Dark Winter Read online

  She took another drag and turned the pages towards me to show a woman lying on her side, covered in towels and drinking cappuccino through a straw. The pupils of her large brown eyes dilated as she looked up into the lights. ‘A lot of people come to South East Asia just for the detox spas, you know. Apparently it does wonders, really gives your insides a spring-clean.’

  I shook my head slowly. ‘I’ve tried to be a bit careful about what I let people shove up my arse.’

  ‘The average American male dies with five pounds of undigested meat inside him.’

  I guessed it was only natural for her to be concerned about the new love in her life. ‘I’m not American.’

  ‘Same difference. I’ve seen what you throw down your neck. You should think about it. You are what you eat, you know.’ She put the book on the table and lifted her cigarette to her mouth.

  ‘So that would make me a double burger with fries, would it?’ I pointed at her. ‘And you a fucking nicotine-stained banana.’

  ‘Can’t be that bad – I’ve seen you looking at me by the pool. Those shades of yours aren’t as dark as you think.’ She pulled a face and went back to her book.

  2

  I was with her here in Penang on George’s instructions. As he kept on saying, ‘If someone hits you and they threaten to hit you some more, you’ve got to stop them. Period.’ But as always, of course, I was also here because I needed the money.

  Suzy and I didn’t know the whole story, and that was fine by me. Too much information gave me a headache, and Suzy probably felt the same. We were just small cogs in a big machine. I’d learnt the hard way that it’s better to be just clever enough to plan and carry out the task you’re given, and not to ask the reasons why.

  The job was deniable. The Malaysian government had no idea what was happening – not because they couldn’t be trusted: Malaysia had a strong, stable government and a good record against terrorism. It was just that the fewer people who knew what we were here for, the better our chances of success.

  It was a joint US/UK operation, a first for me. There weren’t many Americans on vacation in Malaysia, especially with the current situation, but a Brit couple was quite a normal sight. Being sent back to the UK had been a bit like going back in time because it was the Yes Man who had given us our final brief, the very person I’d gone to the US to escape. I couldn’t say I enjoyed it much, but it was great knowing that I was only his property for a short while before I returned to the US and became George’s again.

  The other first was that I’d never worked with another K. In fact, it was the first time I’d ever knowingly been within a hundred metres of one. It probably never occurred to Suzy that I was anything but a Brit operator like her – my cover documents certainly wouldn’t have told her. I was called Nick Snell again, the same cover as when I’d been a K.

  On the final day of our preparation he’d sat on the settee in the safe flat in Pimlico, as wired as an army officer about to give a pep talk to his troops before they go to war.

  The Yes Man always liked to talk about things he’d read in reports, forgetting that people like me and Suzy had got hold of the stuff in the first place. ‘Don’t you two believe the hype,’ he’d said. ‘That’s for those out there.’ He pointed at the window. ‘They need to think we are fighting the ignorant, destitute and disenfranchised – but we’re not. Nor are the enemy crazed, cowardly, apathetic or anti-social. If any of these terror groups relied on such maladjusted low life, they simply wouldn’t be able to produce effective and reliable killers who are prepared to sacrifice themselves in the process.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Suzy always called him ‘sir’.

  I avoided calling him anything – just in case the words ‘arsehole’ or ‘bastard’ slipped from my lips by mistake.

  All around us mobile phones started tuning up: it was like the digital version of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. Their owners just stood up and walked away, not even looking to see who was calling. They knew it was God.

  Suzy knew too. ‘Not long to go now.’

  Malaysian mobiles could ring you five times a day for prayer, and also had a Kiblat finder to point the faithful in the direction of Mecca if they were stuck in the shopping mall and couldn’t make it to a mosque.

  Suzy went back to mugging up on arse tubes, and smoked and drank without lifting her eyes from the page while I watched a couple stop and look at the menu board outside the Palace, then listened to the excited waiter rush out and try to lure them under the corrugated sheeting. He had to shout to make himself heard above the organist, who was now going on about a girl from Ipanema.

  No need to hustle for business over at the mosque. Scooters and cars kept arriving, and plenty more came on foot. I let my gaze wander to the left, to a shack with a blue plastic tarpaulin over a scaffolding frame as an awning, surrounded by scooters and motorbikes in various stages of cannibalization or repair.

  It was the entrance to the left of the workshop that I was most interested in. A neon sign with Chinese lettering was set into the road close by. I didn’t have a clue what it was advertising, but it lit up the doorway beautifully.

  Five minutes went by before the target appeared. He was wearing a clean white shirt over grey tracksuit bottoms and flip-flops. He turned to his left, and walked along the cracked, greasy pavement past the workshop. I leant closer to Suzy and tapped the table lightly. ‘There’s our boy.’

  Smiling at me, she closed the guidebook and put it into her bag. The Indian girl must have taken this as a sign we were leaving, and immediately came over and asked if we wanted more drinks. Suzy nodded. ‘Two more, the same.’

