by Andy McNab
Fuck it. Time to cut away from that shit.
It was an uncluttered office, as I'd expected. There was a desk, the swivel chair I was sitting in, a filing cabinet, shelves containing hundreds of labelled video-cassettes and DVDs. Sudan, Darfur, Baghdad. Anywhere that had seen conflict, Pete had shot some film.
Family pictures were Blu-Tacked to the walls. A framed portrait of Dom and Pete in black tie stood on the desk. Between them they held an Emmy aloft like it was the FA Cup. Both wore huge grins as they basked in the moment, partners in crime.
I could smell perfume. Tallulah had been here very recently… as if sitting in his chair, in his room, might somehow bring him back.
Pete had said he'd miss the camaraderie if he gave up the front line, and then he'd laughed. Now I realized why. He was already a member of a much stronger unit. I wondered what it must be like.
I got up and looked along the spines of the VHS and DVD cases. All were neatly and precisely labelled, including several for Kabul 2006, but none said Dublin. There wasn't anything dated this year.
The Mac was on screen-saver. I hit a key and had a look at the desktop. It was packed with folder icons. I did a search for Dublin. Nothing. Then anything with D as a first letter. I got a QuickTime film of Dubai: Pete mucking about with Ruby in a water park. I even searched for Dirty Old Men. Nothing. Not even any porn.
Ruby's song floated up from the garden as I pulled open P-Z, the bottom of the three drawers. I opened a folder marked VAT. Pete had done himself proud. All the returns were in date order, but there weren't any receipts or invoices.
Dublin with a D.
I pulled open the top drawer, A-J. There was nothing labelled Dublin, but there was a hanging folder labelled 'Invoices'. As I opened it, Ruby was drowned by a jet lining up on Heathrow.
The folder was stuffed with receipts, ready for Pete to process. A sheet of A4 was addressed to TVZ in Dublin: '2 DAYS FILMING – DUBLIN.'
His rate was?200 a day, plus hotel, flight and van hire. The invoice was for the attention of Moira Foley, Head of News, but it had been returned. Scrawled across the bottom in thick felt tip was: 'WHAT JOB? DON'T TRY TO PULL THE FUCKING WOOL OVER MY EYES – YOU'RE NOT SMART ENOUGH.'
A yellow Post-it note was stuck next to Moira's kind words. On it, in neat biro, was: 'Sorry about the misunderstanding – here's the cheque – All best, Dom.'
'Here we go.' Tallulah came in with a mug in each hand.
I closed the file and replaced it. 'Tallulah, I'm sorry, I've just realized the time.' I tapped my arm. 'Hospital appointment. I didn't find anything, but I will. I promise you.'
She put the mugs on the desk and a couple of fresh tears rolled down her cheeks as she gave me a hug. Her face burnt. Her gorgeous green eyes were puffy and swollen.
'Who's Kelly, Nick? Your daughter?'
'No, I was a bit like you, really. I sort of landed up looking after her.'
'Was? You mean you're not looking after her any more? She's grown-up now?'
'She got to be sixteen, then went to show God how to use a swing.'
I left her to it and saw myself out. My arm was throbbing, and so was my head.
27
Vauxhall Bridge 2017 hrs The evening was still warm when the cab dropped me at Vauxhall station. Even the daffs were pushing up here and there. I crossed to a traffic island, leather bomber over my right arm, the other in a sling.
It wasn't just the weather that had changed since the last time I was here. The roads were plastered with big red Cs to show the start of the congestion zone, while CCTV and number-plate-recognition cameras had sprouted everywhere.
The railway arches were no longer the shabby tyre warehouses and dodgy MOT centres I remembered from four or five years ago. They'd been turned into trendy wine merchants and bathroom stores. There was even a gay club and sauna, and a wine bar with little aluminium tables and chairs outside trying to keep the office workers there all night with happy-hour wine deals and free dips. The sauna lights flashed enticingly.
MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, the Firm, the Office: everybody had a different name for it. Some insiders had even called it Caesar's Palace when it first went up, and it wasn't hard to see why. It was a beige and black pyramid with its top cut off, and large towers at either side. There was even a terrace bar overlooking the river. It only needed a few swirls of neon and you'd swear you were in Las Vegas. Maybe it would become a super-casino when it had had its time.
I'd always preferred Century House myself, the old SIS building near Waterloo station. It might have been 1960s square minging architecture with droopy net curtains and antennae all over the roof but it was a lot handier for the bus and tube, and much more homely. And the old guy who ran the greasy spoon on the corner had served real food – dead animals and snacks with so many E numbers they glowed in the dark.
Even at this time of night, the multiple lanes of city traffic rumbled along like a slow-motion explosion. I crossed at the lights. I'd never expected to come face to face with the Yes Man again, but it wasn't like I had a whole lot of choice. The Firm had known where to find me within hours of my landing at Heathrow. Maybe it was the flight manifest, maybe face-recognition cameras at the airport. Whatever, if I tried to run they'd lift me before I got a mile down the road. Then they'd do more than ask for their envelope back.
This wasn't the Women's Institute, and it wasn't just a cake-baking session I'd be refusing to attend. The people who worked in the building in front of me killed for a living. It was pointless running: I'd just die knackered and out of breath. I didn't want to be a body pulled from a car crash just for saying no to a meeting. Besides, I wanted to find out what job he had in mind. I was pretty sure that the reappearance of the Yes Man at this precise moment in my life was no coincidence.
And, anyway, I'd just got the sack. There might be cash involved. When you live at the bottom of the food chain you have to take a bite of the shit sandwich when it's shoved in your face. Maybe that was why I'd never found it hard to get on with Africans, Arabs, squaddies, whoever. They soon discovered I was like them – waist deep in the shit-pit and happy to get my head up enough to take a few breaths occasionally before I got pushed back down.
I followed a couple of suits along the pavement. They must have been the night shift. They disappeared behind the steel fencing of 85 Albert Embankment and into the pyramid. I followed.
28
I wondered how an arsehole like the Yes Man fitted in with life behind the triple-glazed windows, these days. I'd heard the Firm's new leadership matched the new building: younger, meaner, more aggressive. If the Yes Man was still the boss of deniable operators, the Ks, it could only mean he'd slipped off the greasy pole. Good. Fuck him and the boils on his neck.
The physical threat had increased since 9/11 and the Firm had obviously been given a big wad of cash to boost its security. I entered via a single metal door and got funnelled towards six perspex security cubicles that looked like giant test-tubes. A small queue of suits had formed. They placed their bags on an X-ray machine and waited in line to swipe their card and enter their PIN. If they got accepted, the perspex door opened and they stepped inside. A pressure pad on the floor made the door close behind them again, trapping them in the capsule.
All sorts of tests would be carried out during the next couple of seconds. For starters, the air would be analysed for traces of weapons or explosives. If the electronics were happy, the door in front would open, releasing them into the inner sanctum.
A perspex cylinder wasn't for the likes of me. I had to go to the visitors' desk, where a woman in her forties with thick-rimmed glasses sat behind a bulletproof screen. She looked at me a bit sadly. The words 'disappointing' and 'divorce settlement' were written all over her.
I put my mouth close to the microphone. 'I have an appointment. Extension two seven double eight.'
'You need to fill this in.' She pushed a ledger under the glass. 'Do you know the name?'
'No, sorr
y. Can't remember.'
She picked up a phone and checked a monitor to her left that must have held the internal-numbers list. 'Do you have a picture ID?'
I fished out my passport and held it open on the photo page. 'He's expecting me at eight thirty. What's his name again?'
She gave me another of her sad looks as she hit some keys. I signed in the two marked boxes in the ledger and passed it back under the window.
With the phone still to her ear, she tore my signed strip from the ledger and folded it into a small plastic holder with a blue ribbon to go round my neck. She pushed it under the glass. The badge was blue too, and said, 'Escorted Everywhere'.
