Authors: Andy McNab
I moved against the wooden door and peered through the gap around the latch. The backyard was still in darkness, but I could make out an entrance to the right and a window to the left. There was no sign of life inside the target. This could mean the house was deserted, or that the ASU were down at the burger bar. It could also mean that they’d blacked out all the windows, or were on hard routine, no lights or smoking, not even cooking, just sitting there waiting to give us the good news.
I eased the door towards me before squeezing down on the rusty thumbpiece to release the latch, then pushed it the other way. It yielded no more than a quarter of an inch. Either it was bolted somewhere, or it was stuck. I didn’t want to push any harder and risk noise, so, keeping the lever depressed, I nudged the bottom of the door with my foot. No resistance. I did the same with my free hand at the top of the door, and that was solid. I stepped back, grabbed the top of the wall, and cocked my right leg. Suzy cupped her hands under my foot and I heaved myself up until I could lean my stomach across the coping. I looked and listened. Everything seemed all right, so I swivelled round and eased myself gingerly down the other side. My feet connected with a pile of wood. Feeling round it, I toed myself on to the concrete yard as Maureen shouted at Bathroom Billy to get a bleedin’ move on ’cos his tea was ready.
There was a bin with no lid, and no rubbish either. Nothing in the yard gave the impression that people lived there. I felt along the edge of the door until my gloved fingers came into contact with a small bolt. I wiggled it gently, and finally opened the door just enough for Suzy to slip through with the bags. She stood against the wall while I closed and bolted it once more.
Water cascaded down next door’s wastepipe: Billy must have liked her cooking. Suzy stayed put as I moved slowly to the back of the target. There was enough ambient light from the houses on either side to see what I was up to, but in any event my night vision was kicking in.
The window to the left of the back door was a simple latch job that opened outwards. The frame was old softwood, and its paint was peeling. The problem was it had a Chubb window lock screwed down tight. We would have to smash glass to make entry via the window. The door, to the right, was a DIY-store hardwood special, with just a lever lock and handle. It obviously led into the kitchen; I could see a pair of chrome taps through the glass.
I got the mini Maglite out of my pocket and, holding two fingers over the lens to minimize the light, I shone it through the window. The kitchen looked like it hadn’t been touched since Formica ruled the earth.
I moved two paces to the right and got down on my knees so my head was level with the keyhole. It was an ordinary lever lock. I put my ear to it and opened my mouth to listen. I couldn’t hear anything inside. The ambient noise still came from the main drag, punctuated by the odd quick burst of TV from the neighbours. I checked inside the lock with the Maglite. It was a four-lever, but there was no key still in it on the inside. That would have made life a lot simpler: all I’d have had to do was turn it with one of the rakes from the pick wallet. I pulled down slowly on the handle in case it was already unlocked. It wasn’t. I pushed the bottom corner of the door below the lock and it gave a little. Standing up, I checked the top corner as well, and that did too.
I glanced around the yard for flowerpots, bins or other obvious places to plant a key. There was no point in going to all the trouble of picking the lock if someone had been kind enough to leave us the spare. I reached down and lifted a brick or two, but found nothing.
I could hear a slow, deliberate rustling behind me. Suzy was starting to get into her NBC kit. She had her trousers on and was messing around, trying to get the boots over her trainers. I checked the window again, just in case, but the door seemed the sensible first point of entry.
A car drew up on the other side of the house, and we stepped back into the shadows, waiting for lights to go on. Billy was getting screamed at by Maureen for using all the hot water. Now she couldn’t have a soak before they went out, and what was it with him, anyway, having a bath just to go down the pub?
A front door slammed across the street but I waited a couple more minutes before I took off my bomber jacket and pulled my ready bag apart. To cut down on noise, Suzy had unzipped it for me before coming into the yard.
33
A kettle was being filled in Bathroom Billy’s kitchen as, very slowly and deliberately, I pulled on my kit. I’d asked for the older versions of the NBC suits because, although they might be harder to put on than the modern ones, there was a whole lot less Velcro to undo first. There was still a noise, but at least it was reasonably controlled.
I turned and realized something was wrong with Suzy. She bent over, her body suddenly convulsing, and pulled out her SD just before she emptied the contents of her stomach into her ready bag.
By the time I leant across to her it was over. I put a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I do that all the time.’
She finished wiping her mouth and snorted back a couple of lumps that had caught in the back of her nose. She leant close enough to make my eyes water. ‘Don’t fucking patronize me. That yoghurt must have been off.’
I nodded and started pushing my Caterpillars into my trousers, then pulled them up high round my stomach. So Suzy was human, after all. It wasn’t a bad thing to be scared. I’d served with guys who’d shit themselves with fear but still got on with the job.
Stitched to the back of the trousers were two long cotton tapes that acted as braces. I put them over my shoulders and crossed them over my chest, guiding the ends through the loops at the front of the waistband and tying them up.
Suzy had already got her smock on and was nearly ready by the time I put my hands into the bottom of mine and started wrestling it over my head. The rough fabric scratched my face.
Canned laughter spilled from a TV next door. I imagined Billy now had a brew to watch it with, while Maureen got busy with the deodorant. When my head finally emerged, Suzy was a foot or two in front of me, her face a picture of concentration, her eyes fixed intently on the back door as she psyched herself for the task ahead.
I lowered my arse on to the cracked concrete as Maureen got a shout to hurry up or they were going to be late. Her reply from the bedroom was loud and clear: ‘Shut the fuck up and turn that bleedin’ TV down, will yer?’
I picked up the first of the boots, which looked to me like a kid’s Christmas stocking but made of rubber, and pulled it over my left boot, lacing up the tapes from the bottom. Once the second was on I pulled the trousers over them and tightened the Velcro at the ankle.
