Zero Hour Part 27

I kept my voice low and soft. 'Angeles, take your time. Clean up. But first, give me your clothes. I'm going to go downstairs, and I'm going to sort everything out. Do you understand?'

She gave a nod and I let go of her face. She started to undress and I went to the sink. The cold water on my hand felt almost as bad as the acid had, but I knew it was the only way. In a perfect world I'd have kept it up for at least half an hour, but that wasn't going to happen.

She came out with her bloodstained clothes in a bundle. Her shoulders were hunched. Her skin was goose-b.u.mped all over. She looked like she belonged in a horror movie. Her skin was so white it was almost translucent, but her hands and face were crimson.

'That's great. Now go and have a shower. I'm going to bring the shopping up.' I gave her a smile. I pointed to her hair. 'You'll be needing the brush, won't you?'

I didn't get a smile back. There was nothing I could do for her apart from get things sorted and try to make her as physically comfortable as possible.

She loitered by the shower door.

'It's OK, Angeles. I'm not going anywhere except downstairs. I have to sort everything out. You've got to help me and I've got to help you. Everything is OK. Go, go.'

She nodded slowly and stepped into the steam.

12

The bags lay ripped and trampled on by the front door. I shoved whatever I could into the ones that were still intact, and scooped the rest of the gear into my arms. I headed back up and dumped the lot on the brown carpet. The electric shower hummed away on the other side of the stud wall as Angeles went through the horror of watching someone else's blood drain away by her feet.

I almost fell down the stairs in the rush to get back to the loading bay and start the clean-up. First into the rear footwell went the jeans with the stab punctures. I bundled up my vomit clothes and shoved them on top.

Next was my neo. I hauled him by his feet and pushed and heaved him on top of his would-be compet.i.tor. I'd never been a great one for poetic justice, but this came close.

Both neos were f.u.c.king idiots as far as I was concerned, but I needed to give myself a good kicking as well. They'd probably pinged us at the market, when I was paying more attention to cheering Angeles up than thinking about who might be looking over our shoulders.

They should have reported back to Flynn once they'd IDed the safe-house instead of taking things into their own heavily tattooed hands. Whatever, the fact was that in the next couple of hours whoever was back at the silo was going to be flapping and making some calls. But I had no control over that; all I could do was crack on with the plan.

I had to wedge Angeles's neo as far down the rear pa.s.senger footwell as I could. The boot was already full. I'd cover him with her sleeping bag before leaving.

The effort left me wet with sweat and gagging for breath. I leant against the vehicle and felt the top of my head. The wound was crescent-shaped where his top set had been able to rip into the skin. It would scab up soon enough. The sweat down my back started to cool and I felt myself s.h.i.+ver. My a.r.s.e was hurting again, and so was my hand.

I had to grip the situation and make sure Angeles and I got out of here in one piece, simple as that. She'd only just started her life and I wanted mine to end with Anna. That was pretty simple as well.

I forced myself off the vehicle and carried on collecting together all the device-making paraphernalia and tucking it around the bodies. There was no easy way to erase my prints from the wagon, let alone the DNA. I could burn it, but even thirty years after an event, blood can still be identified. The only way I could to deal with this was to get all the evidence together and make sure it was never found. Not while I was alive, anyway.

I didn't touch the neos' wallets or ID. If I did my job correctly, the wagon would never be found, and all my problems, and some of Angeles's, would be packed away inside.

I lugged the battery back into the Pa.s.sat and connected it up. Thank f.u.c.k it still worked. I didn't have jump leads.

I turned my attention to the devices. First into the Bergen was the water container with about four litres of fuel. Then I carefully curled the gaffer-tape fuse into a couple of loops and laid it on top. I took the roll of gaffer tape over to the alarm clock, gave the bulb a generous protective coating, made sure the batteries were still in the wrong way round, then it went in as well.

Next was the picric acid. The yellow mush had crystallized on the plastic, and was ready for bagging. I placed it carefully in two new freezer bags, which I tucked into the left-hand pouch of the Bergen. The two bags of cartridge propellant went in the other side.

