by Chris Ryan
‘Maybe we can get him to poke his nose round the door,’ Danny breathed.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Get back here, mate. You’ve been doing your shoelaces up for two minutes now.’
From a distance, he saw Spud stand up and saunter back up Dalewood Mews. Thirty seconds later he had rejoined Danny, who pulled his mobile from his pocket and was pulling a flyer from the windscreen of one of the cars.
‘Let’s order our friend some dinner,’ he said. He dialled the number on the flyer, but instantly Spud stopped him. ‘Think about it, mucker. If he gets suspicious, we’ll just be putting the delivery kid at risk. Galaid is dangerous.’
Danny stared at the flyer, then scrunched it up and threw it to the ground. Spud was right. But they couldn’t simply hang around on the corner of the street for hours on end. They’d be too obvious if anyone was watching.
And recently, Danny had the impression that somebody was always watching.
Spud pulled Fletcher’s key from his back pocket. ‘It’s our best bet,’ he said firmly. And when Danny started to protest, he interrupted. ‘Mate, I know that Chamberlain bloke was a twat, but he’s right – these aren’t master criminals. We’ll case the joint when we get in, keep our weapons cocked and locked. As soon as we confirm our target’s hiding out in number twenty-seven, we’ll wait for him to go out, then check out his flat, see if there’s any bomb-making gear there. Then we’ll work out his routine, and when we know he’s going to be out of the house for more than an hour or so, we’ll go back and booby-trap it.’
For a moment Danny didn’t react. He had paranoia twisting through his mind. If he was honest with himself, he was less worried about the enemy targets knowing their location than he was about Buckingham and his colleagues leading them around by the nose. Something wasn’t right, and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
But there was no space for paranoia in the middle of an op. Spud was right. The flat was their best option. Put in an OP and wait for their quarry to show himself. He nodded. ‘I’ll go first,’ he said.
Danny didn’t enter Dalewood Mews immediately. First he walked along the pavement, removing more takeaway flyers from the car windscreens. Only when he had a thick wodge of them did he enter Dalewood Mews. Starting at the end nearest the main road, he approached each door in turn and put a flyer through the letterbox. As he approached number 27, he removed his phone from his pocket and surreptitiously switched it to camera mode. When the moment came, he opened the creaking iron gate of number 27, walked up the short, weed-strewn path, and delivered a pizza flyer. At the same time, he took a photograph of the lock, before dropping the phone immediately back into his pocket. He continued delivering flyers till he’d reached the end of the street, then turned and started along the opposite side. He kept on high alert, every sense keenly searching for the sign of someone watching him. But as far as he could tell, there was nobody.
Flat 24a. It had its own entrance – a wooden door with two frosted-glass panels that immediately jumped out at Danny as a security risk. Checking once more that he wasn’t under observation, he slid the key into the lock, turned it and slowly opened the door. He could tell before he even stepped inside that the flat had been unoccupied for some time. It had that smell, damp and musty. He clicked the door behind him, then put the key into the lock without turning it. Spud would lock them in again when he arrived. Danny stood for a moment in the hallway, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark. Five metres ahead of him was a narrow staircase. He unholstered his weapon, cocked it, and started to edge forward.
The stairs creaked as he climbed them, even though he put pressure only on the edge of the treads to reduce the noise. He paused at the top. Up ahead was a kitchen, beyond which he thought he could make out the open door of a bathroom. The landing wound round to his right. There were two closed doors off it, and one at the end – that would be the room overlooking the street.
He heard Spud’s voice in his ear. ‘Entering the flat in ten.’
Danny stepped forward, his weapon primed, moving into the kitchen. An empty table. Bare units. The tap was dripping, and the splash of water against the steel basin sounded louder than it should. He edged through the room and stopped at the door of the bathroom. Toilet, basin, large bath with a fabric shower curtain wrapped round it. Danny held up his gun and with his free hand ripped back the curtain.
Nothing.
