Jack Higgins: Eye Of The Storm aka Midnight Man

“Hilton.” Dillon looked around at the coffins on display, the flowers. “Not much happening.”

“Trade, you mean.” The porter shrugged. “That all comes in the back way.”

“I see.”

Dillon moved down the hall, pausing to glance into one of the Chapels of Rest, taking in the banked flowers, the candles. He stepped in and looked down at the body of a middle-aged man neatly dressed in a dark suit, hands folded, the face touched with makeup.

“Poor sod,” Dillon said and went out.

At the reception desk, the porter picked up a phone. “Miss Myra? A visitor. A Mr. Hilton, says he has an appointment.”

Dillon opened the door to Harvey’s outer office and moved in. There were no office furnishings, just a couple of potted plants and several easy chairs. The door to the inner office opened and Myra entered. She wore skin-tight black trews, black boots and a scarlet, three-quarter length caftan. She looked very striking.

“Mr. Hilton?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Myra Harvey. You said you had an appointment with my uncle.”

“Did I?”

She looked him over in a casual way and behind him the door opened and Billy Watson came in. The whole thing was obviously prearranged. He leaned against the door, suitably menacing in a black suit, arms folded.

“Now what’s your game?” she said.

“That’s for Mr. Harvey.”

“Throw him out, Billy,” she said and turned to the door.

Billy put one rough hand on Dillon’s shoulder. Dillon’s foot went all the way down the right leg, stamping on the instep; he pivoted and struck sideways with clenched fist, the knuckles on the back of the hand connecting with Billy’s temple. Billy cried out in pain and fell back into one of the chairs.

“He’s not very good, is he?” Dillon said.

He opened his briefcase and took out ten one-hundred-dollar bills with a rubber band round them and threw them at Myra. She missed the catch and had to bend to pick them up. “Would you look at that,” she said. “And brand new.”

“Yes, new money always smells so good,” Dillon said. “Now tell Jack an old friend would like to see him with more of the same.”

She stood there looking at him for a moment, eyes narrowed, then she turned and opened the door to Harvey’s office. Billy tried to get up and Dillon said, “I wouldn’t advise it.”

Billy subsided as the door opened and Myra appeared. “All right, he’ll see you.”

The room was surprisingly businesslike with walls paneled in oak, a green carpet in Georgian silk and a gas fire that almost looked real, burning in a steel basket on the hearth. Harvey sat behind a massive oak desk smoking a cigar.

He had the thousand dollars in front of him and looked Dillon over calmly. “My time’s limited, so don’t muck me about, son.” He picked up the bank notes. “More of the same?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t know you. You told Myra you were an old friend, but I’ve never seen you before.”

“A long time ago, Jack, ten years to be precise. I looked different then. I was over from Belfast on a job. We did business together, you and me. You did well out of it as I recall. All those lovely dollars raised by IRA sympathizers in America.”

Harvey said. “Coogan. Michael Coogan.”

Dillon took off his glasses. “As ever was, Jack.”

Harry nodded slowly and said to his niece. “Myra, an old friend, Mr. Coogan from Belfast.”

“I see,” she said. “One of those.”

Dillon lit a cigarette, sat down, the briefcase on the floor beside him and Harvey said, “You went through London like bloody Attila the Hun last time. I should have charged you more for all that stuff.”

“You gave me a price, I paid it,” Dillon said. “What could be fairer?”

“And what is it this time?”

“I need a little Semtex, Jack. I could manage with forty pounds, but that’s the bottom line. Fifty would be better.”

“You don’t want much, do you? That stuff’s like gold. Very strict government controls.”

“Bollocks,” Dillon said. “It passes from Czechoslovakia to Italy, Greece, onwards to Libya. It’s everywhere, Jack, you know it and I know it, so don’t waste my time. Twenty thousand dollars.” He opened the briefcase on his knee and tossed the rest of the ten thousand packet by packet across the desk. “Ten now and ten on delivery.”

The Walther with the Carswell silencer screwed on the end of the barrel lay ready in the briefcase. He waited, the lid up, and then Harvey smiled. “All right, but it’ll cost you thirty.”

Dillon closed the briefcase. “No can do, Jack. Twenty-five I can manage, but no more.”

Harvey nodded. “All right. When do you want it?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

“I think I can manage that. Where can we reach you?”

“You’ve got it wrong way round, Jack. I contact you.”

Dillon stood up and Harvey said affably, “Anything else we can do for you?”

“Actually there is,” Dillon said. “Sign of goodwill, you might say. I could do with a spare handgun.”

“Be my guest, my old son.” Harvey pushed his chair back and opened the second drawer down on his right hand. “Take your pick.”

There was a Smith amp; Wesson.38 revolver, a Czech Cesca and an Italian Beretta, which was the one Dillon selected. He checked the clip and slipped the gun in his pocket. “This will do nicely.”

“Lady’s gun,” Harvey said, “but that’s your business. We’ll be seeing you, then, tomorrow.”

Myra opened the door. Dillon said, “A pleasure, Miss Harvey,” and he brushed past Billy and walked out.

Billy said, “I’d like to break that little bastard’s legs.”

Myra patted his cheek. “Never mind, sunshine, on your two feet you’re useless. It’s in the horizontal position you come into your own. Now go and play with your motorbike or something,” and she went back in her uncle’s office.

Dillon paused at the bottom of the stairs and slipped the Beretta inside the briefcase. The only thing better than one gun was two. It always gave you an ace in the hole and he walked back to the Mini-Cooper briskly.

Myra said, “I wouldn’t trust him an inch, that one.”

“A hard little bastard,” Harvey said. “When he was here for the IRA in nineteen eighty-one, I supplied him with arms, explosives, everything. You were at college then, not in the business, so you probably don’t remember.”

“Is Coogan his real name?”

“Course not.” He nodded. “Yes, hell on wheels. I was having a lot of hassle in those days from George Montoya down in Bermondsey, the one they called Spanish George. Coogan knocked him off for me one night, him and his brother, outside a bar called the Flamenco . Did it for free.”

“Really?” Myra said. “So where do we get him Semtex?”

He laughed, opened the top drawer and took out a bunch of keys. “I’ll show you.” He led the way out and along the corridor and unlocked a door. “Something even you didn’t know, darling.”

The room was lined with shelves of box files. He put his hand on the middle shelf of the rear wall and it swung open. He reached for a switch and turned on a light, revealing a treasure house of weapons of every description.

“My God!” she said.

“Whatever you want, it’s here,” he said. “Hand guns, AK assault rifles, M15s.” He chuckled. “And Semtex.” There were three cardboard boxes on a table. “Fifty pounds in each of those.”

“But why did you tell him it might take time?”

“Keep him dangling.” He led the way out and closed things up. “Might screw a few more bob out of him.”

As they went back into his office she said, “What do you think he’s up to?”