Jack Higgins: Eye Of The Storm aka Midnight Man

“Drive? Of course I do. I take the sheep to market in the Morris van myself.”

“Tell me, how would you like a trip up to London tomorrow morning with me, you and Danny?”

“I’d like it fine.”

“Good, that’s all right, then.”

As they carried on through the night her eyes were shining.

IT WAS A cold, crisp morning, winter on every hand, but the roads were clear as Dillon drove up to London, Angel and Danny Fahy following in the Morris van. Angel was driving, and more than competently. He could see her in his rearview mirror and she stayed right on his tail all the way into London until they came to the Bayswater Road. There was a plan already half-formed in his mind and he got out of the Mini-Cooper, parked it at the curb and opened the doors of Tania’s garage.

As Angel and Danny drew up behind him he said, “Put the Morris inside.” Angel did as she was told. When she and Danny Fahy came out, Dillon closed the doors and said, “You’ll remember the street and the garage, if you lose me, that is?”

“Don’t be silly, Mr. Dillon, of course I will,” Angel said.

“Good. It’s important. Now get in the Mini. We’re going for a little run round.”

Harry Flood was sitting at the desk in his apartment at Cable Wharf checking the casino accounts from the night before when Charlie Salter brought in coffee on a tray. The phone rang and the small man picked it up. He handed it to Flood.

“The Professor.”

“Martin, how goes it?” Flood said. “I enjoyed last night. The Tanner lady is something special.”

“Is there any news? Have you managed to come up with anything?” Brosnan asked.

“Not yet, Martin, just a minute.” Flood put a hand over the receiver and said to Salter, “Where’s Mordecai?”

“Doing the rounds, Harry, just like you asked him, putting the word out discreetly.”

Flood returned to Brosnan. “Sorry, old buddy, we’re doing everything we can, but it’s going to take time.”

“Which we don’t really have,” Brosnan said. “All right, Harry, I know you’re doing your best. I’ll stay in touch.”

He was standing at Mary Tanner’s desk in the living room of her Lowndes Square flat. He put the phone down, walked to the window and lit a cigarette.

“Anything?” she asked and crossed the room to join him.

“I’m afraid not. As Harry has just said it takes time. I was a fool to think anything else.”

“Just try and be patient, Martin.” She put a hand on his arm.

“But I can’t,” he said. “I’ve got this feeling and it’s hard to explain. It’s like being in a storm and waiting for that bloody great thunderclap you know is going to come. I know Dillon, Mary. He’s moving fast on this. I’m certain of it.”

“So what would you like to do?”

“Will Ferguson be at Cavendish Square this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go to see him.”

Dillon parked the Mini-Cooper near Covent Garden. An enquiry in a bookshop nearby led them to a shop not too far away specializing in maps and charts of every description. Dillon worked his way through the large-scale Ordnance Survey maps of Central London until he found the one covering the general area of Whitehall.

“Would you look at the detail in that thing?” Fahy whispered. “You could measure the size of the garden at Number Ten to half an inch.”

Dillon purchased the map, which the assistant rolled up tightly and inserted into a protective cardboard tube. He paid for it and they walked back to the car.

“Now what?” Danny asked.

“We’ll take a run round. Have a look at the situation.”

“That suits me.”

Angel sat in the rear, her uncle beside Dillon as they drove down toward the river and turned into Horse Guards Avenue. Dillon paused slightly on the corner before turning into Whitehall and moving toward Downing Street.

“Plenty of coppers around,” Danny said.

“That’s to make sure people don’t park.” A car had drawn in to the curb on their left and as they pulled out to pass, they saw that the driver was consulting a map.

“Tourist, I expect,” Angel said.

“And look what’s happening,” Dillon told her.

She turned and saw two policemen converging on the car. A quiet word, it started up and moved away.

Angel said, “They don’t waste time.”

“Downing Street,” Dillon announced a moment later.

“Would you look at those gates?” Danny said in wonder. “I like the Gothic touch. Sure and they’ve done a good job there.”

Dillon moved with the traffic round Parliament Square and went back up Whitehall toward Trafalgar Square. “We’re going back to Bayswater,” he said. “Notice the route I’ve chosen.”

He moved out of the traffic of Trafalgar Square through Admiralty Arch along the Mall, round the Queen Victoria Monument, past Buckingham Palace and along Constitution Hill, eventually reaching Marble Arch by way of Park Lane and turning into the Bayswater Road.

“And that’s simple enough,” Danny Fahy said.

“Good,” Dillon said. “Then let’s go and get a nice cup of tea at my truly awful hotel.”

Ferguson said, “You’re getting too restless, Martin.”

“It’s the waiting,” Brosnan told him. “Flood’s doing his best, I know that, but I don’t think time is on our side.”

Ferguson turned from the window and sipped a little of the cup of tea he was holding. “So what would you like to do?”

Brosnan hesitated, glanced at Mary and said, “I’d like to go and see Liam Devlin in Kilrea. He might have some ideas.”

“Something he was never short of.” Ferguson turned to Mary. “What do you think?”

“I think it makes sense, sir. After all, a trip to Dublin’s no big deal. An hour and a quarter from Heathrow on either Aer Lingus or B.A.”

“And Liam’s place at Kilrea is only half an hour from the city,” Brosnan said.

“All right,” Ferguson said. “You’ve made your point, both of you, but make it Gatwick and the Lear jet, just in case anything comes up and you need to get back here in a hurry.”

“Thank you, sir,” Mary said.

As they reached the door, Ferguson added, “I’ll give the old rogue a call, just to let him know you’re on your way,” and he reached for the phone.

As they went downstairs Brosnan said, “Thank God. At least I feel we’re doing something.”

“And I get to meet the great Liam Devlin at long last,” Mary said and led the way out to the limousine.

In the small café at the hotel, Dillon, Angel and Fahy sat at a corner table drinking tea. Fahy had the Ordnance Survey map partially open on his knee. “It’s extraordinary. The things they give away. Every detail.”

“Could it be done, Danny?”

“Oh, yes, no trouble. You remember that corner, Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall? That would be the place, slightly on an angle. I can see it in my mind’s eye. I can plot the distance from that corner to Number Ten exactly from this map.”

“You’re sure you’d clear the buildings in between?” Dillon said.

“Oh, yes. I’ve said before, Sean, ballistics is a matter of science.”

“But you can’t stop there,” Angel said. “We saw what happened to that man in the car. The police were on him in seconds.”

Dillon turned to Fahy. “Danny?”

“Well, that’s all you would need. Everything pre-timed, Angel. Press the right switch to activate the circuit, get out of the van and the mortars start firing within a minute. No policeman could act fast enough to stop it.”

“But what would happen to you?” she demanded.

It was Dillon who answered. “Just listen to this. We drive up from Cadge End one morning early, you, Danny, in the Ford transit, and Angel and me in the Morris van. We’ll have that BSA motorcycle in the back of that. Angel will park the Morris, like today, in the garage at the end of the road. We’ll have a duckboard in the back so I can run the BSA out.”