Back to the door. He could see Spud silhouetted at the top of the stairs. Stepping forward, he pointed along the hallway to indicate that his mate should check along that way, then raised his gun again to cover him.
Bedroom one: empty.
Bedroom two: empty.
Spud approached the door of the room overlooking the street. Danny stood three metres back as he slowly unlatched the door, then kicked it gently open with one foot. The hinges creaked. Spud stepped inside.
His voice again, both over the radio and directly from the room.
‘Clear.’
Danny exhaled slowly. He’d been more nervous than he cared to confess. Quite why, he didn’t know.
There was no furniture in the front room, and only a single, bare lightbulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling. They didn’t switch it on, and they avoided standing directly in front of the windows, which were covered with old net curtains. Instead, they walked round the edge of the room, each man approaching the window from one side, Danny on the right, Spud on the left. They didn’t touch the nets, but simply peered through them at an angle out on to the street.
The front door of number 27 was to Danny’s ten o’clock, and it was flooded in the yellow light of a street lamp, the beam of which lit up a light mist of rain. There were no pedestrians. No moving vehicles. All was still.
‘If we’re going to set up an IED in his flat, we’ll need to make sure we don’t take out the whole fucking street,’ Spud said.
Danny nodded, but didn’t reply. He felt Spud’s eyes on him.
Spud sniffed. ‘Could be a long night,’ he said.
He hadn’t slept. How could he, when Nicki, his new friend, kept sending him those messages? He stared back over the timeline, reading each message in turn. I saw u in the shop two days ago. Do u remember?
Of course he remembered.
I was the 1 that gave u some £££ to buy milk.
He blushed when he read that, embarrassed that he hadn’t had enough money. A man should always have enough money to take his girlfriend out. He knew that, even though he’d never had a girlfriend.
I think u maybe smiled at me????
He felt his limbs go weak when he read that. He could only think of a one-word answer: ‘Yes.’
Then she started sending him photos. The first one showed her sitting on her bed. It was a single bed, he noticed. Did that mean she didn’t have a boyfriend? She was wearing pyjama bottoms and a strappy vest top. The left-hand strap had slipped down, revealing her shoulder. He could make out the curve of her breasts underneath the vest. And he was absolutely sure that she was pouting at him.
Do u think I’m pretty? she asked.
Yes, he had replied, his fingers shaking as he typed. He thought she was very pretty.
Would u like to see me without my top?
He had swallowed hard when she asked him that question. It crossed his mind that it might not be polite to accept her offer. But then, he asked himself, why would she suggest it if she didn’t want to do it.
He wrote back: yes please.
For a few minutes, he thought he’d gone too far. There was no reply. He wondered if the delay was because she was taking her clothes off. But then another message appeared on his screen.
U first.
He looked down at the clothes he was wearing: a grubby white T-shirt and a pair of jeans that were too big for him around his already chunky waist. He felt shy. But then he looked at the picture of Nicki again. At the lovely soft skin of her shoulders. At her curves. Suddenly scrambling, he took off his T-shirt an
d used the computer’s webcam to take a picture of himself, just as his social worker had showed him. The resulting picture wasn’t nearly so nice as Nicki’s. He knew that. His skin was pasty, flabby. His eyes somehow looked even closer together than they normally did. But he reminded himself that it was Nicki who’d got in touch with him, and although he felt self-conscious, he sent the picture anyway.
He waited for two excruciating minutes. He was cold without his T-shirt, but he didn’t want to put it back on, so he hugged himself to keep warm as he listened to the rain hissing outside.
Then the next photo arrived.
Nicki had removed her vest. Beneath it, she was wearing a strapless bra. It pushed her cleavage together, and he couldn’t take his eyes off that. He stared at the photograph, mouth agape. It was so much better than all the pictures he normally looked at on the internet. They were more explicit, sure: but this one was for him, and him alone. He touched the screen, allowing his trembling fingers to trace the shape of her body. There was no doubt, of course, that he was in love with her. Madly in love. He imagined meeting her, and how he would treat her like a princess. He knew that other boys treated beautiful women very badly. He would never be like that. He would do anything she wanted. He would buy her flowers and chocolates. And in return . . . in return . . .
