by Andy McNab
I twisted off the protective caps of both auto-jets with my teeth, spat them onto the floor and waited.
The double doors swung open and three sets of footsteps squeaked along the corridor.
The two guys came into view. Sophie was a pace or two behind them.
I let all three pass the kitchen door.
If I waited too long, I’d have a marathon run-up and give them plenty of warning. If I didn’t wait long enough, I’d trip over Sophie and risk a total gangfuck.
When she was three paces past, I swung open the door and slid out into the corridor, an auto-jet in each hand, thumbs over the buttons. I barged past Sophie, shouldering her to the right, thumping her into the plasterboard. I lunged with both auto-jets and shoved them straight into the nearest available arses. My thumbs squeezed the rubber buttons like vices. Not caring if the needles stayed in or fell out, I cannoned into the chubbies, smashing them down onto the pristine floor as quickly as I could, giving them a good kicking to disorient them for the couple of seconds before the drugs took effect.
Sophie was on her knees, hands covering her face. I wasn’t sure if I’d hurt her, or if she’d just had enough of this stuff for one day. I couldn’t see any blood.
As the scopolamine kicked in, I searched them both. No weapons and no ID – but, then, I guess I didn’t really expect them to be carrying El Peregrino Fan Club membership cards.
I pulled Sophie’s hands away from her face. ‘You’ll live.’
I ran back to the theatre for more bandages. Grabbing armfuls of the things, I dumped them on the floor alongside the two men. ‘Get these undone. We’ve got to tie these boys up for long enough to get over the border.’
We bound their hands behind their backs then tied their feet together. And then, arranging them on their sides, back to back, I tied their heads and necks together, grabbed Sophie’s arm to help her up, and headed for the Toyota.
14
As the shutter rolled down behind us, Sophie drove through what turned out to be a brand-new high-tech business park packed with steel and smoked-glass units. The flowerbeds hadn’t even been planted yet: patches of mud and weed stretched along each side of the road.
Bruce sat upright again. The Ringer’s flowed down the line from a fresh bag on the dash to his right hand, which now rested on his thigh. I could see in the rear-view that the movement of the vehicle was giving him pain, but he would survive. I perched behind them on the aluminium Lacon box, surrounded by a mountain of cardboard packaging.
We bounced out of the park, between billboards proclaiming in Mandarin and English that this was the entrance to the New World. If you brought your business here, you were going to benefit from great good fortune, reasonably priced leases and future prosperity. The only thing missing was a giant waving cat.
I tapped Sophie on the shoulder. ‘Where exactly are we?’
‘Just east of Shenzhen. Ten, maybe fifteen, minutes away.’
That was good: the less time we had to endure in the PRC the better. ‘You know the nearest hospital across the border?’
She glanced to her left as Bruce swayed from side to side. Then she nodded.
‘So what’s the routine on the border? What happens as you go through?’
She kept her right hand on the wheel but slid her left across the centre console towards him. He adjusted the position of the Ringer’s tube so he could rest his palm on hers. ‘Most of them know us. We’re in and out all the time. We just show them passports and business permits, and that’s it. The traffic’s unbelievable, so they like to keep it moving.’
Massed ranks of Shenzhen high-rises gathered to my right, and almost immediately a mass of houses and shopfronts jostled for position on each side of the road.
I put a hand on Bruce’s shoulder as we cut through the outskirts. ‘Not long now, mate.’
Sophie gently squeezed his hand.
‘We near?’
She let go of Bruce to hit the indicator. ‘Not far. I’m pulling in here.’
She turned into a hypermarket car park, put the engine in neutral and climbed into the back.
I pulled the snub-nose from my jeans and eased myself into the Lacon box. I’d been in there once before, and I hadn’t liked it then so I kept one of the two latches open a couple of centimetres with my free hand in case she had a sudden rush of blood to the head and threw the bolts.
‘Sophie …’
‘What?’
I could hear cardboard boxes being piled on top of me.
‘Don’t forget to hide the Ringer’s. Shove it up his sweatshirt and keep the line out of sight. It’s got to look completely routine – something you do every day.’
I heard her scramble back to the driver’s seat, and we started to move. I tried to ignore the feeling that the sides of the Lacon were starting to press in on me.
About ten minutes passed, then: ‘We’re here. Keep still.’
We stopped, engine idling, moved forward a few metres and stopped again. I assumed we were in a queue for the security barrier. I imagined the border post swarming with uniformed PRC guards taking their jobs very seriously indeed.
A nearby truck’s air brakes gave an explosive hiss.
There were lots of angry Chinese shouts – but, then again, maybe they were just pleased to see each other.
More movement, then we braked again. This time the waffling was right above me.
‘Good morning!’
Sophie sounded like her old über-confident self. The guards gave her a grunt or two back.
I gripped the weapon in my right hand; my left was against the lid, ready to push it up and start firing – or do whatever I had to do to get across the border.
Things didn’t sound as smooth as they should. There was some quizzing going on, and Sophie seemed to be having a bit of difficulty holding her own. We rolled forward a few metres and the engine cut.
Ears primed, I concentrated on the tone of their exchange, trying to work out if it was time to go noisy.
