Zero Hour (2010) ns-13

by Andy McNab

  Passing buses obscured the target for a couple of seconds now and again. The junction was busy. High-sided vans sometimes got stuck at the lights. Most of the footfall had their heads down, collars or brollies up, orange Sainsbury carrier bags alongside them, en route to a ready-meal for one and a bottle of wine in front of the telly.

  Our food turned up, with another round of Diet Cokes. I knew Kleinmann was scared, but he probably felt secure. If people have control, you feel safer. You’re being held for a reason, and they’re not going to do anything rash.

  So far he’d done exactly what I’d told him to do. He’d shut up, driven us here, parked up, and even offered to buy dinner, which was good of him considering I had his wallet.

  ‘The shadow on the scan, the big red Smarties … It’s all bullshit, isn’t it?’

  He nodded miserably.

  I dunked a chip in the dish of tomato sauce. ‘Why are you mixed up with all this shit? What have you been doing to get so fucked up?’

  He wiped his forehead with the paper napkin. His liquid brown eyes glistened with anguish. ‘These guys came in. They made me do it. I had no choice. I don’t know who they were. I don’t know why they wanted me to do what I did, and I don’t know why I’m sitting here. I just know I’m scared …’

  He stared at his untouched food. I picked up another chip and poked it at him.

  ‘What is it they’ve got on you? Or did they simply come in and say they were going to kill you?’

  His hands came up. ‘Please, I’m doing everything you say. Please don’t use those words.’ He rubbed his beard and took a shuddering breath. ‘Well, it’s kind of—’

  I dropped my chip on the plate. ‘Look over there. See that restaurant - the Vietnamese? Do you know him? The black guy at the door, going in? Was he one of them? The guy now inside, taking his coat off, waiting for a seat. You see him? ‘

  Kleinmann adjusted his glasses. ‘Who?’

  ‘The black guy. Talking with the waiter now. You see him?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘The suit. The smart guy.’

  ‘Yes, I see him - but it wasn’t him. They were both white. Sounded like you - that London thing.’

  Jules was shown to a table and sat with his back to the door. A waiter appeared. He didn’t bother with a menu. He was a regular. He knew what he wanted.

  Kleinmann fidgeted. ‘Can I go now? I promise I won’t—’

  I picked up my burger and nodded at his. ‘Better start getting that down you. We’ll be leaving soon.’

  He sat there and played with a couple of chips as I cleared my plate. I asked for the bill and watched the top of Jules’s head tilt back as he helped himself to a beer.

  I paid with cash from Kleinmann’s wallet, then stood up and pulled on my parka. ‘Remember, don’t mistake kindness for friendship or weakness. Just do what I say, when I say, and all will be well. OK?’

  He nodded and stood up.

  We turned left towards the tube station, walked about thirty metres and ducked into the doorway of a boarded-up bookshop. It was near a bus stop and a natural place to wait, especially in this weather.

  I got hold of Kleinmann. I needed his full attention. ‘When he comes out, he’s going to head for the tube. We’re going to follow him. Then I’m going to make sure he comes with us to your car.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. All you have to remember is that if you fuck me about I’m going to have to do you. You know that, yeah?’

  He nodded.

  We waited twenty or so minutes. People got on and off buses. Others huddled in doorways like us. My eyes never left the restaurant door.

  I nudged Kleinmann. ‘Here we go, stand by.’

  I reached into my parka pocket and grabbed the pliers. Julian was going to come with me whether he liked it or not. And then he was going to tell me what the fuck was going on.

  He stood on the pavement, pulling up his collar and looking up at the rain. He turned towards the Underground, and then double-checked behind him, further down the road, away from us. As I followed his eye line, I could see a cab approaching, its bright yellow sign a beacon in the gloom.

  He stuck his hand out. Minutes later he was gone.

  Kleinmann took it all in but didn’t say a word. He was waiting for my reaction.

  ‘Back to the car. You should have eaten that burger. Like I said, it’s going to be a long night.’

