by Andy McNab
Rio sat on the floor, his back braced against the panelling as Gabe manoeuvred out of the car park. ‘I knew it.’
‘Yeah, mate, those lads at the house. One of them, for sure, was on the team.’
The van didn’t have a dividing panel like the VW so it was easy to pass the mobile charger to Gabe to shove into the lighter socket, and the lead was long enough for the phone to lie between the cab seats and just a little bit into the back.
‘Mate, the bad news is I lost your knife. Got ripped out of my hand. Sorry.’
Rio grinned. ‘No drama. You can buy me a new one later. Plus a little bit more for the emotional distress. That was going to be a family heirloom. I was going to pass it on to the girls.’
We bounced about as Gabe negotiated the roundabout to get onto the M32, and the van was soon fighting uphill onto the elevated slipway. There were no sleeping bags in the back, no packs of water, no mats. There hadn’t been time for that. But at least the floor had a wooden base instead of us having to lie on bare metal.
Rio turned to Jack, who was lying on his back. It was the best way to rest his leg. ‘Where the fuck’s Leicester when it’s at home?’
Jack tilted his head towards Yulia, who sat on the same side of the van as Rio, her knees up supporting the laptop, still in its carrier. ‘Maybe we can google the target.’
She unpacked the Mac as Jack enlightened Rio a bit more. ‘It’s north-east of Birmingham. Gabe’s taking us on the M5, round the bottom of Birmingham, then up. Maybe two hours, tops, depending on the traffic.’
Yulia was ready but she needed something from me. She gestured at the phone on the floor and had to raise her voice. ‘Can I get online?’
I picked up the mobile as the tyres rumbled louder. Peugeot’s production budget hadn’t run to sound insulation and we’d joined the motorway. ‘Yep.’ I hit the personal hotspot button and Bluetooth so she could get a link, then let her get on with it. Once her eyes were fixed on the screen I nodded for Rio to keep an eye on what she was doing. He shuffled a little closer as she tapped.
He checked the screen. ‘Nick, get this down, mate.’
I picked up the mobile again and opened email. Not that there was an account, but anything I typed would be saved.
‘It’s Loughborough Road, in Belgrave, just north of the city centre. Look.’ Yulia turned the screen as Google Maps opened onto a satellite picture with its location pin on Loughborough Road, in the middle of what looked like an industrial estate.
She was happy with what she saw. ‘This isn’t precise, but when we get there I’ll be able to pinpoint them.’
Jack rolled onto his stomach. ‘That doesn’t look like Shanghai, does it?’
I checked the imagery. ‘Yulia, you sure?’
She seemed confused. ‘Of course. Jack will start the conversation, and the rest is easy.’
I stared at the 3D satellite map, which showed the target area was in an old light-industrial area. At one time, before the M1 was built, it must have been on the main drag to Loughborough, which made its way north-west out of the city. This estate wasn’t a collection of modern low-level steel-framed workshops and offices planned around a series of cul-de-sacs. It was much older and appeared to have grown up organically, the rows of terrace houses swamped by 1960s industrial squares of brick. Across Loughborough Road and opposite the target area was the new world: a cash-and-carry and a Lidl, steel-fabricated islands surrounded by car park.
Jack had seen enough. He rolled onto his back again and aimed the talk at Yulia. ‘You said the pack they used on me was a cheap one. How much do they cost? How much do they make?’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe two hundred, no more than two hundred and fifty dollars for at least four or five profiles. The British aren’t as good as most because you’re new to this big game. In the UK they’re mostly criminals who see this as a new type of business venture. They don’t understand it yet. They are muscle people, not brain people. They don’t understand that the only thing new is the technology, the way to get to the money. Everything else is the oldest confidence trick, preying on human weakness. Love, hate, jealousy, stupidity. When people receive a malicious link and are told it’s malicious, thirty per cent of you British will still click on the link.’
She paused for a second with a can-you-believe-it expression. ‘But you British are getting better, because you have to. It’s a free market. Market forces will dictate who makes the money, no matter where you are.’
