Payback bs-2

by Andy McNab

  ‘Yeah. Like you.’

  ‘Let me come – I helped you before, I can do it again. Your dad’s always here for you, darling.’

  ‘No, Dad, no way. No, no, no!’

  30

  Considering everything that had happened to him in the past twenty-four hours, Danny didn’t look too bad, as long as no one studied him closely. He had washed his hands, arms, face and hair in an icy-cold Welsh mountain stream and had Kev’s Barbour done up over his own clothes to cover the dried bloodstains. The?60 in notes had also had a wash and was now drying in Danny’s underpants, next to his skin. Fergus had told him that was the way he used to dry his socks when out in the field.

  Danny was waiting across the road from the car park cafe, standing in the doorway of a closed down antiques shop. From there he had a good view of everyone leaving the station. He was feeling weary after a seven-mile tab to Brecon, where he had caught the bus for the forty-five-minute journey to Abergavenny.

  He took the mobile from a pocket in the Barbour and re-read the text he had received a few minutes earlier: b there in 10

  He was looking forward to seeing Elena, even though their meeting would have to be brief. At least they would have the time it took to go to the superstore he had spotted to buy some new clothes, food and drink, and the bandages, painkillers and antiseptic needed to treat the GSW. And at least they would be alone.

  Danny glanced down the road in the direction of the station. The train must have arrived, as a number of people were walking up towards the car park. Elena was easy to spot – there were not many black faces in that part of Wales. But Danny waited, wanting to be certain that she was not being followed. He watched her walk to the cafe and go inside and then looked carefully at the other pedestrians. It seemed fine: no one hovered by the door, or stopped and waited a few metres further up the road. But still Danny waited. After a few minutes Elena came out with two mugs of tea and sat down on one of the wooden benches outside the cafe. Danny had one more check in both directions and then crossed the road to meet her.

  He sat opposite her on the bench. ‘Journey OK?’

  ‘Yeah, no problem.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘Danny, I need to-’

  ‘I could really do with this.’ Danny wrapped both hands around the closest mug, lifted it to his lips and took a sip. He grimaced. ‘No sugar.’

  ‘That’s not yours.’

  ‘Oh, right. You given up sugar then?’ He reached for the other mug.

  ‘Danny, listen-’ Elena didn’t get any further. She looked to her left and then raised her eyes to the heavens. ‘Oh, no.’

  Danny turned and saw the man approaching, a man he remembered only too well.

  ‘Hello, Danny. Nice to see you again, son.’

  ‘Dad, I told you to wait,’ said Elena, standing up. ‘I wanted to talk to Danny.’

  ‘I did wait, darling. But I’m desperate for that cup of tea. You two lovebirds take a little walk while I sit here.’

  Joey reached for the mug Danny had been holding a few seconds earlier and took a long swig. ‘Mmm, there’s nothing like a proper British cup of tea.’

  The way Danny glared at Elena made words unnecessary. He gestured for her to follow him and they walked off, leaving Joey to his tea.

  Danny was almost speechless with fury. Almost. ‘What the hell is he doing here? Does he know what’s happened? I can’t believe you brought him!’

  ‘I didn’t have a choice,’ snapped Elena. ‘And if you’ll listen for a minute instead of shouting, I’ll explain.’

  Danny tried to stay calm as she told him what had happened outside Foxcroft:’… and he’s got no money, Danny, and he shouldn’t be in the country. He’s more of a danger running around on his own than if he’s with us. If that woman finds him, she’ll-’

  ‘Us? What d’you mean us? You’re not staying with us.’

  ‘I am, Danny. For tonight at least.’

  ‘Elena-’

  ‘Where’s your granddad?’

  ‘Miles away. I had to leave him.’

  ‘And how are you planning on getting back?’

  ‘I dunno. I could maybe get a taxi after we’ve bought all the stuff we need.’

  ‘We’ve got a car.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We hired it in London – it was quicker than getting the train, specially on a Sunday. It’s in the car park.’

  Danny had been trying to figure out how he was going to explain to a taxi driver that he wanted to be dropped in a lay-by with a whole load of shopping. ‘Yes, but-’

  ‘You need me, Danny. And my dad can be useful. We don’t have to tell him what’s going on.’

