Liberation Day (41 page)

Lotfi was inches from me now, his eyes fixed on the pit. Hubba-Hubba’s head was still bowed. He wasn’t reacting to the blows, just rolling with them, taking the pain. Romeo One was on his knees, begging Goatee for mercy. What he got instead was another burst of good news from the broom handle.

Lotfi turned to me, his face determined. “He’s waiting for me.”

I nodded. “Not long now, mate. Go beyond the skylight, see if there’s a trap door.”

He took another long, hard look at his brother before crawling backward and making his way to the other side of the roof. Maybe there was a fire door, with a steel escape ladder attached to an interior wall. It wouldn’t help us much: we’d be spotted at once coming down it. But at least it got Lotfi out of the way for a while. I didn’t want him worked up any more than he was already.

As I listened to the screams and shouts I looked around below me. The building was just one big open space, and had obviously once been used as a garage workshop. I was lying with my head toward the shuttered entrance at the far end of the building. There was nothing behind it now, apart from the Lexus. It looked as though it had been the vehicles’ holding area, before they were brought over to the inspection pits and ramps for repair in the middle. At the other end, the ground-floor window we’d found was hidden by two mobile construction trailers, which stood at right angles to each other in front of a rough, whitewashed cinder-block cube, no more than eight feet high, which jutted out of the corner. Unless Lotfi came up with something magical, the only way in was through the shutter, or that window.

Goatee stepped off the gate and barked an order at the boys by the ramp. Baldilocks and Van Man threw down their cigarettes, walked over to the pit, and dragged the ironwork gate to one side. When there was a big enough gap, Romeo Two was herded into it by the black-leather brothers.

Hubba-Hubba didn’t react as the newcomer fell in beside him and the gate was dragged back over. But the reunited Romeos yammered off to each other and did some more begging to the people above.

A cell phone rang. A couple of them reached into their pockets, but it turned out to be Goatee’s. He flipped it open, and did a bit of business as the other four congregated by the ramps. Cigarettes were passed around and lit as Goatee carried on his conversation in what sounded like French. There was even a little laughter from him as he walked toward the shutters.

Goatee had a big smile on his face, and waved his left arm gently back and forth as he talked. He was maybe in his early forties, with a short, very neat hairstyle that made him look even more like George Michael today. His body language was cajoling, and he kicked small imaginary soccer balls against the wall as he moved.

Lotfi appeared from the other side of the skylight on his hands and knees, shaking his head as he closed in on me. He stared down at Hubba-Hubba, then shifted his attention to Goatee.

“It’s a woman,” he whispered. “He says he’ll be home late, there is lots to do.”

And then, as if a switch had been thrown, the phone was thrust back into Goatee’s pocket and he strode back to the pit. The smile had gone.

The two Romeos were on their knees, beseeching him in rapid Arabic. I turned to Lotfi. “What are they saying?”

He put his ear to the hole instead of his eyes and plugged the other ear with his thumb as a jet passed overhead and vehicles raced about us, his face screwed up in concentration. While I waited for him to work it out, I moved the Browning to the back of my jeans and turned the fanny pack around, letting my front sink into the tar. It didn’t make much difference, I was already covered in the stuff. I felt as if I’d been crawling in hot volcanic mud.

“They don’t know who my brother is. They’ve never seen him before.”

I watched Goatee light a cigarette while he glowered at the two men gibbering on their knees below him, picking off some tobacco that was left on his lips.

“They’re saying they’re just here to collect money from three locations. One yesterday and two today. They don’t understand what’s happening. They know nothing apart from where to collect the money.”

He had the same thought as I did. “Nick, two collections today?”

Shit!
I glanced over to him, then back at Goatee, who was holding a hand out as Van Man brought over Hubba-Hubba’s yellow Sony. He brought it up to his mouth and mouthed,
“Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour,”
with an exaggerated sneer.

He flicked his unfinished cigarette into the pit and crouched over Hubba-Hubba, shouting questions. There was no reaction at all from the Egyptian. “He wants to know who he was talking to on the radio.” Lotfi wiped sweat from his face. “He wants to know who we are, where we are, what we’re doing.” And then, strangely, Lotfi smiled. He looked me in the eye. “He won’t say a word, Nick. He knows I’m coming.”