She put down the receiver. 'Wait over there. Someone will be along to collect you.'
I tried to get a smile out of her and held up the pass at the window. 'That's good. I'd only get lost.'
It wasn't going to happen. I wandered over to a backless black leather settee with chrome legs.
The doors of the security pods opened and closed as they chomped their way through the queue. A young clerk appeared, dressed in a black suit, checked shirt and a tie with a knot that was far too big for the collar. He had the kind of madly enthusiastic smile they normally only teach you at estate-agent school. He held out a hand. 'Mr Stone?'
I stood up and followed suit.
'If you'd like to go through that glass door to your right, I'll meet you on the other side.'
I nodded at the X-ray machine and held up my bomber. 'You want this in there?'
'No, the room will detect anything.'
A female guard buzzed the door open. A sign on the wall opposite told me to stand still until instructed to move. I couldn't hear any machinery or sucking sounds as the atmosphere was extracted to check for weapons or explosives residue, but I was sure it was happening.
The clerk appeared at the other side of the glass exit. The door clicked open.
The walk to the lifts took us over ivory marble floors, past grey slate walls. No wonder the building had come in at twice the estimate.
We whooshed upwards.
'Which floor we going to?'
'Fifth.'
It would have been pointless asking him more. Even if he'd known the answers he wouldn't have told me.
We stepped out into a world of grey carpet tiles and white-emulsioned walls. I felt conned, like when a hotel invests in a big makeover down in Reception but as soon as you get upstairs it's all shite – and tough, you've already checked in.
We set off down a bare corridor. There were no names on the doors, only acronyms I didn't understand. The armed services are fanatical about the fucking things, and the Firm had fallen into step. Even when I was in the Regiment and working here, I'd only been able to remember up to the three-letter ones.
Vauxhall Cross was a category-A post, which meant that, like Beijing, Moscow and other major stations abroad, it had an HPT (high potential threat) from terrorism and sophisticated HIS (hostile intelligence services). Operatives from the TSD (technical services department) in Milton Keynes ensured that the building was protected from HTA (high-tech attack).
The triple glazing didn't have anything to do with the government's new green policy. It was a safeguard against laser and radio-frequency flooding techniques as every HIS and his dog tried to hear what you were talking about. There were even techniques now to read the radiation from computer and photocopying machines, so every bit of machinery in the building was specially shielded. If anyone got on a boat and spent the day bobbing up and down on the Thames pointing technical stuff at the decapitated pyramid, they'd be wasting their fare.
The corridor opened up left and right into open-plan offices. Men and women bent over computer screens, processing information, collating, whatever the fuck they did to support the five hundred officers running round overseas. There was little noise apart from the air-conditioning and the rustle of deli bags as people weakened.
We came to an office at the far end. No acronym on this door. The clerk took me straight in without knocking. 'He'll be with you soon.'
I walked into what looked like a solicitor's office. There was a round, beech-veneer IKEA table, with a telephone in the middle, and matching chairs with leatherette seats.
At the far side of the large room was a desk. I wandered over to have a look at the framed pictures among the files by the PC monitor. They were of the Yes Man and his loving family, all smiles, and, judging by the ages of the kids and the generosity of his hair, the pictures were a few years old.
I looked out of his large window, almost the length of the room, at the bright lights of the railway-arch shops the other side of the road. Headlights moved noiselessly in both directions. The motorbike shop was still there. I really wanted to get a new one. I missed riding.
The Yes Man hadn't been given an office with a river view, but at least he got catering. A full cafetiere and a small mountain of shortbread fingers sat on a nearby tray.
Maybe things weren't as bad as I'd thought.
29
The door opened. The Yes Man had two buff folders in his hand. He was exactly as I remembered him: five foot six, florid complexion.
'How was Harley Street?'
I held up my arm a little, as if he could see through the dressing. 'Haven't been yet. In the morning.'
He wore a dark business suit, with a white shirt and a scarlet tie. On his left hand he still wore a wedding ring.
