by Chris Ryan
Golan considered himself a man of taste and culture. He appreciated the bustling, chaotic architecture lining Gibraltar’s main arterial road. Moorish horseshoe arches sprouted over a sprinkling of shop fronts; other stores had painted shutters over the upper windows. In between stood white-stucco façades airlifted from Kensington. The effect was somewhat ruined by the shops themselves, a succession of branded fashion outlets and chain restaurants that left Golan feeling cold.
A taxi rank presented itself halfway down the granite-sett road. Golan hailed a cab and chucked his gym bag on to the back seat. He sat alongside it, resting a hand on the zip.
‘Where to, mate?’ the driver asked. He had olive skin and curly black hair, but his accent made him sound like a character in a British soap.
‘The Botanic Gardens,’ Golan said.
‘Come for the wildlife, have you? Just be careful with the monkeys. They look harmless enough but they’re vicious little bastards. I’ve seen one of them rip a young girl’s hair out.’
Golan nodded.
‘Name’s José,’ the driver continued. ‘Lived here on and off for twenty-five years. Where did you say you were from?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Golan, before adding, ‘France. Paris.’
‘Paris, eh?’ The cabbie shot him a glance. ‘Never been there personally. This is the place for me.’
He drummed his hands on the steering wheel, then pointed out of the passenger window to the west down King Street, beyond Linewall Road and Queensway, directing Golan’s gaze towards the old fortifications lining the banks of the Strait of Gibraltar. Relics of the Great Siege.
‘The thing about us, mate, is that we’ve got long memories. We remember the days of Franco and the terror. The closing of the border, yeah? We’re only a small island but we’re also the closest point between Europe and Africa. This place is special.’ He glanced at Golan in the rear-view mirror. ‘Do you see what I mean?’
Golan didn’t, but he smiled his agreement.
The cabbie dropped him at the Alameda Botanical Gardens on Europa Road. Golan paid the fare and slung the gym bag over his shoulder. Once the taxi was out of sight, he trudged north-east up the steep Green Lane, past the O’Callaghan Hotel.
Age and experience had calmed Golan. His mentor, Zohar, took him aside one day and told him that either he exercised self-discipline or his contract would be torn up. But there were days when the old impulses stirred inside Golan and he hungered to be twenty again, wandering the Gaza Strip. The small scar on his neck, like an upside-down Nike swoosh, served as a daily reminder of – what? Why, the importance of being vigilant.
Green Lane arched north and then doubled back on Old Queen’s Road. Golan made his way up a secluded trail lined with nettle and eucalyptus trees. Midway up the trail he detoured into the woodland until he hit a spot a little way down from an old artillery placement. Here the trees were dense enough for his needs, and he hunkered down beside the base of a ruptured trunk.
From the gym bag Golan removed a thermal-imaging camera equipped with a GPS unit, magnetic compass and laser rangefinder, capable of picking up and tracking human targets up to twenty kilometres away. The camera was also designed to survive extreme temperatures. He mounted the camera on the tree trunk and fixed a remote-controlled pan-and-tilt system to the set-up.
Golan aimed the camera towards the naval dockyard, next to the industrial park on the western edge of the peninsula. He spotted a Type-23 frigate, the HMS Westminster, sailing out through the breakwaters. Docked at the harbour was the HMS Lizard.
He paced north for thirty seconds and established a second camera site. No need to link the cameras with a cable of some kind; everything was connected wirelessly over a secure TCP/IP network. Golan slotted a remote network card into the back of both cameras. Then he fished a Dell laptop out of his bag and booted up to check the link had been established. Accessing the remote network prompted him to enter a password. He typed it in. The computer found both devices and opened up a pair of windows. Golan was treated to glowing thermal images of the Lizard. He pressed a key and the image on the left camera switched to a night-vision green. Another key caused the camera to zoom in. He dragged a finger over the mouse pad and the camera pitched on its mount.