Normal had gone out the window, but Sophie was doing her best to keep control. ‘Go to hospital. Accident. Problem. Hospital!’
She got a bit hyper. I couldn’t tell if someone was pointing a gun at her, or if it was part of her act. ‘He’s injured. I need to get him to Sha Tin, the hospital … Sha Tin – doctor – hospital.’
There was a rapid exchange outside the vehicle, then I heard Sophie’s voice again. ‘Thank you. Thank you …’
The engine started and we rolled.
I kept my head down until Sophie shouted the all-clear. ‘You can get out now.’ The relief in her voice was so strong I could almost reach out and touch it.
I pushed up the lid just enough to check we were driving on the left, then climbed out, scattering cardboard boxes. ‘What happened back there?’
‘It wasn’t a problem. We’re through now.’
I caught sight of Sophie’s expression in the rear-view. She had her foot down, and the happy-teddy look was definitely a thing of the past. She pointed at Bruce’s stomach.
I leaned between them to take hold of the Ringer’s bag Bruce had just fished from underneath his sweatshirt. A stain the colour of treacle was spreading across it. He wasn’t looking good. His face was covered with beads of sweat, even with the air-con going full blast.
I stayed where I was, Ringer’s bag in my hand, my elbows resting on the console between them. ‘I’ll get out just before the hospital. Then that’s us done—’
Sophie had both hands back on the wheel, but was now weaving between vehicles, veering dangerously close to the oncoming traffic.
‘Sophie, slow down. If we crash this thing, or get pulled in, it’ll fuck us up even more …’
She heard me but her foot didn’t. We obviously didn’t have much quality-conversation time left.
‘How do I find this Pilgrim guy?’
‘No idea. The suit was our contact. Even he uses a new cell every time.’
‘So what about the money? H
ow does that side of things work?’
‘It’s all done through intermediaries.’
She overtook a couple of young lads riding side by side on scooters with their girlfriends hanging on the back. They hit their tinny horns in unison and gave Sophie the finger.
‘These guys know about me? Know I’m looking for her?’
She shrugged. ‘Like I said, we have no direct contact. But I guess they must have the photograph.’
She glanced at Bruce. ‘Nick, do you really think you’re going to find her? You’re living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. You should go back to Moscow, then take Anna somewhere nice, somewhere a long way away, and keep your heads down. Take what you have, and start afresh. You’re just as fucked as we are.’
She brightened as she rediscovered Bruce’s hand. ‘But I guess it’s when you’re really in trouble that you remember what’s important in your life.’
Bruce somehow raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it.
She flicked the wheel to get us back on the right side of the road. Her left hand was still in Bruce’s, but at least her eyes were on the road.
‘What about the three girls from Moldova? The ones you picked up from the airport the other day?’
Bruce took a deep, rasping breath. ‘With … Kitty … We always … keep the passports … so she won’t go … freelance …’
‘Well, I’ve got them now. Tell Kitty you’re dumping the girls. Tell her they’ve got HIV or something, and should go and fetch their passports from the Upper House reception desk. Get them air tickets. Give them cash, whatever. Just get them home.’
Bruce let go of Sophie for a moment and rested his palm on my forearm. I think I saw him smile. Then he coughed hard, and the pain took over again.
Sophie indicated right, but stayed in the middle of the road while she waited for a gap in the traffic. ‘We’re here.’
The hospital was a grey concrete block, with all the outbuildings, departments and signage you could have wished for. Unless you were in a hurry to find a doctor.
‘Drop me here.’ I wanted to get out before she crossed the main and came within range of the CCTV cameras monitoring the hospital entry road.
Once we’d stopped, Sophie turned and flicked her hair back from her face. ‘Nick, get back to Anna, then find a hiding place as far away from him as you can. Believe me, he’ll want to kill you both.’
I opened the sliding door, jumped out and headed south without looking back. There was bound to be an MTR station around here somewhere.
15
The Upper House
1 September 2011
17.18 hrs
Anna sounded more frustrated and angry than I’d ever heard her.
I was lying on the bed in my second set of jeans and white shirt, towelling my hair with one hand, holding the iPhone to my ear with the other. I didn’t really know what her problem was. She’d made choices. Doing the work she did – no one made her run around the world looking for trouble. And me – she’d made a choice when she’d taken me on.
I knew motherhood changed everything – it had certainly changed her – but why take it out on me? Especially when I was seven thousand Ks away, doing everything I could to protect them.
I cut away from all that emotional shit. The main thing was that the boy was stable now and doing well. Genghis and Mr Lover Man were stagging on at the clinic; no one was going to get past them, and that was all that mattered.
‘Is there anything you can think of that you haven’t told me about Katya? About her work? Her love life?’
Her sheets rustled.
‘She said she had a boyfriend and he was trouble. I told her that was nothing new. Work-wise, she was brilliant, really skilled and committed.’ She paused. ‘She’s been a bit preoccupied recently, but I’ve no idea what that was about.’
‘You know I’ve got to go to Mexico, don’t you? I’ve got to settle this, once and for all.’
