center. Maybe a dozen people, all dressed in civilian clothes, talked quietly into radios and to each other as they studied the screens.
The room was small, maybe five yards by five, with wires ducttaped to the floor and wall; this wasn’t a permanent fixture. A large command desk dominated the center of the space. A gray-headed forty-something in a green polo shirt stood by it, poring over charts, mapping, and photography with two more serious-looking heads. All three grasped mugs of steaming brew, and none of them looked up.
As Nisha and I approached, I could make out satellite images of Vauban and BSM, and then an enlargement of my passport picture.
Grayhead finally acknowledged our presence. He raised a pale, overworked, acne-scarred face.
Nisha moved over to one of the computer screens. “You in command?” I asked.
He gave me the once-over. “You okay?”
I shrugged.
He nodded in the direction of Nisha, who was now holding a phone. “I wouldn’t keep him waiting.”
“Who?”
He didn’t answer, but I didn’t really need him to. As he turned and told someone to get me a medic, I dragged myself over to Nisha, eased myself down into a padded swivel chair, but couldn’t stop another spasm of coughing. Stuff came up, but there was nowhere to spit it, so I pulled out the neck of my sweatshirt and used the inside. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve before taking the phone. I put the cell phone on the desktop; there were two signal bars on the display.
“Nick?” It was George. “Where are the—”
“The collectors? They’re dead. It’s not them on the boat, I reckon it’s—”
“Stop. I need two things right now. One: where’s the rest of the team?”
“Both dead. The police will have the bodies by now….”
“You sure they’re dead?”
I took a long, slow, painful breath. “I watched one die, and heard the other.”
“Good. Were you part of the incident in L’Ariane?”
“Yes.”
“Good, we can contain that.” I heard him turn away from the mouthpiece and speak to the people around him. This was a deniable operation: they were making sure every track that could lead to us had been blocked. Lotfi and Hubba-Hubba were no longer assets. They’d been written off George’s balance sheet.
I could hear murmurs of approval from the voices around George as he finished passing on the great news.
“Okay. Two: is the device still on board? Our people are going to intercept.”
“Listen, George, it’s not the collectors on board. I just told you, they’re dead. It’s the source and Ramsay. They got the team and the collectors killed, and they’ve taken the money.”
“We know, son, we found out yesterday. They won’t get to keep it for long.”
We found out yesterday? They knew? Why the fuck hadn’t we known?
“What? We could have done things differently…the other two could still be alive.”
“I keep telling you, son, I don’t tell even God everything. Now, is the goddamned device still in position? They don’t know it exists yet — they need to know if it’s still there.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “What’s happening? You lifting them?”
“All we want is the money.”
“You’re just letting them go? They got our guys killed—”
“Okay, son, this is how it goes down. It’s over. They go free, we get the money, we get the hawalladas, you get a medic, and a good night’s sleep.”
“My team is dead, George. You’re letting the fuckers go?”
He didn’t even pause to draw breath. “I have other plans for those two. Don’t mess up on me now. You have everything to lose, and nothing to back up with.”
I remained silent for a moment. I thought about the boys on the RIBs giving Greaseball and Curly a big kiss on both cheeks and waving as they disappeared into the night.
George seemed to be reading my mind. “Son, do I need to worry about you?”
“No, George,” I said. “I know what I’ve got to do.”
“Good. Tell them about the device. We’ll meet soon.”
The phone went dead and I gave Nisha back the receiver. “There’s an explosive device on board.”
She turned to Grayhead. “Simon, we definitely have a device on board.”
He looked up sharply from his desk.
“On the top deck, a plastic cylinder tucked into the couch behind the wheel. There’s no antihandling device… just twist the cylinder, take the two AA batteries out, and it’s safe. I’ll draw a picture.”
Nisha was already fetching me paper as the information was passed down to the red room via one of the radio operators.
One of the medics arrived as I started sketching a diagram of the device and its location, trying not to smear it with too much blood.
Grayhead had other things on his mind. “Stand to, the crews. The Ninth of May… Looks like they’ve stopped hugging the coast and are heading out to sea. Should be over the line in twenty-five.”
The red room would be a hive of activity now as the crews pulled on their chest harnesses, made ready their weapons, and finally put on their Protects and life-preservers.
As I sat there, trying to cut away from my anger, the theme tune to Mission Impossible struck up. Heads spun to see which shit-for-brains had brought a cell phone into the ops center.
I pressed the green button and immediately got Thackery hollering in my ear. “It’s gone, the boat left!” I heard the kids from the Lee in the background. “There were two on board, the guy who owns the boat, and his friend….”
I looked around me as things started getting more intense. The crews were in the boats, ready to go. “Stand down, mate, it’s all been taken care of.”
“What?”
“It’s all been taken care of, stand down. Thanks, mate, thanks.” I hit the end-of-call button, then finished the drawing and handed it to Nisha.
I sat in the swivel chair as Grayhead confirmed the crews were ready in their boats. As soon as they had the drawing, he’d give them the go. “Contact thirty-three minutes.” He wanted to make sure they were in international waters.
George was right, of course. This was going to be a long war, and Greaseball would be even more useful in future. Now they’d stolen from al-Qaeda, George had both of them tightly by the balls, and could point them in whatever direction he pleased, as long as HIV didn’t get them first.
“Contact twenty-nine minutes,” a voice called out from the radar screen.
I wondered what was happening on the Ninth of May. Curly would probably be doing the driving, leaving Greaseball to pull the cork on a bottle of good champagne. Next stop, maybe, some boy-town Greek island and the start of their own big-bang theory.
The ops room continued to follow the progress of their two crews.
“Same heading. Contact twenty-one minutes.”
But then my smile disappeared. So what if they lost the money? They’d still be alive: they’d still get to go wherever it was they were heading.
As the medic lifted my sweatshirt and started to have a good look at what was left of my rib cage, I pictured Lotfi and Hubba-Hubba in their Rubbermaids at the safe house, having a good laugh as I gave them my jester impression. They had saved my life, and kept their promise to each other. Now it was time for me to keep mine to them.
I started pressing the buttons with my right thumb as the medic dug into his bag. A gentle beep sounded each time I hit another digit of the pager number, willing it still to be in range.
Suddenly the answering service was yammering off to me in French. I didn’t understand a word it was saying, but I knew what it meant: “Wait for the tone, then tap in the number that you want the pager to display. After that just hit the star button.”