Rio had other things on his mind. ‘So, here’s the thing, Yuli. Can you get Jack’s money back? Maybe a little more out of them – I mean, it’s free money, isn’t it?’
She shook her head. ‘The money will have been moved so many times now it would take for ever to find it. Even basic scammers know how to disappear money, these days.’ She saw the disappointed faces. ‘But if they’re not so advanced, maybe there could be something we find that’s going to help me.’
Jack liked that idea. His life had been drained but maybe at least he’d get a refund on the empties.
Gabe switched on the radio, and as he scanned the channels for the news, I handed the Mac back to Yulia.
‘How did you and the Russians get into the UK in the first place?’
‘I flew to London on a visitor’s visa. I don’t know about the rest of them, but they were already in the UK. They met me at the airport with the camper van and I was told I was going to leave the same way. But, of course, all that changed. The helicopter was taking us to a ship. Maybe I was going home with them – who knows? They had many plans for if things went wrong.’
I had to agree with that. Phoenix would have had it all squared away, and a heli straight out to a ship in international waters sounded a good idea for when the shit hit the fan.
The radio was turned off, replaced by the slap of windscreen wipers. Gabe shouted over the engine noise, to Jack and Rio, ‘Big ISIS car bomb went off in Kabul today, Afghan Army HQ. Twenty-four dead and another round of young lads with wooden legs.’
Jack muttered, ‘Nightmare.’
All three of them would have worked with the Afghan National Army against the Taliban, which now had elements of ISIS fighting alongside it. They would have known the young lads who joined the ANA to support their families and had been killed or injured just like any other soldier who had been out there.
There was a minute or so of silence before Gabe shouted again: ‘Yulia, you got any more of that baccy? I’m gagging up here.’
It seemed to lift the mood and put the team back on track.
Rio rolled his eyes as she dug into her jeans and brought out a pack of Drum. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’
Jack nodded as she waved the pack at him. Rio didn’t move away. Maybe being right up next to Yulia gave him something to moan about.
Clearly she had been rolling these things for years. The first one might have been straight from a packet as she passed it to me to hold up for Gabe, then started another for Jack.
She was being really helpful, not surprisingly. She was still hoping for that job interview, and at the moment I was her only referee. I pressed for more information while it lasted. ‘So the picture we have of you surfing. You had to learn how to do that for the cover story, did you? A reason to be there?’
Some roll-up flake dropped onto the Mac. ‘You British – you always think everything has to have a reason.’ She licked a finger to pick up the escaped tobacco and flick it back where it belonged. ‘It was just a picture taken on holiday years ago, on the Black Sea. There’s no surf there but when FSB found it, they said I was a surfer so that would be the story. The others, they could surf. They live …’ she thought about it ‘… lived in South Africa. They worked for FSB when they were needed.’
She passed Jack his roll-up, along with her disposable. It was clear from the cloud of smoke upfront that Gabe had his own.
Rio was already enjoying complaining. ‘Open the fucking window.’
It didn’t happen.
Jack stayed on hi
s back, enjoying his roll-up, which Rio and I had to endure.
Rio lay next to Yulia, the laptop almost level with his face. ‘Smoke rises, yeah?’
There was a lull, broken by Jack after a few deep puffs. ‘Nick?’
I looked over. He stared at the ceiling, his fingers at his lips as he took another drag, then picked some fallen leaf off his lips and rubbed his fingers together to get rid of it. ‘The UK … information superpower. I think the EU would be really concerned if the UK did vote to leave. I’m sure they’ve got some sort of agreement in place for swapping information, but what would happen if that information to the EU was cut off? It could be a negotiating chip, couldn’t it? I feel a bit better now if we do get out. We’ve got something Brussels needs.’
Rio wasn’t having any of it. ‘Mate, stop. It ain’t happening, so there won’t be any bargaining. Just suck on your cancer stick and make the most of your diminished life.’
