Detonator

by Andy McNab

  Stefan poked his head round the door and asked if I’d remembered his Spider-Man pyjamas. He told me his real dad wouldn’t have forgotten them.

  I told him we were on a mission. That you didn’t wear pyjamas on a mission. Even Spider-Man pyjamas. ‘And put your trainers back on. We might have to leave in a hurry.’

  When Stefan had sorted himself out, he climbed carefully into the bunk and sat there cross-legged, like he was giving a yoga class. He was old beyond his years, this lad. Somalia must have kick-started it; Frank had done the rest.

  I asked if he was in the mood for a bit of Dostoevsky.

  The second smile of the day invaded his face. ‘Will you read it to me?’

  I grinned. ‘I try to save Crime and Punishment for special occasions.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  I looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’ll never lie to you, mate.’ I paused. There was something about his transparency and his intelligence that made it almost impossible to bullshit him. ‘I just might not always tell you the truth.’

  He stared straight back. ‘Don’t worry, Nick. No one does.’

  He wasn’t wrong there. But I hadn’t been talking total bollocks about Crime and Punishment. I’d never got to the end, but I had given it a go. It was one of the books Anna had raved about. I’d left my copy in Moscow with her and our little boy, when it became blindingly obvious to us both that I wasn’t the safest man in the world to be around.

  14

  Later, after I’d killed the lights, I lay there, still fully clothed and booted, listening for movement outside, and to Stefan breathing. I thought about when I’d dug him out from under Frank’s body, and when he had locked his arms around my neck. I’d never had much time for all that emotional shit. It always fucks you up.

  The springs creaked as Stefan turned over and tried to make himself comfortable. There was silence for a moment, then a whisper. ‘Nick …’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Where will they bury my father?’

  ‘Don’t know, mate. I guess they’ll fly him back home at some point.’ I wasn’t going to tell him Frank was sitting with a bunch of angels on a nearby cloud, watching over him. I’d spun that sort of shit once, a few years ago. It doesn’t help.

  ‘Home?’

  I let his question hang in the air. I needed to quiz him about Frank, but I didn’t want this conversation to continue. I’d never been an expert on home; I wished I’d never mentioned it. I should have known that the kid would be wondering where the fuck he belonged now.

  I heard a train rattling past, somewhere in the distance.

  ‘Nick …’

  ‘Try and get some sleep, mate. I’m going to.’

  The pipes shuddered as someone on the floor above flushed their toilet. Whoever had built this block hadn’t wasted their hard-earned euros on sound insulation. I didn’t have a problem with that. It meant I’d be able to hear any approach.

  ‘Nick …’

  ‘Yup.’

  I couldn’t blame him for wanting to fill the silence. He was a tough little fucker, but he was only going to see one thing whenever he closed his eyes.

  ‘Do you have a son?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I’ve never really had the time for kids.’ I gave him a little chuckle. ‘Anyway, I’ve already got my hands full looking after you.’

  He thought about this for a minute or two. ‘So, when you get old or die, who will run your business?’

  This time my chuckle was genuine. It really was like having a mini-Frank in the room. ‘My business isn’t much like your dad’s. And if I had a son, I think I’d want him to do something else with his life …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Make movies, maybe. Toy Story, Monsters, Inc.?’ I didn’t know where this shit was coming from. I just wanted to back away from the whole dad thing.

  ‘“Infinity and beyond …”’ His Buzz Lightyear impression was pretty good.

  ‘Or play football.’

  ‘I play football. After I’ve finished my homework.’

  ‘For Brindisi?’

  He actually giggled at that one. ‘Don’t be silly, Nick. I’m not old enough. But I watch them when my dad takes me …’

  He went quiet again.

  ‘When my dad … took … me.’

  I had an idea that Frank had mentioned Italy to me when we’d talked in the green room. I’d taken my rollercoaster ride down that side of the mountain. And he’d had an Italian map in the Range Rover.

