by Andy McNab
He made it to the door, carrying a six-bottle wine carton. One of the spaces was empty. Maybe they’d had a breakage. That would certainly have explained why these two were in shit state.
I pointed to the corridor between us. ‘Down there.’
He coughed up a gobbet of phlegm the size of a golfball and bent down to do as I’d told him. As he turned back he spat it into the hallway, then moved back inside and coughed up some more. The door closed. Everything went quiet. The happy-clappies were obviously taking a break.
I couldn’t see any phlegm, vomit or shit on the bottles or box from where I stood. Not that it mattered: I still had to pick the fucking thing up.
My boots squeaked the three paces. I picked up the wine carrier with my gloved hand and started back down the stairs, my right arm held out so the cardboard didn’t touch my clothes. It wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference, but somehow it made me feel better.
I got to the front door and placed the box carefully on the floor. I took off my mask and goggles, making sure my gloves didn’t touch my face. The door opened with a gentle pull and the mask blocking the bolt fell into the street. I leant down, picked up the box and walked out, breathing deeply to try to rid my nose and lungs of the stench as I headed for the cemetery.
Suzy wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the graveyard. Clutching the goggles and masks in my left hand, I pulled off the glove so it enveloped everything, and dumped it in a bin. I found myself a free bench and began to feel a little worried about contamination – well, a lot worried. I knew I’d been reasonably protected, and had kept well away from them, but what about the bottles? What if one was leaking? I told myself there wasn’t time to think: there was still too much to do.
I pulled off my right glove, powered up the cell and called Suzy, but just got the messaging service. I cut off and tried again, with the same result. What was going on here?
I tried once more, and this time she answered. I could hear traffic, and the sound of her walking. ‘Where are you?’
‘On the main.’
‘I couldn’t get you.’
‘Must have been in a dead spot. I’ve just been having a look round the front.’
‘I’m back in the graveyard. I’ve got ’em. Bring some carrier-bags.’
‘I’ll be there in a couple.’
As I cut off the power and put away the phone in my bomber, people streamed past the windows on the first floor of the block. It was back-to-work time for the happy-clappies.
I had to assume the bottles were airtight. They wouldn’t have wanted the job getting fucked up more than it was already. They wanted the London attack to go ahead. That was why they’d sealed themselves in. They didn’t want to raise the alarm.
Suzy came in from the wrought-iron gates as I swallowed another couple of capsules. I gave her a casual-contact wave, and got a happy smile back as she sat down next to me. We greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek, and she put her arm in mine. She handed over two white supermarket carriers, still stuck together at the handles.
‘It’s in shit state up there.’ I described what I’d seen. ‘Let’s get a cab and fuck off. Who knows? Maybe we can get an earlier flight.’
I started to pack the box into one of the carriers, but Suzy wasn’t ready to go just yet. ‘What about those two up there? Maybe there’s even more. They could decide to—’
‘No way are they going to compromise themselves and fuck up London.’ I wrapped the second bag around the first. ‘Let the fuckers weep themselves to death. Fuck ’em, they’re not going anywhere.’
She wasn’t having any of it. ‘But the rest of the bottle could still be up there. You’ve seen what that stuff can do. Come on, Nick, we’ve got to do something.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Listen, you get any bright ideas, just tell me. Until then, the best I can do is get this shit back to the UK. Kelly, remember?’ I picked up the DW and we walked out towards the main. ‘Sorry, but that’s how it is.’
We avoided the front of the apartment block, in case any of the ASU were looking out. I didn’t want them to see us together – we didn’t know if they had contact with the source.
It wasn’t long before we were in the back of a cab, heading for the airport.
There was no problem changing to an earlier flight. The last plane out was the busiest, so they were only too happy to have two passengers giving up their seats. We went straight into Departures, where Suzy bought some scent and two huge Toblerone bars, so that we ended up with two Berlin duty-free carrier-bags, one inside the other, for the wine box. It looked completely at home among the sea of red plastic bags that were waiting for our flight.
