Jack Higgins - The Midnight Bell

“So was I, defusing bombs all over Belfast, the kind that murdered your parents and crippled you.”

“I thought he was your friend.” Hannah was angry, face flushed.

“But he is,” Roper said. “Also an enigma. Fought the revolution worldwide, found it just as easy to work for the Israelis as he did the PLO. Learned Arabic when the IRA sent him to one of the Gaddafi training camps and discovered he had a gift for languages, and now he speaks several.”

She looked bewildered. “I didn’t know all of that.”

“And you probably don’t know this,” Roper said. “His attempt to blow up the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet almost succeeded. That was during the Gulf War.”

Hannah took a deep breath. “Damn him, he even plays the best barroom piano I ever heard.”

“A lively lad.”

They were on their way in to lunch, but they got no farther than the door when an alert call sounded. “Hang on,” Roper said. “Ferguson wants a word.”

Ferguson’s face came on the screen from his office on the third floor of the ministry. Hannah could see paneled walls, a picture or two, and a mahogany desk that somehow suited Ferguson’s personality. Henry Frankel and Dillon sat on either side of him.

Frankel said, “Just to let you know that President Cazalet has made it clear he intends to honor his speaking commitment, so we’ll need to keep the security high. He’s at Downing Street now with Blake Johnson, and I’ll be joining them soon.”

Sara said, “I imagine the White House will be annoyed that he’s not returning to the States.”

“Perhaps,” Ferguson told her. “But these are troubled times, and good friends need to stand together.”

“So what do we need to do? It’s like we’re going to war.”

Dillon cut in. “Someone once said that in war all a soldier knows is his own small part of the front. Al-Qaeda may be all over the world, but this is our part of the front. We’ve disposed of two Masters already, and now we have a third. Our battle is to give him what we gave them.”

“Well said, Sean,” Ferguson said.

“There you go,” Dillon said. “Calling me Sean again.”

“On your way, you rogue,” Ferguson told him. “And don’t forget to check underneath your car for bombs.”

“As if I would,” Dillon said, and the screen faded to black.

“ANY QUESTIONS?”Roper asked Sara, but it was Hannah who replied.

“If we’re going to war, who exactly are we going to war with?”

“You’ve got your studies,” Sara told her. “Nobody’s suggesting you should get involved in this.”

“But I live with you,” Hannah said. “For four years. That was the deal. I think I managed to prove myself last year when the going got tough.”

“You have a point,” Roper said. “And I know you also break the law by carrying a gun in your pocket. But your primary responsibility is the Royal College of Music, and don’t you forget it.”

“I won’t,” Hannah said. “But to take care, I need to know who the enemy is.”

“All right,” Roper said. “Besides the new Master, our own small part of the front, as Sean put it, has to do with the Muslim Brotherhood and the rascals at the Pound Street mosque. They had a go at us when Imam Hamid Bey was in charge there. His death was none of our doing—a car crash—but a new man has just moved in there. His name is Yousef Shah, an Oxford graduate and an unknown quantity. We’re going to be keeping a very close eye on him.”

“If I meet him, I’ll remember to give him Sean’s favorite greeting,” Hannah said. “God bless all here.”

Roper laughed, and said to Sara, “I think she’ll do just fine. But speaking of security, if we’re a target, then so are those close to us, probably. I think it’s time you checked in with your grandfather, Sara.”

SHE DID,but it was Sadie Cohen, the housekeeper, who answered the phone. “So you’ve finally remembered where you live.”

“We’ve been really busy, love,” Sara told her. “Things aren’t looking too good at the moment. General Ferguson was wondering whether you and Grandad would care to move in with us for a while just in case anyone might show an unhealthy interest.”

“You could be offering the Dorchester, but it wouldn’t do you any good. He’s on his way to Leeds. Some important person has taken ill, tickets sold out, could Professor Rabbi Nathan Gideon step in. He said he’d call you.”

“Well, he didn’t.”

“He has a lot on his plate.”

“I’m sure, but never mind. We can’t leave you alone. It won’t do, not the way things are at the moment.”

“So you and Hannah won’t be here tonight?” Sadie asked.

“Well, that is the general idea.”

“Leaving the house with no one in it? What nonsense; I haven’t the slightest intention of doing that. Now you take care of yourself, and we’ll see you when we can,” and she cut off.

Sara said to Roper and Hannah, “I can’t leave it like that. I must go and try to make her see sense,” and she made for the door.

Roper called, “Just watch your back.”

Hannah took the silenced Colt .25 from her pocket. “I’ll take care of that department.”

“Yes, but who’s going to watch your back,” Roper said. “You’re getting to be worse than Sara. Tell her to use the Land Rover and take care.”

Which sent Hannah running out of the door smiling.

THE LATE AFTERNOON RAIN came with a sudden rush at Highfield Court that sent Sadie Cohen running upstairs to see that no windows were open. She checked all the bedrooms, finishing with Hannah’s, where she found one open a little.

“Naughty girl,” she muttered. “Typical.”

Not that she meant it, for she had come to realize for some time now that Hannah was the daughter she’d never had. Hannah, who’d lost her mother and father to the car bomb in Northern Ireland that had killed them and crippled her, returned her affection completely. The fact that she was Catholic and Sadie Jewish was irrelevant.

Sadie slammed the window down, peering out because this was her favorite view, high up on the fourth floor of the house, the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square no more than a couple of hundred yards away.

It never failed to please, and she looked down at the garden, which was at its best, flowers in season, poplar trees swaying, but then she frowned at a flash of yellow down there. A man in an oilskin jacket stepped out of the rhododendron bushes, stood there in the rain, then stepped back into cover.

Sadie went downstairs, entered the kitchen, opened a large wooden drawer, and took out a sawed-off shotgun and a packet of cartridges. She loaded the weapon quickly, then went out in the hall, approached the front door cautiously, and waited, the shadow of a man outside.

Her Codex sounded, and as she pulled it out one-handed to answer, the shadow vanished from view.

“Sadie Cohen,” she said.

“Hi, love,” Hannah replied. “Sara and I are on our way. Should be with you in fifteen minutes.”

“You’ll be welcome,” Sadie told her. “Because we appear to have a guest in the garden. Could be others, too.”

“Remain inside,” Hannah told her. “Intruder,” she said to Sara, and called Roper. “Where’s Dillon?”

“When he turned up and found you gone, he said he’d join you,” Roper told her. “I’ll check and tell him to put his foot down.”

“Dillon’s on his way,” she told Sara, who said, “That’s a comfort. I bet it’s the Brotherhood. They’ve tried before, three or four pretending to be seeing to waterworks or drains or something like that.”