Eye Of The Storm aka Midnight Man

EIGHT

FOR DILLON IN the Mini-Cooper, the run from London went easily enough. Although there was a light covering of snow on the fields and hedgerows, the roads were perfectly clear and not particularly busy. He was in Dorking within half an hour. He passed straight through and continued toward Horsham, finally pulling into a petrol station about five miles outside.

As the attendant was topping up the tank Dillon got his road map out. “Place called Doxley, you know it?”

“Half a mile up the road on your right a signpost says Grimethorpe. That’s the airfield, but before you get there you’ll see a sign to Doxley.”

“So it’s not far from here?”

“Three miles maybe, but it might as well be the end of the world.” The attendant chuckled as he took the notes Dillon gave him. “Not much there, mister.”

“Thought I’d take a look. Friend told me there might be a weekend cottage going.”

“If there is, I haven’t heard of it.”

Dillon drove away, came to the Grimethorpe sign within a few minutes, followed the narrow road and found the Doxley sign as the garage man had indicated. The road was even narrower, high banks blocking the view until he came to the brow of a small hill and looked across a desolate landscape, powdered with snow. There was the occasional small wood, a scattering of hedged fields and then flat marshland drifting toward a river, which had to be the Arun. Beside it, perhaps a mile away, he saw houses, twelve or fifteen, with red pantiled roofs, and there was a small church, obviously Doxley. He started down the hill to the wooded valley below and as he came to it, saw a five-barred gate standing open and a decaying wooden sign with the legend Cadge End Farm.

The track led through the wood and brought him almost at once to a farm complex. There were a few chickens running here and there, a house and two large barns linked to it so that the whole enclosed a courtyard. It looked incredibly rundown, as if nothing had been done to it for years, but then, as Dillon knew, many country people preferred to live like that. He got out of the Mini and crossed to the front door, knocked and tried to open it. It was locked. He turned and went to the first barn. Its old wooden doors stood open. There was a Morris van in there and a Ford car jacked up on bricks, no wheels, agricultural implements all over the place.

Dillon took out a cigarette. As he lit it in cupped hands, a voice behind said, “Who are you? What do you want?”

He turned and found a girl in the doorway. She wore baggy trousers tucked into a pair of rubber boots, a heavy roll-neck sweater under an old anorak and a knitted beret like a Tam o’ Shanter, the kind of thing you found in fishing villages on the West Coast of Ireland. She was holding a double-barreled shotgun threateningly. As he took a step toward her, she thumbed back the hammer.

“You stay there.” The Irish accent was very pronounced.

“You’ll be the one they call Angel Fahy?” he said.

“Angela, if it’s any of your business.”

Tania’s man had been right. She did look like a little peasant. Broad cheekbone, upturned nose and a kind of fierceness there. “Would you really shoot with that thing?”

“If I had to.”

“A pity that, and me only wanting to meet my father’s cousin, once removed, Danny Fahy.”

She frowned. “And who in the hell might you be, mister?”

“Dillon’s the name. Sean Dillon.”

She laughed harshly. “That’s a damn lie. You’re not even Irish and Sean Dillon is dead, everyone knows that.”

Dillon dropped into the hard distinctive accent of Belfast. “To steal a great man’s line, girl dear, all I can say is, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

The gun went slack in her hands. “Mother Mary, are you Sean Dillon?”

“As ever was. Appearances can be deceiving.”

“Oh, God,” she said. “Uncle Danny talks about you all the time, but it was always like stories, nothing real to it at all and here you are.”

“Where is he?”

“He did a repair on a car for the landlord of the local pub, took it down there an hour ago. Said he’d walk back, but he’ll be there a while yet drinking, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“At this time? Isn’t the pub closed until evening?”

“That might be the law, Mr. Dillon, but not in Doxley. They never close.”

“Let’s go and get him, then.”

She left the shotgun on a bench and got into the Mini beside him. As they drove away, he said, “What’s your story then?”

“I was raised on a farm in Galway. My da was Danny’s nephew, Michael. He died six years ago when I was fourteen. After a year, my mother married again.”

“Let me guess,” Dillon said. “You didn’t like your stepfather and he didn’t like you?”

