Zero Hour (2010) ns-13

by Andy McNab

  The next building along was connected to it, with its far end overlooking a patch of wasteground. A large wooden door that might once have been varnished stood to the left of a metal shutter. ‘Dickinson (NL)’ was stamped on a faded white plastic nameplate.

  I parked nose-in to the shutter and left the engine running. The windows above me on the first floor were barred and grimy. There was no movement or light.

  I retrieved my day sack from the passenger seat and got out. There was nothing in it I’d particularly need if I had to do a runner: it was just good drills to keep all your gear with you.

  I looked for cameras as I walked towards the entrance but couldn’t see any. A couple of street-lamps further back towards the main cast an intermittent glow, but that was about it. Nothing much happened down here. The only reason for anyone to venture this way after hours would be to work late for the Germans or stock up on some porn. I wondered if FilmNoord XXX had contributed to Slobo’s collection.

  My head was clear. I realized I’d forgotten about the pain as soon as Anna had gone missing. I decided to ease back on the Smarties and see if I could start to grip this thing on my own.

  The door had three locks. I rang the bell. The intercom crackled alongside it.

  ‘It’s Nick.’

  ‘Bradley.’ His tone was crisp.

  ‘OK, Bradley. Fifty-five.’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘Subtract forty-six.’

  ‘OK. Let me in?’

  The intercom closed down and an electric motor to my right began to whirr. The shutter groaned and shrieked its way upwards. I went and sat in the Panda while it finished torturing itself.

  Only two of the four fluorescent tubes hanging from its ceiling were working but they were enough to show that the Volkswagen Golf to the right of the loading bay was disguised as a compost heap. Its wiper blade had somehow managed to cut an arc through the shit on the rear windscreen but reversing was still going to be a challenge.

  I pulled in beside it as soon as there was enough clearance, then got out and hit the green down button. The floor was covered with dust and the kind of tyre prints they get very excited about on CSI: Miami. Beyond the cars there was an empty space where whatever came into or out of this building was stored, and a set of steps that led up to a gallery.

  ‘Mr Smith …’

  A man in jeans and a leather jacket came down them to greet me. His voice was accentless but educated and his smile was ironic. He thrust out a hand, allowing me a glimpse of cufflinks in the shape of miniature shotgun cartridges, and we shook.

  Bradley’s hair was short and blond, and casual dress wasn’t his thing. He reminded me of my estate agent, and the kind of officer I’d done my best to forget about since leaving the Regiment. He had a blue plastic folder tucked under his arm. ‘Shall we go inside? I have your briefing pack.’

  He led me back up to the gallery and through a thick wooden fire door. A narrow concrete stairway went up the centre of the building, past a landing with a push-bar fire escape, to a corridor which ran the length of the top floor. Three doors, all of them open, led into empty offices that overlooked the road. A couple of old wooden filing cabinets was all that remained of the furniture, but indentations in the carpet marked where desks had once stood, and worn areas traced the most popular routes between them.

  ‘What is this place? Who does it belong to?’

  He checked his stride, as if he couldn’t walk and talk at the same time. ‘It was built just before the Germans invaded. The Resistance used it as a hide for downed Brit air crews.’

  ‘Who else knows I’m here?’

  He looked disappointed that I’d needed to ask. ‘No one apart from Mr T and Julian. Did Julian tell you he and I knew each other at Marlborough? I joined the army and he … Well, he’s done all right for himself, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Don’t know, mate. Never set eyes on him. Where do the Dickinsons fit in? Do they know what’s going on?’

  ‘My mother’s family. They were the ones with the money. Her grandfather started in paper packaging in 1936. He ended up with businesses all over Europe. My father took over the group when my mother inherited, and they both died just over ten years ago. A boating accident …’ The blood rushed to his cheeks. ‘It was only then that I discovered he was bankrupt. I managed to keep a little of the empire, and this is part of it.’

  ‘Are you in the service?’

