Hunter Killer (14 page)

And in those moments when he wasn’t staring at porn, he was browsing Twitter. It hadn’t taken long for him to discover that there were ladies out there who took pictures of themselves naked and tweeted the images. He followed them all, and sometimes sent them badly worded messages. They didn’t answer back, so he removed the photo from his profile. He knew that he looked different to most people. That his Down’s syndrome features sometimes made strangers cross the street to avoid him. They
still
didn’t answer back. His social worker told him he should put the photo back up. The way he looked was nothing to be ashamed of, she said.

And then, of course, there was Facebook. He didn’t have many friends, even though he had sent out lots of requests. And of the ‘friends’ he had, only a handful were people he knew in the real world. That didn’t worry him. He liked having friends of any description.

But as he logged on to his Facebook account that afternoon, when the air outside was thick with rain, he saw a ‘friend’ request that made his heart pound.

Her name was Nicki, and he could not stop staring at her profile picture. Her eyes were dark, her skin a dusky brown. The lips were full and pouting. The curly hair was shiny. There was a tempting cleavage that made him feel weak. In some ways, she reminded him of the girls from the websites he liked. But she was different in one very important way. He had met Nicki before. In real life.

It happened just a couple of days ago. He’d gone to the corner shop to buy some milk. On the way, he’d seen her walking alongside him. She was very pretty, and when he smiled at her, she smiled back. That never normally happened. Inside the shop, he found that he didn’t have enough money for the milk he wanted to buy. As he stood, confused and embarrassed, at the counter, there she was. She gave him the ten pence he needed, and he was sure she had fluttered her eyelashes at him. He’d gone to bed that night smitten. He’d even avoided looking at the internet. He felt that it would have been somehow unfaithful.

But now, here she was again, wanting to be friends.

And maybe she wanted something more.

He clicked the mouse to accept the ‘friend’ request.

Ten minutes later, she sent him her first message.

Part Two

Hunter Killer

Seven

21.30hrs

The safe house was dark when Danny arrived back. As he put his key in the lock, he wondered for a moment if Spud had sodded off to the pub. But the alarm didn’t beep, and there was a black jacket hanging over the banister as he stepped into the house. Looking along the hallway, he saw a faint greenish glow at the kitchen table. Spud was there, sitting in the darkness at his laptop. As Danny entered the kitchen he saw a carton of milk on the side and three used tea bags next to it. Spud raised his cup of tea in greeting. ‘Thought maybe you’d fucked off and joined the French Foreign Legion,’ he said sarcastically.

‘A few loose ends to tie up,’ Danny said evasively.

‘Oh aye? And what did that little turd Buckingham want?’

‘Catch up on old times.’ And when Spud raised an eyebrow, Danny said: ‘Forget about it. I told him where to get off.’ He looked at the laptop. ‘Anything?’

Spud nodded. ‘There was a draft message sitting on the account, just like twat-features said. We’ve got an ID and address for the first target.’

‘Just like that,’ Danny murmured. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to Spud at the laptop. An e-mail window was open. A single line of text gave an address:

GROUND FLOOR FLAT, 27 DALEWOOD MEWS, HAMMERSMITH, W14 6PS

And beneath that, embedded into the e-mail, a picture Danny recognised from the briefing back at Hammerstone: the gaunt, Somali features of Sarim Galaid.

‘Why didn’t they just give us the intel earlier on?’ Spud said. ‘Save all this fannying around.’

‘Obvious, isn’t it?’

‘Not to me, mucker.’

‘A dodgy draft e-mail on some random account? Could have been sent
by
anyone,
to
anyone. We’re doing something illegal and they want to make sure we take the fall if there’s a screw-up.’

Spud nodded darkly. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. He held up a couple of Yale keys. ‘Fletcher gave me these. The first-floor flat opposite number 27 is up for rent. But if you’re right, I’m guessing SIS didn’t sign the deposit cheque.’

Danny’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t like it. Too convenient. If our target’s got any kind of brains, he’d have checked that already.’

Spud shrugged, and stuffed the keys back into his pocket. ‘We don’t
have
to use it,’ he said, a bit huffily.

