by Andy McNab
The check of the frame revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Mick dropped to his knees, where a five-centimetre lip on the bottom of the shutter formed the seal along the concrete floor. Protruding through a hole in the centre of the lip was a steel hoop, set into the floor. A padlock was securely fixed around the hoop.
Mick examined the padlock for talcum powder, or grease. If it was disturbed in any way, Watts would know for certain that someone had tampered with it. But there was nothing. Finally Mick studied the position of the lock; when the job was over it needed to be replaced in exactly the same way. They were dealing with a man just as expert as they were.
Mick had carried out a locks recce the previous night. He placed the Maglite in his mouth and, leaning closer to cut down the spill of light, felt in the back pocket of his jeans for the two thin picks he knew would free the shutter.
The dog was still barking, and from a house not too distant came the sounds of a man and woman arguing furiously. Maybe it was their dog and neither of them wanted to get out of bed to shut the thing up. The dog seemed to join in the row, barking even louder.
Mick ignored the noise; his job was to open the shutter. If there was a problem Fran would tap him on the shoulder and walk away. He would then get up and make off in the opposite direction.
The lock was easily defeated. Slowly but firmly Mick pulled up the shutter until he could lie on the ground and check inside with his torch. He concentrated on the concrete floor, looking for sand or oil that would give away their presence once they stepped inside. Even discarded rubbish or sheets of newspaper could have been placed strategically for an intruder to disturb. But again, there was nothing.
Mick pushed the shutter up a little further and slid into the garage. He placed the padlock in a pocket as Fran followed him through and then gently and noiselessly pushed the shutter back down into position.
It was a critical moment. For all they knew there could have been security cameras or a motion detector rigged in the garage. It was a risk they had to take and they would find out soon enough if they had been caught. Whatever happened, the mission had to be completed: Watts and the boy had to die. Fran had been very clear when giving her final instructions to the team. ‘We deal with any problem as the situation dictates.’
For the moment it appeared as though luck was with them. There were no sounds of movement from inside the house; all they could hear was the muffled sound of the dog barking.
Their torchlight bounced around in the darkness, picking out little in the confined space apart from the pick-up truck. Fran kept her light on the front of the vehicle and tapped Mick on the shoulder. He slowly got to his feet and she hit her radio pressel twice, sending only two hisses of air to the team to signify that they were in. It was quicker that way. And silent.
A Cockney voice came back to them in their earpieces.
‘That you two in the garage?’
The Londoner heard two more hisses of air as an affirmative and was on the move.
‘That’s me foxtrot, then.’
He was shifting from the rear of the house to a position at the front so that he had eyes on the garage.
Inside, Mick began feeling behind the front bumper of the Toyota and quickly found what he was searching for: a twenty-centimetre-square dust-covered metal box – a tracking device. For the past five days, until the battery finally ran down, it had sent out a constant stream of electronic beeps, one every two seconds. The device had been planted by the new members of the team. They had done their job well; young Londoners posing as builders, gradually befriending Fergus and Danny at the tea bar. Chatting casually, gaining their confidence while reporting back to London daily. And when the order to take action was given, Paul and Benny were ready.
It had been simple. Benny sipped tea and talked while Paul casually walked off with his mobile, apparently in deep conversation with his girlfriend. Planting the device took just seconds.
‘Benny’s in position, still clear.’
Fran double clicked as she knelt down, put her torch in her mouth and pulled back the lid of the Tupperware box to reveal the IED. The twelve-volt battery had wires from both terminals connected to the two wires from the detonator – an aluminium tube the size of half a cigarette. It was pushed into five kilos of Semtex high explosive.
All that prevented the electric current from working its way along the wires and initiating the detonator was a thin sliver of cardboard. One wire from the battery had been cut through and the two ends wound around two drawing pins. The point of each pin was pushed into a prong of a wooden clothes peg, with just the sliver of cardboard keeping the pinheads apart. For now. Once the cardboard was pulled free the pinheads would snap together, the circuit would be completed and bang. Big bang.
