by Andy McNab
I shook my head. 'Strange, really. Nice, steady job, good money. Always saw myself as a bit of a catch. Can't quite think what went wrong . . .'
Lynn managed a bleak smile. 'I met my wife at Cambridge. We read Classics together. She was beautiful, but serious – serious when it came to her chosen subject, although as game as the next girl when it came to letting her hair down. She adored Italy. Had spent some time in Florence on a foundation arts course before she went up to Cambridge. I don't know what she saw in me, really. Perhaps it was the fact that I was the only other student who shared her passion for all things Italian – not, funnily enough, that I had ever been to Italy when we met. I just loved the history – knew very little about the place itself.
'She promised me she'd show me all the things that she most loved about it; not just the stuff the tourists see, but the real Italy: the Etruscan tombs of Umbria, the Greek temples at Paestum, the place north of Naples where Aeneas came ashore, the food, the people . . .'
I still didn't know where he was taking this. I sat there and let him continue. Fuck it, we had to wait for the storm to pass.
'It didn't take us long after we graduated to tie the knot, much to the horror of her parents. Caroline was from a smart Norfolk family and, given the set that she used to socialize with, I knew that they had high hopes she'd marry a lord or a duke or an earl – of whom there are quite a few in that neck of the woods. Not for a moment, Nick, did they think that she would end up with someone like me.'
I said nothing, but the surprise must have shown on my face.
'It never bothered Caroline. It never bothered her that we lived in small, dingy junior officers' accommodation in Germany or Wiltshire or North Yorkshire. It never bothered her either that our two children came into the world in an NHS ward instead of some smart, private London clinic – the kind of place where she and her siblings were born.'
'You found the apartment together?'
'She showed me her Italy and because she had a little money we were able to buy the place outright – or rather, I should say, she was. I didn't have a bean, other than what I was earning. That's why there is no trace to me. She bought it in her maiden name; she even had an Italian fiscal number. I had nothing to do with it at all.
'When I joined the Firm, she wanted us to have somewhere – a place we could retreat to if I ever needed to get out of the UK quickly: you know, if the shit ever hit the fan, as you put it. Nobody else knew about it. Not even the children. They still don't.'
'How old are they?'
Lynn's eyes glazed over for a moment. He seemed to search the roof for answers. 'Miranda's twenty-one and Freddie's eighteen. Good kids, both of them.'
'Why didn't you mention them before?'
'Patience, Nick. We're getting to the heart of my somewhat sad, sorry little tale. Caroline took responsibility for the apartment. It was her money that bought it. Her money that renovated it and furnished it – her time and energy that made it the place you saw. There were no footprints to me at all. When the children were at boarding school and I managed to get some time off, we'd often jump in the car and drive there. The kids, Caroline's family, our friends – still no one knew. The apartment became a refuge. Our place. Somewhere we could shut out the world.
'But then, you know how it is, the job started to take over. There were fewer and fewer opportunities for me simply to up sticks and get away. The hours and the pressures continued to build.
'I found myself spending more and more time away, weekend after weekend, when I never got to see Caroline or the kids because of some bloody flap or other – PIRA up to their usual bloody tricks or some Palestinian group or other hell-bent on killing Israelis in London . . .
'Caroline became seriously depressed. She started drinking. I knew something was wrong, but I thought it was just where we were. Then, suddenly, the kids were grown up. We were in our fifties. Ground down by life. It was the usual cliché; both of us staring at each other across the breakfast table and wondering how we'd pissed our lives away. But I never thought for a minute . . .'
His voice tailed away.
'The day after I retired, a Saturday, I was tinkering around on the boat when I got a visit from our local bobby. I knew what had happened the moment I saw his face. We'd known him as a family a long time. He didn't dress things up. He just gave me the facts. Miranda was down for the weekend from London. She had found Caroline hanging from a rafter in the attic. She also found the suicide note. Caroline had lost the will to live in my grey, murky, compromised world, which was so different from the gentler, more appealing landscape of ancient ruins, Roman art and architecture, and archaeological digs.' He took a deep breath. 'What made it worse was that she didn't attach any particular blame to me for what happened. It was, she said, just one of those things . . .'
I thought back over my life, how I'd never spent long enough in one place to think much, let alone meet someone and settle down. As a result, I didn't know whether I pitied Lynn or thought he was a dickhead for having it all – all the things I'd never had, but sometimes half wished for – and sacrificing it for some half-arsed ideological crusade.
The only thing I was sure of was that you could never, ever know what went on behind the closed doors of another man's life.
'I tell you this, Nick, for one reason only. I haven't made a habit of talking about it. There is, in actual fact, no one to speak to.
'My children have not addressed a word to me since the funeral and, needless to say, nor have Caroline's family. What's more, my kids have just told me, through a solicitor if you please, that they never want to see me again.
