by Andy McNab
It was a standard lock and opened easily. The contents meant nothing to me. They seemed to be spreadsheets and documents with itemized bills and invoices.
I looked at the screen. It was nearly at the end of the progress bar.
The guy who'd produced the sniffer program was a wild-partying, Ecstasy-taking eighteen-year-old whiz kid who was so into body piercing he had half of British Steel hanging out of his face. He had a shaved head--but that was only after we'd been taking the piss out of his close-cropped effort with a star dyed onto the top. The government had been spending hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to develop ways to get into computer programs only to discover, after he had got arrested on some unrelated charge, that this eighteen-year-old had come up with the greatest sniffer program ever written. His weekly unemployment suddenly started looking like a check from the National Lottery.
Wup! The progress bar was complete. Up came a little box that said: Password: SoOSshltime! Full marks to them for originality; normally it was something like a spouse's nickname, a family member's date of birth, or a license plate.
Then up came Do you wish to proceed? (Y)es or (N)o.
Fucking right I did. I hit the Y key and was into the machine.
I went to the bag and I got out the portable backup drive and cables and a handful of high-capacity backup disks.
I went around to the back of the machine and had a good look. I connected the drive cable and plugged it into the socket. I was going to copy everything: operating system, applications, data files, the lot.
I now had to move the mouse. I took a Polaroid but still studied it before moving it.
I selected Full System Backup, and the computer whirred into action, loading information onto the backup disks. I went back to the filing cabinets and had another mooch around, not really knowing what I was looking at, just trying to see if there was anything I recognized.
Wup! The prompt came up, telling me the sniffer software needed another instruction. It had had to work out another password and wanted to know whether to proceed.
I hit they key.
The machines whirred again. I looked at Kelly. She was sitting by the photos but playing a game with an imaginary companion. Just like her dad; give her a job to do and she'd forget it.
"Kelly, I want you to come with me. If that machine asks me a question again, I might not see it--will you look out for it?"
"OK." It wasn't as exciting a job as she'd been hoping for.
As she sat on the floor with her back against the wall, she looked up at me and said, "I have to go to the bathroom."
"Yeah, in a minute, we'll be finished soon." It was exactly as I remembered, as a kid, sitting in the car, adults not taking me seriously: "We'll be there soon. Nick, just around the corner."
She'd be all right. I said, "I'll take you in a minute."
Wup! I pressed the Fkey.
Kelly said again, "I really, really have to go."
I couldn't think of the right words for a seven-year-old. In the end I said, "Do you want to go big toilet or little toilet?"
She looked at me blankly. What could I do? Using the rest room in a place like this is always a big no-no because of the compromise factor from noise and visible remains. What you enter with must come out with you, which was why I'd brought an orange juice bottle to piss into and Saran Wrap for anything else. I couldn't imagine getting Kelly to piss in the bottle while I held the film under her bum. That was one thing her dad could do that she couldn't.
She said, "I wanna go, I wanna go," and started crossing and uncrossing her legs. Then she stood up and was bouncing up and down on the balls other feet.
I said, "OK, we'll go. Come on, come with me."
I didn't need this, but I had to do it. I couldn't have her shitting all over the carpet.
I took hold of her hand. I retrieved the door stops from the outer office door, gently opened it, and checked the corridor.
We moved across the open office, through the glass door, and into the fire-escape corridor. We went into the rest room and turned the light on. Poor girl, she was pulling down her trousers in such a hurry she was fumbling with her buttons. I helped her, but even so, she nearly missed the pot altogether in her rush.
I was wasting time. I had to return to the machine, and she might be there for five minutes or more. Backing away, I said, "Don't move, and don't flush the toilet afterward; I'll do all that for you. I just have to go back one minute and get the computer working. I'll be right back. Remember shhh, be quiet!"
At that particular moment she didn't really care where I went or what I did. She was in her own heaven.