I put the Bergen into the front pa.s.senger's footwell of the Pa.s.sat and climbed behind the wheel. I sat there, working through exactly what I was going to have to do tonight. I visualized my actions as if I were a camera lens, watching my hands a.s.sembling the devices, going through everything step by step. I didn't want to forget any detail that would stop the device detonating once I'd left.

The fire door opened. Angeles appeared in her new jeans. She had the brush in one hand but hadn't even tried to get through the knots in her hair. She looked about her. All that remained of the drama was a pool of dark red, almost brown, blood that had been smeared along the concrete as I'd dragged the body of her neo towards the Pa.s.sat.

I climbed out. 'I need to clean that up before we leave.'

She wasn't listening. 'We will tell the police?'

'No, we won't tell the police anything. We just leave, and we never say anything to anyone at any time about anything. Is that OK with you?'

Her head juddered, maybe out of fear. 'I wanted to kill him.' She pointed at the blood on the ground. 'I wanted to make him pay. Make them all pay.'

I was expecting her to start crying again as I walked over to her, but she didn't. The tears had gone. She was pleased with what she had done. Fair one, I would have felt the same.

'Angeles?'

She kept her eyes on the blood.

'Angeles, look at me.' I went over to her and bent down so I could get eye-to-eye again. 'I've got to leave for a while tonight, but I'll be back.'

Her eyes widened.

'Just for a while. I have to get rid of the car. When I come back, we will leave here and go to my friend who is going to help you - help both of us.'

She gave a brisk nod. It was as if what had been left of the child in her had gone, which I supposed it did pretty quickly once you'd stabbed a man to death.

'Nick, why are you here? What are you doing for - what do you call it? - your job?'

'Remember what we said before? You ask no questions, because I'm not going to answer, OK?'

She looked at me for a couple of seconds, and nodded.

13

I stopped the Pa.s.sat, jumped out and went back to hit the shutter b.u.t.ton. A few moments later I was heading down the road towards the roundabout and then on to Distelweg, shoving the contents of Bradley's briefing folder into the glove compartment as I drove.

I was going to the silo sterile. My pa.s.sport was still in the mailroom. The heating felt good around my body as the Pa.s.sat glided towards the ca.n.a.l. It stank of bodies and vomit, but that didn't matter. I crossed into the world of darkness the other side of the water and was soon approaching the tile warehouse. I pulled into the car bays and killed the lights and engine. I sat, watched and listened. The sky was clear tonight; at least there would be no rain.

There were no lights, no voices, no traffic.

I waited another five minutes, then fired up the wagon and carried on down Distelweg. Not too fast; not too slow. I didn't want to be noticed for doing either. I couldn't see much, but I checked for anything that might have changed since I was last here.

The target was in darkness.

As I pa.s.sed the two-level warehouse or factory immediately before the wasteground, an external door opened and there was a burst of light. It was closed again quickly. No drama. It was three hundred metres from the target. If somebody was working late, and staying inside, they wouldn't get hurt. There was nothing happening on the outside, for sure. There were no lights. What was about to happen would be something to tell the kids, but not much more.

I drove down to the sharp left-hand turn by the ferry point, and the city lights glowed at me from across the water. I followed the road, looking down the steep drop from the reclaimed land of the dock into the bay, for about two hundred metres. On my left, the land side, there was a clutch of small industrial units. A small brick path and a thin strip of gra.s.s ran away to the right, stopping at the water about three metres below. I found a gap between the wire-mesh fences of two units and reversed into it. I closed down once more but left the ignition on. This time I sank into the seat, nice and low, letting my a.r.s.e slide down the leather. I kept my weight on the left cheek. As long as I didn't move, n.o.body walking past would see me.

I powered down the window to listen for vehicles or footfall and checked the luminous hands on my watch. It was nearly 20.40.

I switched the internal light to off, so that it wasn't triggered by the opening door, and stepped out of the car. I went round to the pa.s.senger side, took out the Bergen and put it down against the fencing. Then I got back behind the wheel.

I turned the ignition key and leant over and pressed the b.u.t.ton to tilt the back of the pa.s.senger seat as far as possible to wedge Angeles's neo in place, then did the same with the driver's. I opened the door and took a quick final look outside.

