The Wolf at the Door

The Wolf at the Door
Jack Higgins

Dillon and company are back in the ultimate blockbuster from the legend that is Jack Higgins…THE LEGEND IS BACKSomeone is targeting the members of the elite intelligence unit known as 'the Prime Minister's private army' and all those who work with them.On Long Island, a trusted operative for the President nudges his boat up to a pier, when a man materializes out of the rain and shoots him. In London, General Charles Ferguson, adviser to the Prime Minister, approaches his car on a side street, when there is a flash, and the car explodes. In New York a former British soldier takes a short walk when a man comes up fast behind him, a pistol in his hand.For Sean Dillon the hunt is on, a very well-connected old nemesis has clearly become tired of their interference in his schemes. But proving it is going to be a difficult task, and surviving it the hardest task of all…

Jack

Higgins

The Wolf

at the Door

To Linda Van with my sincere thanks…

The wolf at the door is your greatest danger

and not only in Winter.

—Russian proverb

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#ua98a1e6c-9661-5c4b-88e1-0a898d8fbfbf)

Title Page (#u5303506c-eb3e-541a-acb6-ef568bf5f985)

Dedication (#ue124f7d4-9805-5f15-b6da-9b6e6029a1aa)

Epigraph (#ucf60d323-bf19-5344-a733-057e029a6aa4)

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IN THE BEGINNING (#litres_trial_promo)

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DANIEL HOLLEY (#litres_trial_promo)

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MOSCOW (#litres_trial_promo)

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LONDON (#litres_trial_promo)

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END GAME (#litres_trial_promo)

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ALSO BY JACK HIGGINS (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publsiher (#litres_trial_promo)

1 (#ulink_bee23dbd-b77b-5c39-b28e-4fd80a171504)

At fifty-eight, his black hair flecked with grey, Blake Johnson still had a kind of rugged charm, the air of a man capable of looking after himself. He certainly didn’t look old enough to have served in the Marines in Vietnam, though he had, with considerable honour and the medals to prove it. Johnson was personal security adviser to the President, and had been so for more years than he cared to remember. Presidents came and Presidents went, but he went on for ever, or so it seemed, Blake thought ruefully, as he stood in the wheelhouse of a sport fishing launch named Lively Jane, on the late afternoon it all began. He peered through the window at Long Island, a light rain blowing against the glass. It was almost six. He’d have to hurry.

He had a beach house in Quogue, supposedly for holidays, which hardly ever came, and this time looked to be no different. Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, was speaking at the United Nations in New York, and the President wanted him to attend and report in, not only on the speech but on the general attitude of the Russian delegation.

The British Prime Minister wasn’t coming either, but interestingly he’d sent his personal troubleshooter Harry Miller to the speech, presumably to do the same thing Blake was doing. With him was Sean Dillon, once a feared enforcer with the Provisional IRA, now a security adviser himself, and a friend to Blake in good times and bad.

Dillon & Miller. Blake smiled. Dillon would have said it sounded like a cabaret act. He throttled back and coasted in between the boats, so that the Lively Jane nudged against the pier.

A man was on the pier in a yellow oilskin coat, the hood pulled up against the rain, which was driving down now. Blake emerged from the wheelhouse and picked up the line to throw it.

‘Can you give me a hand? Catch the line and tie her up and I’ll switch off.’

‘I don’t think so. I’ll be needing that engine to drop you into the sound,’ the man in the hood said.

His hand came out of his right pocket holding a Beretta, and Blake, his senses sharpened by years of hard living, was already hurling himself over the rail, aware of the muffled sound of the silenced weapon fired twice and a burning sensation in his right shoulder, and then he was diving down into twenty feet of murky water.

He swam under the boat, his back scraping the keel, and surfaced on the other side as she drifted, the engine still throbbing. He saw the man at the stern, leaning over the rail and emptying the Beretta into the water. He ejected the magazine and took another from his pocket.

Blake heaved himself over and scrambled into the wheelhouse. There was a flap under the instrument panel and it opened at his touch. Held by two clips inside was a short-barrelled Smith & Wesson .38, and he was holding it as he turned.

The man in the hood was frantically shoving the magazine up the butt of the Beretta. Blake said, ‘Don’t be stupid. It’s over.’

Not that it did any good. ‘Fug you!’ the man said, and his hand came up and Blake shot him between the eyes, knocking him back into the water.