NS13 Zero Hour

by Andy McNab

  I also couldn’t control the space that the device was placed in, so would have no way of knowing if it had been discovered. I had to factor in getting back to the safe-house afterwards, not just to pick up Angeles, but also to shower and scrub the DNA and cordite off me, then get rid of the clothes I’d worn on-target. The last thing I wanted to do was to turn up at the departure gate, and have security sensors detect traces of explosives on my clothes or hands.

  We moved away from the clothing stalls and she got changed in one of the coffee shops that lined the market while I slid into my nasty new black coat. I bought kebabs and coffees, and she shovelled everything down like a girl possessed.

  ‘Nick?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your friend, what is her name?’

  ‘You will find out soon enough.’

  Even with just a few weeks left, I couldn’t force myself to change the habit of a lifetime. I’d found over the years that giving out my own name was OK because it belonged to me. I could decide what I did with it, and what lies I was going to attach to it. But divulging the names of others was a different matter. That had to be up to them. In either case, you don’t give out information unless you have to. The less she knew about me, Anna, Flynn and all the rest, the better. I didn’t want to have an in-depth conversation about what I was doing here and where my family was. The only thing that was important was to get us both out of this situation. And as long as I kept her away from the loading bay, she’d know nothing and I could sort her out.

  As we passed FilmNoord XXX, I scanned the road ahead. The ship still blocked the view of the waterway but apart from that there was nothing out of the ordinary, not even a car parked on the pavement.

  We got to the door. She saw me checking the telltales in the locks.

  ‘This is a bad area. You have to make sure nobody breaks in.’

  The keys ripped through the little slivers of paper and I opened up. Angeles went through with the bags. I followed and turned to close the door.

  The two bodies that bomb-burst out from the garages came at me in a blur of leather jackets, shaved heads and face metal. They were already halfway across the road and closing on me fast.

  I jumped inside and tried to slam the door shut.

  She looked at me, terror-struck, rooted to the spot.

  ‘Run! Go!’

  They kicked and pushed, jarring me backwards and forwards. I couldn’t hold it any more.

  The door crashed open.

  10

  I pulled her through the fire door and into the loading bay. That was where there were weapons. Where there were weapons, there was a chance.

  There was nothing else I could do for her now.

  I let go but she grabbed my hand again. I had to push her out of the way. The pulse in my neck surged as my body built up to the fight. She screamed somewhere behind me but my focus was on the glass of acid sitting on the concrete.

  One of them was so close I could hear his laboured breathing. I dropped to my knees. They banged against the concrete. The pain shot up my thighs. I grabbed the glass and some of the liquid spilt. It burnt my right hand. As I turned, all I could see was jeans and boots.

  I jerked the glass upwards and let go of it a split second later. I rolled away to escape the splashback.

  The bearded neo screamed and his hands clawed at his face. He fell to his knees level with me. I jumped up. I wanted the Leatherman. I wanted one of the glasses. I wanted anything that was a weapon for the next man, who now blurred into my vision from the left. The grunts and screams continued from the lad below me. He was still on his knees as he took the pain.

  The thud as the other guy’s body hit me full-on was as hard as if I’d walked into the path of a moving car. The momentum hurled me against the opposite wall. The back of my head hit the blockwork. Stars burst in front of my eyes. Hollering and screaming was coming from everywhere: from me, from them, from Angeles.

  I scrambled onto my hands and knees. I had to stand. I had to keep on my feet. Go down and you’re finished.

  Neo number two was back and at me. He leapt on top of me. We grappled like a couple of scrappers in the schoolyard. I tried to head-butt him, bite him, anything to get him off me. I kicked and bucked. Both of us screamed. He had a week’s bristle on him that rasped against my cheek. The boy stank. I could smell booze, cigarettes and unwashed skin. My face was stuck into his neck. I tried to get my hands up to squeeze against it. He snorted with exertion and snot fired from his nose.