Wup! I left her and quietly ran toward the office. Once I'd got the disk copying again, I'd come back to Kelly, fish the shit out with my hand, and put it in the Saran Wrap. Then I'd keep pushing the toilet brush down the bowl to lower the level of the water by pushing it through the U bend and get some fresh water from the drinking fountain to bring the level back up again.
I got back to the office and pressed the Vkey. Then I went to the bag to fetch the Saran Wrap.
And it was then that I heard her scream.
Fuck!
Instinctively, I pulled out my pistol and stood against the wall. I checked chamber and took the safety catch off with my thumb.
I could feel my heart beating faster as the familiar sensation of cold sweat broke out over my body. My body was getting ready for fight or flight. The screaming was from the area of the fire escape, my only way out. It looked as if I would have to fight. My heart was pumping so hard it was nearly in my mouth. I'd learned long ago that fear is a good thing. If you aren't scared, you're lying or you're mentally unstable. Everyone has fear, but as a professional you use training, experience, and knowledge to block out the emotion and help you overcome the problem.
I was still thinking it out when I heard a longer, more pitiful scream of "Nick! Help me!" The sound went through me like a knife. Images flashed through my mind of her curled up in a fetal position in the hidey-hole, of brushing her hair and playing that stupid video-watching game.
I was by the office door leading out into the corridor.
I heard a man's voice shout: "I've got her! I'll fucking kill her! Think about it. Don't make me do it!"
It was not an American voice. Or Hispanic. Or anything else I might have expected. But I knew it right off: West Belfast.
It sounded as if they were now in the main office. He started to shout more threats at me above Kelly's screams. I couldn't make out every word, and I didn't have to. I got the message.
"OK, OK! I'm going to come into your view in a minute."
My voice echoed in the semidarkness.
"Fuck you! Throw your weapon into the corridor. Do it!"
Then I could hear him shouting at Kelly, "Shut the fuck up!
Shut up!"
I came out of the office and stopped just short of the corridor intersection. I slid my pistol out into the main corridor.
"Put your hands on your head, walk out to the middle of the corridor. If you do anything else, I'll fucking kill her--do you understand?"
The voice was controlled; he didn't sound like a madman.
"Yes, I'm coming out, my hands are on my head," I said.
"Tell me when to move."
"Now, you fucker!"
Kelly's screams were deafening, even through the glass door. I started to walk and, in four paces, came to the intersection.
I knew that if I looked left I'd be able to see them through the door, but that wasn't the game just now. I didn't want eye-to-eye; he might overreact.
"Stop where you are, you fucker!"
I stopped. I could still hear the whimpering. I didn't say a word or turn my head.
In the movies you always hear the good guy give encouragement to the hostage. In real life it doesn't work like that;
you just shut up and do what you're told.
He said, "Turn left."
I could now see them both in t
he shadows. Kelly had her back to me as he dragged her toward me with a weapon stuck in her shoulder area. He pushed the glass door open with his foot and came out into the light of the corridor.
As I saw him my heart dropped from beating in quick time to a slow thud. I felt as if a ten-ton weight had just been dropped on my head. It was Morgan McGear.
He was dressed very smartly in a dark-blue two-piece suit and a crisp, clean white shirt; even his shoes looked expensive. It was a far cry from the Falls Road uniform of jeans, bomber jacket, and running shoes. I couldn't see what sort of weapon he was carrying; it looked like some sort of semiautomatic.
He was watching me, checking me out. What was I doing here with a small child? He knew he had control, knew there wasn't shit I was going to do. He now had his left hand wrapped around her hair--what a pity I hadn't cut more off in the motel room--and he had the weapon stuck into her neck. This was not a meaningless gesture; he was capable of killing her.
She looked hysterical, poor kid; she was panicking big-time.
He called out, "Walk toward me slowly. Walk now.
C'mon, don't fuck with me, you shite."
