Remote Control (44 page)
Authors: Andy McNab
She was taken aback, but it worked.
I was luckier than I might have been with the decoding. I’d just finished, had put the tools away and was opening the box, when I heard a low moan from her. ‘I don’t like it here, Nick. It’s all changed.’
I turned round, grabbed her and covered her mouth with my hand. ‘For fuck’s sake shut up!’ It wasn’t what she expected, but I didn’t have time to explain.
With my hand still clamped hard over her mouth, I picked her up and slowly walked over to the window. I listened, waited, but there was nothing. Just a bit of banter and laughing, and the crackle of their radio.
As I turned back, however, there was a short, sharp metallic dragging sound.
Then, for a split second, nothing.
Then, as Kev’s pewter tankard of pens and pencils fell from the desk and hit the bare flooring, there was a resounding crash. The noise went on as bits and pieces scattered in all directions. As I’d turned, Kelly’s coat must have caught on the sharp points of the pencils and dragged the tankard off the table.
I knew the noise was magnified twenty times in my head, but I also knew they would have heard it.
Kelly chose that moment to start to lose it, but there was no time to worry about that. I just left her where she was, went to the doorway, and listened to the sound of car doors opening and a sudden increase in radio traffic.
Pulling the pistol from my jeans and checking chamber, I moved out of the study. Three strides got me across the hall and into the kitchen. I closed the door behind me, took a couple of deep breaths and waited.
The front door opened and I could hear both of them in the hallway. There was a click and light spilled under the kitchen door.
Then footsteps, and I could hear nervous breathing from the other side of the four-ply, and the jangle of keys on a belt.
I heard the study door opening. Then a half-shouted, half-whispered, ‘Melvin, Melvin – in here!’
‘Yo!’
I knew it was my time. I brought the pistol up into the fire position, put my hand on the doorknob and gently twisted. I moved into the hall.
Melvin was in the study doorway, his back towards me. He was young and of medium build. I took a couple of big strides, grabbed him across the forehead with my left hand, yanked his head back and rammed the pistol muzzle into his neck. In a very controlled voice that had nothing to do with the way I was feeling, I said, ‘Drop your weapon, Melvin. Don’t fuck me about. Drop it now.’
Melvin’s arm came down to his side and he let the pistol fall to the floor.
I couldn’t see whether or not the other one had his pistol out. It was still dark in the study. Their torchlight was no help. Melvin and I blocked out most of the hallway light. I was hoping that he’d already reholstered, because part of their training would be not to scare kids. As far as he was concerned, it was just a kid there on her own.
I shouted, ‘Put the lights on, Kelly – do it now!’
Nothing happened.
‘Kelly, turn the lights on.’ I heard small footsteps coming towards us. There was a click and the lights came on.
‘Now wait there.’ I could see her eyes were swollen and red.
Inside the room stood Michelin Man. He must have weighed 15 stones and, by the looks of the boy, he had only a couple of years to go before retirement. He was holstered, but his hand was down by his pistol.
I said, ‘Don’t do it! Tell him, Melvin.’ I prodded his neck.
Melvin went, ‘I’m fucked, Ron.’
‘Ron, don’t start messing about. This is not the one to do it for. It’s not worth it, not just for this.’
I could see that Ron was quite switched on. He was thinking about his wife, his mortgage and the chances of ever seeing another bag of doughnuts.
Melvin’s radio sparked up. Control snapped, ‘Unit Sixty-two, Unit Sixty-two. Do you copy?’ It sounded like a demand, not a request. It must have been great to be married to her.
‘That’s you, isn’t it, Melvin?’ I said.
‘Yes, sir, that’s us.’
‘Melvin, tell them you’re OK.’ I jabbed the pistol a little harder into his neck to underline the point. ‘The safety catch is off, Melvin, I’ve got my finger on the trigger. Just tell them everything’s OK. It ain’t worth it, mate.’
Ron blurted, ‘I’ll do it.’
Another demand: ‘Unit Sixty-two, respond.’
I said, ‘Put your right hand up and answer with your left. Kelly, be very quiet, OK?’
She nodded. Ron pressed his radio. ‘Hello, Control. We’ve checked. Everything’s fine.’
‘Roger, Unit Sixty-two, your report timed at 2213.’
Ron clicked off.
Kelly immediately went back into crying mode and sank to the floor. I was stuck in the doorway with a pistol to Melvin’s neck, and Ron, who still had a weapon in his holster, was facing me from the middle of the room.
‘At the end of the day, Ron, if you don’t play the game, Melvin’s going to die – and then you’re going to die. Do you understand me?’
Ron nodded.
‘OK, Ron, let’s see you turn round.’
He did.
‘Get on your knees.’
He did. He was about four feet from Kelly, but as long as she stayed still she wasn’t in the line of fire.
Melvin was sweating good-style. My hand was slipping on his forehead. There were even droplets running down the topslide. His shirt was so wet I could make out the shape of his body armour underneath.
I said, ‘With your left hand, Ron, I want you to lift out your pistol. Very slow, and use just your thumb and forefinger. Then I want you to move it to your left-hand side and drop it. Do you understand me, Ron?’
Ron nodded.
I said, ‘Tell him, Melvin, tell him not to fuck about.’
‘Don’t fuck around, Ron.’
Ron gently removed his pistol from its holster and dropped it on the floor.
‘What I want you to do now, with your left hand, is get hold of your handcuffs, and I want you to drop them just behind you. Understand?’
Ron complied. I turned my attention to Melvin, who was starting to tremble. I spoke quietly in his ear. ‘Don’t worry about it, you’re going to live. You’ll be talking to your grandchildren about this. Just do exactly what I say. Understand?’