  He finally opened his eyes and I could see them bouncing around, out of control. He was in a frenzy. He managed to get his hands around my neck and squeezed. I tried to shake left and right. He started to snarl like a pit-bull.

  He was on top of me, on the floor. I wrapped my legs around his body. My arse felt like I’d sat on a branding iron, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that. If I could get him closer he couldn’t exert the same pressure round my neck as he leant in to me.

  He lifted his head and snarled. It gave me a chance. I tried to head-butt him, tried to make contact wherever I could. I tried to bite into his cheek. He jerked his head away. I could taste his week-old sweat.

  His mouth opened as he threw his face down onto the top of my head. He bit into my scalp. I could hear the skin break as his teeth sank in, and then the sound of him straining to bite harder.

  I managed to get my legs tighter around his gut as the fucker started to pull his head back. I could feel the snorting from his nose as his teeth dug into my scalp and scraped along the bone.

  I shoved my hands up in front of his face as my capillary bleeding sprayed the ground and ran down the back of my neck. My thumbs searched for his eyeballs and found the cheekbones and then went on from there. I pushed them down into the sockets. He jerked his head back. His teeth had to lose their grip. He needed to scream.

  I moved my right hand so I had a flat palm underneath his chin, then switched my left to his ear. I didn’t have much choice. If he’d had a fistful of hair I’d have grabbed that instead. He howled at me through clenched teeth.

  I wanted to break his neck. To do that I had to screw it off, like I was turning a tap. I had to take the head off at the atlas, the small joint at the base of the skull. It’s not so hard if you’re doing it against a body that’s standing. If you get them off balance as they’re going down, you can twist and turn at the same time, so their own momentum works against them. But all I could do was keep my legs around him and try to hold him in one place.

  I managed to get my boots interlocked, and at last I could squeeze and push down with my legs, at the same time twisting up with my arms as hard as I could. I kept on turning. We both screamed at each other. He bit my hand, trying to jerk his jaw left and right. This wasn’t so much about him trying to kill me. I didn’t know what he was doing. He was totally out of it.

  I slid my left hand round the back of his head. I kept the palm of my right under his jaw and pushed up and round. His neck went with not too much of a crack. He slumped down without making a sound. His body didn’t even twitch. He just went very still. I rolled over and kicked him off.

  My vision was blurred. Pain seared the top of my head. Blood ran down behind my ear. But scalp wounds always look worse than they are. They’re seldom serious. All there is on top is skin and bone.

  My lungs were bursting. I sucked in oxygen as I rolled over onto my front. I forced myself up, ready for the next wave. But the drama wasn’t what I was expecting.

  Angeles was kneeling over the other body. He was lying on his back. Her arm moved up and down, up and down, into his body. Blood covered her hands and face as she stabbed and stabbed into his chest.

  ‘It’s OK - stop!’

  I staggered over to her and caught her arm in mid-air as it headed down for another strike. I eased the Leatherman from her fingers and threw it on the floor. My right hand had a bright pink oval shape where the acid had etched into the top layers of skin, exposing the sensitive stuf
f beneath.

  The area round the other guy’s right eye had swollen so much it swamped the eyeball. The left one was open and dull.

  Angeles convulsed with sobs, maybe from relief, maybe from fear. Maybe it was just happiness at getting back at these fuckers. I didn’t know, and right now I didn’t care. All I had to do was make sure we were secure.

  ‘Wait here.’

  I staggered through the fire door and down to the entrance. I locked up. When I returned to the loading bay she’d hardly moved from her kneeling position next to the body.

  I stood over her and lifted gently under her armpits. ‘It’s OK. Let’s go.’

  I’d sort all this shit out later. For now, I needed her to get out of here before it all sank in and she started howling at the moon.

  I helped her to her feet. She turned and put her arms around me and sobbed quietly into my chest.

