Zero Hour

by Andy McNab

  I was going to the silo sterile. My passport was still in the mailroom. The heating felt good around my body as the Passat glided towards the canal. It stank of bodies and vomit, but that didn’t matter. I crossed into the world of darkness the other side of the water and was soon approaching the tile warehouse. I pulled into the car bays and killed the lights and engine. I sat, watched and listened. The sky was clear tonight; at least there would be no rain.

  There were no lights, no voices, no traffic.

  I waited another five minutes, then fired up the wagon and carried on down Distelweg. Not too fast; not too slow. I didn’t want to be noticed for doing either. I couldn’t see much, but I checked for anything that might have changed since I was last here.

  The target was in darkness.

  As I passed the two-level warehouse or factory immediately before the wasteground, an external door opened and there was a burst of light. It was closed again quickly. No drama. It was three hundred metres from the target. If somebody was working late, and staying inside, they wouldn’t get hurt. There was nothing happening on the outside, for sure. There were no lights. What was about to happen would be something to tell the kids, but not much more.

  I drove down to the sharp left-hand turn by the ferry point, and the city lights glowed at me from across the water. I followed the road, looking down the steep drop from the reclaimed land of the dock into the bay, for about two hundred metres. On my left, the land side, there was a clutch of small industrial units. A small brick path and a thin strip of grass ran away to the right, stopping at the water about three metres below. I found a gap between the wire-mesh fences of two units and reversed into it. I closed down once more but left the ignition on. This time I sank into the seat, nice and low, letting my arse slide down the leather. I kept my weight on the left cheek. As long as I didn’t move, nobody walking past would see me.

  I powered down the window to listen for vehicles or footfall and checked the luminous hands on my watch. It was nearly 20.40.

  I switched the internal light to off, so that it wasn’t triggered by the opening door, and stepped out of the car. I went round to the passenger side, took out the Bergen and put it down against the fencing. Then I got back behind the wheel.

  I turned the ignition key and leant over and pressed the button to tilt the back of the passenger seat as far as possible to wedge Angeles’s neo in place, then did the same with the driver’s. I opened the door and took a quick final look outside.

  I positioned my right foot on the sill, which made my stab wound throb as I strained to keep myself upright. My left hand gripped the edge of the roof. I changed it to my right, and then pushed myself in against the door hinges for support. I needed my left hand and left foot free.

  I leant in, pressed my foot on the brake pedal, and selected drive. I let go of the brake as the engine started to take the Passat gently forward. I held on, leaning back into the hinges, and once it had travelled about halfway across the road I pushed my left foot down on the gas and we lurched forward. I held it there a bit longer, but no more than two seconds because it was really starting to roll.

  Hanging half out of the car, I pushed off with my feet and the Passat lurched on towards the water. As my feet hit the tarmac I curled up to accept the landing. I was only moving at about twenty m.p.h. but it felt like fifty.

  I rolled a couple of times as the wagon disappeared from view, then heard a loud splash.

  14

  My arse had taken some of the hit on my right hip and I was in agony. I staggered to my feet and headed for the water’s edge. I didn’t bother looking left or right. The deed was done. If I’d been seen, there was fuck-all I could do about it.

  I got to the edge just as the tailgate disappeared under the water. It looked like the last throes of a torpedoed ship. I’d only left one window open. I wanted the vehicle to fill with water to make sure it sank, but I also wanted it to keep the bodies entombed.

  After three days, under normal conditions, the intestinal bacteria in a corpse produce huge amounts of gas that flows into the blood vessels and tissues. Large blisters form on the skin, and then the whole body begins to bloat and swell. The gas turns the skin from green to purple to black, makes the tongue and eyes protrude, and often pushes the intestines out through the nearest orifice. This process is speeded up if the victim is in a hot environment, or in water.

