Текст книги "Detonator"

Автор книги: Andy McNab

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

14

Elvis’s all-black kit blended in nicely with the surrounding stanchions and metalwork, but his polished head stood out like a white Belisha beacon. I took two steps closer and heard his voice. A low murmur.

At first I thought he was talking to a mate I hadn’t seen. The lad in denim on the rowing boat, maybe.

Then I realized he had a mobile or a two-way stuck to his ear, and was communicating with someone off-site. Hidden away in the centre of town, maybe? Or on a container ship that I couldn’t yet see?

Keeping the gantry upright between us, I moved forward again. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but I could feel the electricity in the exchange. When I glanced through the harbour mouth, I saw why. A set of ship’s lights glinted just this side of the horizon. There’d been nothing out there an hour ago, so it was heading this way.

Elvis banged the off button and rammed the phone into his back pocket, then raised his binos again.

I knelt slowly and took a good look around beneath the hulls. The gantry was surrounded by boats on stilts. A couple of parked cars occupied the space it would reverse into whenever it swung into action. I plotted a route round to the far side of it, which would give me cover until I was almost within reach of him. He still wasn’t moving.

I couldn’t see anyone else.

Smacking the wrench between his shoulder blades would take him down. If he didn’t know where Anna and the baby were, he’d know where I could find Dijani.

I stepped out from under the hulls as soon as the nearest wagon was between him and me. Still bent at the knees and waist, I remained beneath the roofline as I skirted round the back of them. I was now directly behind Elvis.

I straightened.

The lapping of the waves was louder there, and the metallic rattling in the breeze. Loud enough to camouflage the sound of my approach.

I steadied my breathing as the lights of the boat got closer.

Keeping my weight on the balls of my feet and my eyes between his shoulders, I stole along his side of the dock.

Elvis was shorter than me, trimmer and more toned than Hesco had been. When I was two paces away from him, close enough to smell his aftershave, the wrench raised, a sixth sense alerted him to my presence.

He dropped his binos, swivelled, dipped and took a sideways step towards me. He drove his left shoulder into my chest as I brought down the wrench, only catching him a glancing blow.

He swayed back, eyes flashing, then dipped his right hand into his jeans and brought out a stiletto. At the press of a button, out slid a six-inch blade.

He came at me, left elbow raised, arm bent, knife at the ready. I swung the wrench again, aiming at his wrist. He stepped away, stooped and gathered a small boat anchor on a broken chain and swung it at me, like he was on the set of Gladiator. He connected with the peak of my baseball cap, sweeping it off, and nearly taking my head with it.

I charged into him, aiming the wrench at his knife hand, but he swept the anchor round and knocked it across the hard standing.

I scrambled across the concrete, my eyes focused on the wrench, not worried about what was behind me. I just wanted the weapon.

I could hear him closing in as I gripped the shaft with both hands and heaved the fucking thing in a circle behind me.

As I turned I saw the jaws make contact with his leg and heard the crunch of metal on bone. He screamed and let go of the chain. The anchor crashed into one of the boats and he collapsed on top of me. Fuck knew where his knife was.

All I could do was wrap my left arm around the back of his neck and force his face against my chest, my right hand searching frantically for my UZI.

He was still screaming, but it wasn’t just pain. I could feel the force of his anger rattling my chest. His hands came into view. And the blade. I turned to the left, trying to get on top of him, trying to take control. Then his free hand grabbed a fistful of my hair and I knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to hold his target still while he plunged in the stiletto.

I gripped the pen and slammed the point of it down on to his head.

At first it sounded like I was trying to puncture a table top. I felt the third blow fracture his skull. And the fifth penetrate the bone plate.

As soon as I’d buried the bit I wasn’t holding in his cerebral cavity, I gave it a couple of twists and turns and his body went limp.

I rolled him off me, sat up and took long, deep breaths.

Fuck, I’d wanted him alive.

I removed his mobile from the back pocket of his skinny jeans and his keys from the right-hand front one. I let him keep his ring.

I found a bit of frayed cord, tied it around his neck and fastened it to the chunk of metal he’d tried to finish me with. Then I wrenched the UZI out of his head and wiped it on his shirt. As blood started to leak from the hole, I heaved the whole package over the edge of the dock. The bottom half of his left calf bobbed along the concrete as if it was only attached with string.

I picked up my baseball cap and the stiletto, retracting the blade while I checked he was now out of sight.

I could see the lights of the ship getting closer. And the glow from the bridge – faint, but strong enough and high enough to show that it wasn’t carrying a full load.