Billy was at the end of his tether. ‘For fuck’s sake, that’s enough. We’re going down the pub, not the bleedin’ Monte Carlo casino!’
Suzy picked up her SD and leant over it with her Maglite to check chamber for the last time, then pressed on the sight. I tapped her arm and she leant over and shone her light so I could do the same. As we exchanged a glance in the semi-darkness the kids reappeared along the bank, heading back towards the bridge with their lights still off and their ice-lolly sticks still rattling away.
We only had to make sure our rubber gloves overlapped the cuffs of the smocks, then fix our respirators. I grasped mine in my left hand, and pulled back on the elastic harness with the right to get it over my face. The smell of new rubber filled my nostrils again as I made sure that no hair was in the way of the seal. I checked the canister was tightly twisted on before pulling down my hood and tightening the toggle. Breathing immediately became a tug-of-war; I fought to suck in air through the cylinder, and fought to push it back out. These things certainly weren’t designed for lovers of open spaces, and would be a nightmare for anyone with even a touch of claustrophobia.
The noise of the respirator was going to be a major problem tactically: our own sounds would be louder in our ears than those around us. But there was nothing we could do about it. Besides, if DW was the other side of this door, being deafened by my own breathing would hardly be a major concern.
Suzy lifted her head so that I could check her hood was in place, then she checked mine. We were ready to go.
The fire station on the main drag had just had a call. Sirens wailed and blue lights flashed across the wasteground as they sped past the docks, and I could suddenly see Suzy’s eyes behind her lenses. They were fixed, unblinking, her attention totally focused.
I sounded like Darth Vader with asthma as I stooped and picked up the SD, checking the safety catch by pushing it all the way to three-round bursts before returning it to safe. I didn’t want grit off the ground or anything to catch between the safety and the pistol grip, preventing me taking it off. It didn’t happen often, but once was more than enough. Detail matters.
Suzy approached the door very slowly, taking big, careful steps so the unwieldy boots didn’t trip her up. The chest pockets of these NBC suits were held down by a Velcro square at each end. She tucked her hand under the flap in the middle to save having to undo it, and pulled out her MOE wallet. There was something about the way she moved that made me feel the domestic four-lever lock wasn’t going to put up much of a fight.
She unrolled the wallet and took out a lifter pick and turning wrench. Normally a lock is opened by the bit of the key, the part with the combination cut into it that lifts the four levers into alignment. She was going to have to shift each of the four levers with the lifter pick, then move the bolt back into the lock with the turning wrench.
I watched as she began to probe with the steel pick, her left hand letting a small amount of light from her mini Maglite filter into the keyway. There is a Zen approach to the art of lock-picking. The idea is to use all your senses to create a picture of what is happening inside the mechanism as it responds to your attack. It can only happen if you concentrate completely on the job and don’t have to worry about what is happening around you. That was my job. I stood by the bin, eyes and ears peeled. The bypass continued to hum on the other side of the waste-ground.
Minutes went by. Voices moved along the bank of the stream. A car door was slammed, then Billy’s front door got the same treatment. Suzy was right, it was like West Belfast. I was beginning to get concerned, but then she laid out her wallet on the concrete, replaced her tools, and tucked it into the end of her vomit-filled ready bag.
Leaving her to sort herself out, I moved to the door and sank on to my knees, slowly putting down the SD. I felt her standing behind me now, bringing her SD slowly into the firing position above my head, butt into the shoulder, leaning into the weapon.
Sweat started to run down my face as I grasped the handle with my right hand and applied pressure to the door with my left. It held firm. I gave another push, and this time it gave way silently, enough for me to get my head through and, more importantly, Suzy’s SD.
At the end of the kitchen there was an Artexed archway, beyond which I could see dull street-light leak into the hallway from the front room and spill across the bottom few steps of the staircase.
Still on my knees, with Suzy hovering above me, weapon up, I listened as carefully as the hood and respirator allowed. I heard nothing.
I opened the door a fraction more, enough for Suzy to slip past me, weapon still in the shoulder. She moved carefully across the floor, exaggerating every step so she didn’t trip over anything as she focused her attention on the hall. I picked up my weapon to back her, standing up slowly and easing the butt into my shoulder, safety to single shot. I rested my index finger gently on the trigger, feeling the first pressure. Both eyes open, I crossed the threshold, getting behind and slightly to the right of her before going static.
We would clear the house covertly, room by room, and have a rolling startline – if we found the ASU and it went noisy, we wouldn’t worry about adding to it with a little of our own.
She moved through the arch, her boots squeaking on the lino, then turned and pointed the muzzle of her SD upwards as she leant back against the wall and covered up the staircase.
I was through the arch, weapon up, concentrating on the doorway into the front room, the sight display in front of me. My throat was starting to dry. I passed Suzy and had four or five paces to go when I heard a noise ahead of me.
34
The lock turned, the door opened.
Street-light flooded in.
A silhouette stood on the threshold, a bag in one hand and keys in the other, then took a few steps inside before noticing me.
It spun to run back through the open door. There was no time to think, just do. Bending down and dropping my SD, I ran towards the shape and jumped on its back. My canister hit the back of its skull and I felt a nose through my gloves as our combined momentum carried us both down on to the pavement and into the street.
The head turned. It was a woman. She kicked out, trying to escape. Suzy grabbed one of her legs, trying to drag both of us back into the house. I jumped up and grabbed the other leg as she kicked and bucked, not letting go of the carrier.
The moment we were inside I got my hands round her mouth and collapsed on top of her. She wasn’t coming quietly: she tried to bite me, and drummed her feet against the wall.
Suzy ran back for her SD.
‘No! The door, the door!’