Dark Winter ns-6 Read online

  ‘All kinds of shit.’

  32

  Both doors closed and the light went out. She turned the ignition, and I rearranged the Browning because the half-cocked hammer was starting to make my stomach sting. The red sore had never gone away after years of carrying one of these things, but it was now starting to weep.

  Another couple of cars sped past. The driver of the last punched his horn four or five times and we were treated to a chorus of ribald yells from his passengers.

  Suzy was back to her normal hyped-up self. ‘They think we’re shagging.’ She cupped her hands and pretended to shout back at them as they disappeared into the distance. ‘Hey, I’m not that desperate.’

  I checked my traser as she wiped a hole in the condensation on the windscreen. ‘You mean that shave was all for nothing?’

  As Suzy drove back past the docks the arc lights on the other side of the fenceline were shining like a floodlit stadium. Over to our left, across the darkness of the wasteland, the Corrie houses were doing their best to compete. The street-lamps on Walker Street started by the bridge and stretched away from us, but cast no light on the narrow path along the canal. There was a secure triangle of shadow alongside the back walls and fences for us to work in.

  Suzy reminded me there was one more thing we had to do before we parked up and headed for the target. ‘You’ve got to call him, Nick. I’d do it but, hey, I’m driving.’

  ‘Let’s just call him when we’re done and then we keep control.’ The more the Yes Man knew, the more he might want changed – and the more influence he’d have over what we were doing. It wasn’t the way I liked to work.

  ‘We can’t do that, we’ve got to call him now. I will if you don’t want to, it’s no biggie. He needs a sit rep.’

  He needed a kick in the bollocks, but that would have to wait. Reluctantly I opened up the moan-phone and dialled. I hated him knowing what I was up to; it made me feel exposed. The phone rang just once.

  ‘You should have called earlier.’

  ‘Well, we’ve done the recces. We should be on target in about an hour. How long after that depends on making entry. We’ve seen no sign of life.’

  ‘The second you get out, I want to know if you’ve got Dark Winter and how much of it. You will take control of it at all costs.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Yep what?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Yep, sir. Is there anything more about the target being flagged?’

  ‘No. It’s a local issue. The town has a huge South East Asia II [illegal immigrant] problem. Chinese gangs use the derelict housing as a holding tank before spraying them around the country. Nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The phone went dead from his end. Suzy was all smiles. ‘That went well, I take it?’

  The railway station was coming up and Morrisons shone a big yellow welcome at us as we headed for the car park. I bent down into the footwell and unthreaded my bumbag belt from my jeans, shoving it under the seat along with all my Nick Snell cover docs, the Browning and its spare mags.

  I got Suzy to stop by the pay-and-display machine. ‘My treat. You park.’ Nine pounds twenty’s worth of coins later, I had a ticket that would see us through till midnight the next day.

  The Morrisons and Matalan signs on the other side of the tracks glowed against the sky as Suzy dumped her documents under her seat and I stuck the ticket inside the windscreen. I threw my remaining coins into the glovebox, and joined her as she retrieved her ready bag. The boot went down, and we checked everything was locked and out of sight before she hit the key fob.

  We walked past the little tea-cum-newsagent’s shop and into the station. To anyone watching, especially the CCTV that covered the almost empty car park, we were travellers about to catch a train. I just hoped they didn’t follow us all the way through the station because we walked straight out the other side, past six or seven waiting minicabs, and into the Morrisons’ lot. From there we retraced our earlier route.

  Nothing had changed, except that it was dark. Lights were on in most of the houses. Some curtains were closed, but through others I could see people watching TV with plates on their laps. Suzy pulled out two of the bricks set into the wall at the DLB, and threw in the car keys, then replaced them. If the shit hit the fan and we had to do a runner, at least one of us would be able to get to the car.

  When we got to Loke Road I checked left, down towards the shops. The burger bar was doing a roaring trade, judging by the steam billowing out of the extractor vent. The corner shop next to it was shut, its windows protected by heavy grilles.