The IED was the same as those used by suicide bombers around the world; the only difference was that instead of being in a box they were usually packed into a fishing vest and worn under a coat. A length of string or fishing line would be fixed to the cardboard and fed through a coat sleeve into the bomber’s hand, ready to be pulled at the vital moment.
The team had watched Fergus and Danny for the past four days. Every morning Fergus locked the front door with Danny beside him. Danny would wait as his grandfather unlocked the padlock and lifted the garage shutter. Then came the highlight of Danny’s day: he was allowed to drive the wagon out of the garage and across to the opposite side of the road while Fergus pulled down the shutter and locked up.
This was Fran’s chosen killing ground. She had enjoyed planning this operation, channelling her targets to their deaths, using their own repeated patterns of movement. In his final moment Fergus Watts would open the shutter, pulling the fishing line attached to the sliver of cardboard.
Fran carefully picked up the small fishing hook tied to the free end of the line curled inside the box. Slowly she fed the hook through a hole burned through one side of the box, her eyes never leaving the cardboard attached to the other end of the line.
As the hook poked through the hole, Fran Slowly pulled it away from the box, allowing the line to rest on the ground. Then she placed the open top of the device against the steel shutters. The magnets clicked gently, fixing the box in the centre of the shutter at about knee height.
Fran breathed deeply, glanced at the watching Mick and then hit her pressel.
‘Ready to come out.’
Outside in the darkness, Benny checked both directions. There were no signs of movement and even the barking dog had finally fallen silent.
‘Clear this end. Paul?’
Paul was in a vehicle parked in the street behind the house.
‘Paul’s clear.’
Fran double clicked and kept the fishing line still while Mick slowly lifted the shutter just enough for them to roll out into the street. Mick got to his feet but Fran stayed on the ground, winding the free line around the steel hoop concreted into the ground until there was just a little slack left. She placed the hook round the line leading up to the IED; the shutter only needed to be raised another ten centimetres for the line to tighten and pull the cardboard free.
But that was for the morning. Fran moved clear and Mick gently pushed down the shutter and replaced the padlock, ensuring it was in exactly the same position as before.
Job done, they walked away in separate directions. They would meet up again soon and return to the self-catering holiday apartment they had booked as cover. Fran smiled as she moved noiselessly down the street. Job well done: she deserved a holiday after that.
6
Fergus and Danny were still barely speaking when they emerged from the house the following morning.
Danny was first out, and as Fergus began to turn the first of the three locks that secured the front door, his grandson pulled his own set of keys from his jeans pocket. Every day it was the same monotonous routine – it was driving Danny insane. Well, today would be different: he would unlock the shutter. His grandfather would moan and grumble and give him an
other lecture about sticking to SOPs, but Danny was in the mood for a fight.
He squatted down, stuck the key into the padlock and looked up, expecting a shout, but Fergus was still concentrating on securing the front door. Danny grinned and turned the key in the padlock. It sprang open and he unhooked it from the steel hoop.
Fergus heard the metallic scraping noise and turned to see Danny squatting with both hands on the lip of the shutter. Instantly he knew it had been opened since locking up the previous night.
‘No!’ he yelled, and as Danny started to straighten and the shutter began to rise, his grandfather dived at him. He crashed into Danny’s thighs and they both went sprawling to the ground.
Danny lay on the pavement, gasping and winded, as Fergus crawled on top of him, pinning him to the ground, waiting for the explosion.
It didn’t come.
As Fergus looked at the shutter, now raised to just below knee height, Danny turned his head and saw the fishing line fixed to the steel hoop. He’d learned enough over the past few months to know it meant mortal danger.
‘Get to the ERV,’ hissed Fergus. ‘Now!’
It was no time to argue. As soon as Fergus rolled away, Danny sprang to his feet and ran.
