Whatever It Takes

by Andy McNab

  I shrugged. ‘So I suppose you’re going to call Theodore and organize something for the team? Could you call Pip while you’re at it? Tell her everything’s fine and to say to the boys I love them, can’t wait to see them, and I love my pictures. They’re on my hotel wall.’

  They were. To the left of the TV. They looked fantastic.

  45

  The five of us were focused on the laptop screen as the drone footage played for the fourth time. I froze the image on the side elevation of the outbuilding and pointed with a hotel pen to where the wall met the roof. ‘There – that’s where I saw the red indicator. Tony?’

  He wasn’t looking where I was pointing. His eyes were flicking round the screen, looking, I guessed, for other sensors, power lines in and out, anything that would help him form a picture of how the house was powered up – and, more importantly, alarmed.

  Besides the video footage, we’d checked Google Earth, Google Maps, What 3 Words – anything open-source that would help us come up with a plan. We went through the video once more, then the other four peeled away from the screen and found places to sit. Tony and Warren took chairs, Gemma sat on the end of the bed, and Charlotte on the desk. Everyone was everywhere but the spare space on the settee.

  I had moved out of the way and stood by the entrance to the bathroom, feeling confident. After all, this was planning, logical, methodical thought. I could do this stuff. What was more, I knew how to keep teams together. On a site, I herded contractor cats to the same point, and I was good at it. Something else I’d inherited from the old man.

  I needed everyone’s attention. ‘So – the aim of this … What should I call it? Venture?’ I tried it out with air quotes for comic effect, but it scarcely raised a smile.

  Warren was still depressed with doubt. But that was okay: it was normal. The main thing was that he’d stayed. I wanted to thank him for being there, for making the right decision, but that would be acknowledging there had been a problem in the first place. So, as normal, I ignored it, just as he liked.

  I was concerned that his negativity was affecting the team, but as I looked across at the settee, I realized the room’s mood might have been down to the fact that Egbers was sitting there, bolt upright, black polo shirt, grey cargoes, creases in his sleeves and perfectly groomed hair. Humans were good at sensing danger. I knew I was. He hadn’t said anything after I’d introduced him as our middle guy and help, but he was so good at creating an atmosphere just by being in a room.

  But the way my body reacted to him being close by had changed since that morning. I sensed less danger from him. I got where he was coming from, and even felt a bit of ease from him in the way he’d treated me since Charlotte arrived. Something was different. Was it me or him?

  ‘All right, not a venture – we’re here to steal the ledger from Sanctuary.’

  That didn’t get any laughs, but it wasn’t meant to. I pushed on. ‘I’m thinking we split the whole job into five phases. Phase one: getting us and the equipment into the outbuilding. Phase two: getting through the bung and into the void. Phase three: accessing the house through the wall. Phase four: finding the ledger. Phase five: retracing our steps, making everything as new and leaving town.’

  There was a general nod. Why not? So far it made sense, right?

  ‘Okay, phase one. How do we get to the outbuilding? First of all, we fly to the hard standing, which we can only assume is a helicopter pad.’

  Gemma pulled a face. ‘I thought no one was supposed to know we’d ever been there. But drop in by heli, what the fuck?’

  It looked like there was more scepticism to come so I held up a hand. ‘We’re going to use two drones. The same ones that took the video.’

  I seemed to have their attention. Everyone straightened in their seats.

  ‘All’s good. I’ve flown from one – they’re designed for recovering casualties from the battle space. Not much noise, and they’re quick and easy. We don’t even have to fly them – there’s the Js, the pilots, operators, whatever they’re called – and we leave no sign outside to show we’ve been there. You’ll love it. Flying past trees – it’s great. That lot out on the lake would pay good money to do it.’

  There didn’t seem much enthusiasm, but Tony jumped in to add some geekiness: ‘Do you know the maximum weight these things will lift?’

  I shook my head. ‘But it’s got to be a lot. Wounded soldiers, with body armour, kit and ammo?’

