were plastered with what looked like old and torn 'Fragile' stickers and airline security tape. They started to move the boxes inside the garage via the side door. The luggage area of the 4x4 was still full of sports bags, another suit carrier and a black plastic cylinder that stretched from the back seat to the gear shift at the front. It was about two meters long and covered at each end. Either it was the world's biggest poster tube or they had some serious fishing rods with them I didn't think. One of the new guys motioned to the other one and the American to give him a hand.
I snapped some more. This guy looked much older than the others. He was short and bald, with a very neat, black mustache, and he was a bit overweight, mostly around the stomach. He looked like he should be in a film as the gangster boss, the Bossman. The other newcomer was more nondescript, of medium build and height, and looked about twenty years old. He could have done with a few plates of what the bald guy had been eating.
After a couple of trips, with the boys lifting what seemed to be heavy kit, the 4x4 was empty and everything was stowed inside the garage. The side door closed and the area once more looked as if nothing had happened all day. What was going on here?
Ever since we'd first met, it had seemed to me that Sarah was sympathetic to the Arabs. She'd been involved with them in one way or another for most of her life. Come to think of it, we'd even had a row once about Yasser Arafat. I said that I thought he'd done a good job; she thought he was selling out to the West.
'It's all about homeland, both spiritual and cultural, Nick,' she'd say every time the subject arose, and nobody who'd been within sight of a Palestinian refugee camp could argue, but I wondered whether there was more to it than that.
A faint drizzle was starting. It hadn't penetrated my hide yet but could clearly be seen falling on the open ground in front of me. I could hear outboard motors in the distance as the intrepid fishermen set out in pursuit of a six-ounce carp. Lunchtime must be over.
There's more to surveillance than just the mechanics. A report that says, 'Four men get out of vehicle, two men pick up bags and go inside,' is all very well, but it's the interpretation of those events that matters.
Were they looking aware? Did they seem to know each other well? Were they, perhaps, master and servant? These people were meeting up, in hiding, and with kit. I had seen this before with ASUs (active service units).
The boxes looked as if they'd seen a lot of air time during their life, but not on this trip. There were no airline tags on the handles or on the bags.
Maybe they'd driven to an RV point and then transferred the kit. If so, why? Whatever was happening here, it wasn't about the turtles.
Things were starting to spark up and Lynn and Elizabeth needed to know that there were now four Arabs, one American and Sarah. Maybe London could make sense of what was happening; after all, they would know far more than they had told me. With any luck, Elizabeth would now be at Northolt, poring over my previous message and images, with her tea so strong you could stand the spoon in it.
It was 15:48, time to switch on the phone. It had been a couple of hours since my last transmission, and they should be calling me back with an acknowledgment and maybe even a reply.
I took it out of my pocket and switched it on, placing it in the shell scrape so I could see when I had a signal while I got out the codes from my jeans and encoded my sit rep. As I retrieved the 3C, I started to feel like I needed a shit. So much for the Imodium: it should have bunged me up, but maybe the combination of pizza, Mars bars and Spam weren't the most binding of materials. I knew from bitter experience that fighting the urge never works; if you've got the time, however inconvenient that might be, you never wait until the last minute: if you do, sure as anything, a drama will occur at the target the moment you get your trousers down.
I got the roll of plastic wrap from the bergen and pulled off the best part of a meter. Leaning over to my left, still trying to keep my eyes on the target, I undid the buttons of both sets of trousers with my right hand, and pulled them down, along with my pants. I then got the plastic in my left hand and tucked it under, ready to receive. I started to want to piss; I wasn't going to rummage for the gas can at this stage of the proceedings, so I just had to restrain myself while I got the main event out of the way. I wrapped the first handful in the plastic and put it to one side, pulled off another length, put it underneath, and carried on. Having to do this in the field is never an easy procedure, especially when you're lying on your side and in fits and starts, because it's got to be controlled. It's unpleasant, but there's no way around it.
The drizzle was now trying hard to become something more grownup.
I could hear the first raindrops hitting the leaves above me. I was about halfway through the second lot of plastic wrap when the LED on the phone told me I had a message waiting.
At the same moment, I heard a voice--male and American. I switched off the phone and thrust it and the 3C in my pockets. I looked out of the hide at the movement of the trees, trying to gauge the direction of the wind. It was still coming in from the lake. The American was on his own, coming out of the garage doors and heading toward the boat.
Trying desperately to control my sphincter and bladder, I watched as he moved the boat out of the way of the garage doors. I guessed he was going to park up the Explorer. He climbed into the driver's seat and revved the engine. All the curtains in the house were still closed and there was no other sign of movement.
There are quite a few times on tasks when you really have no alternative but to shit yourself, especially on urban OPs where you're in a loft space and there are people downstairs. You try not to do it, because you might have to go out into the street straight afterward and operate like a civilian, but sometimes, if there's no room to move, it's just got to be done. The only precautions you can take are to not eat before the op, drink as little as you can, and pop some Imodium--then hope for the best. It's a bit like the KitKat commercial, with the photographer outside the panda house at the zoo: you could have been lying in an OP for four weeks, but the moment you get the plastic wrap out, the panda emerges and does a quick impersonation of Fred Astaire.
I'd guessed correctly. By now the 4x4 was in the garage, the boat was back in position and he'd gone back into the house. I finished off the job with the plastic wrap and gas container and pulled up my trouser bottoms.
I was feeling quite sorry for myself; the only consolation I could think of was that plastic probably did the job better than the shiny stuff in the car park toilets would have done.
I tore off another big length of it, wrapped up all my offerings and popped them straight into the bergen. It would help to hide the smell, which in turn meant it wouldn't attract flies and animals. I then tucked the fuel canister back into the bergen as well, doing my bit for eco-tourism.
I'd learned my lesson. I dug around in the day sack for the Imodium and took another six capsules, probably enough to constipate an elephant. I lay down again with my hands resting under my chin, looking at the target, but after a couple of sniffs I decided to rub them with soil and keep them away from my face for a while.
On target, nothing else had changed. The curtains were still closed.
In the hide, it was now wet and miserable. The rain was starting to fall more heavily; the noise of it hitting the trees increased and it was dripping from the foliage, through the cam net, and running down my face and neck. I brushed away a small twig that had stuck to my cheek. Sod's law of OPs was at it again; I knew it would only be a matter of time before it percolated down onto me in a steady stream.
I got out the phone again. Sheltering it under my chest, I switched on the power, tapped in my PIN and dialed Kay's sweetshop then *2442.
They would be transmitting one-time pad number groups to me, exactly as I'd done to them, except that the groups would have been recorded on a continuous tape, which would keep running until I acknowledged that I had received it.
I cradled the phone to my ear and listened as I switched the Psion to word-processing mode. As the woman's voice recited groups of five digit numbers, I tapped them into the keyboard. It was easier than writing them down.
'Group six: 14732. Group seven: 97641. Group ...'
I knew it had got to the end of the message when she said, 'Last group:
69821. End of message. Press the star key if you require the message repeated.'
I did. I then had to wait a few moments for the message to repeat itself so I could receive the first five groups. Up it came again: 'You have a' pause, different voice 'sixteen' back to normal voice 'group message.
