Zero Hour (2010) ns-13

by Andy McNab

  She shook her head. ‘A country. The radar is for the Pantsyr-S1E and heading for the Iranian military. You know what an S1E is?’

  ‘Yeah - ground-to-air missile. Tarasov’s making the boards for the missile systems.’

  We carried on towards the RV arm in arm. Guys with radio comms and roll-ups the size of RPGs lingered in the shadows, their pit-bulls snarling at their heels.

  We eventually got bored with pushing our way through groups of dithering tourists and local teenagers toking their heads off and darted down a side street.

  A figure stepped out from the shadows, a white guy in his early twenties in a black leather jacket and old army cargoes. His head was shaved. Even in this light I could see his eyes were bloodshot and out on stalks.

  ‘You want cannabis?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Cocaine? Heroin?’

  It sounded like a threat rather than an invitation to sample tonight’s special.

  We didn’t break step. ‘No.’

  Walking backwards just ahead of us, he gestured towards the rear of a nearby building. ‘Come with me, come down here. I can get you anything. Ice? Ket?’

  I shook my head. ‘We don’t want anything.’

  ‘If you don’t want to buy, what are you doing here? You cops?’

  Anna was just as sharp with him. ‘We don’t have money.’

  He flexed his fist. ‘Yeah, right, and I don’t have a dick.’

  We kept going.

  He slid his right hand into his pocket. ‘I’ll cut you both. Buy some stuff or fuck off, cop.’

  It wasn’t a knife he tugged from his pocket, but a radio.

  Anna pulled out the picture. ‘Have you seen her?’

  He didn’t even bother looking. ‘Fuck you.’

  We carried straight on past him. He wasn’t going to follow us onto the main. Darkness was where he lived. ‘Fuck you, bitches - got no money. Suck my dick and I’ll give you a freebie. Hey, everybody, look out - cops.’

  We were opposite the entrance to the alley that led back to Prinsessegade. We were going against the flow. People were pouring past the sign that told us we were entering the EU, three or four abreast.

  9

  Gandalf was in the corner where we’d left him. It looked as though his glass had been refilled a good few more times. An ashtray was piled with roll-up ends. The one in his mouth had gone out and its ash had taken up residence in his beard.

  He looked up blearily to see who had come into the not-so-busy bar and went straight back into waffle mode, as if he’d only finished his last sentence to us a few seconds ago. ‘Gangs. Violence. It’s the government’s fault. We used to sell the best hash in Europe here, right here in Christiania. But then the politi bust the trade. Then the gangs …’

  Anna sat down at his table. ‘Maybe you could tell us a little more about the gangs. Where are the Russians? Do you know where we can find them?’

  I sat beside her as Gandalf continued his rant. His eyes wobbled and bounced like a one-armed-bandit display but never made contact with either of us.

  ‘We are citizens of Denmark. We pay our taxes—’

  I thought he was going to end his sentence but he started a new one instead.

  ‘Our music halls and art galleries have contributed to Denmark’s culture and commerce. We have a free health clinic. We shelter and look after addicts, alcoholics, even homeless …’ He raised a nicotine-stained index finger to make sure we understood the full weight of the next category. ‘… and madmen. The cops still do nothing but hassle us. But do they do anything to the gangs? No! We are used by them - what can we do?’

  Anna pulled out a pack of Camels and offered him one. ‘Do you know where the Russians are?’ She pulled out Lilian’s picture again. ‘Where can we find them?’

  He refused the cigarette. ‘Why do you think I would know? I know nothing.’ He was angry or scared, it was hard to work out which.

  His fist went down hard on the table; hard enough to make the glass rattle. ‘Nothing.’

  His head went down again. Tears rolled from his eyes. ‘I just cannot take any more …’

  We left him to it, and ordered coffees and open salmon sandwiches at the bar. Money upfront, of course.

  ‘I think we’re going to get a big fuck-all tonight. She may already be drugged up and fucked up, but we won’t find her on the street. Those lads out there on Pusher, they’re the low end of the market. They’re not catering for the kind of customer who’s looking to drop his Armani trousers, and they’re not traffickers. We won’t get near the Russians via them. We’ll just rub them up the wrong way and find ourselves on the receiving end of a pit-bull.’