His fingers were still tracing the shapely frame of her body when another message appeared on the screen.
It said: Would u like to meet me for breakfast?
The first thing Danny did was check the photograph he had taken of the lock on the front door of number 27, cupping his hands over the screen of his phone to stop the light spill. It was a Union deadlock. He unbuckled his rucksack and removed his booklet of lock sizes and details. Still carefully using the light from his phone, he established which bit he needed on his snap gun and carefully fitted it. If and when the time came to force an entry into the opposite flat, he’d be ready.
Spud fetched a couple of stools from the kitchen and they sat at either side of the window. There they watched, and waited, concealed by the net curtains but able to see everything that was happening by the light of the street lamp. They sat in silence as the time ticked past, and saw nothing except a red fox that scampered along the street at thirteen minutes past midnight, and then again at twelve minutes to two. Danny felt the ephedrine wearing off. His eyes grew heavy.
‘Get some kip, mucker,’ Spud said quietly. ‘I’ll keep stag.’
Danny started to protest, but Spud cut him short. ‘I’ll need to sleep soon too,’ he said. ‘I’ll wake you in two hours.’
Danny relented. He lay down on the hard floor and shut his eyes. Seconds later, he was asleep.
He loved McDonald’s. If he had his way, he’d eat there every day. But because he hadn’t much money, he seldom did. Now, however, he had scraped together every last piece of change he could find from around his flat and carefully counted it out. Five pounds, ninety-three pence. That meant he could buy a cup of tea for himself, and a McDonald’s breakfast for Nicki. He’d never taken a girl out for a meal before, but this much he knew: the boy had to pay.
The tea was very hot, and he was very anxious as he sat in McDonald’s on Lower Regent Street. This was where she had suggested they meet, at 7.30 exactly. He’d been surprised that she wanted to hook up so early. Wouldn’t it be more romantic to meet in the evening? But she had insisted. I can’t wait that long, she had said, and he’d felt that strange churning in his stomach once more.
So there he was, at a table of his own, ignoring all the early-morning punters as they walked in and out with their Egg McMuffins and paper cups of coffee. He took a sip of tea. It scalded his tongue and he spilt a bit on the table. He tried to wipe it with his sleeve and spilt a bit more. He started to panic – this sort of thing always happened to him – but then he became aware of somebody standing over him.
He looked up. It was her.
He blinked.
She was even more beautiful than in her picture. Her full lips were glossy with red lipstick. Her curly dark hair tumbled over one shoulder. She wore a black jumper, but it was tight enough to reveal the curves that had captured his interest in the night. And she pouted at him, in a way no girl ever had done, except on a screen, or in his head.
‘Hello,’ he said. His voice croaked unattractively as he spoke, so he tried again. ‘Hello!’
‘Hi,’ she said in a throaty, husky voice that made him feel weak with desire. ‘Can I sit down?’
He nodded and watched as she took a seat next to him. It was only then that he realised she had something with her. A small suitcase on wheels, the handle extended so she could pull it behind her. The zip was fastened with a tiny padlock.
It crossed his mind that you only ever pack a suitcase if you’re planning to stay the night somewhere. He felt goosebumps emerging on his skin in anticipation.
He smiled at her.
She smiled back.
‘Would you like an Egg McMuffin?’ he asked.
‘Wake up. Wake up!’
Danny started and sat up immediately. Daylight. It took him two seconds to remember where he was, by which time he was back at his stool and looking through the net curtains. Time check: 07.38. Spud must have let him sleep for a good five hours. The door to number 27 was open and a figure had his back to them, closing it. Danny narrowed his eyes and watched carefully. The figure turned. Like a snapshot being taken in his brain, Danny recognised the face.
