The Rock (10 page)

‘Tell me where John is.’

‘Why? So you can kill him?’

Gardner shook his head. ‘I’m here to protect John.’

Golan frowned.

‘The shots fired just now were intended for John. It’s an ambush,’ Gardner said. ‘Looks like it’s not just my intelligence that’s full of holes.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Nah, mate. Hate to break it to you but the only reason I saved your arse back there is because I thought
you
were John.’

Golan looked sceptically at Gardner.

‘You remember the King’s Hotel? Gardner said. ‘The guy who turned up there to slot Bald—’

‘An MI6 agent,’ Golan cut in.

‘No, he was a bloody cowboy. Out to slot John and rob him. The sniper on the Upper Rock is a cowboy mate of his. Name of Killen. And if we fuck about much longer, John’s going to end up very dead.’

Golan weighed up the words.

‘It seems to me we’re on different ends of the same boat,’ Gardner said. ‘Either we work together to find John and get him out of the line of fire – or we’re both going to end up on the losing team.’

Gardner glanced over the fort wall. Queensway was deserted. Not a fucking soul about.

Golan took off his shades, unveiling a swollen right eye socket, a battle scar of their earlier fight. ‘OK,’ he finally said. ‘We help each other.’ He reached for something inside his jacket. Gardner’s right hand shot up, PMR-30 level with Golan’s mug. His finger tensed on the trigger mechanism.

‘Keep your hands where I can see them.’

‘I have a handheld tracker. It will lead us to the mark.’

Gardner recalled the black object Golan had been holding on the pier. He’d assumed it was a gun, but perhaps it really was a tracking device. Gardner had no choice but to trust the Israeli. Since Land had sold him dud intelligence, Golan was his only hope of getting a lock on Bald.

‘Do it.’

Golan quickly dipped a hand into his jacket.

‘Slowly.’

The Israeli produced a sleek black device the size and thickness of an iPhone, except this one featured five buttons at the bottom and an extended aerial on top.

Gardner lowered the PMR-30. He leaned in as Golan entered a pin code on the touch screen and was presented with a thermal satellite map of Queensway, with one centimetre representing a hundred metres. A red icon blinked in the middle of the map.

‘The Navy woman who was supplying cocaine to Bald,’ Golan explained. ‘I put a transponder into one of the packages before she completed the delivery. It emits a signal to a satellite in near-orbit and relays the position directly to me. Simple – but effective.’

Gardner nodded. ‘So… where is he?’

Golan brushed his index finger over the screen. He tilted the device and looked over his shoulders, trying to establish his bearings.

‘We don’t have much time.’

‘He’s very close,’ Golan said. ‘And still on dry land, it seems. Rosia Road.’

‘That’s to the south.’ Gardner scanned the screen. ‘Fifty metres beyond the Botanic Gardens. That means he’s just over three hundred metres away. Maybe he’s winging his way up here. To the boat.’

‘Then we can intercept him.’ Golan was scrambling to his feet.

Gardner blocked his route with an outstretched arm. ‘The sniper’s still out there.’

‘But Rosia Road is highly exposed,’ Golan said. ‘If the sniper spots Bald, he has an easy shot.’

‘Let’s keep low. We can move behind cover to John’s position.’

‘Agreed.’

‘You lead the way.’

If he tries anything, I’ll get the first shot off, Gardner thought.

Golan paced south, hugging the hotels’ walls and pausing at the gap after each hotel. Gardner looked ahead for any sign of Bald, but his eyes had not yet fully adjusted to the dark. It took an hour for the average person’s eyes to adapt to seeing in the dark as the brain switched from retinal day cells to night. He’d left Land at 0350, less than forty-five minutes ago.

Golan moved with surprising ease, Gardner thought, considering the state of his left knee. Gardner kept up the pace to the rear, hoping to fuck that they reached Bald before Killen could zero in.

‘This sniper—’

‘Killen.’

‘Is he a good shot?’