  Anna was waiting to see where this was going. ‘So?’

  ‘So, get your mobile out.’ I closed my eyes, trying to visualize the international number on Slobo’s call register.

  ‘Check the code for Demark. Is it four five?’

  Her thumbs clicked away as I got my head in gear. It wasn’t exactly instant recall, but it didn’t need to be. I tended to remember the shapes of numbers rather than the numbers themselves.

  ‘Yes - plus four five.’

  ‘Slobo had one international number on his mobile. It began with four five.’

  ‘Couldn’t Jules have traced it?’

  Our brews arrived and I waited for the bartender to put some distance between my mouth and his ears.

  ‘Anna, Jules has given me the all-singing, all-dancing BlackBerry, but it doesn’t mean I want to get in touch with him and Tresillian every time I need Directory Enquiries.’

  I buttoned my lip as the sandwiches appeared.

  ‘The other thing you should know is that I think Jules is a good guy - but I don’t know Tresillian well enough to trust him, so until I find out what this shit is really about, I’d rather tell them both as little as possible.’

  I reached for Anna’s iPhone as she started to eat and tapped out the number on her keypad until its rhythm felt right in my head.

  ‘This call could fuck up Lilian for good. I don’t know for sure what we’ll find at the other end. But I do know that we’ve already rattled a few bars on a few cages - and maybe one in particular.’

  ‘Do it.’

  I dialled and waited for the ring tone. It sparked up a few seconds later.

  Nothing for three rings.

  Anna raised a hand. ‘Hang up.’

  I did as she asked. I knew she’d have a good reason.

  ‘Now dial again.’

  I dialled and she waited until the ring tone sounded in my ear, then pulled the phone away. The nineties Nokia ring tone fired up across the room. This time it woke Gandalf up enough for him to reach into his pocket.

  ‘Hej?’

  I closed down. He gave his mobile a shake, had another listen, then shoved it back into his coat.

  Then he looked up and saw us both staring at him from the bar, Anna’s iPhone still in my hand.

  He knew he’d fucked up. He got to his feet and headed for the door.

  Anna made to follow but I held her back. ‘He won’t get far. We don’t run. We walk.’

  The dim lighting in the street was still effective enough for a quick scan to reveal Gandalf’s whereabouts. He might have thought he was doing a Usain Bolt, but his ageing legs and pissed-up brain were letting him down.

  He took the corner as we started to push our way through the crowds. It took no time to catch up and push him onto a muddy patch between two barrack blocks.

  I pulled him up from the shit by his arms.

  ‘Please, please … Kill me - yes, please kill me. I cannot take any more guilt. They make me do it … Kill me, please. I beg you, end it …’

  I shoved him against a rotting wooden panel, which shut him up long enough for Anna to start questioning him.

  ‘Where is she? Where did she go?’

  He looked at me, wild-eyed. ‘I don’t know. They took her. I don’t know where she’ll be now.’

  ‘Who took
her? Who?’

  More tears fell. He clasped his hands together in prayer. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I just meet the girls, that’s all. I meet them and escort them. They make me do it. I have no choice. Please, I can’t take any more. Kill me now …’ His hands parted and he brought them up to cover his face.

  Anna moved in closer. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Russians.’

  ‘Where do you take them?’

  ‘To the green house - the house near Loppen.’

  I grabbed Anna’s arm. ‘I know it. Let’s go, fuck him.’

  He fell to his knees and grabbed me as I turned. His arms tight around my legs, he sobbed into my jeans. ‘All those young girls. The lost, the hiding. They sell them. They fill them with drugs and they sell them.’ His shoulders heaved.

  I pushed him off me and he fell back into the mud.

  ‘I have nowhere to go. They would throw me out of Christiania. I wanted to tell the politi, but what would they do? I had to do what they told me.’ He looked up at me, still pleading. ‘Please, please, kill me. I am dead now anyway. I am so tired. Those girls, those poor girls …’

  He curled into the foetal position. I bent down and rolled him onto his back.