  He smiled. ‘I like to think so. The company has had links with HMG since those Resistance days. During the Cold War, my father gave the Firm any titbits he picked up while on business in the East. I’m more a sort of roving ambassador myself - one foot in the import/export world, the other with you guys, whoever you are. I don’t need to know. We’re not exactly a new breed, I suppose. Private enterprise doing its bit to defend democracy.’

  He gave me a smile that didn’t go anywhere near his eyes.

  ‘What about the road? Any movement?’

  ‘Virtually none. The office block next door had less than tenper-cent occupation even before the recession. Now everyone has gone. The whole area is due to be redeveloped.’

  ‘What about the porno shop?’

  ‘They don’t get out much. Must be allergic to sunlight. They’ll be forced out eventually, though. The natives are getting restless.’

  I followed him into a narrow, box-like room at the back of the building. He turned on the light. Varnished wooden pigeonholes with rusting metal card-holders covered one wall, and a galvanized steel ladder led up to a hatch in the roof.

  ‘What about the Dutch? They know anything about the job?’

  However much you’ve been told, the guys on the ground always know a little bit more.

  ‘Nothing. The police are really only here to liaise with the Muslim community. They keep an eye on the drug situation, of course. Ironic, really, given what you can get your hands on legally in a bog-standard Amsterdam coffee shop - but they’re trying to keep a handle on it. The violence, the people smuggling, the prostitution all follow in its wake.’

  Fluorescent lights flickered into life above us as we moved into the room at the end. Bicycle hooks protruded from the wall opposite another push-bar fire escape.

  A brand new kettle, a box of tea bags and a couple of cartons of milk were spread out on the work surface beside a stainless-steel sink with exposed pipe-work beneath it. A large cardboard box sat on the floor with a sleeping bag and one or two other bits and pieces bundled inside.

  ‘I bought you a few essentials. I didn’t know what you were bringing. There’s an airbed in there and some toiletries, pens, paper, that sort of thing.’ He opened the milk. ‘UHT, I’m afraid. There isn’t a fridge. And of course the tea bags aren’t as good as English.’

  He flicked on the kettle and pointed towards an archway in the partition wall. ‘Shower and the like. All the plumbing works.’

  I poked my head round the corner and made admiring noises about the unopened multi-pack of toilet paper. He’d thought of everything.

  Bradley unwrapped a couple of mugs.

  I ran a finger along the push-bar on the door. ‘Do the alarms kick off if I open it?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  I shoved against it and emerged onto a cast-iron staircase that led past the door from the landing below us and down to the wasteground. No alarm sounded. I couldn’t see any contact points on the doorframe; no sign of a circuit.

  ‘I’ll check downstairs. Can you do the roof?’

  The other door was the same.

  I returned to see Bradley giving the roof-hatch bolts the good news with a rubber mallet.

  I fixed the brews while he finished the job.

  7

  Bradley reached for the blue plastic folder and tipped its contents onto the brown carpet between us. I shuffled through a printout of Slobo’s Facebook picture and a couple of A4 Google Earth images. One was a straight satellite view of the target, the other a hybrid with street names superimposed. We were less
than two K from where the possible and her companions were being held.

  I held up the shot of the square, flat-roofed building. The image was fuzzy, but the tower was identifiable from the shadow it cast across the ground. ‘Any idea what’s inside?’

  He hadn’t.

  ‘What about the outside? Cameras?’

  Bradley looked like he was having a tough time in the Mastermind chair. ‘I don’t know, sorry.’

  ‘Do you know what this job is all about?’ I jabbed at the picture, pressing the paper into the carpet. ‘You know about these two?’

  He flashed another of his special smiles. ‘No. And I don’t want to know.’

  There are lots of people like Bradley. They range from retired civil servants to company CEOs, all of them out in what they like to think of as the real world. Some help with information. Some are in it a lot deeper, and I had the feeling he was one of them, despite his attempts to distance himself. Maybe he was on the Firm’s payroll. Maybe they had something on him and he had no choice but to play ball. Maybe he was one of the weirdos who liked doing this shit because it fulfilled some fantasy.

