The launch’s props powered down, and we came slowly alongside. The two guys grabbed our side rails. They were dressed in dry bags and black woolly hats, and had rolled-up life preservers around their necks. Venus got to her feet as they pulled us alongside. “Come with me.” She nodded down at the stretcher. “Where he’s headed, you don’t want to go.”
I left Goatee to his fate, and made my way up the gangway behind her. I was feeling weak and nauseous, and salt water gave the good news to my hands as I tried to get a grip on the guardrail.
Wrapping my arms around my chest like a cold child, I stepped into the red glow. There was a gentle hum of radio traffic, and murmured exchanges among the dozen or so bodies crouched in the small, steel-encased holding bay. They were all in dry bags, unzipped to let in some air. Next to each man, a Protect helmet, the sort canoeists wear, rested on top of a black nylon harness, holding magazines for the 10mm version of the Heckler & Koch MP5. All wore leg holsters with.45 Glocks. The red light was to protect their night vision; something was going to happen out there in the dark and, by the look of things, it was going to happen soon.
One of the bodies stood and spoke quietly to the woman. Her name wasn’t Venus, it was Nisha.
Then he turned back to the group. “White light, people. White light.”
Everybody closed their eyes and covered them with their hands as he threw the lock on a bulkhead door and pushed down the handle. White light poured in from the hallway, drowning the red. I followed Nisha; as the door closed, we stood blinking in a hallway lined with some sort of imitation wood veneer. There was complete silence, except for the gentle hum of air-conditioning from the ducts above us. Our rubber soles squeaked on the highly polished linoleum tiles as I followed Nisha along the hallway, expecting a squad of imperial storm troopers to appear at any moment.
I kept unwrapping an arm, checking the phone. The signal bars suddenly disappeared. “Stop!”
She spun around. “What’s the problem?”
“I can’t go any farther.” I started to turn back toward the red room. “I haven’t got a signal. The two guys in the van, they’re heading to Antibes — there’s a boat, we need to know where it is. I need a signal.”
“You talking Ninth of May?”
I nodded.
“We got it. Left Vauban a couple hours ago.”
“You’re already tracking it?”
“We’ll hit it just as soon as it crosses the line into international waters.” She turned back the way we were heading. “Come on. Someone is waiting to talk to you.”
We came to another veneer-covered steel door, with a stainless-steel entry system alongside it. She tapped in a code, there was a gentle buzz, and she pulled it open for me.
Banks of radar and computer screens glowed at us from three sides of the room. This had to be the ops center. Maybe a dozen people, all dressed in civilian clothes, talked quietly into radios and to each other as they studied the screens.
The room was small, maybe five yards by five, with wires ducttaped to the floor and wall; this wasn’t a permanent fixture. A large command desk dominated the center of the space. A gray-headed forty-something in a green polo shirt stood by it, poring over charts, mapping, and photography with two more serious-looking heads. All three grasped mugs of steaming brew, and none of them looked up.
As Nisha and I approached, I could make out satellite images of Vauban and BSM, and then an enlargement of my passport picture.
Grayhead finally acknowledged our presence. He raised a pale, overworked, acne-scarred face.
Nisha moved over to one of the computer screens. “You in command?” I asked.
He gave me the once-over. “You okay?”
I shrugged.
He nodded in the direction of Nisha, who was now holding a phone. “I wouldn’t keep him waiting.”
“Who?”
He didn’t answer, but I didn’t really need him to. As he turned and told someone to get me a medic, I dragged myself over to Nisha, eased myself down into a padded swivel chair, but couldn’t stop another spasm of coughing. Stuff came up, but there was nowhere to spit it, so I pulled out the neck of my sweatshirt and used the inside. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve before taking the phone. I put the cell phone on the desktop; there were two signal bars on the display.
“Nick?” It was George. “Where are the—”
“The collectors? They’re dead. It’s not them on the boat, I reckon it’s—”
“Stop. I need two things right now. One: where’s the rest of the team?”
“Both dead. The police will have the bodies by now….”
“You sure they’re dead?”
I took a long, slow, painful breath. “I watched one die, and heard the other.”
“Good. Were you part of the incident in L’Ariane?”
“Yes.”
“Good, we can contain that.” I heard him turn away from the mouthpiece and speak to the people around him. This was a deniable operation: they were making sure every track that could lead to us had been blocked. Lotfi and Hubba-Hubba were no longer assets. They’d been written off George’s balance sheet.
I could hear murmurs of approval from the voices around George as he finished passing on the great news.
“Okay. Two: is the device still on board? Our people are going to intercept.”
“Listen, George, it’s not the collectors on board. I just told you, they’re dead. It’s the source and Ramsay. They got the team and the collectors killed, and they’ve taken the money.”
“We know, son, we found out yesterday. They won’t get to keep it for long.”
We found out yesterday? They knew? Why the fuck hadn’t we known?
“What? We could have done things differently…the other two could still be alive.”
“I keep telling you, son, I don’t tell even God everything. Now, is the goddamned device still in position? They don’t know it exists yet — they need to know if it’s still there.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “What’s happening? You lifting them?”
“All we want is the money.”
“You’re just letting them go? They got our guys killed—”
“Okay, son, this is how it goes down. It’s over. They go free, we get the money, we get the hawalladas, you get a medic, and a good night’s sleep.”
“My team is dead, George. You’re letting the fuckers go?”
He didn’t even pause to draw breath. “I have other plans for those two. Don’t mess up on me now. You have everything to lose, and nothing to back up with.”
I remained silent for a moment. I thought about the boys on the RIBs giving Greaseball and Curly a big kiss on both cheeks and waving as they disappeared into the night.
George seemed to be reading my mind. “Son, do I need to worry about you?”
“No, George,” I said. “I know what I’ve got to do.”
“Good. Tell them about the device. We’ll meet soon.”
The phone went dead and I gave Nisha back the receiver. “There’s an explosive device on board.”
She turned to Grayhead. “Simon, we definitely have a device on board.”
He looked up sharply from his desk.
“On the top deck, a plastic cylinder tucked into the couch behind the wheel. There’s no antihandling device…just twist the cylinder, take the two AA batteries out, and it’s safe. I’ll draw a picture.”
Nisha was already fetching me paper as the information was passed down to the red room via one of the radio operators.
One of the medics arrived as I started sketching a diagram of the device and its location, trying not to smear it with too much blood.
Grayhead had other things on his mind. “Stand to, the crews. The Ninth of May… Looks like they’ve stopped hugging the coast and are heading out to sea. Should be over the line in twenty-five.”