  Danny nodded. Nothing with Elena was ever simple.

  ‘Let’s go and buy what you need,’ she said. ‘Dad’s all right for a while – I’ve given him some cash.’

  They walked off in the direction of the superstore.

  ‘My granddad will go mental.’

  31

  ‘I seem to remember being in a situation like this once before, darling,’ said Joey, taking a drag on one of his favourite foul-smelling cigars and blowing the smoke out through the hire car’s window towards the brooding mass of Pen y Fan.

  Dark clouds were gathering over the mountain and the fir trees were swaying and rustling. The rising wind swept the first drops of rain and most of Joey’s cigar smoke back into the car. Joey ignored it. ‘Last time, we went to meet Danny’s dad; now it’s his grandfather. Any more members of the family lurking out there in the mountains?’

  ‘No,’ said Elena, staring into the trees and wondering why Danny was taking so long.

  ‘Mmmm. And how is the vicar, anyway?’

  Elena turned and stared at her dad. ‘Who?’

  ‘You told me Danny’s dad was a vicar, moving to a new parish or something. So who’s his granddad – the bishop?’

  Joey was feeling a whole lot better. Being needed was good for his battered ego, and his old swagger and confidence was returning by the minute. But however much his ego had suffered, his memory appeared to have survived intact. What he said was absolutely true. Elena had invented a spur-of-the-moment story about Danny’s dad being a vicar when she’d bribed Joey into driving her to Norfolk six months earlier, just before Fergus’s rescue. The man Joey had met was the journalist Eddie Moyes, who’d been dumbfounded when this stranger started calling him Reverend.

  ‘Actually, Dad, the man you met wasn’t Danny’s dad, and he wasn’t a vicar.’

  ‘No? You don’t say.’ Joey was starting to enjoy himself. ‘Listen, darling, you’re a wonderful daughter and I’m real proud of you, but you shouldn’t tell lies to your old dad. Haven’t I taught you to always be honest and truthful?’

  It was more than Elena could take. ‘Eddie’s dead! And he was a good bloke! And don’t you dare start talking to me about telling lies!’

  Joey took another puff at his cigar and threw the stub out of the window. ‘I’m sorry, babe,’ he said softly. ‘Look, don’t you think you ought to tell me exactly what’s going on?’

  ‘Probably. But I can’t. We have to wait and see what Fergus says.’

  ‘And this Fergus, he’s Danny’s real granddad?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, I reckon the boy should be ashamed of himself.’

  Elena stared at her dad. ‘Ashamed? Why?’

  ‘Bringing an old man into this wild countryside and allowing him to fall and injure his leg. It’s not right. He should be at home, watching the television, putting his feet up, taking it easy.’

  Elena smiled. ‘He’s not that sort of granddad.’

  ‘No? So what sort of granddad is he then?’

  ‘Well he’s… he’s fit and strong usually, and he’s… Oh, I don’t know, you’ll see for yourself when you meet him.’

  ‘When,’ said Joey with a sigh. ‘What’s keeping them?’

  What was keeping them was that Danny was having to re-dress his grandfa
ther’s wounds, as well as trying to explain exactly why he’d turned up with reinforcements.

  Fergus took the news a lot better than Danny had expected, partly because the loss of blood made him too weak to put up much of a protest. But he could also see the logic of having someone, even someone as unreliable as Joey, driving them back to London. It would be a lot less complicated than struggling with buses and trains.

  Danny had managed to locate most of the items Fergus had told him to buy, and following his grandfather’s instructions he set about patching up the leg as well as he could.

  He cut off Fergus’s jeans by running a sharp pair of scissors up the outside of each leg and then peeling back the blood-soaked denim. Next he poured a whole bottle of mild antiseptic fluid all over the makeshift sweatshirt dressings still wrapped around the leg.

  ‘Use another bottle,’ said Fergus, flinching as the liquid soaked through the material and onto the wound itself. ‘It’ll moisten everything up, and stop any flesh scabbed onto the material from ripping when you pull it off.’