We took off for Stansted with the DW packed tightly into the luggage lockers, inside our coats. The flight attendant wouldn’t let us keep them by our feet. I made a mental note to get to the locker before the suit the other side of me when we landed.
55
We turned our watches back an hour as we headed up the ramp to Immigration, and joined the line of suits and sunburnt holidaymakers making their way through UK passport control.
I clutched the carrier of DW in my left hand. Suzy stood immediately the other side of it to give a bit of protection, and we both had our passports out ready, open on the last page.
I’d cleared my head of any thought of danger. You have to, like an actor getting into character, otherwise it will show. I’d been on a nice day trip to Berlin, and now here I was, going through Immigration with my partner, a few bottles of duty-free in my hand and her with a bellyful of chocolate.
Suzy stood shoulder to shoulder with me for the next few minutes as we shuffled forward. When we were about five or six people away from the desk, I looked up and caught the eye of the woman behind it. She was looking directly at me. She quickly shifted her gaze, but the damage was done. She wouldn’t have known what was going on: she would just have been told to make sure we got through without any drama.
I shifted my passport into my left hand, still holding the bag, and pulled out a bottle with my right. Suzy watched me without saying anything. I looked back at the woman as she checked the slowly moving line. When it was nearly our turn, a whole bunch of us got waved through; she didn’t look at either of us as we passed the desk.
We carried on walking, joining the others heading for the luggage carousels. ‘What’s the matter, Nick? What’s happening?’
I kept looking around. There had to be a lift team somewhere. ‘Fucking bitch! You know very well what’s happening.’
‘What? ’
I moved away from her, gripping the bottle by the neck as if I was about to throw it. She had an expression of complete incredulity on her face as she started looking around the hall, trying to see what I was searching for. ‘What’s happening, Nick? I need to know, tell me.’
I nodded towards the carousels. I could see them, Sundance and Trainers, still in sweatshirts and jeans, but now under three-quarter-length coats. They also had small shoulder-bags, carried across one shoulder and down the other side so they could run or fight and still hang on to their respirators.
She followed my gaze. ‘This isn’t me, Nick. Believe.’
I walked straight past the carousels, like most of the suits from our plane who had only briefcases and laptops.
Sundance and Trainers were about thirty metres to my right as I headed for Customs. We had eye to eye: all three of us knew what was going on. They weren’t going to risk calling my bluff with all these people around. They’d bide their time: they had no choice.
‘There’s another two up there.’ Suzy’s voice came from just behind me.
I picked them out, hovering around the Customs channels, making a meal of putting bags over their shoulders as they kept their eyes constantly on target.
I stopped in my tracks and turned on Suzy. ‘I’m getting out of here with all five bottles of this shit. If you, or these boys, try to stop me, I’ll throw them. Got that? You’d better go and tell them.’
&nb
sp; ‘I haven’t told anyone anything. I don’t know how they know.’
Sundance and Trainers shadowed me, and the other two moved out of the way, as I lifted the bottle to reinforce the threat. ‘You called it in while I was getting this shit, didn’t you?’
She came up level with me. ‘No. It was just a dead spot. Why would I call this in?’
I could think of plenty of reasons. The words ‘permanent’ and ‘cadre’ topped the list. We joined the stream of trolleys overloaded with suitcases and duty-free bags aiming for the blue EU channel.
‘He could have had the tickets flagged up to him or tracked the plastic – who knows?’
We got to the chicane and were caught in the bottleneck. I wanted to push through and run, then just keep running, but I couldn’t risk attracting any of the overt security, who probably had no idea this was happening. Running would turn the whole thing into even more of a gang fuck. I just had to act normal, while feeling the pulses in my neck doing their best to burst out of my skin.