Hubba-Hubba was still facing the bottom of the pit, not responding. Maybe Lotfi was right: he actually did believe. Goatee got pissed off at the lack of reaction and hurled the Sony at the gate. Shards of plastic and electronic components showered into the pit like shrapnel. Then, in what looked like an explosion of frustration, he forced the broom handle down onto the base of Hubba-Hubba’s neck with both hands. Hubba-Hubba just took the pain and went down, his bloodstained head falling into Romeo Two’s lap.

Lotfi stared down as Goatee screamed into the pit. He was looking far too calm. It was as if he had a plan. “What else are they saying, mate?”

Lotfi closed his eyes and cocked his ear to the broken pane. “He doesn’t believe the Romeos. He says it doesn’t matter who is telling the truth and who is lying. It doesn’t matter if he kills them and he is wrong. Someone else will collect the cash.” He opened his eyes again and looked at me. “It is now time, Nick.”

I nodded back. “We only have the window to—”

Lotfi jerked away from the glass and up onto his knees. Wiping his hands on his jeans to get the tar off, he nodded over toward the gate. The heat burned into my palms as I put my hands into the black stuff and pushed myself up to see what he’d seen. He was already crawling toward the downpipe.

A Peugeot station wagon with police markings and blue light bar had stopped at the intersection opposite the line of cars in front of the
brocante
, where the Scudo was parked. It was three up, and the front passenger was on the radio.

51

I
had to assume the worst: that third-party calls earlier had alerted the police about the Scudo and these three boys were just about to get a promotion. They’d find the radios and the rear setup, and the cash under the seat—together with enough fingerprints to keep them dusting for weeks. The first thing they’d do was look for us around here.

I checked Lotfi’s Focus. Nothing was happening there, but it wouldn’t be long before it did after his cops-and-robbers impersonation. I couldn’t help thinking that maybe it was God’s way of saying, “That’s enough of a recce for me today, now just get on with it.”

Still trying to work out how we were going to do it, I decided to take one more look down into the building before I went to join Lotfi. I hadn’t reckoned on things getting worse. Goatee was still on the gate, but the trunk to the Lexus was now open and Baldilocks was handing him a red plastic fuel canister. The can was then held up, like a bottle of wine at a restaurant, for the three in the pit to see.

Hubba-Hubba finally looked up. The charm had gone from his neck. There was no reaction at all: he just took the shouting, and bowed his head once more. He was waiting for Lotfi to come. But in the meantime he was preparing to die.

Lotfi was nearly at the corner of the roof as a train squealed into the station. He stopped at the parapet, waiting in case anyone took the short cut. By the time I had reached him, the train had left. Should I tell him what I’d seen? What would it change if I did? We were still going to have to get down and try to make entry through that window. Would it help for him to know that his brother was on the verge of being torched—especially if it turned out we couldn’t get inside?

Lotfi checked for people crossing the train tracks. “All clear. Ready?”

I nodded, checked my Browning and fanny pack, then clambered over the parapet, scrambling down a bit too fast. Slivers of rust sliced into my hand, but my pain was nothing compared to Hubba-Hubba’s. As soon as I hit the ground, Lotfi started to follow.

I switched the fanny pack and Browning from my back to my front once more and took my Leatherman out of its belt case. I wanted the weapon back where it normally sat, because it was an instinct to draw down from that position and I got the feeling I’d be needing it.

Lotfi landed beside me as I opened the blade of the Leatherman. Reaching up on tiptoe with my left hand and pushing up with my free hand on the concrete windowsill, I started to stab and cut into the plastic fan casing.

Lotfi was against the wall, keeping watch. It seemed a good idea to prepare him for failure. “If we can’t get these bars off, the only way to go in is through the shutter. We wait for someone to come out, or maybe the van to come back, then—”

“God will decide what we can and cannot do, Nick. It’s in his hands.” He didn’t look at me: his eyes stayed fixed toward the track.

That was all well and good, but what if God decided it was time to light up the pit?

