Eye Of The Storm aka Midnight Man

any kind at high government level where Britain was concerned.

Makeev was immediately alert. “That’s correct. The usual kind of it-didn’t-happen affair.”

“Have you an interest?”

“Very much so.”

“There’s a coded fax on the way. I’ll stand by in my office if you want to talk.”

Tania Novikova put down the phone. She had her own fax coding machine at a second desk. She went to it, tapping the required details out quickly, checking on the screen to see that she had got it right. She added Makeev’s personal number, inserted the report and waited. A few moments later, she got a message received okay signal. She got up, lit a cigarette and went and stood by the window, waiting.

The jumbled message was received in the radio and coding room at the Paris Embassy. Makeev stood waiting impatiently for it to come through. The operator handed it to him and the colonel inserted it into the decoder and tapped in his personal key. He couldn’t wait to see the contents, was reading it as he went along the corridor, as excited as Tania Novikova when he saw the line For the Eyes of the Prime Minister only. He sat behind his desk and read it through again. He thought about it for a while, then reached for the red phone.

“You’ve done well, Tania. This one was my baby.”

“I’m so pleased.”

“Does Gatov know about this?”

“No, Colonel.”

“Good, let’s keep it that way.”

“Is there anything else I can do?”

“Very much so. Cultivate your contact. Let me have anything else on the instant. There could be more for you. I have a friend coming to London. The particular friend you’ve been reading about.”

“I’ll wait to hear.”

She put down the phone, totally elated, and went along to the canteen.

In Paris, Makeev sat there for a moment, frowning, then he picked up the phone and rang Dillon. There was a slight delay before the Irishman answered.

“Who is it?”

“Josef, Sean, I’m on my way there. Utmost importance.”

Makeev put down the phone, got his overcoat and went out.

FOUR

BROSNAN HAD TAKEN Anne-Marie to the cinema that evening and afterwards to a small restaurant in Montmartre called La Place Anglaise. It was an old favorite because, and in spite of the name, one of the specialities of the house was Irish stew. It wasn’t particularly busy, and they had just finished the main course when Max Hernu appeared, Savary standing behind him.

“Snow in London, snow in Brussels and snow in Paris,” Hernu brushed it from his sleeve and opened his coat.

“Do I deduce from your appearance here that you’ve had me followed?” Brosnan asked.

“Not at all, Professor. We called at your apartment, where the porter told us you had gone to the cinema. He was also kind enough to mention three or four restaurants he thought you might be at. This is the second.”

“Then you’d better sit down and have a cognac and some coffee,” Anne-Marie told him. “You both look frozen.”

They took off their coats and Brosnan nodded to the headwaiter, who hurried over and took the order.

“I’m sorry, mademoiselle, to spoil your evening, but this is most important,” Hernu said. “An unfortunate development.”

Brosnan lit a cigarette. “Tell us the worst.”

It was Savary who answered. “About two hours ago the bodies of the Jobert brothers were found by a beat policeman in their car in a small square not far from Le Chat Noir.”

“Murdered, is that what you are saying?” Anne-Marie put in.

“Oh, yes, mademoiselle,” he said. “Shot to death.”

“Two each in the heart?” Brosnan said.

“Why, yes, Professor, the pathologist was able to tell us that at the start of his examination. We didn’t stay for the rest. How did you know?”

“Dillon, without a doubt. It’s a real pro’s trick, Colonel, you should know that. Never one shot, always two in case the other man manages to get one off at you as a reflex.”

Hernu stirred his coffee. “Did you expect this, Professor?”

“Oh, yes. He’d have come looking for them sooner or later. A strange man. He always keeps his word, never goes back on a contract, and he expects the same from those he deals with. What he calls a matter of honor. At least he did in the old days.”

“Can I ask you something?” Savary said. “I’ve been on the street fifteen years. I’ve known killers in plenty and not just the gangsters who see it as part of the job, but the poor sod who’s killed his wife because she’s been unfaithful. Dillon seems something else. I mean, his father was killed by British soldiers so he joined the IRA. I can see that, but everything that’s happened since. Twenty years of it. All those hits and not even in his own country. Why?”

“I’m not a psychiatrist,” Brosnan said. “They’d give you all the fancy names starting with psychopath and working down. I knew men like him in the army in Vietnam in Special Forces and good men, some of them, but once they started, the killing, I mean, it seemed to take over like a drug. They became driven men. The next stage was always to kill when it wasn’t necessary. To do it without emotion. Back there in Nam it was as if people had become, how can I put it, just things.”

“And this, you think, happened to Dillon?” Hernu asked.

“It happened to me, Colonel,” Martin Brosnan said bleakly.

There was silence. Finally, Hernu said, “We must catch him, Professor.”

“I know.”

“Then you’ll join us in hunting him down?”

Anne-Marie put a hand on his arm, dismay on her face, and she turned to the two men, a kind of desperate anger there. “That’s your job, not Martin’s.”

“It’s all right,” Martin soothed her. “Don’t worry.” He said to Hernu, “Any advice I can give, any information that might help, but no personal involvement. I’m sorry, Colonel, that’s the way it has to be.”

Savary said. “You told us he tried to kill you once. You and a friend.”

“That was in seventy-four. He and I both worked for this friend of mine, a man named Devlin, Liam Devlin. He was what you might call an old-fashioned revolutionary. Thought you could still fight it out like the old days, an undercover army against the troops. A bit like the Resistance in France during the war. He didn’t like bombs, soft target bits, that kind of stuff.”

“What happened?” the Inspector asked.

“Dillon disobeyed orders and the bomb that was meant for the police patrol killed half a dozen children. Devlin and I went after him. He tried to take us out.”

“Without success, obviously?”

“Well, we weren’t exactly kids off the street.” His voice had changed in a subtle way. Harder, more cynical. “Left me with a groove in one shoulder and I gave him one in the arm himself. That was when he first dropped out of sight into Europe.”

“And you didn’t see him again?”

“I was in prison for over four years from nineteen seventy-five, Inspector. Belle Isle. You’re forgetting your