Crisis Four (18 page)

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Authors: Andy McNab

BOOK: Crisis Four
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I finished the first coffee, poured another, got up and wandered over to the sideboard. I plonked the cup next to the CDs, then started to take off my Timberlands. I’d worn boots like this for years; they always seemed the thing to wear with jeans, and I always wore jeans. It felt like I hadn’t taken them off for days, and it was time to let my feet and socks add to the apartment’s atmosphere.
To work, then. Starting from the top, I opened the first drawer and took out a sheaf of dry-cleaning receipts, theatre stubs and folded-up back copies of
Time
. I studied each item in turn, opening each page of every magazine to check nothing had been ripped out, scored or ringed. Had I found anything missing, I’d have had to go to a reference library and get hold of the issue to find out what was so interesting that it had been removed. But there was nothing like that.
The second drawer was much the same, just as full of shit. The other drawers were completely empty, apart from one solitary safety pin, still stuck into yet another dry-cleaning ticket.
I was becoming bored, pissed off and very hungry. It was nearing time for my first Mickey D’s of the trip. I’d just heard on the radio that McDonald’s mission statement for the USA was something like, that no American was ever more than six minutes away from a Big Mac. In the UK that would make most heroin addicts jump for joy: scales were old hat for measuring out deals; McDonald’s 100-milligram spoons were absolutely perfect.
Before I went to fill my face, however, I decided to give the bookshelves the once over. I took out each book in turn, doing exactly the same as with the magazines. I got quite excited at one stage because a book on political terrorism had passages which had been underlined in pencil and notes in the margin, until I looked inside the cover and discovered it was a textbook from her university days.
It took about an hour, but I eventually got to the bottom shelf. Turning the pages of a photo-history of North Carolina, I admired the tree-covered mountains, lakes and wildlife, with bullshit blurb in the accompanying captions, ‘deer drink contentedly from the pool, next to families enjoying the wonders of the great outdoors.’ I could almost hear Kelly groaning a ‘Yeah, right!’
I took a look at her other books, about Algeria, Syria and the Lebanon, but they contained nothing but photograph upon photograph of mosques, cypress trees, sand and camels.
I threw them on the floor to check through later and started flicking through the atlas. Then I had second thoughts, deciding to go back to the chair with the atlas and the other three books and do the lot now. As I started a careful, page-by-page check, I found my attention drifting to the traffic in the street below, which I could just about hear through the double-glazing. But it wasn’t just my hearing that was wandering. For some reason my mind kept going back to the book about North Carolina.
It usually pays to listen to that inner voice. I stopped looking at the books and just stared at the wall, trying to work out what it was that I was trying to say to myself. When I thought I understood it, I got up and went into her bedroom.
I picked up the shoebox and tipped the contents out onto the bed. When I’d found what I was looking for it was back to the living room.
Turning the pages of the North Carolina book, I tried to match the photograph with the terrain – the type of trees, the background hills, the lakeside. Nothing. The spark was soon put out. It might not necessarily have meant anything, but it might have been a start. My head was starting to hurt. It was time for that burger. I’d be back in an hour to start again. I went to my boots and pushed my feet in, tucking the laces inside, too idle to do them up.
Two minutes later I was standing waiting for the elevator, staring at my boots, when it hit me.
I ran back to the apartment door, opened up and headed for her dressing room.
Sarah must have been the Imelda Marcos of the Washington section. She must have had about thirty pairs of shoes in all, but there were no hiking boots. All the times I’d been with her, she had always worn them when out on the ground. Like me, when it came to footwear, she was a creature of habit.
I was starting to get sparked up again. I turned and checked the rails. Where was the Gore-Tex jacket? Where was the fleece liner? She had always worn that sort of clothing, and she had it on in the photograph. It wasn’t so much what I saw as what I didn’t. Her outdoor clothing; it wasn’t here.
I couldn’t go to McDonald’s. I had to keep thinking about this. I went into the kitchen and threw some noodles into a pan, filled it up with water and got it boiling on the stove.
I realized that was what had been bugging me. I’d known it all along but hadn’t switched on, and the ironic thing was that it was Sarah who’d taught me.
She was in the middle of one of her very heated, noisy meetings. We’d been stuck in a cave for hours, the smoke from a large fire stinging my eyes and casting dark shadows in the background, just where I wanted to see the most. Two mujahedin were sitting cross-legged on the floor, wrapped in blankets and cradling their AKs. I’d never seen them at other meetings before, and they seemed out of place amongst the other three members of their group who were by the fire.
Sarah was also sitting on the floor, draped in blankets beside the fire with the other three muj. They were all drinking coffee as Sarah got more sparked up with them. The two men in the shadows started muttering between themselves and looking agitated, and eventually they pushed off their blankets and grasped their weapons. In a situation like that there are only seconds in which to make a decision to go for it or not. I did; I put my AK into the aim as I stood over Sarah.
The result was a Mexican stand-off, like something out of a spaghetti western. For two or three seconds all that could be heard was the crackling of the fire. Sarah cut the silence. ‘Nick, sit down. You’re embarrassing me.’
I was very confused as she talked to all the mujahedin. She sounded like a parent apologizing for her toddler’s behaviour in the playground. Everyone looked at me and started to laugh, as if I was some sort of schoolboy who’d got it all wrong. All weapons were dropped and the talking continued. Even the two boys sitting at the back looked on me as some sort of mascot. I was expecting them to come over and ruffle my hair at any moment.