'Our friends were almost all Caroline's friends; thanks to the job, I never had time, really, to make any or keep those that I'd once had. So, what you saw when you poled up at my house a few days ago was me packing up what's left of my life. I didn't tell you for the same reason I haven't discussed it with anyone – I don't want, have never wanted, your pity, or anyone else's.'
For a long time, neither of us said anything. Then Lynn got to his feet. 'I'm going to go and get my things ready. I'll see you on deck.'
77
The storm had left the air fresh and still in its wake. Thick clouds moved quickly across the sky, allowing us every now and again to glimpse the thin sliver of the new moon. Lynn prepared the tender for launch while I opened up the hatch that led to the engine compartment. The Predator rocked at anchor with a corkscrew motion that made it difficult at times to maintain my balance, so I sat while I worked on the hatch catches. I was dressed in waterproof overalls – trousers and jacket – that I'd found during a rummage around the crew compartment. I'd grabbed a set for me and a set for Lynn.
The radar told us that there were no boats in the vicinity and the only lights we could see were the lights of Tripoli, which bobbed in and out of view.
With Lynn working on the tender, there was no one at the helm-station to monitor the radar or keep eyes-on the horizon for any approaching traffic. It would be fucking tragic to have come this far only to get caught with our pants down by Gaddafi's tin-pot coast guard. We were right on the edge of Libya's territorial waters – the nav-system said the statutory twelve miles – but I couldn't imagine the Libyans politely arguing the toss if they bounced us. We needed to move quickly.
A strong smell of fuel rose to greet me as the hatch came open.
I passed the torch beam around the engine room. The upper casings of the Predator's powerful twin diesels were about four feet below me. I slid down the ladder.
Before moving to the back of the boat, I'd closed off the cocks that fed seawater into the cooling system.
Standing between the power packs, hunched so my head didn't hit the roof, I swung the torch around till I found what I was looking for: a four-inch-diameter hose that led from the hull into the engine casing. I shouted for Lynn. His face appeared above me a moment later. This was the boaty stuff I did know about.
'You ready?'
He nodded, the
n handed me a spanner. I gave him the torch. A large jubilee clip connected the hose to the engine casing. It took me about a minute to loosen it; another second or two to pull it free. The hose flapped uselessly and a trickle of brown, oily water dribbled onto the floor.
Lynn shone the torch across the floor until it came to rest on a lever next to the engine mounting.
I leant forward, wrapped my fingers around it and yanked back, hard. The hose straightened then writhed like a snake as water gushed in under pressure. I scrambled up the ladder and hauled myself back onto the deck.
Lynn played the torch around the compartment. The floor rapidly became submerged under several inches of water.
A minute later, I couldn't see the base of the diesels.
Within five minutes, half the compartment was flooded.
The boat began to list to stern.
We went back into the deck saloon and retrieved the plastic bags that contained our possessions – money, credit cards, passports, towels, rucksacks and a change of clothes.
I told Lynn to tie his bag firmly to his belt, checked it was secure, then did the same myself. I took a last look around, allowing the torch to play across the leather sofas and armchairs. The only light on the boat was coming from the instruments at the helm station.
As we made our way towards the stern, water was already coursing over the top of the engine hatch.
Lynn jumped into the tender and I followed. As he readied the outboard, I leant over, untied the ropes and we drifted away as the Predator's arse end began to slip below the waves.
I liked destroying things that cost lots of money. It gave me the same satisfaction as firing, say, a Stinger that cost over a hundred thousand dollars. But over three million pounds? This was a good day out.
After a couple of minutes, I lost sight of the boat, then, when we were about fifty metres away, the clouds parted, giving us a momentary glimpse of the boat, up-ended, her bow pointing towards the stars.
With a rush of air and a gurgling sound, it suddenly slid beneath the water.
Lynn tugged the starter-cord and the outboard coughed into life.
78
I checked my watch. With the sun rising a little after six, we needed to make landfall within the next forty minutes to make maximum use of the darkness. The spray came hard in our faces and water made its way into every orifice, but we maintained a steady lick in the direction of the main harbour. After twenty minutes two sets of navigation beacons reared up either side of its large, natural entrance.
I tapped Lynn on the shoulder and pointed to the right. Without my having to say anything, he adjusted course.
Fifteen minutes later, we were close enough to the shore for me to be able to make out the headland west of the harbour that I'd used as the marker for our run-in. The lights of the city twinkled through the salt-spray crashing up from the bow. I could make out the headlights of cars moving along the coast road.
A minute later, I spotted the big, T-shaped hotel and brought it to Lynn's attention by tapping him on the shoulder again. He gave me a thumbs-up and chopped the throttle.
As we slowed, the engine ticking over to mask our approach, I clocked the lights of a ship approaching the harbour to the east – nothing for us to worry about, but a reminder that there were vessels in the vicinity. Behind us, the horizon was black and empty. Only in front, just above the bow of the tender, was there any kind of definition – a skyline dotted with lights, rising and falling gently in the swell.
