doom and gloom on CNN’s website.
Two junctions past McD’s, I took the left and headed uphill towards Barnov. The river was behind me, the big telecoms mast up to my half-left, its warning lights blinking red. The ambient glow from the main drag faded as I moved further into the residential area, and nothing much took its place apart from what spilled from behind curtains and the occasional car headlamp. Up here the street lighting wasn’t just poor, as it was around the target; it was non-existent.
My cell vibrated in my jeans pocket as a blue-and-white cruised downhill. I pulled it out and hit green.
‘All clear my side, and the obvious is pretty busy.’ He had cleared the road that paralleled the target street, leading to the obvious, the Primorski club, checking there hadn’t been a murder or anything that might persuade the blue-and-whites to pile in and block off the street. He’d said he wanted to be there fifteen minutes before me; team leader and all that. It wasn’t my place to argue; he was the mechanic; I was the oily rag.
Charlie was carrying all the MOE kit in the satchel, over his shoulders. All he needed to complete the mature student look was a roll-up and a woolly hat. To help me blend in, I’d bought myself a black Tbilisi Dynamo basketball cap. It also covered the black ski mask that was folded on top of my head, just in case we fucked up and kicked off any of the CCTV cameras we could see, or any that we couldn’t. So confident was he that I was going to stay, Charlie had bought it for me before I’d even got there.
I started to feel the trickle of sweat down my back once more as I made my final checks. I ran through my jeans pockets, just in case I’d inadvertently kept some loose change since leaving the bookshop, and made sure my clear rubber gloves were still there. It wasn’t as if they were going to jump ship on their own, but it made me feel better to check again that they had-n’t. Check and test, check and test; that was what this game was all about.
I had the gloves but no change; the charity box in the bookshop had done well out of my tradecraft skills. Everything else was in the room safe, and my entry card was shoved behind the toilet next to the hotel’s restaurant. Going on a job sterile was something that always felt uncomfortable to me. Not having my passport meant not having a means of escape. But if we got caught, we lost our passports and they knew who we were. This way, if we got caught and escaped, we still had a chance of making it out of the country. I also had $400 in cash rolled up in my jeans pocket. Not for any particular reason, it just made me feel a little better.
I made sure the mini-Maglite was in my bomber jacket’s left pocket. If I tested it any more, I’d run the battery flat. The heavy steel CO2 canister from one of the fire extinguishers was secure in my right. It was about nine inches long and as effective a truncheon as I could wish for.
Charlie had the other one I’d extracted from the pair of fire extinguishers I’d borrowed from the top floor of the Marriott. They were our make-like-burglars kit. If we did get compromised, the ‘actions on’ would be the same as we employed over the water: fight our way out and nick something, maybe even mug the person who compromised us.
I had a final look at my boot soles for stones, and after a quick jump up and down to check for noise and to make sure the canister wasn’t going to fall out, I was ready. I just wanted to get this over and done with and start listening to flight attendants with Australian accents as soon as possible.
5
The French and Chinese embassies were lit up like Christmas trees, and their guard huts leaked wailing, almost Arabic music. The odd set of headlights cruised up or down the street, but Barnov was mostly shrouded in darkness.
The target house was coming up on my left. No lights from the top windows. No neighbour’s windows lit that overlooked the gates or yard. So far so good.
I called Charlie. ‘Clear.’
‘Still clear this side. See you in two.’
The phone went dead and this time I’d memorized his number so I deleted it before powering down. Everything was now clear on the phone, not that it would mean much if we got lifted. They could still trace numbers in and out.
I watched the mature student coming downhill from the Primorski end. The street looked clear behind him. I had no idea what was going on behind me, but that didn’t matter. If Charlie saw a problem, he would just carry on walking when he got to the gate. Same for me. We would then do a complete circuit and come back and try again.
He got to the gates before me, unshouldered the satchel and placed it gently on the ground. A new layer of Paperclip graffiti had been sprayed on them since we’d been there earlier. At least it covered up the rust. He did one last check round, then dropped to his knees. I got my back against the left-hand gate and kept checking the area as I put on my rubber gloves.
Charlie was peering through the two-inch gap at the bottom. It must have been OK the other side. The Audi obviously wasn’t there, because he pulled his home-made tension wrenches from the satchel and got to work on the lock. Maybe it made him feel better to use his own kit rather than the one-stop-shop option that Whitewall had delivered. Who cared, as long as he got us into the yard in quick time?
There was the faintest scraping of metal against metal as he began to attack the lock. It really did feel like old times. I even had a moment of deja vu, back to a time when we were operating over the water, doing a CTR together on a house in the Shantello estate in Derry. We were looking for a PIRA timing device that they planned to add to four pounds of Semtex and plant in a community centre on the other side of the river. A team in the Bogside, a couple of miles down the road, were watching a player and his wife who were out on the piss. Before closing time, in an hour, we had to try and get into their house, find the device and make sure it would never finish its job.
We got in through a back window, and the first objective was to clear all the rooms to make sure they hadn’t left kids asleep upstairs, or someone in the front room with headphones on listening to music.
We finally got to the attic landing. I climbed onto Charlie’s shoulders, lifted the trapdoor, and heaved myself into the loft space. His job was to pass up a Maglite so I could have a good look around before I committed myself to the search.
I dangled my hand ready to receive, but nothing happened. I leaned down further, in case he couldn’t reach, and then a little more, to the point where I was nearly falling out of the hatch. I looked down to see what the problem was, and realized he was moving the Maglite lower and lower, just for the hell of it.
Charlie had to block his mouth with both hands to stop himself snorting with laughter. At least he thought it was funny. In the end, like with most CTRs, we found fuck all. The pubs closed and we had ten minutes to get out and leave everything exactly as we’d found it.
Charlie was taking for ever. A lever lock is very basic; even with improvised gear, it should have taken no more than thirty seconds to open. I took my eyes off the road and gave him a gentle kick. ‘For fuck’s sake, get on with it, you senile fucker.’
His shoulders rocked with silent laughter just as headlights came downhill from our left. I broke away and started walking up the road towards the Primorski. I knew that Charlie would be getting to his feet and following suit, hands in his pockets, as I had, to hide the gloves. We’d both do a circuit.
The vehicle, a big Merc, hung a right, down towards the Primorski, just as I made the same turn. It pulled up at the kerb, and three girls in their early twenties got out, followed by a man of fifty something. The girls were dressed in spangly gear that sparkled and dazzled in the pink and blue neon. Maybe that was why Grandpa still had his sunglasses on. Wafts of high-octane perfume and cigar smoke filled the air as I walked past. The club’s black doors were held open for them by security and I heard a low rumble of talk, music and laughter.
I turned left to carry on with the circuit. I was worried about Charlie. It had been taking him far too long to open the gate. I sparked up the phone. If he’d remembered, he would have done the same. ‘Listen, are we going to get in there, or what? Get your finger out and get on with it.’
A car passed him as he replied, but I swore I heard him laugh. ‘Let’s give wisdom and experience one more go, then bull-headed youth can have its chance.’
The phone went dead but I kept it in my hand. A couple more cars bounced and splashed their way across
