by Andy McNab
I led Rio down into the dead ground and we both got onto our knees with the screen illuminating the trunk. I guided his hand underneath for the bag and the hard steel inside, then got right up close to his ear. There was another reason I wanted Rio on his own. ‘Mate, keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn’t contact anyone. Buy whatever she needs, but make sure she’s not on her own with it. If she goes for a piss, she hands you the machine. She is the most important thing in our lives right now, but she’s also the most dangerous.’
‘I get it. But we still have the memory sticks, right? They’re still good?’
‘Even more so now. Because we need to keep them – and her – secure for our futures. Just keep her safe, mate, yeah? You keep her safe, you keep us safe.’
We stood up and scrambled back to the rest of the team, then set off towards habitation and the park-and-ride.
62
I did what you normally do when you’re watching people order breakfast in McDonald’s from the other side of the street. I bit into the first of my two flaky sausage rolls from Greggs, then took a sip of flat white.
The shutters were still down at CeX, further up The Horsefair on the edge of what I used to know as the Broadmead shopping centre, but which signs were telling me was now called Bristol shopping quarter. No amount of name changes, though, could cheer up the planners’ love of concrete.
The street called The Horsefair was on the edge of the shopping quarter, and was more Vape R Us than Planet Organic. From the amount of cardboard in the doorways, some with people still lying on it, a lot of homeless used the shops’ overhangs for overnight shelter. Some even had pop-up tents and scabby dogs for early warning. Workers hurried past with paper coffee cups in their hands and earphones shoved in, all bent over in the wind. The area suited me, the way I felt and looked.
The sun wasn’t playing today. It was dull and gusty, but at least it gave me a reason to have my hood up. My hands were recovering from the swelling, and the pins and needles told me that life was coming back to them.
There was no way I would ever have gone on a recce for the Owl meet. I was here to protect our main asset. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Rio to do the job, but I needed to be one bound away from them, having an overview of what was going on around them so they could get on with it. If they’d known I was out there, they might have acted unnaturally. If I was part of the set-up, I would also be part of the problem. They needed to appear as normal as possible, just in case they were being followed. If anything happened, I was one step back and, with luck, could intervene.
It had been a straightforward journey into the city. The buses ran from the park-and-ride every ten to fifteen minutes, and for four pounds you got a return ticket. Not that all of us would be going back to the golf course: if Gabe and Jack managed to buy a van, which I was sure they would, it would be just me or Rio. It was a dangerous business going back to a hide. You never knew if it had been compromised, and if it had, whether or not the people you were trying to avoid had found it.
There was also an even bigger indicator that we were in the area, of course, and that was the Beamer. It was our link to Cornwall, so it didn’t matter if it was parked at a golf course or shoved onto a treeline. It was the last bit of snake-skin we were trying to shed, the last connection to all that had happened further down in the south-west. The weapons were important to us. We didn’t know what our futures were, and having some Vectors evened up the odds a little.
I finished off the first sausage roll, adding even more grease and crumbly bits to the fur coats my teeth were wearing after days of no brushing.
Rio and Yulia sat down with their trays and tucked into their coffee and food. I had seen Rio give Yulia a bollocking about her neck: like an over-concerned granny he had made sure that her fleece was zipped up to the top to cover as much of the ink as possible. Good skills.
I checked out The Horsefair. I didn’t see anybody watching, repositioning themselves, doing anything other than getting on with life. Everyone had their heads down, bolting pastries as fast as they could as they made their way to another exciting day at work or school. The third party was just being third party.
There was a helicopter in the distance somewhere, but it was travelling, not static. It’s only when helicopters stop that you need to worry.
I stood where I was, having a go at the second sausage roll. Traffic cruised past, fleets of taxis and buses – the occasional squad car did its stuff on blues and twos. A couple of police community support officers trundled past on the beat. All third party, all good.
Another fifteen minutes passed, then Rio and Yulia were on their feet and shovelling the waste off their trays into the bins. CeX opened at nine thirty. They came out of McDonald’s and turned right.
