Zero Hour

by Andy McNab

  We stepped out and followed the pedestrian crossing to the right of the market into the warren of streets behind the parade of shops. We hadn’t gone more than a hundred metres when I had to pull her into a doorway as yet another blue-and-white zoomed towards the incident.

  And in that moment, from about a K and a half behind us, came a loud, dull bang. A jet of flame shot into the sky like the gas flare above an oilrig. It only burnt briefly. After that, the raging inferno would be contained by the silo walls.

  25

  I looked at the glow in the sky above Noord 5.

  Lily tugged at my arm. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s keep going.’

  The less she knew about everything the better. But Lily stayed still, watching the flames, then turned back to me. I knew she wanted an explanation. She wasn’t getting one. That job was done. I was already thinking about my next one.

  We passed the Islamic centre. Checking left at the junction, I could see the girls standing in a huddle with two police cars holding them together. They, too, were staring towards the site of the explosion. The police must have been all over them as quickly as they had been with me. They were the victims; it didn’t matter. The reason the police had come calling at the safe-house also didn’t matter right now. Thinking about it didn’t achieve anything. The only thing that did was making distance from them.

  In the meantime, I’d put that whole side of things on the back burner. It was getting more crowded by the moment.

  We walked for another thirty minutes. We crossed wider waterways and parks, and under elevated dual carriageways. Our surroundings became increasingly residential. Trendy apartment blocks sprang up, with cycle lanes and neatly parked cars. We were back in civilization but there was no way I was taking trams, buses or taxis. Municipal transport had CCTV. Taxi drivers might remember something. The police operation that had almost netted us was not going to shut up shop for weeks.

  A shiny green phone booth materialized in front of us. At last I could make the call.

  Anna answered immediately. I could hear the tension in her voice. ‘When will you be here? I—’

  ‘Stop, stop! I need you to come and pick us up. Can you do that? There’s been a drama. Can you get a car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get a car with sat nav, and meet me.’

  ‘Do you still have her?’

  ‘No, it was a fuck-up. But I have Lily. You got a pen?’

  I waited a few seconds as the information sank in but she stayed completely switched on. She knew now wasn’t the time to go wobbly.

  ‘Go.’

  ‘I’m at the junction, and I’ll spell it, of H-e-t new word D-ok and K-o-p-e-r-s-l-a-g-e-r-i-j. The street names have one zero two one on them – that must be the area code. It’s on the north side of the bay. You got that? It’s full of smart flats, grassy open spaces and a smart green telephone box.’

  ‘Got it.’

  I listened as she read everything back. I checked the road sign again, making sure the spelling was correct. ‘Quick as you can, Anna, without speeding.’

  ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘She’s fine. The other girls are safe. But you need to call off Lena’s friends. No need to meet up. Angeles won’t be needing them.’

  The silence hung between us as she realized what I’d just said.

  ‘OK, sure. I’ll call.’ I could hear her moving now, the door to her room closing behind her and her voice beginning to echo in the hotel hallway.

  ‘It’s probably going to take you about thirty minutes this time of night. I’ll call you to check how you’re doing. OK?’

  ‘See you soon.’

  ‘Anna . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  I hesitated. ‘I can’t wait to see you.’

  She thought about it for a second. ‘So get off the phone.’

  26

  For almost the whole hour and a half that we waited under the dual carriageway sirens wailed along the tarmac above us. The park was deserted.

  I’d called Anna from a phone box when I said I would. She was on her way.

  We sat shivering against a tree and I had to hold Lily in my arms to keep her warm. Her head was on my chest.

  ‘Lily, what happened? Why did you leave home?’

  She didn’t move. Maybe she felt safe where she was.

  ‘I had to get away.’

  ‘Had to?’

  She shrugged. ‘It seems so stupid after what has happened. My father betrayed me. And he betrayed the protest movement.’

  ‘After the election?’