  ‘Well, we need to know the max they can carry, and for how long with a full charge. We also need to know if the battery packs are in series or parallel – I should imagine parallel because it’s all about the output capacity, the output voltage. More time in the sky, if you like. Can we find that out?’

  Tony didn’t bother checking with me: it was Egbers he looked to for the nod.

  ‘Perfect. Then I can work out the ideal payload for them, because we’ll have a lot more journeys than one wounded body being brought home.’

  I carried on with what else we needed to do with the little information I had, but I needed to manage any information requests from the team carefully – or someone else might get thrown into the ocean. But if the information was essential? I decided I’d cross that bridge when or if I had to.

  ‘So, getting into the outbuilding. It’s the intruder-detection systems that are the pain because we’re waiting to find out what they are.’

  I checked with Egbers, who just gave a nod.

  ‘Until then, we have to assume they exist, and until we know what they’re capable of, we need to assume the worst. It could be motion detectors outside, heat-source detectors, anything and everything. How can we cut whatever they have without knowing what it is? Tony, all yours, mate.’

  He was at a loss. ‘You just said it. If we don’t know what intruder systems they have, I can’t do anything with them, can I, boy? Even cutting the power to the house, any systems would still work. They got PVs and Teslas.’

  He was only getting warmed up. ‘But if we can’t do anything about the house itself, we need to know where any alert goes to. No point having an audible alarm given where the house is – only the birds are going to hear that. Any system is connected to an ARC.’

  We all waited to find out what that meant.

  ‘An Alarm Receiving Centre. For high security it would normally be to a private security company – the police response is always slower. So the ARC could receive the alert via the mobile network, if it’s 4G, or even via satellite, maybe even both, dual path signalling. Or it could be even real old-school and via a landline. But the alarm has got to go somewhere, to tell someone that something is up. If we know where it goes to, we might be able to intercept it before it gets there. Then the alarms can shout all they want and no one will ever know.’

  Parmesh had the world’s resources at his disposal. We could make all sorts of things happen. ‘What if the power was down in the whole area?’ I asked. ‘They have outages round here all the time.’

  Tony grinned. ‘You’re thinking right, boy. You’re thinking big-time. The problem is the power in the house. The Powerwalls and back-up power systems will still supply output.’

  ‘Okay. What if we cut the power, cut the landline, and cut the mobile network too?’

  Tony looked at me like I was frothing at the mouth. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. Think even bigger-time. I’ll get you whatever you need.’

  ‘Mobile towers have back-up power, same as landlines. They need very little juice to keep going. And what if they’ve got a satellite? They’re unrelatable so we just don’t know what they’ve got until we know what systems the house actually has.’

  He was right, of course, and I glanced at Egbers, but his face was stone.

  ‘As soon as I know you will.’

  That was good enough for planning. We’d have to come up with plan B.

  ‘Can you get all the power and communications cut? We’ll need their power back-ups to go down as well.’

>   I kept looking at him. He didn’t move a muscle, apart from the ones in his jaw. ‘I will find out.’

  Tony wanted the last word. ‘The bugger is, we need power. Do we know if the Teslas are definitely online? If not, we’d better fly in gennies, just in case.’

  I got back to the team. ‘Okay, we sideline that for now until we get an answer. Tony, think about it. Gemma, think about it. Warren, think about it. So, we get into the outbuilding. Whether there’s a door to the tunnel, we don’t know, but we’ll get past it. We have to get past it.’

  46

  ‘Phase two: we move down into the tunnel and we get to the bung. Gemma, the manufacturer’s spec gives you two hundred millimetres of pre-cast.’

  She looked confident. ‘I’ll spend more time fucking about setting up the kit than cutting.’

  I’d have liked her to have thought about it a bit more, but of course she already had. ‘Like you said, masters of fucking form, or what?’

  That did raise a laugh, from everyone but Egbers.

  ‘I’ll cut a core big enough for everyone to push through. Even you, Tony.’

  Another laugh, the biggest from Tony.

