Line of Fire:

by Andy McNab

  She breathed out and her chin sank to her chest, ignoring the challenge to her capabilities. ‘They want money. The arseholes want money. I’ve helped them so many times.’ She banged away at the keys. ‘Fuckers.’

  Gabe leant over to me, his eyes still diligently on the windscreen. ‘Market forces, eh?’

  Yulia muttered to herself in Russian, which translated into exactly what she’d said in English. They were all fuckers, and after all she’d done for them …

  She stopped, looked up, then gave a heavy sigh. She carried on banging the keys in response to what was happening on the screen, and she wasn’t happy not leading the dance.

  Jack was in his own world, texting like he still believed in the fairy tale, but Rio was more grounded. ‘If you can’t find them can you just get hold of cash, Yulia? Can you get some now for all of us?’

  Knees up, she slouched forward to cover the screen, sandwiching the laptop between thighs and chest, her elbows so far back they almost touched the panel behind her. I wasn’t sure if she had even heard Rio. For several long seconds, only her fingers and eyes were moving, but she finally opened her mouth. ‘I’m giving them codes that access the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. These guys are fringe – they don’t care what they do, they just want to bring everything down. They’re no longer my friends.’ She hit the final key hard and pushed the laptop away. ‘Fuckers!’

  She closed the lid and turned to Jack as our world went dark.

  ‘You’re going to receive a text. Once it’s arrived, I’ll send them the second download.’

  Jack twisted his phone to show her the screen. ‘Is this it?’

  She didn’t answer, but reopened the laptop. ‘Jack, you need to reply and tell Gail it’s late. You’ve got to get home.’

  She opened Google Maps so we could all see, but there was no pin. She stared at it and once again spat, ‘Fuckers!’

  Her fingers flew over the keys and she pressed send. The second set of access codes was on its way.

  A couple of seconds later a pin popped up on the screen. ‘There. That’s where they are.’

  Gabe clenched his fists. ‘Right, let’s get these fuckers.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m with you, mate – but first things first.’ I looked around the group. ‘We’ve got to find out exactly where they are – which building, which rooms. Then we’ve got to work out how to get in there, how to contain them and keep that place safe for us all while Yulia does her stuff to get Jack’s money back. Remember, we’re here for the cash and to stop them fucking anyone else up, nothing more.

  ‘I’ll go in and do a recce. Let’s see if security pour out or the police turn up to check out an industrial-estate lurker.’

  Jack couldn’t suppress a grin as I threw my neck wallet at him to hold onto with the mobile he already had. ‘Drawing fire again?’

  ‘It’s all I seem to do for you lot.’

  It got its intended laugh.

  ‘Okay, Yulia, keep the map open and pass over the laptop, while I give you lot the ERV for if I fuck up or you have to move.’

  69

  Sterile of anything that could identify me, and pockets empty of my two remaining pound coins and anything else that could make noise, I moved across the road and to the right of the rear entrance to the industrial estate. Rain came down like spears, and my new hoodie soon weighed heavy on my head.

  The team had pooled their cash. They would be needing fuel if I fucked up and didn’t make the ERV tomorrow, or they had to move because they felt they’d been compromised or I wasn’t back with them in forty-five minutes.

  The ERV was outside the cathedral at midday. I’d never been to Leicester, I didn’t know what it was like, but it was a city and by definition it had to have a cathedral, and cathedrals had to be accessible. If I was a no-show they had to consider themselves on their own, go back to the barn and sort themselves out as best they could.

  In a perfect world, Yulia would have been at my side for the recce. People make instant decisions on what others are doing if it conforms to their norms. We all do it to make sure we’re safe when we see other people in our space. So, a man and a woman in the rain in an area of isolation at night means only one thing, so is not a threat. In any event, there was housing, which might be accessible from within the estate and might help us to look the part.

