Remote Control (27 page)
Authors: Andy McNab
Pat was a step or two above. He looked down at me, puzzled. ‘What the fuck’s a Micky D?’
‘McDonald’s,’ I said, as if he should have known. But, then, he didn’t have a seven-year-old on his case day and night. ‘Come on, mate, get with the programme!’
He started to do a Michael Jackson moondance.
By now we were nearly at the bus station level. I said, ‘If there’s a drama I’m going to the bus station area, turning right and out of an exit.’
‘Fine. No problems!’ He sounded OK, but looked shit.
The cars were on the two levels above. We walked up the bare concrete stairs, stopped at the first level and got into a position that looked back the way we had come.
I didn’t have time to fuck about. ‘Two things, mate. I’ve got a list here I didn’t fancy reading to you over a landline.’ I passed it over. ‘I need all that kit. And the other thing, what’s the score on the money?’
He was already looking at the small notebook I’d handed him. Either he was amazed at the contents or he couldn’t focus. Without looking up he said, ‘I got some money for you today. But, fucking hell, most of it’s going to be used up on this gear. I’ll be able to get you some more, probably tomorrow or the day after. Fuck me,’ he shook his head, ‘when do you want all this by?’ Then he started to giggle as if he’d just had a funny in his head and wasn’t going to share it with me.
‘Actually, tonight, mate. You reckon you can do it, or what?’ I moved my head to get eye-to-eye.
The giggle became a laugh, until he saw me looking serious. He cleared his throat and tried to switch on. ‘I’ll do my best, mate. I’ll see what I can get on this list.’
‘I’d really fucking appreciate it,’ I said. ‘Don’t let me down, Pat. I really need your help.’ I hoped the urgency was going to register with him. I was still checking down the stairs. ‘Also at the back there’ – I opened the page for him to make sure he saw it – ‘I’ve put a casual pick-up. I need that to happen at twenty-three hundred tonight.’
Pat was looking at the RV notes. I bent my knees to lower myself and moved his face over so I could get eye-to-eye again. ‘Eleven o’clock tonight, mate. Eleven o’clock, OK?’
I knew Pat well enough to tell he knew it was serious. He knew he was fucked up, and was trying hard to understand everything I said.
I was glad now that I’d put the details down on paper for him. He looked as if he needed all the help he could get.
‘What car do you drive?’ I asked.
‘A red Mustang.’ He pushed his face closer to mine. ‘Redder than Satan’s bollocks!’ He enjoyed the joke so much he couldn’t help laughing.
‘Leave via H Street.’ I pointed away from the rear of the station.
‘See you tonight, then,’ he smiled, moving off. From behind I could see a slight veer to the left as he walked.
I waited and checked he wasn’t being followed, then carried on up towards the car park level, making it look as if I was off to my car. From there, I took the lift back down to the coffee shop level.
I went back towards the restaurant, stood off and watched. Kelly was still fighting with the pizza.
‘You were ages!’ she said through a mouthful of mushrooms.
‘Yes, they ran out of toilet paper,’ I laughed as I rejoined her.
She thought about it for a moment and did the same.
22
As soon as we got back I put the TV on for Kelly and tipped out the carrier bags on my bed. She asked me what I was doing.
‘I’m just helping Pat. He’s asked me to do some stuff. You can watch the TV if you want. You hungry?’
‘No.’ She was right, after a pizza the size of a tank mine it was a stupid question.
I picked up the big red-and-white-framed quartz kitchen clock and went and sat on the chair by the window. I broke off the frame until I was left with just the hands and clock face, with the quartz mechanics behind it. By bending it very gently, I now started to break off the plastic face. When there was just about an inch of jagged remains around the centre of the hands I finally snapped off the hour and second hands. Only the minute hand was left. I put in a new battery.
Kelly was watching. ‘Now what are you doing, Nick?’
‘It’s a trick. Once I’ve finished I’ll show you, OK?’
‘OK.’ She turned back to the TV, but with one eye on me.
I took the egg box over to the bin and tipped out its contents. I ripped off the top and half of the bottom so that there were just six compartments left. With Sellotape, I fashioned a small sleeve running all the way up the side of the egg box, and just big enough to accommodate the minute hand. I called over to Kelly, who was mouthing the signature tune to a soap. ‘Do you want to see what this does?’
She looked intrigued as I slotted the egg box onto the minute hand.
The bedside cabinet was about four inches below the level of the TV’s controls. I positioned the clock on it, so that it was directly below the infra-red sensor on the set, and secured it in place with gaffer tape.
Kelly was taking even more interest. ‘What are you doing?’
‘See the remote control? Use it to turn the sound up.’
She did.
‘Now turn it down. OK, I bet you that, in about fifteen minutes’ time, you can’t turn the sound up.’ I went and joined her on the bed. ‘Both of us must sit here and not move, OK?’
‘OK.’ She thought I was going to do something to the remote control, and smiled as she hid it under the pillow.
It was quite nice really, watching TV during some downtime, apart from every minute hearing ‘Is it fifteen minutes yet?’
‘No, only seven.’ By now the egg box, attached to the minute hand, was working its way up towards the base of the TV.
When the egg box was upright and obscuring the sensor I said, ‘Go on then, try to turn the sound up.’
She did and nothing happened.
‘Maybe it’s the battery?’ I teased.
We put a fresh battery into the remote control. Still nothing. She couldn’t work it out and I wasn’t going to explain my trick.
‘Magic!’ I grinned.
I got out the rest of the stuff, drank some of the orange juice and rinsed out the container, then made sure that all the electrical kit had fresh batteries, and prepared everything ready to be packed.
