by Andy McNab
Somebody turned on the radio and the soothing sound of violins filled the Merc.
It struck me as strange; I wouldn't have expected these boys to be into classical music any more than I was.
I knew the area we were driving through like the back of my hand. As a ten-year old I had played there while bunking school. In those days the place was one big mass of minging council estates, dodgy secondhand-car dealers and old men in pubs drinking bottles of light ale. But now it looked as if every available square metre was being gentrified. The place was crawling with luxury developments and 911 Caireras, and all the pubs had been converted into wine bars. I wondered where all the old men went now to keep out of the cold.
We were approaching Elephant and Castle again. The music finished and a female voice came on with an update on the incident that had shaken London. There were unconfirmed reports, she said, that three people had been killed in a gun battle with police, and that the bomb blast in Whitehall had produced between ten and sixteen minor casualties, who were being treated in hospital. Tony Blair had expressed his absolute outrage from his villa in Italy, and the emergency services were on full alert as further explosions could not be ruled out. No one as yet had claimed responsibility for the blast.
We rounded the Elephant and Castle and headed towards Kennington, pulling over as two police vans sirened their way past.
Sundance turned to me and shook his head in mock disapproval. Tut-tut-rut. See you you're a menace to society, you are."
As the news finished and the music returned I continued to look out of the window. I was a menace to myself, not society. Why couldn't I steer clear of shit for a change, instead of heading straight for it like a light-drunk moth?
We passed Kennington tube station, then took a right into a quiet residential street. The street name had been ripped from its post and the wooden backing was covered in graffiti. We turned again and the driver had to brake as he came across six or seven kids in the middle of the road, kicking a ball against the gable end of a turn-of-the-century terrace. They stopped and let us through, then immediately got back to trying to demolish the wall.
We drove about forty metres further, then stopped. Sundance hit his key fob and a graffiti-covered double garage shutter started to roll up. Left and right of it was a pitted brown brick wall; above was a rusty metal frame that had probably once held a neon sign. Empty drinks cans littered the ground. Inside was completely empty. As we drove in, I saw that all around the old brick walls were tool boards with faded, red-painted shapes of what was supposed to be hanging there. Years ago it had probably been a one-man garage set-up. A faded Chelsea FC team poster was pinned to a door. Judging by the long haircuts, sideburns and very tight shorts, it was seventies vintage.
The shutter door rattled and squeaked its way down behind me, gradually cutting off the noise of the kids kicking the ball. The engine was cut and the three of them started to get out.
Sundance disappeared through the football poster door, leaving it open behind him, with luck for me to get dragged through. Anything to be out of the car and have the pressure off my wrists. Maybe I'd even get given a brew. I hadn't eaten or drunk anything since the night before: there'd been too much to do and I'd simply forgotten. Just placing the bomb on the hotel roof had taken the best part of four hours, and an Egg McMuffin had been the last thing on my mind.
While I was watching the door swing back slowly to reveal the Chelsea mop heads again, Trainers leant down and undid the cuffs pinning me to the seat. Then he and the driver got hold of me and dragged me out. We headed towards the door; I was beginning to feel that maybe I'd get away with this after all. Then I gave myself a good mental slapping: every time I had this feeling I came unstuck.
What was happening here meant nothing until I saw the Yes Man and told him my piece. I decided to do my best not to annoy these boys while we waited. They were doing their best to intimidate me; things are always more worrying when there is no verbal contact and no information, and it was working a little, that was for sure. Not a lot, but enough.
They dragged me through the door and into a windowless, rectangular space with pitted, dirty whitewashed brick walls. The room was airless, hot and humid, and to add to the mix somebody had been smoking roll-ups. A harsh, double fluorescent unit in the ceiling gave the impression there was nowhere to hide.
On the floor in the left-hand corner was a steam-powered TV with a shiny new swordfish aerial hanging from a nail on the wall. It was the only thing in the room that looked as if it hadn't been purchased from a junk shop. Facing it was a worn-out brown velour three-piece suite. The arms were threadbare, and the seats sagged and were dotted with cigarette burns. Plugged into adaptors in the same socket as the TV were a green upright plastic kettle, a toaster, and battery chargers for three mobiles. The place reminded me of a minicab office, with old newspapers and Burger King drinks cups providing the finishing touches.
Sundance was standing by the TV, finishing another call on his mobile. He looked at me and gestured towards the corner.
"Keep it shut, boy."
The other two gave me a shove to help me on my way. As I slid down the wall I tried my hardest not to push against the cuffs and ratchet them up even tighter than they already were. I finally slumped on to the floor and ended up facing the TV.
SIX
I guessed this place had been just a temporary set-up for the duration of the job and the job, of course, was planning and preparing to kill me. No doubt there was a similar set-up somewhere else in London where a whole lot of the boys and girls had prepared themselves for the hit on the snipers.
Trainers went over to the TV as the other two headed back into the garage. I watched as he crouched down by the brew kit, opening the kettle to check for water. His light brown nylon jacket had ridden up to expose part of a black leather pancake holster sitting on a leather belt, just behind his right hip, and a green T-shirt dark with sweat. Even the back of his belt was soaking, and had turned a much darker brown than the rest.