  Her head moved on my chest. ‘You have to realize how wonderful it was for us to finally know democracy. For one day, for one bright shining day, it seemed as though the power was in the people’s hands. We, the students, were going to be part of the solution. Not part of the problem, like my father.’

  ‘He liked it just the way it was?’

  I felt her head nod slowly.

  ‘The Communists rigged the election. They bought everyone off – using money from people like my father. He just thinks of himself and his business. I wanted to leave – I wanted to hurt him just as he hurt me.’

  ‘Why Christiania?’

  ‘I read about it for a sociology class last year. Communal life. Utopia. It sounded like a good place to escape to.’

  She dug into her jeans and brought out the Facebook picture. She opened it up as if I’d never seen it before. ‘But he changed that.’

  ‘Was he your boyfriend?’

  ‘Sort of.’ She paused. ‘He wanted sex but I wanted to wait until I married.’

  Her hand dropped and let go of the paper. I had to grab it before it blew away.

  ‘He said he knew someone in Copenhagen, a friend of his father’s. He said he would talk to him and he would help me there.’

  I folded the picture and shoved it into my jeans.

  ‘Viku sold me . . . How could I have been so stupid?’ She craned her neck to get eye-to-eye. ‘I met the old man. He was kind to me. He bought me something to eat and we talked of how wonderful Christiania was and how happy I was going to be there. But then he took me to a house where he said I could stay.’

  She didn’t cry, just stared down at the ground, trying to close her mind to what had happened next.

  ‘It’s OK, Lily, I know the rest. But you are safe now.’

  She replaced her head on my chest. I felt her jaw clench. Safety was something that belonged to another life.

  ‘My father, did he send you?’

  ‘Your dad knows nothing about it. One of his friends did.’

  She scoffed. ‘One of his murderer friends?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘He and all the others who make weapons, they are killers.’

  ‘I thought your father was in electronics?’

  It was worth confirming what I thought I had worked out.

  ‘I don’t just mean missiles and tanks. Computers and radar are weapons too, any equipment that helps to kill and maim.’ She sat up. She was getting quite animated. ‘A military computer is as lethal as a bomb. Making military computers is a trade in misery.’

  ‘The people your father sell his computers to – isn’t he just meeting a demand?’

  Her eyes blazed. ‘A pimp meets a demand. A drug-dealer meets a demand. What is the difference between trafficking heroin or women and exporting weapons, except that weapons are more dangerous? They’re all merchants of death. My eyes were opened to these things at university. I do not want to profit from his trade any more. That is why I left. Look where it got me.’

  I thought she was going to cry.

  ‘Please do not tell him what has happened to me.’

  I gave her a hug. ‘He’ll get nothing from me.’

  ‘Thank you. What is your name?’

  ‘Nick.’

  ‘Thank you, Nick.’

  We lapsed into silence. Lily was either asleep or almost there. Her breathing was slow
and stable.

  Another couple of sirens buzzed along the dual carriageway at warp speed. I consulted Mr G-Shock. ‘We’ve got to go.’ I stroked the top of her head.

  She stirred. ‘She is here?’

  ‘Should be by now.’

  We walked back out across the park, the traffic still zooming backwards and forwards overhead but now behind us. What I was looking for was a silver Opel estate. The start of the reg was 62-LH.

  I spotted it parked just past the junction, and then the silhouette of Anna’s head. There was no time for casual contact drills. I wanted to get in the car and go.

  As we got nearer, I heard the clunk of the central locking. I opened the back door for Lily and I got into the front. Anna backed out and moved off without saying a word. The sat nav gave her a string of English instructions. I caught a hint of Bulgari that made me feel a whole lot better.

  Anna checked her rear-view. She didn’t want to talk yet. She wanted to get out of the area. I looked at her face and gave her a smile. It wasn’t returned. She wasn’t impressed with life right now.

