by Andy McNab
"Have they checked in?"
"Yes. Hand luggage only."
"For two weeks in Washington?"
"They've got suit bags."
"And they haven't gone to any other check-in?"
"No, it looks like they're going to Heathrow."
I walked over to the counter and bought two coffees.
They were the only Irishmen at the bar, because everybody else was wearing a Guinness polo shirt and drinking pints of the black stuff. These two had Budweisers by the neck and were watching soccer. Both had cigarettes and were smoking like ten men; if I'd been watching them in a bar in Derry, I'd have taken it as nervousness, but Aer Lingus has a no-smoking policy on its flights; it looked as if these boys were getting their big hit before boarding.
Both were looking very much the tourist, clean-shaven, clean hair, not overdressed as businessmen, not underdressed as slobs. Basically they
were so nondescript you wouldn't give them a second glance, which indicated that they were quite switched on--and that was a problem for me. If they'd been looking like a bag of shit or at all nervous, I'd have known I was up against second or third-string players--easy job. But these boys were Major League, a long way from hanging around the docks on kneecapping duty.
There were kids everywhere, chasing and shouting, mothers screaming after two-year-olds who'd found their feet and were skimming across the terminal. For us, the more noise and activity the better. I sat down with the drinks. I wanted to get as much information as I could from Euan before they went through security.
On cue, he said, "I picked McGear up from Deny. He went to the Sinn Fein office on Cable Street and presumably got briefed. Then to Belfast. The spooks tried to use the listening device but didn't have any luck. Nothing else to report, really.
They spent the night getting drunk, then came down here.
Been here about two hours. They booked the flight by credit card, using their cover names. Their cover's good. They've even got their Virgin luggage tags on; they don't want anything to go wrong."
"Where are they staying?"
"I don't know. It's all very last-minute and Easter's a busy time. There're about ten Virgin-affiliated hotels in D.C.; it's probably one of them--we haven't had time to check."
I didn't write anything down. If you write stuff down, you can lose it. I'd have to remember it.
"Is that all?" I asked.
"That's your lot. I don't know how they're going to transfer from the airport, but it looks like they're off to D.C." big boy."
Subject closed, as far as Euan was concerned. It was now time to talk shit.
"You still see a lot ofKev?"
I took a sip of coffee and nodded.
"Yeah, he's in Washington now, doing all right. The kids and Marsha are fine. I saw them about four months ago. He's been promoted, and they've just bought the biggest house in suburbia. It's what you'd call executive housing."
Euan grinned, looking like Santa Claus with white froth on his top lip. His own place was a stone-walled sheep farmer's cottage in the middle of nowhere in the Black Mountains of Wales. His nearest neighbor was two miles away on the other side of the valley.
I said, "Marsha loves it in D.C.--no one trying to shoot holes in the car."
Marsha, an American, was Kev's second wife. After leaving the Regiment he'd moved to the States with her and had joined the Drug Enforcement Administration. They had two young kids, Kelly and Aida.
"Is Slack Pat still over there?"
"I think so, but you know what he's like--one minute he's going to learn how to build houses, and the next minute he's going to take up tree hugging and crocheting. Fuck knows what he's doing now."
Pat had had a job for two years looking after the family of an Arab diplomat in D.C. It worked out really well--he even got an apartment thrown in--but eventually the children he was minding grew too old to be looked after. They went back to Saudi, so he blew off his job and started bumming around.
The fact was, he'd made so much money during those two years he wasn't in a hurry.
We carried on chatting and joking, but all the time Euan's eyes flickered toward the targets.
The players ordered another drink, so it looked as if we were going to be sitting here for a while. We carried on spinning the social shit.
"How's year ten of the house building program?" I grinned.
"I'm still having problems with the boiler."
He'd decided that he was going to put the central heating in himself, but it was a total screw up. He'd ended up spending twice as much money as he would have, had he paid someone to do it.
"Apart from that, it's all squared away. You should come down some time. I can't wait to finish this fucking tour; then I've got about two more years and that's it."
"What are you going to do?"
"As long as it's not what you're doing, I don't care. I thought I'd become a garbageman. I don't give a fuck, really."
I laughed.
"You do! You'll be itching to stay in; you're a party man. You'll stay in forever. You moan about it all the time, but actually you love it."
Euan checked the players, then looked back at me. I knew exactly what he was thinking.
I said, "You're right. Don't do this job; it's shit."
"What have you been up to since your Middle Eastern adventure?"
"I've been on holiday, got some downtime in, did a bit of work for a couple of the companies, but nothing much, and to tell you the truth it's great. Now I'm just waiting for the out come of the inquiry. I think I'm in deep shit unless this job gets me out."