More importantly, I could see its silhouette. It was the same as the one on the blueprint.

15

The third key I tried unlocked the boatyard gate. I didn’t go straight to the cargo quay. Minerva was still some distance out to sea, and I wanted to make sure everything and everyone was in place before I gained entry.

When I’d put some distance between me and Elvis, I powered up his phone. Of course the fucking thing was locked. It didn’t matter. I now knew for sure where I’d find Dijani. That fucker was going to live just long enough to tell me where Anna and the baby were.

I walked round to the slipway beside the stretch of water where the fishing boats were parked, past the pontoon I’d spotted Elvis on before the sun went down. The only light filtered from the windows of the apartments and houses at the edge of that part of the harbour, which made it a great place for couples to walk hand in hand and teenagers to sit cross-legged on the paving stones, roll their own cigarettes and pass round cans of beer.

Minerva’s lights glistened across the water as I passed the rowing boats and lobbed his phone into the harbour.

A very shiny white powerboat was tied up further along the quay. Unless they’d decided to shut every hatch and suffocate themselves in the heat, no one was aboard. The lettering on its back end told me it belonged to a charter company, so the guys who’d hired it might have been enjoying a nice dinner somewhere in town before coming back to get their heads down. A bunch of people were sitting, drinking, eating and fucking about on the boats at each end of it.

The mini-lighthouse was dark. Maybe it was no longer needed. Maybe it just couldn’t be arsed. I circled the bunker beyond it: four-metre-wide, domed structure, with thick, blast-proof walls and four horizontal apertures that provided a one-eighty-degree view of the sea, Minerva and the cargo quay.

A couple was getting to know each other better on one of the huge breakwater cubes on the far side of it. Fuck ’em, they could get on with whatever they wanted. I was staying where I was.

The woman saw the pervert in the shadows first. She pushed the guy off so they could straighten their clothes and head back the way I’d just come. There was no one else around.

I brought out my binos. They hadn’t enjoyed their collision with the boatyard concrete, but they still did what they were supposed to do.

The Suunto told me it was after midnight. I reckoned Minerva was forty-five minutes to an hour away. Once I’d adjusted the focus I could see a big white ‘N’ illuminated by the lights on its hull.

I tapped out Luca’s number on the Nokia and waited while the call was transferred.

I kept it crisp. ‘It’s on its way now.’

He did too. ‘So am I.’

But neither of us cut the line. We both knew the question I had to ask next, even though his silence had already given me the answer.

‘Anna?’

He sounded less like a strangling victim now, but I could still hear his pain. ‘Not yet. But Pasha is in Vinnitsa. He’ll call me as soon as …’

I put the phone down on the concrete bench beside me and continued to watch Minerva, checking that the thing was still getting bigger and brighter.

The whole place didn’t exactly spring to life as the boat drew nearer, but a row of overhead lights sparked up so I could see some signs of activity. The mobile crane moved into position at the seaward end of the quay. An empty minibus stopped right next to it, I assumed to lift off the crew.

A second set of headlamps swept towards the entrance and the gates swung open again. A three-ton truck with a canvas cover over the load space joined the party. I couldn’t immediately ID make or colour. I guessed Fiat and blue.

The driver nosy-parked, jumped down from the cab and opened up the back. Then he found a bollard to sit on and started to smoke his way through a pack of cigarettes. He must have left his mate at the barn. He didn’t show the slightest interest in the minibus.

A tug appeared from the direction of the boatyard and steered into the waves. The one remaining cargo vessel was moored with its pointy end facing the exit, and the one that had left earlier had been too, so I expected to see Minerva towed in and put through a one-eighty-degree turn before parking up. Particularly if it was planning a quick getaway.

An hour later it was in position, ‘NETTUNO’ emblazoned across its flank, Minerva on its tail. There were no containers visible at deck level. The three-tonner was now completely obscured by the ship’s hull, but I could see about ten crew members being ferried away in the minibus, and a gleaming BMW SUV taking its place. The SUV’s windows were tinted, but there was no mistaking the George Michael lookalike who swung open the passenger door. Unless it really was George Michael.

And, judging by the beard and the burn on his neck, Rexho Uran had been doing the driving.

16

I pocketed the Pentax and filled my lungs as I walked back past the still unoccupied powerboat. Most of the others had closed down for the night as well. The Nokia went into the water between them with hardly a splash.