I could still hear the kids in the background, kicking their ball and yelling at each other. The pitch of their voices changed as one probably mis-kicked and was treated to squeals of derision. My hands, still stuck in the surgical gloves, were pruning up in the heat.
Trainers lined up three not-too-healthy-looking Simpsons mugs, Bart, Marge and Homer, which pissed me off. Maggie was missing. There obviously wasn't going to be any brew for me. He threw a tea bag into each, splashed milk on top, then dug a spoon into a crumpled, half-empty bag of sugar, tipping heaps of it into two of the mugs.
A toilet flushed in the garage area, and the sound got louder then softer as a door opened and closed. I could hear Sundance and the driver mumbling to each other but couldn't make out what was said.
The Merc door slammed, the engine turned over, and there was more squeaking and grinding as the shutter lifted. Thirty seconds later the car backed out into the road and drove away. Maybe one K of the mugs was for me after all.
| Sundance appeared at the office door, his back to us, checking |that the shutter had fully closed. As the steel banged on to the I floor, he walked to the settee and threw his green cotton bomber jacket on to the armrest of the nearest chair, revealing a wet maroon polo shirt and a chunky Sig 9mm, holstered just behind his right hip. On his left hip sat a light brown leather mag-carrier, with three thick pieces of elastic holding a magazine apiece. The first brass round of each glinted in the ceiling's white light. I almost laughed: three full mags, and just for little old me. I'd heard of overkill but this was something out of the last five minutes of Butch Cassidy. It was obvious where this boy had got his best ideas.
He stripped off his polo shirt and used it to wipe the sweat from his face, exposing a badly scarred back. Two indentations were clearly gunshot wounds: I recognized them because I had one myself. Someone had also given him the good news with a knife, some of the slashes running the whole length of his back, with stitch marks either side. All
in all, it looked quite a lot like an aerial photo of Clapham Junction. I Trainers, who'd just finished squeezing and fishing out the tea bags lifted up a brew for Sundance.
"Still want one?" His accent was 100 per cent Belfast. If the driver turned out to be Welsh we'd be able to put together a joke book.
"Right enough." Wiping his neck and shoulders, Sundance sat down in the chair nearest the TV, avoiding resting his wet, bare back against the velour by sitting upright on the edge. He took a tentative sip from Bart, the mug without sugar.
He had been hitting the weights, but didn't have the chiselled look of a bodybuilder. He had the physique of a con who'd been pumping iron: the diet in prisons is so bad that when the lads take to the weights they end up barrel-chested and bulked up, rather than well honed.
He glanced at me for the first time and caught me studying his back.
"Belfast when you was just a wee soldier-boy." He treated himself to a little giggle, then nodded at the third Simpsons mug still on the floor by Trainers.
"D'you want a tea, then, boy?"
Trainers held up Marge.
I nodded. Teah, I would, thanks."
There was a pause for a couple of seconds while they exchanged a look, then both roared with laughter as Trainers did a bad Cockney accent.
"Gor blimey, guy, I would, fan ks
Trainers sat himself down on the settee with Homer, still laughing as he took the piss.
"Strike a light, guvnor, yeah, I would, cheers. Luv a duck." At least someone was having fun.
Trainers put his own brew on the cracked tiled floor and took off his jacket.
He'd obviously had a tattoo removed by laser recently; there was the faintest red scar just visible on his forearm, but the outstretched Red Hand of Ulster was still plain to see. He had been, maybe still was, a member of the UDA (Ulster Defence Association). Maybe they'd both pumped their iron in one of the H blocks.
Trainers' triceps rippled under his tanned, freckled skin as he felt behind the cushions and pulled out a packet of Drum. Resting it on his knees, he took out some Rizlas and started to make himself a roll-up.
Sundance didn't like what he saw.
"You know he hates that -just wait."
"Right enough." The Drum packet was folded and returned beneath the cushions.
It made me very happy indeed to hear that: the Yes Man must be on his way. Even though I'd never smoked I'd never been a tobacco Nazi, but Frampton certainly was.
My arse was getting numb on the hard floor so I shifted very slowly into another position, trying not to draw attention to myself. Sundance got up, mug in hand, walked the three paces to the TV, and hit the power button then each of the station buttons till he got a decent picture.
Trainers sparked up, 'I like this one. It's a laugh." Sundance shuffled backwards to his chair, eyes glued to the box. Both were now ignoring me as they watched a woman, whose voice was straight off the Radio Four news, talk to the show's china expert about her collection of Pekinese dog teacups.
I couldn't hear the kids any more over the TV as I waited for the Merc to return. On the screen, the woman tried not to show how pissed off she was when the expert told her the china was only worth fifty quid.
Whoever had christened Frampton the Yes Man was a genius: it was the only word he said to any of his superiors. In the past this had never worried me because I had nothing to do with him directly, but all that changed when he was promoted to run the UK Ks Desk in SIS (Secret Intelligence Service). The Firm used some ex-SAS people like me, in fact anyone, probably even my new friends here, as deniable operators. The Ks Desk had traditionally been run by an IB (member of Intelligence Branch), the senior branch of the service. In fact the whole service is run by IBs for IBs; these are the boys and girls we read about in the papers, recruited from university, working from embassies and using mundane Foreign Office appointments as cover. Their real work, however, starts at six in the evening when the conventional diplomats begin their round of cocktail parties, and the IBs start gathering intelligence, spreading disinformation and recruiting sources.