‘Have you checked out the location?’ Danny asked.

Spud closed down the e-mail and opened up a browser window, before navigating to Google maps. He typed in the address. In an instant, a glowing pin was floating above Dalewood Mews. With a single click, Spud changed the image to satellite view, then zoomed out slightly so they could get a decent scope on both the mews itself, and the surrounding area.

Dalewood Mews ran from north to south in the heart of a little network of residential streets on the west side of Hammersmith Grove. It was a cul-de-sac, with vehicular access at the south end only. No trees, and only three parked cars in this particular satellite snapshot. An enclosed space with almost no cover: from a surveillance point of view, a nightmare. At least, that was how it looked from here.

‘We need to get down there,’ Danny said. ‘Get eyes on, work out this Galaid’s routine.’

‘Then what?’ Spud asked.

‘He’s a bomber, isn’t he?’ said Danny. ‘If we cause an explosion at his flat and the place is full of bomb-making gear, no one will bat an eyelid. So we set things up so he meets with an accident.’

Spud grinned. The idea obviously appealed. ‘When do we start?’

Danny shrugged. ‘How does now suit you? This gaff isn’t so cushty I want to stick around any longer than I have to.’ And what he didn’t say was that a period of surveillance would keep his mind from other thoughts. He picked up his black rucksack from the floor where he’d dumped it that morning, then started unpacking it of crumpled clothes which he dumped on the kitchen table.

Spud watched him steadily. ‘You’re bushed, mate. Why don’t we catch some shut-eye, get started in the morning?’

Danny shook his head and walked over to the broom cupboard that contained the strong box. ‘I’m fine. And if he’s a night owl, we’ll lose twenty-four hours if we wait till morning.’

Spud inclined his head. He put one hand into his pocket and pulled out a small packet of tablets which he rattled to get Danny’s attention. There was no dispensing sticker on them.

‘What’s that?’ Danny asked.

‘Ephedrine,’ Spud said. ‘Breakfast of champions. Pop a couple now, keep you sharp for a few hours.’ And when Danny started to protest: ‘Just take them, mucker. You’re running on empty.’

Danny relented. He took the box of pills and swallowed two of the little caplets. Then he returned his attention to the strong box. He opened it up and started stowing the contents into his black rucksack: snap gun and bits, MOE kits, even the ration packs. He fitted one radio to his belt and inserted the covert earpiece, then handed the other to Spud.

‘Let me see the picture again,’ he said as he tightened the straps on his rucksack. Spud brought up a new browser window and redirected it back to the Gmail home page. He keyed in the username and password that Buckingham had given them. The mailbox appeared on the screen and Spud hovered the cursor over the drafts folder.

It was empty.

So, Danny thought. Our every move is being monitored. They know we’ve read the e-mail, so they’ve deleted it from the system.

Spud shut the computer down with an expression of disgust. ‘Good to know they trust us,’ he said.

Danny slung his rucksack over his shoulder. ‘Sooner this job’s finished, the better,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

It took half an hour for the ephedrine to kick in, by which time Danny was as alert as he’d ever been. They headed over Albert Bridge, then west along the north side of the river, before coming to a crawl as they crossed the King’s Road, where the ever-present Met were stopping and searching cars at random. Danny got his ID ready, but in the event a uniformed policewoman waved them on. Ten minutes later they were heading down Talgarth Road and on to Hammersmith Broadway.

They left the car two blocks from Dalewood Mews, and debussed separately. Spud went first; Danny followed two minutes later, carrying his heavy rucksack and taking the opposite side of the street to Spud. He walked past a lap-dancing club, its windows blacked out and music throbbing inside. Twenty metres further on, a drunk couple were having an argument outside a gastropub, where the chairs were upside down on the tables. Danny sidestepped the arguing couple and continued on his way. The roads were lined with parked cars. Some enterprising person from an Indian takeaway had gone round sticking a flyer behind all the windscreen wipers, but the flyers hadn’t fared well in the drizzle – they were sticking to the windscreens and in some instances the wind had torn the paper, leaving only a portion of the flyer behind. Three minutes later, Danny was on the pavement opposite the entrance to Dalewood Mews. Spud had already entered the side street and was lurking at the far end, bent down on one knee as he pretended to do up his shoelace.