  We crossed the road at the point we had earlier, just short of the shops. Two Chinese teenagers, a girl and a boy, aged maybe fifteen or sixteen, came out of the alleyway, giggling to each other as they clumsily tried to hold hands and walk at the same time. There was a dark Ford Focus, two-up, parked a bit further along. The driver was as bald as a snooker ball. He turned his head to look at the youngsters as they crossed the road, and studied them a bit too long before he turned back and said something to his mate.

  We entered the alleyway to the sound of a lot more TVs on the go. Most downstairs lights were on, and there was the occasional blurred movement behind thin curtains and frosted glass. Suzy changed hands with her bag so she could get closer. ‘You see the Focus?’

  ‘They were checking out those kids. Could be drug-dealers, could be police. Or just a couple of perves. Fuck it, let’s just get on with it.’

  We hit Walker Street and turned left, towards the junction with Sir Lewis and the footbridge. ‘You check the target and I’ll check left.’ As we walked over the crossroads I looked up the other half of Sir Lewis Street. Four kids shot past on bikes with ice-lolly sticks threaded through the spokes, and the headlights of two cars swept towards us. The one further back turned in and parked about half-way down. I knew it was the Focus. They could just have stopped at the chip shop on their way home, but if it was anything to do with us, we’d find out soon enough.

  Suzy looked up at me and gave a loving smile. ‘No life on target.’

  I smiled back as we approached the bridge. ‘The Focus just parked short of the junction.’

  She knew we were now committed. ‘Fuck it, so what?’

  We got to the bridge and turned right instead of crossing. There was no other way to do this job except brass it out. No point just hovering around and looking indecisive: we had to look like we belonged, like we had a purpose.

  We carried on along the path, in the shadow of the yard walls and fences. Suzy kept a little behind me because the path was too narrow for both of us and the bags. We counted the houses. Three lights, four lights . . . I could see the Q8 tanks in the docks to my half-left, and the street-lamps of the busy main casting a weak shadow over this side of the lumpy wasteground.

  We reached the target and still there wasn’t any light from the top windows. Traffic droned along the main behind me and I heard a bath running upstairs in the house next door to the left.

  We moved up against the garden wall and stood in its shadow. It was about seven feet high, with access via a wooden door. The general clatter of domestic life filled the night air as we pulled on our gloves. A couple of screams came from the direction of Walker Street, then the rattle of bikes, getting louder. Almost immediately, the kids flew over the bridge, turning right. Suzy and I cuddled into each other as if we were kissing in the shadows. The lights of the main turned them into silhouettes. They were too busy trying not to fall into the river while cutting each other up to pay attention to strangers.

  Suzy was taking the performance a little further than I expected: she put her arms around my neck, pulled me down and kissed me hard on the lips. It only lasted a few seconds, not enough time for me to think about what was happening, only that I got a faint hint of strawberry yoghurt and it tasted good.

  ‘I thought you weren’t that desperate . . .’

  She still held my head, and pulled it back down, but
this time to talk into my ear. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Norfolk boy. It’s just if you screw things up that could be the last chance I ever get to kiss a man.’

  We waited for the kids to go away, laughing and screaming at each other as they pedalled into the darkness. Suzy and I disentangled ourselves as Bathroom Billy shouted at Maureen to bring him up a towel.

  I moved against the wooden door and peered through the gap around the latch. The backyard was still in darkness, but I could make out an entrance to the right and a window to the left. There was no sign of life inside the target. This could mean the house was deserted, or that the ASU were down at the burger bar. It could also mean that they’d blacked out all the windows, or were on hard routine, no lights or smoking, not even cooking, just sitting there waiting to give us the good news.