It was only when we were on our way back to Pakistan that she explained. ‘There was no danger, Nick. The old guy – the one we saw last month?’ She smiled as she thought about the event. ‘He is the only one with the power to have me killed, and he wasn’t there. Those guys at the back were just showing face. Nothing was going to happen.’ She sounded like teacher as she added, ‘It’s not only what you see, Nick. Sometimes what isn’t there is just as important as what is.’
She might have been right that time, but in a similar situation I would still have done the same. Shame for her that she hadn’t remembered her own lesson.
I sat down to work out what I wanted to say to Mickey, and the way to say it. I’d already forgotten where I’d put his card, so I got out the 3C, tapped in his name and rang his number.
‘Hellooo.’ He was eating by the sound of it.
‘Hello, mate, it’s Nick.’
‘Oh, so soon.’ He sounded quite surprised. I could hear soft rock in the background and an American voice, just as camp as his, enquiring who was on the phone. His voice became distant. ‘Gary, go and do something useful in the kitchen. It’s the office.’
Gary, it seemed, took the hint. ‘Sorry about that, he is sooo nosey.’ I could hear drink being poured and a sip being taken.
‘Michael, remember what you were saying about Sarah and Jonathan going to the middle of nowhere?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Can you remember exactly where it was? I need it for the report.’
He took a quick swallow. ‘Yes. Falls Lake.’ He broke into a terrible Southern accent. ‘North Carolina, y’all.’
‘Do you have an address, or the contact number? You did say that you had a number, remember? You used it to call her.’
He laughed. ‘Sarah took it off file when old Jonny boy got his come-uppance.’
I had reached another dead end.
Then he added, ‘But I think I can remember most of the number; it was almost the same as my mother’s old one. Tell you what, give me five and I’ll ring you back, OK?’
‘Give it three rings, put down, then ring again. I wouldn’t want to pick it up and find I’m talking to her mother or anything like that. OK?’
‘Ooh, just like James Bond.’ He giggled. ‘No problem, Nick. Talk soon, byeee.’
I flicked though the book again. Falls Lake did exist, but it covered a vast area. What a dickhead! Why hadn’t I asked him for more detail when he told me the story? Just as well I wasn’t in the security cell.
Something was smelling bad. I jumped up and ran into the kitchen. The water had boiled away and I pulled a pan of very hot and smelly black noodles from the stove.
I couldn’t be arsed to clean it up, just put the pot to one side and turned the cooker off. The phone rang. I walked back into the room, counting. It stopped after three. Good news, I hoped. I let the new call ring twice before picking it up.
‘Hellooo, Michael here.’ I could hear Gary singing to himself in the background.
‘Hello, mate, any luck?’
‘The last four digits are
exactly
the same as my mother’s old number in Mill Hill. Isn’t that freaky?’
I really didn’t have an answer for that. I contained my eagerness. ‘Oh, and what was it?’
‘Double four six eight.’
‘Thanks, mate. You sure that’s all you know?’
‘ ’Fraid so, Nick. I was just given the contact number. Sorry.’
‘No problem. I’ll let you get on with your evening.’
‘OK. I’m here if you need me. Byeee.’
I looked at my watch. It was about half-past nine – according to my body clock, 2.30 a.m. – and I was starting to feel knackered. In the absence of any noodles, it was soon going to be time to RV with Ronald McDonald, but first I had a phone call to make.
I rang a London number. A very clear female voice answered immediately. ‘PIN number, please?’ The tone was so precise she sounded like the speaking clock.
‘Two four four two, Charlie-Charlie.’
‘Please wait.’ The line went dead; five seconds later the voice was back.
‘Charlie-Charlie. Details, please.’
I gave her the same details as Metal Mickey had given me and asked for the address. I could hear the clinking of keys as she entered the details. She checked with me: ‘To confirm. North Carolina, address that ends with call number 4468, perhaps in the vicinity of Falls Lake. It should take approximately thirty minutes. Reference fifty-six, fifty-six. Goodbye.’
Charlie-Charlie stands for ‘casual contact’. The people in London can work from even the smallest amount of information, and you can inquire via the phone for speed, or ask for a written report, which would give more detail but take longer.
A phone number or car licence plate can lead to you finding out almost everything there is on record about the contact, from the name of his doctor to the last time and place he used his credit card, and what it was he bought. A Charlie-Charlie was about the only perk of the job; I’d used it a few times when trying to find out about women I wanted to take out. No-one ever asks what you want the information for, and it makes life easier if you know in advance what sort of social life they have, whether they’re married, divorced with kids, or have a monthly champagne bill the size of an average mortgage.
All I needed this time was an address. These sorts of requests were routine, and wouldn’t mean I had gone against Lynn’s need-to-know policy.
I walked downstairs. I couldn’t see Wayne anywhere. I got to the car, took the parking ticket off the windscreen and threw it in the back. I was committed west, towards Georgetown on the one-way system. That was fine, and in fact McDonald’s were right. Within five minutes I passed the big yellow arches; the only problem was that I couldn’t park up anywhere. I decided to cruise on M until I found an easier place to stop.
Dead on thirty minutes later I called London. The speaking clock was back. ‘Reference please.’
‘Reference thirty-two, fourteen.’
There was a gap as the line went dead. She was checking the reference number I’d just given her. All I had to do was subtract my PIN from her reference number. It’s a quick and easy confirmation system for low-level inquiries.
She came back on line. ‘I have three addresses. One…’
The first two locations were nowhere near Falls Lake. One was in Charlotte, another in Columbia. The next one sounded warmer. ‘The Lodge, Little Lick Creek, Falls Lake. This is now a disconnected line. Do you want the zip codes and user names on any of these?’
‘No, no that’s fine. Thank you, that’s all.’ I hung up. I didn’t care who the disconnected line used to belong to. It wouldn’t help me one bit.
As I drove, I couldn’t get Falls Lake out of my head. I passed a Barnes & Noble bookshop, its neon window sign telling me it was open and selling coffee until 11 p.m. I drove on.

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