  That said, Yulia had to be protected so I was doing this on my own. The best way was just to get on with it and use the rain for what it was: cover. I needed a reason to be there and it was simple. This wasn’t private land, there were houses nearby, and I was heading to one. Once I had a plan I would stick to it and act like anyone else going home after a night on the piss. The more you think about these things, the longer it takes, so there’s more chance of compromise – and trying to blend in becomes the focus rather than what you’re on the ground to do.

  The first building I came to on the right housed a wrought-iron works, and directly across the road from it there was a double-glazing company.

  I carried pictures of the estate’s layout in my head after I had street-walked through as much of the area around the pin as I could, then studied the 3D view. The Google Maps van might have done its filming years ago, but the road layout wouldn’t have changed.

  I looked further down into the estate, towards where Lidl would be, to where a ring of dull yellow security lighting glistened in the rain. My hair was plastered to my face now the hoodie had given up, and my jeans clung to my legs like long-lost friends.

  I moved on about twenty paces, hugging the wrought-iron factory until I was at a junction to my left. A couple of skips, overflowing with lumps and lengths of scrap plastic and metal from the double-glazers, stood on the corner.

  I checked down the road that Google Street View had told me would have a row of terrace houses further down on the left, part of the area that the industrial estate had gobbled up as it expanded. Opposite them, on the other side of the road, was where the pin had dropped, and I saw rows of roller shutters accompanied by business signage identifying each unit, all set in a flat-roofed brick building that ran along most of that side of the road. There were no vehicles parked in front of any shutters or any light coming from windows set on the ground floor. On the left, curtains held most of it inside.

  The only thing we’d learnt about the target was where the pin hit the map. The perfect recce to find out more would have asked a lot of questions. Was there physical security and, if so, were they young or old? Did they look switched on? Were they armed? If so, what with? If there was technical security, where were the devices, and were they powered up?

  The best way of finding answers was just to observe the target for as long as possible. Some questions can be answered on site, but many only pop up once you’re tucked up with a cup of cocoa and trying to come up with a plan. The longer you stayed there, the more information would sink into your unconscious for you to drag out later if you needed it. But that wasn’t going to happen tonight. This was what was known in the trade as a smash-and-grab. Find the target, get in there, and react to the situation in front of you to get the job done and be out of the target area before anyone could even think about what had just happened. After all, if everything could be done with calm, control and a considered plan, what was the point of the SAS … or even the SNS? Who dares wins, right?

  I carried on and encountered a high fence and a gate that held the yellow island of light. The area beyond the security was an illuminated yard full of skips, trucks and stacks of shrink-wrapped bricks. It was the rear of the construction company that fronted onto Loughborough Road.

  Immediately to my right there was more of the yard, and beyond that the line of 1960s terrace houses I had seen before the pub at the curve in the road. What I was interested in, however, lay in the other direction. The fence-line continued, protecting the goods in the yard to its right. The gap between the fence and the rear of the shuttered building that the pin had marked was an alley, tarmacked
and just wide enough to take a van.

  The rectangular two-storey lump of brick ran the full length of it, paralleling the fence, and the mapping had told me it was a dead end. I couldn’t see any light at the front so the rear needed to be checked out.

  Rain kept pummelling as I followed the alley. If anything, it was coming down harder. There were enough paddling pools on the tarmac to show where the drainage had died long ago. I could hear the faint drone of vehicles along Loughborough Road, maybe three hundred away on the other side of the security lighting to my right.

  The rear of all the individual business units had two flights of steel fire-escape stairs leading to a second-floor escape door. A ladder fixed to the wall went up onto the flat roof, with safety hoops at intervals. The rear of the target building had windows on the top floor only, instead of on the lower level at the front. They were offset to the right of the fire-escape door, and therefore hard to get to. Even so, some were boarded up with metal anti-vandal sheeting, but all were dark.

  Maybe two-thirds down the alleyway, looking, stopping, listening, I came level with the rear of a Ford Galaxy, nosy-parked under the final flight of a fire escape. I stood still, watched and listened, but there was no movement, no sounds. I opened my jaw a little, trying to pick up any noise from the houses, but heard nothing.