  It was only when we hit the dual carriageway that Anna broke the silence. ‘Lily . . . Can I call you Lily?’ She didn’t wait for a response. ‘My name is Anna.’ She gobbed off in Russian.

  Lily gasped, and then almost choked with emotion. Her hands whirred like she was signing for the deaf. She leant in towards the front seat, her lips on overload. The only word I could understand was ‘Angeles’.

  ‘Stop, Lily. Stop.’ I turned to Anna. ‘All she knows is that Angeles is dead. I’ll tell you everything as soon as we get to the hotel. But not now, yeah?’

  27

  We parked in a multi-storey at Schiphol. Lily had crashed out on the back seat. I felt like doing the same. The heater had been working overtime.

  Anna showed me her Radisson door card. The room number was scrawled on its folder. ‘Fifth floor.’

  ‘Which way are the lifts when you walk into Reception – left, right, straight?’

  ‘Turn right as soon as you go in, past the reception desk.’

  ‘I’ll give you and Lily fifteen minutes, yeah?’

  Lily yawned, stretched and sat up. She must have sensed that we were no longer moving.

  I looked over my shoulder. ‘We can’t all go in together. Anna and you go first. I’ll come after.’

  Her hand was already on the passenger-door handle.

  ‘Lily, it’s OK.’ I reached over and gripped the leg of her jeans. ‘You stay with me. We’ll go together.’

  Anna cut in: ‘You two go in first, and I will follow. Is that all right with you, Lily?’ She passed me the door card.

  We climbed out of the Opel and headed down the stairs of the multi-storey, arm in arm again. The stairwell didn’t stink of last week’s piss like it would have done back home. ‘Walk normally, Lily. Smile at me if I smile at you. It’s just like we’re staying here and we’re heading back to the room for the night. Is that OK?’

  She knew as well as I did that the desk staff would think she was a whore I’d picked up for the night. I was banking on the night shift not expecting to recognize any faces, and not wanting to embarrass me by checking. This was Amsterdam, after all.

  We walked into the empty foyer. In case there were eyes, I fiddled conspicuously with Anna’s door card and turned immediately right, as if I knew where I was going. I strode towards the lifts and pressed the up button. I studied the card again for good measure.

  It was after midnight and a few people still propped up the bar. Flat-screen TVs above the optics showed pictures of fire fighters at the silo. The roof had collapsed. Two fireboats pumped water over the smouldering ruin. It was drenched in spotlights from police boats alongside. People in high-vis clothing swarmed all over the area.

  I held Lily close as we waited. She’d seen the screens. A tear finally did roll down her cheek.

  ‘It’s OK, Lily. You’re safe. Everyone is safe.’

  The lift pinged open and we shot up to the fifth floor.

  With its twin beds, walnut veneers, TV and mini-bar, the room could have been in any chain hotel anywhere in the world. I threw her chocolate and a carton of orange juice. She ripped the wrapper off the Milka bar and got stuck in. ‘Thank you, Nick.’

  ‘Go and have a bath. Anna will give you some clothes for tomorrow. I’m not going anywhere. Leave the door open if you want.’

  She padded into the bathroom. I dug out the folder and threw it onto the bed.

  ‘Lily?’

  I heard the sound of running water. She came to the door.

  ‘Anna will look after you, I promise. She won’t let anything happen to you – you understand that, don’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Thank you.’ She closed the door behind her.

  I sat on the end of the bed and shoved cashews down my neck. According to the price list they cost the best part of a euro per nut. I washed them down with the world’s most expensive can of Pepsi and channel-hopped with the remote. The silo fire was on all the local stations, as well as CNN and BBC News 24. Kate Singleton was showing the world her gravitas.

  There was a knock on the door. I checked through the peephole and opened up.

  ‘No problem with the desk, Nicholas?’ She nodded past me, towards the sound of running water.

  ‘Everything’s fine.’

  I led her into the room. She sat next to me, pointing at the screen. ‘Why?’

  ‘Fuck knows, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.’

