The Outsiders

by Gerald Seymour

  ‘It is important to you?’ he was asked.

  Natan stammered that it wasn’t.

  ‘Why did you ask?’

  He didn’t know, he said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter to you?’

  He said it didn’t.

  ‘So why?’

  He muttered something incomprehensible.

  ‘What is Spain to you, Gecko?’

  Natan began to trawl on his laptop for details of the precious metals, their prices and where they could be bought. Sweat, cold, ran down his back. He had asked a direct question because the woman would demand the detail of the onward leg. He didn’t know where or how they would meet, but she would be watching for him, as a stalker did. Twice more, the driver looked away from the oncoming traffic and stared hard into his face. Natan flinched from the gaze.

  They would fly through the night and be in west Africa after one refuelling. The next day he would have his meeting, wherever, whenever, and detail would be sucked from him.

  The Latvian policeman escorted a Swedish newspaper editor, from Malmö, past the Blue Bottle bar where a small celebration had begun. They paused at the entrance, and the visitor gazed at the bottles on the shelves behind the steward. As they watched, glasses were raised: beer, whisky or schnapps. The Latvian policeman said, ‘Sometimes we have a proper session, and then it’s firewater from the Balkans, champagne from France or vodka from Poland. We do that when we have concluded a matter we’re proud of. Now we’re in late November and there have been just two occasions over the last few months this bar has been crowded. One event was to celebrate the capture of the banker behind a major drug ring – he was worth a hundred million euro. Then we drank the bar nearly dry after we helped stop two furniture pantechnicons coming into Germany from the Czech Republic. A group of Romanians were transporting fifty-three teenage girls to European brothels. Those were real successes – but success is too rare. At Europol we have a budget of eighty million euro a year for a clearing house of intelligence. Individual governments raid their taxpayers in the interests of crime prevention, and the public demands a return for their money. Too often, to make sure of that return, the police charge in prematurely and there’s not much more than an evening’s headline or an interview with a minister. In an ideal world we would have rejected the politician, the paymaster who must show short-term results, the need of broadcasters to fill their news programmes and we would have allowed that cargo ship to sail on. We would not have boarded it at sea. It would have docked, the cargo would have been unloaded and split, and we would have put intensive surveillance on the trafficking of the narcotics across Europe. Then we would have been led to major figures whose apprehension might disrupt the trade. On such an occasion we would fill the bar. Today the men we have in custody – some of the crew and others at Cádiz harbour – won’t be able to give us the names of the major players. So you won’t see any of the senior men in the bar this evening, none of the organised-crime team heads will be celebrating. The likelihood is that the confiscation of the drugs will change little.’

  They went on down the corridors, then up a flight of stairs, and the drinkers in the bar were forgotten.

  The minor problem was that neither had spoken up; the major problem was that bitching was now too late if the chance had been there.

  Snapper would have said he was an élite photographer, and that Loy was good at back-up. They did their work from front bedrooms, factory roofs and, occasionally, from a van parked on a busy street.

  He had on the wrong footwear, which was why he’d slipped and fallen. They were decent lace-ups with a reasonable tread, but he’d realised his mistake when Sparky had lifted a rucksack with his all-terrain boots dangling from it. It was pitch dark and they’d brought too much kit, which hadn’t been a disaster until Xavier had shed his load and left them. Something about three being enough to do the last leg and get in through the back.

  They had been up half the night, had caught a delayed flight out of Stansted to Seville. Dawn had been up when they’d arrived, and there had been a meeting down the road with a Six man who had driven from Madrid. There’d been banter between them about red berets and guys from the RAF. He’d brought a load of gear that Sparky couldn’t have carried through Security.

