by Mark Dawson
“I know who you are,” Mackintosh called back, the butt of his pistol suddenly slippery in his sweat-slicked palm.
“Then you know that the game is up.” Sommer’s English was excellent, despite a heavy accent. “Tell your soldiers to throw their weapons out of the window.”
“I don’t think so,” he called back, trying to stall him, trying to think of a way out of this mess.
“No, Herr Mackintosh, they must do this, and then you and Herr Schmidt must come out with your hands above your head. I give you my word that you won’t be harmed.”
Mackintosh took out the radio and pressed the button to open the channel. “This is SALISBURY. Shots fired. ROUEN and PICASSO are both incapacitated, can’t move.”
“Herr Schmidt,” Sommer called out in German. “Günter. This doesn’t have to end badly for you. I know what you have offered to the British. You don’t have to sell it to them. Your experience is valuable to me, too. Let’s talk about it.”
“Ignore him,” Mackintosh said to Schmidt.
The radio squelched. “This is NORWICH,” came the reply from one of the two SAS men. “Please confirm the enemy is behind you.”
“Confirmed,” he said. “Two men, maybe more.”
“Please confirm PICASSO and ROUEN are immobile.”
He looked back to Élodie. She was pale, and the blood had pooled around her torso, a splash of colour on the ice and snow. Schmidt was the same. “Confirmed.”
“And you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Günter,” Sommer called out again. “I would rather this could be concluded on good terms, but you should know that I have sent agents to collect your family. They will be arrested and taken to Hohenschönhausen. I would much rather we could just let them go again, but you need to help me if you want that to happen. Put your hands up and walk out to me. You have my word that you will be well-treated.”
The radio squelched again. “This is what we’re going to do,” the warrant officer said. “We’re going to throw smoke. On my mark, you’re going to run for the door. Fix it in your mind—you won’t be able to see it when the smoke spreads. But they won’t see you, either. When you see the grenades, count down from ten and then run. Do you understand?”
Mackintosh felt sick, but radioed back that he understood. He held the radio in his left hand and the gun in his right.
“I have an injured French citizen here. She has diplomatic status. You are obliged to treat her under the Vienna Convention.”
“Of course we will treat her,” the voice came back. “Tell your soldiers to throw out their weapons and put your hands up. You will all be treated well.”
Mackintosh turned to Schmidt. “I have to go now,” he said.
Élodie squeezed his wrist. He turned to look down at her.
She mouthed the words: Je t’aime.
Two green canisters were tossed out of the broken window, one aimed to the left and the other to the right. They bounced once, twice, and then rolled to a stop. Smoke poured out of them, a grey cloud that billowed up and out and filled the street. It wrapped around them, and Mackintosh could only just see Élodie’s face.
“I love you too.”
Ten, nine, eight.
“What do I do?” Schmidt pleaded.
“Your leg needs to be treated. Stay here and wait for them to get to you.”
Seven, six, five.
“But—”
Mackintosh interrupted him. “I’m coming back for you, Günter. I promise. I’m coming back.”
Four, three, two.
The smoke was dense now, and Mackintosh could only just see his hand in front of his face.
One.
He let go of Élodie, clasped the gun in his other hand and, breathing in a lungful of the acrid air, he ran.
8
The smoke was so thick that Mackintosh didn’t see the edge of the kerb. His foot crashed into it and, before he could try to maintain his balance, he was flat on his face. The air was knocked out of his lungs as he crashed down to the ground and, when he gasped for more, he found that he was breathing in the thick, cloying smoke. He coughed, pushed himself to his hands and knees and then scrambled to his feet. He set off again, disorientated and unsure that he was still heading toward the door to number 55. He heard the sound of angry voices, shouts in German for him to stop and warnings that he would be shot if he didn’t. He ignored them, running harder, reaching the wall of the building and fumbling for the door. He couldn’t find it and, just as he was certain that he had gone too far and that there would be no prospect of him finding his escape before the smoke cleared, he felt strong hands grabbing him by the lapels of his coat and hauling him into the building.
The door closed behind him and he heard the key turning in the lock. There was less smoke inside and he was able to see Cameron and Fisher. Both of them had their submachine guns ready and Fisher was clasping another grenade.
“Get into the tunnel,” Cameron said.
Mackintosh looked around. Foulkes was lying on the floor, face down. “What happened?”
“Got hit when they returned fire. Shot to the head. He’s dead.”
“Fuck.”
“Herr Mackintosh,” the voice from outside called again. “You should have stayed. I would have had your friend treated. But now? I think not.”
Fisher edged up to the window and looked outside.
“No,” he said. “Fuck, no—”
The words were interrupted by a single gunshot.
Mackintosh felt his stomach plunge.
“What happened? What did he do?”
Fisher’s face was white. “He shot ROUEN, sir. Executed. Point blank.”
