Liberation Day (30 page)

The sound of the two of them fighting for breath as they heaved about on the concrete was almost as loud as the rattle of containers and banter between the postal workers.

I threw the
hawallada
’s wallet onto the ground and sat on both his legs, right behind his knees so his kneecaps were pressed into the floor. It must have hurt, but he was panicking too much to notice. I stabbed the pen into the upper right quadrant of his right buttock and pushed into him hard, pressing down the trigger at the same time. There was a faint
ping
as the spring pushed the larger than normal insulin needle through his clothing and into the muscle mass. I held the pen there, pushing down for ten seconds as instructed, as the sound of angry, frustrated breathing fought its way through Hubba-Hubba’s hand.

We both held him down for the minute or so it took for his struggles to subside. Very soon, he was en route for the K hole.

I got to my feet. Hubba-Hubba still held him down until he’d stopped moving completely. I reloaded the pen by unscrewing it and replacing the cartridge and needle. After picking up the spat-out needle cover, I packed everything away in the fanny pack and fished out the diaper pin from my jeans as Hubba-Hubba disentangled himself and brushed himself down. The carts outside were still being filled, to the sound of a lot of French banter.

Hubba-Hubba picked up Romeo Three’s keys and talked slowly and softly to Lotfi on the net, telling him what was going on as he inspected the fob.

With the opened diaper pin in my hand, I leaned down, forced open the
hawallada
’s mouth, and pushed it through his bottom lip and tongue before fastening it and clicking down the pink safety cap. His muscles were completely relaxed by the ketamine, and we couldn’t risk him swallowing his tongue and suffocating. There was also the risk of him vomiting as he came around from the drug, and if that happened at the DOP with no one else there, he might choke on it. The pin would keep him safe until he reached his new home. Meanwhile Lotfi had got the news from Hubba-Hubba, and I heard him give a double-click.

Our new friend was probably having his near-death experience by now, looking down at us both and thinking what a pair of assholes we were.

The Audi’s yellow fourways flashed as Hubba-Hubba pressed the remote and the locks clunked open.

I thumbed through the wallet and found that our new pal’s name was Gumaa Ahmed Khalilzad. On the whole, I preferred Romeo Three. Pulling at his sideburns and fiddling with the diaper pin, I got no reaction. Then I put my ear to his mouth to check his breathing; it was very shallow, but that was what we’d been told to expect with this stuff.

What I wasn’t expecting were the two thick, banded wads of hundred-dollar bills Hubba-Hubba held in each hand as he walked back from the Audi.

I took one bundle off him, and threw it down inside my jacket and sweatshirt. “A little commission he skimmed off the top?”

Hubba-Hubba nodded in agreement as he slipped his bundle down his shirt.

He looked at me expectantly. “What do we do now?”

A quick look at traser told me it was three-thirty-eight, a couple of hours or so before last light.

The banter from the postal workers ebbed and flowed as I went through the options. Hubba-Hubba knelt down and pulled out a crisply laundered white handkerchief from Gumaa’s now dirt-covered navy jacket. There was no way I could get Hubba-Hubba’s or Lotfi’s wagons in here. They wouldn’t fit in the garage, and they couldn’t just back up to load him in with people so close.

I watched as Hubba-Hubba tied the handkerchief around Gumaa’s head like a blindfold. It wasn’t to stop him seeing, but to protect his eyes. He had lost control of his eyelids as well as his tongue, and they might easily open during transportation to the DOP or during his wait there for pickup. We needed to deliver him in a reasonable condition so that the interrogation could start as soon as he came around, and not after he’d had emergency treatment to remove two inches of lollipop stick from his eyeball. We’d planned to use duct tape from our cars, but you can’t win them all.

I was going to have to drive the Audi out of Monaco with Gumaa in the trunk. There was no other way.

Hubba-Hubba looked at me expectantly. I gave him a nod and hit my pressle. “L?”

Click, click.

I could hear vehicles, and people talking around him. The chainsaw had stopped. “Are you still complete?”

Click, click.

“In the same place?”

Click, click.

“H is going mobile first to clear the DOP. I’ll then come out onto the square, turn left, and pass you in Romeo Three’s car, a silver Audi. He’ll be with me. I’ll count down to the intersection and then to you. You then back me, okay?”