Gardner considered the question as they passed the plush villas with the giant anchor staked out front. ‘He qualified top of the class in the sniper cadre of 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment.’

‘I’m not familiar with that school.’

‘Put it this way. To pass out of the cadre, the sniper’s got to achieve a first-round kill on a man-sized target at nine hundred metres. Killen could do that blindfolded.’

Golan was silent as they approached the Ragged Staff Gates, an eight-metre-tall wall of eroded concrete originally built by the Moors and later used as a defensive perimeter during the Siege. The gates provided them with cover as the marina ended and Queensway became Rosia Road. They were now just one hundred and twenty metres from Bald’s position.

‘What made you think I was MI6?’ Gardner asked.

‘I have my sources.’

‘Well, you’re fucking wrong. I don’t work for anyone but myself.’

‘Spoken like a true government man.’

Golan passed the Botanic Gardens. Then he slowed his step. Gardner halted in his shadow. They crouched down behind a cargo container parked beside the road and adjacent to the industrial park. A hundred metres due south Rosia Road curved to the right, rolling around the fringe of the industrial park and the dockyard. Gardner cocked his eyes. His vision had improved in the last few minutes, but he was troubled by what he saw. Or rather what he didn’t see.

‘Where’s John?’

Golan consulted his tracker. ‘According to the transponder, he should be here.’

‘This is a built-up area,’ Gardner said. ‘There’s any number of locations he might be. Inside a building, hiding in a hotel room, maybe parked up in a car somewhere… We need a pinpoint fix.’

‘When I said “here” I meant right on this very spot.’

Gardner darted his head left and right. Not a sniff of Bald in any direction.

‘So where the
fuck
is he?’

0458 hours.

Craning his neck around the edge of the container, Gardner scoped out the scene. Street lamps poured orange light over a vacant road. The pavements were deserted, save for a macaque rummaging through a rubbish bin.

‘I don’t see him,’ said Gardner, running his eyes over the Upper Rock. ‘Something’s wrong. Maybe your transponder signal’s fucked.’

‘Impossible.’

‘It’s either that, or John’s turned into the invisible man—’

Golan had tuned out. He was scrolling down on the tracker, shifting his position and glancing down at the industrial park. He looked confused.

‘What is it?’ Gardner asked.

‘The signal’s moving.’

‘Bullshit. He’s not here. There must be some kind of problem with the hardware on that thing.’

‘There is not, I can assure you.’

For fuck’s sake! Gardner thought. Two spies tracking the same man on a slab of land of less than three square miles, and neither of us can find him. Anger lodged in his throat. He was mad at Golan’s tracker, mad at Land’s dodgy int.

The transponder blinked Bald’s location: the industrial park. Gardner scanned the docks and the berthed
Lizard
. The sun was rising in the east, mottling the blackness. Seagulls flapped. No trace of Bald.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’

The dot shifted further south.

Gardner dug out his mobile to call Land.

He got nothing. Not even a dial tone. The signal displayed no bars.

‘My phone’s down… something’s wrong.’

‘Your phone isn’t the problem.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Communication countermeasures.’

Golan looked up at the sky and the paling stars. ‘We wanted to make sure MI6 was not in a position to compromise the mark’s safety. Until 0530 all foreign satellite and radio comms in a mile radius are disabled.’

Gardner’s skin burned like hot rubber. He sensed everything was going pear-shaped fast. His shot at redemption – at being a soldier – was disappearing quicker than a Scouser into the nearest William Hill.

Fuck it! All this way. The shit I survived in Rio, the fucking cowboys, and now—

A throbbing, purring noise drilled his mind.

The two men exchanged a look.

‘Sounds like—’ said Golan.

‘A boat engine!’

In a flurry they darted into the industrial yard.

‘There’s no boats coming in or out. I don’t understand,’ Golan said.

‘The noise – it’s coming from further down the way,’ said Gardner. Then he remembered something he’d spotted earlier when spying on the Wren. He raced down Rosia Road, legs pumping so hard he could feel the burning in his calves, as if someone was holding matchsticks to them. His breathing was short, fitful.