  The target was in his late forties, Indian, Pakistani, maybe even Bangladeshi. He climbed gingerly over the metre-high spiky fence that divided the motorbike graveyard from the mosque. His short black gleaming hair was neatly combed back and kept in place by gel or tonic. We both watched as he removed his shoes, headed for the taps, then disappeared inside with the rest.

  The drinks arrived and Suzy paid the girl, letting her keep the pound’s worth of change. Her face said we’d just made her day, but Suzy wasn’t being generous. We didn’t want her having to come back to us when we needed to leave in a hurry.

  A couple of backpackers, gap-year age, came and sat down at a nearby table and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu as they checked out their red, peeling skin. Their conversation was drowned as the call to prayer wailed out from the loudspeakers in the tower, even bringing the organist to a standstill.

  All we had to do now was wait for the target to reappear. We didn’t know his name. All we knew was that he was a member of the militant Jemaah Islamiyar [JI] group, and active in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand – all countries in the region that weren’t seeking to establish a Muslim fundamentalist state.

  Jemaah Islamiyar means ‘Islamic group’ in Indonesian. Over many years they had attacked US and western targets all over South East Asia. George and the Yes Man weren’t the only ones who suspected that JI was a wholly owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda. Others argued that they weren’t too closely linked, and that JI’s original goals didn’t fully dovetail with the global aspirations of Osama’s boys. Whatever, it was only after the Bali nightclub bombing in October 2002 that the US finally designated them a foreign terrorist organization – something Malaysia had been wanting for years.

  Indonesia had been the principal obstacle: the overwhelming majority of its 231 million population were Muslim – the largest Muslim population on the planet – and it hadn’t been willing to alienate its own people until JI had been caught planning simultaneous truck-bomb attacks against US embassies in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, even Cambodia.

  My eyes were still on the mosque, but my ears were with the tableful of Brits knocking back the Tiger beer. They’d just been watching a government commercial during half-time, warning that if you were caught using a pirate satellite card you w
ere liable to a fine of up to the equivalent of five thousand pounds, ten years’ imprisonment, and a whipping. ‘Shit,’ Suzy muttered, ‘you don’t want to mess with Murdoch, do you? It’s almost safer being a drug-dealer.’

  The call to prayer stopped and the electric organ sparked up again, this time announcing the appearance of the Phantom of the Opera.

  ‘Taxi’s here.’ Suzy gave a slight nod in the direction of the workshop area, as a knackered red-and-yellow-topped Proton saloon pulled up. The cracked plastic Teksi sign on its roof disappeared from view now and again as a bus or truck rumbled past. The last four numbers on the plate were 1032, and that was the VDM [visual distinguishing mark] we’d been given. The driver was definitely our man.

  I caught a glimpse of him waving no at a group of tourists in brand-new counterfeit Nike T-shirts. They drive on the left in Malaysia, and the vehicle was parked with the driver at the kerbside, so I couldn’t see his face clearly. In the glow from the neon sign he seemed to be lighter-skinned than the target, but not as light as the locals. Maybe he was Indonesian. He stayed in the cab, reading a newspaper with his arm out of the window, a cigarette in his mouth. He was the source, the one responsible for informing on the target. Perhaps he even knew what the target was up to. Whatever, he was the one who was going to help us.

  We didn’t know the source’s identity, and I didn’t want to. He probably felt the same about us. All he would have been told was that people were going to be waiting out there for him to finish his part of the job so that they could do theirs. Once he was finished, that was it, he was out of the equation.

  Now all three of us were waiting for the target to show his face, while everyone around us was either swigging beer, watching TV or comparing sunburnt shoulders. Suzy got out her guidebook again. It would have looked unnatural for both of us to be looking over there and not saying anything.

  3

  Worshippers began to emerge from the mosque and before long there was a frenzy of cars and scooters revving up in the parking lot. The first vehicles tried to edge out into the traffic, but nobody on the road was giving them an inch. The air was filled with the din of horns and screeching brakes.

  Suzy rested her guidebook on the table and I looked up. The target had come out of the door and was soon climbing back over the fence. The source waved, then got out of his cab. In the stronger light I could see he was definitely Indonesian, with high cheekbones, short black hair and a moustache, about the same height as Suzy. His stripy shirt hung out of his jeans, maybe because his massive shoulders were stretching the material so much – he looked as if he’d forgotten to take out the extra-wide coat hanger before putting his shirt on.

  The two men came together without greeting, then went through the same door the target had come out of. Suzy packed her book back into her bag as the Brits eyed up a group of girls walking by, and the organist got a ripple of applause. The source was coming out again, carrying some sort of white box with a handle. As he got nearer to the taxi I could see it was a cardboard gift pack of six bottles of wine, with the sides cut away to make the labels visible. He went round to the passenger door, the side nearest us, and opened it, placed the box carefully in the footwell, then walked back round the front of the cab, climbed in and the vehicle started rolling. It was all over and done with in less than a minute.

