On the buildup for the Algeria job, when we were in Egypt, sitting around a pot of coffee just like we were now but without the clown getup, I’d told them about the seven P’ s: “Prior planning and preparation prevents piss-poor performance.” They liked that one — and it was funny afterward, listening to Hubba-Hubba trying to get his tongue around them in quick time.
“Okay, then, the Ninth of May is going to be parked at berth forty-seven, pier nine. Forty-seven, pier nine. That’s the second one up on the left-hand side of the marina as you look at it from the main road. Got that?”
Lotfi turned to Hubba-Hubba and gave him a quick burst of Arabic, and for once, I understood the reply: “Ma fi mushkila, ma fi mushkila.” No problem, no problem. Hubba-Hubba waved his gloved hands around the room as he traced the outline of the marina and pinpointed the pier.
I gave them the confirmatory orders for the stakeout, from placing the device to lifting and dropping off the hawallada.
Lotfi looked at the ceiling and offered his hands and beads to his maker. “In’sha’allah.”
Hubba-Hubba gave a somber nod, which looked ridiculous, given the way we were dressed. Lotfi’s beads clicked away as kids on motor scooters screamed up and down the street.
“Okay, then. Phase one, finding the Ninth of May. Lotfi, what are the closing times for the places you looked at?”
“Everything is shut by midnight.”
“Great — and yours, mate?”
There was a rustle of plastic as Hubba-Hubba moved in his seat. “Around eleven-thirty.”
“Good.” I picked up my cup and took a gulp of coffee. “I’ll do the walk-past at twelve-thirty A.M. I’m going to put the Megane in the parking lot up on the road, and walk down to the marina via the stores, check out the boat, then back to the OP via the garden and the “I fuck girls” bench, to clear the area in front of the OP.
“If the Ninth of May is parked where it should be, the OP won’t have to change.” I looked at Lotfi and he nodded slowly as he leaned forward to pick up his coffee. I described the OP once more, the higher ground above the fuck bench, the hedge, and the path from the marina to the main road. I needed them to know my exact location so that if there was a situation they would know where to find me.
Lotfi looked puzzled. “One thing I don’t understand, Nick. Why would anybody write that on a bench?”
I shrugged. “Maybe he’s proud of his English.”
Hubba-Hubba joined in gravely as he filled Lotfi’s cup. “I think that whoever wrote that has had a very tall glass of weird.”
Lotfi’s eyebrows disappeared under his shower cap. “You’ve been watching too much American TV.”
Hubba-Hubba grinned. “What else can I do while I wait for you to finish praying?”
Lotfi turned to me with a look of exasperation. “What am I to do with him, Nick? He is a very fine man, but an excess of popcorn culture is not good for such a weak mind.”
I started to go through the what-ifs. What if the boat wasn’t there at all? What if the boat was there, but in a different position and I couldn’t see it from the OP? What if I got compromised by a passerby in the OP? The answers at this stage were mostly that we’d just have to meet up on the ground to reassess. And if the boat didn’t make an appearance at all, we’d have to spend all night screaming up and down the coast, checking out all the marinas — and, of course, Greaseball.
I swallowed the last of my coffee and Hubba-Hubba picked up the pot to give me a refill. There was a gentle click of beads as I continued. “Phase two: the drop-off and the OP setup. I want you, Hubba-Hubba, to walk along the main and past the OP at twelve-forty with the radios, the pipe bomb, binoculars, and insulin case. If the OP area is clear, I want you to place the bag in the OP, so it’s there when I get back from finding the Ninth of May. Leave a Coke Light can in the top of the hedge to give me a telltale, then move back to your car and get in position for the stakeout. Where exactly are you going to be?”
Hubba-Hubba waved his arms about again to give me directions, as if I knew what was in his head and what he was pointing at. I was eventually able to establish that he’d found a place just past the marina, toward Monaco. “There are vehicles parked along the coast, mostly belonging to the houses on the high ground.” He checked inside the pot to make sure he had enough of the black stuff to keep us going. “The radio should work — I’ll be no more than four hundred yards away.”