I didn’t continue round the inner harbour this time; it was pretty much deserted. I went left through the archway by the fortress and right along the street where I’d tried to intercept Elvis. It made no sense drawing attention to myself any earlier than I had to. After a couple more rights and a left I was on course for the road that took me past the chimneys.

Up close, I could see that the apartment blocks opposite the entrance to the cargo quay were still under construction. I went left again so that I could circle around the back of the development and climb on to the breakwater via the beach without having to go anywhere near the gates. I’d avoid most of the streetlamps too.

As soon as I was in the shadow of the shell of the third building, I flicked on my torch, unfolded the blueprint of Minerva and fixed the boat’s external and internal layout in my head.

It took me the best part of an hour to reach my target and clamber over the piles of totally randomly spaced and angled cubes. There was enough ambient light to allow me to spot the difference between the concrete platforms and the crevices between them, but it was still slow going.

I stayed as close as possible to the seaward side of the wall until I reached the far end of it, then moved down closer to the water. That way I could use the cubes at the top of the pile as cover. Once I’d rounded the tip I went down on my belly and manoeuvred myself into a vertical space that afforded a view of the quay without the need to raise my head above the parapet.

The overhead lights had been switched off. The mobile crane was now parked about five metres away and the three-tonner had disappeared, so whatever Dijani had taken so much trouble to bring in had obviously been hoisted out of Minerva and gone with it.

The BMW hadn’t moved, and a slightly battered Land Cruiser sat alongside it.

I reckoned that meant Dijani would have at least a four-man back-up. More if there were still crew aboard. I couldn’t see anybody on the quay, the gangway, or on stag on the deck, so I crept along the back wall and took up position in the shadow of the crane. I had a better view of each of the possible areas of compromise now, and they were still all clear. Maybe they were too busy doing sailor stuff to pay any attention to me.

Back in the real world, the odds were strongly against me. But, fuck it, I’d come for Dijani, and this was my best chance of catching him. I couldn’t lurk there all night in the hope that he’d wander down the gangway at some point and introduce himself. I had to go aboard and get stuck in. And the stern hawser seemed like a good place to start. It was further away from me than the pointy end, but lower, and most of the windows on the bridge faced forward.

There were no portholes below the deck rail, so I crossed the quay and pretty much hugged the hull as I went for it. Unless one of the team leant over the thing and looked straight down, or suddenly decided to poke their head over the gangway, I wouldn’t be pinged. That was what I told myself, anyway. If any headlamps approached from the entrance gate, I was in the shit.

The rope was almost the same circumference as my grip. I reached up and closed my fingers around it, then began to haul myself up.

You always feel exposed when you’re suspended six metres above the water. The trick is not to think about it. I zeroed in on the place I was aiming for, three more metres above my head. I clenched the rope between my knees and ankles and pressed on, hand over hand, until I was able to grab the lower rim of the hawsehole.

I raised my head far enough to take a look around the rear deck before easing my shoulders through it. A guy in denim was leaning on the seaward rail. I wouldn’t have been able to tell whether he was Elvis’s mate in the rowing boat even if he’d been looking in my direction.

He had unfolded the bipod of his SAW and placed it at his feet. He must have been told to keep it out of sight. Even in southern Italy, 5.56mm Squad Automatic Weapons tend to attract the wrong kind of attention.

He tapped a cigarette out of its pack and lit up. Unless he was interrupted, or was one of those compulsive smokers who take a couple of puffs, then send the rest cartwheeling into the sea, I reckoned I had three minutes before he was fully functional again.

I wasn’t sure that I could haul myself aboard, cross the deck and drop him before he turned his weapon on me or raised the alarm. But a SAW was definitely more lawful than a stiletto and an UZI pen. And there was really only one way of finding out.

My main enemies were my noise and his peripheral vision. When I saw him glancing anxiously to his left after lighting up, I realized he was more worried about getting a bollocking from his boss than he was about keeping watch in case their diversion hadn’t worked and the GIS rolled on to the quay.

I decided to go for it.

I reached in and grabbed the rope just short of the noose that had been looped over the bollard. My target glanced to his left for the second time in as many drags, and sucked in another lungful. His body language told me he was so wired he was smoking at warp speed.

The sea breeze had kicked in, and got busy rattling whatever hadn’t been tied down. A burst of laughter and chanting carried across the water from one of the streets near the fortress. My target leant further over the rail and scanned that side of the harbour, trying to ID where the noise was coming from. Or maybe he just wished he was having as good a time as they were.

