by Andy McNab
Slapping down my palm, as if swatting a fly, I gripped the ashtray. My body was still facing the table with the two guys behind me. Swinging my head round, I focused on the old guy's now hatless head. My body turned as I took the three paces toward him, brandishing the fistful of glass in the air like a knife.
I closed in, ignoring Carpenter as he came toward me from the right.
The one I wanted was the old guy, the one with the pistol in his hand.
His face didn't register surprise or fear, just anger, as he pushed himself off the wall and raised his weapon.
My eyes were fixed on his face as I swung the ashtray downward, making contact above his cheekbone. His skin folded over just below his eye, then split open. He fell with a scream, his body banging against my legs on the way down. Stage three was complete.
I heard, rather than saw, the black shape from the right, almost on top of me.
I didn't have a stage four. It was open house now. Not even bothering to turn and look at Carpenter, I just lashed out wildly. The thick glass hammered against his skull twice on his way down, both times with such force that my arm jarred to a halt as I made contact.
I jumped onto his chest and continued to rain blows onto the top of his head. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I'd lost it, but I didn't care. I was just remembering the way this fucker had kept firing rounds into the woman in the elevator, and the bastards who'd ruined Kelly's life by hosing down her family in Washington.
Three times there was a crunching, cracking sound as his skull gave way.
I raised my hand, ready to hit again, but stopped myself. I'd done enough. Thick, almost brown blood oozed from his head wounds. He had lost function in his eyes and had a vacant stare, wide open and dull, pupils fully dilated. The blood spread onto the carpet, which soaked it up like blotting paper.
Still sitting astride him I rested both hands on his chest, not enjoying the fact that I'd lost control. To survive, you sometimes have to get really revved up, but losing it completely, I didn't like that.
I turned to check the old guy. The strop and the handgun were on the floor, and so was he, curled up, holding his hat against his face like a dressing and moaning to himself. His legs flailed weakly on the carpet.
Slowly hauling myself to my feet, I kicked away both weapons. The gun looked like a.38 special revolver, the short-barreled sort used by 1930s American gangsters.
Pulling his jacket off his shoulders and midway down his arms, I dragged him over the top of Carpenter and into the bathroom, leaving his bloodstained fur hat behind. It was obvious now why he always wore it: only a few wisps of hair covered his head.
He was still moaning and probably feeling quite sorry for himself, but he was alive and that meant he was a threat. My jaw was aching as I jolted up and down with the effort of dragging him, but at least my heart rate was starting to calm. There was no other option, he had to die. I wasn't happy about it, but I couldn't leave him here alive when I set off for the Maliskia compound tomorrow. He could compromise everything I was here for.
I let go of him and he slumped onto the tiled bathroom floor. I turned on the hot water and the water hearter surged into action.
The extent of the injury to his face was now clear to me. A two inch furrow was gouged in his cheek, wide enough to put a couple of fingers in. Beneath the mess of torn flesh gleamed an area of exposed white cheekbone.
A check of his wallet as he lay and groaned to himself revealed all the normal stuff. Only the money was of interest, both Russian and Estonian; once that was tucked into my jeans I went back into the bedroom.
Stepping back over Carpenter, I picked up the.38 special from the floor and one of the furry blankets.
I pulled back the hammer so the weapon was cocked. When I came to squeeze the trigger I didn't want the hammer moving all the way back before coming forward to fire the round; it might get caught in the blanket.
I walked back into the bathroom and, not even looking at his face in case his eyes were on me, I unceremoniously jammed the muzzle into the blanket and onto his head, quickly wrapped the furry nylon around the weapon and fired.
There was a dull thud and then a crack as the round exited his head and shattered the tile beneath it. I let the blanket fall and cover his face, and listened. There was no apparent reaction to the round from outside the room; this was the sort of place where you didn't ask too many questions, even if there was a gang fuck going on next door. The only things my senses picked up were the noise of the water heater and the smell of burned nylon.
I turned the water off and the water heater died as I moved into the bedroom. I dug out Carpenter's wallet and tucked his money into my jeans, too. His weapon was still in its shoulder holster, but only just. I realized how lucky I had been. Another fraction of a second and it could have been a totally different story. The pistol was a Makharov, a Russian copy of James Bond's Walther PPK, and only good as a close-up, personal protection weapon, perfect for when someone got in a huff with you in a komfort baar. At longer range it would be more lethal to throw the thing at them. No wonder its nickname in certain quarters was "the disco gun." I decided to keep this one. The pistol grip on these Russian versions was bulky, making it awkward to get a firm hold first time when drawing down with small hands like mine, but it was more use than the.38 special.
Carpenter's blood was thickening on the carpet, which couldn't absorb the amount leaking out of him. Pulling another blanket off the bed, I trod it down around his head to try and stop it seeping through the floorboards. I ended up grabbing his head and wrapping it in the blanket.
I opened the main door into the hall, checked left and right, then had a look at the intact telltale. Why had it failed me, why was it still in place? I could see the answer at once: It was stuck to the door frame. The sponge-strip draft protector must have been put there soon after the stuff was invented; it was now brown and gooey with age.