I positioned my right foot on the sill, which made my stab wound throb as I strained to keep myself upright. My left hand gripped the edge of the roof. I changed it to my right, and then pushed myself in against the door hinges for support. I needed my left hand and left foot free.

I leant in, pressed my foot on the brake pedal, and selected drive. I let go of the brake as the engine started to take the Pa.s.sat gently forward. I held on, leaning back into the hinges, and once it had travelled about halfway across the road I pushed my left foot down on the gas and we lurched forward. I held it there a bit longer, but no more than two seconds because it was really starting to roll.

Hanging half out of the car, I pushed off with my feet and the Pa.s.sat lurched on towards the water. As my feet hit the tarmac I curled up to accept the landing. I was only moving at about twenty m.p.h. but it felt like fifty.

I rolled a couple of times as the wagon disappeared from view, then heard a loud splash.

14

My a.r.s.e had taken some of the hit on my right hip and I was in agony. I staggered to my feet and headed for the water's edge. I didn't bother looking left or right. The deed was done. If I'd been seen, there was f.u.c.k-all I could do about it.

I got to the edge just as the tailgate disappeared under the water. It looked like the last throes of a torpedoed s.h.i.+p. I'd only left one window open. I wanted the vehicle to fill with water to make sure it sank, but I also wanted it to keep the bodies entombed.

After three days, under normal conditions, the intestinal bacteria in a corpse produce huge amounts of gas that flows into the blood vessels and tissues. Large blisters form on the skin, and then the whole body begins to bloat and swell. The gas turns the skin from green to purple to black, makes the tongue and eyes protrude, and often pushes the intestines out through the nearest orifice. This process is speeded up if the victim is in a hot environment, or in water.

As a young soldier, I used to be on the beach patrols in Hong Kong, looking out for what was left of Chinese illegal immigrants. The illegals travelled in overloaded boats and many of them drowned. They'd make it to Hong Kong, but after floating there for three or four days they looked like aliens from Star Trek.

When this happened to Angeles's neo, I didn't want him to escape as he bloated and floated. With luck, the seats were going to restrain him, and if not, at least he was unlikely to come out through one window and bob to the surface. I just hoped my door had slammed shut when it hit the water and hadn't been forced open.

I looked down. The water was dark and solid. f.u.c.k knew what was down there. Hundreds of years of bodies and secrets. The Pa.s.sat was already becoming part of history. Or so I hoped.

I pulled out the BlackBerry and flung it as far as I could into the bay. I didn't want that thing banging in my ear when Tresillian went ballistic - which he was sure to do when I got those girls out.

As long as Anna was safe, I wasn't worried about reprisals. What was he going to do? Kill me? If so, he'd better get his finger out or the monster in my head would get there first and do the job for him. That would really p.i.s.s him off.

I hobbled back to the Bergen. The pain subsided in my hip, though not so much in my a.r.s.e. I remembered the last time I'd tried to dump a car in a reservoir. I was a young soldier, years before I was sent to Hong Kong. My old Renault 5 was a wreck. I'd have had to pay to have it sc.r.a.pped, so a mate and I came up with a great idea in the pub one night. We'd drive to the Talybont reservoir in Wales and not stop when we got to the water. We'd go down in two cars on a Sat.u.r.day night, and Sunday I'd report it nicked from the town centre.

We drove down to Talybont, and things were looking good. I revved the engine, jumped out, and watched the Renault going into what we a.s.sumed would be at least sixty feet of water. Instead it settled in what looked like about four feet, visible for all to see. It turned out there were so many cars dumped in that same spot that mine had landed on top of a pile of others. We had to make our way down, climb over the other rust buckets, and rock the thing until it toppled off into deeper water.

All this reminiscing was probably par for the course when you were running out of road ahead. Or maybe there was a little voice telling me that though I'd thought some of these things were pretty s.h.i.+t at the time, perhaps they hadn't been.

I shouldered the Bergen and kept in the shadow of the buildings that lined this side of the road. No more thinking about the old days. I had to concentrate on the job. That was what I was here for - and this was the part I really wanted to do. It wasn't about the killing, however much that was for the greater good, or however Tresillian would justify it. At the bottom of this pile of s.h.i.+t, I was never going to save the world. But it would be nice to think that getting Angeles and Lilian and the other girls out would make it - for them at least - a better place.