I screwed up the Greggs bag and kept it in my hand. Litterbugs attract attention. Somebody might say something or grab the PCSOs and report me. Coffee cup in my right hand, I looked about and listened hard, in case some over-excited surveillance operator couldn’t control the volume of their voice as they gobbed off into a concealed mic.
Rio and Yulia looked okay together. No one was giving them strange glances, and why would they? Everyone had their own dramas to deal with: kids, unhappy marriages, even unhappier mortgages.
The two of them were coming unsighted as The Horsefair curved to the left. I followed. I jettisoned the Greggs bag in a bin and took a sip of coffee.
The shutters were up and Rio and Yulia disappeared inside. I carried on past on the other side of the road, making no attempt to look in. There was no reason to. I kept my head down, walking with purpose, same as everybody else. We all had places to go.
Twenty metres further on I came to a smokers’ convention in a series of doorways. It looked like the oversized windows had once belonged to a department store, but now it was Poundland and big green signs shouted about massive bargains inside. It would be a good place to stake out CeX from, but there were too many smokers. One would try to strike up a conversation, probably about why I wasn’t smoking. BetFred was a bit further along: if they came out of CeX and turned right, I could nip inside for a minute or so until they were past.
I stood in the betting-office doorway, taking casual sips of coffee and wishing I’d bought four sausage rolls instead of two. The traffic rumbled past, the footfall continued, and then one thing was out of place.
He was normal height, normal build, normal haircut, short, side parting, nondescript blue fleece on blue jeans and trainers. He was wearing earphones, but so was almost everyone. The white leads disappeared into the chest pocket of the fleece. Nothing unusual. Everything perfectly normal as he crossed with purpose from my side of the road towards CeX and the bus stop immediately outside it, just as you do when you talk on your phone and you’re crossing the road. But this third party wasn’t checking the traffic as he dodged it: his eyes were fixed exclusively on the store, and as he spoke into the mic he pushed it closer to his mouth.
I cut away from him immediately because he was the possible known. I needed to know if there were unknowns. Were there others on foot, taking over the trigger, moving into another doorway ready to take Rio and Yulia as they left, or in vehicles parked up in the loading bays? Were cars suddenly pulling into the kerb? I strained my ears and eyes for any indication of the helicopter. Was it now a static dot in the sky, its optics bearing down on us?
There was none of that. And no police. Even the PCSOs had gone.
Keeping my hood up as I swigged the last of the flat white, I got back to Mr Bland. He’d reached the shop and was very interested in the window displays, all the mobiles and games gear, laptops and tablets.
A bus passed me left to right, a number fifty-four, double-decker, its air brakes already on to slow it for the stop, and Mr Bland disappeared from view. Was he going to catch it? The bus stopped with the final hiss of brakes and the doors opened. Mr Bland reappeared, not sitting next to a bus window but emerging from behind the bus, walking along the pavem
ent, heading back the way he, and we, had come. I checked for another stakeout. Had Mr Bland just been there to confirm they were inside before handing over to a trigger? Or maybe he didn’t like the deals on offer and I was being paranoid again.
All I could see was the third party, all around, doing third-party stuff, and Mr Bland still walking away in the direction of McDonald’s.
It was maybe another fifteen minutes before Rio came out of the shop with Yulia half a step behind. Rio was carrying a red plastic bag, and they turned left, back the way we had come. I stayed where I was until they became unsighted as they hit the curve on the right, waiting for the last possible moment to see if there was a trigger, if a follow was being initiated.
There wouldn’t be vans screaming up, doors bursting open and men bundling them into the back. That was for Hollywood. They would wait. They would follow. They would be hoping to get us all together and deliver us as a job lot to the Owl.
I abandoned BetFred’s doorway and followed them from the other side of the road. They carried on past McDonald’s. Still nothing to indicate a follow. Fuck it: I wasn’t paranoid, I was just conscientious. It didn’t feel right, and that was the problem. If something didn’t feel right, it normally wasn’t. There was nothing I could do, apart from what I was doing now, because there was nothing to react to.