  In theory, the immediate priority was to get her cleaned up, and after that, to do the same to the loading bay. But she needed comforting. I put my arms around her and rocked her from side to side. ‘It’s OK, you’re safe. It’s all over. I’ll look after you. Everything’s going to be OK.’

  11

  I took her straight over to the shower and turned it on. There was a hum of electrics as it kicked off. Five minutes later she was still standing there, arms down at her sides, shoulders dropped.

  ‘Get in there. Clean yourself up. Get some clean clothes on. You’ll feel better.’

  She didn’t move. She just stared down at the blood on her hands.

  She had to wash it off her quickly if she was to have any chance of putting this behind her. The longer you smell it, the longer you see and feel it, the deeper it digs into you. Every time she smelt blood in a butcher’s shop, she’d think about today. Every time she had red ink or paint on her fingers, it would take her straight back. It didn’t matter that the fuckers deserved it, or that she’d exacted some kind of revenge. If she kept being reminded of what had just happened, she’d be haunted for the rest of her life.

  Steam billowed out of the shower and into the room. I dabbed at a pearl of blood that ran down my forehead. It would stop soon. I coaxed her towards the door. ‘In you go. I’ll take care of everything. Just get cleaned up, yeah?’

  I wasn’t getting any reply.

  ‘Angeles, do that now? Please?’

  I took her face gently in both my hands and bent down to try and get some eye-to-eye. There wasn’t just blood on her hands now, but blood on her cheeks as well.

  Finally she looked at me. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was no point denying it. ‘But you did nothing wrong. You did a good thing. They would have killed us. You have saved your own life - and you have saved mine. Do you understand?’

  Her eyes dropped.

  ‘You understand that what you’ve done is good, don’t you?’

  Her head nodded slowly.

  I kept my voice low and soft. ‘Angeles, take your time. Clean up. But first, give me your clothes. I’m going to go downstairs, and I’m going to sort everything out. Do you understand?’

  She gave a nod and I let go of her face. She started to undress and I went to the sink. The cold water on my hand felt almost as bad as the acid had, but I knew it was the only way. In a perfect world I’d have kept it up for at least half an hour, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  She came out with her bloodstained clothes in a bundle. Her shoulders were hunched. Her skin was goose-bumped all over. She looked like she belonged in a horror movie. Her skin was so white it was almost translucent, but her hands and face were crimson.

  ‘That’s great. Now go and have a shower. I’m going to bring the shopping up.’ I gave her a smile. I pointed to her hair. ‘You’ll be needing the brush, won’t you?’

  I didn’t get a smile back. There was nothing I could do for her apart from get things sorted and try to make her as physically comfortable as possible.

  She loitered by the shower door.

  ‘It’s OK, Angeles. I’m not going anywhere except downstairs. I have to sort everything out. You’ve got to help me and I’ve got to help you. Everything is OK. Go, go.’

  She nodded slowly and stepped into the steam.

  12

  The bags lay ripped and trampled on by the front door. I shoved whatever I could into the ones that were still intact, and scooped the rest of the gear into my arms. I headed back up and dumped the lot on the brown carpet. The electric shower hummed away on the other side of the stud wall as Angeles went through the horror of watching someone else’s blood drain away by her feet.

  I almost fell down the stairs in the rush to get back to the loading bay and start the clean-up. First into the rear footwell went the jeans with the stab punctures. I bundled up my vomit clothes and shoved them on top.

  Next was my neo. I hauled him by his feet and pushed and heaved him on top of his would-be competitor. I’d never been a great one for poetic justice, but this came close.

  Both neos were fucking idiots as far as I was concerned, but I needed to give myself a good kicking as well. They’d probably pinged us at the market, when I was paying more attention to cheering Angeles up than thinking about who might be looking over our shoulders.

  They should have reported back to Flynn once they’d IDed the safe-house instead of taking things into their own heavily tattooed hands. Whatever, the fact was that in the next couple of hours whoever was back at the silo was going to be flapping and making some calls. But I had no control over that; all I could do was crack on with the plan.

