Dead Centre - Andy McNab [36]
I squeezed the rod through, pushing down the carpet on both sides. Once it was about three feet in, I twisted the handle and worked it up against the bottom of the door. The rod would now be going up vertically the other side. I nudged it to the right, towards the handle. The alloy clunked as it made contact with the metal.
I took a second to visualize what was happening inside the room. The shark line would be hanging between the handle and the door. The rod itself would be on the far side of the handle. I pulled down gently and heard another clunk of rod against handle a few inches from my head. The handle was trapped between the apex of the rod and the line.
I held the rod handle firmly in my left hand, rested my head against the door and pulled hard on the line. It pushed down on the handle and the door sprang open.
I slipped quickly inside, closed the door and activated the deadlock. I collapsed the deformed rod as best I could and shoved it inside my jeans.
All the Hamas lad had needed to do before he went out was roll up a towel and place it between the handle and the door. Mossad would have been fucked. Rudy and his boys also had a lot to learn.
The room still stank of cigarette smoke, and the mini-bar had been raided. Empty miniatures and beer bottles and chocolate wrappers were scattered on the table by the window. At least the bed had been made. Beyond it, the Kremlin son et lumière was in full swing.
I lifted out the holdall and unzipped it to discover not very much at all. There was a passport for the boy; a new one, of course. A carton of 200 Camel. Some socks, still in their cardboard packaging, and a few pairs of Speedo-type briefs. And a memory stick.
I headed for the B&O and hit the space-age remote. It took me a minute to work out how to persuade it to do what I wanted. I finally inserted the USB end plug into a port in the side of the TV. There was only one icon on the stick. I clicked on it and got a picture but no sound.
I was glad there wasn’t.
Tracy’s face filled the TV screen.
Her skin was red and flushed; her face screwed up.
A pair of male hands came into shot from behind her and around her naked shoulders, pulling her away from the lens. I was dreading what I was about to see.
As the hands turned her and pushed her towards the bed, I could see that BB was still inside her from behind.
I watched for about five minutes, then sat there in shock. I thought about the pain in Tracy’s eyes. I thought about BB being an arsehole. And I thought about my promise to Mong.
I threw the stick back into the bag, zipped it up and replaced it under the bed. I wasn’t about to take it with me. Frank was obviously a generous employer, but I already knew you didn’t want to fuck him over.
I closed the door carefully behind me and headed for the lift.
22
BACK AT THE apartment, I had a shower and changed. I stank like I used to when I had to hang around pubs as a kid, waiting for my mum and stepdad to stop drinking and take me home. The smoke from Player’s No. 6 or whatever knocked-off cigarettes they’d bought from the market that week used to soak into my clothes, hair and skin even when I sat under the table. In the morning, the stench made me feel like throwing up.
I felt like throwing up now.
I grabbed my passport and threw a few things into a day sack. It felt good to be back in that routine, getting on with a job – even though it wasn’t a job until I knew they were alive.
I looked up Frank Timis online. Nothing. I even tried Wikipedia and Wikileaks. I couldn’t find a thing.
I sat on the sofa and looked out over the river and the downtown lights. Steam billowed out of every building. I speed-dialled Anna. I usually called her every other day after the three p.m. broadcast. She always wanted to know what footage they’d used, and if there was anything she’d done wrong.
There seldom was. She was an old hand at reporting foreign conflicts. A lot of journos turned up in war zones without a clue. A picture of one unwittingly wearing Gaddafi green, for instance, could be valuable propaganda.