  28

  I told Anna everything about the Flynns and the neo-Nazis, the Moldovan competition and Tresillian changing the plan and wanting all the girls dead. Then I told her about going back to the safe-house to find Bradley waiting for me, Angeles getting killed, and the police bursting in.

  ‘The police? How did they—’

  ‘Bradley maybe – fuck knows what else he got up to in that house. Or the neos – who must have followed us from the market? Who gave a fuck? What pissed me off more was what happened to Angeles. She wanted to protect me.’ I pictured that shy smile again, and the endless steaming, super-sweet brews. ‘She got fucked up by doing it and that’s down to Tresillian – and, of course, Jules.’

  She wouldn’t believe it. ‘But he is a friend.’

  ‘You reckon? I want to think so, but I don’t know what the fuck is going on.’

  Then I told her what had been clawing away at me ever since Bradley pulled the shotgun. ‘Everything and everyone connected with Lily is being taken out. This can’t just be about a favour to a friend. It’s something bigger, and Tresillian is tying up all the loose ends . . .’

  She looked at me. She knew where this was leading. She was too smart not to.

  I nodded. ‘If he doesn’t know already, he’ll find out soon enough that you were in on it too.’

  She didn’t answer. She just let everything sink in.

  Lily emerged from the bathroom, freshly scrubbed and fragrant, wet hair scraped back from her face. She curled up on the bed, in her own private world, eyes glued to the flickering TV screen.

  I couldn’t wait around. We had things to do.

  ‘The Panda is going to flag up Nick Smith. The flight to Russia is history. Lily is the key, and I’m starting to think I might know why. As long as we’ve got her, they won’t get us. You must take her somewhere safe. I need both of you out of harm’s way.’

  She sparked up. ‘I know people in—’

  I put a hand over her mouth. ‘Stop. I don’t want to know.’

  It was safer for both of them. If I fucked up and Tresillian didn’t see things my way, he’d want to know where Lily was. Whatever he did to me, I couldn’t tell him what I didn’t know.

  Anna understood. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m going back to the UK. That’s where all this shit started.’

  The TV rolled the same mobile clip of the explosion, over and over again. At least it was somebody’s lucky day.

  ‘All three of us co
uld leave, right now.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ve got to go back. If Lily is safe, Tresillian won’t touch us. He needs her. I have to sort a few things out.’ I gave her a slightly crooked smile. ‘Then we can spend whatever time I’ve got left watching the geese fly over the Moskva River.’

  We stood only a few centimetres apart.

  She took my hands in hers, unable to speak. She looked like she was going to break down at any moment. She held my hands to her face and kissed them. She gazed into my eyes.

  I’m not sure what she saw there, but she wasn’t smiling back.

  29

  I headed up a pathway that ran along the left side of the triangle. The sea lapped against the rock wall. A cargo ship cast off its mooring ropes and pulled away from the docks. The glow of arc lamps and vehicle lights at the ferry port filtered across the water and cast weak shadows on the concrete below me.

  At last I found what I was looking for. The Coast Guard here had two RIBs, monsters, well over thirty feet, both with twin 115 h.p. Yamaha outboards. At least, I assumed they were the Coast Guard. They had the word Kustwacht plastered every-where, which sounded about right. Whatever it meant, it looked official, which in turn meant it belonged to an organization that would have demanded full tanks before binning it for the day.

  The Kustwacht’s land base was a boring-looking cube of a Portakabin with loads of little signs and notice boards outside. I ignored it for now. There was no blaze of lights to suggest anyone was home.

  I jumped on the first RIB and pulled up the wooden flooring planks by the engines to expose the fuel-tank cap. It was locked, just like on a car. The two 115s had motorcycle-type locks securing them to the boat.

  I checked the centre console, which was basically a steering wheel with a Perspex shield in front to protect you from the wind and water. There were no keys tucked away inside, and no compass or sat nav either – just an empty cradle.