  ‘Do you have secure comms? How do we talk?’

  Bradley looked sheepish. ‘I’m afraid people like me aren’t trusted with that sort of thing. I’m not complaining. I’d be at their beck and call, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Tell you what, Brad. I have to stay here and crack on. Come back, on foot, tomorrow morning at ten?’

  He took a final sip of his brew and put it on the drainer. ‘Ten it is, Mr Smith.’ He dusted down his jeans and threw me some keys.

  ‘Who else has a set?’

  ‘Just me.’

  That probably wasn’t true. The locks weren’t new. There would have been quite a few sets in circulation over the years.

  ‘Good. Tomorrow, be precisely on time and use your keys as if the place was empty. Just let yourself in, then stay right there. I’ll come and get you.’

  ‘OK. Whatever you need me to do …’

  I could tell by his expression that he wasn’t thrilled to be given chapter and verse.

  ‘And don’t ever come into the building with no warning. If there’s an uninvited body in here I’m going to react first and ask questions later. That make sense?’

  ‘Perfect sense.’ He fingered his miniature shotgun cartridges.

  ‘So can you see yourself out now, mate? Make sure you close up after you.’

  I packed everything back into the folder, and added my credit card and ID. As the shutter gave its final squeak I moved to one of the front windows and watched the shit-covered Golf head towards the main.

  8

  I leant against the wall and slid down onto my arse to finish the brew. It was nearly half eleven and I was knackered. The last few days were catching up with me.

  My body told me to get my head down, but years of training told me to cover my back first. I made my way through to the mailroom and climbed the ladder.

  The hatch lifted. It was still miserable outside. There were puddles everywhere on the flat roof, and the clouds still hung heavily in the sky. From my vantage-point I had a panoramic view of the area I’d been looking at on the map. To the south, across the bay, was the distant neon glow of the city. A set of navigation lights lifted from Schiphol to the south-west and almost instantly disappeared.

  I scanned the road below me. The dark silhouette of the ship was still visible at the water’s edge about two hundred metres away to my left. A couple of cars were parked outside the porn shop to my right, which showed no sign of closing for business. Two women hung around under the canopies, on the look-out for customers who fancied some live action.

  I got on with checking out my escape route.

  There was open ground to the rear. If anything kicked off, I’d be in plain sight there. The houses on the other side of the vacant office block next door would give me some cover, but there was an eight-foot height difference between the two rooflines.

  Apart from the front entrance and fire escape to the rear, it was my only way out of this building. If I couldn’t go over the top, I’d have to get myself across the road and into the sprawling estate alongside the market. I’d get lost in there, no drama. Then I’d try and hook up with Anna.

  I stared into the darkness. It had been a night like this when she’d first told me about Grisha.

  Now I was going to die on her too.

  This was alien territory for me. I guess I’d always assumed I’d be killed in action, hopefully without much fuss, and with nobody close enough to give a shit. Now I was starting to think that I’d do anything for a couple of months with her. At least we’d have time to say goodbye.

  The skies opened once more. Rain fell on me like 7.62 rounds and brought me back to Planet Earth. Kleinmann’s diagnosis had pulled the ring back on one big can of fuck-with-your-head, and I had to cut away from it.

  I headed back to the hatch.

  I had to put all that shit to one side, and focus on the job in hand.

  I had to get myself on-target.

  9

  I pulled the wooden pigeonhole unit far enough from the wall to slip the blue folder behind it, then wedged a small piece of paper between unit and wall, about six inches up from the carpet, as I eased it back. If anything was disturbed, I’d be able to tell at a glance.

  As always when going on-target, I had to be sterile. All I carried with me was cash: my run money. Everything else was in the folder. I didn’t rush the drill even though I’d done it a thousand times. I found myself wanting to enjoy the ritual. If this really was going to be my last job, I wanted to savour every moment.