  Anna tried dragging me away. ‘Nick, no - don’t!’

  I shook myself free, wrenched aside his beard and gripped his neck. My hands started to tighten.

  ‘Thank … you … I am so … sorry …’ His voice rasped, but there was relief in his eyes.

  I leant closer, my mouth alongside his ear. ‘Fuck you. You’re living. You can remember every girl you’ve handed over to those arseholes. You had a choice, and you took the easy way out. But not this time.’ I fished in his pocket for his mobile before letting go of him. Then I took Anna’s hand and headed back out into the street.

  10

  I followed Anna up the flight of broken wooden steps and onto the veranda of the house with flaking green paint, keeping a few paces behind her as a good BG would. I’d quizzed the call register on Gandalf’s phone before binning it, not expecting anything much. He was either more switched on than he looked, or - more likely - his trafficker mates weren’t taking any chances.

  The house was long past being a home. A rusty fridge sat discarded by the front door. The wood under the peeling paint was rotten. The place looked more like a crack den than the HQ of an international business enterprise.

  I stayed close as Anna banged on the glass panel in the top half of the door. Light filtered weakly through the minging net curtains that hung behind it.

  Footsteps echoed on bare boards. The curtains twitched and the door opened just enough to show a chin unevenly coated with bum fluff. Its owner nodded at whatever Anna said, but still went to close the door on us. Anna’s foot shot into the gap. She bollocked him in fast, aggressive Russian. The runt gave up. He nodded and closed the door.

  Anna waited, not looking back at me as more footsteps thundered towards us. I could hear voices, then saw movement and shadows through the netting. She had told me that these guys were greedy. That, above all, they were businessmen. A sale was a sale. We were about to find out if she was right.

  The door opened. Two, maybe three, bodies filled the hallway. The first one’s hands reached out. Anna tried to duck out of the way but was too slow. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her in, a pistol jammed into her neck. There was nothing I could do now, except follow.

  She stumbled through the entrance. The runt already had a weapon on me. A second body reached out and gripped my coat. He shoved the muzzle of a weapon into my neck and pushed me down onto the floorboards as the door slammed shut behind me.

  All three extra bodies were well into their thirties and wore black North Face parkas with fur-lined hoods. Anna went ballistic at them and they couldn’t give a fuck. I heard the rustle of nylon as they went about their checks Russian-style. She kept up the bollocking, as you would if you were in the business. I tried to look completely unconcerned as my jeans pockets were pulled out and the BlackBerry was lifted.

  There was an old wooden staircase dead ahead, uncarpeted, dimly lit by a bulb with no shade. A dank smell filled the air, strong and sickly, as if the house hadn’t been aired for years.

  The biggest of the North Face boys got his dibs on Anna. He leered at his mates as he ran his hands over her body. She glared back at him. The stream of Russian that poured out of her told him that she was ready to bite. He seemed to like whatever she was saying, though, and gave her breasts an extra frisk so he could hear more.

  The runt was obviously in charge of storage. He stood there enjoying the show, with both of Lilian’s pictures, our maps and mobiles clutched in his hands.

  I heard movement at the top of the stairs and looked up to see two wide-eyed teenage faces. The girls were on their hands and knees, trying to hide from view, but captivated by the aggression on the floor below. Apart from oversized T-shirts - one from a Guns N’ Roses concert, the other a plain grey that had once been white - they were naked. Their hair was a mess, but pushed back far enough for me to see that both had thin, painted eyebrows that made them look like dolls.

  They almost jumped out of their skins as Mr Big caught sight of them. They shot from sight as he dragged himself away from Anna’s breasts and double-stepped it up there, shrieking like the world’s angriest parent.

  Anna and I were hauled to our feet and pushed against the wall. These guys were big and aggressive, but what was more worrying was their air of who-gives-a-fuck. They looked like they’d just as easily kill us as offer us coffee.

  Anna took the lead. She began to talk to the runt. It sounded like she still wanted to meet the boss. Her tone was measured, persuasive and even - despite being punctuated by screams and shouts from upstairs as the girls got a good slapping. She had to speak up to be heard, and managed to show no interest whatsoever in the drama unfolding above us.