  I eased the door towards me before squeezing down on the rusty thumbpiece to release the latch, then pushed it the other way. It yielded no more than a quarter of an inch. Either it was bolted somewhere, or it was stuck. I didn’t want to push any harder and risk noise, so, keeping the lever depressed, I nudged the bottom of the door with my foot. No resistance. I did the same with my free hand at the top of the door, and that was solid. I stepped back, grabbed the top of the wall, and cocked my right leg. Suzy cupped her hands under my foot and I heaved myself up until I could lean my stomach across the coping. I looked and listened. Everything seemed all right, so I swivelled round and eased myself gingerly down the other side. My feet connected with a pile of wood. Feeling round it, I toed myself on to the concrete yard as Maureen shouted at Bathroom Billy to get a bleedin’ move on ’cos his tea was ready.

  There was a bin with no lid, and no rubbish either. Nothing in the yard gave the impression that people lived there. I felt along the edge of the door until my gloved fingers came into contact with a small bolt. I wiggled it gently, and finally opened the door just enough for Suzy to slip through with the bags. She stood against the wall while I closed and bolted it once more.

  Water cascaded down next door’s wastepipe: Billy must have liked her cooking. Suzy stayed put as I moved slowly to the back of the target. There was enough ambient light from the houses on either side to see what I was up to, but in any event my night vision was kicking in.

  The window to the left of the back door was a simple latch job that opened outwards. The frame was old softwood, and its paint was peeling. The problem was it had a Chubb window lock screwed down tight. We would have to smash glass to make entry via the window. The door, to the right, was a DIY-store hardwood special, with just a lever lock and handle. It obviously led into the kitchen; I could see a pair of chrome taps through the glass.

  I got the mini Maglite out of my pocket and, holding two fingers over the lens to minimize the light, I shone it through the window. The kitchen looked like it hadn’t been touched since Formica ruled the earth.

  I moved two paces to the right and got down on my knees so my head was level with the keyhole. It was an ordinary lever lock. I put my ear to it and opened my mouth to listen. I couldn’t hear anything inside. The ambient noise still came from the main drag, punctuated by the odd quick burst of TV from the neighbours. I checked inside the lock with the Maglite. It was a four-lever, but there was no key still in it on the inside. That would have made life a lot simpler: all I’d have had to do was turn it with one of the rakes from the pick wallet. I pulled down slowly on the handle in case it was already unlocked. It wasn’t. I pushed the bottom corner of the door below the lock and it gave a little. Standing up, I checked the top corner as well, and that did too.

  I glanced around the yard for flowerpots, bins or other obvious places to plant a key. There was no point in going to all the trouble of picking the lock if someone had been kind enough to leave us the spare. I reached down and lifted a brick or two, but found nothing.

  I could hear a slow, deliberate rustling behind me. Suzy was starting to get into her NBC kit. She had her trousers on and was messing around, trying to get the boots over her trainers. I checked the window again, just in case, but the door seemed the sensible first point of entry.

  A car drew up on the other side of the house, and we stepped back into the shadows, waiting for lights to go on. Billy was getting screamed at by Maureen for using all the hot water. Now she couldn’t have a soak before they went out, and what was it with him, anyway, having a bath just to go down the pub?

  A front door slammed across the street but I waited a couple more minutes before I took off my bomber jacket and pulled my ready bag apart. To cut down on noise, Suzy had unzipped it for me before coming into the yard.

  33

  A kettle was being filled in Bathroom Billy’s kitchen as, very slowly and deliberately, I pulled on my kit. I’d asked for the older versions of the NBC suits because, although they might be harder to put on than the modern ones, there was a whole lot less Velcro to undo first. There was still a noise, but at least it was reasonably controlled.

  I turned and realized something was wrong with Suzy. She bent over, her body suddenly convulsing, and pulled out her SD just before she emptied the contents of her stomach into her ready bag.

  By the time I leant across to her it was over. I put a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I do that all the time.’

  She finished wiping her mouth and snorted back a couple of lumps that had caught in the back of her nose. She leant close enough to make my eyes water. ‘Don’t fucking patronize me. That yoghurt must have been off.’

  I nodded and started pushing my Caterpillars into my trousers, then pulled them up high round my stomach. So Suzy was human, after all. It wasn’t a bad thing to be scared. I’d served with guys who’d shit themselves with fear but still got on with the job.