  ‘Why Brindisi? Why not Man U, or Barcelona?’

  ‘My dad doesn’t own Man U or Barcelona. And we don’t have a villa there.’

  ‘Do you go a lot?’

  ‘Two or three times this year.’ His mood brightened again. ‘I like it very much in Italy, Nick. My dad is … was always happy in Italy. Except the last trip.’

  ‘The last trip?’

  ‘Something happened the last trip that made him sad.’

  ‘Do you know what that was?’

  ‘A bad business. That’s what he said.’

  ‘Is that all he said?’

  He went quiet again.

  I didn’t push him for more detail. I reckoned he’d fill the gap if he could. He seemed to be in the mood. I also figured that however keen Frank had been to have his boy follow in his footsteps, he wouldn’t have given him the lowdown on every piece of shit that floated to the surface of his pond.

  I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, took off my jacket and went to have a crap and throw some warm water over my eyes. I ran my hands through my hair. The face that glanced back at me from the mirror above the basin didn’t seem to belong to a stranger now. And it had some colour in it.

  The dressing I’d applied at the chalet was neat and high on the right side of my forehead, with only a small amount of bruising at the edges. I was never going to be confused with George Clooney in red-carpet mode, but I didn’t look like I’d been on the wrong end of a cage fight either.

  I gave my hands and face a squirt of soap and water, but left the scribbles on my arm. The afternoon’s sweat had blurred the Adler eagle, but I didn’t need that any more. And Laffont’s address was easily readable.

  I still felt a dull ache above my kidneys, so pulled up my T-shirt and swivelled. The outline of the fence post was clearly visible across my back, and the bruise was darkening nicely. Claude had tried pretty hard to fuck up my ribs and spine when he took me down, and though he hadn’t finished the job, he deserved some credit.

  I wondered whether the boys were still locked in the barn, or if their mum had given them a good bollocking and sat them on the naughty step. Claude was probably even sorrier that he hadn’t shot me in the head when he discovered that I’d fucked off with one of their ATVs. I wasn’t too worried about him fingering me in an ID parade, though. Our little drama had unfolded in shadow.

  Stefan stayed quiet while I put my jacket back on and lay down again. I didn’t think he was sleeping. I wasn’t either. I had too much on my mind. Or too little. My memory of the hours leading up to the crash was still fractured. Every attempt I made to fit the pieces into some kind of recognizable pattern failed. Maybe a visit to Frank’s banker would fill some of the gaps.

  A face appeared out of the darkness. A woman’s face. A sad, blonde face. Her lips parted. She was speaking to me. ‘Trouble always finds you. Nothing’s going to change that – it’s the way you are.’ English words, but definitely not an English voice. A Russian accent.

  Anna? I may even have said her name aloud.

  I stretched out. Tried to touch her.

  But she was moving away from me now. Retreating to a place I couldn’t reach.

  I’d switched off the TV as soon as Stefan had hit the sack, but as I let my mind drift, two words kept fighting their way to the surface. Putin … Ukraine … Putin … Ukraine … And I knew that, whether or not there was a connection between the bare-chested ex-KGB psychopath and the events on the mountain, I co
uldn’t take any chances.

  I reached for my day sack and felt around for the second Nokia, a battery and the SIM cards. As I turned the key in the door, I heard a voice from the bunk. ‘Nick … Where are you going?’

  ‘Just need to make a call, mate. Won’t be long.’

  I locked up behind me and kept the key fob in my fist. At close quarters it would do as much damage as my fucked-up Sphinx, and would be easier to explain away.

  I went round the back of the accommodation block and eased through a gap in the hedge, then under the chain-link fence that surrounded the property. I crossed the stretch of turf behind it and headed towards the railway track. Once I was in the shadow of the refuse and recycling shed, I pushed the SIM and battery into the phone and sparked it up.

  I tapped out an area code I had so firmly fixed in my mental filing cabinet that even a high-speed smash hadn’t been able to dislodge it.