I followed them as they finished rounding the curve, and watched as they went into a newsagent’s together.
63
I’d spent the last couple of hours hanging out in coffee shops in and around the shopping quarter, watching Yulia make roll-ups seemingly one-handed and join the other smokers standing outside the main shopping mall. Rio stayed with her at all times, and from his gestures, the waffle was nothing but complaints about her smoking and his having to be around it.
A band of Remainers had set up a gazebo and trestle table outside the main entrance and were trying to hand out leaflets on how wonderful it would be to stay in the EU. Then the Leavers turned up and did exactly the same thing, and the vast majority of people refused to take information from either.
I got the mobile up and downloaded the tracker app. I couldn’t see anything to indicate surveillance, but what I’d seen still didn’t feel right. Maybe if the Owl was round and about there was a slim chance one of the tracker community would pick him up, in Bristol, London, or wherever. Any form of indication of where he was would have been welcome. It would have been madness not to download the app and see if anything had happened.
It was nearly time to RV at the King Street Brew House. These two knew it too, and they checked the information-point map for about the third time, then headed towards the river. I fell in behind. It was a ten-minute walk at most, and I was back to watching and listening.
No Mr Bland. No helicopter. Nothing. I followed, yet still it didn’t feel right.
King Street was Party Central, a partly pedestrianized area well known in the city for nights out. I remembered it as a good place to be in the summer. The Brew House was down at the end where the pedestrianized bit met the water. It was large, trendy, friendly and noisy, with big windows that looked out onto the road and river. It was perfect for us.
I watched from the distance as Rio and Yulia went in, and stayed outside for another ten minutes, all eyes and ears. It was only twelve twenty-five, so I took the time to double-check. I still had five minutes so I wouldn’t have the team flapping, assuming Gabe and Jack were already there. I did a 360 around the cobblestoned streets, and still nothing. It was time to move on. I’d soon know if I’d got it wrong.
The Brew House was a world of wood, green tiles and hipster barmen with the longest beards I’d seen this side of Kabul. It was busy with groups, perhaps work colleagues, because all the drinks looked like pints of Coke and lemonade and by twelve thirty they had already demolished most of their trendy burgers and salads.
I found all four of our group parked in a semi-circular booth, ordering from a woman who was tattooed all the way up her right arm. Yulia blended in perfectly.
I approached with a smile and a cheery ‘Hello’, then sat down with them. Jack was immediately to my left, with Yulia the other side of him, then Rio and Gabe, who faced me from the other side of the red leatherette horseshoe. Gabe had the local papers in front of him, open on the classifieds. He leant across. ‘I couldn’t wait. We ordered you a burger and a Coke. Did you get the meet sorted?’
I nodded, one eye on the road the other side of the floor-to-ceiling glass doors. ‘Anybody checked the exits?’
Gabe looked disgusted. ‘Course we fucking did. If you’d got here in time you would have seen.’ He meant I should have met up at 12.25. That was army time for 12.30.
Rio gave me a disappointed shake of the head but couldn’t help smiling. Then his lips cracked and his face went blank again.
Gabe tilted his head to his left. ‘There’s a fire escape on the way to the toilets, and another one signed through the back, the kitchen. It opens out onto a service and parking area at the side of the building.’
‘Okay. You get the van?’
‘We’re seeing another this afternoon. Easton?’
I knew it.
‘About three o’clock. Found it on Gumtree.’ He lifted the papers. ‘Still looking, just in case. Then we’ll get the bags and the mats at Halfords, job lot again. Where have all the phone boxes gone?’
He sat back and Rio eased the laptop out of the plastic bag. They hadn’t held back: the thirteen-inch Mac Air was scratched and had more dinks in it than the Wolves’ surfboards, along with a bunch of adhesive marks where stickers had once been, probably declaring war against meat-eating.