Lesson learned. Don't mix telltales with old draft protectors.
Switching the fire back on, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
* * *
38
I used the toilet-plunger handle again to prevent burning my hands, wedging it into a mine cap and fishing it out, then turning it upside down to drain.
I carried it like that into the bedroom, slipping on the old man's hat on the way. The blood hadn't soaked in as much as it had into the carpet or blanket, which probably meant the fur was real and was resisting penetration.
Laying the mine on the coffee table, I crossed the room to open the window, letting in the cold sea air big time. Waves were breaking on the other side of the road.
The explosive, which had been more or less rigid plastic, was now soft enough to extract and manipulate. I began to scoop, having first put a shopping bag over each hand to prevent the nitro from entering my blood stream via cuts on my hands or straightforward absorption. It wouldn't kill-hospitals use nitroglycerine on heart-attack victims-but it would give me a massive fuck-off headache.
By the time I'd finished the room stank of marzipan, and in front of me on the table was ten pounds of what looked like green, lumpy plasticine. It had hardened a little as it cooled, but I knew that once I played with it in my hands a bit it would become quite pliable again. The remaining two pounds or so of PE were stubbornly sticking to the sides of the mine and were too difficult to get out, so I just left it.
With the bags rustling on my hands I worked away at it as if kneading dough, trying to keep my head turned so the fumes didn't get to me so quickly. Even so, it made me feel dizzy and nauseous, though that might also have something to do with the way Carpenter and the old guy had greeted me at the door.
Once I'd got it all nice and malleable in three equal-sized balls, I pulled off the rubber part of the plunger and used the handle as a rolling pin to flatten them out. The smell of marzipan reminded me of being a kid at Christmas, skipping the icing sugar and going straight for the yellow stuff underneath.
&nb
sp; As I kept quiet, the room adjacent to my bedroom was about to become a love nest. There was the rattle of a key, the door opened and closed and then I heard voices, but this wasn't fun sex talk, this was heavy, serious stuff.
I kept rolling as the hooker ran through her repertoire of moans and sighs, though not giggly ones, like before; this sounded more like grand opera. The sounds of male grunting and rhythmic humping started almost straight away; poor girl, she probably hadn't even had time to put down her order of fries.
When the dough was about a quarter of an inch thick and the diameter of a medium-sized pizza, I used the ice scraper to cut strips about two inches wide, getting six per base. That done, I stepped over the head in the blood-soaked blanket, went into the bathroom, and pulled the plug to refill the bath with more hot water.
The old man's eyes were fixed open in an astonished stare. I ignored him as I turned on the tap and tested the water, as if for a baby's bath, wishing I could stay in here because the water heater noise drowned out the duet next door, but there were five more mines to be dealt with. Leaving the bath still running, I went back to the bedroom with another piece of dripping Soviet war machinery hanging off the plunger.
It was now so cold in the room that my nose was beginning to drip.
Wiping it carefully on my jacket sleeve to make sure I got none of the marzipan on my exposed skin, I sat back down with more PEin-a-can and set about digging out the contents.
Plastic explosive is nothing more than a substance which, when detonated, undergoes almost instantaneous decomposition. Until that moment, most forms of the compound are harmless and waterproof. You can even burn some types of PE and it won't explode; it'll just help you make a pot of tea very quickly. When detonated, however, it delivers a shattering blow known as brisance, and that is why it can be used to cut through materials as strong as steel.
I still had another four mines to empty and was gagging for that tea, but I didn't think they did room service here; not the kind I wanted, anyway. I just got on with it, gouging out the PE, rolling and cutting two-inch-wide strips, serenaded by the bear next door, who sounded as though he was heading for his final grunt. I hoped he might follow it with a spell of hibernation.
An hour or so later, with all of the PE now in strips, I opened the knife blade of the Leatherman and rested it over the hot bar of the heater. I then laid the first piece of foam on the bed, base down.
Carpenter was pissing me off, as I had to keep stepping over him, so I pulled at his feet, his head making a dull thud as it hit the thin carpet as it moved out of the blanket, and dragged him closer to the door. Once there, I rearranged the sodden blanket once more around his head and wiped my hands on his black crew neck.
Using the towel as an oven glove, I lifted the hot Leatherman from the heater and quickly sliced off all the little lumps, bumps, and molded corners from the upper side of the foam. What I was left with was a yard square, one side naturally flat, the other cut more or less level.
Next I used the hot blade to mark out a two-inch wide channel all the way round, following the line of the square and about three inches in from the edge. The smell of burning Styrofoam was even more overpowering than the marzipan.
Holding the blade at an angle, I started cutting an inverted Vin the channel, ending up with what looked like a trench all around the foam square, with four very long bars of Toblerone lying in the bottom of it, peaks upward. The strips of explosive would be laid along the sides of the Toblerone, and when the frame charge was complete, it would be the flat side that would ultimately be placed against the target.
