We stopped next to the shutter, and Romeo Three fumbled through his bunch of keys. With Hubba-Hubba’s help and support, he finally inserted the right one into the cylinder lock and opened the metal door. Acting the gentleman, Hubba-Hubba ushered him inside and followed a step behind.
I entered the cool darkness last. There was hard concrete beneath my feet, and a strong smell of paint. Romeo Three started begging. The only word I could make out sounded like “Audi.” I pushed the door closed and hit the light switch on the left-hand side of the steel frame with my elbow. I could now see what the hawallada was babbling about. A French-plated metallic silver Audi A4 was parked and filled most of the space in here.
Hubba-Hubba stepped alongside him just as he was turning toward us and slammed his right hand over Romeo Three’s mouth. The keys slipped out of his hands and fell to the ground with a jangle. Pulling his head back, and hooking his left arm around his neck, Hubba-Hubba went down with him onto the dusty concrete, grazing the skin on his face, their clothes covered with dust.
Muffled screams escaped from the jerking body as he kicked against the side of the car in his struggle to get out from under Hubba-Hubba. The Egyptian looked like he was trying to wrestle a crocodile, and responded by forcing Romeo Three’s head more firmly into the concrete to the sound of both of them snorting for oxygen.
I was already down on my knees, opening up my fanny pack and extracting the insulin pen as the hawallada fought nonstop to free himself, and Hubba-Hubba did everything to keep his face down and his ass up.
“That’s good, mate, keep him there, keep him there.” I dug my right knee into his left thigh. His cologne filled my nostrils and I saw a gold Rolex glint on his wrist. This boy had obviously never seen what a traser could do for you.
I clamped the plastic needle cover between my teeth, and put all my weight onto his thigh, so I could get to the injection site before spitting the cover away. I could feel his wallet in the back pocket of his pants as I used my free hand to push down on his ass, trying to keep it still.
As I fumbled with the pocket button to pull his wallet out, there was a hiss of air brakes and another truck started to back into the post office loading bay.
Chapter 35
I whispered urgently, “For fuck’s sake, keep him still!”
The sound of the two of them fighting for breath as they heaved about on the concrete was almost as loud as the rattle of containers and banter between the postal workers.
I threw the hawallada’s wallet onto the ground and sat on both his legs, right behind his knees so his kneecaps were pressed into the floor. It must have hurt, but he was panicking too much to notice. I stabbed the pen into the upper right quadrant of his right buttock and pushed into him hard, pressing down the trigger at the same time. There was a faint ping as the spring pushed the larger than normal insulin needle through his clothing and into the muscle mass. I held the pen there, pushing down for ten seconds as instructed, as the sound of angry, frustrated breathing fought its way through Hubba-Hubba’s hand.
We both held him down for the minute or so it took for his struggles to subside. Very soon, he was en route for the K hole.
I got to my feet. Hubba-Hubba still held him down until he’d stopped moving completely. I reloaded the pen by unscrewing it and replacing the cartridge and needle. After picking up the spat-out needle cover, I packed everything away in the fanny pack and fished out the diaper pin from my jeans as Hubba-Hubba disentangled himself and brushed himself down. The carts outside were still being filled, to the sound of a lot of French banter.
Hubba-Hubba picked up Romeo Three’s keys and talked slowly and softly to Lotfi on the net, telling him what was going on as he inspected the fob.
With the opened diaper pin in my hand, I leaned down, forced open the hawallada’s mouth, and pushed it through his bottom lip and tongue before fastening it and clicking down the pink safety cap. His muscles were completely relaxed by the ketamine, and we couldn’t risk him swallowing his tongue and suffocating. There was also the risk of him vomiting as he came around from the drug, and if that happened at the DOP with no one else there, he might choke on it. The pin would keep him safe until he reached his new home. Meanwhile Lotfi had got the news from Hubba-Hubba, and I heard him give a double-click.
Our new friend was probably having his near-death experience by now, looking down at us both and thinking what a pair of assholes we were.
The Audi’s yellow fourways flashed as Hubba-Hubba pressed the remote and the locks clunked open.
I thumbed through the wallet and found that our new pal’s name was Gumaa Ahmed Khalilzad. On the whole, I preferred Romeo Three. Pulling at his sideburns and fiddling with the diaper pin, I got no reaction. Then I put my ear to his mouth to check his breathing; it was very shallow, but that was what we’d been told to expect with this stuff.
What I wasn’t expecting were the two thick, banded wads of hundred-dollar bills Hubba-Hubba held in each hand as he walked back from the Audi.
I took one bundle off him, and threw it down inside my jacket and sweatshirt. “A little commission he skimmed off the top?”
Hubba-Hubba nodded in agreement as he slipped his bundle down his shirt.
He looked at me expectantly. “What do we do now?”
A quick look at traser told me it was three-thirty-eight, a couple of hours or so before last light.
The banter from the postal workers ebbed and flowed as I went through the options. Hubba-Hubba knelt down and pulled out a crisply laundered white handkerchief from Gumaa’s now dirt-covered navy jacket. There was no way I could get Hubba-Hubba’s or Lotfi’s wagons in here. They wouldn’t fit in the garage, and they couldn’t just back up to load him in with people so close.
I watched as Hubba-Hubba tied the handkerchief around Gumaa’s head like a blindfold. It wasn’t to stop him seeing, but to protect his eyes. He had lost control of his eyelids as well as his tongue, and they might easily open during transportation to the DOP or during his wait there for pickup. We needed to deliver him in a reasonable condition so that the interrogation could start as soon as he came around, and not after he’d had emergency treatment to remove two inches of lollipop stick from his eyeball. We’d planned to use duct tape from our cars, but you can’t win them all.
I was going to have to drive the Audi out of Monaco with Gumaa in the trunk. There was no other way.
Hubba-Hubba looked at me expectantly. I gave him a nod and hit my pressle. “L?”
Click, click.
I could hear vehicles, and people talking around him. The chainsaw had stopped. “Are you still complete?”
Click, click.
“In the same place?”
Click, click.
“H is going mobile first to clear the DOP. I’ll then come out onto the square, turn left, and pass you in Romeo Three’s car, a silver Audi. He’ll be with me. I’ll count down to the intersection and then to you. You then back me, okay?”
Click, click.
“Good. We’ll then make our way to the drop-off, just as planned.”
Click, click.
“Remember, you are Romeo Three’s protection.”
At last he was able to come on the air. “Of course, of course.”
I nodded at Hubba-Hubba. “We’d better get him in the trunk.”
He went around to the driver’s seat and there was a clunk as the trunk opened. With me lifting his legs and Hubba-Hubba gripping him under his armpits, we lugged Gumaa over to the Audi and lifted him in. We were now vulnerable; him to getting the good news from a tail-end crash, and us to being compromised, so Lotfi would try to stay behind me, close enough to stop anyone getting between us in the traffic. As we laid Gumaa down, I took off his jacket and wrapped it around his head as a cushion, then pushed him onto his side so he could breathe better, adjusted the handkerchief, and stuck the wallet back into his pocket after wiping it free of prints. It was part of the package for the boys on the warship.