Brute Force ns-11

by Andy McNab

  He pulled out a signature tablet, the type used in US stores to check signatures electronically.

  'Now, Mr Letts. If you would just sign your name . . .'

  48

  Where to spend the night? I wouldn't put Brendan on the spot by asking if he had a spare room. Besides, I wanted us to have a reasonable chance of surviving the night. Nor could we use a hotel, or even a B&B. If we'd been spotted in the area, the Firm would have the police checking every spare bed within a one-mile radius. We had a lot of walking to do through residential streets, away from the cameras' gaze, until it was time to find somewhere to hide.

  The Black Cat shopping centre down the road – well, I called it that anyway – was perfect. I'd hung about there for about nine hours once while the Irishman sorted out a few documents for me. It wouldn't be the most comfortable night Lynn had ever spent away from home, but at least it meant we'd drop off the face of the earth until Brendan had done his stuff.

  We could evade surveillance only for so long. If it was the Firm after us, they'd have covered all the motorways and transport hubs. Those cameras would be in overdrive.

  We walked for two hours or so and landed up in Honour Oak Park. We sat on a bench like two perverts and froze. At least the rain was holding off, and by about 4.30 it was getting dark. Soon I could see the stars and clouds of my own breath. It was going to be another sub-zero night.

  'Time to go.'

  We made our way back to Catford. The evening commute was in full swing, which was good for us. I got Lynn his first ever doner kebab and chips and he definitely didn't like it.

  'Better get them down you; it's the only shop without a camera.'

  I'd bought two each.

  'They're horrible when they're cold. The grease . . .'

  We sat on a bench the other side of the shopping centre, opposite a big black plastic cat draped over the welcome sign.

  Lynn picked at his kebabs, then pushed them to one side, so I got them down my neck while he turned his attention to the chips and stewed tea.

  Ten minutes later we headed outside. The car park was lit, but the recycling skips that supermarkets provide to make us all feel like we're saving the planet were in deep shadow. One of them was for clothes. I leant in and pulled them out by the armload.

  'Insulation. You need more between you and the ground than you do on top.'

  It was so dark here I could hardly see his face, even though real life continued not more than 100 metres away. Traffic ground its way along the street and people ran for buses.

  The wind had picked up and we arranged the clothes as best we could to provide some sort of mattress. I kept my arms tight against my sides and pulled up my collar to conserve as much warmth as I could. If I had to move my head I'd turn my whole body. I didn't want the slightest breath of wind down my neck.

  Lynn started shivering. He hadn't spent half his life being cold, wet and hungry like I had.

  I gave him a nudge. 'Duff – was he really a source?'

  'Yes.' Lynn sat up. 'We turned him in the early eighties. He was arrested by the French coming back from a Hezbollah training camp with a false passport. Duff was an idealist, but he was also a realist. He was staring down the barrel of a very long prison sentence. We could spring him. All he had to do was accept a golden handshake and give us the occasional little bit of information. Nothing major. Nothing life-threatening. Just gossip, really.'

  Once he had taken that first step, there would have been no way back. The handlers would have started off slow, but the die was cast. He would have taken money from the British government. They'd have made it impossible for him to get out without a PIRA bullet in his head.

  'Early eighties? So he was working for you at the time of the Tripoli job? I thought I'd never had so much int on a job – now I know why.'

  'He'd got a bit stroppy by then, so we upped the ante. We said we'd kill his younger brother. Well, someone like you would.'

  After that, Lynn said, Liam Duff became quite an asset. He had the ear of hard-bitten players who wouldn't have trusted their own grannies but seemed to take a shine to him.

  'Why break cover after all this time? Missed you after your retirement, did he?'

  Lynn wasn't going to bite. 'When I left the service, he was still in prison for his part in the Bahiti but was released early as part of the Good Friday Agreement. From what I've heard, the peace process unhinged him. He never forgave Isham and the others for what he saw as selling out. A bit ironic, considering what he'd been up to all those years and the fact it got him early release.'

  'Who killed him?'

  'That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.' He half shivered, half shrugged. 'Until you turned up, I'd have said the answer was obvious. Now I'm not so sure. PIRA insist it wasn't them, and we're supposed to believe them these days. There are plenty who think British security forces are still trying to undermine the peace accord . . .'

  49

  I lay in my pile of discarded clothes; they smelled like stale margarine. What a dickhead Duff was. Why expose yourself if you don't have to? Money and vanity are more dangerous than a box-cutter. Maybe he'd thought he had immunity in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement. Even a couple of years ago, he would have been found in a plastic bag on the Armagh border, leaking badly.

  'You know anything more about how he was killed?'

  'He got some close attention from an electric drill, and then he was shot.'

