The Sixteen (24 page)

‘This map isn’t much help,’ Chalky grumbled. ‘But there’s a lot of side streets around that area and a few of them seem to lead directly to a square which looks as if it’s only maybe a couple of hundred yards away from the target area, and the bridge we need to find can’t be more than half a mile away now.’

‘Where’s the square once we get over the bridge?’ Dynamo asked.

‘Once over the other side, we need to turn right and drive for about quarter of a mile further into the city,’ Chalky answered. ‘When we get that far I’ll direct you, there’s too many side streets and judging by what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think some of them will be able to take the width of this truck, so we’ll have to play it by ear.’

The streets were now very heavily congested and we were almost at a standstill, there appeared to be some sort of hold-up further ahead of us. The smell of exhaust fumes was stifling and everywhere was noise and commotion – vehicle engines, honking horns and the babble of thousands of people.

‘Must be rush hour!’ Chalky commented.

‘Do you see all of those army lorries on the other side of the river?’ Dynamo asked. ‘They all seem to be heading in the same direction you reckon we need to take, Chalky. Maybe we should follow them and see where they go?’

‘You’re right, that square is over that way and the garrison is somewhere close by,’ Chalky agreed.

‘What else do we have on the target?’ I asked them.

‘We’re never told exactly who the target is or what he does, and we don’t want to know just as long as we have a photograph so we know what he looks like. But my guess is that he’s a senior Russian military advisor or an Aide assisting the Egyptian government. So he’s got a lot on his plate,’ Chalky told me. ‘He must be under a lot of pressure. We’ve been told he works very late so let’s hope he sticks to his routine. But it doesn’t matter if he’s a bus conductor – he’s got to go.’

‘He’ll be under high security,’ Dynamo added, ‘but most of that should be around the grounds of the building. I imagine that he’ll feel pretty safe up on the top floor and won’t be expecting anything. Judging by the photographs we’ve seen, getting into the building without being detected could be a bit of a swine, never mind getting out, and we need to find a way of doing it without alerting this lot!’ Dynamo gestured towards the mass of vehicles in front of us, which included several army lorries. ‘Obviously we have to get in and out without making a sound, so don’t forget that oil filter, Chalky, we might just need it.’

We’d crawled forwards for roughly ten minutes when Spot stuck his head through the opening again.

‘Hey, you lot!’ he called out. ‘Look over there up this side street, there just ahead behind that building. It’s the bridge, lads!’

Just ahead of us about three hundred yards away was the bridge we were looking for.

‘That’s the one,’ Chalky said, checking the map.

As we slowly approached it, we noticed some kind of activity on the other side where a group of soldiers were struggling to push a truck out of the way to the side of the road. Suddenly, one of them began to walk directly towards us, waving his arms and looking straight into the cab.

‘Oh hell, he’s coming straight to my side of the truck, that’s all we need, I can’t speak a word of Arabic. Shall I just throw the body in the river?’ I joked quietly to Chalky.

He nudged me in the ribs. ‘Ssshh, don’t say a word.’

I just sat there staring at the soldier who, when he got no response from me, made his way to the driver’s side of the truck. From ahead of us one of his mates shouted something over to him and he climbed on to the running board to looked down the road in the direction of the obstruction.

Dynamo fastened the top of the tunic he was wearing to avoid the soldier spotting his white shirt underneath.

‘Pretend you’re a workman,’ he whispered to Chalky who was sitting in the middle and the only one not wearing an army-style tunic.

‘How the hell do you pretend to be a workman?’ Chalky hissed back. ‘What happens if someone twigs it, they can’t be that stupid surely, one of them must notice something’s not quite right? What with Geordie and his blue eyes and blood on his jacket and me dressed like this, I should have been the one the back of the truck.’

‘Yeah, probably, remember those workmen getting on the back of army trucks when we were in the boat? Well, if they do notice something there’s going to be an awful lot of bodies floating down the river,’ Dynamo said, giggling. He wound the window down and stuck his head out, which prevented the soldier from seeing
right into the cab and noticing our trousers or the bloodstained tunic I was wearing.

