A woman’s voice asked me for my PIN number.
‘2422.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘I’d like a room, please. The Westin on M Street, Washington, DC – 401 or 405, or 303 or 503.’
‘Have you a contact number?’
‘No, I’ll call back in half an hour’s time.’
They would now telephone the hotel using the name of a front company and request one of the rooms I’d specified. It didn’t really matter whether the room was above, beside or below the targets’, as long as we could get in and plant surveillance devices.
I went back to the raised lounge area and read a few of the leaflets and cards I’d picked up, all the time watching the exit on to M Street.
I ran through a mental checklist of surveillance equipment to ask for. I’d fit the first wave of kit myself – wall-mounted listening devices, phone-line devices, both voice and modem, and cables that fed into the TV in my room to relay pictures. They’d only take me about three hours to rig up once the Firm had dropped them off.
The second wave, once McGear and Kerr had vacated their room for the day, would be fitted by technicians from the embassy. In their expert hands, a hotel-room TV could become a camera, and the telephone a microphone.
Half an hour later I rang the contact number and again gave my PIN number. There was a bit of clicking, then the strains of a string quartet. About five seconds later the woman came back again.
‘You are to lift off and return today. Please acknowledge.’
I thought I’d misheard her. There was a conference at the hotel given by the Norwegian board of trade and all the delegates were exiting for coffee.
‘Can you repeat, please?’
‘You are to lift off and return today. Please acknowledge.’
‘Yes, I understand, I am to lift off and return today.’
The phone went dead.
I put the phone down. Strange. There had even been a memo in green ink from the head of the service about this – the fastball job that had now come to a sudden halt. It wasn’t unusual to get lifted off, but not so quickly. Maybe Simmonds had decided these people weren’t that important after all.
Then I thought, So what. Who gives a fuck? At the end of the day, they wanted me to do the job and I’ve done it. I called the booking agency and tried to get a flight out of Washington. The only one I could get on was the British Airways at 2135, which was hours away. Kev and Marsha were only an hour down the road towards the airport, so why not?
I dialled another number and Kev answered. His voice was wary, then he recognized mine. ‘Nick! How’s it going?’ He sounded really happy to hear me.
‘Not too bad. I’m in Washington.’
‘What are you doing? Nah, I don’t want to know! You coming to see us?’
‘If you’re not busy. I’m leaving tonight, back to the UK. It’ll be a quick stop and hello, OK?’
‘Any chance of you getting your arse up here right away? I’ve just got the ball rolling on something, but I’d be interested to know what you think. You’ll really like this one!’
‘No problem, mate. I’ll hire a car at the hotel and head straight over.’
‘Marsha will want to go into cordon bleu overdrive. I’ll tell her when she gets back with the kids. Have a meal with us, then I’ll take you to the airport. You won’t believe the stuff I’ve got here. Your friends over the water are busy.’
‘I can’t wait.’
‘Nick, there’s one other thing.’
‘What’s that, mate?’
‘You owe Aida a birthday present. You forgot again, dickhead.’
Driving west along the freeway, I kept wondering what Kev could want to talk to me about. Friends over the water? Kev had no connection with PIRA that I knew of. He was in the DEA, not the CIA or any anti-terrorist department. Besides, I knew that his job was far more administrative than field work now. I guessed he probably just needed some background information.
I thought again about Slack Pat and made a mental note to ask Kev if he had a contact address for the arseless one.
I got on the interstate. Tyson’s Corner was the junction I had to get off at; well, not really, I wanted the one before but I could never remember it. The moment I left the freeway I could have been in leafy suburban Surrey. Large detached houses lined the road, and just about every one seemed to have a seven-seater people-carrier in the drive and a basketball hoop fixed to the wall.
I followed my nose to Kev’s estate and turned into their road, Hunting Bear Path. I carried on for about a quarter of a mile, until I reached a small parade of shops arranged in an open square with parking spaces, mainly little delis and boutiques specializing in scented candles and soap. I bought sweets for Aida and Kelly that I knew Marsha wouldn’t let them have, and a couple of other presents.
Facing the shops was a stretch of waste ground, which looked as if it had been earmarked as the next phase of the development. On and around the churned-up ground were Portakabins, big stockpiles of girders and other building materials, and a couple of bulldozers.
Far up on the right-hand side amongst the large detached houses, I could just about make out the rear of Kev’s and Marsha’s ‘de luxe colonial’. As I drove closer I could see their Daihatsu people-carrier – the thing she threw the kids into to go, screaming, to school. It had a big furry Garfield stuck to the rear window. I couldn’t see Kev’s company car, a Caprice Classic that bristled with aerials – such an ugly model only government agents used them. Kev normally kept his in the garage, safely out of sight of predators.
I was looking forward to seeing the Browns again, even though I knew that, by the end of the day, I’d be more exhausted than the kids. I got to the driveway and turned in.
There was nobody waiting. The houses were quite a distance apart, so I didn’t see any neighbours either, but I wasn’t surprised – the commuter belt of Washington is quite dead during work and school days.
I braced myself; on past form, I’d get ambushed as soon as the car pulled up. The kids would jump out at me, with Marsha and Kev close behind. I always made it look as if I didn’t like it, but actually I did. The kids would know I’d have presents. I’d bought a little Tweetie-Pie watch for Aida, and Kelly’s was a handful of
Goosebumps
horror books. I wouldn’t say anything to Aida about forgetting her birthday; hopefully she’d have forgotten.
I got out of the car and walked towards the front door. Still no ambush. So far, so good.