She sighed in a way that I’d come to know all too well. It meant I was about to get another helping of grief. And I did. ‘I understand. I get it. But this really has to stop, Nicholas. I worry for you. I worry for our son. Once and for all? No. There will always be a problem like this heading our way. It’s the way you are. I’ve changed. I’ve had no choice. But I don’t think you ever will. We really need to talk about this, for our son’s sake.’
‘It sounds as if you’ve already made up your mind, so what’s the point of talking?’
‘Don’t be like that …’
‘Now isn’t the time, Anna. Now I just need to sort this shit out. For all of us.’
She sighed again.
‘I’ll call you later.’
I put down the phone and headed for my Timberlands.
Ten minutes later, I stopped at the desk with the ever-smiling receptionist and asked if the package had been picked up by the three girls. It hadn’t.
The sun was dipping behind the high-rises. That was good, as far as I was concerned, because it was hot as fuck. I turned right and headed for Starbucks, making a mental note to buy another pair of sun-gigs.
I was halfway down the queue when I saw a cab pull up and the three girls climb out of the back. They were still wearing the clothes they’d left Moldova in, and each clutched a small overnight bag. Kitty got out from beside the driver and waved them towards the lobby. They obeyed like sheep as she jumped back into the cab. Seconds later, she was gone.
I picked up a sticky bun to go with my brew. When the barista asked me my name, I said the first thing that came to mind.
The girl’s brow furrowed and started scribbling.
I had a munch as I waited for my cappuccino. By the time it arrived, the Moldovan crew still hadn’t come out of the hotel. I went outside, in case there was a problem. As I got to the entrance, I realized what it was. They didn’t speak English, so had to rely on scribbled instructions. The package was handed over, and one of the guys on the door guided them outside.
‘You need a taxi?’ he asked. ‘Taxi to the airport?’
They nodded excitedly. ‘Taxi, taxi!’
He summoned one from the rank about twenty metres away, and leaned down to the driver as the girls piled inside.
‘To the airport. They’ve got a Lufthansa flight. You know the terminal?’
The driver nodded, pissed off that his knowledge was being questioned.
When the cab disappeared, I decided to bin the cappuccino and take off down the hill towards Admiralty. The girls would probably never know how lucky they were, and that was a pity. This time next year they might be on another flight to another place with another chance to be a dancer or a waitress, or, a year poorer, something much more desperate. But I still felt quite good about giving them a second chance. Where they came from, second chances weren’t too thick on the ground.
My Aussie mates would fade from view as soon as Bruce could walk without leaking. They were either going to be multimillionaires or convicts, but wherever they ended up, it wouldn’t be Hong Kong – or anywhere else with their old identities.
I felt a little jealous of them. They had each other, they had a plan, and they knew that no one else gave a fuck about them, so why worry?
I chucked a right towards Admiralty and got another coffee. This time it had Dino Sharpied all over the cup.
16
Wan Chai was as hot, sticky and congested as ever. The air was heavy with carbon monoxide trapped between the high-rises. I’d only walked a few hundred metres and my shirt already had big wet patches that clung to my sides. I’d bought myself a twenty-dollar pair of gigs, not that I needed them at ground level, with hundreds of feet of vertical concrete cutting out the low sun.
I checked out the bamboo scaffold as I entered the Internet café but there were no couples scrambling across it. I bought a can of Fanta that was as ice-cold as the shop, paid cash for a chunk of airtime and settled down to Google Dino Zavagno.
I picked up two guys straight away in two different countries, bot
h in financial services, both at the geek end of the spectrum. Neither wore his cock on his head or had been anywhere near a peroxide bottle. I also picked up a mass of LinkedIn invitations to names that were close but no cigar.
I had a go at Bernardino, his full name, on Facebook and all the social networks, but nothing was an exact match. That surprised me. He was such a fuckwit I’d thought he’d be all over the place for the ladies. On the off-chance, I searched his name on the DEA site but, of course, there was nothing.
All the same, I pinged off an email to their El Paso office, which covered New Mexico and a slice of Texas.
My name is Nick Stone. Could you please forward this message to Bernardino Zavagno?
Dino – well, it’s been a few years since Costa Rica, hasn’t it? Could you contact me – there’s something important I’d like to talk to you about? Nick.
It was a long shot: I hadn’t seen him for years. But if I did get to him, he might be able to help. If I didn’t, I’d just have to go to Mexico with a name, the same as I had coming here. But first I needed to see what was out there on El Peregrino, the Pilgrim.
I hit the keys and accessed all the normal places, but it looked like Katya, Dino and I were not the only people left on the planet without a digital presence. I hit the news channels and still nothing. There were no pictures and no articles that had anything remotely to do with the Pilgrim I was after.
PART SIX
1
Dulles Airport, Virginia
4 September 2011
15.22 hrs
My two-man DEA reception committee sat granite-like in their very shiny black Ford Taurus a few metres beyond the exit from the Avis car park. Chinos and polo shirts, short-back-and-sides with expressions to match. You didn’t need an eagle eye to spot them. They’d FaceTimed me as I exited the luggage hall, a hand covering the screen that would have shown Dino checking me out. And now, as if to make doubly sure they couldn’t be missed, the sedan carried government plates.