Golan had killed his first man at the age of ten. Not a man, but a boy. A friend of his at the elite Château de Rosey boarding school in Rolle, Switzerland. Golan had no reason to murder Wei Chang, but he did it anyway, smashing his face in with a claw hammer behind the tennis courts. Killing Chang made Golan feel important in a way he’d never experienced. He had been a bad student, despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars his father, one of Israel’s richest men, had lavished on the best schools and tutoring. Murder was different. He was good at it. Better than good. Exceptional.
Leaves crunched at his back. Golan spun around, fists clenched. Technically, he was unarmed. That’s if you didn’t count his body as a lethal weapon. There were many who did, and quite a few of them were dead.
He expected to see a police officer or perhaps a nosy tourist.
A Barbary macaque squatted a couple of metres away, hind legs tucked in as it chewed on a slice of apple. The apple seemed to be the monkey’s whole world. The thing didn’t so much as glance at Golan.
Sliding forward, Golan palm-struck the macaque in the face, the palm of his hand colliding with its flat nose. The monkey wobbled on its hind legs, swiping at his hand. Golan swiftly followed up with furious kicks to the belly. Sensing it was being overpowered, the macaque opted for flight over fight. Golan seized its trailing leg and smacked its skull against an olive tree, the monkey squawking, blood spattering up and down the bark, until it was silent, limp.
He retraced his route down the Rock and strolled a kilometre north back towards the town centre. On Cathedral Square, just one road from the clamour of Main Street, Golan checked into the Bristol Hotel as ‘A. Robbe’, paying in advance with cash. The chubby girl behind the reception gave him the keys to a single room. Inside, he locked the door and pulled out a BlackBerry Storm from his gym bag, as well as a silver cigarette case filled with pin chips. Inserting one into the phone, he dialled the number from memory.
A man answered after the first ring.
‘I’m in,’ Golan said in Hebrew. The British government, he knew, used Gibraltar as a SIGINT listening post for communications from North Africa and the Middle East. Be careful, they’d told him. Keep things as brief as possible.
‘You’re late,’ the other man said.
‘I was held up. But everything’s ready.’
Silence.
Golan was insulted. ‘Have I ever let you down before?’
The reply was a dial tone. Fuck them, he thought, fishing the pin from the BlackBerry and flushing it down the toilet. They could tell him where to go, who to target, but they had no right to tell him how to do his job. He fired up the laptop. Accessed the imaging cameras fixed to the Upper Rock. And waited.
3
1400 hours.
Gardner kept the engine ticking over as he sat in the Grand Cherokee parked on Cumberland Road, up the street from the police club. A sleepy post-lunch hour on the Rock, and the Jeep’s air-con was working overtime.
He had an unrestricted view north-west across the harbour. Fifteen hundred metres distant and parallel to the airport runway stood the northern harbour, where cruise ships and ocean liners disgorged tourists. At the midway point was the private marina, where the locals stowed their quarter-of-a-mil yachts and speedboats. To his rear a Second World War artillery placement taunted the Spanish coastline at Algeciras.
The industrial dock was similar to those at Plymouth and Portsmouth and set two hundred metres away. HMS Lizard rested in the dock.
Peering through his Nikon Sporter EX 10x50 binoculars, Gardner watched the crew descending the walkway, mates in relaxed Dartmouth rig of polo shirt and chukka boots, psyched up for the run ashore.
He glanced at the passport-sized photo of Petty Off
ice Stephanie Wright clipped to the front of a personnel folder. Nothing in her file indicated that the daughter of a Scottish carpenter and English teaching assistant was likely to be involved in drug smuggling. Good attendance at school, unblemished record in the Andrew since she passed out three years ago. But he kept coming back to her eyes. They were glassy and faded like denim. Impenetrable. Wright was hiding something.
Any minute now, she’d show up for her meeting with Bald.
The name tasted like hot tar on his tongue. Help me, Joe, Bald had said in the jungle. He’d help him all right. Help make that lying bastard pay.
Three days in Gibraltar, and Gardner was fighting an inner battle with himself. Part of him desperately wanted to exact revenge on Bald. And yet a ball of self-doubt lodged in his throat. John’s not like Dave Hands, a voice said. He wasn’t born dodgy. He must be caught up in something. And shit, maybe he does need your help.
