Deep Black - Andy McNab [132]
I put the damp boots back on and jammed a sock into each mouth. Then we shoved as much as possible of the bumbags into their mouths and tightened the straps around the tree-trunks so they were holding their heads and gagging them. If you don’t fill the whole mouth void, sound can be produced and projected. With the void filled with a stinking sock, they’d be more worried about breathing and avoiding gagging than making noise.
Now they were sorted, we had to get back to the house. We ran to the Vitara and I grabbed the Thuraya.
‘Do these things have silent alert or vibrate or what?’
Jerry shrugged as he shoved his passport and wallet into his parka.
I laid the G3 on the bonnet and powered it up while I retrieved my own docs. ‘We can’t risk using the wagon.’ I kept my eyes on the phone LED. ‘It’s going to make too much noise on the approach and it might be compromised before we get back to the house. Go and park it in the treeline, take out the rotor arm and we’ll keep it with us. We’ll use it to get the fuck out. Don’t forget the keys.’
I got the Thuraya on to vibrate. There were five bars on the sat signal and five for power. I scrolled down numbers called as Jerry jumped into the wagon. ‘Right, that long fucker, that George’s number?’
I took a couple of deep breaths and pressed Send as he headed towards the trees.
No answer. The phone just kept ringing. I gave it another twenty seconds before cancelling. That left only Ezra. I called the emergency number. Baby-G said 00:11. DC was six hours behind. Maybe he was still there, talking about trust to another of George’s suckers.
I got the answering-machine. I talked slowly and clearly. ‘It’s Nick, Nick Stone. I need to speak to George, urgently. Tell him I know what’s happening – tell him I will finish the job, but I must talk to him first. He must call me on the Thuraya. It’s life and death, Ezra – don’t think about it, just do it. Call him, go to him, whatever.’
Jerry had the Vitara in the trees, two long tracks gouged in the frozen grass behind it. The bonnet clicked open and Jerry climbed out. I went over to him as he bent over the engine. ‘You get him?’
I put the phone and G3 on the passenger seat, took off the mag and pushed down on the rounds. It was full, apart from the round in the chamber and the one I’d ejected. I put it back on the weapon and removed my parka, keeping an eye out for the ejected round in the back of the wagon. ‘Just a message.’
No luck with the round. I wrapped the parka sleeves round my waist. Jerry followed suit. ‘That was one fucking amazing meeting. What you make of him?’
‘Faith, my arse. He’s just as fucked up as any suicide bomber, bin Laden without a beard.’ There was a whole lot more I could have said, but it would have to wait. G3 in my left hand and the Thuraya in my right, I was ready to go.
I didn’t give a shit about what he’d done to Coke sales, fucking about with the West’s interest in dysfunctionality, or that he didn’t paint his toenails red, white and blue. I had my own reasons for wanting him dead.
97
Jerry double-knotted the parka’s sleeves round his waist. I put out a hand to stop him. ‘Nothing’s changed, mate, the offer still stands. You have a family, I’ve got fuck-all. Take the wagon, wait in the city. If I don’t come back inside two days, you go home and try your luck with George – tell him you managed to escape or something.’
He had stopped tying his parka, but there was no reply.
I lifted the G3 between us. ‘If George doesn’t call, I’m going to have to use this thing. No need for you to be there.’
He was still thinking. ‘Thanks, Nick, but no thanks. We both got the same job, for different reasons. I still gotta be there.’
‘We’d better get on with it, then, before he fucks off with Benzil to Shangri-La. We can’t go under the canopy until George calls. But we need to cover the road with the G3 to stop him leaving.’
I checked the Thuraya was still