  Danny took a deep breath: that was the bit he wasn’t looking forward to, but he knew it had to be done. Gently and slowly, with Fergus catching his breath and grunting in pain, Danny pulled back the pieces of sweatshirt to expose the wounds.

  It looked bad: the round had passed through the thigh but had fortunately missed the bone, leaving entry and exit wounds on the front and side of the leg. The flesh was a dull red and small pus spots were forming around the edges of both wounds. Danny stared in fascination, moving his head closer to inspect the damage, like a surgeon preparing for an operation.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ hissed Fergus. ‘Get on with it, will you!’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Danny, grabbing more of the antiseptic fluid and a roll of cotton wool. Tentatively he cleaned away the dried blood and grass and mud stuck to the skin. But it was hurting Fergus a lot, and Danny decided that talking might at least help take his grandfather’s mind off the pain.

  ‘Me and Elena have a plan.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ said Fergus, picking up on Danny’s line of thought. ‘So tell me about it.’ At that precise moment he didn’t care what Danny had to say – anything that distracted his brain from the gnawing agony would help.

  ‘Joey gets us back to London, drops us off at a hotel or B and B – anywhere we can get you in without drawing too much attention to ourselves. Elena’s gonna try to contact someone on the Deep Web, like she did before. Maybe some real hacker will have a program that can get us into the Northwood mainframe. And if there’s proof there about you being a K, she downloads it onto her PC. Then we’ve got it. For good.’

  Beads of sweat were standing out on Fergus’s brow. He let his head fall back so that the raindrops dripping from the firs could fall onto his face. And while the rain soothed his brow he focused on what Danny had said and attempted to concentrate on the bigger, fuller plan that had to be formed and fixed.

  Danny worked slowly. His grandfather’s biggest worry was that without antibiotics to fight off infection, the wounds could go septic. Once Fergus was satisfied the flesh was clean, he talked Danny through the process of placing gauze dressing over the damaged areas and then evenly wrapping 100mm bandages around the leg.

  Finally he carefully pulled on the pair of loose-fitting tracksuit bottoms that Danny had bought from the superstore, while Danny changed into his own new clothes.

  ‘I’ll stitch the wound up when we’ve got more time,’ Fergus said as Danny helped him to stand on his good leg. ‘Now let’s go meet our chauffeur.’

  He put one arm over Danny’s shoulders so that most of his weight was being taken by his grandson and then nodded that he was ready to move. ‘It’s a good plan, Danny,’ he breathed. ‘You’ve done brilliant the last couple of days.’

  Danny said nothing as they edged slowly over the damp ground. But he smiled; he wasn’t used to being praised by his grandfather.

  Elena gasped as she saw them emerge from the trees. Even from some way away she could see that Fergus looked awful. He was pale and grimacing in pain as he hobbled towards the car. He seemed to have aged ten years since the last time she had seen him. She threw open the door and rushed over to help.

  Joey was just behind her. ‘Take it easy, old timer,’ he said, grabbing Fergus’s other arm and pulling it over his own shoulder so that he and Danny could take the injured man’s full weight. ‘And don’t you worry, Grandpa, we’ll soon have you out of here.’

  Despite the pain, Fergus turned his head and glared at Joey. ‘It’s Fergus,’ he growled. ‘Just get me in the car.’

  32

  The rain was falling heavily and the windscreen wipers were going at full speed as Joey headed east from Wales into England and towards London. And Joey was doing a lot of thinking.

  His three passengers remained mostly silent for the first couple of hours, warding off their driver’s clumsy attempts at questioning them.

  They reached the motorway in darkness, with the rain bouncing off the vehicle, and at the first service area Joey pulled off the road to take a rest. He parked the car, switched off the engine and turned in his seat to face Fergus. ‘So tell me, Fergus,’ he said deliberately. ‘What exactly is going down here?’

  Fergus was ready to draw Elena’s father into his plan. ‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ he said deliberately, ensuring that Joey would want to know more. ‘Or get involved in.’

  Joey grinned. ‘But I am involved. And I know this for sure: you and Danny ain’t been climbing no mountains, and whatever’s wrong with your leg, it didn’t happen tripping over no stone.’

