by Andy McNab
Remote Control
( Nick Stone - 1 )
Andy Mcnab
A rogue Special Air Service agent on the lam in suburban America with the seven-year-old daughter of a murdered colleague. Sounds like the latest Bruce Willis vehicle, costarring that little girl from the Pepsi commercials. But McNab, a former SAS agent himself and author of two nonfiction books on the subject, manages to balance the clich?s and cuteness with large doses of tradecraft taken from his 17 years of undercover experience. When Nick Stone describes how to maintain a fictitious address or reveals the secrets of tracing a call made from a public telephone, the details ring trueAand help get us over some of the more ludicrous speed bumps in his story. Stone, tracking two Irish terrorists from London to Washington, is suddenly ordered back home on the next available flight. His old mate Kevin Brown, now with the Drug Enforcement Agency, lives nearby, so Nick decides to drop in. He finds a slaughterhouse: Kev, his wife, and youngest daughter have been murdered, but daughter Kelly has survived in a special hideout. Prying information from the shocked child, Stone links the killers to either the CIA, the DEA or his own organization Awhich means that he and Kelly are on the run from everybody. As Nick trundles the spunky youngster from one seedy motel to another, stuffs her with junk food and teaches her the rudiments of espionage, he puts together a picture of why Kevin and his family were killedAa connection between a terrorist bomb scare in Gibraltar in 1988, the Colombian drug cartel and high-level intelligence agency skullduggery. The vast network of sinister collaborations isn't startling, but McNab reliably delivers the believable, real-life details and keeps readers' attention with steady, careful prose until the predictable but satisfying end. (June) FYI: Remote Control was the number one bestseller in London's Sunday Times for seven weeks. Because of McNab's SAS involvement, and his wanted status by several terrorist groups, he makes no public appearances.
REMOTE CONTROL
Andy McNab
GIBRALTAR: SUNDAY, MARCH 6,1988
We didn't know which of the three was going to detonate the bomb. All Simmonds had been able to tell us was that it was a big one, and that it would be initiated remotely.
For now, though, there was nothing to do but wait. The security service had triggers out on the checkpoints with mainland Spain. Until the players were sighted, Pat, Kev, and I were to stay exactly where we were: sitting outside a cafe just off Main Street, drinking coffee, looking and listening.
The spring air was crisp and clear under a blindingly blue Mediterranean sky, the morning sun just starting to make it comfortable enough for shirtsleeves. The trees that lined the square were packed with birds so small I couldn't see them among the foliage, but they made enough noise to drown out the sound of traffic going up and down the main drag, just out of sight. It was strange to think that this small outpost, on the tip of southern Spain, was still under British jurisdiction, a last bastion of Empire.
Through my earpiece I heard Euan make a radio check to the operations room. Everything he said on the net was very precise, very clear, very calm. Euan was the tidiest man in the world. If you sat on a cushion he would puff it up again the moment you stood up. Dedication was his middle name.
I heard a loud hiss of air brakes and looked up. A tour bus had turned into the square and was parking about twenty yards away. The sign in the windshield said young at heart.
I didn't pay much attention. I was bored, looking for things to do. The laces on one of my running shoes had come undone.
I bent down to do them up and got a jab in the ribs from the hammer of the 9mm Browning. The holster was covert, inside my jeans; that way, only the pistol grip would be in view if I pulled open my black nylon bomber jacket. I preferred to have my pistol at the front. A lot of the guys wore theirs on the side, but I could never get used to it. Once you find a position you like, you don't change; you might be in deep shit one day, go to draw your weapon and it isn't there it's several more inches to the right and you're dead.
I had an extended twenty-round magazine protruding from the pistol grip. I also had three standard thirteen-round mags on my belt if fifty-nine rounds weren't enough, I shouldn't be doing this for a living.
The senior citizens began getting off the bus. They were typical Brits abroad, the men dressed almost identically:
beige flannels, sensible shoes, and a V-neck sweater over a shirt and tie. Most of the women were in polyester slacks with elastic waistbands and a sewn-in crease down the front. They all had flawless, blow-dried, jet black, white, or blue-rinsed hair. They spotted the cafe and started to move as a herd toward us.
Pat muttered, "Fuck me, the enemy must be getting desperate They've sent the Barry Manilow fan club. Friends of yours, grand ad He grinned at Kev, who offered him a finger to swivel on. Whether you like it or not, you have to quit the SAS the Special Air Service at the age of forty, and Kev had just a year or two of his contract with the Regiment left.
The young at heart settled down at nearby tables and picked up the menus. It was now decision time for them whether to have dessert or go for a sandwich, because it was halfway between coffee break and lunchtime and they didn't know which way to jump.
The waiter came out, and they started talking to him one syllable at a time. He looked at them as if they were crazy.
On the net I heard, "Hello, all call signs, this is Alpha. Radio check, over." Alpha, who was located in the ops room, was our controller. When we'd flown in sixty hours ago, our team of eight SAS soldiers and support staff had requisitioned rooms in the accommodation block at HMS Rooke, the British naval base in the docks, and turned them into living space.
Kev responded quietly into his concealed microphone:
"Golf."