Euan's eyes moved again.
"It looks like you're off."
The two boys must have started to sort themselves out at the bar.
I said, "I'll call you after this is finished. When are you back in the UK?"
"I don't know. Maybe a few days."
"I'll give you a call; we can arrange something. You got yourself a woman yet, or what?"
"You've got to be drunk! I was going out with someone from the London office for a while, but she wanted to make me all nice and fluffy. She was starting to do my washing and all sorts of shit. I really didn't get into it."
"You mean she didn't iron a crease in the front of your jeans?"
Euan shrugged.
"She didn't do things my way."
Nobody did. He was the sort of guy who folded his socks instead of putting them inside each other, and stacked his coins in their denominations. Since his divorce he'd become Mr. I'm-going-to-have-the-best-of-everything. People even started to call him Mr. Ikea--you name it, track lights, entertainment center, the whole nine yards. The inside of his house was like a showroom.
I could tell Euan was watching the two players pick up their gear and walk away from the bar.
I took my time; no need to get right up their ass. Euan would tell me when to move.
"Do a one-eighty," he said.
"Look to the right, just approaching the newsstand."
I casually got to my feet. It had been great to see him.
Maybe this job would turn out to be a waste of time, but at least I'd seen my closest friend. We shook hands, and I walked away. Then I turned, looked ninety degrees to the right, and spotted them, suit bags over their arms.
The departures lounge looked like an Irish craft fair. I was starting to feel out of place; I should have gotten myself a Guinness hat.
What was I going to do once I got to D.C.? I didn't know if somebody was going to pick them up, whether they were taking a cab or the bus, or, if they'd managed to get a hotel, whether transport was included. If they started moving around the city, that would be fun, too. I knew Washington a bit but not in any great detail.
They were still smoking like fiends. I sat in the lounge and picked up a paper from the seat. McGear started scrabbling about for change in his pocket as they talked to each other, standing at the bar. He was suddenly looking purposeful; he was either going to go to the slot machines
or the telephone.
He got a note out and leaned over to the bartender; I could see him asking for change. I was sitting more or less directly behind them and about twenty feet back, so even if they turned their heads forty-five degrees to either side, I still wouldn't be in even their peripheral vision.
McGear walked toward the slot machines but continued on past. It must be the telephone.
I got up and wandered over to the newsstand, pretending to check the spinning rack of newspapers outside.
He picked up the phone, put a couple of pound coins in, and dialed. He got the number from a piece of paper, so it wasn't one that was well known to him. I looked at my G Shock; it was 4:16 p.m. The display was still on dual time; if there were any Iraqis in the lounge needing to know the time in Baghdad, I was their man.
I checked my pockets for coins; I had about two and a half quid; I would need more for what I was going to do, so I went in and bought a newspaper with a twenty-pound note.
McGear finished his call and went back to the bar. Those boys weren't going anywhere; they ordered more beer, opened their papers, lit another cigarette.
I gave it a couple of minutes, then strolled over to the phone McGear had been using. I picked up the receiver, threw in a couple of pound coins, and looked for a number on the set. I couldn't find one; not to worry, it would just take a bit longer.
I dialed a London number and a woman's voice said, "Good afternoon, your PIN number, please?"
"Two-four-two-two." The digits were etched into my memory; they were the first half of the army number that I'd had since I was sixteen.
She said, "Do you have a number?"
"No. This line please."
"Wait."
I heard a click, then nothing. I kept my eyes on the players and fed the phone. Within a minute she was back.
"What times are you interested in?"
"I'd like to book it from four-thirteen up till now."
"That's fine. Do you want me to call you, or will you call back?"
"I'll call back. Ten minutes?"
"Fine. Goodbye."
And that was it. No matter where you are in the world, you can dial in and the Firm will run a trace.
I phoned back ten minutes later. We went through the same PIN number routine, then she said, "Nothing until four-ten. A Washington, D.C." number. Washington Flyer Taxis, USA."
As she recited the number, I jotted it down, hung up, and immediately dialed.
"Good morning, Washington Flyer Taxis, Gerry speaking.
How may I be of assistance today?"
"Yes, I wonder if a Mr. Ashdown or a Mr. Lindsay has booked a taxi. I just want to make sure they're going to get to a meeting on time."
"Oh yes, sir, we've just had the booking. Collect from Dulles, arriving on flight number--" I cut in.
"Are you going to drop them off at the hotel or are they coming straight to me at Tyson's Corner?"
"Let me see, sir ... They're booked for the Westin on M Street, Northwest."
"All right, that's fine. Thank you."
Now all I had to do was try to get to the Westin before them. Things were looking OK.. Either that, or the fuckers had spotted me and were playing a deception.