I fell in behind a group of four women in their forties, all pushing trolleys. They looked like four mums who’d been away by themselves, all tanned up in shorts and T-shirts, laughing and joking as they clung to the holiday mood, but pissed off that they had to be back in the office tomorrow morning.
I turned round. Suzy was about three paces back, with Sundance and Trainers another twenty behind. I hoped they weren’t going to try it here. What could I do? Break a bottle over one of the women’s heads? Throw this shit on to the floor? I stayed just a pace or two behind the girls, the bottle slightly raised in one hand and the bag in the other.
The sliding doors parted and we came out into the terminal, only to be channelled immediately by steel barriers past rows of seats with people bent over laptops or drinking coffee from the nearby Costa franchise. My eyes were drawn to the coffee shop. The other two guys were already waiting this side for me.
I kept close to the four mums as they wandered across the busy glass, steel and concrete concourse, giggling about how lucky their husbands were going to be tonight after two weeks without. ‘Of course, that’s not two weeks for all of us, though, is it, Kate?’ The other two burst out laughing.
Kate didn’t like it. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Andreas and I only—’ I lost the rest as a family hurried between us, on their way to Departures.
Kate and her friends wove their way through the foot traffic heading for the lifts that would take us down to the car park and railway station directly under the terminal.
My head spun as I worked through the options. I wanted to stay near these four, but if they got out at the car park, the first floor down, I’d have to carry on to the station level and latch on to someone else. No way was I going to get myself isolated in the car park, or get into the Micra and drive. I’d be on my own. They could control me when I got out on the road.
I could see both teams, flanking me about thirty behind. Suzy was still following me, and we had eye to eye.
‘I’m staying.’ She pointed behind her. ‘You’re wrong.’
I ignored her. We got to the lifts, and as soon as they could see what I had in mind, Sundance and Trainers took to the stairs, leaving the other two to keep eyes on target.
The large steel doors shuddered apart and the women added to the scrapes on the sides as they wedged in their trolleys. I squeezed in behind them. Kate pressed the button for the station. ‘What do you want, love?’
‘The same as you.’ Her friends had another fit of giggles.
I felt an elbow in my back: Suzy had pushed in just as the doors closed. I kept my hand clenched round the neck of the bottle, making sure she saw it. ‘Don’t fuck me about.’
When the doors opened again the women gave us both a bit of a sideways look. They understood: they’d had plenty of rows of their own. I stepped out and to one side to let them pass, then kept right behind them as they pushed their trolleys into the station cavern. No doubt Suzy was behind me somewhere. I couldn’t be arsed to look.
Sundance and Trainers were waiting, gulping in oxygen, as their two mates came down the stairs three at a time. I lifted the bottle and got eye to eye with the shorter one. He made a calming motion with his hands.
By now the girls had got to the touch-screen ticket machines and were buying singles to London. I got out my card and bought one too, then followed them towards the waiting train. The platform was alive with the buzz of Italian and German voices. The tannoy announced the imminent departure of the train for London Liverpool Street in three languages, to the relieved nods of the tourists. Trolleys rumbled, kids shrieked. I watched the four-man lift team staking me, but caught a glimpse of Suzy, ticket in hand.
The women dumped their trolleys and heaved their far-too-big suitcases into the blue interior of the worn-out train. As I followed them, Sundance and Trainers boarded the next carriage. Sure enough, the other two ran past me and got into one further along.
Our carriage was packed with bags, people, and even a rat dog being carried in its own shoulder-bag by a doting Frenchwoman. All the foreigners had their travel guides out, and some were already dozing off. I stood near the public credit-card phone, next to the toilet. Suzy worked her way past some cases and a three-wheeled baby buggy to the opposite side of the train.
There was a tannoy announcement in English that the train was going direct to London, stopping at Tottenham Hale. Translations followed as the buzzer went, the doors closed and we started to move.
Suzy came within a few paces of me.
‘Just keep your distance, OK?’