  Danny and Elena waited for Fergus to speak, both of them wondering what he could say that would go even part way to satisfying Joey’s curiosity.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said at last, looking directly at Joey. ‘It wasn’t an accident. I’ve been shot.’

  Danny and Elena stared; the last thing either of them had expected to hear was the truth.

  ‘I’m going to have to trust you, Joey,’ Fergus continued. ‘Can I do that?’

  Elena couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Trust him? Of course you can’t trust him. This is my dad you’re talking to!’

  Fergus managed a slight smile. He knew they were in big trouble: his wound was bad and there was no way he could just get out of the car and walk away when they reached London. They needed Joey’s help, and while Fergus had no intention of taking Elena’s untrustworthy and unreliable dad totally into his confidence, he wanted to give him the impression that he would.

  A white van pulled into a parking space a few metres away and Fergus waited until the driver got out and ran through the rain towards the lights of the service area.

  ‘You two go and get yourselves a cup of tea,’ he said to Danny and Elena. ‘I need to have a little chat with Joey.’

  For a moment Joey’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Wait a minute! You’re not carrying a gun, are you?’

  ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about, I’m completely unarmed.’ Fergus didn’t bother mentioning the PE and detonators nestling in his jacket pockets. He turned to Danny. ‘Give us a while and bring me back some tea, plenty of sugar. And some food. And watch out for the CCTV.’

  Elena grabbed her laptop bag as she got out. ‘I’d better check my e-mail, see if there’s anything from our friend. And I must call Jane to tell her I’m OK.’

  The rain was still falling heavily. Danny and Elena pulled down the baseball caps they were wearing low over their eyes and ran through the puddles towards the shop and fast food area.

  ‘He’s not really gonna trust him, is he?’ asked Elena as they reached the shelter of the buildings.

  Danny laughed. ‘My granddad doesn’t trust anyone. He must be planning to do some sort of deal.’

  Elena frowned. ‘Deals with my dad don’t usually work out too well. Come on, I’m hungry.’

  They bought tea and sandwiches and a one-hour access card for the service area’s hotz
one and took them to a quiet corner. Elena made her call to Foxcroft and then checked her e-mail; there was a brief message:

  Your friends are missing. Have they contacted you? Report.

  ‘Don’t reply,’ said Danny. ‘We’d better check with my granddad first.’

  ‘Take them some tea and sandwiches, and ask him what he wants me to do. But don’t be long.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m going into the Deep Web. Don’t want to miss it, do you?’

  Danny hurried away and Elena spoofed her ID, calling herself Gola, the name she had used on her previous journeys into the Deep Web.

  She began hitting the websites she had used before to gain access to the Intelligence Service’s internal computer system and George Fincham’s personal e-mails. That time she had been helped by a hacker using the name Black Star, who was surfing the dark corners of the Deep Web.

  Elena was good at hacking, but compared to the experts who dwelt down in the Deep Web she was still a novice, a script kiddie. She keyed in a name and hit the site where hackers receive credits for their exploits, and where Black Star had first popped up on her screen.

  Just like last time, Elena knew she would need a script written by an experienced hacker to get her past the firewalls protecting the Northwood mainframe. Just like real fire doors, firewalls are sometimes left open; if she could get through them, Northwood would be hers and she could go wherever she wanted.

  Danny came back and sat down next to Elena. ‘My granddad says don’t reply to the e-mail. How’s it going?’

  ‘Takes time, Danny,’ said Elena without looking away from the screen. ‘But at least I know the way now.’

  She bounced further down into the Deep Web, asking on the websites for any scripts that could help her. It was like being in an ever-expanding universe that seemed to stretch away into infinity.

  The sandwiches were long finished and the half-drunk tea was stone cold when a pop-up suddenly appeared on the screen.

  HELLO AGAIN GOLA. REMEMBER ME? I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU. YOU HAVEN’T BEEN HERE IN THE DARKNESS FOR QUITE A WHILE. WANNA READ WHAT BLACK STAR HAS FOR YOU? I CAN GET YOU IN THERE. Y OR N?