Just then, the guy ducked his head down next to the window and, pointing ahead of him, shouted something to Dynamo, who replied in Arabic and began to move the truck forward. When we crossed the bridge and reached the broken-down truck the soldier jumped off the running board and waved us on.

The noisy streets were busy with groups of armed troops and people everywhere but nobody seemed to take any notice of us. We drove along wide tree-lined avenues, edged with large white buildings and the occasional minaret for roughly a quarter of a mile, as strange and unusual smells wafted into the cab.

‘We can’t be more than a few hundred yards from where we need to be,’ Chalky pointed out. ‘Look, you can just see the top of the Citadel over there. We need to turn right somewhere around here. Dynamo, see if you can get down one of these side streets, they should lead us to the square I was on about.’

‘Where’s the Citadel? I can’t see it,’ I asked him, looking about me.

‘Why don’t you ask that old bloke over there?’ Dynamo joked, pointing to some old beggar sitting on the pavement who was obviously blind. Chalky and I cracked up.

‘Geordie, see if that wog’s still on the back, we haven’t heard from him for ages,’ Chalky said, almost helpless with laughter.

‘Hey, less of the wog, you swine!’ came a voice from above us and I looked up to see Spot peering through the opening. ‘That was a bit close back there on the bridge, wasn’t it?’

‘You’ve been quiet, I thought we’d lost you,’ I said.

‘I’ve been standing here trying to look like a workman!’ he replied.

‘You stupid sod, you’re the one supposed to be looking like an
Arab soldier, that’s why you’ve got the beret and the tunic!’ Chalky said, gasping for air and holding his stomach.

‘I could have been standing here looking like a bleedin’ Japanese Kamikaze pilot and these daft sods wouldn’t have noticed, old boy.’

‘Come on, we’ve got to be serious here,’ Dynamo said, wiping away tears of laughter. ‘I’ll have to find somewhere to dump this truck soon, the light’s starting to go. We’ve got bags of time so let’s have a good look around.’

He turned right down a narrow side street which, after about fifty yards, opened up into a fairly large square filled with army trucks and civilian vehicles lined up in rows.

‘This is a bit of luck! You were right about the square, Chalky, but this is a bonus. It’ll be like hiding a tree in the woods,’ Dynamo said as he drove into the square.

Most of the brightly lit buildings around the square appeared to be cafés and bars with tables and chairs on the pavements in front, that were crowded with civilians and soldiers. Music was playing loudly and there were groups of people everywhere.

About one hundred yards away, two soldiers armed with sub-machine guns were strolling along a row of parked vehicles, talking to one another with their backs to us. As we drove into the square, they stopped and briefly looked back towards us, then carried on walking and continued their conversation. They didn’t seem to be interested in us at all.

We drove past the first two trucks in the row then Dynamo noticed a gap between them and stopped.

‘We couldn’t ask for a better place to leave it,’ he said. ‘It looks as though these two guys are going to take care of it for us until we get back!’

Spot jumped off the back of truck, as I got out and began to
wave Dynamo into the space as he reversed. The lighting was very poor where the trucks were parked and it was so dark he could barely see me. I put my hand up to stop him coming further but he didn’t notice and reversed a few inches more, nudging the truck behind just hard enough to break its tail lights.

Chalky stuck his head around the corner of one of the parked trucks to see if the two soldiers had noticed but they were still standing talking to one another and obviously hadn’t heard a thing, probably due to the loud music.

He came around to the back of our truck. ‘Don’t worry, Geordie, I don’t think we’ll have to pay for them,’ he said, nodding towards the broken lights.

‘It’s lucky for us those two didn’t hear anything!’

‘Lucky for them you mean,’ he replied, smiling. ‘Be a shame to die over a couple of tail lights, anyway we’ve nowhere to dump the bodies!’

The confidence and assurance of my pals was astounding. They treated it as though it was just a pleasant day out! And yet there was no hint of boasting, they were simply the very best at what they did and they knew it!

C
halky and I grabbed the bags and led the way back towards the narrow street, which had brought us into the square, then about halfway along it, we turned off right up a smaller alleyway.