I pointed through the window. 'Changed a bit since I was here last.'
He was busy pulling a chair from under the table. 'My new office?'
I joined him at the long table but kept a three-chair distance. 'New shops. The gay place. You lot get corporate membership?'
He stared at me across the table, not enjoying my joke. I smiled even more broadly. 'It says it's got a sauna.'
The Yes Man pushed one of the folders across the table and started to pour the coffee. Even upside-down, I could read the stencil UK EYES ALPHA, which meant it was for the eyes of MI5, MI6, Special Forces, GCHQ and Whitehall only, and never to be read by a non-British citizen. There was no yellow card paperclipped to the cover. This was still an unaccountable document, a mere draft or proposal. That normally meant they hadn't found anyone stupid enough for the job.
The cover sheet was stamped with various acronyms, like O2G2/OPS and IO/GN, all meaningless to me. They'd have been senior officers, though, who'd signed it off as read. Like every organization, the Firm liked to cover its arse.
The best part of any MI6 file, as far as I was concerned, had always been the title, and this one said simply: 'The Need to Locate Dominik Condratowicz, Polish TV Journalist'.
The reports themselves might be full of gobbledegook, but the titles were always bang on the money. The best one I'd ever seen was: 'The Need to Assassinate President Milosevic of Serbia'. There hadn't been a yellow card on it, though, which was probably the reason he'd ended up in the dock at The Hague instead of dead in a Belgrade gutter.
I opened the folder to find just two printed pages of A4. The document might have been stamped by whoever had had to read it, but the signature page on the inside flap was missing.
The two pages included a digital photograph, probably from his passport application. It was definitely Dom.
I looked up. 'Locate? Don't the Firm know where he is? I assumed you-'
'He's disappeared. Nobody's heard from him.'
I ran a thumb over my stubble. 'He was pretty shaken after what happened, by all accounts. I left messages for him, and made arrangements for Media Ops to look after him when he turned up. It was all I could do before I flew out. I had some other stuff to see to here. Then I was going to make some calls. You sure he isn't just off on some story?'
'I don't believe so.' The Yes Man reached for the coffee and nudged a full cup my way. 'I'm still trying to sift through what I can rule in and what I can rule out. Did he mention anything out of the ordinary while you were there? Anything about his home life, family, Dublin, that so
rt of thing? Anything that might give us any indication of his whereabouts or plans?'
'Nothing. He just got on with his job, really. I'm not exactly a bosom buddy.'
The Yes Man sat forward and took one of the shortbreads. 'Did he say anything about his work, perhaps?'
I had to give him something or he'd know I was fucking him about. Which would mean Sundance and Trainers being told to fuck me about. 'Nothing much. I know he was fixated on the heroin trade, but on the whole Dom kept things close to his chest.'
The Yes Man sat back with his brew, deep in thought.
'You don't think he's been lifted, do you?'
He pursed his lips. 'It's a scenario, Nick.'
I frowned, and not just because of what he'd called me. If Dom was being held, the decision whether or not even to try to rescue him would be made very high up. It all boiled down to PR. What was the propaganda value of a rescue? Would it actually be better for the government if the fucker died? Would a nice beheading online get the public sparked up? Chances were, the Regiment had only gone in for that charity worker Norman Kember because somebody had done their sums and worked out there was more mileage in a recovery than a beheading. I could just hear the discussion. 'He's already done the interviews to camera. We've seen him making his statements online. Public opinion has already reached the height of shock and horror. There's nothing to be gained by letting him be killed. He's old, he's a peace worker. Let's see if we can get him back before his head rolls.'
Would the Yes Man help make the risk assessment? If the danger of SAS casualties was too high, the troopers would stay in their tents. The PR gain wouldn't be worth the pain, especially if the hostage got killed in the attempt. Maybe that was what this was about. They were going to send in Ks. It was a matter of economics as much as anything else. It cost the taxpayer three or four million pounds a time to train an SAS trooper. All I'd cost was the price of a cremation.