  6

  Rain pounded on the Volvo roof. The windows were steamed up and the car stank of my farts. The burger was taking its toll. We were parked in a sixties housing estate somewhere near Baron’s Court. I didn’t know exactly where it was, but I’d seen the name on road signs. All that mattered was that it was near Fulham, and it was out of the way of mainstream roads.

  I’d tied Kleinmann’s right hand to the steering-wheel with his belt. He couldn’t get his seat to recline because his arm wasn’t long enough. He’d assumed the position he had in the Cavendish Square car park, head on the wheel, but this time because he was knackered.

  I was stretched out on the fully extended passenger seat. There was a slight risk in using the car. It was a known location if someone phoned the police to say Kleinmann hadn’t turned up somewhere tonight, but it was a chance I had to take. It was better for me to control him here. It was better for both of us than having a night out in this shit. He’d probably never slept rough. He’d be more of a drama out there than he was in here, and we wouldn’t look like vagrants when I moved in on Jules tomorrow.

  I turned the electrics on to lower my window A couple of inches. Kleinmann was in a world of his own. Sometimes he mumbled.

  I wouldn’t sleep with him moaning to himself and the rain hammering on the roof, but I turned my back to him, trying to get comfortable.

  He stirred. ‘Can’t we just go back to my apartment? I’ve got food - a shower.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who are you guys? Drug-dealers? Mafia? What is it?’

  He waited for an answer. He didn’t get one.

  ‘It’s drugs, isn’t it? You guys fighting over drugs?’

  I shook my head. ‘Tell you what, you tell me how they got you to work and I’ll tell you what’s happening.’

  He looked out of the window and rubbed his hair. ‘I had a practice. Cosmetic surgery. Fat asses, droopy chins. Marlene was cool. Ten years younger than me, but I had everything she wanted.

  ‘Then three years ago, when she was about to turn thirty-five, she had an affair with a twenty-year-old cowboy.’ He shook his head like he still couldn’t believe it. ‘She went to an all-woman, arm-and-a-leg fancy dude-ranch retreat - on my dime. I say all women - except the young cowboys who were there to run the place. She spreads them for this kid and decides he’s her soul-mate.

  ‘The affair went on for a few months. Marlene started “volunteering” at this ranch and then she told me, immediately after our tenth wedding anniversary, she wanted out. Know why the tenth anniversary is significant? Because in fucking sunny California, without a pre-nup, a spouse gets half of everything for life if the couple are married ten years.

  ‘I fought long and hard for two years to get us in therapy. I promised to change all the things she blamed me for. I was “controlling”, she said, and kept too tight a fist on the money. She couldn’t do all the decorating projects she wanted, for example, because I thought they were too expensive. Hello … I was the only fucking one working to pay for this shit. But she said she was out the door. I think she was even screwing the therapist - on my dime again. She even said, “I have to get out now so I can snag a great guy while I’m still hot.”

  ‘So I said, “OK, I get it, I understand. We tried and it didn’t work out. No hard feelings. Let me help. A couple of nips and tucks and you’ll be ready for the world.” So I carried out a procedure on her and that was the end of her …’

  I sat up. ‘You killed her?’

  ‘No - I just fucked up her face a bit. Now she look
s like she’s sitting in a fucking wind tunnel.’ He pulled back the loose skin on his face to show me. ‘So the bitch divorced me and sued me for malpractice on the same fucking day. How fucking cool is that?’

  Big fat tears were rolling down his cheeks. ‘I came here. Used my original family name. Over there I was Klein. This country is great for locum work with hardly any checks. I worked hard to make a few dollars - I’m trying to tuck it all away before her lawyers find me. But I know they will. It’s going to be a nightmare.’

  ‘So that’s what they’ve got on you?’

  ‘Yeah. They came into my office one day. They told me my life story and that was it. Two white guys, nice suits.’

  ‘They gave you the scans?’

  ‘Yes. And the drugs.’

  ‘What were they?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue. Nothing I’d ever come across before.’