67
We were maybe fifteen miles out of Leicester, on the M49, which took us there in virtually a straight line. It was dark, still raining hard, and the journey had taken a lot longer than Jack had estimated. The windscreen wipers struggled and their rhythmic slap filled the back of the van, merging with the steady whoosh of surface water getting jetted into the wheel arches.
Jack was still on his back, eyes closed, his fingers linked on his chest, like Dracula. Rio and Yulia sat with their backs against the panelling, and his cross-examination had been relentless.
‘So what were you talking about, getting off the drugs? How did you do it? I mean, it’s really hard, isn’t it?’
His face was caught in the dull glow of the small rear light and I could almost see the cogs whirring inside his head. Maybe she’d say something about coming off drugs that would help Simone.
‘Not when you’re homeless in Belarus. You British have no idea – you have welfare. A system that helps. Charities when it doesn’t. But in my country there is nothing. Nobody is there to help, and nobody wants to help. You have to sleep and beg where you can, before the police come and beat you and move you on. You’re not wanted, you’re cast aside.
‘For me, the choice was easy – stop the drugs, or die on the streets. So many do. I’d made some money, had lots of fun, but I’d let the fun take over. A bit like the guys who work in banks, and they all burn out. That’s exactly what I did – but I landed up on the streets. And if you stay on the streets, you die on the streets.’
Rio’s mind was in South London. ‘You really had no one to help you? A boyfriend?’
Her answer was matter-of-fact, maybe a reflection of a hard life. ‘I had a sister, but she is dead. Hepatitis from bad needles. It helped me understand I needed to get back into the big game, or I was going to join her.’
Rio didn’t have an answer for that so he reverted to what he did best to try to counter any moment of perceived weakness. ‘I don’t think drugs are all that bad, really. I mean, they’ve taught an entire generation of American kids the metric system.’
She thought for a second and smiled, but not for long. ‘Your arm, the legs, why are you like this? I have never seen so many people together like you.’
Rio had this covered, as all three did. I knew there wasn’t going to be an in-depth analysis of how and why or anything that suggested they wanted sympathy.
‘We all got fucked up in Afghanistan.’
She didn’t register.
‘The war, yeah? Jihadis coming from Pakistan joining the Taliban and using all that bomb-making shit they learnt at home to blow us up.’
She nodded slowly while she checked her memory banks. Why would she know instantly? It had had nothing to do with Belarus, and when the war had started she was still at school, then tucked away doing dark-web shit or off her head on the streets.
‘Oh, you are soldiers?’
Rio laughed manically, to join in with Jack’s more ironic attempt. ‘No more. Once you’ve had bits of you fucked up you’re out of any army. On the compost heap of life, mate.’ He seized on the lull as Yulia let it all sink in. ‘Anyway, back to the real world, eh? You going to get Jack’s cash back, or what? You said you’d have a look and see.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe I have to find how they move their money.’
‘I know you will, and you’re going to move a bit more, yeah? I think we need a bonus – and that Owl ain’t going to give us one, is he?’
He looked at me and so did Yulia. Rio wanted a reaction; she wanted to ask a question. ‘The Owl? Is that his name? Who is this man?’
It was my turn to shrug. ‘You’ve been listening in since yesterday. You know as much as we do. All of us here are in the same boat.’
She didn’t understand that one, but Rio was on hand. ‘He means we’re all the same. Like I said, we’re just busy worker bees. Stick with us, Yuli, we’ll sort you out good-style once we’ve dealt with these fuckers.’
Streetlights flickered in the back as we hit habitation and Gabe shouted, ‘I need some help here. Where the fuck am I going?’
I squeezed between the cab seats and opened the mobile on Maps.
‘Loughborough Road, mate. Just north of the city centre. We’re looking for Belgrave – the road cuts through it. Stay on the main drag and this’ll be up in a minute.’
Like most post-industrial towns, this one had had its period of decay, but there seemed to be some regeneration going on, with new roundabouts and so many dedicated cycle lanes the locals must have had one each.
There were blue flags hanging from every other lamppost and Gabe could see my confusion. ‘Nothing to do with Europe. Where the fuck you been, Nick? Football. Leicester City, they just won the Premiership?’