Mackintosh went for the door; there was no reason for it, no logic, and it would have been death if he had reached it, but he couldn’t help himself. Fisher stepped aside and body checked him, sending him down to the floor. He heard the chatter of a submachine gun and the other window exploded, glass and fragments of the wooden frame scattering around. Tendrils of smoke reached inside. Mackintosh heard shouting and flinched as another volley rat-tat-tatted against the wooden door.
Fisher grabbed him by the shoulders, hauled him to his feet and manhandled him toward the back of the room. “The tunnel—now!”
Mackintosh allowed himself to be shoved out of the room, down the stairs and into the basement. The shaft was open and the bottom of the tunnel was still lit by the lantern. Mackintosh lowered himself so that he was sitting over the lip of the drop, and then put his feet on the rungs and started to climb down.
“Quickly,” Fisher said.
Mackintosh descended as fast as he could. The treads of his boots were stuffed with ice from the road outside and he lost his footing several times before he managed to reach the bottom.
“Go, go, go.”
He got down onto his hands and knees and scrabbled into the mouth of the tunnel, half crawling and half sliding down the incline as the passage headed west. He heard the sound of a muffled explosion from behind him and knew that Cameron had tossed a frag grenade back out into the apartment to deter pursuit. They had to hope that the Stasi would be wary of booby-traps; if the Germans pursued them it would be a simple enough matter to fire into the tunnel. There would be little that they would be able to do to defend themselves.
Mackintosh gasped as he crawled, trying to fill his lungs with clean air. His eyes stung from the smoke and tears ran down his face. He thought of Élodie and the way that she had looked at him. He would have stayed with her, and she had known it; she had sent him away to save his life. Som
mer had murdered her in cold blood.
He thought of Schmidt, too, and the future that his failure had bought for him: a tiled basement, a stainless-steel table, a groove down the middle of the sloped floor that led to a drain where blood and viscera would be washed away. He could anticipate the tender ministrations of the Stasi interrogators; probably Schmidt would warrant the attention of Sommer himself.
How did he know?
Mackintosh sliced open his palm on a sharp piece of rock, ignored it, carried on. He would find out who had betrayed him, deal with them, and then deal with Sommer, too. He swore vengeance, there and then, under the foundations of the Wall.
Sommer, and whoever else was involved, was going to pay.
Part II
9
Smiler clicked the transmit button twice, and Jimmy’s radio squelched in response. It was the all-clear signal: time to move. Jimmy adjusted the balaclava on his head, the wool scratching against the stubble on his chin, and got out of the Vauxhall Cavalier. He went around to the back and popped the boot: six disposable oxygen cylinders; a specially-made fitting that enabled him to feed the gas through a quarter-inch tube; a series of five-eighth-inch hollow stainless-steel brake lines; and a ball of steel wool. The oxygen cylinders were designed for welding torches, and he had them packed in a black canvas bag. He put the bag on his shoulder, collected the rest of the gear, closed the boot and hurried across the empty yard to the warehouse.
They were on a trading estate three miles away from Heathrow Airport. A series of warehouses formed from a large brick building that was surrounded by a generous car park. Full-length up-and-over roller doors, painted in canary yellow, marked the entrance to each unit, each with a number painted in black. Smiler was outside number 11 and had opened the smaller door that was used by those entering and exiting the building on foot.
Jimmy hurried over to him.
“Any problems?” he asked.
“Sweet as a nut.”
“Alarm off?”
“It’s all done. You’re good to go.”
Eddie Fabian had set the job up for them. He had paid off one of the security guards who worked on the estate. It was New Year’s Eve and the guard had said that security would be much more lax than would otherwise be the case; the landlord was tight, and not happy about the prospect of paying the usual four-man team triple-time to guard the estate. There were only two men on duty tonight, and Fabian’s contact had laced the communal coffee pot with the ketamine that Fabian had supplied. Both the contact and his mate would partake of the coffee, and both would be comatose for hours. Smiler and Jimmy had a generous window within which to work.
They had been given plans and photographs of the warehouse. The safe was in the office at the rear. Jimmy switched on his flashlight and made his way across the floor, passing through an aisle of racking that reached halfway to the eaves, six metres above. An office space had been provided in a temporary cabin, and Smiler had already opened the door. Jimmy put a gloved hand on the handle, pushed the door all the way open and went inside.
He swept the torch around the room: a desk, two chairs, and, in the corner at the back, a large safe. Jimmy had seen pictures of the safe and knew that it was a good one. It was constructed with a double-walled three-inch-thick tempered steel body that was, in turn, filled with barrier material to resist attack. It had a relocker that would render it inoperable if anyone tampered with the lock, and it was bolted to the floor.
Smiler followed Jimmy into the office.
“What do you think?” he said.
“Do you mean can I do it? Yes. I can do it.”
There were lots of ways to crack a safe. Jimmy had considered manipulation; you took a stethoscope and put it over the lock as if it were a beating heart. You turned the dial, listening for the clicks as the notches lined up on the series of interlocking wheels inside. Manipulation, though, was slow, and the information that Jimmy had been given suggested that this particular safe would be a challenge to open that way. Jimmy looked at the locks and agreed; he could have done it, but it would have taken a long while. His way was better.