As I headed towards the ferry point, the only sound came from the four litres of fuel slos.h.i.+ng about in the container between my shoulder blades.

I slowed down as I neared the ferry point and then stopped. I rested my hands on my thighs, listening and looking. The weight of the fuel made me wobble a bit as I leant down and it levelled off in the top of the container. Apart from my breathing, the only noises came from the other side of the bay and the s.h.i.+pping in between. There was nothing going on over here. I turned the corner, crossed the road and headed along the fence line towards the gap.

The factory beyond the target, where the light had come from, was as dark as everything else now.

I stopped at the rat run between the railings to check for signs of movement. Then I dropped the safe-house keys in the weeds to the right of the gap. I was on foot now, so I wanted them near to me. Sweat gathered where the Bergen rubbed against my back. I leant forward and bounced on the b.a.l.l.s of my feet so the Bergen bounced too. At the moment the pressure on the shoulder straps was released, I pulled down and adjusted them so they were nice and tight.

I looked out for the glow of a campfire in the hollow. The junkies must have been having a quiet night in.

Bending low to ease the Bergen through the gap without having to take it off my shoulders, I wormed my way through into the wasteground.

Still there were no lights, no signs of life, just the forbidding outline of the silo in the darkness ahead.

15

I was about twenty metres short of the target. The tower dominated the night sky. I still couldn't see any lights. There were no obvious changes since I'd last been here two nights ago.

This time, I leant against a slab of concrete instead of sitting down and c.o.c.ked an ear towards the target. I heard nothing but the distant honk of a s.h.i.+p getting p.i.s.sed off with another s.h.i.+p in the bay.

I tried to swallow. My throat was dry from humping all the kit. My boots were heavy with mud. I moved off. There'd be no cutting corners. I had to carry out the recce. I might be doing a lot of work for nothing.

I moved along the gable end until I reached the waterside corner. There was nothing new on the hard standing. No boats tied up alongside.

Bergen on my back, I moved slowly along the bay side of the building. I got to the metal doors. They hadn't been tampered with. The gra.s.s and weeds were standing to attention.

There was still no light.

I reached the far gable end, pa.s.sing the window to the office where I hoped the girls were being held. I turned right, and followed the wall to the door. It was still locked. I put my ear to the frame and could hear a faint noise. It was impossible to tell what was making it. I put my nose to the keyhole. It still smelt of cake shop.

I walked round to the back of the building, and carried on to do a complete 360 back to the conveyor-belt. Did anyone have eyes on me? Unlikely. Where would they be? f.u.c.k it, so what? If it was happening, it wasn't going to change anything I was going to do.

I climbed the Meccano as close to the silo as I could. It made for a longer climb, but I didn't want to be struggling along the conveyor-belt with all this gear on my back. I wasn't exactly Spiderman, but even he would have had his work cut out with pains in his a.r.s.e, hip, head and hand, and the unstable weight of the Bergen with a couple of gallons of liquid moving about inside it.

I took the rusty, flaky struts one at a time, maintaining three points of contact: both feet and hands firmly gripping, then one hand up to the next strut, and then a foot. I stopped and listened every two or three bounds. I was sweating, but it certainly wasn't from fear. I was doing what I wanted to be doing. I was having my one final kick.

And, anyway, this time I knew I was dead. I had an inkling of what it must feel like to be a suicide bomber. Like me, they had f.u.c.k-all to lose. It almost felt liberating.

I got to the last strut and hauled myself over the top. I lay flat on the rubber belt. The fuel sloshed as it levelled out. The hatch was slightly ajar, exactly as I'd found it and how I'd left it. I crawled forward. A jet took off from Schiphol in the distance and climbed quietly overhead.

The conveyor-belt creaked under my weight. To me, it felt like I was making enough noise to wake up the whole of Noord 5. It couldn't be helped. All I could do was take my time and not f.u.c.k up by dropping anything or falling off.

I slowly pushed the hatch open, just enough to get my head through. As before, my nose filled with the smell of flour. As before, there was the faintest glimmer of light through the gap at the bottom.