The Wolf At The Door Part 21

Shepherd's Market had always been one of his favorite places in London. The narrow streets, the pubs, the restaurants, and the shops selling everything from paintings and prints to antiques. "Selim Malik" was painted in gold above the door of one such shop, a narrow window on each side, one offering a triangle of truly remarkable Buddhas and the other an exquisite Bokhara silk rug. The door was shut, but there was an intercom beside it, and Holley pressed a b.u.t.ton, confident he was on camera. been one of his favorite places in London. The narrow streets, the pubs, the restaurants, and the shops selling everything from paintings and prints to antiques. "Selim Malik" was painted in gold above the door of one such shop, a narrow window on each side, one offering a triangle of truly remarkable Buddhas and the other an exquisite Bokhara silk rug. The door was shut, but there was an intercom beside it, and Holley pressed a b.u.t.ton, confident he was on camera.

Which proved true, because before he could open his mouth a voice said in Arabic, "Praise be to Allah."

A moment later, the door opened, and he was pulled inside to a tight embrace. "Daniel, it is you. Six years since I've seen you, and you look good."

"Older, Selim, older, but you never change."

Selim was small, perhaps five-five, with long, curling hair that had once been black but was now silvery gray and swept behind the ears, no mustache but a fringe of beard, and a dark olive face. He had good-humored eyes that lit up his personality when he was happy, as he was now. He wore a velvet jacket from another age, a ruffled s.h.i.+rt, and baggy velvet trousers.

"Everything is change, Daniel. I was sixty-five this year, imagine that. Come into my study and have a gla.s.s of champagne with me to celebrate."

"So you're still that kind of Arab?"

"Allah is merciful. You've booked in at the hotel? Everything is taken care of? I have a running account there. They're very good."

The study was partly rococo and partly Victorian, with overstuffed chairs and two enormous sofas and an Axminster carpet that must have cost a fortune. A large round table in beaten bra.s.s was almost at floor level, and a bottle of Cristal champagne in an ice bucket sat upon it, with seventeenth-century Venetian goblets to drink it with.

"Sit down," he urged. "And you do the honors. I'll be back." He went out, and Daniel thumbed off the cork and poured. Selim returned with a black bag and a laptop, which he put on the table. "A present for you. But let's have a drink first."

He drank it straight down and poured another. "Allah be praised to see you out of that terrible prison. You must feel like Edmond Dantes escaping from the Chateau d'If."

"I think he did sixteen years, but I may be wrong," Daniel said.

"You haven't seen Hamid?" He chuckled. "Forgive me. To you, he was always Malik."

"An old habit. No, I haven't seen him, but we've spoken. I can buy my freedom. The Russians want me to do them a big favor right here in London. If I can bring it off, I'm rid of them for good."

"You think you can trust them?"

"Not really, but I must go with the flow, and hope."

"You know best. Don't tell me anything-I would rather not know what it is. Please open the bag and see if it's what you wanted."

Holley did and pulled out an ankle holster and a Colt .25 with a couple of boxes of ammunition. "Hollow-point," Selim said.

Next was a cardboard box containing a Walther PPK with a Carswell silencer, the new, short version. Last of all came a nylon-and-t.i.tanium bulletproof vest.

"This is wonderful," Holley told him.

"There should be a knife in there as well."

Holley groped around and found it, slim, dark, and deadly, with a razor-sharp blade leaping to attention when a b.u.t.ton was pressed.

"Excellent. That's taken care of me perfectly."

"Not quite." Selim leaned over and opened a zip to a side pocket of the bag. He took out an envelope. "Expense money. Ten fifty-pound notes, and another five hundred pounds in twenties. There is more where that came from, so ask when you need it. Here's a company credit card. I've taped the PIN number on the back. Learn it and destroy. There's always the chance that you're going to need a credit card these days."

"What can I say?"

"Not much. Have you eaten?"

"No."

"Well, let me buy you a late lunch round the corner at the Lebanese. Great, great cooking, unless you have other plans."

"No, not for a while yet. I'd love to have a meal with you." He stowed the items back into the bag. "I'll leave these here for the moment and get them when I come back."

"That's fine." As they went through the shop, Selim said, "What's the plan, to get started at once or take your time?"