The flight to London Heathrow was getting ready to board. I watched them get up, find their tickets, and walk. I followed.
On something like this you always travel club class so you're at the front of the aircraft. You can then choose either to sit down and watch people boarding or let them through ahead of you and come in later on. At the destination, you can wait for the target to come off the aircraft and naturally file in behind--or get out of the way beforehand so that you're ready to make the pickup once you're out of arrivals.
I thought about a drink but decided against it; I might have to start performing as soon as we got to the other side. These guys seemed very professional, so chances were they weren't going to be doing any work after all the Bud they'd been putting away. But still, no drink for me.
I settled into my seat and started to think about Kev and his family. I'd been there when he first met Marsha; I was best man at their wedding and was even godfather to Aida, their second child. I took the job seriously, though I didn't really know what I was supposed to do on the God front.
I knew I'd never have any of my own kids; I'd be too busy running around doing shit jobs like this one. Kev and Marsha knew that, and really tried to make me feel part of their setup.
I'd grown up with this fantasy of the perfect family, and as far as I was concerned Kev had it. The first marriage fell apart, but this one seemed absolutely right. His job with the DEA was now mostly deskbound in D.C. He loved it.
"More time with the kids, mate," he'd say.
"Yeah, so you can be one!" I'd reply. Lucidly Marsha was the mature and sensible one; when it came to the family, they complemented each other really well. Their home at Tyson's Corner was a healthy, loving environment, but after three or four days it would get too much for me and I'd have to move on. They'd make a joke of it; they knew I loved them but somehow couldn't handle people showing so much affection. I guessed that was why I'd always felt more comfortable with Euan. We were both made from the same mold.
As for Slack Pat, he was completely off the scale. Half the world seemed to be his best friend, and he was still working on the others. Even when he opened the fridge door and the light came on he'd have to launch into some sort of chat-up routine. When he started the bodyguard job in Washington, a real estate agent took him to look at an apartment in Georgetown, by the university. The way he told the story, he saw a building with people coming in and out.
"What's that then?" he asked.
"One of the best restaurants in Washington," she said.
"Half of Congress seems to go there."
"Right, I'll take it," he said. The moon was in a new quarter or some shit like that and I thought for a while he reckoned he'd turned into Donald Trump. He told me he used to eat there every day and knew every waitress by name. He'd even started going out with one of them. Maybe it was her who got him into drugs. I hadn't seen it myself, but I'd heard he had a problem. It made me sad. We'd all seen the results of addiction during our time in Colombia. Pat had called them losers.
Now it seemed he was one himself. Hopefully it was just one of his phases.
The transfer at Heathrow had been easy. The boys didn't get stopped at the security checks probably because Special Branch had been informed and the flight to Dulles had taken off on time.
I hoped McGear and Kerr were going straight to the hotel.
I hoped they'd be playing the good tourists and wouldn't blow it by not checking in. If I ever lost a target, I'd look in all the places where he might be his place of work, the pub, where the kids go to school, where he lived, or even the bookie's. I needed to know as much as I could about them, because once you're inside your target's mind you can second-guess every movement, even understand why they do what they do. Un fortunately, all I knew so far about McGear and Kerr was that they liked drinking Budweiser and must be dying for a smoke. So I had to start with the hotel.
I needed to get in front of them. That shouldn't be a problem, since club class had its own shuttle to get us to the terminal ahead of the herd. However, since they'd pre booked a transfer, I'd need to grab a cab PDQ if I was going to beat them to M Street. I could have booked one of my own when I spoke to Washington Flyer, but I'd tried to do that in Warsaw once in similar circumstances, only to come out and find the two drivers fighting over who to take first, me or the target. It was the taxi stand for me from then on.
I came out of arrivals through two large automatic doors and into a horseshoe of waiting relatives held back by steel barriers, and limo drivers holding up name boards. I carried on through the bustle, turned left, and walked down a long ramp into heat and brilliant sunshine.
There were lots of people waiting for taxis. I did a quick calculation; the number of passengers didn't go into the limited numbe
r of cabs. I wandered toward the rear of the rank and waved a twenty-dollar bill at one of the drivers. He smiled conspiratorially and hustled me inside. Another twenty soon had me screaming along the Dulles access road toward Route 66 and Washington, D.C. The airport and its surroundings reminded me of a high-tech business park, with everything green and manicured; there'd even been a lake as we exited the terminal. Suburbia started about fifteen miles from the airport, mainly ribbon development on either side of the Beltway--very neat wooden and brick houses, many still under construction. We passed a sign for the Tyson's Corner turnoff and I strained my neck to see if I could see Kev's place. I couldn't. But, as Euan would have said, executive housing all looks the same.