‘Let’s get on with it, then.’
Rio passed the lead to Yulia and she bent under the table to plug it in. I put the mobile on the table and pulled up the personal hotspot. Once both machines were ready, she tapped in the password and was good to go. The drinks arrived, all Cokes and orange juices. This was work.
Yulia adjusted her hands either side of the Mac, dragging it closer to her so the edge was nearly touching her chest. I leant forward and lifted the screen so at least Gabe and Jack could see what was happening. She read my mind. ‘Do you really imagine I’d do anything to mess up my chance of staying here? I’m going to show you how good I am. I can find these amateurs in minutes. This is my world, not yours. They’re my friends in there, not yours.’
‘You going on the dark web?’
‘Where else? But just me. This is what makes me special – and I’m not running a free tutorial.’
Rio had his hand on his Coke and sucked on the straw. ‘Mate, let her get on with it. Protecting the assets – that’s what we do, don’t we? That’s why she’s sitting there. Why not her doing the same thing?’
He put his Coke on the table and sat back. He had said his piece, and he was right. I let her get on with it.
Yulia spent no time with any of us now: it was all about Jack. ‘You need to text her now. Tell her you’re sorry you didn’t text last night, but you were busy. That will get her worried. Maybe she thinks you’re losing interest. But don’t worry, she’ll answer. She always has answered, hasn’t she?’
Jack already had the mobile in his hand.
‘Of course she has,’ Yulia went on. ‘She’s always desperate to talk to you, isn’t she? That’s because you understand her. You’re the first man ever to understand her, aren’t you? Yes?’
Jack didn’t answer but the expression on his face meant he didn’t have to. He carried on texting as she tapped on the laptop keyboard, clearly uncomfortable with her elbows pushed right back so she could keep the Mac close to her.
‘Jack, tell her you’re missing her, missing her texts. Don’t worry, they’re going to be standing by for you. They know what to say to take the relationship further. They will check the play sheets to see what stage they’re at with you and what to do next.’
She continued her keyboard work. ‘She’ll come back and say she’s busy, to build up
your anticipation.’ Yulia’s eyes never left the screen, darting left and right. Her fingers were the only other part of her that moved. The rest was a waxwork.
Jack finished texting and kept the phone in his hand as the food arrived, carried by two very smiley women. Gabe took control before the inevitable questions about who wanted what. ‘Just put them down. We’ll sort them out ourselves. Thanks!’
Jack’s head twitched. He hadn’t had to wait long before the return text. Yulia didn’t move her eyes off the screen. ‘What does it say?’
‘She’s at dinner with clients and thinking of me.’
That was good skills. Shanghai was normally seven or eight hours ahead, depending on the time of year.
‘Okay, just reply as you would. Send a kiss, or what do you do?’
Jack tapped his response. ‘I normally say, “Talk soon”.’ ‘Okay.’ She, too, was tapping away and spoke at the same time. ‘Now we wait.’
She half closed the laptop lid and reached over for her plate. The rest of us followed and I checked again outside for Mr Bland, for anything that confirmed the bad feeling that was gnawing at my gut.
A couple of minutes later, Gail was back. Yulia lifted the lid again and craned her neck. ‘What does she say?’
He read it: ‘“What a lovely surprise. I’m at dinner with clients and I’m hiding in the toilets. I missed you so much yesterday. Just great to talk to you.”’
Yulia was in complete control, scanning her screen, only her hands and eyes moving. ‘Tell her you missed her and ask her about work.’
Jack keyed it in. ‘I’m asking, “How did the planning meeting go yesterday?”’
‘That’s good. Tell her you were thinking about her all day, wondering how it went.’
He read the reply without enthusiasm. ‘“It went so well – thank you for thinking about me. As I sat at the meeting I found myself dreaming about when we will meet up. Oh, I just remembered – would you be able to pick up a small parcel for me? A model cast of a project I will start when I’m back in the UK.”’