  ‘They might have been specially made?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘What did they say was going to happen next?’

  ‘Nothing. They said they’d be in touch. Who gives a fuck? How could it be worse?’

  I lay back down and took a breath. ‘Actually, mate, it’s a lot worse. You’re mixed up with the intelligence service. You’ve seen the movies?’

  He nodded slowly, taking the hit.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to sort out. Help me tomorrow, and then you fuck off out of the UK as fast as you can. Even take your chances back in the States. These guys are a lot uglier than Marlene.’

  ‘What about you? Why are they after you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. But they’re never going to leave us alone unless I sort this shit out.’

  7

  Sunday, 21 March

  17.55 hrs

  A roar went up and the clapping and cheering started - but it wasn’t as loud as I was used to when Chelsea won. The crowd began to surge out of the West Stand and past the merchandise van I was leaning against. I’d intended waiting further down Fulham Broadway, until I’d noticed the hundred metres or so of steel barrier that bisected the road from the tube station to the ground. It was to stop queue-barging and congestion in the station itself. Fans wanting the tube were channelled into it by mounted police more or less as soon as they exited the ground. I had no alternative but to wait further up.

  Everyone in blue had a not-so-happy face on. ‘Mate, fucking one-all against Blackburn? Nightmare,’ somebody yelled into his mobile. ‘Who’da fucking believed it?’

  I scanned the crowd and pinged him almost immediately. He came level and passed me, looking like something off the cover of a menswear catalogue in his blue wool coat and pressed blue cords. He looked straight ahead, trying, like everyone else, to avoid banging into people or getting knocked over himself. The crowd was shoulder to shoulder.

  I let him pass and get five or six paces ahead before I edged my way into the flow with a big smile on my face, like I was making my way over to a mate. Nine out of ten times, if you’re friendly when you tell them you’re coming through, people will move aside.

  As they did, I reached into my right pocket and gripped the pliers, making sure the jaws were nice and open. Jules’s hands were down at his side. He couldn’t have swung them even if he’d wanted to. I focused on his left hand. He probably had a watch under that coat sleeve but that didn’t bother me. It would just add to the pain.

  My right hand was at the same level as his left and centimetres away. I pulled the pliers from my coat, jammed them against his sleeve and squeezed hard. I grabbed his arm with my left hand so I could steer him. He reacted like he’d been stung by a bee, but he still hadn’t worked out exactly what had happened. It could have been a burn from somebody’s cigarette. Then his eyes widened as he saw who it was and the pain really started to register. He tried to pull away but I squeezed the pliers into his wrist and manoeuvred him with my right shoulder.

  ‘Don’t fuck about or I’ll drop you here and now.’

  We stayed in the flow as the crowd spilled onto Fulham Broadway and the majority turned right. Jules almost hugged me in his effort to keep the pressure off his pinched wrist. He looked like a walking heart-attack victim.

  ‘Not the tube. Left of the barriers.’

  The street was still packed but we were no longer shoulder to shoulder. There were no words from him yet, but I wasn’t expecting any. If he was able to talk, his one and only concern had to be the pain.

  I steered him left at the junction with Harwood Road. The crowd started to thin and most of the noise was behind us. I scanned for the Volvo down on the left. I knew it was going to be there, but I wanted to see if the driver still was.

  As we approached, he opened the passenger door and pushed the seat forward for me. Still gripping Jules, I jumped into the back. I pushed the passenger seat upright again and dragged him inside with the pliers. Kleinmann’s trouser belt was beside me. The loose end was already threaded into the buckle to make a loop.

  No one said a word as I threw the keys to Kleinmann. Jules fought the pain through clenched teeth. Kleinmann did up Jules’s seat belt like I’d told him to. I didn’t want the police making a routine traffic stop just because the passenger was unbelted. Jules’s face was screwed up with pain. I looped the belt over his head and around his neck and the head restraint, and pulled.