  PIRA got the Black and Deckers out for at least fifty people it claimed were informers during the Troubles. Duff's disclosure came after they'd formally declared that they were abandoning violence. But maybe in his case they'd been prepared to make an exception.

  Northern Ireland might be on the brink of a new era of peace, but someone had clearly decided that Duff wasn't going to live to see it. If he'd left Ireland he might still be alive: plenty of informers and double agents had been spirited away to start new lives abroad. By staying in Ireland, Duff had signed his own death warrant. He'd been living in a remote area of western Ireland, in a run-down cottage with no electricity or running water. But even in Donegal there is nowhere that anyone can completely hide themselves away, as I had very quickly found out.

  I nodded. 'Plenty of people have that MO.'

  'I really did think it might have been you. That maybe you still worked for the Firm – or perhaps had a few scores to settle of your own . . .'

  He had a point. 'This PIRA traitor Duff was on about – the one who gave up the Bahiti – you know who it was? He had to be pretty high up the food chain to know about the job.'

  He didn't even blink. 'That information, Nick, is something that would get you killed.'

  'You really think it could have been the Firm?'

  'Duff had already revealed there was a Brit on board who killed Lesser. He would undoubtedly have exposed even more details about us. Then, of course, there is the question of a device under your car. It's not too hard to put two and two together . . .'

  'You think it's the Firm tying off a few loose ends?'

  'More each time I think about it.'

  'But why go to such elaborate lengths to drop us two? There has to be more to this than a bit of spring cleaning.'

  I rolled over and looked up at the sky. Whatever – it didn't matter right now. What did was getting out of the UK to reform, regroup and sort our shit out.

  Lynn was starting to read my mind. 'Where next, Nick?'

  'Not sure yet.'

  He sat up and adjusted the pile of clothes to insulate his back against the bricks. 'I have a place in Italy.'

  I thought for a second. 'It'll be a known location. They'll check it.'

  'You aren't the only one who has a safety blanket, you know. I was about to move there myself – until you interrupted my packing.'

  'It's secure? No one knows about it? You can't be found?'

  'No one. Not even my children.'

  50

  We lay huddled for two, maybe three h
ours. I wasn't sure and I couldn't be arsed to expose any skin to the cold to check my watch.

  The sound of adolescent voices came from over to our left, full of fucks and shits, getting louder as they approached.

  There was only room for one of us right behind the bins. I motioned for Lynn to make himself scarce. He shuffled backwards, dragging his bundle with him.

  The shouts and laughter came closer, until one of them stopped no more than a few feet away. 'Hold on . . .'

  I looked up at him.

  'Oi, mate, get a fucking job.' I was treated to a fourteen-year-old's sneer from beneath a grey hoodie. I'd have had mine up too, if I'd had one.

  Four of his mates gathered round to share the entertainment. More hoodies, baggy jeans, trainers. It was obviously a big night out.

  'You a mether, or what?'

  They crowded round the gap between the bins.

  I wasn't going to get up just yet. There wasn't any need.

  'No, mate. I'm just here, that's all.'

  I thought of myself at their age, doing exactly the same as they were, always in a gang. The only difference was the clothes. These lads were much better dressed.

  They were just bored, with no job prospects apart from serving up fries or stacking shelves. No wonder they were roaming about, trying out phone boxes for cash, not going out to do anything specific – if it was there they'd do it. Climb through the window of a house if it was open; try a few car doors. Anything to show the rest of the pack they were one of them. If you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

  Even their faces were the same as those around me when I was a kid. Black, white, Indian, mixed. On a housing estate, colour doesn't matter. Everyone's in the same shit. Everyone's parents are unemployed. Everyone's on benefits. Everyone's in the dustbin. Even dogs think the flats are interchangeable.

  Another one shouted, 'Oi, mate . . .'

  It was a white lad this time. I could just make out a chin full of zits under his hoodie. 'You got any fags? Give us a fag.'

  A couple of them were getting a bit restless. It was time to stand up. Pack mentality: they were starting to think about other things than just taking the piss. I could feel it. I'd done it myself.

  'No, mate. I don't smoke. Can't afford 'em.'

  These lads were getting more confident.

  'Yeah, but you're on the dole, aintcha? You're getting money, aintcha?'

  'A little.'

  I knew what was coming. The zit-faced one whipped out a blade. 'Fucking give us it then.'

  There was no point debating this. I stepped forward and grabbed his hand and bent his palm back towards his forearm. My momentum gave me more power in my grip, and he went down, more with surprise than pain.

  The knife clattered to the ground. The others did a kind of war dance, ready to have a go but not sure what to do now one of them was down. But one of them would, eventually.

  Zit-face lay there in shock. I folded the knife and put it in my pocket. 'OK, lads, now just fuck off.'