Danny spoke quietly into the mike clipped to his lapel. ‘What we got?’

‘Bugger-all,’ came the reply in his earpiece. ‘The ground-floor flat has a separate entrance, but if we’re going to put in surveillance, we’ll need access to one of the houses opposite. We can’t use a vehicle – it’ll stick out like a turd in a fruit salad.’

‘Maybe we can get into the first floor.’

‘Maybe.’ Spud didn’t sound keen, and with good reason. Moving into the flat above would involve drilling spyholes into the floor and all manner of noisy – and obvious – work.

‘Any sign of activity in the flat?’

‘Negative.’ Spud swore under his breath. ‘I reckon we’ve got days of surveillance. I fucking
hate
surveillance. And I bet the bastard’s not even at home anyway.’

‘Maybe we can get him to poke his nose round the door,’ Danny breathed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Get back here, mate. You’ve been doing your shoelaces up for two minutes now.’

From a distance, he saw Spud stand up and saunter back up Dalewood Mews. Thirty seconds later he had rejoined Danny, who pulled his mobile from his pocket and was pulling a flyer from the windscreen of one of the cars.

‘Let’s order our friend some dinner,’ he said. He dialled the number on the flyer, but instantly Spud stopped him. ‘Think about it, mucker. If he gets suspicious, we’ll just be putting the delivery kid at risk. Galaid
is
dangerous.’

Danny stared at the flyer, then scrunched it up and threw it to the ground. Spud was right. But they couldn’t simply hang around on the corner of the street for hours on end. They’d be too obvious if anyone was watching.

And recently, Danny had the impression that somebody was
always
watching.

Spud pulled Fletcher’s key from his back pocket. ‘It’s our best bet,’ he said firmly. And when Danny started to protest, he interrupted. ‘Mate, I know that Chamberlain bloke was a twat, but he’s right – these aren’t master criminals. We’ll case the joint when we get in, keep our weapons cocked and locked. As soon as we confirm our target’s hiding out in number twenty-seven, we’ll wait for him to go out, then check out his flat, see if there’s any bomb-making gear there. Then we’ll work out his routine, and when we know he’s going to be out of the house for more than an hour or so, we’ll go back and booby-trap it.’

For a moment Danny didn’t react. He had paranoia twisting through his mind. If he was honest with himself, he was less worried about the enemy targets knowing their location than he was about Buckingham and his colleagues leading them around by the nose. Something wasn’t right, and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

But there was no space for paranoia in the middle of an op. Spud was right. The flat was their best option. Put in an OP and wait for their quarry to show himself. He nodded. ‘I’ll go first,’ he said.

Danny didn’t enter Dalewood Mews immediately. First he walked along the pavement, removing more takeaway flyers from the car windscreens. Only when he had a thick wodge of them did he enter Dalewood Mews. Starting at the end nearest the main road, he approached each door in turn and put a flyer through the letterbox. As he approached number 27, he removed his phone from his pocket and surreptitiously switched it to camera mode. When the moment came, he opened the creaking iron gate of number 27, walked up the short, weed-strewn path, and delivered a pizza flyer. At the same time, he took a photograph of the lock, before dropping the phone immediately back into his pocket. He continued delivering flyers till he’d reached the end of the street, then turned and started along the opposite side. He kept on high alert, every sense keenly searching for the sign of someone watching him. But as far as he could tell, there was nobody.

Flat 24a. It had its own entrance – a wooden door with two frosted-glass panels that immediately jumped out at Danny as a security risk. Checking once more that he wasn’t under observation, he slid the key into the lock, turned it and slowly opened the door. He could tell before he even stepped inside that the flat had been unoccupied for some time. It had that smell, damp and musty. He clicked the door behind him, then put the key into the lock without turning it. Spud would lock them in again when he arrived. Danny stood for a moment in the hallway, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark. Five metres ahead of him was a narrow staircase. He unholstered his weapon, cocked it, and started to edge forward.