"Actually, I'm probably going to Ma.s.s," Daniel Holley said. "But don't ask me to explain."

He left the hotel in the early-evening rain, borrowing an umbrella, walked to the end of Curzon Street, hailed a black cab, and told the driver to take him to Kilburn. Darkness was falling and the traffic busy, but they were there quite quickly, and he asked to be dropped at Kilburn High Road. He walked the rest of the way. in the early-evening rain, borrowing an umbrella, walked to the end of Curzon Street, hailed a black cab, and told the driver to take him to Kilburn. Darkness was falling and the traffic busy, but they were there quite quickly, and he asked to be dropped at Kilburn High Road. He walked the rest of the way.

Unfortunately, according to the times inscribed on the board at the gate, he was already too late for that evening's services. He hesitated, but a hint of light at the church windows encouraged him to go forward.

Walking through the Victorian-Gothic cemetery, with angels and effigies of one kind or another looming out of the darkness, he realized that he couldn't remember much from his first visit, but, then, it had been so brief. He turned the ring on the door and went in.

It was incredibly peaceful, the lights very low, and the church smelt of incense and candles, the Mary Chapel to one side. Money had been spent here, mostly during the high tide of Victorian prosperity that had coincided with the church-building period when the anti-Catholic laws changed. The stained-gla.s.s windows were lovely, the pews beautifully carved, and the altar and choir stalls ornate. Flowers were stacked all around the altar steps in polished bra.s.s vases.

Music was playing very softly and almost beyond hearing, but suddenly it stopped. A door creaked open and closed, the noise echoing, there was the sound of footfalls on tiles, and Caitlin Daly walked in from the right-hand side carrying a watering can, and he recognized her instantly.

Holley stayed back in the shadows and watched. The photo he'd seen of her on the Internet was perfectly recognizable but didn't do her full justice. The woman in the green smock and gray skirt, rearranging flowers at the altar and watering them, had been beautiful when he had last seen her in her mid-thirties. At fifty, she was still attractive, her face enhanced by the copper-colored hair that had been cropped in a style Holley remembered from an old Ingrid Bergman movie.

She finished, bowed to the altar, crossed herself, picked up the watering can, turned, and detected movement in the shadows. "Is someone there?" she called, and her voice echoed in the empty church.

He hesitated, then stepped forward. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. I last saw you in 1995, when I gave you the message: 'Liam Coogan sends you his blessing and says hold yourself ready.' "

She stared at him for a moment, obviously shocked. "Oh, dear G.o.d. Who are you?"

"You asked me that last time, and I said: 'Just call me Daniel. I'm Liam's cousin.' You said I didn't sound Irish."

"You don't, you have a tinge of Yorks.h.i.+re in your voice."

"That's not surprising, since I was born in Leeds."

She shook her head. "I still can't believe it."

"I phoned you at the presbytery and said I was sitting in a rear pew in the church and asked to see you. I said my time was limited, as I had to catch a plane to Algiers."

She nodded. "Yes, I remember so well, and the thrill of it."

"And the disappointment?"

"Oh, yes, but we can't talk here. Monsignor Murphy is at a dinner tonight. We'll use the sacristy."

It was warm and enclosed in there, a desk and a couple of chairs, a laptop, religious vestments hanging from the rails, registers of all kinds-marriages, deaths-and a church smell to everything that would never go away.

She leaned against the wall by the window, arms folded, and he sat opposite. "Tell me about yourself," she said.

"I'm using an alias at the moment: Daniel Grimshaw."

"A sound Yorks.h.i.+re name that suits your voice."

"My mother was a Coogan from Crossmaglen, and I was a volunteer with the PIRA."

"So was I, and proud of it."

"I know. Liam told me about your sleeper cell and how he activated you in 1991. Twelve explosions that resonated in the West End of London for months."

Her face was glowing. "Great days, they were."

"Then you went back to waiting? Did that bother you?"

"It's what sleepers do, Daniel, wait to strike again."

"And hopefully for the big one. Back then, Liam asked me that if he activated you again, would I be your controller, and I said yes. Liam died, of course, from a heart attack, but I'm here now."

She nodded gravely. "G.o.d rest Liam's soul. He was a good man."

"Were your cell members disappointed not to have a role in the 1996 bombings?"