Fergus crawled over to the shutter, knowing only too well what was clamped to the inside. He knew too that none of the team responsible for planting it would still be in the area. They were long gone.
Fergus pulled out his Leatherman and carefully cut through the fishing line before lying down on his back and moving his head and shoulders under the shutter. Slowly he raised his hands and gently pulled the IED free. He rolled onto one side and cut the two leads attached to the battery before removing it and throwing it into the garage. The IED was safe now there was no power to initiate the detonator.
Fergus crawled all the way into the garage, then stood up with the Tupperware box in both hands and stared at the plastic explosive. It might come in useful some day.
The ERV brought back bad memories for Danny. Memories of a ramshackle, tumbledown, deserted barn in remote Norfolk.
The barn had been the last ERV where Danny had waited for Fergus. On that occasion Fergus didn’t show, but Danny hadn’t been alone during those six long hours. He’d had an overweight, middle-aged freelance reporter by the name of Eddie Moyes for company.
Eddie had been trailing Danny and Fergus, on the hunt for a world exclusive story about an on-the-run ex-SAS soldier, convinced it would get him back where he belonged: in the big time.
And after Fergus’s capture Danny, with Elena’s assistance, had talked Eddie into helping them in their attempt to rescue his grandfather. Eddie had reluctantly agreed; he couldn’t bear the thought of losing his exclusive – or of the two teenagers walking into unknown and terrible danger.
So he’d helped, against his better judgement. ‘I’m a coward,’ he told them. ‘If it starts to go wrong you won’t see my arse for dust.’
Eddie had played a massive part in the rescue; if it hadn’t been for him they would never have got away. But it was the last thing he ever did. Danny had watched helplessly as one of George Fincham’s team put two bullets into the back of his head.
Danny was thinking of Eddie as he waited at the ERV. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought about him recently. He dreamed about him often – always the same dream, a nightmare in full colour.
Eddie is running from the gunman and Danny is running towards him, trying to save him but knowing it’s hopeless, getting closer and closer as the pistol slowly rises in the gunman’s hand.
He hears Eddie shout, ‘Danny, help me! Please, help me!’
And just as Danny reaches out to grab Eddie and pull him away, the pistol roars, and with his eyes wide in horror and staring accusingly at Danny, the reporter sinks slowly to the ground.
The dream never changed and Danny didn’t think he would ever get over the guilt he felt for Eddie’s death.
‘You deal with it,’ his grandfather had told him many times. ‘You have to – you just deal with it.’
But Danny wasn’t like his grandfather, and after six months he still wasn’t dealing with it.
The ERV was about a kilometre from the house. Fergus and Danny had gone searching for a suitable place soon after moving in. A copse of scrubby trees and bushes stood at the top of a rise in a succession of stony fields. Many years earlier there might have been rows of olives – a few withered survivors were dotted here and there, but mostly the landscape was barren and bare.
From one side of the copse there was a good view down towards the town; on the other the fields slipped away to a dried-up river bed. On the far side there were more trees and bushes and then a quiet road offering an alternative escape route. Good reasons for choosing the spot as the ERV. The middle of the copse was dense and here it was possible to remain unseen while watching for anyone approaching from any direction: another plus point – and the fact that no one ever appeared to go there made it even more appealing.
Once Fergus had settled on the copse as the ERV they had spent the next two nights bringing in and concealing escape kits. Tinned food and bottled water had been stashed in day sacks, which were in turn placed in heavy-duty black plastic bags. Fresh clothes and a wad of cash were put into another black sack and the whole lot was buried just below the surface of the dry earth. The freshly dug soil was covered with leaf litter and a couple of fallen branches and the exact location marked with a large and distinct stone carried in from the field. By the time they finished it looked as though no one had been there for years.
After the drama outside the house Danny had virtually sprinted all the way to the ERV without once looking back. He arrived breathless but not panicking. They had talked about this eventuality many times and Danny knew what was expected of him.