  As a young soldier, I used to be on the beach patrols in Hong Kong, looking out for what was left of Chinese illegal immigrants. The illegals travelled in overloaded boats and many of them drowned. They’d make it to Hong Kong, but after floating there for three or four days they looked like aliens from Star Trek.

  When this happened to Angeles’s neo, I didn’t want him to escape as he bloated and floated. With luck, the seats were going to restrain him, and if not, at least he was unlikely to come out through one window and bob to the surface. I just hoped my door had slammed shut when it hit the water and hadn’t been forced open.

  I looked down. The water was dark and solid. Fuck knew what was down there. Hundreds of years of bodies and secrets. The Passat was already becoming part of history. Or so I hoped.

  I pulled out the BlackBerry and flung it as far as I could into the bay. I didn’t want that thing banging in my ear when Tresillian went ballistic – which he was sure to do when I got those girls out.

  As long as Anna was safe, I wasn’t worried about reprisals. What was he going to do? Kill me? If so, he’d better get his finger out or the monster in my head would get there first and do the job for him. That would really piss him off.

  I hobbled back to the Bergen. The pain subsided in my hip, though not so much in my arse. I remembered the last time I’d tried to dump a car in a reservoir. I was a young soldier, years before I was sent to Hong Kong. My old Renault 5 was a wreck. I’d have had to pay to have it scrapped, so a mate and I came up with a great idea in the pub one night. We’d drive to the Talybont reservoir in Wales and not stop when we got to the water. We’d go down in two cars on a Saturday night, and Sunday I’d report it nicked from the town centre.

  We drove down to Talybont, and things were looking good. I revved the engine, jumped out, and watched the Renault going into what we assumed would be at least sixty feet of water. Instead it settled in what looked like about four feet, visible for all to see. It turned out there were so many cars dumped in that same spot that mine had landed on top of a pile of others. We had to make our way down, climb over the other rust buckets, and rock the thing until it toppled off into deeper water.

  All this reminiscing was probably par for the course when you were running out of road ahead. Or maybe there was a little voice telling me that though I’d thought some of these things were pretty shit at the time, perhaps they hadn’t been.

  I shouldered the Bergen and kept in the shadow of the buildings that lined this side of the road. No more thinking about the old days. I had to concentrate on the job. That was what I was here for – and this was the part I really wanted to do. It wasn’t about the killing, however much that was for the greater good, or however Tresillian would justify it. At the bottom of this pile of shit, I was never going to save the world. But it would be nice to think that getting Angeles and Lilian and the other girls out would make it – for them at least – a better place.

  As I headed towards the ferry point, the only sound came from the four litres of fuel sloshing about in the container between my shoulder blades.

  I slowed down as I neared the ferry point and then stopped. I rested my hands on my thighs, listening and looking. The weight of the fuel made me wobble a bit as I leant down and it levelled off in the top of the container. Apart from my breathing, the only noises came from the other side of the bay and the shipping in between. There was nothing going on over here. I turned the corner, crossed the road and headed along the fence line towards the gap.

  The factory beyond the target, where the light had come from, was as dark as everything else now.
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  I stopped at the rat run between the railings to check for signs of movement. Then I dropped the safe-house keys in the weeds to the right of the gap. I was on foot now, so I wanted them near to me. Sweat gathered where the Bergen rubbed against my back. I leant forward and bounced on the balls of my feet so the Bergen bounced too. At the moment the pressure on the shoulder straps was released, I pulled down and adjusted them so they were nice and tight.

  I looked out for the glow of a campfire in the hollow. The junkies must have been having a quiet night in.

  Bending low to ease the Bergen through the gap without having to take it off my shoulders, I wormed my way through into the wasteground.

  Still there were no lights, no signs of life, just the forbidding outline of the silo in the darkness ahead.

  15

  I was about twenty metres short of the target. The tower dominated the night sky. I still couldn’t see any lights. There were no obvious changes since I’d last been here two nights ago.

