"Exit wound" - читать интересную книгу автора (McNab Andy)

PART THREE
14

Wednesday, 29 April 2009

0220 hrs

Dex studied the little plastic cup his G-and-T had been served in like it was something he’d found under his shoe. He finally gave it a squeeze and moved it to his mouth. He took a sip and turned in his seat to face the two of us in the row behind. ‘Cheers, chaps.’

I returned the toast with a red wine that perfectly matched the shit-on-a-tray in front of me.

Kenneth Merryweather, as his cover passport called him, wasn’t so enthusiastic. ‘Yeah, cheers.’ He dunked his bread roll in his wine and had a munch.

We still had half the seven-hour flight from Heathrow ahead of us. I’d been expecting us to be packed in like sardines, the price you pay for taking your golf trip on the cheap, but I was wrong. There were fewer than a hundred people on the aircraft. Nearly everyone, except Red Ken and me, had their own row of seats to spread out on.

‘Empty planes out, full planes back.’ Mr Merryweather was taking a lot of pleasure in how hard the recession had hit Dubai. ‘There are more than three thousand wagons abandoned in the airport car parks at any one time because of expats doing runners.’ He shook his head. ‘Lose your job, and those fuckers hold your bank account until you pay your debts – and lots of people are losing their jobs. It’s better to get straight to the airport and fuck off before they get a grip of you.’

I’d never been to Dubai, and Dexter Khan had only ever transited through before the two recces he’d made with Red Ken. Tenny would have been fresh to it too. Red Ken and Dex had already prepared the ground on those two trips. As soon as we met the guy who’d brought Red Ken the idea in the first place, it was straight into the job.

Red Ken knew Dubai like the back of his hand. He had worked there on the BG (bodyguarding) circuit for the best part of a year. It was supposed to have been for much longer. Chrissie had even gone out and joined him. Whatever it was that had gone wrong in their marriage, I got the sense that Dubai had tipped the scales. I wasn’t going to ask specifics. If he’d wanted me to know he would have told me.

Of much greater concern for me was the lack of information. Not just the little I had been told, but the little they seemed to know. It was unlike these two to go into something so serious without being in control. Something was wrong with this job, and something was wrong with these two to make them take such a risk. They’d thought it was a joke when I’d said I was coming along to look after them. It wasn’t.

Dex turned to face us again. ‘Tuck in, chaps – you’ll need plenty of energy for eighteen holes.’ He was a member of a posh club in Surrey and had brought his own clubs with him. He was even wearing a blue Pringle sweater and Burberry patterned slacks. Red Ken was dressed much the same, and unfortunately so was I. We looked like P. Diddy’s entourage.

Three days ago, Red Ken had let me rant on about how much I hated golf. I couldn’t see the reason for it except as an excuse for dickheads like Dex to wear clown outfits. To me it was a waste of land, sand, time, water and metal. Only once I’d finished condemning every golf player on the planet did Red Ken admit he also played – and that Dex had put him up for membership.

The worst news was that he had an old set of clubs he was going to lend me. Everything had to look normal. I couldn’t be walking round with brand-new gear. We were three car-showroom salesmen, off to ‘swing a few’, as Dex put it, and maybe have some other fun. Dubai was awash with Russian whores, Red Ken said. One of the things Chrissie had hated about the place was prostitutes looking her up and down if she had a drink with her husband in a hotel bar. They’d thought she was invading their turf.

I’d looked around at our fellow passengers in Departures. One or two groups looked much the same as us. Our cover was good. Nothing could be discovered about us because nothing was hidden.

The four PMC (private military company) guys on their way to Kabul had also been easy to place, with their chunky Luminoxes hanging off their wrists with mini compasses on the straps, and high-sleeved T-shirts to show off their new biceps. The only air bridges into Kabul were via Delhi and Dubai, and I knew from past experience which airport I’d rather transit through. Apart from work, the only two things to do out there were watch porn and take part in Operation Massive: hitting the weights. The NAAFI in Kandahar sold more tubs of body-building supplements than Mars bars. But what really gave these guys away were the desert-coloured Bug Out day-sacks that everyone bought from the American PX. Every bit as much a badge, I supposed, as our stupid golf bags. They’d certainly looked back at Merryweather, Khan and Simmons the same way Dex had looked at his plastic cup.

The other two knew what they were doing when it came to drivers and putters, but I was on the five-day trip as a golf atheist. They were going to enlighten and convert me. There would be no talk of the job during the flight or at any time unless we were out of a building and on our own. Dubai might be Disneyland on Gas Mark Ten, as Red Ken called it, but the place was swarming with police informers. The government had an image to protect. They were even thinking about a law to prosecute locally based journalists if they hinted Dubai was being hit by the world downturn.

Besides that, first-class seats in aircraft had been bugged on European and American airlines as early as the 1980s. Industrial espionage was rife. It still was. We worked on the assumption that every seat was bugged on every airline.

Red Ken’s plan had few moving parts. Keep it simple, stupid, was a principle all three of us knew worked, and as we were all stupid to be on this job it was a good one. We were going to play a round straight off the plane at six thirty. That was when we’d meet the man who’d organized it – organized it far too much, in fact, even down to the passports.

Red Ken wouldn’t give any more details about who he was. ‘He doesn’t want you to know until you meet, son. He’s a funny fucker like that. But he’s going to make us all a lot of cash – so just wait.’

I’d been bombarding him with questions for days. For starters, why had Red Ken, Dex and Tenny been picked as a crew?

‘Because we’re good.’ Red Ken was serious. ‘There can’t be any room for fuck-ups. That’s what Special Forces are about – in and out before anyone knows. This isn’t about running into a bank with sawn-offs and grabbing the till. This is about lifting gold that no one knows exists – it needs to be done covertly. That’s your reason, Nick.’

I explored the chicken-something while Dex put on his headphones and laughed too loud at a movie.

Red Ken leant across the spare seat between us and gave me a nudge. ‘He was like that when we came over last time. I even think it’s the same film.’

The final of the two recces had been a week before the funeral. Tenny would have been on his post-tour leave, before returning to the battalion to go through the process of getting out – having massively boosted his pension.

Dex caught us laughing at him and pulled off one earphone. ‘What?’

Red Ken pushed himself forward so his head was nearly between the rests. ‘I was saying Nick should apply to your club.’

‘You’d love it.’ One earphone was still on his cheek. ‘I’ll introduce you to the pro and maybe we can get your game up. Then I’ll-’

I reached between the seats, pulled back the earphone and let go.

‘Very funny.’ He broke into a laugh and then his eyes were back on the screen.

I bit the cellophane off my rectangle of cheese. ‘I wish I was like knob-head Laughing Boy, not a worry in the world, just getting on with life and a dodgy G-and-T.’

Red Ken sat back in his seat and stared at the blank screen in front of him. ‘That’s not the way, mate. You got no one meeting you when you get back from the trip?’

‘Like I said at the funeral, no one.’

‘That’s harsh. I’ll have my girls waiting for me. The youngest, Charlotte, has just brought my first grandchild home for a second christening. It’s a girl.’ He ripped the end off a citrus handwipe. ‘The Brits got pissed off over the fact she was going to get christened in Sydney. It’ll be a great day. Looking forward to it big-time.’