“Something like that. Uncle Danny came over for my father’s funeral, so I’d met him and liked him. When things got too heavy, I left home and came here. He was great about it. Wrote to my mother and she agreed I could stay. Glad to get rid of me.”

There was no self-pity at all and Dillon warmed to her. “They always say some good comes out of everything.”

“I’ve been working it out,” she said. “If you’re Danny’s second cousin and I’m his great-niece, then you and I are blood related, isn’t that a fact?”

Dillon laughed. “In a manner of speaking.”

She looked ecstatic as she leaned back. “Me, Angel Fahy, related to the greatest gunman the Provisional IRA ever had.”

“Well, now, there would be some who would argue about that,” he said as they reached the village and pulled up outside the pub.

It was a small, desolate sort of place, no more than fifteen rather dilapidated cottages and a Norman church with a tower and an overgrown graveyard. The pub was called the Green Man and even Dillon had to duck to enter the door. The ceiling was very low and beamed. The floor was constructed of heavy stone flags worn with the years, the walls were whitewashed. The man behind the bar in his shirt sleeves was at least eighty.

He glanced up and Angel said, “Is he here, Mr. Dalton?”

“By the fire, having a beer,” the old man said.

A fire burned in a wide stone hearth and there was a wooden bench and a table in front of it. Danny Fahy sat there reading the paper, a glass in front of him. He was sixty-five, with an untidy, grizzled beard, and wore a cloth cap and an old Harris Tweed suit.

Angel said, “I’ve brought someone to see you, Uncle Danny.”

He looked up at her and then at Dillon, puzzlement on his face. “And what can I do for you, sir?”

Dillon removed his glasses. “God bless all here!” he said in his Belfast accent. “And particularly you, you old bastard.”

Fahy turned very pale, the shock was so intense. “God save us, is that you, Sean, and me thinking you were in your box long ago?”

“Well, I’m not and I’m here.” Dillon took a five-pound note from his wallet and gave it to Angel. “A couple of whiskies, Irish for preference.”

She went back to the bar and Dillon turned. Danny Fahy actually had tears in his eyes and he flung his arms around him. “Dear God, Sean, but I can’t tell you how good it is to see you.”

The sitting room at the farm was untidy and cluttered, the furniture very old. Dillon sat on a sofa while Fahy built up the fire. Angel was in the kitchen cooking a meal. It was open to the sitting room and Dillon could see her moving around.

“And how’s life been treating you, Sean?” Fahy stuffed a pipe and lit it. “Ten years since you raised Cain in London town. By God, boy, you gave the Brits something to think about.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you, Danny.”

“Great days. And what happened after?”

“Europe, the Middle East. I kept on the move. Did a lot for the PLO. Even learned to fly.”

“Is that a fact?”

Angel came and put plates of bacon and eggs on the table. “Get it while it’s hot.” She returned with a tray laden with teapot and milk, three mugs and a plate piled high with bread and butter. “I’m sorry there’s nothing fancier, but we weren’t expecting company.”

“It looks good to me,” Dillon told her and tucked in.

“So now you’re here, Sean, and dressed like an English gentleman.” Fahy turned to Angel. “Didn’t I tell you the actor this man was? They never could put a glove on him in all these years, not once.”

She nodded eagerly, smiling at Dillon, and her personality had changed with the excitement. “Are you on a job now, Mr. Dillon, for the IRA, I mean?”

“It would be a cold day in hell before I put myself on the line for that bunch of old washer women,” Dillon said.

“But you are working on something, Sean?” Fahy said. “I can tell. Come on, let’s in on it.”

Dillon lit a cigarette. “What if I told you I was working for the Arabs, Danny, for Saddam Hussein himself?”

“Jesus, Sean, and why not? And what is it he wants you to do?”

“He wants something now-a coup. Something big. America’s too far away. That leaves the Brits.”

“What could be better?” Fahy’s eyes were gleaming.

“Thatcher was in France the other day seeing Mitterrand. I had plans for her on the way to her plane. Perfect setup, quiet country road, and then someone I trusted let me down.”

“And isn’t that always the way?” Fahy said. “So you’re looking for another target? Who, Sean?”

“I was thinking of John Major.”

“The new Prime Minister?” Angel said in awe. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Sure and why wouldn’t he? Didn’t the boys nearly get the whole bloody British Government at Brighton,” Danny Fahy told her. “Go on, Sean, what’s your plan?”