Pat: "Oscar."
I heard Euan: "November."
My turn came: "Delta."
The elderly Brits started taking pictures of themselves.
Then they were swapping cameras so they could appear in their own photographs.
Slack Pat got up and said to one of them, "Here yare, love, want me to take one of all of you?"
"Ooh, you're from England, are you? Isn't it nice and warm now?"
Slack was in his early thirties, blond-haired, blue-eyed, good-looking, clever, articulate, funny; he was everything I hated. He was also six feet two, and one of those people who naturally shit muscle. Even his hair was well toned; I'd seen him climb into his sleeping bag with his hair looking groomed and perfect and wake up with it in the same condition. Pat's only saving grace, as far as I was concerned, was that when he stood up, there was nothing where his ass should have been. We used to call him Slack because he had lots of it.
He had just started doing a Richard Avedon when we got:
"Stand by, stand by!" on the net from one of the female triggers.
"That's a possible, a possible--Bravo One toward the town square."
Alpha came back, "Roger that. Delta, acknowledge."
I got to my feet, gave two clicks on the radio transmitter that was wired into my jacket pocket, and started walking. It was pointless all three of us moving at this stage.
Families on their Sunday paseo strolled across from my left. Tourists were taking pictures of buildings, looking at maps, and scratching their heads; locals were sitting down, enjoying the weather, walking their dogs, playing with their grandchildren. There were two men with comfortable-looking beer bellies, old and not giving a fuck, smoking themselves to death. Pants with big suspenders, shirt and undershirt, soaking up the March sun.
I wondered how many of them would survive if the bomb went off just here.
I was just starting to get in my stride when a very fired up male trigger shouted: "Stand by, stand by! That's also a possible Bravo Two and Echo One at the
top end of Main Street."
This got me quite excited.
I listened for Euan. His task in this operation was the same as mine: to confirm the "possibles" with a positive ID. I imagined him sauntering along the sidewalk like me. He was short, with an acne-scarred face and the world's biggest motorcycle, which he could just about keep upright because his toes only brushed the ground. I liked to take the piss out of him about it as often as I could. I knew the guy like a brother--in fact, probably better; I hadn't seen any of my family for more than ten years. Euan and I had been young soldiers together; we'd passed Selection at the same time, and we'd been working together ever since. The fucker was so unflappable I always thought his heart must have been only barely beating. I'd been with him in Hereford when the police arrived to tell him that his sister had been murdered. He just said, "I think I'd better go to London then and sort things out." It wasn't that he didn't care; he just didn't get excited about anything. That sort of calm is contagious. It always made me feel secure to have guys like him around me.
I hit Main Street and spotted Bravo One right away.
I got on the net: "Alpha, this is Delta. That's confirmed-Bravo One, brown pinstripe on faded blue."
He always wore that brown pinstriped suit jacket; he'd had it for so long that it sagged in the pockets, and there were constant creases in the back from wearing it in a car. And the same old faded and threadbare jeans, the crotch halfway down between his balls and his knees. He was walking away from me, stocky, slight stoop, short hair, long sideburns , but I recognized the gait. I knew it was Sean Savage.
Bomb maker number one for the Provisional Irish Republican Army--PIRA.
I followed him to a small square at the bottom end of Main Street, near the governor's residence, where the band of the resident British infantry battalion would fall out after the changing of the guard. It was where Simmonds suspected the PIRA team might plant their bomb.
Alpha, the base station controlling the operation for now, repeated the message so that everyone knew which direction Savage was walking in. I knew that Golf and Oscar Kev and Slack Pat would soon start moving up behind me.
There were six or seven cars parked up against the wall of an old colonial building, taking advantage of the shade. I saw Bravo One push his hand into his jacket pocket as he headed toward them. For a split second I thought he was going for the initiation device.
Without checking his stride, Savage focused on one vehicle in particular and headed toward it. I moved slightly to the right so I had a clear view of the license plate.
"Alpha, this is Delta," I said.
"That's Bravo One now at vehicle Mike Lima 174412."
I pictured Alpha with the bank of computers in front of him in the control room. He confirmed, "Roger that, Mike Lima 174412. That's a white Renault Five."
"It's on the right, third car from the entrance," I said.
"That's nose in."
By now the keys were in Savage's hands.
"Stop, stop, stop. Bravo One at the car, he's at the car."
I was committed to passing him quite close now I couldn't just change direction. I could see his profile; his chin and top lip were full of zits, and I knew what that meant.
Under pressure, his acne always blew up.
Savage was still at the Renault. He turned, now with his back to me, pretending to sort his keys out, but I knew he'd be checking the telltales. A sliver of Scotch tape across a door, things arranged in a certain way inside the vehicle; whatever, if they were not as he had left them. Savage would lift off.
Kev and Slack Pat would be somewhere near the entrance to the square, ready to "back." If I got overexposed to the target, one of them would take over, or if I got in deep shit and had a contact, they would have to finish it and we'd all worked together long enough for me to know that, as friends as well as colleagues, they'd let nothing stand between them and the task.
The buildings were casting shadows across the square. I couldn't feel any breeze, just the change in temperature as I moved out of the sunlight.
