bags of rice and pistachios. The next one along sold nothing but second-hand clothing. Both of us blended in well. Angeles didn’t get a second glance in her gear from the House of Bling.
I was going to keep her with me now, regardless. No way was I was going to let her stay in the safe-house with the Moldovans downstairs and a roomful of volatile explosive mixes. If she nosed around and found the bodies she might lose it completely. If she found the mix and fucked about with it she could take down the building. Only by controlling her at all times could I be sure that I knew where she was.
The first priority was a coat each, not only to keep us warm and dry, but also to cover our existing clothes if we had to do a runner before we bought anything else. All the voices around us were Dutch, Arabic and Turkish, so I did my normal grunt and point. Next came a couple of sets each of trainers, jeans and sweatshirts. I also bought her a hairbrush to sort out the bird’s nest on her head.
I was pissed off that I was still going to be in-country when the place went up. The timer had to be set for two or three hours at most. That way, the batteries had a good chance of staying charged. Once I left the silo, I had no control over the device. I wanted it to be exposed for the least possible time, yet still able to give me enough to get out of the area.
I also couldn’t control the space that the device was placed in, so would have no way of knowing if it had been discovered. I had to factor in getting back to the safe-house afterwards, not just to pick up Angeles, but also to shower and scrub the DNA and cordite off me, then get rid of the clothes I’d worn on-target. The last thing I wanted to do was to turn up at the departure gate, and have security sensors detect traces of explosives on my clothes or hands.
We moved away from the clothing stalls and she got changed in one of the coffee shops that lined the market while I slid into my nasty new black coat. I bought kebabs and coffees, and she shovelled everything down like a girl possessed.
‘Nick?’
‘What?’
‘Your friend, what is her name?’
‘You will find out soon enough.’
Even with just a few weeks left, I couldn’t force myself to change the habit of a lifetime. I’d found over the years that giving out my own name was OK because it belonged to me. I could decide what I did with it, and what lies I was going to attach to it. But divulging the names of others was a different matter. That had to be up to them. In either case, you don’t give out information unless you have to. The less she knew about me, Anna, Flynn and all the rest, the better. I didn’t want to have an in-depth conversation about what I was doing here and where my family was. The only thing that was important was to get us both out of this situation. And as long as I kept her away from the loading bay, she’d know nothing and I could sort her out.
As we passed FilmNoord XXX, I scanned the road ahead. The ship still blocked the view of the waterway but apart from that there was nothing out of the ordinary, not even a car parked on the pavement.
We got to the door. She saw me checking the telltales in the locks.
‘This is a bad area. You have to make sure nobody breaks in.’
The keys ripped through the little slivers of paper and I opened up. Angeles went through with the bags. I followed and turned to close the door.
The two bodies that bomb-burst out from the garages came at me in a blur of leather jackets, shaved heads and face metal. They were already halfway across the road and closing on me fast.
I jumped inside and tried to slam the door shut.
She looked at me, terror-struck, rooted to the spot.
‘Run! Go!’
They kicked and pushed, jarring me backwards and forwards. I couldn’t hold it any more.
The door crashed open.
10
I pulled her through the fire door and into the loading bay. That was where there were weapons. Where there were weapons, there was a chance.
There was nothing else I could do for her now.
I let go but she grabbed my hand again. I had to push her out of the way. The pulse in my neck surged as my body built up to the fight. She screamed somewhere behind me but my focus was on the glass of acid sitting on the concrete.
One of them was so close I could hear his laboured breathing. I dropped to my knees. They banged against the concrete. The pain shot up my thighs. I grabbed the glass and some of the liquid spilt. It burnt my right hand. As I turned, all I could see was jeans and boots.
I jerked the glass upwards and let go of it a split second later. I rolled away to escape the splashback.
The bearded neo screamed and his hands clawed at his face. He fell to his knees level with me. I jumped up. I wanted the Leatherman. I wanted one of the glasses. I wanted anything that was a weapon for the next man, who now blurred into my vision from the left. The grunts and screams continued from the lad below me. He was still on his knees as he took the pain.
The thud as the other guy’s body hit me full-on was as hard as if I’d walked into the path of a moving car. The momentum hurled me against the opposite wall. The back of my head hit the blockwork. Stars burst in front of my eyes. Hollering and screaming was coming from everywhere: from me, from them, from Angeles.
I scrambled onto my hands and knees. I had to stand. I had to keep on my feet. Go down and you’re finished.
Neo number two was back and at me. He leapt on top of me. We grappled like a couple of scrappers in the schoolyard. I tried to head-butt him, bite him, anything to get him off me. I kicked and bucked. Both of us screamed. He had a week’s bristle on him that rasped against my cheek. The boy stank. I could smell booze, cigarettes and unwashed skin. My face was stuck into his neck. I tried to get my hands up to squeeze against it. He snorted with exertion and snot fired from his nose.
He finally opened his eyes and I could see them bouncing around, out of control. He was in a frenzy. He managed to get his hands around my neck and squeezed. I tried to shake left and right. He started to snarl like a pit-bull.
He was on top of me, on the floor. I wrapped my legs around his body. My arse felt like I’d sat on a branding iron, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that. If I could get him closer he couldn’t exert the same pressure round my neck as he leant in to me.
He lifted his head and snarled. It gave me a chance. I tried to head-butt him, tried to make contact wherever I could. I tried to bite into his cheek. He jerked his head away. I could taste his week-old sweat.
His mouth opened as he threw his face down onto the top of my head. He bit into my scalp. I could hear the skin break as his teeth sank in, and then the sound of him straining to bite harder.
I managed to get my legs tighter around his gut as the fucker started to pull his head back. I could feel the snorting from his nose as his teeth dug into my scalp and scraped along the bone.
I shoved my hands up in front of his face as my capillary bleeding sprayed the ground and ran down the back of my neck. My thumbs searched for his eyeballs and found the cheekbones and then went on from there. I pushed them down into the sockets. He jerked his head back. His teeth had to lose their grip. He needed to scream.
I moved my right hand so I had a flat palm underneath his chin, then switched my left to his ear. I didn’t have much choice. If he’d had a fistful of hair I’d have grabbed that instead. He howled at me through clenched teeth.
I wanted to break his neck. To do that I had to screw it off, like I was turning a tap. I had to take the head off at the atlas, the small joint at the base of the skull. It’s not so hard if you’re doing it against a body that’s standing. If you get them off balance as they’re going down, you can twist and turn at the same time, so their own momentum works against them. But all I could do was keep my legs around him and try to hold him in one place.
I managed to get my boots interlocked, and at last I could squeeze and push down with my legs, at the same