Three days.
Gardner had touched down on the Rock in the dead of night, catching a redeye from Rio to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, where he had boarded a connecting flight to Heathrow and spent three hours nursing cups of tepid coffee and digesting the newspapers. The coffee barely dented his jet-lag and the news was so depressing it made him want to eat his own face. Finally the last call came for BA490 direct to Gibraltar.
He had travelled with no luggage, but Land’s parting instructions had been clear. Proceed to the carousel. Once the last remaining traveller has disappeared, a man will approach you. Do exactly as he says.
‘We have no idea how wide or deep the network goes,’ Land had said. ‘It’s not unreasonable to think they have eyes and ears all over the Rock. Assume you’re being watched at all times, wherever you are.’
‘Who knows about the mission?’ Gardner had asked.
‘No one’s been informed about your presence on the island except myself, a field agent and my bosses. If you screw up, I’m afraid you’re on your own.’
‘Music to my ears. Where are you going to be in all this?’
‘Not putting my feet up at Babylon-on-Thames, if that’s what you’re suggesting. The Firm is keen for this to be executed without any hitches. Since Mr Bald isn’t familiar with me, it’s considered both safe and, shall we say, agreeable that I stay on in Gibraltar in a supervisory capacity.’
Twenty minutes at the luggage carousel and Gardner had found himself alone with a guy in a flannel suit who looked a couple of quarter-pounders short of a heart attack. He was reading a paperback. A cartoonish action figure stood beneath a macho title. Only half the author’s name was visible. Andy somebody. The guy’s hand covered the rest.
‘Come with me,’ a voice had said to his back.
Gardner had turned and saw a guy in a buttoned-up suit and shades. In forty-degree heat. He followed him across the polished marble floor to the terminal exit. A Grand Cherokee Jeep with fifty-percent tinted windows sat in the parking lot.
‘This is your motor,’ the guy had told him. ‘And this is your place.’ He handed him an envelope along with the Jeep fob. Inside was a hotel key.
‘Land said John’s here already.’
‘Flew in directly. Staying at the King’s Hotel,’ the guy said.
That had been three days ago. Now he refocused as a steady procession of boisterous matelots fucked off out of the dockyard and headed straight for the pubs in Casemates Square.
But no one matched the description of Stephanie Wright.
The last of the parties filed out of the frigate. Gardner swigged from a bottle of mineral water and watched a macaque scratch his balls beneath a palm tree’s starburst shade.
At four-fifteen Wright finally appeared.
She came off the boat alone and decked out in a pressed white blouse with side lapels. Her top button was undone. She carried a laptop case.
A quick glance down the street, then Wright left the dockyard and hailed a taxi.
Gardner dumped the binos. He urged the Jeep forward, racing down Rosia Road. When he was eight car lengths from the taxi, he eased off the accelerator. The cabbie was taking a seemingly random route around the Rock: a right on to Boyd Street, a quick left on to the narrow, winding Prince Edward’s Road, left at the Castle Road intersection. A third left on Fraser’s Ramp heading into Range Town, so that the taxi had, in short order, doubled back on itself.
Gibraltar’s changed a lot, Gardner thought. On his first visit, as a wet-behind-the-ears Para, before he’d tried his hand at Selection, the place had been a chaotic mix of swarthy faces and red buses, olive sunshine and messy drinking establishments buried down sidestreets: the Hole in the Wall, the Angry Friar… Everything felt corporate now.
The taxi bypassed St Andrew’s Church and continued down Prince Edward’s Road, leading into Europa Road. Its rear brake lights blazed opposite the Alameda Botanic Gardens. Now Wright jumped out of the taxi and walked on towards the King’s Hotel. Gardner pulled smartly into the side of the road.
Wright glanced furtively up and down the street. She climbed a set of steps flanked by bright green and pink flowers and disappeared inside the hotel, leaving Gardner staring at its Art Deco exterior. He knew from Land that Bald was staying in room 39.
Twenty minutes later Wright emerged and took a cab towards town.
