Crisis Four (31 page)
Authors: Andy McNab
As I moved away from the TV set, a loud
ping!
sent my heart leaping into my throat. I spun my head and weapon round, expecting to have to react. The rest of my body followed about half a second later, both eyes open and the weapon up in the aim. I found myself pointing at the microwave oven in the next room.
ping!
sent my heart leaping into my throat. I spun my head and weapon round, expecting to have to react. The rest of my body followed about half a second later, both eyes open and the weapon up in the aim. I found myself pointing at the microwave oven in the next room.
I needed a minute to calm down and sort my shit out and decided to put the weapon into semi-auto mode. Time to move on. I was still left with two that I knew of, the American and the Bossman, plus Sarah – and there were still another two floors to clear.
I didn’t need the bow any more so I left it on the floor. The TV was still bumping its gums: ‘Guys who like guy movies…’
I started to move slowly but purposefully, trying to keep the noise down, both eyes open, weapon up. I had the light from the TV screen shining behind me, projecting my shadow on the wall. I got to the stairs and checked upwards. It was dark up there. Eyes and weapon glued to the top of the stairs, I started to move.
I knew this feeling all too well. My heart was pumping so hard I could feel it banging against my chest wall, and I had a horrible, dry, rasping feeling in my throat. My head was so far back that sweat was running into my eyes and down the folds of skin at the back of my neck. I flicked my head to the side, attempting to get rid of it.
It started to get darker and quieter as the glow and noise of the TV faded, and soon all I could hear was the sound of my own breath. I did my best to suppress it because I imagined three people upstairs listening and following my progress.
Moving upstairs like this is physically demanding. Every movement has to be so slow and deliberate that all your muscles are tensed; your body needs oxygen, and your lungs, in turn, need to work harder, but you don’t want them to because that makes noise, and on top of all that, at any moment, somebody could be trying to kill you.
I reached the landing of the second floor. I immediately noticed a nice polished smell up here, a different world to the one I’d just left behind me.
There was a wall to my left, with a door that faced the corridor which ran to my right. It must be the bathroom where I’d heard a toilet being flushed last night.
As I looked to the right, I could see that the corridor ran the length of the house. Right down the middle was a single strip rug, which would help muffle noise. In the light thrown from a door that was slightly ajar at the far end I could see a table about ten feet away, on the left. The open door showed a sink shining in the light. It didn’t sound as if anyone was in there, and I didn’t hear water running or a cistern filling up. Maybe they were just scared of the dark and wanted a light on for when they came out for a piss. I looked at the crack under each of the other doors to see if there were any signs of life or light from within the rooms. Nothing.
Across from me were the stairs to the top floor. I stayed where I was and listened. I could just about hear the low drone of the TV downstairs, but the sound of my heartbeat seemed louder. I could feel my carotid pulses banging in my ears. I couldn’t just wait here all night until she needed the toilet.
With my knees bent, shoulders hunched over, arms out, staring down the thick baffled barrel of the weapon, I started to move along the centre of the corridor, using the rug. I reached the first door on the right and edged over, putting my ear to it, but kept the pistol where it was.
I could still hear the TV and the rain. My antennae were out, trying to take in every possible sound, but it was very distant, very indistinct. From inside the room came the noise of snoring. Sarah never snored, but there was always a chance she could be sleeping with someone who did.
I carried on along the corridor to the next room. I listened outside it. Nothing. As if I was going to hear her singing along to a CD.
I went on, passing a fire exit on my left, which I hadn’t noticed earlier. It had bolts top and bottom, which I gently eased back, and a pin-tumbler lock in the middle, which I also undid.
I moved on to the next two doors past the table, hearing nothing. I stood by the lit-up bathroom. This could go on for ever. Fuck it, there was no time to do anything but take my chances with whoever was back down the corridor. I just knew I had to do something, and quickly.
Holding the pistol in my right hand, I checked with my left that everything was in place. The Tazer was in my right-hand bomber jacket pocket, with the handle outwards, ready to grab.
I got out the torch, placed the lens against the wall, and twisted it on to check it still worked. The light hit the wall but wasn’t going anywhere else. I turned it off and kept it in my left hand, with my thumb and forefinger at the ready.
I put my right thumb on the weapon’s safety catch and pressed down, checking it was off and ready to go. Then I pushed the mag in the pistol grip to make sure it was engaged.
With my left hand I lifted the latch. I wasn’t going to try to do it gently; once you’ve decided you’re going in, you might as well get it over with. I pushed the door open a few inches, and at the same time brought my left hand up and switched the torch on, using my body to open the door fully.
As I came into the room I moved to the right to avoid silhouetting my body in the doorway. I three-quarters closed the door with my shoulder, and the torchlight hit a pile of men’s clothes on the floor. I also saw a watch and a glass of water on a bedside table. There was a shape in the bed. I knew straight away by its size that it wasn’t Sarah. The body stirred, maybe as a reaction to the change in air pressure as the door opened, or the fact that light was shining in his face.
As he turned I saw that he was bald and dark-skinned and had a moustache. It was Bossman. His eyes opened fully as he settled. He wouldn’t be able to see me, just the torchlight.
I moved quickly, getting my left knee on one side of him and my right on the other so I was astride him, pushing him down onto the bed. He was pinioned by the sheet across his chest and gave a quick grunt of protest.
I dropped the torch onto the bed. I didn’t want him to see my face and, in any case, I didn’t need light for what I was about to do.
With the pistol jammed against his clenched teeth he gave a long drawn-out groan as he tried to resist. I got hold of the back of his head with my left hand and forced the weapon down harder. The metal of the silencer scraped against his teeth and he eventually opened up. I pushed the muzzle in until it was nearly at the back of his throat and the suppressor was filling his mouth good style.
