Dead Centre - Andy McNab [139]
I gave Frank a couple of seconds to sort his face out. ‘And what’s going to happen with Stefan now? Is he going to be kept away from your family?’ I nodded over at the bedroom. ‘Kept in a box with a nanny for the rest of his childhood? It wouldn’t be right, would it, Frank?’
The tears had gone and the old Frank, maybe not the real Frank, was coming back. ‘You really have been working very hard to find out about me.’
I nodded. ‘Part of my job, mate.’
He leant in towards me, the eyes now able to fix on mine. ‘Stefan will be part of my family. My wife’s name is Lyubova. It means “love”. She has much of it. She has had to, Nick. I have not always been a good husband. Some of the women, Lyubova has known about – but she has always loved me.’
He pointed a finger at me. ‘She knows nothing of Stefan. But she will, very soon. I will tell her everything. I believe she will embrace my son as her own. I hope she will forgive me. I hope that I may become the husband she has always deserved. So maybe something good has already come out of this.’ He sat back. ‘But enough, Nick. What about you – what do you want? What do you need?’
I sat back too, taking the last of the water down my throat. ‘I think Joe the pilot needs a new aircraft. He’s got more holes in it than my socks.’
Frank looked down and saw the state of my feet. He laughed.
He put his hands up. ‘Of course, that will all be taken care of. But you, Nick – what do you want more than anything in the world?’
That was an easy question to answer.
‘Frank, I want a lift to Benghazi.’
His eyes widened. He laughed again, a deep, warm, sonorous laugh. This was the real Frank, and I liked him.
PART EIGHT
1
Friday, 25 March
01.17 hrs
THE MUSLIM WITHOUT Borders convoy of six white Mercedes Sprinter vans passed through yet another Free Benghazi checkpoint on the outskirts of the war-scarred city. With all the 12.7-mounted technicals and AKs and RPGs, it could almost have been Mogadishu – except that these Africans were Arabs.
After he’d laughed himself out, Frank had ordered the G6 to fly to Sallun, the Egyptian border-crossing. Near the Mediterranean, it was about ninety miles from Tobruk. The small airport that greeted me there looked exactly like Camp Hope in Aceh Province six years ago. The only difference was that transport planes could land a lot closer.
Aircraft disgorged humanitarian supplies 24/7. Lots of people ran around looking very busy in khaki waistcoats and cargoes with a huge number of pockets full of very important stuff. The white Toyota 4×4s had already turned up with their big antennas and NGO and MONGO stickers.
The G6 looked totally out of place as it taxied to a standstill. Even the happy-clappy crowd who’d just arrived to convert the Libyans and Egyptians to Christianity stopped and stared, as if Obama had turned up to take a personal look. The locals just watched suspiciously. They needed to make sure it hadn’t come to help Gaddafi’s family do a runner.
When I emerged in a pair of Frank’s centre-creased jeans and a green and yellow checked shirt they all looked very let down. Frank knew how to make a billion or ten. He also knew how to dress like a knob.
Getting into Libya was a piece of piss, mainly because nobody wanted to. There were no officials on the Libyan side of the crossing. It was getting out that would be the problem: the Egyptian side was heavily policed. Sub-Saharan migrant workers waited for days in makeshift camps to do so, drinking bottled water and eating bread doled out by the agencies. Every one of them carried at least one large market bag with that tight tartan weave, tied up with string. Some even had TVs wrapped in cardboard. These lads had worked hard to buy that shit, so it was coming with them.
And even when they finally got across, it was only to step into yet another camp. Where would you go? There was fuck-all for miles in any