Jack Higgins - The Midnight Bell

Doyle left, and Roper poured a large scotch, tossed it back, and lit a cigarette. The he pressed the master switch by his right hand, turning on everything in the computer room, and he sat there, brooding over dozens of screens.

“Don’t worry, Master,” he murmured softly. “I’ll find you in the end. I always do.”

ON THE LONDON WATERFRONT, fog had descended early, rolling in across the Thames at Wapping, a mile downriver from Harry Salter’s place, the Dark Man, where an old pier jutted out from Trenchard Street, an early Victorian pub standing back from it.

There was a motor launch painted blue and white tied to the pier with two chains, giving it a permanent look yet allowing the launch to ease itself in the five-knot current that was running that morning.

The name of the boat was Moonglow , and the fact that the painted sign hanging outside the pub indicated that the landlord’s name was George Moon amused many people. It didn’t bother Moon, though. His family had owned the pub since Queen Victoria’s reign, which made him proud, and he liked sleeping on board the launch as he had the night before. But now there was work to be done, which meant a visit to his office.

He went up the steps from the pier, a small insignificant balding man in steel spectacles clutching his raincoat across his body, an umbrella over his head, and approached the front door of the pub. Two notices faced him, one of which said CLOSED FOR THE WINTER, the other, MOON ENTERPRISES LIMITED, and as he approached, the door was opened for him by his cousin Harold, a hard, brutal-looking man with the flattened nose of an ex-boxer.

“Late this morning, George. Posh geezer called twice on the house phone in the last half hour. Said he’d call back.”

“So it will keep,” Moon said. “I’ve told you before, you worry too much. I’d turned my mobile off.”

“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t miss out on anything tasty,” Harold told him.

“I know, sunshine.” George tweaked the big man’s cheek. “Now get me a mug of scalding-hot tea and an Irish whiskey, and we’ll wait for your posh geezer to turn up again.”

It was quiet in the bar, everything peaceful, bottles lined up against the Victorian mirrors behind the bar. This type of establishment would usually be a thieves’ den for serious drinkers and drug users, but Moon had long since knocked that on the head. Development along the Thames had opened a whole new world, and his portfolio was considerable. Life was good.

His mobile sounded, and he answered, “Moon Enterprises.”

“How grand that sounds, Mr. Moon.”

Harold had been right, a posh geezer indeed. Moon beckoned, putting his mobile on speaker so Harold could listen.

“Who is this?”

“A Master who is looking for a willing servant. I’ve just deposited seventy-five thousand pounds in your bank account as evidence of good faith. There could be other payments later.”

“Do me a favor,” Moon said. “Go away and die somewhere. You think I believe that?”

“I’ll call you again in fifteen minutes. If you say no, I can cancel the deposit, but as I can’t envisage your being that stupid, I don’t think it likely. I suggest that you check with your bank.”

“A crazy one, that,” Moon said, turning to Harold.

“How do you know?” Harold said. “You haven’t been in touch with the bank.”

“Okay, just to keep you happy. Waste of time though.”

He made the call, shrugging, and within minutes received the astonishing news. “I can’t believe it,” he said hoarsely to Harold. “What’s this geezer’s game?”

“George, I couldn’t care less. All I know is it’s real money. Here, let me get you another whiskey,” Harold said. “Put a little lead in your pencil for when he gets back to you.”

Which the Master did as Moon was drinking it. “Satisfied, Mr. Moon?”

“Who wouldn’t be? So who are you and what do you want?”

“What I want is your experience of the London underworld, like your family before you. Generation of thieves and river rats. How did Charles Dickens put it? Those who made a living finding corpses in the Thames on behalf of the River Police? There is not a criminal enterprise you’ve failed to touch on.”

“And proud of it,” Moon said.

“You’ve been especially busy running booze and cigarettes from Europe—but no drugs, you’re too cunning for that, which is one reason I chose you. You’ve also done well with warehouse developments by the Thames, while Cousin Harold can haul in hoodlums by the score any time they’re needed.”

“And happy to do it, mister,” Harold called.

Moon said, “Okay, you know a lot about me, so what?”

“I know everything about you, my friend, even the fact that some years ago you were employed by Russian military intelligence, the GRU, making yourself useful in many ways right here in London. Remember your recognition code? ‘The midnight bell is ringing’? MI5 would have been interested. You could have got twenty-five years for treason.”

Moon was transfixed. “But how could you have known that?”

“You’ve heard of al-Qaeda, I’m sure. Our information system is as good as the CIA’s—better!—and I can access it by pushing a button.”

“So this is a Muslim thing?”

“Is that a problem?”

It was Harold who cut in then. “No problem at all, Master. Whatever you want, you get.”

“That’s good, because if I didn’t, I’d have to have you killed. Anyway, your first job for me will concern Harry and Billy Salter.”

Moon brightened up. “We have history, us and the Salters.”

Harold said, “What do you want us to do? Smash their restaurant up?”

“Not yet. Something more subtle. Give them just a hint of what we can do.”

“You can leave that to me,” Harold told him. “Mayhem is my specialty.”

“I’m delighted to know you can spell it,” the Master said.

“Well, I can, and it will be a pleasure to give the Salters a black eye.”

“To a fruitful association, then, gentlemen. I’ll be in touch.”

MOON SAID,“He’s gone, but I can’t say I’m happy about working for a Muslim.”

“Didn’t you tell me that we had a great-grandfather who was an Indian seaman who jumped ship in the Pool of London?”

“True.”

“Then stop being racist, join me in the kitchen, and I’ll cook you breakfast.”

“I wonder where he lives,” Moon said.

“I wouldn’t mind betting that he’d rather you didn’t know. Besides, it could be anywhere—London, Madrid, Timbuktu!”

“You think so?”

“All you need these days is a coded mobile, and you can cover the world.”

HAROLD WAS RIGHT,of course, for the Master did move frequently, for obvious reasons. At that moment he was living in Paris on a furnished barge next to the other barges moored on the Quai des Brumes on the Seine.

The Master thought the business with the Moons had gone well. Despite a certain criminal cunning on their part, they had missed the fact that he had taken complete control of them. They’d sold their souls to the Devil, which amused him. Just like Faust. Life was all about power.

Things had gone well so far, and he could proceed with confidence to the next step, but there was always the unexpected in life—there’d just been a death in the family of the other people relevant to his plans. For the moment, he hesitated, waiting for God to select the right time to move for, as in all things, there was only one God and Osama was his Prophet.

But he decided the time was now, and he took out his coded mobile and made a call to Drumore House in County Down in Ulster, still the old family home, in spite of a certain decay, of the Magee family.