  The runt pointed towards the back of the house, but it was clear I wasn’t invited.

  She didn’t budge. She turned and pointed at me. This time it sounded like she was telling them to fuck off. Her words were quick and aggressive. The slaps and screams stopped and the girls began to beg.

  The runt asked her something.

  Whatever she answered, it seemed to work. He strode off down the corridor. Anna hadn’t looked at her hired help once since we walked up to the building. She was playing it well. She gave me an order in Russian and signalled what I was to do. I stayed behind her along the short stretch of corridor and as we went through a doorway at the rear. Our footsteps sounded unnaturally loud on the bare boards.

  The kitchen was large and filled with smoke. A man smaller than even the runt - but clearly infinitely more powerful - was sitting with a brew, drawing hard on an untipped cigarette. The girls and Mr Big were now directly above us. I knew I couldn’t show the slightest interest in the sounds. We were buyers: we knew these girls needed to be kept in hand.

  The odd glimmer of makeshift street-lighting managed to fight its way through what was left of the blind. It was obvious now why they kept their coats on. It was colder and more miserable in here than it was outside. There was no heating. This was a meeting place. People weren’t here all the time.

  The only thing that looked like it might work was a Nespresso machine like the one in my flat. It sat among the general shit by the sink, next to its discarded packaging.

  Anna didn’t wait to be asked. She went over to the table and sat opposite him. Bed springs started to squeak above us. I heard a muffled sob.

  Anna ignored it all and kept talking, cool and calm. In case he wasn’t getting the message, she leant over and helped herself to a cigarette from the pack that sat next to an old dinner plate piled high with butts. She lit it with a plastic throwaway that lay next to his mobile.

  He gave me a cursory glance, out of boredom more than anything. I looked away. He would have expected nothing less. I was Anna’s BG. My total focus was on my principal, not on trying
to establish eye contact with anyone else.

  Mr Big was really getting into it. His breathless shouts were followed by a couple more slaps and an anguished scream.

  Anna was playing a blinder. She exuded confidence. She sounded like she really was here to buy herself some girls.

  I looked around. A small bread knife lay beside half a loaf near the coffee machine. That was the only weapon I could see. The corridor was blocked by the North Face crew, who were leaning against the wall, maybe waiting their turn upstairs. The door behind Anna was bolted. If the shit hit the fan, all I could do was to hold them off long enough for her to unbolt it and run.

  The springs stopped squeaking and grunts were replaced by sobs. I still didn’t move a muscle, but I made myself a promise then: for as long as I lived, I’d track these fuckers down - and their mates - and kill them.

  Anna sparked up another of the boss’s cigarettes and put the lighter back on the table. The smoke curled from her mouth and nose before she spoke. The only words I recognized now sounded like names of countries. He was still calm. He lit himself another cigarette too and took such a mega-drag I could see the paper burn down like a fuse.

  Anna sat and waited while he thought about what she’d said. But she didn’t wait for long. She stood up before he’d delivered his answer: she’d had enough of this bullshit.

  I turned towards the North Face guys. I wanted them to know that we intended to leave in one piece. Fuck the mobiles and the other stuff. I moved into the corridor just in time to see Mr Big give his mates a very satisfied grin and put his coat back on.

  The small guy started talking. Anna stopped, turned back, went to the table and sat down. She helped herself to another cigarette from his pack.

  He gave an order to one of the North Faces. I heard the front door open and close.

  We waited in silence. The two of them smoked. The boss checked his mobile now and again for messages as Anna sat back, picking tobacco from her lips. The sobbing above us gradually subsided.

  After three or four minutes the sound of clubland laughter echoed down the hallway and a new body appeared. Dressed in a brown overcoat over a black polo neck, he was so slim his head looked as if it really belonged on someone else’s shoulders. Everything about him was immaculate. His nails were manicured, possibly even polished. Not one dark brown hair from what was left on his head was out of place. He didn’t give Anna or me as much as a glance as he headed for the small guy’s side of the table.