Dead Centre - Andy McNab [35]
Burglars use fishing rods all the time to lift the keys you leave on the hall table. They then make entry with the house keys, or stay outside and steal whichever vehicle blinks in response to the key fob. Mossad had had an even better idea.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was wanted for the kidnap and murder of two Israeli soldiers in 1989, and purchasing arms from Iran for use in Gaza. He wasn’t on Mossad’s happy holiday list. They followed him from Syria to the Al Bustan Rotunda hotel near Dubai airport.
Al-Mabhouh was no fool. He’d requested a room with no balcony and sealed windows, so the only way in was through the door. He showered and changed, put documents into the room safe, and left the hotel between four thirty and five p.m. When he got back to his room at eight twenty-four that night to relax in front of a couple of episodes of Mr Bean, Mossad were inside, waiting for him. Half an hour later, he failed to answer a call from his wife. His body was found by a cleaner the next morning. And all it would have taken to stop his assassins in their tracks was a bath towel.
A read-out indicated that an attempt was made to reprogramme al-Mabhouh’s electronic door lock, but that wasn’t how the boys from Tel Aviv had got in. They’d used a method Julian had demonstrated to me in my own living room. Fuck knows why he’d brought a telescopic fishing rod with him. Maybe he thought if he could show me what fun they were all having, I’d cross back over to the dark side.
21
I HEADED FOR the house phones in the lobby, keeping eyes on the entrance for Ant and Dec. I had lost them for sure, but once they’d lost me they’d have had to make a decision. Stake out the flat, if they knew it, or go back to my last known location. Or split up and check both. Fuck it, I just had to get on with what I was here for, and as quickly as I could before one of them turned up.
I got six rings from 419 before an automated voice said what I guessed must be the Russian for ‘Please leave a message’. I hung up.
I checked out the hotel restaurants, but it was far too early to sit and eat. I didn’t see any of the crew having a session in the gym or the pool. But a drink or two to celebrate the fact they were alive? That was a definite maybe.
They weren’t in the lobby bar. I took the lift to the roof. The view of the Kremlin was straight out of a winter-wonderland brochure.
I heard the crew before I saw them. They were well wrapped up under gas heaters, and by this stage their breath was probably 90 per cent proof. They were having a great time and I didn’t blame them.
I turned back into the lift. As it descended I started to assemble the Mossad magic wand. The fishing rod telescoped down to about seven inches, but extended to five feet when fully open. It was made of bendable alloy. I’d binned the reel that had come with it, and the low breaking-strength line. I needed to land a shark, not a kipper.
The eyelets the line fed through also folded down. I opened the one at the tip, tied the end of the shark line to it and kept the other eyes closed.
I got out of the lift and checked the corridor for movement and sound. I wasn’t going to wait around. Defeating the door would take about ten seconds. The more I hovered about, the longer I was exposed. There was nothing in front of me, nothing behind. The shark-line reel on my left index finger spun as I started to extend the rod. I only needed about three feet. I put it over my knee and bent it into the shape of a bow saw.
I knelt on the plush carpet outside 419 and eased the tip, with the shark line attached, through the gap under the door. Hotel fire regulations are more or less uniform internationally. There has to be enough space – a maximum of ten millimetres at the threshold – to allow the door to swing without it touching the