“I haven’t got one, Danny, that’s the trouble, but there would be a payday for this like you wouldn’t believe.”

“And that’s as good a reason to make it work as any. So you’ve come to Uncle Danny looking for help?” Fahy went to a cupboard, came back with a bottle of Bushmills and two glasses and filled them. “Have you any ideas at all?”

“Not yet, Danny. Do you still work for the Movement?”

“Stay in deep cover, that was the order from Belfast so many years ago I’ve forgotten. Since then not a word, and me bored out of my socks, so I moved down here. It suits me. I like the countryside here, I like the people. They keep to themselves. I’ve built up a fair business repairing agricultural machinery and I run a few sheep. We’re happy here, Angel and me.”

“And still bored out of your socks. Do you remember Martin Brosnan, by the way?”

“I do so. You were bad friends with that one.”

“I had a run-in with him in Paris recently. He’ll probably turn up in London looking for me. He’ll be working for Brit intelligence.”

“The bastard.” Fahy frowned as he refilled his pipe. “Didn’t I hear some fanciful talk of how Brosnan got into Ten Downing Street as a waiter years ago and didn’t do anything about it?”

“I heard that story, too. A flight of fancy and no one would get in these days as a waiter or anything else. You know they’ve blocked the street off? The place is a fortress. No way in there, Danny.”

“Oh, there’s always a way, Sean. I was reading in a magazine the other day how a lot of French Resistance people in the Second World War were held at some Gestapo headquarters. Their cells were on the ground floor, the Gestapo on the first floor. The RAF had a fella in a Mosquito fly in at fifty feet and drop a bomb that bounced off the street and went in through the first-floor window, killing all the bloody Gestapo so the fellas downstairs got away.”

“What in the hell are you trying to say to me?” Dillon demanded.

“That I’m a great believer in the power of the bomb and the science of ballistics. You can make a bomb go anywhere if you know what you’re doing.”

“What is this?” Dillon demanded.

Angel said. “Go on, show him, Uncle Danny.”

“Show me what?” Dillon said.

Danny Fahy got up, putting another match to his pipe. “Come on, then,” and he turned and went to the door.

Fahy opened the door of the second barn and led the way in. It was enormous, oak beams rearing up to a steeply pitched roof. There was a loft stuffed with hay and reached by a ladder. There were various items of farm machinery including a tractor. There was also a fairly new Land-Rover, and an old BSA 500cc motorcycle in fine condition, up on its stand.

“This is a beauty,” Dillon said in genuine admiration.

“Bought it second-hand last year. Thought I’d renovate it to make a profit, but now I’m finished, I can’t bear to let it go. It’s as good as a BMW.” There was another vehicle in the shadows of the rear and Fahy switched on a light and a white Ford Transit van stood revealed.

“So?” Dillon said. “What’s so special?”

“You wait, Mr. Dillon,” Angel told him. “This is really something.”

Fahy said, “Not what it seems.”

There was an excited look on his face, a kind of pride as he opened the sliding door. Inside there was a battery of metal pipes, three in all, bolted to the floor, pointing up to the roof at an angle.

“Mortars, Sean, just like the lads have been using in Ulster.”

Dillon said, “You mean this thing works?”

“Hell, no, I’ve no explosives. It would work, that’s all I can say.”

“Explain it to me.”

“I’ve welded a steel platform to the floor, that’s to stand the recoil, and I’ve also welded the tubing together. That’s standard cast-iron stuff available anywhere. The electric timers are dead simple. Stuff you can buy at any do-it-yourself shop.”

“How would it work?”

“Once switched on it would give you a minute to get out of the van and run for it. The roof is cut out. That’s just stretched polythene covering the hole. You can see I’ve sprayed it the same color. It gives the mortars a clean exit. I’ve even worked out an extra little device linked to the timer that will self-destruct the van after it’s fired the mortars.”

“And where would they be?”

“Over here.” Fahy walked to a workbench. “Standard oxygen cylinders.” There were several stacked together, the bottom plates removed.

“And what would you need for those, Semtex?” Dillon asked, naming the Czechoslovakian explosive so popular with terrorists everywhere.