It was about twenty past ten and Kelly was asleep. I’d have to wake her up and tell her I was going out, because I didn’t want her to wake on her own and start flapping. At times I thought she was just a pain in the arse, but I wanted to protect her. She looked so innocent playing starfish again. What would happen to her after all this, I wondered – presuming she lived.
I checked and tested everything again, unplugged the mobile and put it in my pocket, and finally checked my weapon and that I had some cash. I picked up a half-empty packet of biscuits to eat on the way.
Close to her ear, I whispered, ‘Kelly!’
I got no response. I shook her a bit. She stirred and I said, ‘I’ve put the TV on low so you can watch it if you want. I’ve just got to go out for a little while.’
‘Yeah.’
I didn’t know if she understood or not. I preferred telling her this when she was half asleep.
‘Don’t put the lock on this time because I’ll take the key. I don’t want to wake you when I come in, OK?’
I left, went down in the lift and onto the road. The highway traffic rumbled above me. At last, no rain, just air that smelled damp. It was just cold enough for me to see my breath.
I turned left and walked in the opposite direction to normal, just for one last check. I munched the biscuits as I walked past the target. All the same lights were on, nothing had changed. I wondered if the homeless bloke was underneath, waiting with a machete for somebody else to have a piss on him. I quickened my pace to meet Pat on time. I got to the highway and turned right, following the road with the roar of traffic above me.
The road swung right and I started to leave the highway behind. Soon there was waste ground on both sides and the sound of traffic receded. I could hear my footsteps again. To my right were more car pounds. How could Washington be in such a financial mess when the city must be making a fortune on towed-away vehicles? To my left were the new, jerry-built office-cum-workshops. I got to the first one, moved off the road into its shadow and waited.
It was bizarre to be only hundreds of metres away from the Pentagon and possibly right under the nose of the very people who’d like to see me dead. It was also quite a thrill. It always had been. Pat had a term for it; he called it ‘the juice’.
I heard an engine coming towards me. I looked round the corner of the building. Just one vehicle. It must be him. I pulled my pistol.
The red Mustang drew up. I was in a semi-crouch fire position, aiming at the driver with my Sig until it stopped. It was Pat. I could see his Roman nose silhouetted in the ambient light from the airport.
Pistol still in hand, I walked over to the passenger door, opened it and the interior light didn’t come on. I got in and closed the door gently, on to its first click only.
Pat had his hand on the handbrake and slowly released it to move off. From a distance, it’s very difficult to tell whether a car is stopping if you can’t see brake lights – that was why Pat was using the handbrake – and with no interior light coming on and no noise of a car door shutting the pick-up would have been very hard to detect.
Checking the road behind us, I said, ‘Turn right at the next junction.’
There was no time to fuck about; he knew it and I knew it. Pat said, ‘Everything’s in the back, in that holdall.’ He’d come down from whatever high he’d been on and sounded quite embarrassed.
I leaned over and lifted out the laptop. I said, ‘Is the sound turned off?’ When Windows 95 came up I didn’t want the Microsoft sound playing.
He made a face that let me know I was a dickhead for even asking. We both laughed and it broke the ice.
We came up to the concrete wall and, as we passed the hotel, I was careful not to turn my head. We turned right under the highway and stopped at traffic lights on the other side.
I said, ‘Go straight and turn right on Kent.’
‘No problem.’
The area was urban and now well lit. He kept checking in his rear-view mirror that we weren’t being followed. My eyes were fixed on the wing mirror. I didn’t turn and look now; neither of us wanted to look aware.
There were a few cars behind us, but they had come from other directions. That wasn’t to say they weren’t following us.
I looked at Pat. His 9mm semi was snug under his right thigh, and in the footwell under his legs he had a 9mm MP5K, an excellent in-car weapon because of its compact size and rate of fire, but a bit over the top for this job. He’d clipped on double thirty-round magazines.
‘What the fuck did you bring that thing along for?’
‘I didn’t like the sound of your new best mate, Luther. I didn’t want him and his buddies dragging me in for a little chat.’
We approached another set of lights.
‘Do a right to left switch here, mate. Let’s see if we have any groupies.’
There were one or two cars behind us. The shape of a vehicle’s headlights, once it is up close, helps a lot to ID it. If the same shape is up your arse on three turns in the same direction it’s time to get out the worry beads.
Pat indicated and started to move to the right. All the other cars seemed to want to go straight ahead or to turn right with us; nobody was in the left-turn lane. At the last moment Pat indicated left and moved over – nothing that was aggressive or would provoke a bout of road rage, just a change of mind.
We were all held at the lights. I looked at each car in turn. Just couples or kids cruising – or so it appeared. I’d soon know if I saw them again.
We turned on green and nothing followed. It was now time to talk.
Pat started it off. ‘Your instructions were shit. You said three buildings; there were four. It’s a good job I’m switched on.’ He was waiting for praise.
‘The fact is I couldn’t remember how many. The taxi was driving too fast. I can’t count anyway.’
We were now just cruising. Pat said, ‘I’ve been thinking. Do you want me to go in as your number two?’
That would be good. It would get the job done quicker and would mean better security and firepower if we were in the shit. But I decided against; Pat was my only link with the outside world and I didn’t want to compromise that.
‘No fucking way. I remember what happened the last time.’
We both started to laugh. ‘That device swap?’
PIRA had concealed a car bomb in a hide, ready to be used two days after. It consisted of 4 pounds of shaped high explosive on a Parkway timer device, a sixty-minute reminder on a keyring that told you when your parking meter had run out. They were PIRA’s toy of the month.
We drove into the Shantello estate, a nationalist stronghold in Derry, parked up and made entry into a council house. The hide was a hole dug out of the concrete foundations in the kitchen, with a plug over it and a gas cooker on top of that. We stole the bomb, Pat carrying it in an old canvas holdall.
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