  Top of Snapper’s talents was the ability to get crisply focused pictures that told a story, usually of conspiracy. He was also skilled at reading the meetings he watched. Important to gauge who was a chief and which man mattered – might not be the one who had most to say, but the runt at the back who never opened his mouth. It was a three-hour drive from Seville to Marbella, so they had done two rest stops and dozed in the car. The mobiles, of course, were off, and they had new communications kit that was encrypted for transmissions. There had been an accident at the Antequera end of the motorway from Seville – a bad one – and they’d been stuck for more than two hours. The should have reached the drop-off point with Xavier at dusk but instead it had been in inky, darkness. If it hadn’t been for Sparky, they’d have been nowhere near it.

  Snapper could talk his way in anywhere. He had the knack of picking the one man or woman on a street who would invite him in and let him stay as long as he needed. But he wasn’t much good at going cross-country over rough ground or slithering down slopes on his buttocks.

  Loy had half of their gear and Sparky had taken the rest.

  Sparky led, with Snapper behind him and Loy last. They hadn’t been told that the approach to the ‘plot’ would involve going down a mountain where there were steps of a sort and a track that could only be identified by fingertip touch. Snapper was forty-seven and weighed at least sixteen stones. The doctor who did his annual medical had once urged him to cut back on calories, but had given up. No one, certainly not the Boss, had been quite frank on how the approach to this Paradise place was to be made. He should have asked, but he hadn’t.

  Sparky had said he’d been an ‘airborne’. When he was asked how he managed the weight he was carrying, he’d said in the dark – almost apologetically – that he’d been a corporal in the 2nd Battalion, but had been out five years. He didn’t explain why Winnie had recruited him from the gardening staff at the old graveyard. Snapper couldn’t fathom the man. Why was a former paratrooper, good enough to be back-up on a Five job, employed as a gardener . . .? It made no sense, but . . . The moon was rising, and far below he saw the lights of the town, and the ships at sea. More important, there was an end in sight. He could see the lights to the sides and back of the ‘plot’, the location of the target. Paradise was separated from it by a wall of trees, in darkness.

  They were on the floor, had spent hardly any time at their table. No one spoke to them.

  He said into her ear, ‘Maybe we’re the only real people in the world. They’re hoods with their slappers. We don’t know where they come from, can’t speak a word of any language they use. We don’t carry guns. It’s not that they’re hostile – they aren’t, because we’re no danger to them – it’s simply that they’re indifferent. They don’t care a toss about us. They haven’t even noticed us – but there’s no hassle and the place is great. And we’re in good shape.’

  ‘Brilliant shape.’ She kissed him.

  There was more Rihanna and more Lady Gaga, and they’d dance until they dropped or the money ran out.

  The late news came on. The flat was small enough for the TV to play in the living area, for Myrtle to hear it in bed and for Mikey to get the drift from the balcony. He was having a last smoke of the day on the little platform that had no view except the block across the road.

  He reacted because he heard the name. Then the girl reading the news repeated it. Santa Maria. He felt weak, and cold sweat trickled down his neck – it always had when disaster whacked him. Mikey Fanning turned to stand in the doorway between the balcony and the living room. The newsreader had named the boat and now he understood barely another word she spoke. He didn’t need to.

  The screen showed a map with the Venezuelan p
ort of Maracaibo marked on it, the Spanish port of Cádiz and the Rock of Gibraltar. In the middle there was a wad of Atlantic Ocean, and a red cross marked a point that was nearer Europe than Latin America. Then they showed a picture of commandos swarming close to the containers on the deck. A lifebelt close to one bore the name Santa Maria. Mikey Fanning had had no education, but no one had ever called him dumb. He understood.

  ‘Did you catch that, love?’ he called.

  ‘I did, more’s the pity.’

  ‘All down the pan.’

  ‘Looks as if our bodies’ll get to go to Alicante. Want to talk about it?’

  ‘Like I want a hole in the head.’

  He was not among the old people who sat in the day-care centre in San Pedro. He had a good memory, sharp when he needed it and bloody sharp when he didn’t. He pictured the lawyer, Rafael, who had the plush office near the Paseo Maritimo, the smart suits, the flash car and an introduction. He could remember the man he had met at the club where the lunch would have cost what he and Myrtle lived on for a month. He could also recall the two minders, whom Rafael had said were Serbian. They might have been on a war-crimes list, Rafael had said, and they had tattoos on their arms of women and knives. They had been arrogant enough to bring their handguns into the club, and no one on the staff had called the Policia Nacional. It was like they’d bought the place. That was where the money had come from to finance the big deal that was going to make Tommy King a big man with a big future. And there was to have been ‘a drink in it’ for Mikey Fanning.