  Jules’s left hand dangled between the door and the seat. I’d swapped the pliers into my left hand so I could keep control directly behind him. He pushed back against the head restraint and took several deep breaths, fighting the belt that was trying to stop him. It looked like he was going to start talking.

  I pulled the belt tight to keep him in place. ‘Not now. You’ll have plenty of chance to waffle.’

  I gave Kleinmann a nod. ‘Let’s go.’

  The Cavendish Square car park was as good a place as any to head for. The car had a reason to be there because it had a designated space. It was also Sunday, so many of the business spaces around his were going to be empty.

  It took us half an hour just to get away from the area of the ground, and another thirty minutes to get up behind John Lewis. He nosy-parked in his space.

  Kleinmann unfastened his seat belt and opened his door. He was more than ready to get out. He left the keys in the ignition. He knew he had to return in thirty minutes. If he did, he did. I was beyond worrying about that at the moment.

  As soon as the door closed I pulled tighter on the belt. Julian gagged and writhed his hips, as if that was going to help.

  ‘If you think that hurt, you’re not going to believe what’s coming next.’

  I released the pliers and swapped them back into my right hand. Then, with my arse in the air, I reached over the back of his seat and clamped them onto the bridge of his nose. I squeezed until I could feel bone against the steel. He jerked his head and I squeezed harder. ‘Any more pressure and it’s going to burst. You know that.’

  I wanted him scared. But I also wanted him to talk.

  8

  Jules’s breathing was fast and laboured. He tried to adjust his head to give his throat some respite. I felt the steel grind against bone. His hands gripped the sides of the seat to take the pain.

  ‘Kleinmann, Anna and me -‘ I gave the pliers a squeeze ‘- we’re trying to find a way out of this shit, and you’re going to help us.’

  I pulled some more on the belt. He arched his back and his legs jerked straight, his feet pushing into the footwell. His mouth opened to spray saliva onto the windscreen. My left forearm rested on the top of his head with the pliers still gripping the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Why did you fuck me over, Jules?’

  He didn’t react. He’d probably thought about it and knew the best thing was to stop moving and start thinking.

  I released the belt a fraction so he could speak.

  ‘Nick, why didn’t you stand down and come back when I told you?’

  ‘What the fuck are you on about?’

  I looked at him in the rear-view.
His eyes were fixed on mine. Saliva ran down his chin. His eyes were wide, but fighting to keep control. He knew he was in the shit, and had to talk.

  ‘The police. The Dutch. They were watching the silo. A drugs operation.’

  I loosened the belt a bit more.

  ‘We didn’t know about it, Nick. They saw you when you did your recce. They pinged the car, got the plate, and started to follow you out - but they lost you when you left the building. We only got on to it when Nicholas Smith was flagged. That’s when I told Bradley to stand you down. It was categorical, Nick. Come back, cut away. Why didn’t you?’

  I jolted the belt to let him know I’d heard enough.

  His eyes had already done most of the talking by the time he answered.

  I released the pressure on his nose.

  He took deep breaths and raised a hand to the wound.

  I stuck the pliers against his neck, clamped down, and twisted. He screamed as I pulled tighter on the belt. The windows were completely steamed up.

  ‘Why send me on a job when you knew Bradley was going to drop me afterwards?’ I twisted again.

  Now he was really worried. He knew how dead he might be soon.

  I loosened the belt.

  ‘Please, Nick. You asked for the job. It got compromised on the first night and I told Tresillian to stand you down. Next thing I know, the silo’s hit, and Bradley and a girl are dead.’

  ‘What about Kleinmann? The drugs? The scan?’

  His eyes flickered around, trying to process all this information.

  ‘You kept telling me you were fine. I know nothing about the drugs. I know nothing about any illness.’

  He twisted his head left and upwards. As our eyes made contact I told him what had happened.

  He didn’t move. The pliers had pinched into the skin and drops of blood coated the steel jaws.

  ‘It all started after our meal, Jules. What am I supposed to think?’

  He fell silent. Neither of us spoke for a while.