‘We shouldn’t have far to go to the target,’ Dynamo commented, then suddenly stopped walking. ‘Hell, I’ve left the damn keys in the ignition, I’ll have to go back for them.’

‘That’s handy, I’ll nip back and get them before someone nicks it! Wait here.’ Spot turned around and headed back towards the square. We waited only a few minutes before he returned.

‘Any problems?’ Dynamo asked.

‘No, the two soldiers had gone.’

Just at that moment, a door nearby burst open and a stream of light flooded the alley, blinding us. Several men came out of the doorway, jabbering away to one another, and turned our way. Quickly, we pretended to be standing having a conversation, but luckily they took no notice and just passed by us without a second glance.

We set off again down the dingy, narrow street; we needed to get back to the main road to get our bearings. Every now and then someone would walk past, often glancing at us as they did, but nobody stopped or spoke to us. I supposed that we must really look the part; besides, the street lighting was virtually non-existent so it was pretty dark, which helped. As we walked along we could hear voices from inside the various buildings we passed, most of which appeared to be family homes. Strange varieties of strong, spicy cooking smells mingled with other unfamiliar, foreign smells in the streets.

At the end of the lane, we saw a large building, which looked derelict, possibly as the result of bombing.

‘I know where we are, we need to turn left here to get back to the main road,’ Dynamo pointed out.

We did as he suggested and immediately saw the main road directly ahead of us as we walked along the side of the derelict building. Chalky was slightly in the lead and turned the corner of
the building first before we reached it. Instantly he ducked back to prevent us following him.

‘I think we’ve found it, lads! There’s a place about thirty yards away surrounded by a huge fence with barbed wire on the top. I’m sure this is the building we’re looking for. Have a look, Dynamo, do you think this is it?’ he said quietly.

Dynamo stuck his head around the corner, and then quickly came back to us. ‘Stay here. I’ll go and have a closer look to make sure.’

He went around the corner and we waited for several minutes but there was no sign of him.

‘Where the hell has he gone?’ Chalky said. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s gone and done the job on his own, it would be just like him!’

He and I peered around the corner, while Spot watched our backs. Dynamo was nowhere to be seen.

Then Spot nudged me and looking round we saw him come dashing around the corner behind us from the rear of the building – he’d obviously walked right around the place we were standing next to.

‘That’s it alright!’ he exclaimed. ‘I didn’t think we were so close, but it’s definitely the right place.’

‘How do you know?’ Spot asked.

‘Well, it’s hard to say but the Russian flag flying, and the staff car with Russian pennants and insignia on it, and Russian troops guarding the place sort of gave me a clue that this was it!’ Dynamo laughed. ‘This dump is directly opposite the main garrison building. I had a good look at it as I walked around and it looks as though it’s been bombed some time ago but most of it’s still intact. The main thing is, it’s only a few yards away from the perimeter fence around the garrison compound. So all we have to do is find a way through it.

‘The compound and building are exactly as we saw in the photographs,’ he continued. ‘Two thirteen-foot fences about fifteen feet apart surrounding a three-storey building and only one way in that I could see. There are four armed guards, two at the entrance to the building, two at the main gate and there’s a dog patrol in between the two fences. So, apart from that it should be a piece of cake!’

‘So, what you mean…?’ Chalky began to say slowly.

‘What I mean, Chalky,’ Dynamo went on, ‘is there’s only one way in and that’s going to be over the top. It’s a good job this place here is empty. I can’t understand how they’ve left it standing, it’s a helluva security risk. It looks to be boarded up and I think that part of the roof is missing.’

‘Right then, let’s find a way in,’ Chalky said, indicating the derelict building behind us.

‘We need to get in round the back, the front of the compound is lit up like Blackpool Illuminations. Come round this way, I don’t think it’s overlooked and I think we’ll be able to get in through one of the boarded-up windows,’ Dynamo said, leading the way.

We made our way to the rear of the building, making sure we weren’t being watched and found a window, now roughly nailed up with a few wooden planks, only yards away from the wire compound fence. But just as we were easing the planks off, the dog patrol inside the two perimeter fences came to the corner of the building and began to walk past.