Click, click.

“Good. We’ll then make our way to the drop-off, just as planned.”

Click, click.

“Remember, you are Romeo Three’s protection.”

At last he was able to come on the air. “Of course, of course.”

I nodded at Hubba-Hubba. “We’d better get him in the trunk.”

He went around to the driver’s seat and there was a
clunk
as the trunk opened. With me lifting his legs and Hubba-Hubba gripping him under his armpits, we lugged Gumaa over to the Audi and lifted him in. We were now vulnerable; him to getting the good news from a tail-end crash, and us to being compromised, so Lotfi would try to stay behind me, close enough to stop anyone getting between us in the traffic. As we laid Gumaa down, I took off his jacket and wrapped it around his head as a cushion, then pushed him onto his side so he could breathe better, adjusted the handkerchief, and stuck the wallet back into his pocket after wiping it free of prints. It was part of the package for the boys on the warship.

Hubba-Hubba stood there waiting for the green light. “Not yet, mate. We need to make this look like a rental car.” Fortunately there wasn’t much to rearrange, just a plastic air-freshener on the back shelf, shaped like a crown, and some French and Arabic newspapers on the seat. They all went into the trunk before it got closed down.

I looked at Hubba-Hubba. “First thing, how do I get out of here?”

He pointed at a red and a green button to the side of the shutter.

“Okay, mate, go and clear the drop-off. I’ll come in via BSM, and radio-check you to make sure everything’s clear up there.”

He nodded and walked to the door as I half-sat in the Audi, turned the key, and watched him disappear into the street, closing the door carefully behind him.

“That’s H foxtrot. L, acknowledge.”

Click, click.

The engine turned over gently and exhaust fumes filled my nostrils as I moved over to the electric doors, waiting to be cleared by Hubba-Hubba.

There were still voices outside and I could just hear the chainsaw rev up once more in the distance. It was now magnified in my earpiece as Hubba-Hubba came on the net. “N, it is all clear, it’s all clear.”

Click, click.

I hit the shutter button with my elbow and the electric motor whined. As the steel door squeaked its way up, I slipped my shades onto my nose and pulled my brim down low.

Backing out, I had to stop parallel with the truck to close the shutter, before heading for the square. Hubba-Hubba was on his way to the drop-off. “H is mobile. L, acknowledge.”

“Roger that, N is mobile.”

The Audi was an automatic, so it was quite easy to keep my right hand on the pressle.

“That’s approaching the left-hand bend…at the bend toward the square…halfway…approaching.” I hit the intersection. “Stop, stop, stop. Silver car.”

“L has, L has.”

The black Ford Focus was up the road to my left, just past the entrance to the parking lot and facing away from me. There was no need to continue on with the countdown: he had me. I turned left and Lotfi slotted in behind.

We wound our way back to the casino, down the hill toward the harbor. Traffic was heavy but steady as people began to head home from offices and banks, clouds of cigarette smoke and bad music billowing out of their open windows. Higher up, much bigger clouds, dark and brooding, gathered in the mountains.

We crawled around the harbor, with Lotfi protecting the rear of the Audi from impatient commuters.

Motorcycle police were directing traffic at a four-way intersection not far from the tunnels. A truck in front of me eventually got the wave and turned right. I followed as Lotfi hit the net. “No, no, no, no, no!”

As the message sank in I saw Lotfi in my side mirror, heading straight on, not right. There was a series of short, sharp whistle blasts from one of the policemen now behind me. He was wearing high-leg riding boots and a sidearm, and was waving me to a halt. Another policeman kicked up the stand on his bike, and my mind raced through the options. It didn’t take long; I didn’t really have any. I had to bluff it.

If I put my foot down I probably wouldn’t even make it past the other side of the tunnel. I took a deep breath, accepting my big-time fuck-up, checked my Browning was covered, and pulled over as a few trucks moved out into the center of the road to pass the jerk who didn’t know where he was going. The policeman approached and I pressed the down button on the window, looking up at him, my face one big apology. He still had his helmet on, a BMW lid, the sort where you can pull up the face. He said something in French and pointed back to the junction. His tone was more exasperated than aggressive.