  ‘On the way out I’ll replace the core, then cover the tunnel side with a concrete render. But what about the equipment I’m going to need? Will the drone be able to carry it?’

  I looked at Egbers. He nodded. ‘Once you know the maximum weight per flight, you’ll have your answer.’

  Gemma gave him a nod back. ‘Nice.’

  I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the drones or Egbers.

  ‘Okay, so we’re into the void. We take in all the kit with us because we’re going to leave everything in the void. All we take out with us is whatever kit Gemma needs to render over the bung on the way out.’

  What was the point of taking all the kit away with us? By the time they had opened up the void – if ever – they would know the ledger had gone. At least Castro would have the satisfaction of knowing how his ledger had disappeared.

  ‘Phase three. We’re facing the block-wall. The other side of that has stud-wall, then tiling, then the basement. The vertical studs have 450-millimetre spacing and the tiles are 250 by 400 mil, laid horizontally and stack-bonded.’

  All the stuff Richard had provided in the heli – I fought to keep my head clear of him – his words falling over themselves as he tried to please us all with detail.

  ‘So, Warren, what do you reckon?’

  He hadn’t laughed as much as everybody else, but when he did, he was doing it in spite of himself. I tried to take that as a positive. He knew what he had to do, and he looked at each of us in turn to make sure that we knew. ‘I’ll get the block out first and leave the stud in situ, then cut out a section of stud to the tile, work out where the grouting is, and cut a panel of tiles to get everything through.’

  He raised a finger. ‘But I’m going to need time to re-lay the tiles on a steel mesh, like a trapdoor, and match up the grout when we reverse the action. I’ll have all the different colour matchings with me, but it will take time.’

  Warren tilted his body to look past me at Egbers. ‘Can we find out the colour and type of grout used?’

  I jumped straight in. ‘No.’

  I wouldn’t let another body go limp, not for a colour match, anyway.

  Warren straightened up, waiting for the reason. He was going to get one.

  ‘You’ll have no problem. Once we’re inside Sanctuary, you’ll have time to match. Even if we get the ledger in quick time, we’ll wait for you to get it right. There’ll be no rush, mate.’

  He nodded, not realizing that he might have saved a life. ‘So we take sandwiches?’

  He was being serious, and everyone nodded. I’d forgotten: they might be masters of form, but at heart they were tradespeople. British tradespeople.

  He carried on: ‘I’ll give Gemma a hand with the bung render and I’ll be able to texture it for her. No one will see the cut.’

  Gemma held out a fist for a bump and got one. Sort of: Warren had never been street.

  ‘Okay, phase four: we’re in the house – where do we go? Where is the ledger? In a safe? Hidden somewhere?’

  The team obviously didn’t know the answer, but I’d turned my head towards the settee. Egbers made no movement, except with his mouth again. ‘We don’t know exactly yet. But we’re nearly there – and as soon as we do, you must be able to act quickly and retrieve the ledger. It’s very important. You must retrieve it as soon as we know. It could be tomorrow, it could be in three days. We don’t know how long yet.’

  ‘Does that mean you aren’t coming in with us now?’

  ‘I’ll be there, but by holoport. I’ll be leaving the country as soon as you know when you’re entering Sanctuary. I have things to do that will help you. That’s why you’re taking the holoport in with you. You will need a cell system, but if the towers have to be closed down, we’ll fly our own secure rebroadcasters over the house for the holoport to connect to. It’s important that we maintain a connection. Without the holoport, it’ll be impossible to access the ledger. Do you understand?’

  ‘Got it.’

  Egbers at last moved more than his lips as he gave a curt nod. ‘Good.’

  I turned to the team. ‘Okay, then. First round, all good.’

  Egbers stood, said his goodbyes to Charlotte, then left.

  47

  Tony was bursting. ‘He’s a bundle of joy, isn’t he? What’s this holy port?’

  ‘Holoport. I’ll explain later.’

  Gemma wasn’t thinking about any details. ‘He can hang from my drone any time he likes.’

