Zero Hour (30 page)

I shook the residue off the bulb and reset the clock. I tried it again, this time without the propellant, and the light came on. I now knew the wire connections to the two terminals of the bulb were good, and the bulb itself was still working. Why use a new bulb and run the risk it was a dud?

I moved the assembly away from everything else. The clock was the initiation device, and the bulb was the detonator. Now that they were joined, I had to make sure they didn’t do their jobs until I wanted them to. I took the batteries out and laid them to the side.

There was just one more manufacturing task, and that was to pour the remaining propellant into two of the freezer bags, one for each charge. It took me just over an hour. When I’d finished, the bags went alongside the picric acid and the fuse.

I was almost done. All that was left was to retrieve the bags of damp picric. I cut them open and spread the yellow, claylike substance on plastic to dry. Then, making one final check that Brogues’s coat, credit cards and wallet were back in the boot of the Passat, I headed up the stairs.

The market would be open now, and we both needed clothes for our exfil. I needed to look as clean leaving the country as I had when I came in. And Angeles, well, she just needed to look dressed.

9

The food stalls were piled with all kinds of products you’d normally find in a souk, from dates and spices to bags of rice and pistachios. The next one along sold nothing but second-hand clothing. Both of us blended in well. Angeles didn’t get a second glance in her gear from the House of Bling.

I was going to keep her with me now, regardless. No way was I was going to let her stay in the safe-house with the Moldovans downstairs and a roomful of volatile explosive mixes. If she nosed around and found the bodies she might lose it completely. If she found the mix and fucked about with it she could take down the building. Only by controlling her at all times could I be sure that I knew where she was.

The first priority was a coat each, not only to keep us warm and dry, but also to cover our existing clothes if we had to do a runner before we bought anything else. All the voices around us were Dutch, Arabic and Turkish, so I did my normal grunt and point. Next came a couple of sets each of trainers, jeans and sweatshirts. I also bought her a hairbrush to sort out the bird’s nest on her head.

I was pissed off that I was still going to be in-country when the place went up. The timer had to be set for two or three hours at most. That way, the batteries had a good chance of staying charged. Once I left the silo, I had no control over the device. I wanted it to be exposed for the least possible time, yet still able to give me enough to get out of the area.

I also couldn’t control the space that the device was placed in, so would have no way of knowing if it had been discovered. I had to factor in getting back to the safe-house afterwards, not just to pick up Angeles, but also to shower and scrub the DNA and cordite off me, then get rid of the clothes I’d worn on-target. The last thing I wanted to do was to turn up at the departure gate, and have security sensors detect traces of explosives on my clothes or hands.

We moved away from the clothing stalls and she got changed in one of the coffee shops that lined the market while I slid into my nasty new black coat. I bought kebabs and coffees, and she shovelled everything down like a girl possessed.

‘Nick?’

‘What?’

‘Your friend, what is her name?’

‘You will find out soon enough.’

Even with just a few weeks left, I couldn’t force myself to change the habit of a lifetime. I’d found over the years that giving out my own name was OK because it belonged to me. I could decide what I did with it, and what lies I was going to attach to it. But divulging the names of others was a different matter. That had to be up to them. In either case, you don’t give out information unless you have to. The less she knew about me, Anna, Flynn and all the rest, the better. I didn’t want to have an in-depth conversation about what I was doing here and where my family was. The only thing that was important was to get us both out of this situation. And as long as I kept her away from the loading bay, she’d know nothing and I could sort her out.

As we passed FilmNoord XXX, I scanned the road ahead. The ship still blocked the view of the waterway but apart from that there was nothing out of the ordinary, not even a car parked on the pavement.

We got to the door. She saw me checking the telltales in the locks.

‘This is a bad area. You have to make sure nobody breaks in.’

The keys ripped through the little slivers of paper and I opened up. Angeles went through with the bags. I followed and turned to close the door.

The two bodies that bomb-burst out from the garages came at me in a blur of leather jackets, shaved heads and face metal. They were already halfway across the road and closing on me fast.

I jumped inside and tried to slam the door shut.