  This time, I leant against a slab of concrete instead of sitting down and cocked an ear towards the target. I heard nothing but the distant honk of a ship getting pissed off with another ship in the bay.

  I tried to swallow. My throat was dry from humping all the kit. My boots were heavy with mud. I moved off. There’d be no cutting corners. I had to carry out the recce. I might be doing a lot of work for nothing.

  I moved along the gable end until I reached the waterside corner. There was nothing new on the hard standing. No boats tied up alongside.

  Bergen on my back, I moved slowly along the bay side of the building. I got to the metal doors. They hadn’t been tampered with. The grass and weeds were standing to attention.

  There was still no light.

  I reached the far gable end, passing the window to the office where I hoped the girls were being held. I turned right, and followed the wall to the door. It was still locked. I put my ear to the frame and could hear a faint noise. It was impossible to tell what was making it. I put my nose to the keyhole. It still smelt of cake shop.

  I walked round to the back of the building, and carried on to do a complete 360 back to the conveyor-belt. Did anyone have eyes on me? Unlikely. Where would they be? Fuck it, so what? If it was happening, it wasn’t going to change anything I was going to do.

  I climbed the Meccano as close to the silo as I could. It made for a longer climb, but I didn’t want to be struggling along the conveyor-belt with all this gear on my back. I wasn’t exactly Spiderman, but even he would have had his work cut out with pains in his arse, hip, head and hand, and the unstable weight of the Bergen with a couple of gallons of liquid moving about inside it.

  I took the rusty, flaky struts one at a time, maintaining three points of contact: both feet and hands firmly gripping, then one hand up to the next strut, and then a foot. I stopped and listened every two or three bounds. I was sweating, but it certainly wasn’t from fear. I was doing what I wanted to be doing. I was having my one final kick.

  And, anyway, this time I knew I was dead. I had an inkling of what it must feel like to be a suicide bomber. Like me, they had fuck-all to lose. It almost felt liberating.

  I got to the last strut and hauled myself over the top. I lay flat on the rubber belt. The fuel sloshed as it levelled out. The hatch was slightly ajar, exactly as I’d found it and how I’d left it. I crawled forward. A jet took off from Schiphol in the distance and climbed quietly overhead.

  The conveyor-belt creaked under my weight. To me, it felt like I was making enough noise to wake up the whole of Noord 5. It couldn’t be helped. All I could do was take my time and not fuck up by dropping anything or falling off.

  I slowly pushed the hatch open, just enough to get my head through. As before, my nose filled with the smell of flour. As before, there was the faintest glimmer of light through the gap at the bottom.

  I loosened the Bergen straps and lay on my side to wriggle out of them. I had to work my way through the hatch and onto the ladder feet first. It would have been a nightmare with a Bergen on my back. I wrapped a hand around one of the straps in case the thing decided to fall.

  I lowered my feet and found a rung. Once I had a firm footing, I dragged the Bergen towards me and hauled it back over my shoulders. No worries about muddy boots this time.

  Slowly but surely I made my descent. By the time my boots were on the concrete and adding to the prints in the flour, my hands were caked with mud. I wiped them on my jeans. It was warm down here. I took off the Bergen and rested it against the wall. I eased my head beneath the steel shutters and into the main part of the building.

  At first, everything looked exactly the same as before. The top right-hand window was the only one that had a light on. The two windows to the left of it were dark, as were the two either side of the door below into the office block. A TV flickered, but I couldn’t hear any sound or movement. A haze of cigarette smoke filled the room.

  I bent down and grabbed the mallet from under the top flap of the Bergen. The mush of TV waffle reached my ears and got louder the closer I got to the door into the main entrance hallway.

  16

  I knelt down and checked for light the other side of it. There was a soft glow. I put my ear to the door. The TV was still going strong; I couldn’t hear anything else.

  I tried the handle. It opened into a gloomy hallway

  There were two doors on the left and two on the right. Ten fire extinguishers were lined up between them like sentries. At the far end of the corridor was the outside entrance. Light spilled onto it from up the stairs.