Every noise in the corridor seemed to be amplified ten fold; McGear shouting with spit flying out of his mouth, Kelly screaming. It seemed to reverberate around the whole building. I did as he said. As I got nearer I looked at her and tried to get eye-to-eye; I wanted to comfort her, but it didn't work.
Her eyes were swollen with tears, her face was soaking wet and red. Her jeans weren't even zipped up yet.
He had me within about ten feet of him, and now I looked into his eyes and I could see that he knew he was in a position of power, but sweating a bit. His voice might have sounded confident, but his eyes gave it away. If his job was to kill us, now was his moment. With my eyes I said to him. Just get it over and done with. There are times when after using plans A, B, and C you must accept you're in deep shit or shite, as this boy would say.
He snapped, "Stop!" and the echo seemed to reinforce the threat.
I looked at Kelly, still trying to get that eye-to-eye contact to say: Everything's all right, everything's OK, you asked me to help you and I'm here.
McGear told me to turn around. Now I knew it was really time to sweat.
He said, "On your knees, you fucker."
Facing away from him, I went down so I was sitting back on my heels; if I had the chance to react, at least from here I had some sort of springboard.
"Up!" he shouted.
"Get up, get your ass up!" He knew what I was doing; this boy was good.
"Kneel upright. More, more. Stay there, fuck you, think you're some fucking hard guy.. " He moved behind me, dragging Kelly with him. I could still hear her cries, but there was another noise now. Some thing else was moving; it wasn't just Kelly's moans. I didn't know what it was. I just knew that something unhealthy was going to happen. All I could do was close my eyes, grit my teeth, and wait for it.
He took a couple of labored steps toward me. I could hear Kelly getting nearer, obviously still in tow.
"Keep looking straight ahead," he said, "or I will be hurting the wee one. Do what I say or " Either he didn't finish his sentence or I didn't hear it. The bang on the top of my shoulders and head sent me straight down like a bag of shit.
I went into a semiconscious state. I was awake, but I knew I was fucked, like a boxer who goes down and is trying to get up to show the referee that he's all right, but he's not, he's all over the place.
I felt nailed to the floor; I looked up, but couldn't see what had done the damage. It hadn't been a pistol. It takes a decent weight to knock a person over. Whatever it was, it took me down but good.
The strange thing about the next bit was that I knew what was happening but couldn't do anything about it. I was aware ofMcGear pulling me over onto my back and jumping astride me, and I felt cold metal being pushed into my face and finally into my mouth. Slowly, slowly, it dawned on me that it was the pistol, and the jumble of words he was screaming be came clearer and clearer: "Don't fuck with me! Don't fuck with me! Don't fuck with me!" He sounded out of control.
I could smell the nicker. He'd been drinking; there was alcohol on his breath. He reeked of aftershave and cigarettes.
He was sitting astride me with his knees on my shoulders and the pistol stuck in my mouth. He still had his left hand around Kelly's hair and had pulled her onto the floor; he was tugging her from side to side like a rag doll, either for the sheer hell of it or perhaps just to keep her screaming and make me more compliant.
All I could hear was scream, scream, scream; "Don't fuck with me!"; scream, scream, scream; "Don't fuck with me!
Don't fuck with me! Think you're a fucking hard guy, do you, think you're a fucking tough guy, huh?"
Not good. I knew what they did to "hard guys." McGear once got an informer into a room for questioning; his kneecaps were drilled with a Black & Decker; he was burned by an electric fire and electrocuted in the bath. He managed to jump out a window naked but broke his back. They then dragged him into the elevator and shot him.
I felt as if I were drunk. I was aware of what was happening but it was taking too long for the message to reach my brain.
Then the software started to kick in. I tried to see if the hammer was back on the pistol, but all I could still see were bubbles of red light in front of my eyes, and star bursts of white. All I could make out was all this screaming and ranting from him.
"You bastard! I'm gonna fuck you up!
Who are you?" and the screaming from Kelly. It was total confusion.