Sarim Galaid. They had a positive ID.
Eight
Danny turned to Spud. ‘Follow him,’ he said.
Spud looked unsure. ‘What you got in mind, mucker?’ he said. It was clear that he didn’t fully trust Danny to do the right thing.
‘I’ll recce the flat. But you need to keep on him, so I know when he’s coming back.’
Spud looked through the net curtain again. The kid was walking up to the iron gate at the end of the short front path. ‘Roger that,’ he breathed. Without another word he jogged from the room and down the stairs. Danny heard the door open and shut, and a moment later saw Spud following the target down Dalewood Mews, walking on the other side of the street with his head down.
A strange calm descended on Danny as he picked up his prepared snap gun and shouldered his heavy rucksack. Spud’s voice crackled in his ear: ‘Heading up towards Hammersmith Broadway.’
Danny tapped the pressel switch on his radio twice: universal code for ‘Roger that’.
He headed downstairs and out into the street. He could hear traffic nearby, much louder than it had been during the night. The rain had stopped, but the morning sky was threatening. He reckoned a storm was coming. As he closed the door behind him, he saw a woman emerge from a separate entrance to the first-floor flat above number 27. Her hair was tied back in an Alice band and she was eating a muesli bar. Late for work. She didn’t give Danny a second glance. He waited for her to hurry down the road, then headed across the street right up to the door of number 27.
With a single, swift movement, he inserted the snap gun into the lock. A few squeezes of the trigger and a tweak from the tension rod, and the door was open. Danny stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind him. The latch clicked shut.
The front door had opened directly on to the front room of the flat. A smallish room, eight metres by eight. Thick floral curtains, closed. A sofa bed against one wall, opened up but without any bedclothes. A strange smell: dirt, with a tinge of cordite. Danny instinctively knew he was going to find something here.
He didn’t step any further into the room. Not yet. His presence here needed to be totally deniable. That meant no fingerprints and no DNA traces. He fished in his rucksack for one of the two vacuum-packed SOCO suits he had stowed inside, and bit into the stiff plastic wrapping. The pack expanded like an inflating lung. He carefully tore it open and removed a pair of latex gloves, which he pulled on to each hand, covering his cuffs with the latex to make a tight seal. Next up, he donned a polythene hairnet and a
paper mask that gave him the air of a surgeon. All that was left in the kit now was the paper suit, which he pulled over his clothes and shoes to avoid contaminating the scene with any stray fibres that might contain his DNA. Once he was properly suited up, the only weak point was his rucksack, but he’d just have to take a risk with that. He shouldered it again and, holding his cocked weapon in his right hand, stepped forward.
The front room led directly to a second reception, exactly the same size and just as scantly furnished. A window on the right-hand side of the far wall was covered with an almost opaque blind, but he could see through it into a badly kept garden. Next to the window was an opening into a small galley kitchen. Just like in the flat across the road that they’d been using as an OP, there was another door at the far end of the kitchen that Danny assumed led to the bathroom.
But of much more interest was another door in the corner of the room to his left. The geography of the place meant it could only lead down to a basement. Danny stepped towards the door and opened it up.
Sure enough, he found a flight of stone steps leading downwards.
He spoke into his radio. ‘Do you copy?’
‘Roger that.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Tesco Metro, two blocks away. So far he’s bought a carton of soya milk and a four-pack of Andrex. Looks like he’s in for a great morning.’
Danny looked down the stone steps. ‘How long have I got?’
A pause.
‘What you doing, mucker? I thought this was just a recce. If there’s any bomb-making gear, we’ll go back later.’
‘Just a recce,’ Danny agreed. ‘But can you distract him?’
More silence.
‘What do you mean, distract him?’
‘I don’t know, ask him directions or something. Just keep him out of here as long as you can while I search for explosives.’
‘Okay,’ Spud said with obvious suspicion. ‘But it’s not going to be long. He’s queueing up with his bog roll right now. Get the hell out of there as quick as you can.’