I lifted out the center of the four-inch-diameter fan and tried to look through at the bars beyond the now-grimy, tar-smeared glass.

Fuck it, I had to tell him.

“Before we left the skylight, I saw Goatee waving a fuel can at the three of them in the pit. You know what that could mean, don’t you?”

His expression didn’t change. His eyes still didn’t leave the track. But he did have his beads in his left hand, threading them between his fingers and thumb, one by one. “Yes, I do know what that means.” His voice was unbelievably calm, unbelievably collected. “Let’s just carry on.”

I needed help to get my hand through the hole. “Give us a leg up, mate.” I lifted my right foot, and he cupped his hands. We both grunted as I stretched out my arm and he pushed up against the bricks.

I got a glimpse of urinals as I reached through, and at the fourth attempt I managed to pull down the rusty window latch. Not much happened. The frame was so old it had been glued in place by years of weather. I lowered myself back to the ground and used the Leatherman blade to pry open the frame.

There was no noise from inside, which was good: if we couldn’t hear them, chances were they couldn’t hear us. I just hoped none of them suddenly decided they wanted to take a leak.

Pushing at the bars was no good, they were solid, but I used them to pull myself up the extra foot so I could see what was going on. They were secured by three straighthead screws, above and below the frame, driven through two strips of metal that were welded onto the bars.

I dropped back to the ground and got out the screwdriver of the Leatherman. “You know we still need to get the
hawallada,
don’t you, as well as Hubba-Hubba? We’ve already lost the third one, and without these people we don’t get to the ASUs. We need them—you know what’s going to happen if these ASUs aren’t jumped on?”

“Nick, I understand the importance. You forget, my brother and I volunteered.”

His expression was so calm it was unnerving. He really did believe in right and wrong, and all that Kismet stuff. “You also know it’s finished, after this? We are compromised to the police, we have missed the other collection. Let’s just get both of them out, drop off the
hawallada,
and get the fuck out of this country. Okay? No revenge shit, it’ll take too long.”

I pulled myself up again, using the bars, and managed to half-sit on the sill so I could get to work with the screwdriver. At least the stained toilet and two dust-filled urinals had no smell, just dried cigarette butts, from the eighties probably; the filter ends gathered around the drain holes were faded white with age.

Layers of paint covered the screw heads near the ceiling, and I had to dig them out first with the blade before I could get the screwdriver to bite. It eventually started to turn after the head had twice slipped out of the groove and scraped my knuckles.

The first screw came out and I handed it to Lotfi and stayed silent as I dealt with the remaining ones. There was too much to think and worry about. I glanced at Lotfi, still calm, watching up and down the path. Me, I was worrying a bit, but ready to go for it so we could get the fuck out of France before the police got hold of us.

I didn’t bother with the bottom screws, just pried the bars downward. Then, getting out my Browning and turning my fanny pack around to the back of my spine again, I went in headfirst, belly-flopping onto the toilet, using the two urinals as support to stop me falling onto the floor and making noise.

I could hear voices on the other side of the door.

Lotfi followed me through, closing the window behind him but not pulling down the catch.

The door was an overpainted cheap interior one, with an old, brushed-aluminum handle. The gap at the bottom was too narrow for me to look through, but the screams and shouts didn’t leave much to the imagination. At least I couldn’t smell gasoline or burning yet.

Lotfi also got his ear to the door. “They’re begging them to stop—we must hurry now.”

“We need to spread out so we can cover them all. I’ll take the left, using the Portakabin on that side as cover. You take the right, using the other one.”

One of the Romeos screamed so loudly it sounded as if he were in here with us. Lotfi got very worked up, his eyes flashing once more the same as they’d done in Algeria. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Me left, you right, and this God of yours knows I’m with you, yeah?”

As he nodded, both Romeos cried out again. I pulled the hammer back from its half-cock position on the Browning and checked chamber by gently pulling back the backslide just enough to see the brass of the round in position. Then I pushed it back into position.

Lotfi was doing the same as I checked my fanny pack for the last time and wiped the sweat from my eyes with a tar-stained hand.