  I folded another couple of pieces of paper and wedged them between the frame and the door of the fire escapes and the roof hatch. I trousered Brad’s mallet and went downstairs. He might be the most obliging lad on the planet when it came to dodgy tea bags and shower gel, but I didn’t trust him an inch. I eased a little sliver of paper into each of the three locks on the front door.

  I did my best to bang out the dent I’d left in the Panda’s roof. Rubber hammers are better than steel ones for panel beating, thumping in wooden tent pegs and dropping humans. Steel imparts a blunt trauma on soft material like bone, but rubber or wood conveys all its kinetic energy without penetration. It can take someone down much more effectively. And if you hit a skull too hard with a steel hammer it can become embedded and really mess things up.

  I backed the car out into the rain. As the shutters came down I pretended to check that I’d locked the front door properly. I wanted to make sure I could see my telltales if I looked directly into the keyholes. No drama: it all worked.

  I got into the Panda and headed down the road. The rain had calmed down but there was more to come. I put the wipers on intermittent. FilmNoord XXX was still open, but the girls had decided to call it a day.

  Despite being closed, the market was still brightly lit. The kebab shops and one or two nearby stores were still open. Mopeds buzzed around the place like wasps and one or two lads were busy spraying a beard and glasses on a Geert Wilders poster. For a moment it felt just like home.

  I paralleled the main until I got to the small roundabout and turned onto Distelweg. Before I went on-target, however, I had one final bit of business to take care of.

  10

  I crossed the canal and looked for somewhere to park. The windscreen wipers kicked off again as another squall blew in. I spotted two truck cabs outside a tile warehouse with a massive glass front. I pulled up between them.

  The entrance was decorated with a row of oversized concrete plant pots. As anti-ram-raiding precautions went, these ones looked good, but the plants themselves had died long ago. Making it look like I was busy taking a piss, I tucked the safe-house keys in the one nearest the door and scooped some wet mud over them. Two minutes later I was on my way to the target.

  I checked the gates as I drove past the stretch of wasteground. Still chained and locked. And still no light from the build
ing.

  I parked up between a couple of petrol tankers just short of the bend and got out to check the ferry point. The timetable by the little glass shelter told me it only ran during business hours.

  I went back to the car and sat in darkness, engine off, as the rain hammered on the roof.

  11

  I took a couple of minutes to get my head in gear. Then I got out, locked up and hid the keys in a patch of scrub by the fence. Zipping up my bomber, I headed along the fence line, looking for a way in that didn’t involve climbing. If the possible was Lilian, and I had the chance to lift her, I’d need to get out quickly. The rain had calmed down a bit, but my jeans got soaked in the high grass and clung to my calves.

  Eventually I found a gap where a couple of railings had been uprooted and the muddy track between them had been pounded by plenty of feet. It looked like a rat run.

  I followed the trail for about twenty metres, then turned to face the way I’d come. I needed to have a clear picture of my route back. Three pinpricks of particularly bright light - cranes standing guard in a construction site, perhaps - hung like a small constellation over the edge of the city across the bay. The gap I’d be aiming for was almost directly in line with them. That was my marker.

  The flour silo was about two hundred metres away, exactly as Anna had described it. I picked my way round waist-high chunks of broken concrete and dodged a couple of twisted steel reinforcing rods that arched up at me like bull’s horns. More and more mud stuck to my Timberlands. They were beginning to feel like divers’ boots.

  The ground dipped into a hollow the size of a bomb crater. I slid down into it and skirted more lumps of rubble. A circle of rocks surrounded a pile of ash that had once been a campfire. So many discarded syringes were scattered beside it that it looked like the entire junkie community had been playing their own version of pick-up-sticks. I was glad it was raining. They weren’t going to be coming back for a rematch tonight: they’d all be competing with the working girls for space under the shop canopies instead.