“I’d say about twelve pounds in each would do nicely, but that’s not easily come by over here.”

Dillon lit a cigarette and walked around the van, his face blank. “You’re a bad boy, Danny. The Movement told you to stay in deep cover.”

“Like I told you, how many years ago was that?” Fahy demanded. “A man would go crazy.”

“So you found yourself something to do?”

“It was easy, Sean. You know I was in the light engineering for years.”

Dillon stood looking at it. Angel said, “What do you think?”

“I think he’s done a good job.”

“As good as anything they’ve done in Ulster,” Fahy said.

“Maybe, but whenever they’ve been used, they’ve never been too strong on accuracy.”

“They worked like a dream in that attack on Newry police station six years ago. Killed nine coppers.”

“What about all the other times they couldn’t hit a barn door? Someone even blew himself up with one of these things in Portadown. A bit hit-and-miss.”

“Not the way I’d do it. I can plot the target on a large-scale map, have a look at the area on foot beforehand, line the van up and that’s it. Mind you, I’ve been thinking that some sort of fin welded on to the oxygen cylinders would help steady them in flight. A nice big curve and then down, and the whole world blows up. All the security in the world wouldn’t help. I mean, what good are gates if you go over them?”

“You’re talking Downing Street now?” Dillon said.

“And why not?”

“They meet at ten o’clock every morning in the Cabinet Room. What they call the War Cabinet. You’d not only get the Prime Minister, you’d get virtually the whole government.”

Fahy crossed himself. “Holy Mother of God, it would be the hit of a lifetime.”

“They’d make up songs about you, Danny,” Dillon told him. “They’d be singing about Danny Fahy in bars all over Ireland fifty years from now.”

Fahy slammed a clenched fist into his palm. “All hot air, Sean, no meaning to it without the Semtex, and like I said, that stuff’s impossible to get your hands on over here.”

“Don’t be too sure, Danny,” Dillon said. “There might be a source. Now let’s go and have a Bushmills and sort this out.”

Fahy had a large-scale map of London spread across the table and examined it with a magnifying glass. “Here would be the place,” he said. “Horse Guards Avenue, running up from the Victoria Embankment at the side of the Ministry of Defence.”

“Yes.” Dillon nodded.

“If we left the Ford on the corner with Whitehall, then as long as I had a predetermined sighting, to get my direction, I reckon the mortar bombs would go over those roofs in a bloody great curve and land smack on Ten Downing Street!” He put his pencil down beside the ruler. “I’d like to have a look, mind you.”

“And so you will,” Dillon said.

“Would it work, Mr. Dillon?” Angel demanded.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I think it really could. Ten o’clock in the morning, the whole bloody War Cabinet.” He started to laugh. “It’s beautiful, Danny, beautiful.” He grabbed the other man’s arm. “You’ll come in with me on this?”

“Of course I will.”

“Good,” Dillon said. “Big, big money, Danny. I’ll set you up for your old age. Total luxury. Spain, Greece, anywhere you want to go.” Fahy rolled up the map and Dillon said, “I’ll stay overnight. We’ll go up to London tomorrow and have a look.” He smiled and lit another cigarette. “It’s looking good, Danny. Really good. Now tell me about this airfield near here at Grimethorpe.”

“A real broken-down sort of a place. It’s only three miles from here. What would you want with Grimethorpe?”

“I told you I learned to fly in the Middle East. A good way of getting out of places fast. Now what’s the situation at this Grimethorpe place?”

“It goes way back into the past. A flying club in the thirties. Then the RAF used it as a feeder station during the Battle of Britain, so they built three hangars. Someone tried it as a flying club a few years ago. There’s a tarmac runway. Anyway, it failed. A fella called Bill Grant turned up three years ago. He has two planes there, that’s all I know. His firm is called Grant’s Air Taxis. I heard recently he was in trouble. His two mechanics had left. Business was bad.” He smiled. “There’s a recession on, Sean, and it even affects the rich.”

“Does he live on the premises?”

“Yes,” Angel said. “He did have a girlfriend, but she moved on.”

“I think I’d like to meet him,” Dillon said. “Maybe you could show me, Angel?”

“Of course.”

“Good, but first I’d like to make a phone call.”

He rang Tania Novikova at her flat. She answered at once. “It’s me,” he said.

