her. “Same difference.”

  He poured a nightcap and went and stood at the window, watching the late-night traffic pass. Max Chekhov hadn’t got back to him, but he’d clearly kept his promise and passed the details to Potanin. Chekhov probably had a woman or two keeping him busy, not that it mattered. He’d done his job. He wondered how Ivanov was managing to explain his sergeant’s unfortunate accident. He’d bet anything Ivanov found a way to absolve himself of any blame. He looked at his watch. He probably should call Lermov himself, but it was too late now, three in the morning in Moscow. It could wait, and he went to bed.

  For many years, Holley had had a recurring dream about Rosaleen Coogan and the events of that night. It lasted for a period of three or four weeks, usually during times of great stress and activity. It had not been much of a problem during his years of imprisonment, but now, and for the first time in a while, it surfaced.

  It was always the same, a strange black-and-white landscape remarkably similar to film noir, buildings rising into the night streets, and she was there at his side, the only other person in a dark world, and she said she was going and would be back but never did, never came back again, and the streets were like a maze in the darkness as he ran from one place to another and never could find her. The strangest thing of all was trying to wake from that dream. It took an incredible physical struggle, and he would lie there in bed, soaked in sweat and trembling, and feeling a heartbreaking sense of loss for Rosaleen and the fact that she was gone, never to be found.

  This time, lying on the bed of his suite in the Albany Regency Hotel, it was different. Somehow, Lady Monica Starling had become part of that dream, she was there with Rosaleen, and it was them both that Daniel was running around seeking, and he suddenly knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that no matter what anyone said, or wished or argued, that she’d killed a Provo herself, there was no way he could be a party to killing her, and Rosaleen would have agreed with him.

  It somehow gave him a lightness of being, a calm happiness, call it what you like, but it was there for a moment, clear and profound, as if he had been touched by something. He felt a strange sense of peace, a kind of release, as he went to turn on the shower. He could take the men, but not Monica, and Caitlin and all the rest of them would have to accept that.

  He started to get dressed but then stopped, and decided it was better to be dressed for action, you never knew what might come up. He put on the nylon-and-titanium bulletproof vest first, which was capable of stopping a .44 round at point-blank range. A white shirt and formal tie covered it, and, once he’d pulled on his trousers, he fastened the holster to his right ankle. When he left the hotel, borrowing one of its umbrellas, in his black suit and black raincoat, he looked like a thoroughly respectable City professional man.

  It had rained during the night but stopped by the time Holley went around to Selim’s, where he found a simple breakfast of croissants, coffee, and ripe bananas waiting. Selim wore a French beret and a black duster coat as they made their way through several backstreets and came to a mews named Friars Yard. He produced a key and opened the end garage, revealing a black Mini Cooper.

  “A factory limited edition, small but deadly. I indulged myself. It will do in excess of a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour.”

  “And have you?”

  “That, Daniel, is my dark secret. Would you care to drive?”

  “It’s been rather a long time since I did, but Daniel Grimshaw does have a perfectly valid forged license.”

  “Then put your umbrella in the back with the other one already in there.”

  “You think it will rain again?”

  “Absolutely. This is England, Daniel. Off we go, and if you decide to have a crash, do it with style.”

  With the driving, it was as if he’d never been away, for the Mini Cooper handled superbly, and they had a good fast run from London to Guildford and all the way to Chichester, where they had a pit stop at the Ship Hotel and more coffee.

  After that, they followed the Mini’s Sat Nav through a maze of country roads and came to Patch End, and Holley pulled up at the side of the road. There was a salt marsh, an inlet with four houses, three old-fashioned fishing boats beached on the shingle, and a small motorboat.

  Selim opened the glove compartment and took out a pair of Zeiss binoculars. He peered down. “There’s a woman in the garden of the end house hanging out laundry. Do you want to take a look?”

  Holley did and nodded. “I know Chekhov owns a house down there, and I bet that’s a lady named Lily White. Her son, Jacob, keeps an eye on things for Chekhov while he’s away.”

  “It wouldn’t have much traffic down there. We’ll go and see what Bolt Hole has to offer.”

  A mile farther on, they discovered a pub set back from the road with a sizable garden. The main part of it was undeniably old, but there was a modern extension that suggested a motel. It looked anything but prosperous, an
d it was just at that moment that the weather broke again.

  “Rather sad, when you think of it,” Selim said. “Imagine staying at that place in the rain.”

  “Well, Chekhov fell in love with Bolt Hole, told me so himself,” Holley said. “So let’s go and see why.”

  There were no cliffs but a headland of sorts, with a fringe of trees on top, a small car park behind, and the marsh below, with the causeway running out to the island. It was beautiful beyond doubt: the old house, the sea, and, every so often, a strange geyser of foam erupting.

  “So that’s where the name Bolt Hole comes from,” Holley said, raising the binoculars. “Spectacular.”

  “Very impressive,” Selim said. “And so is the motor yacht at the jetty on the seaside.”

  “It’s called the Mermaid.” Holley focused the binoculars in time to see a thickset, rough-looking man wearing a battered naval cap and an old reefer coat emerge from the wheelhouse.

  “Jacob White in the flesh,” Holley said. “Talking to someone on his mobile.”

  “There’s a Mercedes coming in from the left down there.”

  Holley swung around to observe and received a shock, for the Mercedes turned along the causeway, pulled in on the jetty beside the Mermaid, and stopped at the gangway, where Jacob White stood waiting. Ivanov got out from behind the wheel, and Chekhov emerged from the passenger side.

  “I’d like to say I can’t believe it,” Holley said. “But I do. Let me fill you in on these two.”

  He explained, and Selim said, “Well, you could say the plot thickens. But let’s move, we may be noticed.”

  “They weren’t supposed to go even near each other. The only communication was supposed to be by Codex. So what are they up to?”