by Andy McNab
Originally Fergus had intended to go into the pub close to Northwood Hills tube station, which he knew was popular with RAF personnel from the camp. His plan had been to get chatting with some of the RAF guys and then lift one of their passes, which would then go out to Elena, who would swipe the details. It was risky and dangerous, but no more so than every other element of the hastily conceived operation.
But once Fergus realized that he could no more fly to the moon than walk casually into the pub and stand chatting as he waited for exactly the right moment, he’d had no option but to turn to Joey for help once again. He didn’t like it, but there was no other way, and he felt slightly better when Joey laughed and told him that it wouldn’t be the first time he’d picked a pocket. Not by a long shot.
Now, after watching the camcorder footage and seeing for himself the full dangers awaiting his grandson, Fergus was reassessing the whole plan. Ultimately the final decision on the go-ahead was still his. It all went completely against the maxim which he had followed since his first days in the Regiment: the famous seven Ps – Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Piss Poor? This plan wasn’t even that good. It was fucking crazy. But it was all they had, and as the nagging, constant pain seared through his leg, making him want to scream in agony, he knew that Danny was right. He wouldn’t last long enough to come up with a Plan B. It was now or never.
Slowly Fergus nodded and then spoke quietly. ‘All right, we go tonight.’ He looked at Danny. ‘If Joey gets the pass.’
Joey stood up, wandered over to the window and stared out through the bars. ‘Oh, I’ll get you your pass. I’ve had more than enough of being cooped up in this place. I need to spend some time with the lovely Joyce.’
37
It was raining. Just a light drizzle, but enough to dampen Danny’s spirits as he leaned against the back wall of the pub and waited for Joey to complete the first part of the operation.
Danny felt uneasy. He could depend on his grandfather and Elena completely. He would trust either of them with his life. But Joey? Unpredictable, unreliable Joey? Even the thought of it was scary.
The strange thing was that ever since they’d driven away from the industrial unit, leaving Fergus to wait and worry alone, Joey had seemed to find a new confidence and sense of purpose. Maybe it was because he was at last doing something familiar; something he felt he was in control of. Or perhaps it was just that he was looking forward to getting the job done and re-establishing his relationship with Joyce.
Joey’s greatest skill was his ability to mix and get on with people. He could be anyone and everyone’s friend, and with the cash that Elena had provided in his pocket he intended to make a few very good friends tonight. So long as they were in the RAF.
He parked the car and told Danny and Elena that it might take a little while and that Danny should wait by the small frosted window at the back of the pub. On his recce earlier Joey had discovered that the window in the gents toilet could be opened. He would lift the security card and then pass it out to Danny. Elena was waiting in the car on the far side of the car park with her laptop powered up waiting to swipe the card and burn a copy.
Everything depended on Joey, and as Danny stood in the drizzle his thoughts drifted back to another apparently unreliable character he had depended on once before – Eddie Moyes.
Danny hadn’t dreamed or even thought about Eddie in a while – too much had been happening – but as the raindrops dripped from the peak of his baseball bat, the nightmarish vision of his dream returned.
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; always the same words: ‘Danny, help me! Please, help me!’ He hears the words again. ‘Danny, help me! Please, help me!’
And then suddenly the words are different. This is new, strange, bewildering; even the sound of the voice has changed. It’s still urgent, but not desperate, and the words are not shouted, but hissed in a loud whisper. ‘Hey, come on, Danny, help me out here. Danny!’
Danny shook his head to free himself from the confusion of the dream.
‘Danny, what’s wrong with you?’
It was then that Danny became aware of the hand dangling from the window just above his head. Joey was glaring out at him. ‘Come on, take this card. We ain’t got all night.’
The thoughts of bad dreams and Eddie Moyes were instantly thrust from Danny’s mind. He reached up and grabbed the security pass. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Sure, no problem. But I can’t hang around in here too long – my friends back in the bar are waiting to hear another fascinating episode from my life story.’
Danny went running across the car park to the hire car. He jumped inside and gave Elena the security pass. She swiped it through the reader and the details instantly appeared on her laptop screen.
87492820187633537840NH92826 2980
Elena pointed at the screen as she handed Danny a pen. ‘The last four figures – it’s the pin number. You’ll need it, so write it down.’
As Danny wrote the numbers on his hand, Elena tapped the figures into her computer in preparation for burning the security pass details onto her own Halifax bank card. She needed to keep the security pass for a little longer just in case the burn didn’t work and she had to start again.
Danny was impatient to get the pass back to Joey before its owner discovered it had been taken. ‘Come on, Elena, we haven’t got all night.’
Elena didn’t reply or even look away from the screen. She continued with the job calmly and carefully, concentrating on getting it right first time. Once she hit the burn icon, her own card would be gone for ever as the details were erased. That was why she had withdrawn the maximum she could take out in any one day from a cash point on the way to the pub.
The card was ready to be burned. Elena hit the burn icon and swiped her Halifax card. Twice. Once to erase her details and then again to burn the security pass details.
She smiled. ‘It’s done. Now go, go!’
Danny leaped from the car and ran back to the window, where Joey was still waiting. He snatched the security pass from Danny. ‘All done?’
