The Chinaman (10 page)

Inside were three Armalite rifles and two handguns, along with several boxes of cartridges. There was a plastic-wrapped package labelled Semtex and a polythene bag containing detonators. The man slowly counted them. His eyes were used to the darkness and he could see enough to identify the contents. He had already memorised the list he'd been shown, the list of what the cache should contain, and he mentally crossed them off one at a time. Eventually, satisfied that nothing was missing, he packed up the munitions and put them back in the hole. He replaced the soil and then stamped up and down to flatten the earth before kneeling down and gently smoothing it over. He walked some distance away from the beech tree and gathered twigs and small branches and placed them haphazardly over the freshly dug soil. It would fool most casual observers and in a day or so it would have blended in perfectly with its surroundings. There was little chance of it being discovered. That's why the hiding place had been chosen in the first place.

Nguyen came out of Charing Cross Tube station and walked to the Strand. He found the shop he wanted and stood looking through the window. It was packed with camping equipment, everything from compasses to water-bottles, a huge range of knives, racks of anoraks, sleeping-bags, dehydrated food in silver-foil packets, first-aid kits, crossbows and a range of martial arts equipment. It was all so different during the war, Nguyen thought. So very different. Equipment then was what you could beg or borrow, or take from a fallen comrade or steal from an enemy. And to think that now you could simply walk into a shop and buy it. If they had been able to get hold of equipment like this thirty years ago, then perhaps none of this would have happened and he and his family would be together in a free Vietnam. He shook his head, trying to disperse the thoughts, knowing that there was no point in dwelling on the past.

He walked into the shop and looked through the racks. A young man tried on an army-type pullover with reinforced patches on the shoulders and elbows as his blonde girlfriend looked on admiringly. A skinhead in a shiny green bomber jacket weighed a small throwing knife in his hand and then ran a finger along the blade. A father and son examined a two-man tent as an elderly shop assistant rolled it out along the floor for them. Nobody gave Nguyen a second look.

He picked a camouflage jacket from a rack and looked at it. It was made of nylon and he heard it rustle even as he held it up. Useless, he thought. You'd hear it hundreds of yards away. And the fasteners were made from the Velcro material that made a ripping noise every time you used it. It was for show, like the knife the skinhead was testing. Pretty to look at, but useless in the field. Just by looking at it Nguyen could tell that the knife had no weight, it would bounce off any live target. He took down another jacket, similar colour scheme of dark and light greens, reminiscent of the tiger-striped fatigues he used to wear in the jungle, made from a soft cotton material that probably wasn't waterproof but which looked warm. He tried it on and the sleeves were about six inches too long, even over his jacket. He looked at the label. Medium it said. European medium, obviously, because Nguyen was not small for a Vietnamese.

‘Can I help you, sir?' said a young assistant.

Nguyen held up his arms. ‘Small size?' he asked, and the youngster smiled and helped him get it off. He flicked through the racks and pulled out a smaller size, pressed it up against Nguyen's shoulders, nodded, and asked him to try it on. It fitted.

‘Trousers. Same style,' said Nguyen, and the youngster found a pair of trousers made from the same soft material.

‘Anything else, sir?' he said, and Nguyen nodded enthusiastically.

‘Oh yes, yes,' he said. ‘Many things.'

He picked up a pair of binoculars, powerful and covered with thick, green rubber, and asked the assistant if it was OK to try them. The boy said yes, but went with him to the door and waited while Nguyen scanned up and down the crowded street.

‘I will take these,' said Nguyen, handing them to the boy. He walked back into the shop. So many things to buy. ‘Bottles,' he said.

‘Bottles?' queried the boy.

‘Water-bottles,' said Nguyen, pointing to a canteen, khaki-coloured with a green strap. It looked big enough to hold a quart. ‘Two of those. No, three.'

The boy piled up the purchases by a cash register, sensing that the customer was going to be here for some time. On the wall behind the cash register were a number of replica guns and rifles, dull metal and polished wood. They looked so real, Nguyen marvelled. How could such things be on sale in England? he wondered. Some of the guns he recognised, a Colt .45, a Ruger .22, an M9 9-millimetre semi-automatic. Suddenly he stopped, his heart pounding. It couldn't be, could it? His eyes widened and he walked over to stand in front of an AK-47, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle, perfect in every detail with even its curved ammunition magazine in place. He reached up to touch it, to remind himself how it felt. At the last moment, just before his fingers touched the cold metal, he pulled back his hand and shook his head to clear away the memories.