“Good news.” I had a brainstorm. “Wrap all my OP gear up in a large dark beach towel, will you?”
He looked puzzled, but nodded.
“Once I’ve found the boat I’ll move back to the OP the same way that I walked in, but not before twelve- forty, so the gear drop can take place. Once I’m settled in the OP I’ll radio-check you both. Where are you going to be, Lotfi?”
He’d gone for the parking lot five hundred yards back into the town, on the other side of the marina from the OP. “The one that looks over some of the marina,” he said, “so the radio should work from there too — I’m in line of sight with you.”
It was a good position: in the dark it would be very difficult to see him, as long as he sat perfectly still and left a window open a fraction to stop condensation forming and giving the game away. I’d told both of them to practice this when we first met up in-country. They’d spent a couple of nights not getting noticed in supermarket parking lots, so they were well up to speed.
“Call signs are our initials — L, H, and N. If I don’t hear anything from you by one-thirty, or you don’t hear from me, you’d better move position and try to get comms. Come in closer if you have to. This job’s going to be a nightmare with these radios, but it would be even worse without them.
“Once we’ve established comms I’ll tell you if anything’s changed — like, the boat isn’t there — and we can reassess. Once we’ve done the radio check, and everything’s fine, the OP is set, and no matter what happens we must never lose the trigger on the Ninth of May. Not even for a second. Lotfi, I want you to radio-check us every half hour. If somebody can’t speak, just hit the pressle twice and we’ll hear the squelches.”
I moved on to phase three. “While we’re all hanging around and getting bored, I’ll be working out when to go down to the boat and place the device. I won’t know when I’m going to do it until I see what’s happening on the ground. And I won’t know where I’m going to place the thing until I know what the boat looks like. It might not happen tonight — they might have a rush of blood to the head and invite their pals around for a barbecue on deck, or decide to sleep under the stars. Or the boat next door might be throwing a party. But as soon as I’m ready, here’s what I want you both to do.”
I covered all the angles, and finished by telling them what I had in mind if there was a situation, so we could get away quickly and, with luck, make it look like nothing more significant than an aborted robbery. We didn’t want to put the collectors off their mission.
Lotfi and Hubba-Hubba were absolutely silent now. Even the beads were still. It was time for the difficult part.
“Okay, phase four, triggering the collectors away from the boat. We can’t afford to lose them. We think we know the first location, but it means nothing — we’re going to have to take them. I’m calling them Romeo One and Romeo Two, and so on as we ID the hawallada. I’ll give them their numbers when I first see them. If they go toward Monaco, this is how I want to play it…”
I covered the details of the take of the collectors to the Palais de la Scala. Then I went through the actions- on in the event that they went toward Nice or Cannes, and finished my coffee before confirming the major points.
“Remember that radio contact is vital, especially if I’ve had to follow them onto a train. If we have this all wrong and they go toward Nice and Cannes, I want you, Lotfi, to head straight for the Cannes location. Hubba- Hubba, you work your way into the city and take Nice. That way, hopefully, one of you will be at the collection point to back me up — if I manage to stay with them.
“If they go somewhere else altogether and we get split and lose comms, I’ll have to assess the situation, see if I can do the job myself. Whatever happens, we’ll meet back in our BSM positions again by 0030 Saturday morning. I’ll radio-check at 0100. If there’s been a fuck-up, we’ll meet up on the high ground and sort ourselves out. Any questions?”
They shook their heads again, and Lotfi got cracking with the beads.
“Phase five: lifting the hawallada, and the drop-off. Getting the Special K into him is going to be difficult. I doubt if he’ll take the injection lying down. Just remember, no matter what, he has to be delivered alive. When and how we do this is going to have to be decided by whoever is on the ground at the time.”