‘Yeah, we’ll be waiting in the car. Quick as you can, eh?’
‘Sure. But I got to pick my moment to get this pass back where it belongs. And I do believe it’s my round.’
Marcie Deveraux had spent a highly frustrating day and her evening had been little better. She hadn’t appreciated receiving Elena’s brief, insolent e-mail, and with Fincham becoming increasingly twitchy she knew that the time Dudley would allow her to complete her mission was running short,
She was in a foul mood as she walked towards her very exclusive members club for a late supper. The discreet ringtone of her Xda sounded and she answered the call with a bark, reminiscent of Fincham’s telephone manner. ‘Yes?’
Curly was sitting in front of the monitor in the Pimlico safe house, and if he noticed Deveraux’s impatient and aggressive tone, it didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was about to make her day. ‘We’ve found the money! We know who the broker is! Fincham called him again to say he’d take whatever money he could. He’s going over to get it, on the morning flight to Moscow, eight-thirty. We picked up everything: the conversation, the broker’s number, the lot. It means you can get the money back, and I reckon I should be in line for a decent Christmas bonus.’
Curly had every reason to feel proud of his achievement. After Fincham’s first call to his mysterious broker, he had programmed the numbers he had used to identify himself into the Firm’s satellite ECHELON computer system. It meant that within seconds of Fincham giving his pass numbers again, they had been recognized and identified and Curly and Beanie were locked onto the call to Moscow.
‘You’ve done well,’ said Deveraux. ‘I’ll make sure it’s mentioned.’
‘Yeah, he thought
he’d be safe using another new pay-as-you-go mobile, but I got him. And that’s not all – Fincham also called Northwood, said he needs to check some files. Maybe he wants to see if there’s anything on the mainframe that could help trace him after he does a runner in the morning.’
‘What’s he doing now?’
‘Going though his papers, destroying stuff.’
‘That won’t save him. Let me know when it looks as though he’s ready to leave.’
Deveraux ended the call and opened her e-mail, and as the club concierge opened the wide glass doors and she swept into the building, she re-read Elena’s old message.
All alive and safe.
Deveraux smiled. The end of the operation was close now; so close she couldn’t stop herself from laughing. She had figured all along that Fergus Watts was the key to flushing out Fincham and recovering the money. And he was. In his panic to avoid exposure, Fincham had made a fatal error.
The money would easily be recovered now. Deveraux would phone Dudley and tell him that a team should be sent to Moscow to read the broker his horoscope and terrify him into handing over the cash. With full interest. Then, of course, he would meet with an unfortunate accident.
Fincham could be taken at any time before making his bolt for the airport, and Watts, Danny and Elena could be brought in. Deveraux would e-mail Elena that Watts was in the clear now that Fincham had implicated himself. All they had to do was turn themselves in, and after a debriefing they would be free to get on with their lives. Just as she had promised.
Deveraux had until 8.30 a.m. to catch up with Fincham. She would allow him to go into Northwood. She knew exactly what he was planning, but it would all be in vain. He wouldn’t get to SECRET: ULTRA, where the real information on him was stored. Only the heads of the two intelligence services and the Prime Minister knew the access codes. Each had his own code; no one had all three.
Deveraux walked into the club’s softly lit restaurant and dialled Dudley’s number. She was looking forward to her meal.
It was almost closing time, and Danny and Elena were still waiting for Joey to emerge from the pub.
Danny was desperate to get on with the mission, but to do that Joey had to drive him up to the camp and Elena back to the industrial unit. After watching the camcorder footage again, Fergus had picked what appeared to be the two best places to climb over the fence. Danny had an old blanket resting on his knees, which he would sling over the razor wire.
Once over – if he got over – there were CCTV cameras, the guards and the dogs to worry about, before he even got near a computer and the information he would be searching for. In his pocket was a CD containing the script Elena had downloaded from Black Star, which had to be fed into a Northwood computer while Elena linked up with the mysterious Deep Web surfer so that they could make their combined assault on the mainframe.
But none of this could even begin until Joey came out of the pub.
‘I told you he’d let us down in the end,’ said Elena, sensing Danny’s growing anger. ‘He always does. I warned you.’
‘Maybe he got caught trying to put the swipe card back in the bloke’s pocket.’
‘No way. If that had happened we’d have heard a police car by now, or he’d have been thrown out. He’s in there getting drunk, or chatting up some woman.’
The light drizzle had petered out, and Danny and Elena’s conversation did likewise. They were both anxious to get on, but afraid of what the long night could bring. And sitting, waiting and wondering just made it worse.
The sound of shouted farewells and laughter drifted through the still night from the front of the pub and then Joey came strolling casually round the side of the building towards them.
Danny and Elena got out of the car to meet him and saw that he was smiling broadly.
‘What the hell have you been doing?’ said Elena angrily.
‘Networking, darling,’ answered the beaming Joey. ‘That’s what I do best.’
‘You stink of drink!’
‘Well, of course I do. I made a lot of friends in there.’
‘I knew we could never depend on you!’
Joey took a single silver key from his pocket and held it out towards his daughter. ‘Depend on me? Sure you can depend on me, darling. You see that truck over there?’