That's when the low-life like me come into the picture, carrying out, or in some cases cleaning up, the dirty work that they create while throwing the odd crab paste sandwich and After Eight down their necks. I envied them that, at times like this.
The Yes Man did, too. He had been to university, but not one of the right two.
He had never been one of the elite, an IB, yet had probably always wanted to be.
But he just wasn't made of the right stuff. His background was the Directorate of Special Support, a branch of wild-haired technicians and scientists working on electronics, signals, electronic surveillance and explosive devices. He'd run the signals department of the UK Ks, but had never been in the field.
I didn't know why the Firm had suddenly changed the system and let a non-IB take command. Maybe with the change of government they thought they should look a bit more meritocratic, give a tweak or two to the system to make them look good and keep the politicians happy as they skipped back to Whitehall, instead of interfering too much with what really goes on. So, who better to run the Desk than someone who wasn't an IB, arse licked his way from breakfast to dinnertime, and would do whatever he was told?
Whatever, I didn't like him and never would. He certainly wasn't on my speed dial, that was for sure. On the one occasion that I'd had direct contact with him, the job had fouled up because he'd supplied insufficient com ms kit.
He'd only been in the job since Colonel Lynn had 'taken early retirement' about seven months ago, but he'd already proved his incompetence more than once. The only thing he was good at was issuing threats; he had neither the personality nor the management skills to do it any other way. Lynn might have been just as much of an arse hole but at least you knew where you stood with him.
I was adjusting my position some more when the shutter rattled and I heard an engine rev outside.
They both stood up and put their wet shirts back on. Sundance walked over to turn off the TV. Neither of them bothered to look at me. It was still as if I wasn't there.
The engine noise got louder. Doors slammed and the shutter came down again.
The Yes Man appeared at the door, still in his suit and looking severely pissed off. Trainers slipped dutifully out of the room, like the family Labrador.
I wouldn't have thought it possible but the Yes Man's face was an even brighter red than usual. He was under pressure. Yet again, C and his mates weren't too pleased with their non-IB experiment.
He stopped just three or four feet away from me, looking like an irate schoolteacher, legs apart, hands on hips.
"What happened, Stone?" he shouted.
"Can't you get anything right?"
What was he on about? Only two hours ago he'd wanted me killed, and now he was telling me off like a naughty schoolboy. But it wasn't the moment to point this out. It was the moment to creep big-time.
"I just don't know, Mr. Frampton. As soon as I had three lights up I sent the fire commands. I don't know what happened after that. It should have worked, all four of us had com ms up until then but-' "But nothing!" he exploded.
"The task was a complete failure." His voice jumped an octave.
"I'm holding you personally responsible, you do know that, don't you?"
I did now. But what was new?
He took a deep breath.
"You don't understand the importance of this operation that you have completely scuppered, do you?"
Scuppered? I tried not to smile but couldn't help it.
"Fucked up' was how Lynn would have put it.
The Yes Man was still playing the school-teacher. There's nothing to smile about, Stone. Who, in heaven's name, do you think you are?"
It was time for a bit of damage limitation.
"Just someone trying to keep alive," I said. That's why I taped our conversation, Mr. Frampton."
He was silent for a few seconds while that sank in, breathing
heavily, eyes bulging. Ah, yes, the tape and pictures. He must have just remembered why I was still alive and he was here. But not for long; his brain switch was set to Transmit rather than Receive. 'You've no idea of the damage you've done. The Americans were adamant that this had to be done today. I gave my word to them, and others, that it would." He was starting to feel sorry for himself.
"I can't believe I had so much confidence in you."
So it was an American job. No wonder he was flapping. The senior Brits had been trying to heal a number of rifts in their relationship with the USA for quite a while now especially as some of the US agencies just saw the UK as a route to extend its reach into Europe, and not as any sort of partner. The 'special relationship' was, in effect, history.
But the big picture wasn't exactly top of my agenda right now. I didn't care what had been scuppered. I didn't even care who had sponsored the job and why it had had to happen. I just wanted to get out of this room in one piece.
"As I said, Mr. Frampton, the lights were up and I ordered the shoot. Maybe if the three snipers were debriefed they could ..."
He looked at my lips but my words seemed not to register.
"You have let a serious problem develop in Central America, Stone. Do you not realize the implications?"
"No, sir' he always liked that.
"I don't, sir."
His right hand came off his hip and he stared at the face of his watch.
"No, sir, that's right, you don't, sir. Because of you, we, the Service, are not influencing events in a direction favourable to Britain."
He was starting to sound like a party political broadcast. I couldn't have cared less what was happening in Central America. All I was worried about was now, here.
The Yes Man sighed as he loosened his scarlet tie and opened his collar. Some beads of sweat dribbled down the side of his flushed face. He thumbed behind him in the direction of Sundance.