The front door was ajar about two inches. I thought, Here we go, what they want me to do is walk into the hallway like Inspector Clouseau, and there’s going to be a Kato-type ambush. I pushed the door wide open and called out, ‘Hello? Hello? Anyone home?’
Any minute now the kids would be attacking a leg each.
But nothing happened.
Maybe they had a new plan and were all squared away somewhere in the house, waiting, trying to stifle their giggles.
Once through the front door there was a little corridor which opened up into a large rectangular hallway, with doors leading off to the different downstairs rooms. In the kitchen, to my right, I heard a female voice on the radio singing a station logo.
Still no kids. I started tiptoeing towards the noise in the kitchen. In a loud stage whisper I said, ‘Well, well, well – I’ll have to leave . . . seeing as nobody’s here . . . what a shame, because I’ve got two presents for two little girls . . .’
To my left was the door to the lounge, open about a foot or so. I didn’t look in as I walked past, but I saw something in my peripheral vision that at first didn’t register. Or maybe it did; maybe my brain processed the information and rejected it as too horrible to be true.
It took a second for it to sink in, and when it did my whole body stiffened.
I turned my head slowly, trying to make sense of what was in front of me.
It was Kev. He was lying on his side on the floor, and his head had been battered to fuck by a baseball bat. I knew that because I could see it on the floor beside him. It was one he’d shown off to me on my last visit, a nice, light aluminium one. He’d shaken his head and laughed when he’d said the local rednecks called them ‘Alabama lie detectors’.
I was still rooted to the spot.
I thought, Fucking hell, he’s dead – or should be, looking at the state of him.
What about Marsha and the kids?
Was the killer still in the house?
I had to get a weapon.
There was nothing I could do for Kev at the moment. I didn’t even think about him, just that I needed one of his pistols. I knew where all five of them were concealed in the house, always above child level and always loaded and made ready, a magazine on the weapon and a round in the chamber. All Marsha or Kev had to do was pick up one of the weapons and blat anyone who was pissed off with Kev – and there were more than a few of those in the drug community. I thought, Fuck, they’ve got him at last.
Very slowly, I put the presents on the floor. I wanted to listen for any creaking of floors, any movement at all around the house.
The living room was large and rectangular. Against the left-hand gable wall was a fireplace. Either side of it were alcoves with bookshelves, and I knew that on the second shelf up, on the right, was the world’s biggest, fattest thesaurus, and on top of that, tucked well back out of view, just above head level, but close enough to reach up for, was a big fat gun. It was lying so that, as you picked it up, it would be in the correct position to fire.
I ran. I didn’t even look to see if there was anyone else in the room. Without a weapon, it wouldn’t have made much difference.
I reached the bookcase, put my hand up and took hold of the pistol, spun round and went straight down onto my knees in the aim position. It was a Heckler & Koch USP 9mm, a fantastic weapon. This one even had a laser sight under the barrel – where the beam hits, so does the round.
I took a series of deep breaths. Once I’d calmed myself, I looked down and checked chamber. I got the topslide and pulled it back a bit. I could see the brass casing in position.
Now what was I going to do? I had my car outside; if that got reported and traced there’d be all kinds of drama. I was still under my alias cover; if I got discovered, that meant the job got discovered, and then I’d be in a world of shit.
I had a quick look at Kev, just in case I could see breathing. No chance. His brains were hanging out, his face was pulped. He was dead, and whoever had done it was so blasé they’d just thrown the baseball bat down and left it there.
There was blood all over the glass coffee table and the thick shagpile carpet. Some was even splattered on the patio windows. But strangely, apart from that, there wasn’t much sign of a struggle.
4
I had to make sure Marsha and the kids weren’t still here, tied up in another room or held down by some fucker with a gun to their heads. I was going to have to clear the house.
If only room-clearing was as easy as Don Johnson made it look in
Miami Vice
– run up to the door, get right up against the door frame, jump out into the middle of it, pistol poised, and win the day. A doorway naturally draws fire, and if you stand in one you’re presenting yourself as a target. If there’s a boy waiting the other side for you with a shotgun, you’re dead.
The first room I had to clear was the kitchen; it was the nearest, plus it had sound.
I was on the opposite side of the living room to the kitchen door. I started to move along the outside wall of the room. I stepped over Kev, not bothering to look at him. The pistol was out in front of me; it had to be ready to fire as soon as I saw a target. Where your eyes go, the pistol goes.
I mentally divided the room into bounds. The first was from the settee halfway across the lounge, a distance of about twenty feet; I got there and went static by a big TV/stereo set-up, which gave me a bit of cover while I cleared the door that led back to the hallway. It was still open.
There was nothing in the hallway. As I moved through, I closed the door behind me. I approached the one to the kitchen. The handle was on the right-hand side and I couldn’t see the hinges, so it had to open inwards. I moved across to the hinged side and listened. Just above the sound of my breath and that of my heart thumping I could hear some bonehead on the radio, ‘Injured at work? Fight for compensation through our expert attorneys – and remember, no win, no fee.’
My pistol arm wasn’t completely stretched out, but the weapon was still facing forward. I leaned over to the handle, turned it, gave the door a push and moved back. Then I opened it a bit more from the hinge side to see if there was any reaction from inside the kitchen.
I could hear more of the radio and also a washing machine – turning, stopping, turning. But nothing happened.
With the door now open just a few more inches, I could see into a small part of the kitchen. I moved forward and pushed the door fully open. Still no reaction. Using the door frame and wall as cover, I edged round slowly.