  I wiped the rain from the passenger window, and had a good look inside. The first thing I saw, dangling from the rear-view, was a 786 pendant made out of a CD. These could be found all over India, Pakistan and, of course, Afghanistan – especially in vehicles. Preceding almost every chapter in the Koran were the words: In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful. The Arabic alphabet had numerical equivalents, and if you changed those words into their numerical equivalents, it added up to 786.

  The distant traffic on Loughborough Road came back, fighting for air time over the rain. It was time to check out the possible. I placed my boot on the first step, as close as I could get to the wall supporting the fire escape to cut down on structural movement while I checked there was nothing set as an alarm. Fishing line attached to hidden cans, infrared, even motion-detection cameras. A trip to Maplin’s could buy you a lot of early warning.

  It was like treading on ice, gently testing each step for creaks, always placing my feet to the inside edge, slowly and precisely, but I reached the steel-mesh landing and got up to the fire door. It was wooden-framed, but there’d been a partial repair with a steel sheet and nails. To the right of the doors, and beyond the landing’s railings, were the unit’s two windows. They weren’t protected with steel anti-vandal sheeting but they were guarding the light inside the building. I could make out a tiny sliver penetrating through the gap of the drawn blinds.

  I put my ear to the metal. Maybe I could work out how many were inside. A Galaxy carried a lot of bodies.

  The faint sound of music came through with a constant beat, but no voices. I tried leaning over the rail to get a view through the narrowest of gaps between the window frame and blind, but without success. I balanced my waist against the railing and tilted forward over it to get a different angle of view. I finally had my boots off the steel and struggled to keep my balance, my not-so-functioning hands gripping the rail for all they were worth. What I saw wasn’t much, but it was enough. No bodies, but a partial view of a table, deeper into the space, with three mobiles laid out in a line, their power cables trailing away from them, and a small stack of paper beneath each mobile.

  Bringing myself slowly back onto the landing, I carefully climbed up the ladder to the roof. Maybe there was a vent up there or a skylight for a better view, or even to make entry through. But as I got my head level with the flat roof, all I saw were more and larger pools of water than there had been in the alley. These 1960s buildings were thrown up cheap and not so cheerful.

  It was time to get back to the team.

  Once on the ground, I walked to the top of the alley and turned right – but I didn’t go directly back. There was one slight detour. When I reached the shadow of the wrought-iron works, I crossed the road to the double-glazing skip and spent a couple of minutes picking out four of the biggest lumps of scrap metal I could find, tubular steel a foot or two long and about two inches square, then headed back to the van.

  70

  Half an hour later, with the team briefed on how the smash-and-grab needed to happen, we exited the van in the pounding rain and watched Gabe place the keys under the driver’s seat with the rest of our gear to make sure we were sterile. Then, fuck it, we needed to get a move on.

  I led the others into the estate, following exactly the same route I’d taken on the CTR. There was no tactical point in doing anything but heading for the target. Everyone had a job to do and everyone was in his or her own world now, just wanting to get on with it.

  We passed the Galaxy and gathered under the steel stairs, which almost vibrated under the onslaught of rain.

  I spoke in a voice so low the deluge almost drowned it. ‘Yulia, you know what to do. Jack, immediately behind her. Yulia, remember, soon as Jack starts, get out of the way, just as I told you, until somebody tells you to come in. Yeah?’

  She nodded, not too happily, as she brought her hands up to her chest with crossed wrists, as if that would protect her.

  ‘Rio and Gabe, do your stuff, then back me. Rio, nobody in, nobody out. Remember, this is all about speed, aggression and surprise. Just take my steps on the way up, closest to the wall.’

  They’d been pumped up and ready to go from the moment I’d outlined my plan.