I was too close to Savage now to transmit. As I walked past the car I could hear the keys going in and the click of the lock.
I headed for a wooden bench on the far side of the square and sat down. There were newspapers in a trash can next to me; I picked one out and pretended to read, watching him.
Savage made a suspicious move and I got back on the net:
"Alpha, this is Delta that's his feet outside, he's fiddling underneath the dashboard, he's fiddling under the dashboard.
Wait..." I had my finger on the button, so I was still commanding the net. Could he be making the final connection to the bomb?
As I was doing my ventriloquist act, an old guy wandered toward me, pushing his bike. The fucker was on his way over for a chat. I took my finger off the button and waited. I was deeply involved in the local newspaper but didn't have a clue what it said. He obviously thought I did. I didn't want to stick around and discuss the weather, but I wasn't going to just blow him off either because he might start jumping up and down and draw Savage's attention.
The old guy stopped, one hand on his bike, the other one flailing around. He asked me a question. I didn't understand a word he was saying. I made a face that said I didn't know what the world was coming to, shrugged, and looked down again at the paper. I'd obviously done the wrong thing. He said some angry shit, then wheeled his bike away, arm still flailing.
I got back on the radio. I couldn't exactly see what Savage was doing, but both of his feet were still outside the Renault.
He had his ass on the driver's seat and was leaning under neath the dash. It looked as if he was trying to get something out of the glove compartment as if he'd forgotten some thing and gone back to get it. I couldn't confirm what he was doing but his hands kept going into his pockets.
Everything was closing in. I felt like a boxer I could hear the crowd, I was listening to my seconds and the referee, I was listening for the bell, but mostly I was focused on the boy I was fighting. Nothing else mattered. Nothing. The only important people in the world were me and Bravo One.
Through my earpiece I could hear Euan working like a man possessed, trying to get on top of the other two terrorists.
Kev and Slack Pat were still backing me; the other two boys in our team were with Euan. They'd all still be satelliting, listening on the net so as to be out of sight of the targets, but always close enough to back us if we got in trouble.
Euan closed in on Bravo Two and Echo One. They were coming in our direction. Everybody knew where they were; everybody would keep out of the way so they had a clear run in.
I recognized them as soon as they turned the corner.
Bravo Two was Daniel Martin McCann. Unlike Savage, who was well educated and an expert bomb maker, "Mad Danny" was a butcher by trade and a butcher by nature. He'd been expelled from the movement by Gerry Adams in 1985 for threatening to initiate a campaign of murder that would have hampered the new political strategy. It was a bit like being kicked out of the Gestapo for cruelty. But McCann had supporters and soon got himself reinstated. Married with two children, he had twenty-six killings linked to his name. Ulster Loyalists had tried to whack him once, but failed. They should have tried harder.
Echo One was Mairead Farrell. Middle class and an ex-convent schoolgirl, she was, at thirty-one, one of the highest-ranking women in the IRA. See her picture and you'd think, aah, an angel. But she'd served ten years for planting a bomb in Belfast and reported back for duty as soon as she was released. Things hadn't gone her way; a few months earlier her lover had accidentally blown himself up. As Simmonds had said at the briefing, that made her one very pissed off Echo One.
I knew them both well; Euan and I had been working against them for years. I got on the net and confirmed the ID.
Everybody was in place. Alpha would be in the control room with the senior policeman, people from the Foreign Office, people from the Home Office, you name it, every man and h
is dog would be there, everybody wanting to put in their two cents' worth, everybody with their own concerns. We could only hope that Simmonds would be looking after ours.
I'd met the Secret Intelligence Service desk officer for Northern Ireland only a couple of days earlier, but he certainly seemed to be running our side of the show. His voice had the sort of confidence that was shaped on the playing fields of Eton, and he measured his words slowly, like a big-time attorney with the meter running.
We wanted the decision made now. But I knew there would be a big debate going on in the ops room; you'd probably have to cut your way through the cigarette smoke with a knife. Our liaison officer would be listening to us on his radio and explaining everything that we were doing, confirming that the team was in position. At crunch time, it was the police, not us, who'd decide that we go in. Once it was handed over to the military, K.ev would control the team.
The frustration was unendurable. I just wanted to get this over.
By now Farrell was leaning against the driver's door, the two men standing and facing her. If I hadn't known differently I'd have said they were trying to chat her up. I couldn't hear what they were saying but their faces showed no sign of stress, and now and then I could hear laughter above the traffic noise. Savage even got out a packet of mints and passed them round.
I was still giving a running commentary when Alpha came back on the net.
"Hello, all call signs, all call signs, I have control, I have control. Golf, acknowledge."
Kev acknowledged. The police had handed over; it was Kev's show now.
The targets started to move away from the vehicle, so I pushed the button four times.
Golf came back: "Stand by, stand by!"
That was it; we were off.
I let them walk toward the main square, and then I got up. I knew we wouldn't lift them here. There were far too many people around. For all we knew, the players might want to go out in a blaze of glory and start dropping the civilians, take them hostage, or, even worse, go into kamikaze mode and detonate the device.