I pulled my upper body through the hole, brought up my knees, then my feet and, keeping in the shadow of the bulwark, got my boots on the deck. Staying beneath the rail, I brought out Elvis’s blade and circled around behind him. The closer I got, the more of his toxic Eastern European tobacco I was sharing.

I focused on the back of his head as I ran the last few metres towards him. Nothing else mattered. I couldn’t even hear my own movement.

I gripped the blade in my right fist, my thumb over the top of the handle to prevent my sweat-covered palm sliding down it once I got the thing working. I wasn’t going to fuck up like I had with Elvis. I was going to get straight in, get it done and move on.

One pace left.

He finally realized someone was behind him, but it was too late. He didn’t have time to turn. I was already climbing aboard him, my legs scissoring, my left hand flying in front of his face and slamming against his mouth.

I pulled him back with my arm, my knees and calves locked around his waist. He struggled to stay upright, but it wasn’t happening. I started to take him down with me, keeping his body on top of mine as I braced my back for a hard landing. Keeping my head up, I clamped his mouth even harder to keep him quiet when it happened.

I hit the deck.

A split second later he landed on top of me.

Fighting for breath, I arched my back to push up and present his chest as I punched the blade into him again and again, wherever I could make contact.

Under my palm, I felt him trying to scream.

He jerked and twisted, desperate to anticipate the next stab and avoid it. But I kept them deliberately erratic.

The point of the stiletto hit a rib and juddered until it found flesh that yielded. I forced it down again, into the side of his chest now, then switched back to the top again, trying to get it into his heart.

I didn’t care where it hit. I just wanted him dead.

He jerked again, less violently. I kept on going, fuck knew how often, until he finally stopped.

I didn’t waste time trying to catch my breath. I heaved him off immediately. I wanted him out of the way before he leaked too heavily.

I dragged him back to where I’d first seen him and checked if he had more ammo for the SAW. He didn’t, so I bundled him over the handrail. If there was a splash, I didn’t hear it.

17

I picked up the SAW and extended its butt. It was a Western infantry weapon, probably lifted from Coalition troops in Afghan or Iraq. You could belt-feed these things, but this one had a regular thirty-round M4 assault rifle mag. I released it and pushed against the rounds. My finger pressed them down a little more than a full mag would have let me. It didn’t really matter: it was full enough.

I pulled back the cocking handle. It was loose, which meant the working parts were to the rear. I reloaded the mag, threw the sling over my left shoulder, folded the bipod in below the barrel. Clamped my right hand on the pistol grip and my elbow on the butt, leaving my left arm free. The thing was now ready to fire three-to-five-round controlled bursts, and so was I.

I edged around the base of the bridge superstructure. The laughter and chanting were closer now, and a few wolf whistles for the ladies as the group of rowdies spilt through the arch by the fortress. Perfect. As far as I was concerned, they couldn’t have timed it better.

The starboard wing stretched over my head. I opened the door in the bulkhead immediately to my left. It swung out on freshly oiled hinges. I stopped and listened, then stepped over the cockpit. Pulled it shut and stopped again. The heat from reprocessed air was the first thing I noticed, then the low but continuous hum of engines somewhere underfoot.

A metal ladder led up to the sleeping and eating quarters, and finally the ship’s command centre. Or down to the engine room. I heard a clang somewhere below deck, but nothing more.

I raised the barrel of the SAW and followed it, as carefully and quietly as possible, first into the bunk room, then the canteen on the level above. The doors to both were ajar, and both areas showed signs of recent use. But nobody was in them now.

The door at the top was shut.

These things were made of steel and firmly sealed, so I didn’t expect to be able to cup my ear to it and hear stuff inside. There was a porthole the diameter of a football at head height. I peered through it.

My field of vision was a long way short of panoramic, but I saw a head to my half-left, silhouetted in the glow of the instruments on the console that stretched across the centre of the bridge. I gave it five. No one else came into view.

Keeping the sling taut against my shoulder, I levelled the muzzle of the weapon and curled my right index finger around the trigger. Then I turned the door handle so slowly even I couldn’t see it moving, and pushed it open a fraction of a centimetre.

As soon as the seal was broken I heard voices.

More talk. Mostly Italian, as far as I could tell.

I was catching quick bursts of incoming radio traffic.

I waited for a response.

Got one.

A terse acknowledgement. Then the squeak of an arse shifting position on a very new seat.

I stayed where I was, listening for further sound or movement.

There was a bit more chat. I could still only hear one guy speaking at this end.

I pushed the door open.

The radio operator had his elbows on the console, and was clutching a microphone stalk. He seemed to be concentrating very hard on the monitor in front of him.