  ‘It’ll keep for the morning.’

  He could have cried.

  His rock, Myrtle, said, ‘Come to bed, Mikey. Things’ll look better in the morning.’

  They wouldn’t and he knew he’d never sleep. It was a poleaxing blow because Tommy had talked his way into a deal that was way out of their league. He didn’t want her to see in him how deep the fear went.

  ‘Give us a minute.’ He locked the balcony door – though there was nothing in the apartment for a burglar to steal – went to the cabinet and poured himself a drink.

  ‘That’s him – Ivanov,’ murmured Snapper. ‘Get it in the log, Loy.’

  It was a dream location: two dormers set in the attic roof of the bungalow. One, less important to them by a country mile, looked up the overgrown garden of the Villa Paraiso towards the mountainside down which they had come on hands and knees, with the rucksacks and bags. They had reached the back door. Snapper had done his burglary stuff and opened it. He had used the narrow-tipped screwdriver that was good for property or vehicle locks. Of course, none of the house lights had been switched on and it was a black night with only a thin moon. They had known from the satellite photographs about the converted attic and had headed for it. They had known also that they had a good chance of a view into the gardens of the villa beside them, the front, the pool area and the patio.

  ‘That’s our boy and he likes his evening cigarette.’ Snapper pitched his voice to carry far enough for Loy to hear him. Whether Sparky, who had the Boss’s ear, could pick up what he said was immaterial. He and Loy were a well-oiled machine.

  In the kitchen, the door closed behind them, they had opened Loy’s rucksack and taken out the shoe covers. Everything was packed so that what was needed first was immediately accessible – it was a refined routine. They used the same shoe covers as the scenes-of-crime people to avoid contamination. Then they had groped out of the kitchen into the hallway and on to the stairs. Snapper had allowed himself to turn on his pencil torch, which threw a dull beam, just enough for him to see the steps and the steepness of the staircase. He had led them to the top of the stairs and had eased the door open slowly to mitigate the squeal of the hinges. To anyone without the training required of SCD11, whining hinges wouldn’t register: Snapper had a host of stories of how minimal noise had carried into the night air and shown out a surveillance site. Good-quality villains, who stayed clear of handcuffs, had dogs with the best ears or their minders wore aids advertised for the hard of hearing. Big players in organised crime, Snapper’s experience, were leagues ahead of the Islamist bomb people or the animal-rights crowd. The floorboards didn’t help – a couple squeaked when weight shifted on them. A detailed look round the bungalow could wait until daylight. He had reached the side window and stood back from it; the blind had been up so he didn’t have to fidget with it. He had looked out and seen the man, the glow of the cigarette.

  ‘About as good as it gets,’ Snapper said.

  Gear was coming out of Loy’s rucksack. After the log book came the Swarovski binoculars, the Canon camera, the case for the lenses, the cables for battery renewal, the pocket printer, with paper, and the communications stuff that would link them to Xavier – he’d be checking into his hotel. The little kettle and the sack of first-day food would be backed up by what they’d brought in the larger rucksack, and there was toilet paper. Loy stacked everything where it could be found by touch. The side window gave Snapper a clear view of the main door, and the last part of the driveway approaching it, the pool and the patio, the side of the villa and the rear extension where a door led into the main garden. He watched Pavel Ivanov – height was right, as were the facial features and hair. A dog wandered near him – uninterested until Ivanov kicked a ball. The dog dived after it. It was big, weighed more than fifty kilos.

  Snapper said, without turning, ‘Log that there’s a dog, German Shepherd . . . and that’s Ivanov, definite . . .’