She looked at me, terror-struck, rooted to the spot.

‘Run! Go!’

They kicked and pushed, jarring me backwards and forwards. I couldn’t hold it any more.

The door crashed open.

10

I pulled her through the fire door and into the loading bay. That was where there were weapons. Where there were weapons, there was a chance.

There was nothing else I could do for her now.

I let go but she grabbed my hand again. I had to push her out of the way. The pulse in my neck surged as my body built up to the fight. She screamed somewhere behind me but my focus was on the glass of acid sitting on the concrete.

One of them was so close I could hear his laboured breathing. I dropped to my knees. They banged against the concrete. The pain shot up my thighs. I grabbed the glass and some of the liquid spilt. It burnt my right hand. As I turned, all I could see was jeans and boots.

I jerked the glass upwards and let go of it a split second later. I rolled away to escape the splashback.

The bearded neo screamed and his hands clawed at his face. He fell to his knees level with me. I jumped up. I wanted the Leatherman. I wanted one of the glasses. I wanted anything that was a weapon for the next man, who now blurred into my vision from the left. The grunts and screams continued from the lad below me. He was still on his knees as he took the pain.

The thud as the other guy’s body hit me full-on was as hard as if I’d walked into the path of a moving car. The momentum hurled me against the opposite wall. The back of my head hit the blockwork. Stars burst in front of my eyes. Hollering and screaming was coming from everywhere: from me, from them, from Angeles.

I scrambled onto my hands and knees. I had to stand. I had to keep on my feet. Go down and you’re finished.

Neo number two was back and at me. He leapt on top of me. We grappled like a couple of scrappers in the schoolyard. I tried to head-butt him, bite him, anything to get him off me. I kicked and bucked. Both of us screamed. He had a week’s bristle on him that rasped against my cheek. The boy stank. I could smell booze, cigarettes and unwashed skin. My face was stuck into his neck. I tried to get my hands up to squeeze against it. He snorted with exertion and snot fired from his nose.

He finally opened his eyes and I could see them bouncing around, out of control. He was in a frenzy. He managed to get his hands around my neck and squeezed. I tried to shake left and right. He started to snarl like a pit-bull.

He was on top of me, on the floor. I wrapped my legs around his body. My arse felt like I’d sat on a branding iron, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that. If I could get him closer he couldn’t exert the same pressure round my neck as he leant in to me.

He lifted his head and snarled. It gave me a chance. I tried to head-butt him, tried to make contact wherever I could. I tried to bite into his cheek. He jerked his head away. I could taste his week-old sweat.

His mouth opened as he threw his face down onto the top of my head. He bit into my scalp. I could hear the skin break as his teeth sank in, and then the sound of him straining to bite harder.

I managed to get my legs tighter around his gut as the fucker started to pull his head back. I could feel the snorting from his nose as his teeth dug into my scalp and scraped along the bone.

I shoved my hands up in front of his face as my capillary bleeding sprayed the ground and ran down the back of my neck. My thumbs searched for his eyeballs and found the cheekbones and then went on from there. I pushed them down into the sockets. He jerked his head back. His teeth had to lose their grip. He needed to scream.

I moved my right hand so I had a flat palm underneath his chin, then switched my left to his ear. I didn’t have much choice. If he’d had a fistful of hair I’d have grabbed that instead. He howled at me through clenched teeth.

I wanted to break his neck. To do that I had to screw it off, like I was turning a tap. I had to take the head off at the atlas, the small joint at the base of the skull. It’s not so hard if you’re doing it against a body that’s standing. If you get them off balance as they’re going down, you can twist and turn at the same time, so their own momentum works against them. But all I could do was keep my legs around him and try to hold him in one place.

I managed to get my boots interlocked, and at last I could squeeze and push down with my legs, at the same time twisting up with my arms as hard as I could. I kept on turning. We both screamed at each other. He bit my hand, trying to jerk his jaw left and right. This wasn’t so much about him trying to kill me. I didn’t know what he was doing. He was totally out of it.