  It was ten to five in the morning in Moscow, but Pasha picked up immediately.

  ‘Mate, I need your help. Can you call me back on this cell from a secure line?’

  Pasha Korovin was one of the main men on Russia Today, and one of the small handful of people I completely trusted. He had been Anna’s editor when she was busy campaigning to make the world a better place, and knew when to keep below the radar.

  I pressed the red button and waited. The Nokia’s screen lit up seconds later.

  Unidentified number.

  I piled straight in. He didn’t need small-talk. ‘A couple of things. First, could you tell me if Frank Timis was on your supreme leader’s shit list?’

  ‘Frank was found dead yesterday. In the Alps.’

  ‘I know. I was there. That’s why I’m asking.’

  ‘There have been rumours. They have never been … the best of friends.’

  ‘Can you check?’

  ‘And second?’

  ‘Anna. Whoever killed Frank wants me dead too. So if this is a Putin plot, she could be in the shit as well. They might try to use her to get to me. They might just fuck her over for being in Frank’s phone book. Could you warn her? Tell her to make herself and the baby safe until I can sort this out? She’ll know what to do.’ I didn’t need to tell him no calls, texts or email, nothing traceable. I could have done that from here.

  ‘I will go now.’

  There was a click.

  I was about to dismantle the Nokia and crush the bits under my heel when the railway track started to hum. The hum became a series of rhythmic clunks and a few minutes later a beam of light swept along the line.

  I waited for the goods train to draw level with me, then stepped out of the shadows, swung back my arm and lobbed the phone into the first open truck that passed. If Moscow’s answer to GCHQ had picked up my call, they’d soon work out that I was heading for Lyon. And if they hadn’t, so what? At least it had brought a smile to my face.

  15

  Anna had been a journalist when I’d first met her, the kind who would stop at nothing in the pursuit of justice and truth. So when our son was born, it didn’t take her long to spot that I wasn’t ideal husband and dad material. Husbands and dads are supposed to keep their family secure, and I’d always been a trouble magnet.

  Before I’d said goodbye the last time, we’d talked about what might happen if they came under threat when I wasn’t there to shield them from the incoming fire. Frank had bought a couple of safe houses through a sequence of shell companies, which he assured us couldn’t be traced.

  Even I had no idea where they were. Pasha didn’t either. His job was simply to let Anna know – if need be – when she had to evacuate the gated enclave on the Moscow margins that had been designed to protect them from everyone below Frank on the food chain.

  Which didn’t include Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, prime minister of the Russian Federation, chairman of both United Russia and the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. A truly powerful man …

  As I headed back to the motel I visualized Pasha delivering the message. I knew Anna wasn’t going to be impressed. She’d do what we’d agreed. Then she’d go into meltdown. I still missed her, but I was glad I wouldn’t be there when that happened. One of those laser-beam stares of hers could take your bollocks off more severely than a Flechette missile.

  I circled the motel lot, then went back in the way I’d come out.

  I unlaced my Timberlands before I got my head down, but still kept them on.

  There was a familiar creak above me. ‘Nick …’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Have you been on a mission?’

  ‘Only a little one. It’s all good out there.’

  ‘Did you take the gun?’

  ‘Yup. I always keep it with me.’

  Another creak.

  ‘I’ve never shot anyone before.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘My dad showed me how to use a pistol. In the garden at our dacha. You came there. Remember?’

  ‘Sure I do.’ That wasn’t completely true, but I did have a vision of a high wall, woods, and a kitchen with the world’s biggest and most gleaming coffee machine. ‘Peredelkino, right?’

  ‘Yes. Peredelkino. We used real bullets, but we only fired them at beer cans.’

  ‘Rounds.’

  I could almost hear the cogs whirring in his brain.

  ‘What do you mean, rounds?’

  ‘We don’t call them bullets. We call them rounds.’