He stayed calm, reckoning his grandfather must be OK. Danny was pretty certain that the fishing line he’d seen hanging from the shutter had led to some sort of explosive device, but there had been no explosion.
What he couldn’t work out was how Fergus had known the device was there. But there was plenty to do while he thought about it. Quickly he removed the branches and leaf litter, and using his bare hands he dug into the loose soil and uncovered the black plastic bags. He took everything from the bags and then filled in the hole and replaced the leaves and branches so that the area once again looked undisturbed.
And then he sat down to wait. Six hours – that was the agreed time. He would wait for Fergus for six hours, not a second less. Danny might have moaned about his grandfather’s endless lectures, but now they were back in a conflict situation he was determined to follow orders and stick to SOPs.
So he waited and watched, and the thoughts of Eddie Moyes began to return.
7
A Boeing 747 came lumbering down through the low cloud, engines whining and screaming as it made its approach to London’s Heathrow Airport.
Marcie Deveraux was waiting by the fire escape on the third floor of Terminal Three’s short-stay car park. The noise of the next arriving jumbo began to build and Deveraux turned and saw the brake lights of a Volvo estate flash on as the driver realized he wasn’t going to make the turn down the ramp without scratching his expensive paintwork. Brake lights switched to reversing lights. The vehicle pulled back, gears crunched and then the Volvo shot forward down the ramp. Deveraux had remained out of sight, but it wasn’t to save the driver’s blushes. She didn’t want to be seen by anyone. She punched in a number on her Xda and put it to her ear. The call was answered quickly. ‘All clear,’ she said.
Less than a minute later a dark green Chrysler Voyager with a tinted windscreen and blacked-out windows came gliding down from the floor above. This driver knew what he was doing. The MPV stopped and a side door slid back as Deveraux stepped out from the shadows. She got in and closed the door, and as soon as she was seated the vehicle pulled smoothly away and headed down the ramps.
Dudley was in the seat next to Deveraux, still bun
dled up in his overcoat, despite the fact that the heating inside the vehicle seemed to be going at full blast.
‘I can’t pretend to be particularly impressed with Fincham’s team,’ said Dudley. ‘Missed Watts again, I hear – it’s getting to be a habit.’
‘The team is good, sir,’ replied Deveraux, ‘but so is Watts.’
The vehicle cleared the car park and Dudley stared out of the window. ‘And I was under the impression he was just a middle-aged man with a limp.’ He turned to Deveraux. ‘Where are they now?’
Deveraux took a deep breath. ‘We don’t know, sir.’
Dudley sighed. ‘Why does that not surprise me either?’
‘The hit should have taken place three hours ago, sir. When there were no reports of an incident, the team went back to check it out. The house was deserted but the vehicle was still there.’
‘Obviously. As you keep stressing, the man is good – he wouldn’t be stupid enough to use the vehicle again. And what are your plans now?’
‘Fincham is seething, sir. He’s told the team leader that if she doesn’t want to find herself working as a traffic warden she needs to complete the job within three days.’
‘I said your plans, Marcie. Tell me what you want to do.’
The vehicle braked suddenly as the traffic ahead snarled to a standstill. Dudley leaned forward to see what was causing the hold-up. There didn’t appear to be any obvious problem, although in the distance a police siren began to sound.
‘Well?’ said Dudley, turning to look at Deveraux.
‘I want to get to them first. And I have a way. I want to bring them back to finish this. I’ll find out who else knows about Fincham’s corruption and I’ll get Fincham and his fifteen million.’
Dudley stared at Deveraux for a long moment before he spoke again. ‘Our fifteen million, Marcie.’
‘Our fifteen million, sir.’
Dudley glanced out through the window again and spoke softly. ‘You’re a very ambitious young woman, Marcie. I admire that, and the ruthless streak; both necessary qualities in one aiming for the top.’