He struggled on for a while, not trying to escape, just wanting to work out what was going on and to breathe. He was flapping and snorting like a horse. I moved with his chest as it went up and down. At length he lay back. No-one will fuck around once they realize they have a pistol in their mouth.
I leaned towards his left ear. In my bad, fluctuating American accent I whispered, ‘If you speak English, nod slowly.’
He did. I could feel the pistol moving up and down.
I heard him slurping and retching as his Adam’s apple worked overtime. With his jaw wide open he’d lost the ability to swallow.
‘You have two choices,’ I said. ‘Die if you don’t help me, live if you do. Do you understand?’
It’s always better to take your time at moments like this. If you’ve got somebody who’s flapping and you say, ‘OK, where’s Sarah?’ he can’t talk because he’s got this thing stuck in his mouth, so he gets all confused about what you expect of him. It’s better to do it as a process of elimination, and then you know you have the right information. That is, if he knows it in the first place.
There was still a bit of hesitation here. He was still flapping too much and not thinking enough. I said, ‘Do you understand?’ and underlined the point with a jab of the pistol. He finally got the message and I felt the pistol move up and down.
His body smelled of shampoo and soap. Shame he hadn’t cleaned his teeth. His breath smelled like road kill.
Now that he understood the facts of life, I whispered, ‘You’ve got one woman in the house. Yes?’
I felt his immediate sense of relief. His body relaxed; it wasn’t him I wanted. He nodded.
‘One woman?’
He nodded again.
‘Is she on this floor?’
The pistol shook from side to side.
‘Is she on the floor above this one?’
Up and down.
‘Do you know which room she’s in?’
I could hear his breathing and slurping, but there was just a touch too much hesitation: he was thinking about what to say. He shook his head slowly.
I gave a weary sigh and said, ‘Then you’re no good to me, and I’m going to kill you. I think you’re lying.’
No response.
I said, ‘Last chance. Do you know what room she’s in?’
I started to rise. He got the idea. He nodded. I came back down to his ear.
‘Good. Now think about this. Is she on the left-hand side of the corridor as you go along it from the stairs?’ I was assuming it was the same sort of configuration upstairs as down. I didn’t know yet, but it was a good enough place to start.
He thought about it and nodded.
‘Good. Is it the first door on the left?’
He shook his head. Saliva was oozing out of his mouth and running down his chin. I could feel his chest rising and falling more and more quickly; he was fighting to get oxygen in and there were too many obstructions.
‘Is she in the second door on the left?’
He nodded.
‘Good. If you’re lying, I’ll be back and I’ll kill you.’
He nodded that he understood, semi-choking on the suppressor because I pushed it a little more to the back of his throat, just to the point where he was starting to gag. At the same time, I reached down with my left hand, closed it around the Tazer, slid off the safety catch and gave him the good news right on the pectoral muscle. I counted the crackle for about five seconds. If I remembered correctly, that should result in the person being ‘dazed for some minutes afterwards’. He jerked about, and then got very dazed indeed.
I climbed off him, picked up the torch and put it in my mouth, then turned round and started to look for his socks amongst the clothes that were on the floor. I found one and shoved the toe end of it into his mouth, pulling down on his jaw to force him to take it all. Noise comes from the throat and below, not the mouth; for an effective gag, you have to ram obstructions down there as far as they can go, so that when the person tries to scream the sound can’t amplify in the mouth. A strip of gaffer tape over the face isn’t enough to achieve the desired effect. A sock stuffed in the mouth also calms people down, because they become more worried about choking than about raising the alarm.
I could hear moans and groans from the back of his throat as he began to come round. I couldn’t have him alerting the others, so I gave him another three-second burst. That settled him down again, and gave me time to finish filling his mouth. Once that was done, I got his shirt from the floor and wrapped the sleeve around his face to form a seal over the sock. I kept his nose free because he had to be able to breathe, but wrapped the sleeve as tightly as I could around his lips.
I pulled a leather belt from his trousers which was about an inch and half wide, with a brass buckle, and grabbed the tie-backs from the curtains, lengths of rope with shiny tassels. I tied his knees together with the first tie-back; if you can move your knees, you can crawl and manoeuvre, if not, you haven’t got much scope for movement.
Next I tied his ankles together. He was semiconscious, breathing and moaning in the back of his throat. I turned him over on the bed and got his hands behind him, tying them tightly together with the belt, making sure that I’d left the buckle and some of the other end free. It was going to hurt him, and he was going to have hands like balloons by the morning, but he’d live.
By now my breathing was almost as laboured as his. This was physical stuff, spinning him round, trying to do it quickly, but also trying to keep everything quiet to cut down on noise. I got hold of his shoulders and pulled him down gently, so that his head and his shoulders were on the floor, then I grabbed his legs and dropped them down, too.
There was still a little bit of moaning, especially when I got hold of his ankles and brought them up towards his tied hands. I put the ends of the belt around the tie-back that secured his wrists, did up the buckle, and that was him trussed up like an oven-ready chicken.
He was coming round again. I held the Tazer on his thigh and gave him the good news for another five seconds. He tried to scream, but the sock did its stuff. As I lifted the Tazer away from him I still had the button depressed; the bolt of electricity crackled brightly as it arced between the two terminals. The glow that it cast added to the torchlight, and I could see the suit carrier, now open, hanging on the wardrobe. Inside was a grey business suit, white shirt and patterned tie, already knotted and hanging round the hanger.
I got to the door, checked the corridor and turned left towards the stairs. This flight was different, the stairs turning back on themselves to reach the top floor. As I climbed and turned left, up the next flight, the distant TV mush disappeared, its place gradually taken by the constant bass-drum rhythm of rain bouncing off the roof. It was almost soothing.
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