  ‘Ah. R-r-rounds …’ He rolled the r around in his mouth like he was tasting it. ‘So my dad was shot … with r-r-rounds …’

  I didn’t want to rush him back to a place he was only just starting to escape from. But, fuck it, I couldn’t keep tiptoeing around this thing. I hoped he’d be able to stay in mini-Frank mode for a moment or two longer.

  ‘Did you spot anyone else up on the mountain? Apart from your BG?’

  He went so quiet I couldn’t even hear him breathe.

  ‘A guy in khaki combats, maybe? With a ring? A red ring, with a silver eagle on it? An eagle with two heads?’

  Eventually he spoke again. ‘No. But I couldn’t see much from the back seat. And I was talking to my dad. About a maths problem.’

  ‘A maths problem?’

  ‘Yes. He used to set me challenges. Then something happened in front of us. With a truck, I think. A big truck. My … my BG pulled off the road … and stopped the car … and turned in his seat … and … and …’ He swallowed. ‘And that was where you found us …’

  I heard him trying to suppress a sob.

  Anna would have been able to say something warm and cuddly, but I wasn’t built like that. I just let him have a bit more silence to wrap himself in.

  It seemed to work.

  ‘Why did my BG do it, Nick? My dad didn’t trust many people, but he trusted … him.’

  ‘Mate, I honestly don’t know. But I aim to find out. Starting first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Where will you find out?’

  ‘I’ve got a couple of addresses.’

  ‘Can I come too?’

  ‘Better not. Your dad always wanted me to keep you safe. And you’ll be safer here.’

  Since neither of us was doing much sleeping, I took him through the drills instead.

  16

  I did it again the next morning.

  We’d keep the shutters closed; it was more secure that way, and would make the place look like it was empty.

  ‘You can have your bedside light on. Catch up on your Dostoevsky. Or turn on the TV – but no volume. If you think someone’s trying to gain entry, don’t mess around. Get straight out of the bathroom window and leg it. Into the hedge first, then under the fence. The gap’s plenty big enough. I did it last night. How do you get to the ERV?’

  His eyes lit up. ‘Along the treeline, into the back-streets, up to the railway track. The ERV is the recycling shelter …’

  This was good. I needed him to do it instinctively. I needed it to happen before he had a chance to t
hink himself out of it.

  ‘Where in the recycling shelter?’

  ‘Behind the bottle bank. I don’t come out for anyone except you.’

  ‘All sorts of people will be dumping stuff there. How will you know it’s me?’

  ‘You’ll knock three times, then three more, then say the code word.’

  ‘What’s the code word?’

  His face fell. He looked like I’d just marked him down on his homework.

  I grinned and put my hand on his shoulder. ‘We haven’t agreed a code word. It needs to be something only you and I know.’

  He gave it some serious thought.

  But I didn’t have all day. ‘I tell you what: who’s the main guy in Crime and Punishment? You know, the student in the shit?’

  ‘Raskolnikov.’

  ‘Let’s use him, yeah?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘What does ERV mean, Nick?’

  ‘Emergency rendezvous, mate. It’s a safe place where you and I meet that nobody else knows about.’

  He was putting a brave face on it, but I could see he wasn’t convinced. He gripped my arm. ‘Why can’t I come with you?’

  I eased his hand away. ‘It’s a pain in the arse, but where I’m going there are no kids allowed.’ It was the first excuse that sprang into my mind: my stepdad’s stand-by when he was going down the local.

  His lip quivered. ‘How long will you be?’ He was being as brave as his dad would have expected, but I knew a part of him just wanted to curl up and hope all this was going to go away.

  ‘I’ll try to be back soon. Way before last light. But if I’m not, don’t worry.’

  I handed him a bag of stuff I’d picked up from a nearby Spar before he woke: water, Orangina, a croissant, a ham and cheese baguette.

  I pointed at the room key and told him to double-lock the door when I’d gone, flip on the bar, and not to open it to anyone except me.