The plan was simple. I sat there and kept the trigger on AM Net, while the Yes Man stagged on in London, waiting for the next email to be sent. There would be a fifteen-second delay between Siobhan receiving it and it popping up on his screen.
This wasn't an ideal spot to be keeping the trigger from because of the main in between. Vehicles cut my view and the target became unsighted for seconds at a time. But it was the best I could do. Anywhere else, I'd stand out like a bulldog's bollocks.
Flower Street was too narrow to hang about unobtrusively, and there were no options left or right close enough to the target where I could step back into the shadows. If the target came out of AM Net and headed my way, we'd have a head-on.
I couldn't just walk up and down the street, waiting. This was the city of kidnappers and suicide-bombers. Their kids were running around delivering tea and cooking kebabs. So there I sat with the main drag between me and the target.
Sirens warbled. The gates to my left swung open and two Merc ambulances screamed out, heading south. The traffic stopped briefly to let them through, then the trigger on the shop disappeared intermittently again as more vehicles drove between us.
There were a lot of old jeeps that had been rebuilt to carry sixteen people on the tail-bed. They obviously kept these things on the road until they finally fell apart. There was plenty of old Russian gear still about as welclass="underline" big trucks with bulbous noses that were made in the 1980s but might have been at the siege of Stalingrad. They laboured up and down blocking my view, overloaded with bricks and rubble.
My normal clothes, the map, the Mini-Ero and mags were stuffed into my Bergen, which I'd kept on my back. The straps were loosened so it fell back and rested on the top of the bench. My arm itched and I hadn't resisted much up to now.
The young lad came back out of the target with an empty tray. I could have done with a brew right now. I eyed the two old guys selling tea on the corner at the other side of the road, under the sign pointing to AM Net. They'd sparked it up about an hour ago and were doing a brisk trade. If only…
Another guy went into AM Net — maybe young, I couldn't tell under the beard and cowpat.
I gripped the phone.
A knackered truck pulled up at the kerb and a gang of workers with shovels clambered out. They moved further along and started having a go at the ditches. A few had black and white shemags like mine, but all wore orange fluorescent jackets over their other gear. Health and Safety had even weaselled their way into Kabul. They should have had a look round the back of the Jock's place.
He came back out of AM Net. The Yes Man hadn't rung.
I used the phone to give the sutures another rub instead. The traffic was binding, sometimes stopping altogether and blocking my view.
It was just after half eight when I felt more vibrations in my hand.
I got my head down again but strained to keep my eyes on target. 'They online?'
'Yes…' He hesitated, perhaps checking monitors. 'Is it him? Do you have Dominik?'
'No.' I kept my eyes on AM Net, waiting for the sender to sign off and come out.
'The email has confirmed proof of life. The tree fell on John's BMW in the storm last winter.'
The traffic snarled in front of me again. I kept my head pressed firmly to the phone.
The Yes Man read out the reply word for word as it came up on his screen. ' "They — are — getting — impatient — please — hurry…"' Shit. Two trucks blocked my line of sight. I'd lost the trigger again. I cut him short. 'I don't give a fuck what's being said. Call me when the link closes down.'
'Just has.'
I closed down, too, and slipped the phone back into my pocket. I got up, resisting the temptation to run like a lunatic. I smiled goodbye to my friends and stepped off the pavement.
I squeezed between the two trucks and reached the other side by the tea stall. I checked right, then left, then back up towards the embassy, as if I was meeting a friend. There was no one but pepper-pots and kids within the time and distance anyone could have walked from AM Net.
I played phone call to the mate and glanced through the target window as I crossed Flower towards it.
I could see the old man near the window, but no one else.
I'd fucked up big-time.
66
The young lad brushed past me with another tray of tea glasses. He disappeared into a baker's as I started checking down Flower. There was fuck all else I could do.
I walked quickly down the street, head up. I was going to have to risk appearing suspicious. If I didn't find anyone who looked like a possible target I was fucked anyway.
A group of surly young guys who were probably best mates with the ones chasing me last night moved towards me, but carried on past.
It was no more than a hundred to the junction where my reception committee had been waiting. It was much busier than this stretch.
My arms were pumping now. The main was a blur of orange-and-whites.
Bodies milled on both corners, talking and smoking. Women with shopping bags wove their way through.
I stopped and looked around. One cowpat, moving across Flower in the distance, was taller, much taller than the others.
I ran.
A taxi pulled up, an old Mazda estate, and I saw him slide into the back seat. As it pulled away, I couldn't believe what I was about to do. I waved frantically at the nearest orange-and-white and did the same.
67
I jumped into the back. The driver had a white beard and black teeth, and looked about eighty. He waffled some kind of greeting. I shoved my hand into my bum-bag and dragged out a bundle of bills. 'Let's go! That taxi! Follow, follow!'
I waved my hand urgently but he seemed more interested in the stink of Marmite. I shoved a couple of tens into his gnarled brown hand. 'Let's go! Chop-chop!'
He finally pulled away. He studied me in his rear-view, which had enough beads hanging off it to decorate a mosque.
The Yes Man's mobile vibrated in my baggy pockets. Fuck him, he could wait.
I leant forward between the two front seats, eyes skinned for the Mazda. I tried to stay all smiles as I gave his bony old shoulder a friendly squeeze. 'That's it, matey, let's go get that wagon!'
I shoved another note at him.
It was just after nine. The sun was behind us. TV Hill was on the left. We were heading west.
The road narrowed. The shops petered out. Concrete, flat-roofed two-storey houses took their place. I peered through the dusty, cracked windscreen but there was no sign of the orange-and-white estate.
A vehicle pulled out of our lane up ahead and cut left across the oncoming traffic.
'There! That taxi! Follow that taxi!'
I waved my hands and tried to get him to see what I wanted. He didn't understand until I produced another ten.
The orange-and-white disappeared down a compacted-rock road. It was definitely two up. A large body sat rear right. It didn't move, didn't check behind.
I rolled down the window. The noise and heat of the outside world rushed in. 'That's it. Left, yeah? That taxi, yeah?'
He grinned knowingly as he spun the wheel to get in among the oncoming traffic. He'd probably seen that bloke with a beard pull the same stunt in a hundred Bollywood films as he fought big-time crime in downtown Delhi.
He got halfway across the road and slammed on the brakes. I pitched forward. Two gleaming white GMC suburbans, all blacked-out glass, sped towards us. Red and blue lights flashed behind radiator grilles to tell us to keep the fuck out of the way. These boys were stopping for no one.