‘Oh.’
He couldn’t help himself as he shook his head in disbelief. ‘And I hate English football, for fuck’s sake.’
We came off the ring road, following signs to Belgrave, and drove past wall-to-wall sari and hijab shops, curry houses, Sikh temples and mosques.
Each side of us there were grid systems of two-bedroomed Victorian terrace houses, out-of-the-front-door-and-straight-onto-a-narrow-road types, lined with vehicles, just enough room left for one car at a time.
The map showed Loughborough Road was coming up. ‘Here we are, mate. Chuck a left.’
He turned off onto a wider road and the terrace housing was gradually replaced by newer red-brick stock, alongside parades of old Victorian shops. We continued driving and Gabe was the first to see it. ‘There you go, on the right. Every Lidl helps.’
‘Keep going, up to the roundabout, and let’s have a drive-past first.’
Gabe continued past the massive blue and yellow sign and then a much larger cash-and-carry, but I was checking left. The industrial estate was fronted by a 1960s rectangular brick building belonging to a construction firm. I shouted a warning into the back to wake up and get switched on.
68
We took the last exit at the roundabout, which brought us back down onto Loughborough Road, this time passing the cash-and-carry and Lidl on the left. The supermarket had closed half an hour ago so the scattering of vehicles in its car park probably belonged to staff. The construction company at the entrance to the industrial estate came up on the right.
‘Gabe, mate, go past, hit the crossroads. Take a right. The road bends round and goes behind the estate.’
The thrash of windscreen wipers was soon joined by the click of indicators, but both were swamped by the hard drumming of rain on the roof as we waited at the junction. We turned right just after what looked like a stone-built Victorian school that was now a solicitor’s, and the road ahead was lined with 1960s terrace homes, probably corporation housing before Thatcher sold them off.
We passed a pub and the road curved round to the right, then straightened once more, and we carried on with what looked like park railings on the left. I spotted warnings for traffic cameras ahead and then we were directly opposite the rear entrance to the industrial estate. ‘Mate, stop he
re – no yellow lines.’
I leant back into the van and kept the tone low. ‘The estate is over there.’ I pointed. ‘Behind us is a pub. Nobody’s going to be out and about in this shit, but keep the noise down just in case.’ I checked my door was locked and so did Gabe on his side. Jack got the hint and did the same to the rear doors. I unplugged the mobile and held it behind me for Rio to take and get online for Jack to start texting.
Yulia wanted more. ‘Do you see any communication masts out there?’
I peered through the windscreen but it was a waste of time. I didn’t need to tell Yulia: she was already tapping away. In the glow of the screen I saw her shoot an accusing glare at Rio. He backed away. ‘All right, no need to chuck one.’
Yulia adjusted the laptop to make sure no one could see into her secret world, and was immediately busy. Her eyes were glued to the screen. ‘Jack, text Gail. Tell her you’re thinking about her and wanted to tell her so. It’s her morning time, say sorry if you woke her.’
Jack got going, and Yulia supplied a running commentary.
‘She’s going to come back and say she’s been doing the same – in reality they’re working out whether you went cold last night because they asked for bank details. If they didn’t hear anything for a couple of days they would cut you off and start again with someone else – or maybe even with you, with Plan C.’
‘Gail’s back. No problem, she was awake anyway, she can’t sleep as she’s been thinking about me.’
Yulia had been spot on. ‘Okay, keep dialogue. Whatever you want, as long as you tell her you’ll send her the bank details when you get home tonight. And thank her for her honesty in wanting to be straight about her experiences online. Tell her you’ve had really bad experiences, too. Open up to her. Okay? You’re on your own for a couple of minutes – I’ve got to do this.’
Jack sent and answered texts, and Yulia typed, stopped, sighed, frowned, sighed again, typed again. The glow of the screen illuminated a face that wasn’t showing progress.
Rio began to lean over to her but thought better of it. ‘Can’t find them? I thought that dark-web shit of yours held all the world’s secrets.’