“Has it gone well?”

“Unbelievable. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Did you pick up the money?”

“Oh, yes, no problem.”

“Good. I’ll be at the hotel at noon. I’m overnighting here. See you then,” and he rang off.

Brosnan and Mary Tanner went up in the freight elevator with Charlie Salter and found Mordecai waiting for them. He pumped Brosnan’s hand up and down. “It’s great to see you, Professor. I can’t tell you how great. Harry’s been on hot bricks.”

“This is Mary Tanner,” Brosnan said. “You’d better be nice. She’s an Army captain.”

“Well, this is a pleasure, miss.” Mordecai shook her hand. “I did my National Service in the Grenadier Guards, but lance-corporal was all I managed.”

He led them into the sitting room. Harry Flood was seated at the desk going over some accounts. He glanced up and jumped to his feet. “Martin.” He rushed round the desk and embraced Brosnan, laughing in delight.

Brosnan said, “Mary Tanner. She’s Army, Harry, a real hotshot, so watch your step. I’m working for Brigadier Charles Ferguson of British Intelligence and she’s his aide.”

“Then I’ll behave.” Flood took her hand. “Now come over here and let’s have a drink and you tell me what all this is about, Martin.”

They sat in the sofa complex in the corner and Brosnan covered everything in finest detail. Mordecai leaned against the wall listening, no expression on his face.

When Brosnan was finished, Flood said, “So what do you want from me, Martin?”

“He always works the underworld, Harry, that’s where he gets everything he needs. Not only physical help, but explosives, weaponry. He’ll work the same way now, I know he will.”

“So what you want to know is who he’d go to?”

“Exactly.”

Flood looked up at Mordecai. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know, Harry. I mean there are plenty of legit arms dealers, but what you need is someone who’s willing to supply the IRA.”

“Any ideas?” Flood asked.

“Not really, guv. I mean, most of your real East End villains love Maggie Thatcher and wear Union Jack underpants. They don’t go for Irish geezers letting off bombs at Harrods. We could make enquiries, of course.”

“Then do that,” Flood said. “Put the word out now, but discreetly.”

Mordecai went out and Harry Flood reached for the champagne bottle. “You’re still not drinking?” Brosnan said.

“Not me, old buddy, but no reason you shouldn’t. You can fill me in with the events of recent years, and then we’ll go along to the Embassy, one of my more respectable clubs, and have something to eat.”

At around the same time, Sean Dillon and Angel Fahy were driving along the dark country road from Cadge End to Grimethorpe. The lights of the car picked out light snow and frost on the hedgerows.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she said.

“I suppose so.”

“I like it here, the countryside and all that. I like Uncle Danny, too. He’s been really good to me.”

“That makes sense. You were raised in the country back there in Galway.”

“It wasn’t the same. It was poor land there. It was hard work to make any kind of a living and it showed in the people, my mother, for instance. It was as if they’d been to war and lost and there was nothing to look forward to.”

“You’ve got a way with the words, girl,” he told her.

“My English teacher used to say that. She said if I worked hard and studied I could do anything.”

“Well that must have been a comfort.”

“It didn’t do me any good. My stepfather just saw me as an unpaid farm laborer. That’s why I left.”

The lights picked out a sign that said Grimethorpe airfield, the paintwork peeling. Dillon turned into a narrow tarmac road that was badly potholed. A few moments later, they came to the airfield. There were three hangars, an old control tower, a couple of Nissen huts, a light at the windows of one of them. A jeep was parked there and Dillon pulled in beside it. As they got out, the door of the Nissen hut opened and a man stood there.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Mr. Grant, Angel Fahy. I’ve brought someone to see you.”

Grant, like most pilots, was small and wiry. He looked to be in his mid-forties, wore jeans and an old flying jacket of the kind used by American aircrew in the Second World War. “You’d better come in, then.”

The interior of the Nissen hut was warm, heated by a coke-burning stove, the pipe going up through the roof. Grant obviously used it as a living room. There was a table with the remains of a meal on it, an old easy chair by the stove facing a television set in the corner. Beneath the windows on the other side there was a long, sloping desk with a few charts.

Angel said, “This is a friend of my uncle’s.”

“Hilton,” Dillon said. “Peter Hilton.”