‘Compass,' he said, and the assistant took him over to a glass-topped counter. On a shelf underneath were a selection of compasses and map-reading equipment. Nguyen pointed at several and the boy took them out for him to examine. Nguyen chose one. ‘Knife,' he said.

There were so many knives, more than he had ever seen in any one place. There were penknives with all sorts of gadgets attached – nail files, spanners, scissors, bottle-openers. There were throwing knives, useless ones like the skinhead had been playing with, but also serious, properly balanced heavy knives that could kill from twenty yards in the right hands. Nguyen held a pair of the heavy knives, feeling their balance and knowing they were perfect.

‘Can try?' he asked the assistant.

‘Try?'

Nguyen showed him the knives. ‘Can I throw?'

‘Here?' said the boy. ‘No, no. God, no.' He looked confused.

‘Never mind,' said Nguyen, putting them on top of the camouflage trousers. There was a big selection of survival knives, big sharp blades, serrated on one side, with hollow handles containing a small compass, a short length of fishing line and a few cheap fishing hooks. Nguyen snorted as he looked at them. Joke knives, not what he was looking for. He was looking for a strong blade, one that he could sharpen until it would cut paper like a razor, with a groove in the blade so that the blood could flow out as it was thrust into a body. No groove and the suction effect would make withdrawing the knife that much harder. The tip of the knife had to be angled, too, so that it could ease the ribs apart and allow the killing thrust to the heart. And the handle had to be heavy enough and sturdy enough so that the blade was kept steady as it was used. A knife was important, your life could so easily depend on it. The choice of scabbard was vital too, the action had to be smooth and silent when the blade was withdrawn and the straps had to be strong and hard-wearing. Nguyen spent a lot of time examining the knives in stock before deciding. The one he eventually selected was expensive, one of the most expensive in the shop, but it was the best. He also took a small Swiss army knife, for its tools rather than its blades.

What else? He looked up and down the shop. There was so much he could use. A tent. A sleeping-bag. A small stove. A lightweight blanket made from foil. A folding axe. A rucksack. A first-aid kit. Nguyen was tempted, but at the same time a part of him knew that equipment was often a trap. It slowed you down, you spent more time and effort carrying it and looking after it than you did fighting. He remembered how he used to go into the jungle in fatigues and sandals, with a water-bottle, a few pounds of cooked rice in a cloth tube tied around his waist and nothing else but his rifle and ammunition. He and his comrades travelled light and covered ground quickly and silently. How they laughed at the ungainly Americans, sweating like pigs under the weight of their huge rucksacks. You could hear them coming for miles as they hacked and tripped their way through the undergrowth. So many were killed before they even had a chance to open their precious backpacks, but they never learned.

‘Anything else?' asked the assistant, jarring Nguyen's thoughts.

He walked over to a rack of walking boots but decided against buying a pair. The ones he had back at his house would be better because they wouldn't need breaking in. ‘I want a small rucksack,' he said. The assistant showed him a big, blue nylon backpack on an aluminium frame with padded straps and Nguyen said it was too big and that the colour was wrong. ‘Too bright,' he said. He pointed to a small dark-green rucksack, the sort that children might use to carry their school-books. It had no frame and when Nguyen tried it on it lay flat against his back. He adjusted the straps and walked up and down the shop. It felt comfortable and made next to no noise. He removed it and handed it to the assistant. ‘This one is good,' said Nguyen.

The assistant placed all Nguyen's purchases in a large plastic carrier bag, totalling them up on the cash register as he did. Nguyen paid in cash. As he waited for his change he looked wistfully at the AK-47 replica. So many memories, he thought.

On the way to the Tube station he walked past a photographer's shop with shelves full of cameras and lenses. He went in and asked if they sold flash-bulbs.