  'Cunt!' The first black lad made his move. He aimed a kick at me, but wasn't fast enough. I grabbed his leg and pulled him towards me, at the same time kicking down hard on the calf muscle of his standing leg. He fell onto his back.

  The others shouted, 'You cunt!' but no one else was in a hurry to make the mistake he had.

  I held onto his leg. I had to do something short, sharp and drastic to stop this from escalating. I stamped down on the side of his knee. I wasn't going to break it; just give him the worst pain he'd ever experienced. He howled like a wounded animal.

  'Now fuck off.'

  I let go of his leg and put my hand in my pocket. I threw about £50 at Zit-face but kept my eyes on the rest of them, just in case.

  'You've got to watch what you're doing, lads. Don't take things at face value. Someone else might have got hold of that knife and jammed it in one of your necks. One or two of you would have been down and dead – just over a few fucking quid. You've got to start switching yourselves on . . .'

  I gave the two lads on the floor a tap, letting them know it was OK to get up.

  'Take the money, go and get pissed, do whatever, just fuck off and let me get my head down.'

  They did. They took the money and ran – all except the black lad, who hobbled. He'd be all right. I watched them disappear back the way they'd come, pausing occasionally to turn and shout at me in an effort to regain some dignity. 'You cunt! You fucking mad man wanker!'

  They faded into the darkness and eventually their shouts were drowned by traffic.

  Lynn emerged from behind the bins. 'Next time I stay on show. Safety in numbers . . .'

  'With your accent? Red rag to a bull. But there won't be a next time. We're moving round the corner. They might go and get pissed with my cash and come back with a gun. Come on.'

  As he gathered up his stuff, I did my bit for the environment. I recycled the knife into the empty-can skip.

  We went and dug ourselves in behind the not-so-trendy skips, the ones filled with actual rubbish and shite from Tesco. Lynn had had at least one new life experience today, an encounter with hoodie culture. He might be about to have his second, coming face to face with a real rat.

  It was time to think about the next phase. 'So anyway, what are they wearing round Genoa this time of the year?'

  He gave it some thought. 'It'll be fairly mild, but still cold. Smart coats mostly, but you'll get away with a ski jacket. A lot of people head for the Alps at the weekend.'

  'OK, we'll buy some gear in the morning. But we won't wear it yet – we'll take the bags to the airport. We'll travel separately, take a shower, then come out in our new gear. Throw away your old clothes in dribs and drabs around the terminal. Don't try to force big bundles into a bin – remember the CCTV.'

  51

  Gatwick airport

  0800 hrs

  I headed straight to the check-in area in the South Terminal with the two plastic carrier bags that contained my next layer of skin. If we'd been flying anywhere longer haul than Europe I would have bought myself some hand luggage so I blended in, but for short hops it didn't matter. So many people fly to places like Brussels and Milan for the day that travelling without even a newspaper doesn't raise an eyebrow. The flight seemed to be on time.

  I asked at the information desk about soap and a towel and went up the escalator to Gatwick Village. I spotted Lynn in an overcoat with a velvet collar and a dark brown fedora, sitting at a table in a coffee shop, staring forlornly into a large frothy cup. Giving him a wide berth, I carried on to the showers tucked away behind Starbucks.

  After we'd picked up Lynn's passport and Leena had filled us up with her ginger cake, made especially for me once she found out I was coming, we'd split up for the shopping frenzy. The very last item on my list was airline tickets for me and Mr Adrian William Letts. Since I had a card, it was easily done online. The 24-hour internet café even printed out the boarding passes there and then.

  We'd arranged to meet where the minicab had dropped us off by Catford station at 5 a.m., before travelling separately again to the airport.

  I finished my shower, and emerged in my new not-so-man-about-Santa-Margherita-Ligure gear: jeans, Nikes, blue polo shirt and matching ski jacket from a 24/7 supermarket with a clothes section. No red or yellow Euro coloured jeans for me.

  I got rid of my old stuff in several bins, and headed for departures.

  The flight was busy and there was a scrum around the gate. I never understood what the rush was about. The plane wouldn't leave until the last passenger was on board, and there were seats for everyone. And in my experience, last on got the seat next to the beautiful girl everyone else had avoided in case it looked like they were trying it on.

  I just hoped the only vacant seat wasn't next to Lynn. He hadn't just gone native, he'd turned into Don Corleone.

  PART FIVE

  52

  1250 hrs

  Cristoforo Colombo International Airport is quite small, despit
e the grand name and the fact Genoa is a big industrial city of close to a million inhabitants. Built on a reclaimed peninsula about fifteen Ks outside the city, it's only got the one terminal. But it's always busy if you're Irish or a Brit. The 1995 Schengen Agreement allows EU countries to remove their internal borders and let citizens travel freely from country to country. For security reasons, the UK and Ireland were the only two countries to remain outside the agreement. It pissed Lynn off big-time.