It didn't look much like the sort of Sinn Fein or PIRA offices I was used to. Cable Street in Deny, for example, was a row house on a 1920s residential street; the places in west Belfast were much the same. Had Pat got this right? In my mind I'd been expecting some old tenement. Chances were this was just a front--it would be a commercial business;
people working there would be legit.
I focused on the target as we walked past, but didn't look back. You have to take in all the information the first time around.
"Nick?"
"What?"
"My feet are really wet."
I looked down. Her feet were soaked; I'd been concentrating so much on what to do next that I hadn't noticed the puddles we were walking through. I should have bought her a pair of boots at the mall.
We got to a T-intersection. Looking left, I could see that the road led down toward the river. More cars parked up on the shoulders, and even more scrap yards
I looked right. At the end of the street was the elevated highway, and just before that, above the rooftops, I could see the dish on top of the Calypso Hotel. I was feeling good.
A successful recon and somewhere to stay, and all before 11 a.m. We walked into the hotel parking lot. I pointed between a pickup truck and a UPS van.
"Wait under the landing, and keep out of the rain. I'll be back soon."
"Why can't I come with you. Nick? It's dark under here."
I started my puppy-training act.
"No wait ... there. I won't be long." I disappeared before she could argue.
The hotel lobby was just one of the first-floor rooms turned into an office. Checking in was as casual as the layout. The poor Brit family story was understood a lot quicker here.
I Went outside, collected Kelly, and, as we walked along the concrete and cinder block toward our new room on the second floor, I was busy thinking about what I'd have to do next. She suddenly tugged on my hand.
"Double crap!"
"What?"
"You know, like not nice. You said the other one was crap.
This is double crap."
I had to agree. I even thought I could smell vomit.
"No, no, wait till you get in. You see that satellite dish? We can probably get every single program in the world on that. It's not going to be crap at all."
There were two king-size beds in the room, a big TV, and the usual dark, lacquered surfaces and a few bits of furniture a long sideboard that had seen better days, a closet that was just a rail inside an open cupboard in the corner, and one of those things that you rest your suit case on.
I checked the bathroom and saw a little bottle of shampoo.
"See that?" I said.
"Always the sign of a good hotel. I think we're in the Ritz."
I plugged in the telephone and recharger, then it was straight on with the television, flicking through the channels for a kids' program. It was part of the SOPs now.
I pulled Kelly's coat off, gave it a shake, and hung it up, then went over to the air conditioner and pressed a few buttons. I held my coat out, testing the air flow; I wanted the room to get hot. Still waiting for some reaction from the machine, I said, "What's on?"
"Power Rangers."
"Who are they?"
I knew very well what it was all about, but there was no harm in a bit of conversation. I didn't want us to be best buddies, go on vacations together, and share toothbrushes and all that sort of shit far from it. The sooner this was sorted out, the better. But for the relationship to look normal it had to be normal, and I didn't want to get lifted because some busy body thought we didn't belong together.
I said, "Which one do you like?"
"I like Katherine. She's the pink one."
"Why's that, because of the color?"
"Because she's not a moron. She's really cool." Then she told me all about Katherine and how she was a Brit.
"I like that because Daddy comes from England."
I made her change into a new pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.
It took a lifetime. I thought. Fuck parenting, it's not for me.
Every moment of your time is taken up. What is the point, if you just spend all day on butler duty?
She was finally dry and sorted out. Next to the TV was a coffeemaker and packets of milk and sugar, and I got that going. As the machine started to purr and bubble I went to the window. As I looked out past the curtain, left and right of me were the other two sides of the drab, gray concrete square; below was the parking lot, and across the road and higher up was the highway. I realized that my mood matched the view.
Rain was still falling. I could see the plumes of spray be hind the trucks as they rolled along the highway. It wasn't heavy, but it was continuous, the kind that seeps into every thing. I was suddenly aware of Kelly standing next to me.
"I hate this type of weather," I said.
"Always have, ever since I was a teenager and joined the army. Even now, on a really wet and windy winter's day, I'll make myself a cup of tea and sit on a chair by the window and just look out and think of all the poor soldiers sitting in a hole in the middle of nowhere, freezing, soaking wet, wondering what they're doing there."
A wry smile came to my face as the coffee stopped dripping, and I looked down at Kelly. What wouldn't I give to be back on Salisbury Plain, just sitting in a soaking-wet trench, my only worry in the world how to stop being wet, cold, and hungry.
I went and lay on the bed, working out my options. Not that there were that many. Why didn't I just make a run for it? I could steal passports and try my luck at an airport, but the chances of getting away with it were slim. There were less conventional routes back. I'd heard that you could get all the way from Canada to the UK by ferry and land-hopping, a route popular with students. Or I could go south, getting into Belize or Guatemala; I'd spent years in the jungle on that border and knew how to get out. I could go to an island off Belize called San Pedro, a staging post for drug runners on their way to the east coast of Florida. From there I could get farther into the Caribbean, where I'd pick up passage on a boat.
More bizarre still, one of the guys in the Regiment had flown a single-engined Cessna from Canada to the UK-. The tiny fixed-wing aircraft had no special equipment apart from an extra fuel tank in the back. The radio wasn't the right kind;
he'd had to work out the antenna lengths with wire hanging from the aircraft on a brick. He wore a parachute so that if anything went wrong, he'd open the door and leap out. How I'd sort that out I didn't know, but at least I knew it could be done.
However, there was too much risk involved in all these schemes. I didn't want to spend the rest of my days in a state penitentiary, but at the same time I didn't want Kelly and me to be killed in the process of escaping. Simmonds had presented me with the best option. If I turned up in London with what he wanted, I wouldn't exactly be home and dry, but at least I'd be home. I had to stay and tough it out.
It all boiled down to my needing to see who and what was going into and out of the building on Ball Street.
"Kelly? You know what I'm going to say, don't you?"
"Without a doubt," she smiled. I'd obviously been forgiven for drying her hair and putting her into nice dry clothes.
"Ten minutes, all right?"
I closed the door, listened, heard her hook the chain, and hung the sign on the door. Farther to my left was a small open area that housed the Coke and snack machines. I bought a can, then walked back past our room toward the elevator. To the left was the fire escape, a concrete staircase leading up and down. I knew the safety regulations meant that there had to be an exit onto the roof; in the event of a fire down below, the rescue would be by helicopter.