  Loy had brought him a bedside chair to sit on, and when it was light he’d use one of the inflatable cushions. They’d always log the presence of a dog. Dogs were a bad memory among the ranks of SCD11. There was a fine picture in the New Scotland Yard building, outside the administration offices, of a Detective Constable John Fordham. On a surveillance mission he had been on a stake-out inside the property of a target and had been found by the guard dogs and cornered. The target had stabbed him to death. A dog could walk past an ‘empty’ van in a street, get to the back door and stand still. Its hackles would rise and it would growl, telling the world that a couple of guys were inside. Pavel Ivanov looked to be in fair shape, maybe a little overweight. Then Snapper saw two more men.

  ‘For the log,’ he said. ‘We have Ivanov as Target One. There are now two others. Not advised of names. I have the taller man as Target Two. Target Three is shorter, heavier. Again for the log, Loy: they both have firearms in their belts, handguns. Got that?’

  His back was tapped, the familiar signal of confirmation. He would have expected there to be weapons on the premises. He would not have expected those weapons to be carried. He had had firearms training, as did Loy, but neither had ever carried a Glock 9mm on an operation. They relied, in the choicer stake-outs, on having armed back-up close and ready. The dog and the guns were predictable, but that something was predictable did not make it easier on the stomach. Outside, more cigarettes were lit and the three men walked further from the house, the minders trailing their principal. There was a space where the ground had been cleared, the grass mown, and a chipper was parked there. At the edge of the space there was a heap of wood chips and—

  A board creaked behind him. Snapper swung round.

  ‘You sure we’ve come to the right pad?’ Sparky asked, innocent.

  ‘Of course we bloody have – and we don’t speak unless we have to.’ Winnie had said Sparky was there to ‘watch your backs’. He had some kit that might bail them out of a hole, but wasn’t ‘one of them’ and didn’t move quietly.

  ‘Who lives here?’

  ‘Geoffrey and Frances Walsh. You heard the briefing as we did.’

  ‘How old are they?’

  Snapper felt annoyance rising. He watched the three men on the lawn and the dog. ‘I don’t know. Eighty-something. Why?’

  ‘Who else lives here?’

  ‘No one. If you didn’t notice, it’s bloody empty.’

  ‘Care to come and have a look at this, and tell me what’s going on?’

 
Snapper scraped back his chair and stabbed a glance at his targets. They hadn’t heard the chair. He went from the side dormer with the view to the one at the back of the room. There had been no light when they had come across the long grass. The Targets move to the cleared ground had tripped another security light and a shaft came into the Paradise garden. It lit a washing-line. On it hung a pair of panties, a bra, a halter-top and a skimpy blouse.

  It was said of Snapper that he was not a man to be lightly knocked off course. He muttered, ‘Have to wait and see what turns up – unless anyone has a better idea?’

  ‘Is that a rat?’

  She stiffened, shrank from him, then flinched.

  Jonno was sitting up. He had been close to sleep. He shouldn’t have driven back from Marbella – twice he had seen a man crossing the street ahead of him and swerved late. Should have had a taxi back up the hill and walked the rest. There had been laughter and giggles and they’d pretty much fallen – still half dressed – on to the bed. There’d been some fumbling, then a sort of understanding and they’d drifted off.

  He said, ‘I don’t think rats snore.’

  He could have sworn he’d heard the type of grunt that came with snoring, and then a sudden movement before the silence returned. What to do? He could phone the police, except it was past two in the morning and he spoke no Spanish beyond a couple of tourist pleasantries. He could turn over, mutter something to Posie about the wind in the eaves, then lie all night with his ears cocked. Neither was acceptable.

  ‘I’d better take a look,’ he said.

  He switched on the bedside light and slid out of bed. She had a hand on his arm but he pushed it away. He was still part drunk. Perhaps he’d been mistaken. He bloody hoped so. He wore his boxers, and heard her whisper, ‘Be careful,’ as he went into the hall. From the coatstand he took the heaviest stick he could find, and put the light on over the stairs. He started up them.