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘That’s an image I won’t get out of my mind in a hurry. Let’s talk about money instead. We’ll have your account cards for you later today. Two hundred K in each account. Please remember, think carefully about this, everyone. Just move cash around to cover what you need to, no more than ten thousand at a time. Any more, and your banks will have to ask you where you got it.

  ‘Use it just to clear cards, or draw down from cash machines to use for normal life stuff. No big purchases, nothing your life couldn’t normally absorb. Not just yet. Once we’re done, there’ll be help for us all on how to deal with this kind of money.

  ‘You’ll also need to buy whatever you need for the job – and, of course, organize your own transport. Please, please, please, tell no one.’

  Warren hadn’t lightened up, even once Egbers had left. He was becoming borderline aggressive with Charlotte. ‘You’ve got it all sorted out, haven’t you? What are you risking for your fifteen million? Oh, I forgot, you’ll be running the books back here.’

  Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. ‘Warren, I’ll be taking the same risks as you because I’ll be there to help you and anyone else in any way I can. And you know what? I’m not getting paid one single penny. I’m here for Pip and the boys, remember?’

  He did. It was clear to see during the awkward silence that followed.

  Tony broke it. ‘Let’s not worry about that, Warren. Let’s spend the rest of the night getting our shopping lists together for the knowns we need, while we think about the unknowns we might need. Then we can be up at sparrow’s fart with a plan and get on with it. What do you say, son?’

  He put his hand on Warren’s shoulder and gave Charlotte a wink as he coaxed the younger man towards the door.

  Gemma followed. ‘I’m going to look at one of those big fuck-off pick-up trucks.’

  Tony stood in the doorway as Warren stepped out into the corridor and disappeared off to the right. He had decided to hover over my walking boots, which still had their socks draped over them. He bent down and picked up a sock. ‘Can I have this?’

  Why would he just want the one? ‘Take the pair – they’re stinking the place out anyway.’

  Soon the room was empty apart from us two, and we took a chair each. Charlotte was worried about Warren. ‘You think he’ll do it?’

  ‘He will. Don’t
worry. Tony’ll look after him. We’ll all look after him.’ I pretend-punched her jaw. ‘I didn’t know you were coming?’

  She got up, went to the minibar and grabbed some chocolate and two Steinlagers. ‘Neither did I.’ On her way back to the chairs she looked straight at me, as if she was deliberately trying to make me feel bad. ‘I’m here to look after the kids and Pip, not just my arsehole bro.’

  She smiled as forcefully as she could to underline the sarcasm. She was still angry with me, but it would pass. She sat down, unscrewed the bottle tops and handed a beer over, then unwrapped the foil from the chocolate. ‘I was worried about Egbers coming in with us. It’ll be harder to copy the ledger.’ She broke the bar and passed me one of the halves. We sat there munching, drinking and thinking.

  It took a while for me to get through the chocolate before breaking the quiet. ‘Know what? It doesn’t matter. We don’t need to copy anything. All is good.’

  She clearly felt that it wasn’t, because she didn’t bother replying. She just continued to munch at the 98 per cent cocoa and finish her lager.

  I got up and headed for the phone as I checked my watch. ‘The dinner menu’s started. They’ve got great burgers.’

  Part Seven

  * * *

  48

  Thursday, 6 December 2018

  The Toyota was parked facing the Mitre 10 Mega on Frankton Road, close to the airport. The 7 a.m. opening time meant the day’s preparations had started early. Mega by name, mega by nature, the ‘home improvement warehouse’ was massive, orange, unmissable. Egbers and the Brit would easily find it, so when they’d called about fifteen minutes ago to say they needed an urgent meet, I stayed where I was and waited for them to come to me.

  I’d just bought the final items on my list: a set of hand-held luggage scales, five contractors’ boxes of blue disposable decorator’s overalls with boot covers and hoods, dust masks, safety goggles and rubber gloves. Plus loads of stuff we might need to try to cater for Tony’s ‘unknowns’.