There were still no other bodies in sight.

He didn’t move a muscle as I stepped over the threshold. I went forward, weapon in the aim, eyes mostly on the back of his head, but flicking from side to side, in case of a threat from the wings. The angle of my approach meant that I wouldn’t have an unrestricted view into either of them until I was almost on top of him.

I stopped a couple of paces away from my target. ‘Where’s Dijani?’

He swivelled one-eighty in his chair and stared straight at me, completely unfazed.

For a beat, neither of us moved.

His unnatural stillness should have told me that he’d been aware of my presence all along. And when I spotted the two red dots zeroed on my chest, I knew he was not alone.

I kept the SAW rock solid on his centre mass as two figures emerged silently from the shadows on each side of me. I kept my voice low and slow. ‘Drop your weapons, or I’ll kill this man.’

Two more appeared from behind them.

I caught a glimpse of the George Michael lookalike to my right, in my peripheral vision.

‘Go ahead. It will make no difference. There are many gates to Jannah.’

Dijani’s voice was smooth and cultured, and I believed him. But I didn’t lower the weapon.

If I squeezed off a burst, I could probably drop three. On the other hand, there was a strong chance that they would take me down. Or that my rounds bouncing off a bulkhead would do it for them.

If the lad on the chair was worried, he didn’t show it. You can pull that kind of stunt if you’re a fully paid-up member of the Paradise Club.

The two with the laser sights positioned themselves at each end of the console – and on the far side of it, so there was no chance of me getting too close, or of them dropping each other as well as dropping me. The red dots stayed pretty much in the same position on my jacket.

Dijani and the fourth man, who I guessed must be Rexho, stayed where they were, outside my immediate arc of fire.

‘I planned a slow death for you. But I’d be happy to make it a quick one if you prefer …’

I didn’t need more than a nanosecond to think about it. Slow would be a lot better. I’d never been afraid to take the pain, and as long as I was alive, there was a chance I could keep Anna and our boy alive too.

I lowered the weapon to the deck.

‘Now kick it away.’

I gave it a nudge with the toe of my right Timberland. I didn’t want to make it too easy for them.

‘Further.’

Another nudge.

‘Now extend your arms in front of you, cross your wrists, take one pace back and turn forty-five degrees to your left.’

I did what I was told.

The radio operator picked up the SAW and disappeared somewhere to my right. The laser sight at the left end of the console moved into the centre. Rexho came out of the wing I was now facing with plasticuffs at the ready. He slipped them over my wrists and tightened them until my hands throbbed.

The burn scar on Rexho’s neck wasn’t pretty. Neither was the gleam in his eye. He showed no sign of losing it with me yet. I wondered how long that would last.

He stepped back again, out of my reach.

The laser sight to the right moved alongside his mate. The red dots travelled down my torso, lingered for a moment over my bollocks, then settled on my kneecaps.

‘Now raise your hands above your head.’ Dijani was still doing the talking.

Rexho went behind me and ran the tips of his fingers around my waist and chest and under my arms. Then my legs, from ankles to groin. And emptied my pockets.

The binos, torch, maps, blueprint and a small wad of euros were soon sitting by the radio operator’s mic.

The stiletto came last.

I still couldn’t see him, but I could hear the blade snap out of the handle. Then I felt cold steel, first against my throat, then up my right nostril, about as far as it could go.

Keeping it in place, he moved round in front of me again.

Those eyes burnt into mine. The melted skin on his neck seemed to glow and pulsate.

A teardrop gathered on my lid and rolled down my cheek as my sinus got a metallic massage. I couldn’t help it. He liked that.

He also liked the fact that I didn’t know whether he was going to shove the blade into my brain, or take it out of the side of my nose, as a tribute to the brother I’d left in Switzerland.

Finally, Rexho simply removed it, and ran a finger not at all gently along the scab left by the stripy projectile that had been launched at me through the windscreen of the Nissan.

He seemed a bit disappointed by what he saw.

‘You?’

He nodded, then pointed at the centre of my forehead. ‘I wanted here.’

Dijani stayed on the far side of the console, but now moved close enough for me to see his face. His grey suit was immaculate. He didn’t have a hair out of place. But just for a moment his eyes also burnt with something raw and explosive.

When he spoke again, his voice was even, and his expression didn’t shift a millimetre. ‘It took a very long time for my men to persuade Anna to give us your name, Nick Stone …’

My blood turned to ice. I’d never understood that phrase before. I did now.