Jack Higgins - The wolf at the door

"Fascinating stuff. What else have you got?"

"Costello-cum-Docherty, who tried to torch the Dark Man. Inspector Parkinson recognized him as a petty thief and drunk named Fergus Costello who'd apparently gotten religion over twenty years ago at a refuge for drunks and down-and-outs in Wapping High Street. It was interfaith, but Parkinson spoke of a charismatic priest who turned up there on occasion. So guess who it was?"

"Oh, I'm at the stage where I'm prepared to believe anything you say. But why the fake Irish passport?"

"I don't know. He had a prison record as Costello, maybe he wanted to start fresh."

"He must have known the right people. The passport was an absolute ringer. But our Irish connection falls down when we consider Henry Pool, doesn't it? I know his wife was from Cork, but his father was a cockney soldier, as I recall, so badly wounded in April 1945 in Germany he was immediately discharged and went to live in Kilburn with his wife, who produced Henry in 1946."

"Poor old Ernest, he died of a stroke two years later. But I've discovered an Irish connection that wasn't immediately apparent. His wife, Mary Kennedy? Her father was killed by the highly irregular British police force known as the Black and Tans."

"God help us," Dillon said. "The scum of the trenches. They'd frighten the Devil himself."

"So when we consider Pool and the life he led at the beck and call of an embittered old woman who probably blamed him for being half English and drummed guilt into him every day of his life, I suppose you could say he'd be capable of leaving a bomb in the back of an English general's limousine."

"I take your point. But Pool was the driver."

"Yes, but Ferguson did say Pool appeared to be running away." Dillon sighed. "A hell of a tragedy it would have been, Charles Ferguson's sainted mother being from Cork herself."

"Actually, I did know that, but they say there are round eight million people of some sort of Irish extraction in the English population."

"Exactly," Dillon said. "More than there are in Ireland itself." He shook his head. "So where does it all lead?"

"God knows," Roper replied, and then Ferguson walked in.

"There you are," Dillon said. "When do we get going for Farley?"

"We don't," Ferguson said. "I decided a little extra security was called for, so I did a little sleight of hand. I apologize for not telling you, but I figured the fewer people who knew, the better. Svetlana, Katya, Alexander, and Bounine were all picked up by an emergency ambulance from the Royal Marsden Hospital, transferred to an anonymous people carrier, and delivered to RAF Biggin Hill in North London. They took off about twenty minutes ago. So that's that. Now, I've contacted Miller and the Salters and suggested that they join us to go over the new information. I asked Monica, too, but she's not feeling too good. She took a bit of a battering, remember. She thought she'd have an early night."

It was no more than half an hour later that the Salters arrived in the Alfa, and, as they walked in, the gate opened again behind them, and Fox delivered Miller, who followed them in to the computer room, where they found Ferguson, Roper, and Dillon talking quietly.

"So what is all this?" Harry Salter demanded. "What about Kurbsky and the ladies?"

"Departed some time ago, and, if you'll all sit down, I'll explain the circumstances."

He repeated what he'd told the others, emphasizing that what had alarmed him was the intruder at Belsize Park. "He was not an ordinary thief bent on burglary, we know that because of the prayer card. Kurbsky's makeover was very effective, so I'm inclined to believe that he wasn't the target. Cochran was probably intent on obtaining what information he could from the women. How he learned about them, I don't know, but that's why I felt we had to take extra precautions."

"I agree," Dillon said. "The Russians were behind the plot for Kurbsky's original false defection. Since then, they haven't heard a word from him or Luzhkov or Yuri Bounine. It must be making someone very angry indeed."

"And angry enough to do something about it?" Ferguson said. "So you think it is the GRU seeking revenge if they can't find answers?"

"It's the GRU I've always worried about, because Russian military intelligence is as good as it gets." Roper nodded. "There are six of us sitting here, and four have experienced serious attempts to kill them. Blake and Monica make six."

Miller said, "You and Dillon must feel left out."

"Well, it would be difficult to get at me here in my wheelchair, but I'm always ready." He produced a Walther from the side pocket of his chair and turned to Dillon. "Why they're leaving Sean alone, I don't know."

"I've already told you," Dillon said. "If I hadn't gone to New York at the last minute, it could have been different."

"So that's it, the bleeding Russians again," Harry Salter said.

"What are we going to do about it?"

"Hold on, there's something I'd like you to see first," Ferguson said. "Dillon and Billy visited Kilburn earlier in the afternoon to explore the Irish connection."

"And where's this taking us?" Harry Salter asked.

"To a hospice known as Hope of Mary, which has a website, if you can believe it, featuring a familiar prayer card. It has an executive director, Caitlin Daly, a charity called Requiem behind it, and a priest responsible for the whole package called Monsignor James Murphy. Roper's prepared a very interesting fact file, so watch and learn."

As they pulled chairs forward and Roper adjusted his equipment, Harry Salter said in a low voice to Dillon, "Waste of time, all this. There's got to be more to it than Kilburn."

"You think so?"

"Of course I do." He sat down. "Shooting Blake on Long Island, bombing the General's car in London, all these other things-this is major stuff, and it takes organization. I think you're absolutely right, Dillon. It's the GRU getting their own back for Kurbsky, and I bet they've been planning it ever since he scarpered."

And he was absolutely right.

Two weeks before Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's appearance at the UN and the events surrounding it, Colonel Josef Lermov of the GRU had been enjoying a six months' leave of absence to work on a book on international terrorism, a subject on which he held a formidable reputation in Russian security circles. Lermov had had scholarly leanings as a younger man, but he came from a military family-his father had been an infantry general, in his time-and so in spite of Lermov's undoubted promise, the army it had to be.

His wife had died at forty from breast cancer, he was childless, and his parents were both dead, leaving him with nothing to do but devote himself to his duty. A basic knowledge of Arabic had, on three occasions, led to covert operations, and his actions during them had left no doubt of his courage, with the decorations to prove it.

He was sitting at a desk in the university library now, auburn hair falling over his forehead, steel-rimmed glasses on his nose, an air of weariness with life in general about him, when a young GRU captain tapped him on the shoulder and whispered in his ear.

"I regret to disturb you, Colonel, but I've orders to take you to the Kremlin? I have a car waiting outside."

"The Kremlin?" Lermov didn't understand. "What on earth for?"

"The Prime Minister wishes to see you."

Lermov was shocked, and said the first thing that came into his head. "But I'm on leave."

The young Captain smiled slightly. "It would appear not, Colonel."

"Of course. Then if I may retrieve my greatcoat and briefcase from the cloakroom, I am at the Prime Minister's orders."

Twenty minutes later, after a drive through miserable weather, the Captain at the wheel, early winter at its worst, sleet and rain, he was delivered to the rear of the Kremlin. The Captain, whose name was Ivanov, knocked on a small postern door, which was opened by an armed soldier who said nothing and stood to one side as the Captain brushed past him and led the way along numerous corridors until they reached one with an armed guard sitting on a chair with a machine pistol on his lap. The Captain opened a door into an unexpectedly grand room furnished in the French style of the seventeenth century, painted walls and fine paintings.