Jack Higgins: Eye Of The Storm aka Midnight Man

She paid off the taxi, hurried up the stairs to the flat on the first floor and let herself in with her own key. Ferguson was sitting on the sofa beside the fireplace in the elegant drawing room, a napkin under his chin, while Kim served his poached eggs.

“Just in time,” he said. “What would you like?”

“Tea, please. Earl Grey, Kim, and toast and honey.”

“Got to watch our figure.”

“Rather early in the day for sexist cracks, even for you, Brigadier. Now what have we got?”

He told her while he ate and Kim brought her tea and toast and she sat opposite, listening.

When he finished she said, “This Brosnan, I’ve never heard of him.”

“Before your time, my love. He must be about forty-five now. You’ll find a file on him in my study. He was born in Boston. One of those filthy rich American families. Very high society. His mother was a Dubliner. He did all the right things, went to Princeton, took his degree, then went and spoiled it all by volunteering for Vietnam and as an enlisted man. I believe that was nineteen sixty-six. Airborne Rangers. He was discharged a sergeant and heavily decorated.”

“So what makes him so special?”

“He could have avoided Vietnam by staying at university, but he didn’t. He also enlisted in the ranks. Quite something for someone with his social standing.”

“You’re just an old snob. What happened to him after that?”

“He went to Trinity College, Dublin, to work on a doctorate. He’s a Protestant, by the way, but his mother was a devout Catholic. In August sixty-nine, he was visiting an uncle on his mother’s side, a priest in Belfast. Remember what happened? How it all started?”

“Orange mobs burning Catholics out?” she said.

“And the police not doing too much about it. The mob burned down Brosnan’s uncle’s church and started on the Falls Road. A handful of old IRA hands with a few rifles and handguns held them off, and when one of them was shot, Brosnan picked up his rifle. Instinctive, I suppose. I mean Vietnam and all that.”

“And from then on he was committed?”

“Very much so. You’ve got to remember that in those early days, there were plenty of men like him in the movement. Believers in Irish freedom and all that sort of thing.”

“Sorry, sir, I’ve seen too much blood on the streets of Derry to go for that one.”

“Yes, well I’m not trying to whitewash him. He’s killed a few in his time, but always up front, I’ll say that for him. He became quite famous. There was a French War photographer called Anne-Marie Audin. He saved her life in Vietnam after a helicopter crash. Quite a romantic story. She turned up in Belfast and Brosnan took her underground for a week. She got a series out of it for Life magazine. The gallant Irish struggle. You know the sort of thing.”

“What happened after that?”

“In nineteen seventy-five he went to France to negotiate an arms deal. As it turned out, it was a setup and the police were waiting. Unfortunately he shot one of them dead. They gave him life. He escaped from prison in seventy-nine, at my instigation, I might add.”

“But why?”

“Someone else before your time, a terrorist called Frank Barry. Started off in Ulster with a splinter group called the Sons of Erin, then joined the European terrorist circuit, an evil genius if ever there was one. Tried to get Lord Carrington on a trip to France when he was Foreign Secretary. The French hushed it up, but the Prime Minister was furious. Gave me direct orders to hunt Barry down whatever the cost.”

“Oh, I see now. You needed Brosnan to do that?”

“Set a thief to catch a thief and so forth, and he got him for us.”

“And afterwards?”

“He went back to Ireland and took that doctorate.”

“And this Anne-Marie Audin, did they marry?”

“Not to my knowledge, but she did him a bigger favor than that. Her family is one of the oldest in France and enormously powerful politically and he had been awarded the Legion of Honour for saving her in Vietnam. Anyway, her pressure behind the scenes bore fruit five years ago. President Mitterrand granted him a pardon. Wiped the slate clean.”

“Which is how he’s at the Sorbonne now? He must be the only professor they’ve had who shot a policeman dead.”

“Actually one or two after the war had done just that when serving with the Resistance.”

“Does the leopard ever change its spots?” she asked.

“O, ye of little faith. As I say, you’ll find his file in the study if you want to know more.” He passed her a piece of paper. “That’s the description of the mystery man. Not much to go on, but run it through the computer anyway.”

She went out.

Kim entered with a copy of the Times . Ferguson read the headlines briefly, then turned to page two where his attention was immediately caught by the same item concerning Mrs. Thatcher’s visit to France that had appeared in Paris Soir .

“Well, Max,” he said softly, “I wish you luck,” and he poured himself another cup of coffee.

IT WAS MUCH warmer in Paris later that morning, most of the snow clearing by lunchtime. It was clear in the countryside too, only a bit here and there on the hedgerows as Dillon moved toward Valenton, keeping to the back roads. He was riding the BMW motorcycle from the garage and was dressed as a CRS policeman: helmet, goggles, a MAT49 machine gun slung across the front of the dark uniform raincoat.

Madness to have come, of course, but he couldn’t resist the free show. He pulled off a narrow country lane by a farm gate after consulting his map, followed a track through a small wood on foot and came to a low stonewall on a hill. Way below some two hundred yards on was the railway crossing, the black Renault still parked where he had left it. There wasn’t a soul about. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, a train passed through.

He checked his watch. Two-fifteen. He focused his Zeiss glasses on the scene below again and then the white Renault came down the road, half-turning to block the crossing. There was a Peugeot behind it, Pierre at the wheel, and he was already reversing, turning the car as Gaston ran toward him. It was an old model, painted scarlet and cream.

“Very pretty,” Dillon said softly, as the Peugeot disappeared up the road.

“Now for the cavalry,” he said and lit a cigarette.

It was perhaps ten minutes later that a large truck came down the road and braked to a halt, unable to progress farther. It had high canvas sides on which was emblazoned Steiner Electronics .

“Electronics my arse,” Dillon said.

A heavy machine gun opened up from inside the truck, firing through the side, raking the Renault. As the firing stopped, Dillon took a black plastic electronic detonator from his pocket, switched it on and pulled out the aerial.

A dozen men in black overalls and riot helmets, all clutching machine carbines, jumped out. As they approached the Renault, Dillon pressed the detonator. The self-destruct charge in the second black box, the one he had told Pierre contained extra ammunition, exploded instantly, the vehicle disintegrating, parts of the paneling lifting into the air in slow motion. There were several men on the ground, others running for cover.

“There you are, chew on that, gentlemen,” Dillon said.

He walked back through the wood, pushed the BMW off its stand, swung a leg over and drove away.

He opened the door of the warehouse on rue de Helier, got back on the BMW, rode inside and parked it. As he turned to close the door, Makeev called from above, “It went wrong, I presume?”

Dillon took off his helmet. “I’m afraid so. The Jobert brothers turned me in.”