I stammered, “I’m sorry, officer, I…”

The bags under his eyes drooped as he looked down at me with an expression of unutterable weariness. “Where are you going?” Perfect English.

“To Nice. I’m sorry, I’m a bit lost and I missed your signal….”

His expression told me he’d been dealing with idiot Brits for years. With a resigned nod, he walked back toward the intersection and beckoned me to back up. A dozen horns were leaned on as he held up the traffic with a leather-gloved hand and pointed me in the direction Lotfi had gone. I gave him a wave of thanks and tried to avoid the angry glares of the other drivers.

As I pulled away I saw Lotfi on foot to my left, coming uphill toward the intersection. His arms were crossed and inside his jacket, which meant only one thing. He had drawn down in case he had to get me out of the shit the hard way. He spotted me and turned on his heel as I got on the net. “L, where are you parked? Where are you parked?”

The roar of the traffic filled his mike. “On the right, not far. Down on the right.”

“Okay, I’ll wait for you, I’ll wait for you.”

Click, click.

I drove down the hill, looking for the Focus. It felt really strange knowing that someone had actually been coming to help. Nobody had done that for me since I left the Regiment.

I saw his car in a small turnout in front of some stores. I pulled in about four cars back, and waited for him to get back behind the wheel. I watched him approach in my rearview mirror, and felt a surge of gratitude that I realized was close to friendship. It had been my fuck-up; he didn’t have to come back and help, but he had been prepared to put his own life at risk to do so.

He walked past me, not giving the Audi a second glance, and as he waited for a line of cars to pass before opening his door, I wrote myself a mental Post-it to find a way of thanking him.

36

T
he Audi and the Focus merged with the traffic as we flicked on our lights to drive through the tunnel. Two Legoland police and three more in riding boots, astride their machines, were on duty at the traffic circle on the other side, checking vehicle tax and insurance discs as the traffic filtered past them. The flow speeded up now, as most of the traffic turned up to the A8, wanting to get straight home rather than waste time winding along the coast. I was trying to think what to do now that there was an extra vehicle in the plan.

It was starting to get dark, so the headlights stayed on. Pinpricks of light were scattered all over the populated slopes to our right, but as the mountains got higher, they thinned out.

It wasn’t long before we arrived at BSM and passed my Mégane behind the OP and then the marina entrance. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see the
Ninth of May
from the road, but couldn’t resist a look anyway before checking the rearview mirror for the hundredth time to make sure Lotfi was still behind me. I got on the net. “H, radio check, radio check.”

I got two low and crackly clicks.

“You are weak. Have you checked the drop-off?”

The clicks were still crackly.

“Okay, change of plan, change of plan. I still want you to cover me, but in my car, cover me in my car. Roger so far.”

Click, click.

“I need you to get rid of the Audi after the drop-off. Lotfi will back you, and take you back to your car afterward. H, acknowledge.”

Click, click.

“L, acknowledge.”

Click, click.

“Roger that. Just carry on now as planned. Do not acknowledge.”

I continued on along the coast road, Lotfi still behind me; I could see his dimmed lights in my rearview, but I had no idea where Hubba-Hubba was. It didn’t matter: we were communicating. We eventually reached the intersection that led to Cap Ferrat, and then, no more than two minutes farther on, rounded a sweeping right-hand bend and the bay of Villefranche stretched out below us. The warship was lit up like a Christmas tree about a mile offshore, and a dozen yachts twinkled away at their moorings. I didn’t have long to take in the picture-postcard view before stopping at the intersection that took us to the DOP. I waited with my indicator flashing for Lotfi to overtake, then followed him up an incredibly steep series of hairpin bends. The road narrowed, with room for two cars just to inch past each other. Lotfi’s taillights disappeared ahead of me every now and again as we wound our way up the hill, past the walls and railings of large houses perched on the mountainside, then steel guardrails to stop us driving over the edge.

Our destination was Lou Soleilat, an area of rough brush and woodland, situated around a big parking lot/picnic area lined with recycling bins, where the Coke Light marker was going to be placed to show that there was a
hawallada
ready for collection.