  I started to move, then stopped. They were maybe a little too pumped-up. ‘Lads, one last thing. This is Leicester, not Libya. Keep a lid on it – control, yeah? It’s the money and stopping these fuckers that’s important.’

  I set off up the fire escape with them close behind. A minute later I was at the door and Yulia came up next to me to take her position. Rain dripped down our faces as I spoke into her ear. ‘You’ll have to be loud. The door’s thick, and they have music on – listen.’

  As I left her she put an ear to the door and Jack raised his steel rod horizontally above her head, totally prepared, totally focused. He knew he had only one shot.

  I carried on down past Gabe and Rio, both pressed hard against the wall behind Jack, and took up my position.

  Last man in the line, first man through the door.

  I knew that Yulia would now be looking back down the line through the rain, just as she had been told.

  She was waiting for the thumbs-up from me, and she got it.

  71

  ‘Help! Help! Please help me!’

  Yulia was going for an Oscar. She slammed her palm against the door, then tried the same plea for help, but this time in Russian.

  There wasn’t a reply, let alone an opening door.

  She wasn’t going to give up. They’d have to open soon just to get whoever it was to shut up.

  ‘Help! Please! Help!’ she screamed, against the doorjamb, forcing the sound through.

  Finally the door cracked open a few millimetres and light spilt out into the rain. It opened a bit more to reveal a safety chain midway. That didn’t matter to Jack. He rammed the steel into the gap before the face the other side had the chance to process what was happening. Yulia had done exactly what was required of her and moved back to the top of the stairs as Gabe and Rio ran hard at the door. Soon three hands were pulling at the structure, trying to wrench the chain off its mountings.

  Jack improvised: he jumped to the side and levered the steel against the door to help. It was my cue to move forward as the three grunted with each heave. As the wood creaked and the steel of the chain pulled tight I jerked my head left and right, up and down, trying to get a view of what I was going to run into. All I could see and smell was a solid haze of cigarette smoke.

  There were shouts from two, maybe three bodies inside. Urdu, Punjabi, I didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

  The chain’s screws finally flew out of the fram
e and the door burst open, sending me charging and screaming into what I immediately took in as a large open-plan space.

  ‘Stand still! Stand still! Stand still!’

  There was a body to the right of me and it was moving. I bent down and spun round with my steel bar. It connected with a shin. I heard the thud and felt the crunch. Whoever it was, he collapsed in screams behind me as I carried on towards the other two targets, yelling at the top of my lungs, acting as a human flashbang to add to the speed, aggression and surprise.

  ‘Stand still! Stand still! Stand still!’

  There were two trestle tables between us, and behind them, a door. On the tables sat maybe a dozen mobiles, each with a charging cable snaking off down to an extension lead on the floor. On the table, beneath each mobile, A4 sheets were neatly stacked.

  The two targets stood their ground in the haze. Why didn’t they run?

  ‘Hands up! Hands! Hands!’

  I waved the steel rod at them as I came round the other side of the tables to front them. They exchanged a scared glance, looked back at me, then at the mess I had left writhing on the floor. Both his hands now gripped his left shin. His grey tracksuit bottoms on that side were soaked with blood below the knee. It must have been fractured. I didn’t give a fuck. I had to make sure I asserted control in the room and got these two geared up to the fact that if they didn’t do precisely what I said they’d be getting some of the same.

  I was right in their faces now. ‘Stay where you are! Show me your hands! Hands up!’

  I shouted behind me, ‘Gabe, take control of these two. I’ll check the other side of the door. Jack on me.’

  I burst through it and into a corridor, not waiting for Jack. I knew he’d soon be there to cover me. The corridor was lit by two fluorescent lights, and there was another door ahead, outwards opening. I yanked it back. It was a toilet: one brush, a bottle of Toilet Duck, no window.

  An ornamental garden gate and matching fencing either side, chained up and padlocked twice, blocked the end of the corridor. Downstairs had nothing to do with upstairs, for sure, and vice versa.