  I had to wedge Angeles’s neo as far down the rear passenger footwell as I could. The boot was already full. I’d cover him with her sleeping bag before leaving.

  The effort left me wet with sweat and gagging for breath. I leant against the vehicle and felt the top of my head. The wound was crescent-shaped where his top set had been able to rip into the skin. It would scab up soon enough. The sweat down my back started to cool and I felt myself shiver. My arse was hurting again, and so was my hand.

  I had to grip the situation and make sure Angeles and I got out of here in one piece, simple as that. She’d only just started her life and I wanted mine to end with Anna. That was pretty simple as well.

  I forced myself off the vehicle and carried on collecting together all the device-making paraphernalia and tucking it around the bodies. There was no easy way to erase my prints from the wagon, let alone the DNA. I could burn it, but even thirty years after an event, blood can still be identified. The only way I could to deal with this was to get all the evidence together and make sure it was never found. Not while I was alive, anyway.

  I didn’t touch the neos’ wallets or ID. If I did my job correctly, the wagon would never be found, and all my problems, and some of Angeles’s, would be packed away inside.

  I lugged the battery back into the Passat and connected it up. Thank fuck it still worked. I didn’t have jump leads.

  I turned my attention to the devices. First into the Bergen was the water container with about four litres of fuel. Then I carefully curled the gaffer-tape fuse into a couple of loops and laid it on top. I took the roll of gaffer tape over to the alarm clock, gave the bulb a generous protective coating, made sure the batteries were still in the wrong way round, then it went in as well.

  Next was the picric acid. The yellow mush had crystallized on the plastic, and was ready for bagging. I placed it carefully in two new freezer bags, which I tucked into the left-hand pouch of the Bergen. The two bags of cartridge propellant went in the other side.

  I put the Bergen into the front passenger’s footwell of the Passat and climbed behind the wheel. I sat there, working through exactly what I was going to have to do tonight. I visualized my actions as if I were a camera lens, watching my hands assembling the devices, going through everything step by step. I didn’t want to forget any detail that would stop the device detonating once I’d left.

  The fire door opened. Angeles appeared in
her new jeans. She had the brush in one hand but hadn’t even tried to get through the knots in her hair. She looked about her. All that remained of the drama was a pool of dark red, almost brown, blood that had been smeared along the concrete as I’d dragged the body of her neo towards the Passat.

  I climbed out. ‘I need to clean that up before we leave.’

  She wasn’t listening. ‘We will tell the police?’

  ‘No, we won’t tell the police anything. We just leave, and we never say anything to anyone at any time about anything. Is that OK with you?’

  Her head juddered, maybe out of fear. ‘I wanted to kill him.’ She pointed at the blood on the ground. ‘I wanted to make him pay. Make them all pay.’

  I was expecting her to start crying again as I walked over to her, but she didn’t. The tears had gone. She was pleased with what she had done. Fair one, I would have felt the same.

  ‘Angeles?’

  She kept her eyes on the blood.

  ‘Angeles, look at me.’ I went over to her and bent down so I could get eye-to-eye again. ‘I’ve got to leave for a while tonight, but I’ll be back.’

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘Just for a while. I have to get rid of the car. When I come back, we will leave here and go to my friend who is going to help you - help both of us.’

  She gave a brisk nod. It was as if what had been left of the child in her had gone, which I supposed it did pretty quickly once you’d stabbed a man to death.

  ‘Nick, why are you here? What are you doing for - what do you call it? - your job?’

  ‘Remember what we said before? You ask no questions, because I’m not going to answer, OK?’

  She looked at me for a couple of seconds, and nodded.

  13

  I stopped the Passat, jumped out and went back to hit the shutter button. A few moments later I was heading down the road towards the roundabout and then on to Distelweg, shoving the contents of Bradley’s briefing folder into the glove compartment as I drove.