The Wolf at the Door. Jack Higgins

       1

      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.

      It was very quiet, out of season, nobody around. Even the little café on the pier was closed, so he did the only thing he could, he switched off the engine, went along the deck and managed to loop a line to one of the pier rings, then went below.

      His shoulder was hurting now, hurting bad. He sat down in the kitchen area and scrambled out his special mobile and called in. The familiar voice answered, the President’s favourite Secret Service man.

      ‘Clancy Smith.’

      ‘It’s Blake, Clancy. I just came in to the pier on the Lively Jane and a guy was waiting with a Beretta.’

      ‘For God’s sake, Blake, what happened?’

      ‘I’ve taken a bullet in the shoulder, but I put him over the rail.’ He was lightheaded now. ‘Hell, Clancy, there’s nobody here. Closed down for the season.’

      ‘Just hang in there, I’ll have the police there in no time. Hold on, Blake, hold on. I’ll call you back.’

      Blake reached into a cupboard, pulled the cork from a bottle of very