You can't drop a bridge by just dangling big sticks of dynamite against it. To cut through whatever you're trying to destroy concrete, brick, or steel with the least amount of PE and maximum effect, you have to channel the brisance by using the Munroe Effect. Because of the thirty-degree angle made by the peak of the Toblerone facing the target, the majority of the detonation force would surge toward the imaginary chocolate bar's base and beyond. Had the Toblerone been made of copper, the brisance would be able to penetrate many inches of steel, because the detonation would melt the copper and take most of the molten flow forward with it, cutting through the target. I didn't have copper, just styrofoam, but there was enough force in the PE alone to do the job required of it.
My nitro headache was really pounding now. I downed another four aspirin; only four more left.
As I went back to my cutting, the sound of an argument between two men filtered through from the hall. They were soon joined by a woman, who seemed to be charming them down.
The door opposite mine opened and closed and there was silence. I waited for the customary sound effects to start in the room opposite, but all I got was more argument, the woman now chipping in her two EEKs' worth. When I'd finished cutting the Toblerone shape all the way round the styrofoam, the base of the triangle was just over an inch and a half from the base of the foam. This was the "stand-off," which would give the Munroe Effect space to gather enough force to cut through the target's brickwork.
Now all I had to do was lay the explosive along each side of the Toblerone and over its peak, making sure the strips were molded together seamlessly to make one big charge. Protecting my hands with the plastic bags once more, I started placing, pressing and pinching, as if shaping and joining pastry. The three-way argument was still going on opposite; I didn't mind, it was nice to have neighbors who were talking instead of grunting and throwing the bed around.
Once the Toblerone was covered by two layers of PE, I got some det cord and cut off two lengths, one about three feet long, the other about five. Putting two knots into one end of each length, I pressed these into the PE that lay over the Toblerone, on two opposite sides of the square. To keep the knots in place, two off cuts of PE were pressed down on top so the knots were well and truly molded into the charge.
The reason for having two sites for the det cord was that I needed the detonation to come from two directions simultaneously so the charge was more efficient. To make sure that happened, I tightly taped together, over a distance of about six inches, the two different lengths of det cord so that, from the binding to the charge, they were both of equal length. Trailing from the site of the binding was the two-foot surplus from the longer piece; that bit was called the det tail. As the shock wave traveled along the det tail and reached the binding, it would also detonate the second, shorter length of det cord. The two shock waves would then travel down toward the charge at the same speed and distance, therefore reaching the Toblerones on two opposing sides simultaneously. The Munroe Effect would direct the force of the detonation toward the base of the Toblerone, gathering energy as it traveled the inch and a bit through the foam before impacting the target. All being well, I should be left with a gaping hole about a yard square in the wall of the target house.
I was still in the process of taping over the Toblerone to keep it in the foam when two male voices, drunk and laughing, came up the stairs and passed my door, going into the room on the other side of the bathroom.
I still had another charge to make, so I put the knife back on the heater as my two new neighbors laughed, joked, and turned the TV on loudly. At least it drowned out the three still entertaining themselves opposite.
It took me thirty minutes to complete the second charge, done to the accompaniment of an American comedy, dubbed, of course. I preferred the jokes in Russian.
To make them easier to carry, I sandwiched both sets of charges together so the Toblerone peaks were facing each other, storing the attached det cord in between. I wrapped one of the tow ropes around to keep it all together, then slid two of the pallet sections, taken from behind the shops, under the rope. I'd also secured the reel of unused det cord to the pack by running the rope through its center while wrapping it round. Everything I'd be needing on target was now together, and the whole thing looked like a badly packed Boy Scout's knapsack.
There were one or two other little jobs to do before I could get o
ut of here. Gathering together the remaining blue nylon tow ropes, I tied them together until there was one rope about thirty yards long, adding extra knots so that there was one every yard. One end was then tied onto the rope, which had been wrapped around the charges.
Next I picked up the third length of pallet wood. It was MI9 time again as I cut a groove all round one end, about three inches in from the top, around which I secured the free end of the rope attached to the charges. Holding the brick against the un roped end of the wood, so that its longest edge was parallel to the plank's, I wrapped the towel around both and secured it with yards of insulating tape. All the equipment was now prepared.
The Lion King told me it was 3:28, in theory too early to leave, but I didn't know who else knew that Carpenter and the old man had come to visit. The threesome started arguing yet again, this time probably about payment, as I took the charges, draped in a blanket, down to the car.
* * *
39
Saturday. December 18,1999 In the pitch-dark of the afternoon I drove west toward Tallinn on the main drag, turned left to Pussi and headed once again over the railway track and toward the target, passing the sad shacks where people were holed up for the winter.
In the twelve hours since leaving the hotel I'd been cruising around, stopping only a couple of times to fill up with gas. Anything to keep the heater going.
On my way out I'd paid the old woman for another two nights, so with any luck there should be no need for her to come and check the room.
Tented stalls were dotted along the roads like miniature service stations, the steam that poured from their vents making them look like refugee-camp field kitchens. When I stopped to buy coffee and pastries, it actually helped to have a swollen mouth with visible bruising, because I could get away with just mumbling and pointing.