‘Flash-bulbs?' said the man behind the counter. ‘Don't get much call for those these days. They all have built in flashes now.' He frowned and rubbed his chin. ‘I've got some somewhere, I saw them a couple of weeks ago. What sort of camera are they for?'

Nguyen shrugged. ‘Any sort. But not the square ones, the ones they use in the little cameras. I want the single bulbs.'

‘Yeah, I know the sort you mean. Hang on, let me check out back.' He disappeared through a door and Nguyen heard boxes being moved and drawers opening and closing.

‘You're in luck,' he called. ‘How many do you want?'

‘A dozen,' Nguyen shouted back.

The man returned with two packets and handed them to Nguyen. ‘I can't guarantee they'll still work, mind,' he said. ‘They're old stock and I don't know how long they've been there.'

Nguyen examined them carefully and then nodded. ‘They will be perfect,' he said. He paid in cash, put the packets into his carrier bag and left the shop.

‘We need more explosive,' The Bombmaker said. Fisher ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. He stretched his legs out and lay back in the leather sofa.

‘How much do we have left?' he asked.

‘A couple of kilos, no more. We've plenty of detonators, though.'

Fisher smiled. ‘Fat lot of good they'll be to us without the stuff that goes bang,' he said. ‘I'll get us more, don't you worry.'

McCormick came into the lounge from the kitchen and put down four mugs of coffee on the table by the side of the sofa. O'Reilly got up from his easy chair and took one of them. He walked over to the french windows and looked over the Thames as he drank.

‘Isn't it about time we moved?' asked McCormick.

‘Why move?' said Fisher.

‘In case they track us down. We've been here for months, sure enough. Normal procedure is to keep moving, never stay in one place for too long.'

Fisher shook his head. ‘No, that's exactly what they'd expect us to do. They'll be checking all the small hotels and bed and breakfast places. A group like us moving around will stick out like a sore thumb. And after the Knightsbridge bombing every landlady in Britain is on the lookout for Irishmen. How long do you think it would take until we were rumbled?'

‘I suppose you're right,' said McCormick reluctantly. ‘It's just . . .'

‘Look,' interrupted Fisher, ‘we've had this flat rented for almost a year. It's on a long-term lease, paid direct from a dummy company bank account. As far as the landlord is concerned, it's rented to a stockbroking firm who use it for visiting executives from the States. This place is perfect.'

O'Reilly tapped on the window. ‘And if the SAS knock on the front door, we can leg it over the balcony and down the Thames,' he said.

‘If the SAS find out we're here, we won't be going anywhere,' said McCormick. ‘Bastards.'

‘Nobody is going to find out where we are,' said Fisher. ‘Nobody. So long as we stay right where we are. Our more immediate problem is to get hold of some more Semtex.'

O'Reilly turned away from the window, sipping his coffee. He took the mug from his lips and smiled. ‘You want me to get it?'

Fisher nodded. ‘Tonight. I'll come with you.'

‘I can do it.'

‘I know. But this one is hard to find. You'll need me there.'

McCormick coughed. He took a handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans and sneezed into it. ‘I'm going down with a cold,' he said, but nobody registered any sympathy. He inspected the contents of the handkerchief and put it back into his pocket. ‘And when we've got the stuff, then what?' he asked.

Fisher's eyes sparkled and he looked over at The Bombmaker. ‘Something big,' he said. ‘Something very, very big.'

Nguyen took the Tube back to Clapham and stored his purchases in the shed at the back of the yard behind his shop. It was a big metal garage but the main door had long ago been boarded up and now it contained three big chest freezers full of frozen meat and vegetables, sacks of rice and bottles of soy sauce. There was also a long wooden bench and racks of tools along one wall. Nguyen placed his carrier bag on the bench, padlocked the door and then went through the shop to his van which was parked outside. He drove to a large do-it-yourself store in south London and spent more than an hour filling a large trolley. He bought sections of plastic drain-pipe, insulation tape, three large bags of fertilizer, a soldering iron and several packs of solder, and other tools that he knew he'd need which he didn't already have in his shed. He paid in cash, and on the way back he stopped at a large filling station. He filled the tank and bought two large plastic bottles of antifreeze, three cans of Shell motor oil and half a dozen cans of white spray paint to match the colour of his van, and a can of black paint.