Grant put his hand out, looking wary. “Bill Grant. I don’t owe you money, do I?”

“Not to my knowledge.” Dillon was back in his public-school role.

“Well, that makes a nice change. What can I do for you?”

“I want a charter in the next few days. Just wanted to check if you might be able to do something before I tried anywhere else.”

“Well, that depends.”

“On what? You do have a plane, I take it?”

“I’ve got two. The only problem is how long the bank lets me hang onto them. Do you want to have a look?”

“Why not?”

They went out, crossed the apron to the end hangar, and he opened a Judas so they could step through. He reached to one side, found a switch and lights came on. There were two planes there, side by side, both twin engines.

Dillon walked up to the nearest. “I know this baby, a Cessna Conquest. What’s the other?”

“Navajo Chieftain.”

“If things are as tricky as you say, what about fuel?”

“I always keep my planes juiced up, Mr. Hilton, always full tanks. I’m too old a hand to do otherwise. You never know when a job might come up.” He smiled ruefully. “Mind you, I’ll be honest. What with the recession, there aren’t too many people looking for charters these days. Where would you like me to take you?”

“Actually I was thinking of going for a spin myself one day,” Dillon said. “I’m not sure when.”

“You’re certified, then?” Grant looked dubious.

“Oh, yes, fully.” Dillon took out his pilot’s license and passed it across.

Grant examined it quickly and handed it back. “You could handle either of these two, but I’d rather come myself, just to make sure.”

“No problem,” Dillon said smoothly. “It’s the West Country I was thinking of. Cornwall. There’s an airfield at Land’s End.”

“I know it well. Grass runway.”

“I’ve got friends near there. I’d probably want to stay overnight.”

“That’s fine by me.” Grant switched off the lights and they walked back to the Nissen hut. “What line are you in, Mr. Hilton?”

“Oh, finance, accountancy, that sort of thing,” Dillon said.

“Have you any idea when you might want to go? I should point out that kind of charter’s going to be expensive. Around two thousand five hundred pounds. With half a dozen passengers that’s not so bad, but on your own…”

“That’s fine,” Dillon said.

“Then there would be my overnight expenses. A hotel and so on.”

“No problem.” Dillon took ten fifty-pound notes from his wallet and put them on the table. “There’s five hundred down. It’s a definite booking for some time in the next four or five days. I’ll phone you here to let you know when.”

Grant’s face brightened as he picked up the bank notes. “That’s fine. Can I get you a coffee or something before you go?”

“Why not?” Dillon said.

Grant went into the kitchen at the far end of the Nissen hut. They heard him filling a kettle. Dillon put a finger to his lips, made a face at Angel and crossed to the charts on the desk. He went through them quickly, found the one for the general English Channel area and the French coast. Angel stood beside him watching as he traced his finger along the Normandy coast. He found Cherbourg and moved south. There it was, Saint-Denis, with the landing strip clearly marked, and he pushed the charts back together. Grant in the kitchen had been watching through the half-open door. As the kettle boiled, he quickly made coffee in three mugs and took them in.

“Is this weather giving you much trouble?” Dillon said. “The snow?”

“It will if it really starts to stick,” Grant said. “It could make it difficult for that grass runway at Land’s End.”

“We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed.” Dillon put down his mug. “We’d better be getting back.”

Grant went to the door to see them off. They got in the Mini and drove away. He waved, closed the door and went to the desk and examined the charts. It was the third or fourth down, he was sure of that. General English Channel area and the French coast.

He frowned and said softly, “And what’s your game, mister, I wonder?”

As they drove back through the dark country lanes Angel said, “Not Land’s End at all, Mr. Dillon, it’s that Saint-Denis place in Normandy, that’s where you want to fly to.”

“Our secret,” he said and put his left hand on hers, still steering. “Can I ask you to promise me one thing?”

“Anything, Mr. Dillon.”

“Let’s keep it to ourselves, just for now. I don’t want Danny to know. You do drive, do you?”

“Drive? Of course I do. I take the sheep to market in the Morris van myself.”

“Tell me, how would you like a trip up to London tomorrow morning with me, you and Danny?”

“I’d like it fine.”

“Good, that’s all right, then.”

As they carried on through the night her eyes were shining.