Elena and Danny followed Joey’s gaze to a silver Warrior truck, which had an aluminium top fitted to the cargo area at the back.
‘What about it?’
‘Well, that vehicle belongs to my new friend Richie. And he’ll be heading back to the camp very soon, as he’s tonight’s driver.’ He turned to Danny. ‘You want a ride, Danny? I reckon it’s a lot better than climbing that wire fence. You might cut yourself.’
They rushed over to the Warrior and Joey quickly unlocked the top.
‘How did you get the key?’ asked Danny.
Joey shrugged. ‘Just took it off his key ring. Don’t worry, he’s got plenty more on there, and I don’t imagine he’ll be thinking of opening this up tonight, anyway. He’s got three friends with him, and they’ll all be riding up front in the cab. You got this all to yourself, Danny.’
Elena was looking shamefaced. ‘Dad, I’m sorry.’
‘Forget it, honey. I never did like the idea of Danny climbing that fence, and when Richie started boasting about his wonderful Warrior, this seemed to be the answer.’ He held up the cover and looked at Danny. ‘Your carriage awaits, sir.’ He pointed to a small metal ring on the lock. ‘That’s there so that anyone locked inside can get out. You just pull it and the top pops up. Now, you’d better hurry – they were finishing their drinks when I came out.’
Danny was about to clamber into the truck when Elena grabbed his arm. As he turned back to her, she quickly kissed him on the cheek. ‘Take care. Please.’
A few minutes later the Warrior, complete with four loud and laughing RAF men up front and one silent teenager hidden in the cargo area, pulled away from the pub car park. Joey and Elena were sitting low in the front seats of the hire car, watching the truck as it moved quickly up the road.
Joey turned to Elena. ‘I thought you told me you two were just friends…’
38
It was cold in the back of the Warrior. And damp. And uncomfortable. But Danny found some small comfort in knowing that it would be just a short ride.
As the vehicle bumped over tarmac, he pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. Fergus still had Elena’s phone and it was up to Danny to let his grandfather know about the change of plan. As always, Fergus insisted on being brought up to speed with every move.
Danny thought about sending a text, but the ride in the cargo hold was so bumpy there was no way he could hit the right buttons. So he found the number and Fergus answered instantly. ‘Yes.’
‘Change of plan. Found a new way into the Obvious. It’s better. Others will explain when they get back.’
He hung up. Danny had given his grandfather all the information he needed at that stage. He had carried out his orders, including his reference to ‘the Obvious’, which was the name they had given to Northwood. To Northwood and more.
Just before Danny, Elena and Joey had left the unit, Fergus asked them, ‘So, where’s Danny going tonight?’
All three stared at him, puzzled, before Elena said, ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? He’s going to Northwood.’
‘Exactly,’ replied Fergus. ‘But we don’t want to advertise that to anyone, in any way. So if we talk about it, it’s not Northwood, it’s the Obvious. And that’s a transferable phrase.’
‘A what?’ said Joey.
‘It can apply to anything we want it to. So if Danny gets the information we want, what has he got?’
Joey was looking more perplexed than ever, but Elena smiled. ‘Yeah, I see. It’s the Obvious.’
Fergus nodded. ‘Good.’
Joey sighed and walked towards the stairs.
‘You got it too, Joey?’ called Fergus.
‘Well, obviously,�
� answered Joey without looking back.
There was just one other diner in the restaurant: an elderly military type, who was sitting with both hands cupped around a brandy glass.
As Deveraux toyed with her dessert, she couldn’t help hearing the exchange between the waiter and the ancient club member as the bill was presented. ‘Was everything to your satisfaction, Colonel?’
‘As always, Simon. Quiet in here tonight.’
The waiter shrugged. ‘The bombings, Colonel.’
The colonel grunted with disdain. ‘Despicable. They won’t keep me away. If Hitler and his lot couldn’t do it, I’m dammed if a bunch of cowardly terrorists will!’
Deveraux went back to her food. She rarely ate a dessert. She was naturally lithe and athletic, supremely fit both physically and mentally, and she was determined to stay that way. Stodgy food could lead to a stodgy mind, and Deveraux’s mind was always stiletto-sharp.
But tonight she was celebrating the approaching end of a long and difficult mission with a very small portion of the chef’s speciality, Belgian chocolate pudding. There wasn’t much – five small forkfuls – and as she rested her fork on the side of the plate, the colonel’s anger reminded her that the life she led meant there always would be another mission. Another battle to be won.
Deveraux’s Xda, which sat on the pristine white tablecloth, began to vibrate; she had switched it to silent mode out of respect for her fellow diner, but even so she saw the colonel look up from his brandy glass and scowl.
She wiped her lips with the cotton napkin and spoke softly as she answered the call. ‘Yes?’
‘You wanted to know when Fincham moved. He’s just left his flat with one small suitcase. Next stop Northwood, I guess.’
‘Thank you.’
She ended the call. The colonel was glaring at her; he was doubtless one of the ‘those new-fangled telephone contraptions should be banned from the club’ brigade. Deveraux smiled a conciliatory smile just as the waiter arrived at her table.