"Yes, but at least we had the satisfaction of seeing the British suffer such a great defeat. It's strange, but seeing you like this brings your last visit vividly back to me. We always met weekly in the chapel at Hope of Mary. The day you gave me Liam's message, I called a special meeting and gave them the good news."

"And how did they take it?"

"Excitement. Awe. We knelt and recited our own special prayer together."

" ' Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, we who are ourselves alone'?" Daniel said.

She was amazed. "But how do you know that?"

"I just do, as I know the names of those men-Barry, Flynn, Pool, Costello, who changed to Docherty, Cochran, and Murray. A h.e.l.l of a long time ago. I wouldn't imagine they're still round?"

"Until two years ago, they all attended our weekly meeting, but unfortunately Barry and Flynn had a severe brush with the law. They were both too handy with a gun. Finally, an armed robbery they took part in went sour. They would have probably gotten seven years if caught, but I used a certain influence I have, obtained false American pa.s.sports for them and other necessary doc.u.mentation, and packed them off to the States."

"And you stay in touch?"

"On a regular basis. We have a Hope of Mary Hospice and Refuge in New York, too. They are both security men there."

"And the remaining four?"

"We meet as we've always done, united by prayer and a common commitment to the PIRA. I was recruited at London University, the others in various ways. Liam Coogan used to arrange trips to training camps in the west of Ireland. The IRA version of a holiday, he used to say. We did that many times over the years. Bonded, you might say."

"But really only got to do your work with that twelve-bomb jolly in Mayfair in 1991. Was it enough?"

"It always is, if your resolve is strong and you are committed."

"But you need more than that, I think, some deep-seated reason, perhaps some great wrong that urges you on."

"That's true. Take Henry Pool. He's a self-employed private-hire driver. Like you, he had an English father and Irish mother, but her father was murdered by English Black and Tans in 1921 when she was only six months old and her mother fled here to Kilburn. It was a strong motive for him to not exactly care for the English."

"I shouldn't imagine his mother would ever let him forget it."

"Is there something wrong with that?" she asked.

"Not at all. For a ten-year-old child to see her father gunned down by masked intruders in front of her and her mother would, I imagine, be a memory that would last forever."

Her face was surprisingly calm. "So you know about that? Exactly who are you, Daniel, this half Irishman who claims to have been a member of the Provisional IRA? You not only sound Yorks.h.i.+re, you look like some prosperous businessman. What on earth would ever have made you join?"

So he told her all about Rosaleen Coogan.

Afterwards, she sat down on the other side of the desk from him, her face like stone, her eyes burning, and it was obvious that she accepted the truth of what he had told her. on the other side of the desk from him, her face like stone, her eyes burning, and it was obvious that she accepted the truth of what he had told her.

"Those foul creatures. G.o.d's curse on them for what they did to that poor girl."

"Some kind of curse on me ever since," Daniel told her. "I've killed a number of times for the Provos and other times for myself." He stood up, put his foot on the chair, and hitched his trousers up, revealing the ankle holster. "The way of the gun has become rather permanent in my life."

"But you don't regret what you did, you can't!" She banged on the desk with her clenched fist. "d.a.m.n all of them."

And now she was really upset, and Daniel said, "Take it easy. It's not always good for us to let the past intrude."

"You don't understand. It's brought it all back to me. The night the men with guns smashed their way in and murdered my father. They forced themselves on my mother, two of them. It was only my age saved me."

Holley, aghast at the horror of it, could only say, "I'm so sorry, girl."

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "What I need is a drink, and I don't think it a sin in the circ.u.mstances to raid Monsignor Murphy's cupboard in search of Communion wine." She found a bottle and two coffee cups and poured a generous measure into each. She handed one to him and drank deeply herself. "Now, tell me everything properly, who you are really and what you're doing here."

"There's a man named General Charles Ferguson who runs a special security outfit for the Prime Minister. His right-hand man is Sean Dillon, once a top enforcer for the PIRA, and a good one. In 1991, he was in a Serb prison when Ferguson turned up and made him an offer he couldn't refuse: to join him or face a firing squad."

"So Dillon chose the traitor's path?"

"You could put it that way."

She poured more wine for both of them. "There's no other way of putting it. Tell me more-everything."