He nodded.
I turned to Ron and said, ‘Now lie down, Ron. Face-down on the floor.’
Ron spreadeagled himself and was now under control. I said, ‘What I’m going to do next, Melvin, is take one step back, and this pistol is going to leave your neck, but it’s still going to be pointing at your head, so don’t get any ideas. Once I’ve stepped back, I’m then going to tell you to kneel down. Do you understand me?’
He nodded and I took a swift step backwards. I wanted to be out of arm’s length from him straightaway; I didn’t want him doing some kind of heroic pirouette to grab the pistol or knock it out of the way.
‘OK, now kneel down, then lie down. Just like Ron. Now put your hand next to Ron.’
I now had both of them lying face down, forearms together. I moved behind them, picked up the handcuffs and, with the pistol stuck in Melvin’s ear, I locked his left wrist to Ron’s right. I then took Melvin’s handcuffs from their holster, stepped back and said, ‘I want you to arch your bodies and move your free hands round so they’re together as well. Both understand me? Believe me, boys, I want to get this over and done with. I just want out of here.’
I finished the job. At last they were both totally under control. I took their wallets and threw them into the bag. I took Melvin’s radio and kept it with me, and I took the battery out of Ron’s and threw it into the bag. At the same time, I took out the roll of gaffer tape. I started with their legs, then used it to bind their heads together as well. I put a final strip around their necks and another around their mouths. I checked that both were breathing through their noses, then dragged them into the hallway – no small job, but I didn’t want them to see what I was going to do next.
I looked at Kelly, pressed against the study wall. She looked pathetic. This must have been terrible for her. She’d been looking forward so much to coming home, only to find it wasn’t the place she’d been expecting. It wasn’t only her family that was missing; everything that was familiar to her was drenched in chemicals, shoved to one side or simply not there.
I heard myself saying, ‘Go and see if your teddies are there.’
She turned and ran and I heard her rattling up the now uncarpeted stairs.
I went into the study, crouched down by the skirting board and, at last, was able to open the gun box. There was nothing inside but a lone floppy disk.
I put the chair back by the desk and lifted up the PC. I soon had it working. There was no password protection, probably deliberately. If anything happened to Kev, he’d want the whole world to read what was on it.
I clicked various files but found nothing interesting. Then I found a file called Flavius and I knew I’d hit pay dirt. It was the codename of the Gibraltar operation.
I started reading. Kev had found out much the same as Big Al had told me – that PIRA’s connection with the cartels originated when they started running drugs for the Colombians up through North Africa and into Gibraltar, for distribution in Spain and the rest of Europe. PIRA were good at the job and the cartels paid well.
After a while, PIRA had also begun to use the drugs trade to gear up some of their own money, funds collected by Noraid in the USA. Big sums were involved; Kev’s figures showed that Sinn Féin had been netting more than £500,000 a year.
These donations had been invested in narcotics, transported to Europe and then bartered for arms and explosives in the old Eastern-bloc countries. It was a business marriage made in heaven; PIRA had the drugs, the East had the weapons. The downfall of the USSR and the rise of the Russian Mafia couldn’t have been better timed.
I had to get back into work mode. I couldn’t just sit here reading. I was in a house with two policemen and one pissed-off little girl. I ejected the floppy disk and put it in my coat pocket.
The controller from hell came back on the net. ‘Unit Sixty-two, do you copy?’
Shit.
I went into the hall. ‘Ron, time to speak up.’
Ron looked at me, and I knew he was going to fuck me off. His face was a picture of defiance. I moved over to them and pulled the tape off their mouths. Ron was the first to talk. ‘You answer it because we can’t. You won’t kill us, not for that.’
Control went up an octave. ‘Unit Sixty-two!’
Ron had a point.
‘Kelly! Kelly! Where are you?’
‘Coming – just found Ricky.’
I stepped back over my two new friends towards Kelly coming down the stairs. There was no time to be sympathetic or nice. ‘Get your coat and shoes on – quick!’
I got all the kit together, put on my trainers, and checked Ron and Melvin weren’t choking to death on the gaffer tape. Both looked quite happy with themselves, but still thinking of a good excuse for why they were in this state in the first place.
We left the same way we’d come. I was gripping her hand, more or less dragging her along, and keeping an eagle eye on Jenny and Ricky. I didn’t want the neighbours hearing screams for lost teddies.
As we drove, bursts of light from the street lamps strobed into the back of the car and I could see her in the rear-view mirror. She was looking miserable, her eyes puffy and wet. She had every right to be sad. She was bright enough to realize that this was probably the last time she’d be here. This wasn’t her home any more. Now she was the same as me. Neither of us had one.
I saw the signs for Dulles airport and pushed my foot down. I was not going to take the risk of driving back to Florida.
35
I hit the airport approach road and headed for economy parking. I allowed myself a wry smile; if this carried on, it would soon be full of my stolen cars. I got one or two spots of rain on my arm as I took a ticket from the machine, and by the time we’d parked there was a light patter on the roof.
Ron and Melvin might have made a connection between me and the car because of the drive-past. They might have been rescued and circulated the registration. There was not a lot I could do about that but just sit tight and hope that the mass of cars and the rain would conceal us, because it was far too early for a child to be moving around an airport with an adult man with scabs on his face.
I turned round in the seat and said, ‘Are you all right, Kelly? I’m sorry I had to shout, but sometimes adults have to be really firm with kids.’
She was looking down at one of the teddies, picking the fur, pouting.
I said, ‘You’re not a bad girl and I’m sorry that I told you off. I didn’t really mean it, I was just getting all excited.’
She nodded slowly, still playing with her furry friend.
‘Do you want to come to England?’
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