I slid my left hand round the back of his head. I kept the palm of my right under his jaw and pushed up and round. His neck went with not too much of a crack. He slumped down without making a sound. His body didn’t even twitch. He just went very still. I rolled over and kicked him off.

My vision was blurred. Pain seared the top of my head. Blood ran down behind my ear. But scalp wounds always look worse than they are. They’re seldom serious. All there is on top is skin and bone.

My lungs were bursting. I sucked in oxygen as I rolled over onto my front. I forced myself up, ready for the next wave. But the drama wasn’t what I was expecting.

Angeles was kneeling over the other body. He was lying on his back. Her arm moved up and down, up and down, into his body. Blood covered her hands and face as she stabbed and stabbed into his chest.

‘It’s OK - stop!’

I staggered over to her and caught her arm in mid-air as it headed down for another strike. I eased the Leatherman from her fingers and threw it on the floor. My right hand had a bright pink oval shape where the acid had etched into the top layers of skin, exposing the sensitive stuff beneath.

The area round the other guy’s right eye had swollen so much it swamped the eyeball. The left one was open and dull.

Angeles convulsed with sobs, maybe from relief, maybe from fear. Maybe it was just happiness at getting back at these fuckers. I didn’t know, and right now I didn’t care. All I had to do was make sure we were secure.

‘Wait here.’

I staggered through the fire door and down to the entrance. I locked up. When I returned to the loading bay she’d hardly moved from her kneeling position next to the body.

I stood over her and lifted gently under her armpits. ‘It’s OK. Let’s go.’

I’d sort all this shit out later. For now, I needed her to get out of here before it all sank in and she started howling at the moon.

I helped her to her feet. She turned and put her arms around me and sobbed quietly into my chest.

In theory, the immediate priority was to get her cleaned up, and after that, to do the same to the loading bay. But she needed comforting. I put my arms around her and rocked her from side to side. ‘It’s OK, you’re safe. It’s all over. I’ll look after you. Everything’s going to be OK.’

11

I took her straight over to the shower and turned it on. There was a hum of electrics as it kicked off. Five minutes later she was still standing there, arms down at her sides, shoulders dropped.

‘Get in there. Clean yourself up. Get some clean clothes on. You’ll feel better.’

She didn’t move. She just stared down at the blood on her hands.

She had to wash it off her quickly if she was to have any chance of putting this behind her. The longer you smell it, the longer you see and feel it, the deeper it digs into you. Every time she smelt blood in a butcher’s shop, she’d think about today. Every time she had red ink or paint on her fingers, it would take her straight back. It didn’t matter that the fuckers deserved it, or that she’d exacted some kind of revenge. If she kept being reminded of what had just happened, she’d be haunted for the rest of her life.

Steam billowed out of the shower and into the room. I dabbed at a pearl of blood that ran down my forehead. It would stop soon. I coaxed her towards the door. ‘In you go. I’ll take care of everything. Just get cleaned up, yeah?’

I wasn’t getting any reply.

‘Angeles, do that now? Please?’

I took her face gently in both my hands and bent down to try and get some eye-to-eye. There wasn’t just blood on her hands now, but blood on her cheeks as well.

Finally she looked at me. ‘Is he dead?’

‘Yes.’ There was no point denying it. ‘But you did nothing wrong. You did a good thing. They would have killed us. You have saved your own life - and you have saved mine. Do you understand?’

Her eyes dropped.

‘You understand that what you’ve done is good, don’t you?’

Her head nodded slowly.

I kept my voice low and soft. ‘Angeles, take your time. Clean up. But first, give me your clothes. I’m going to go downstairs, and I’m going to sort everything out. Do you understand?’

She gave a nod and I let go of her face. She started to undress and I went to the sink. The cold water on my hand felt almost as bad as the acid had, but I knew it was the only way. In a perfect world I’d have kept it up for at least half an hour, but that wasn’t going to happen.

She came out with her bloodstained clothes in a bundle. Her shoulders were hunched. Her skin was goose-bumped all over. She looked like she belonged in a horror movie. Her skin was so white it was almost translucent, but her hands and face were crimson.