“Go and keep watch,” Jimmy said to Smiler. “I’ll radio if I need you.”
Jimmy wanted to open the safe as quickly as possible, and, with that in mind, he had settled on his homemade thermal lance. Industrial lances were large and expensive, and Jimmy had no wish to have a record of him purchasing one that could easily be traced back to him if a diligent detective thought to check. Instead, he had created his own version. He took out an oxygen tank and fitted the regulator to the top, making sure that the brake line was nestled tight within it. He took a handful of steel wool and stuffed it into the other end of the line. He lit the steel wool with his lighter and slowly opened the valve to release the oxygen; the wool started to burn, brighter and brighter, and then, when it was a bright white that lit up the room, the wool ignited the end of the lance.
The burning iron was hot enough to cut through almost anything. Jimmy used the flame to cut an aperture in the door of the safe, a liquid slag of iron oxides dribbling and splashing from the burning end of the lance and pooling on the concrete floor in front of the safe. He worked slowly and methodically, feeling the heat on his face where it was uncovered by the mask. The red-hot point sliced through the steel door: he started on the top horizontal, creating an incision and then turning off the oxygen as the brake line burned down to a quarter of its original length.
Jimmy was sweating into the balaclava. He removed the exhausted brake line, replaced it with a fresh one, and repeated the process. He worked on the long vertical, then the bottom horizontal. He changed the lance again and then finished the final right-hand edge. When he was done, he had sliced a neat rectangle into the door.
“Still clear?” he said into the radio as he moved the cutting gear out of the way.
“All good. How you doing?”
“Nearly there. I need to hammer.”
“Do it. There’s no one here.”
Jimmy took a hammer and a thick cloth from his bag. He fixed the cloth to the top of the safe to deaden the noise and, with two powerful strikes, he struck the corners of the cut-out door so that it fell into the body of the safe. He grabbed the exposed end with both gloved hands and pulled, dragging out the panel that he had created.
The safe was open. Jimmy took his flashlight and shone the beam inside. He saw the neatly stacked metal boxes, took one out, thumbed the clasp that secured the lid, and opened it. The box was lined with velvet and contained a collection of uncut diamonds. The gems glittered in the light of the torch. Jimmy laid the box on the floor next to the glowing slag and took out another. He opened it: it contained more uncut stones. There was a wad of notes on a lower shelf. Jimmy took it, thumbed through them—twenties and fifties—and put them in his pocket.
“We’re in,” he radioed. “Come and help.”
Smiler made his way to the office and looked down at the open boxes. “Fucking brilliant,” he said. “I ever tell you I love you?”
“Not nearly enough.”
Smiler helped Jimmy take out the other boxes.
“There you are, you little beauty.”
Eddie Fabian had been told that the warehouse would be holding the gems. They had been flown over from Amsterdam the day before and were bound for onward distribution around the country. Jimmy and Smiler had each been promised fifty large if they could successfully hit the warehouse and get the stones. It was going to be a profitable
evening’s work. Not a bad way to see in 1989.
Jimmy checked his watch. It was eleven.
“Let’s get a move on,” he said. “I’m supposed to be home for Big Ben.”
10
Smiler drove them away from the industrial estate, taking the Great West Road to Hounslow. He parked the Cavalier five minutes away from the guesthouse. Jimmy opened the door and stepped outside.
“Well done,” Jimmy said.
“Ditto.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“You will.” Jimmy paused and grinned as he shook his head. “Shit. I almost forgot. Happy New Year.”
Smiler laughed; the date had evidently slipped his mind, too. He reached across the cabin and clasped hands with Jimmy. “Happy New Year, you Irish prick.”
Jimmy went to the back of the car and opened the boot. Smiler was responsible for delivering the diamonds to Fabian. Jimmy was okay about that; he trusted Smiler, more or less, and Fabian was frightening enough that there was no way that Smiler would think about doing anything stupid. Jimmy took out the bag with his gear, slung it over his shoulder, closed the boot and slapped his hand on the roof of the car. Smiler held up a hand in farewell and pulled out. Jimmy watched him go. He would take the car out into the countryside and torch it before driving back in the second car that they had stashed there. They would meet up with Fabian tomorrow.
Jimmy walked the rest of the distance on foot. The Civic Guest House was in an unassuming terrace on Lampton Road. He took out his key, opened the front door and made his way up to the room that he had booked on the second floor. It was cheap and not particularly pleasant, but he hadn’t chosen it for its luxury. Instead, he had scouted the area for suitable premises and had settled on this one precisely because it was unremarkable, almost certainly available and within five minutes of the warehouse. The landlady lived downstairs in her basement flat and was almost blind, navigating her way around the property with the assistance of a white stick. That was a bonus; it would be difficult for her to identify him if the police were ever to put him in a line-up.