I tried again to focus my eyes, and this time it worked I could see the position of the hammer.
The hammer was back. It was a 9mm. But what about the safety catch? It was off.
There was nothing I could do. He'd got his finger on the trigger; if I struggled, I was dead, whether he intended it or not.
He said, "You think you're fucking hard? Do you? Do you?
We'll soon see who is the hard man." Then he jumped his weight up and down to crush my chest, forcing the pistol harder into my mouth.
To add to the confusion, Kelly was still screaming with terror and pain. I didn't have a clue what was expected of me;
all I knew was that I had a pistol stuck in my mouth and this guy was in charge.
He started to regain his composure. The pistol was still shoved hard into my mouth, but he was beginning to ease himself to his feet. He did it by putting weight on the pistol and then against my face; as the pistol turned in my mouth, it twisted painfully up against my cheek and teeth, scraping them with the sight. And all the time he kept a grip on Kelly's hair, pulling her around all over the place.
He moved back, the pistol now aimed at my chest.
"Get back up on your knees!"
"All right, mate, OK. You got me, OK."
As I moved I saw what had taken me down. The fire extinguisher had split open the skin at the back of my head. There was blood oozing out everywhere and matting down my hair.
There was nothing I could do; you just can't stop capillary bleeding.
I got back on my knees, my ass up in the air again so I wasn't resting on the heels of my feet, and I was looking at him, trying to sort myself out. He started to walk backward toward the office, keeping the weapon pointed at me.
"Come on, hard man, on your knees."
I got the hint, he wanted me to follow him.
By now Kelly was a mess. There was a small trail of my blood being wiped along the floor. Kelly must have been kneeling in it before she was moved. She had her hands on his wrist, trying to support herself. She kept on tripping up, walking on her knees, trying to pick herself up, as if she were getting dragged behind a horse. All he was interested in was moving backward with the weapon pointing at me.
He said, "Stay where the fuck you are!" and then shuffled backward past the door to the large office.
I was trying to compose myself; I knew I didn't have long to live unless I took some a
ction.
"In there!"
I started to shuffle in.
"Walk!"
I got up and walked into the room, my back still toward him. I walked slowly toward the coffee table. I was just about to move off to the side to go around it when he said, "Stop!
Turn around!"
I did as I was told. It was an unusual command because normally you want the person you're holding facing away from you so they don't know what's going on. If you can't see, it's difficult to react.
As I turned, I saw Kelly sitting on the leather swivel chair that now had been dragged to the left of the desk. McGear was standing behind her. He still had his left hand wrapped around her hair and was pulling her back onto the seat and pointing the 9mm at me.
The top half of a semiautomatic, the part of the weapon on which the fore and rear sights are mounted, is called the top-slide. It moves back when you've fired to eject the empty case, then picks up a round on its return. If it's moved back by as little as an eighth of an inch, the weapon can't fire--so if you're quick enough, you can shove your hand hard onto the front of the muzzle, push the top slide back, and the trigger won't work as long as you can keep it there. It's got to be really quick, really aggressive, but I had nothing to lose.
There was a lull--was he trying to make a decision about what to do? It was less than twenty seconds, but it seemed like forever.
Kelly kept crying and whimpering; there must have been friction burns on her knees where she had been dragged earlier.
With his left hand McGear yanked her upright and said, "Shut the fuck up!" And just as he did that, we stopped having eye-to-eye contact; I knew that it was time.
I leaped forward, shouting at the top of my voice to disorient him, got my right hand and pushed it as hard as I could against the muzzle, pushing down on the top slide so I moved it back maybe half an inch.
He shouted a loud, drawn-out "Fuck!" half in anger, half in pain.
I got hold of his wrist, pulled it toward me, and pushed away with my right hand against the top slide He tried, but it was too late for him; it didn't fire. I needed to grip my hand around the muzzle now to keep the top slide back.