‘Nick, I didn’t—’
We were plunged into darkness for a second or two before the lights came back on. I couldn’t hear the rest of what she said as we went through the tunnel: there was too much noise. I just leant back against the telephone, bottle in hand. I wasn’t going to throw it, but I had to look as if I was ready to.
As we came out of the tunnel I heard another estuary voice, male this time. ‘Tickets, please.’ The guy was working his way towards us on auto-pilot. ‘Tickets, please.’ I looked down the lines of heads towards the next carriage. Sundance and Trainers had come through the connecting door and were leaning against the luggage racks. I understood the look on their faces only too well. Sundance was talking into his cell. The QRF would be fast-balling from in front of the TV and heading for Liverpool Street.
The train rumbled on, not very fast, shunting us from side to side. Suzy’s phone rang as some kids went running past and their father yelled after them in German. She looked surprised. I wasn’t.
She put the phone to her ear and listened. ‘Hello? Yes, sir. We have it.’ There was a pause. ‘No, we can’t do that, sir. I’m sorry.’ Another pause. ‘I understand the risks, sir, but there are reasons for this happening and I’m not going to— No, sir, I can’t do that. Everything is under control.’
She held up the cell between us and I heard him ranting, ‘I want Dark Winter handed over now! Do not disobey me – do not waste your career for this man! What on earth do you think you’re doing?’
I managed to get my mouth up against the mike. ‘You can have it once I’ve finished. I’ll explain later.’
‘Stone, I know what’s happening. You were not at the flat this morning, we went looking for you. Where is the source? He’s missing – does he have your child? Does he intend to use Dark Winter? I can help you, but I need that agent now.’
‘Tell the team to withdraw. If they try a lift I’m going to throw one of these bottles. What have I got to lose?’
His voice went steely calm. ‘Listen to me. You will not do any such thing. The team will not withdraw, and you will not throw anything, anywhere. I know what is happening; I’ve opened up the old ops number so we can talk. I can help you. Do you understand me?’
I matched his tone. ‘Do you understand me ?’
‘Hand the bottles over, Stone. Only then can I help you with this situation. I will get your child back, but I
must have control of the bottles.’
‘Can’t do that. Listen in: there are at least two contaminated bodies in Berlin, and maybe a bottle already opened – smashed, whatever. Flat twenty-seven, twenty-two Bergmannstrasse. You got that?’
There was a slight pause. ‘Got it. Now, come in and we can help you. I understand the situation with your child, but we can work together and—’
I pulled down the little window next to me and threw the phone out, then dug around in my jacket for Geoff’s and got rid of it as well. ‘Looks as if I came up with the bright idea instead, didn’t I?’
She was happy now as I turned to face Sundance and Trainers. Suzy looked the other way, past the toilet and towards the other two somewhere in the next carriage. ‘I thought you’d called from Berlin. I’m sorry.’
She moved closer to me: we must have looked like a boyfriend and girlfriend who’d just had a row and were busy making up. ‘What now?’
Sundance was still on his cell, his eyes not leaving mine.
‘We can’t go to Liverpool Street. You know Tottenham Hale?’
‘Nope.’
‘Me neither. OK, we’ll RV at Smith’s in Sloane Square – that’s the only location not known to anyone but us, right?’
‘Shall we split the bottles?’
Good call. If only one of us made it to the source, we might be able to carry on with the job. I nodded slowly as a woman squeezed past us and opened the toilet door, only to be put off by the smell and turn away. Suzy took off her jacket and knelt by my feet, peeling off the outer duty-free bag and putting two bottles into it. I kept my eyes moving between the two teams. Sundance was redialling, pissed off that he’d lost his signal, and the German kids ran past again as she stood up, the bundle under her arm.
I still had the carrier-bag and two bottles in my left hand, the other on display in the right. ‘We’ll keep the RV open until eleven thirty tonight. If either of us doesn’t make it, the other one’s got to get to Fuck-face with their bottles. It’s Kelly’s only chance.’