  Light also seeped from under the second door on the left. I leant as close as I could to the top panel. There was a faint murmur of childlike voices. Someone was crying and being comforted. The Chubb-style key was still in the lock and a bolt – thrown back – had been newly fixed just above it.

  I turned the key just enough to confirm that it was locked, then removed it to keep them contained. I could still hear nothing above the TV upstairs. I knew the voice. Horatio Caine was being über-smooth in CSI: Miami.

  The external door hadn’t been bolted. The deadlocks were on. No one was getting out unless they had the keys. There were three to undo so it would take them a while. I eased the bolts into place. Now it would also take a while for anyone to get in.

  I turned left towards the stairwell. I only had one chance to make this work quickly and quietly. The light on the landing above me came from two naked fluorescent tubes. The steps were solid concrete. Their coating of red paint had faded over the years and the concrete had worn. There had once been a handrail but now only the fixing holes remained.

  I clenched the mallet in my right hand. I swung my arms as I took each step, head up, sucking in deep breaths to prepare for my attack. Two neos were now at the bottom of the bay. I had no idea how many of the four I’d introduced myself to at the tile factory were up and about. But I assumed that Flynn and Bitch Tits would be looking after the shop. By the time I was halfway up I could smell cigarette smoke. The kind that makes your eyes water and takes the skin off the back of your throat. Whoever was up there wasn’t paying much attention to the government health warning.

  I reached the top landing. I was in auto-mode. I felt blood surge into my hands and legs, preparing me for fight or flight.

  Then, just when I needed him most, Horatio stopped waffling.

  The door to my half-left was open. I had maybe one second’s advantage on whoever was in the room, no more. I could hear everyone in Miami loud and clear.

  There were other doors: two to the right, three to the left. All closed. Notice boards peppered with rusty drawing pins but no paper lined the walls, punctuated by steel spikes that had once supported fire extinguishers. Faded hazard warning signs still hung above them.

  I took three steps across the corridor and over the threshold. Arm raised, I was ready to take on the first part of any body that came within reach.

  There was nobody in there apart from Hora
tio, but the last inch or so of an untipped cancer-stick still glowed in the ashtray.

  A cistern flushed and the door opened at the far end of the room. Robot came out, still doing up his flies. He was dressed in the same brown overcoat he’d been wearing in Christiania.

  He patted the zip into place and raised his head. There was no surprise on his face when he saw me, no shock, no fear, no hesitation. He launched himself straight at me.

  I brought up the mallet. His arm chopped up and blocked it easily. His other fist punched into the side of my head and his leg kicked out. It connected with my thigh and I buckled with pain.

  My head hit the floor. Stars burst in front of my eyes. Pain coursed through my body. More kicks landed. I could feel myself starting to lose it. I couldn’t let that happen. I worked hard to keep my eyes open, curling up as a knee went down onto my chest.

  His face displayed the same lack of emotion as it had when he’d talked about Mr Big’s fringe benefits in the kitchen of the green house. Calmly and efficiently, he was just getting on with the job of killing me.

  17

  I had to pull myself together or I was dead.

  I tried to twist my head out of the way as the fists came down. I felt one brush my ear as it missed and carried on into the concrete. He didn’t flinch.

  I bucked like a madman to present a moving target. All I could hear was a voice in my head telling me to keep him close.

  I grabbed him with my arms around the back of his coat and pulled him in to me in a big bear hug. I tucked my head into his neck so he couldn’t butt me. If I kept hugging him I might be able to control him for long enough to work out what the fuck to do.

  I wriggled as much as I could. I wanted to roll on top of him. I was heavier than him. Maybe that would work. But he wasn’t having any of it. He tried to expand his arms so he could break out of my grasp. His head jerked down the side of mine, right onto my ear. It popped and burnt with pain. I rolled over, but not in the direction I’d wanted. We were both side on to the ground.