Beneath and to the right of the hotel, I could see a long dark expanse – an area devoid of lights that I knew must be the beach.
When we were around 500 metres from the shore, I told Lynn to kill the engine altogether.
There were two paddles in the side compartment of the tender. The headland masked the worst of the incoming swell, but as we came within a hundred metres of the shoreline, I could hear the steady crash of surf on shingle. I paddled from the front and Lynn from the rear. We worked hard to keep the dinghy steady as the water got choppier and the waves and the back-pull more pronounced.
A large wave hit us amidships and I thought we were going to tip over. We both leant hard to our right and the tender steadied.
A second or two later, I felt the propeller scrape some rocks. I jumped over the side, grabbed the rope and pulled us onto the shingle.
PART SEVEN
79
I yanked Lynn into a squat beside me and looked left and right along the beach. Fifty metres or so above us, at the top of the cliff, I could just make out the red neon sign on the roof of the hotel.
Lynn leant forward and whispered in my ear. 'Al Funduq Al Bahr Al Magrib. It means the Hotel of the Western Sea. Definitely wasn't here in my day.'
We'd had to leave the tender on the beach; there had been no other options. There was nothing to link it to the Predator, and I was counting on it getting nicked long before it was reported. We crept forward to the base of the cliff. I told Lynn to swap his wet clothes for the dry set in his bag while I recce'd for one of the pathways I'd spotted on the Google map.
It didn't take me long to find a flight of steps that led up to the hotel car park. Lynn had changed and was ready to go. It took me a couple of minutes to do the same. I removed the day sack from the plastic bag, opened it up and shoved everything inside – waterproofs, wet clothes, plastic bag, the lot. Lynn did the same.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost a quarter to six – first light in half an hour, perhaps less. I motioned at Lynn to follow me.
The steps had been dug into the cliff face and reinforced with concrete. The safety rail was so corroded that it had parted company in places with its stanchions. I told Lynn to stay as far away from it as possible and to watch his step.
At the top I dropped behind a wall and scanned the car park for any sign of activity. Ten or twelve vehicles stood in line, slick with rainwater. The red neon sign reflected off the puddles left by the storm.
The main entrance to the hotel – about forty metres away – was protected from the elements by a flat, overhanging roof. A doorman sheltered beneath it, smoking a cigarette. A policeman stood next to him holding a clipboard. Garish lights shone through the glass doors from the lobby behind them. There were people moving around inside.
I scanned left and found what I was looking for: a side exit leading from a ground-floor corridor into the car park.
I tugged at Lynn's sweater and pulled him close. 'Remember, you have to convince yourself . . .'
I headed for the door with Lynn close behind. I knew it was too dark for anyone in the bright lights of the lobby or the entranceway to notice us, but I checked over my shoulder just to make sure. No one, as far as I could tell, was behind us. It was going to be a different story in daylight.
The doorman and the policeman were too busy waffling to each other to pay any attention to us.
I still had one of the kitchen knives with me in case we had a drama. I thought I might need it to work the catch, but the side door was open. I pulled it back and pushed Lynn inside.
Lynn strode down the corridor as if he owned the place, and kept going until he reached the lobby. He manoeuvred between the guests and the bags and nodded imperiously to a concierge at the reception as he made his way to the main entrance. He pushed open the double doors and stepped outside, sniffing the morning air appreciatively. I kept a few steps behind him, hoping we looked like everybody else – a couple of tourists with backpacks setting off for a day's sightseeing.
The doorman dropped his cigarette and the policeman straightened.
'Sabah al-kheer.' Lynn's voice echoed in the still air.
The doorman touched his cap and bowed. 'Sabah al-noor, ya rayis.' He whistled and a white Peugeot pulled away from the rank to our left. It drew up alongside us, brakes squealing.
The doorman did his thing, opening the door and bowing several times as Lynn and I climbed in the back.
Libya's answer to Tom Jones, backed by an orchestra c
omprised entirely of reedy, high-pitched wind instruments, blasted from a couple of speakers sitting on the rear parcel shelf. Lynn slipped a dollar into the doorman's outstretched hand. It disappeared into his pocket with the fluidity of a conjuring trick. The door slammed. Lynn spoke to the driver and I waited for the taxi to go, but it just sat there, engine idling.
I glanced up. The policeman was standing next to the window, clipboard at the ready. He tapped the window with the end of his biro.
Lynn wound it down and examined the man's aggressive bloodshot eyes.
'Taruh fein?' A waft of onion breath filled the back of the car. The policeman's teeth looked as if he'd been chewing tar.
Lynn held the stare, smiled and gave him a bit of hubba-hubba.
The policeman glared back, eyes narrowing into slits.