  Stitched to the back of the trousers were two long cotton tapes that acted as braces. I put them over my shoulders and crossed them over my chest, guiding the ends through the loops at the front of the waistband and tying them up.

  Suzy had already got her smock on and was nearly ready by the time I put my hands into the bottom of mine and started wrestling it over my head. The rough fabric scratched my face.

  Canned laughter spilled from a TV next door. I imagined Billy now had a brew to watch it with, while Maureen got busy with the deodorant. When my head finally emerged, Suzy was a foot or two in front of me, her face a picture of concentration, her eyes fixed intently on the back door as she psyched herself for the task ahead.

  I lowered my arse on to the cracked concrete as Maureen got a shout to hurry up or they were going to be late. Her reply from the bedroom was loud and clear: ‘Shut the fuck up and turn that bleedin’ TV down, will yer?’

  I picked up the first of the boots, which looked to me like a kid’s Christmas stocking but made of rubber, and pulled it over my left boot, lacing up the tapes from the bottom. Once the second was on I pulled the trousers over them and tightened the Velcro at the ankle.

  Billy was at the end of his tether. ‘For fuck’s sake, that’s enough. We’re going down the pub, not the bleedin’ Monte Carlo casino!’

  Suzy picked up her SD and leant over it with her Maglite to check chamber for the last time, then pressed on the sight. I tapped her arm and she leant over and shone her light so I could do the same. As we exchanged a glance in the semi-darkness the kids reappeared along the bank, heading back towards the bridge with their lights still off and their ice-lolly sticks still rattling away.

  We only had to make sure our rubber gloves overlapped the cuffs of the smocks, then fix our respirators. I grasped mine in my left hand, and pulled back on the elastic harness with the right to get it over my face. The smell of new rubber filled my nostrils again as I made sure that no hair was in the way of the seal. I checked the canister was tightly twisted on before pulling down my hood and tightening the toggle. Breathing immediately became a tug-of-war; I fought to suck in air through the cylinder, and fought to push it back out. These things certainly weren’t designed for lovers of open spac
es, and would be a nightmare for anyone with even a touch of claustrophobia.

  The noise of the respirator was going to be a major problem tactically: our own sounds would be louder in our ears than those around us. But there was nothing we could do about it. Besides, if DW was the other side of this door, being deafened by my own breathing would hardly be a major concern.

  Suzy lifted her head so that I could check her hood was in place, then she checked mine. We were ready to go.

  The fire station on the main drag had just had a call. Sirens wailed and blue lights flashed across the wasteground as they sped past the docks, and I could suddenly see Suzy’s eyes behind her lenses. They were fixed, unblinking, her attention totally focused.

  I sounded like Darth Vader with asthma as I stooped and picked up the SD, checking the safety catch by pushing it all the way to three-round bursts before returning it to safe. I didn’t want grit off the ground or anything to catch between the safety and the pistol grip, preventing me taking it off. It didn’t happen often, but once was more than enough. Detail matters.

  Suzy approached the door very slowly, taking big, careful steps so the unwieldy boots didn’t trip her up. The chest pockets of these NBC suits were held down by a Velcro square at each end. She tucked her hand under the flap in the middle to save having to undo it, and pulled out her MOE wallet. There was something about the way she moved that made me feel the domestic four-lever lock wasn’t going to put up much of a fight.

  She unrolled the wallet and took out a lifter pick and turning wrench. Normally a lock is opened by the bit of the key, the part with the combination cut into it that lifts the four levers into alignment. She was going to have to shift each of the four levers with the lifter pick, then move the bolt back into the lock with the turning wrench.

  I watched as she began to probe with the steel pick, her left hand letting a small amount of light from her mini Maglite filter into the keyway. There is a Zen approach to the art of lock-picking. The idea is to use all your senses to create a picture of what is happening inside the mechanism as it responds to your attack. It can only happen if you concentrate completely on the job and don’t have to worry about what is happening around you. That was my job. I stood by the bin, eyes and ears peeled. The bypass continued to hum on the other side of the waste-ground.