Jack Higgins
Eye Of The Storm aka Midnight Man
The first book in the Sean Dillon series, 1992
In memory of my grandfather, Robert Bell, M.M., Gallant Soldier
The winds of heaven are blowing. Implement all that is on the table. May God be with you.
– Coded message,
Iraq Radio, Baghdad
January 1991
The mortar attack on Number Ten Downing Street when the War Cabinet was meeting at 10:00 A.M. on Thursday, 7 February 1991, is now a matter of history. It has never been satisfactorily explained. Perhaps it went something like this…
ONE
IT WAS JUST before dark as Dillon emerged from the alley and paused on the corner. Rain drifted across the Seine in a flurry of snow, sleet mixed with it and it was cold, even for January in Paris. He wore a reefer coat, peaked cap, jeans and boots, just another sailor off one of the barges working the river, which he very definitely was not.
He lit a cigarette in cupped hands and stayed there for a moment in the shadows, looking across the cobbled square at the lights of the small café on the other side. After a while, he dropped the cigarette, thrust his hands deep in his pockets and started across.
In the darkness of the entrance two men waited, watching his progress. One of them whispered, “That must be him.”
He made a move. The other held him back. “No, wait till he’s inside.”
Dillon, his senses sharpened by years of entirely the wrong kind of living, was aware of them, but gave no sign. He paused at the entrance, slipped his left hand under the reefer coat to check that the Walther PPK was securely tucked into the waistband of his jeans against the small of his back, then he opened the door and went in.