Gardner followed her just for the hell of it, although he already knew the score. He’d been watching her for the past two days, and the routine was always the same, with a few minor differences. A ride around town, to throw anyone on her tail. Quick visit to the King’s Hotel, then an hour or two wandering the main streets and sipping coffee, before a return to the frigate. On each occasion she lugged the laptop case.
He figured Wright was unloading small packages of the coke, secreted inside the carry case. Rather than risk one big shipment, she was taking the safer option and drip-feeding the snow to Bald.
She debussed at Convent Place, where the road collided with Main Street, bordered at the end by the Governor’s residence. Bunting in pastel colours swayed in the sea breeze. He had to admit, she was pretty hot. Brunette hair, pin-straight with a kink at the ends. The way she walked, swinging her hips like she’d sprung from a jeans ad.
Gardner’s secure iPhone sparked into life, shocking him out of his daydream. He answered, eyes trained on Wright as she window-shopped and lit a cigarette.
‘Still tracking the Wren, are we?’ Land’s voice carried down the line like a door opening on to a blizzard.
‘Another exchange just went down. Same place. I make that twelve in total.’
‘She’s certainly taking her time,’ Land said. ‘Listen up. The situation on the ground has changed dramatically. It appears that Bald is in serious trouble.’
Gardner looked at his watch. Five o’clock. Wright left a couple of hours between trips to Bald’s hotel, so he doubted he’d see her again until seven or eight.
‘I said, Bald’s in—’
‘Heard you the first time. But I’ve been back and forth from his hotel for the past forty-eight hours, and in all that time he hasn’t shown his face once. The only thing he’s in danger of is racking up a massive bill on the bar tab.’
‘I’m afraid you’re wrong on that score. Our intelligence friends received an anonymous tip-off. Three men arrived on the Rock this morning. They’re planning to rob our friend of his product before he gets a chance to sell it on. If that happens, our hopes of uncovering the full smuggling ring are dead in the water.’ Land coughed. ‘How many more trips does our Wren have to make?’
‘One or two max,’ Gardner said. He guessed the laptop bag could hold a maximum of four kilos of Colombian snow, divided up into 500-gram tubes.
‘Sounds about right,’ Land replied. ‘The Lizard is refuelled and due to set sail again tomorrow, so Wright’s time is almost up. The word we have is that these men plan to attack Bald this evening.’
‘Just after she’s made her final trip.’
‘We can’t let them wreck the plan.’
&
nbsp; Wright disappeared down a sidestreet. Gardner felt a bead of sweat slither all the way down his back to his arse. Something doesn’t add up, he thought.
‘Joe?’
Shit. He knew what was coming next.
‘I need you to kill them.’
4
1921 hours.
The Newman’s Pub on Casemates Square was, according to a tourist pamphlet, an old favourite of the British Armed Forces personnel. Today it was brimming with married couples and screeching hen parties. Golan wasn’t thrilled to be there. Given the choice, he’d rather be in an old-fashioned bar with some Thelonious Monk playing and a glass of Château Rollan in his hand.
He found her easily enough. The rock-side cameras had filmed her disembarking and wandering towards town, and for him it was simply a case of scouting the bars around Main Street and Casemates. She brooded at a corner table, soaked in boozy shadows, nursing a glass of rosé. The moment was right. He moved in.
‘Quite a party outside,’ he said, stopping by her table.
‘If you say so.’ She necked the rest of her rosé, motioned to the bartender.
‘Something the matter?’ His voice was a master class in control. Soothing, concerned.
‘No. Why would it be? I’m fine—’ She shook her head. Angled it. ‘Don’t I recognize you from somewhere?’
‘No.’
She laughed. ‘No?’
‘No. You don’t.’
The waiter brought over the bottle. ‘But how can you be so sure?’ she said. ‘Maybe I did see you somewhere, but you happened to be looking the other way. People are always spotting me out and about and telling me later.’ She kept her eyes on him as she sipped from the fresh glass.
‘What you say is impossible. I’ve only been in town a few hours.’
‘So where were you before that?’