After fifty metres he rested by the side of the artillery placement. It stood on the edge of a cliff face, the surrounding banks dotted with unfinished apartment blocks. He kneeled beside the reinforced armour plating fixed to the metre-long cannon. Below lay an isolated inlet.

‘Earlier I remembered spotting a cove,’ Gardner said. ‘There was a small opening at the bottom. A tunnel.’ His eyes searched the inky sea. ‘It stuck in my mind because I’d read somewhere that smugglers used it back in the day, to hide contraband.’

Surf white as soap suds bobbed on the surface leading out from the tunnel, like a jet stream that had fallen from the sky. Gardner’s eyes ran along the surf trail. And there! Barely a hundred metres beyond the cove, a cruiser yacht rose and dipped as it skimmed across the waves at a high speed. Had to be doing eighteen, twenty knots an hour, he figured.

‘No,’ Golan said, a trace of disgust in his tone. ‘I do not believe it. All this time the signal was true.’

‘John was
under
us. Under the fucking Rock.’

That’s John all right, Gardner thought: hanging over the rails and puffing on a fucking victory cigar. Bald faced away from Gibraltar, looking out across the vista of Algeciras on the Spanish coastline.

‘He is not alone,’ said Golan.

‘Figured as much,’ said Gardner. Bald couldn’t pilot a boat for all the money in the world. Someone else had to be manning the controls. As if on cue, a second face presented itself. This one was rounder and redder than Bald’s, and his fleece and tracksuit bottoms hung loose from his portly frame. But he moved with the speed and balance of a man who’d spent many years honing his sea legs. He exited the wheelhouse and scaled the ladder down to the deck, gathering up the ropes.

‘Pete Maston,’ Gardner said.

‘You know this man?’

‘He taught me everything I know.’ Gardner suddenly recalled how he’d respected Maston as the Major of his squadron in the Regiment. How Maston had taught him how to pilot a ship one day and survive sub-zero temperatures the next. Maston had moulded him into an expert in the art of warfare. A graduate in death and destruction.

Gardner watched the boat shrink down the Strait.

‘What about the sniper?’ Golan asked.

‘Once he realizes that the target has escaped, he’ll be worrying about getting the fuck off Gibraltar. Matter of fact, he’s probably already quit the Upper Rock.’

‘That is good.’

A cold spot formed at the back of Gardner’s neck.

‘Son of a bitch,’ he hissed, and felt Golan press the barrel of his pistol harder against his flesh. Should’ve disarmed him back at the pier, when I had the fucking chance.

‘For a man who claims his job is to protect the mark, you seem to know a lot of John Bald’s enemies,’ said Golan.

‘What can I say?’ The sun was lightening the sky to gunmetal grey. Waves crashed against the coast, spraying salt water into his face. ‘It’s a small world.’

‘How about I make it one man smaller?’

‘You sure that’s a wise move – killing an MI6 operator?’

‘But you said you weren’t with the government.’

‘And you believed me?’ Gardner replied, trying to mask his fear by giving it some lip.

He waited for a reply that never came. The circle on his neck warmed. Then above him he heard a pulsating din, fast and furious and devastating. A carriage of cold air hit him like a fist, almost knocking him over the edge of the cliff. He clung on to the cannon to stabilize himself. Felt as if the world’s biggest fan was blasting in his direction.

Gardner managed to swivel around on the battery mount. Sixty metres out from the coast a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter hovered over a patch of water. Its four main blades whirled frantically, whipping up the waves into an electric swell. One of the crew lowered a rope ladder, bridging the forty-metre drop between the chopper and the sea.

Out of the waves, a long, sturdy hand grabbed a hold of the final rung. Golan steadily climbed the rope ladder. He paused near the top. The Black Hawk banked south. Wrapping his left hand fully around the width of the ladder, Golan turned and grinned at Gardner, waving his right hand like a President at his inauguration.