  Suzy’s hands were securing the rolled-up top of her bag as the taxi melted into the traffic. ‘So much for Muslims and alcohol, eh? Maybe it’s Ribena.’

  The Brits next door cheered and slapped the table. It wasn’t Suzy’s joke: Leeds had scored.

  As we sat there and waited, I felt in my trouser pocket for the bike key. The target would be leaving for work soon. Even terrorists need to make money and have a cover story.

  He was illuminated by the sign as he came out a couple of minutes later. He was a little early tonight. There was normally a fifteen-minute window after prayers before he set off. His white shirt was now tucked into a pair of black trousers, and he was wearing black patent leather shoes. He crossed the fence once more and headed to his Lite Ace, dodging the puddles in an attempt to keep his shoes clean.

  I got to my feet. ‘Right, might as well get back to the hotel.’

  Suzy nodded and stood up. I picked up my helmet, putting it on as I walked to the bike. She hooked the bag over her head and shoulders, then put her helmet on as I kicked up the side-stand and turned the ignition. She waited while I revved up and added our share of black exhaust to the rest as I manoeuvred the bike with my feet to get it facing the road.

  The Lite Ace moved towards the mosque gates. There was no indication of which way he was turning, but if he followed his own script of the last week and a bit he should be going with the traffic: to his left, our right. Suzy climbed on, and fiddled with her helmet to buy us time while we waited for the Lite Ace to get on to the road. My head was already hot and sticky inside the crash helmet, which stank of years of tourists’ greasy hair. The plastic strap under my chin was slippery against my two days’ growth.

  She tapped me on the shoulder, just as the Lite Ace merged with the traffic. We turned right, against the flow, in front of the massed headlights, and began to take the target. There were four cars and a swarm of Honda 70s between us. He slowed for a group of tourists crossing the road, then accelerated to catch up with the flow. We followed, stopping and starting, guided by his flickering right brake light. If I lost him, this would be an excellent VDM for me to look out for either in the dark or in general traffic confusion. I knew it was there because I had slipped out with a screwdriver a couple of nights ago. If whipping was the penalty for using a dodgy satellite card, I dreaded to think what it would be for tampering with a vehicle.

  The cars and heavy vehicles came to a halt again, but the scooters carried on weaving in and out. Instead of following suit, I stopped and kicked down into first, kept the clutch in and stayed well back.

  Suzy adjusted herself behind me, wiggling her arse either side of the seat to unstick her thin trousers from the plastic. Her right hand was round my stomach and the bag was squeezed between us; her revolver, an old six-shot .45, Second World War vintage, almost silver with wear, dug into the small of my back as I inhaled another lungful of exhaust fumes.

  Keeping two vehicles behind the van, I played the cautious tourist, making no attempt to copy all the others on two wheels. My legs were sweating inside my cheap night-market trousers, and it was nice to get a bit of breeze through my trainers as we moved.

  There was a burst of light inside the Lite Ace before cigarette smoke leaked from the driver’s window. Suzy leant forward over my shoulder and breathed in deeply, then I could hear her laughing behind me. I didn’t know whether to be pleased she wasn’t flapping on the job, or to flap myself because she wasn’t. I liked people who got scared.

  The coastline of Penang was low-lying, but as soon as you turned inland you began to climb. The target worked as a waiter in a Dutch restaurant up on the high ground in the centre of the island; I knew we’d be coming up to some lights soon, and he should be turning right. But something was wrong. He wasn’t moving into the right-hand lane; instead he fought his way past the traffic at the junction waiting to turn inland.

  Suzy was on my shoulder. ‘What’s he doing?’ I ignored her and carried on with the take; there was nothing we could do but follow.

  The traffic stopped and started before the left indicator flashed up ahead and the Lite Ace headed into a world of rusty corrugated iron. I slowed at the junction and followed, just as he hung another left and disappeared.

  We were on a narrow, rough concrete road, flanked by shacks. I took the bike down into the darkness, stopping just short of the turning. There was a glow of static light hanging above a group of tin roofs. Suzy jumped off and I just managed to grab her arm before she ran towards it. ‘Not here, OK? Not here.’

  Her helmet came off and she faded into the darkness.

  I carried on past, turned to face the junction in
shadow, and killed the engine. The ghostly glow of TV sets flickered inside most of the shacks, and I could hear kids playing and dogs barking. There was a strong smell of drains.

  Vehicle lights soon sparked up along the track out to the junction, and I could hear an engine heading my way. I couldn’t see inside the Lite Ace as it turned right, towards the main; I hit the ignition but kept my lights off as it stopped at the junction then tried to fight its way back out and head right.

  Suzy reappeared, running as fast as she could. I rode up to meet her as she waited and shoved her helmet back on. Jumping on the back, she sucked in air as she held on to me. ‘He was picking up – it’s two-up. Of all fucking nights.’ I could feel her warm breath against my neck as we watched the vehicle disappear. I turned the lights on and we started to move.

  ‘Did you see who it was?’

  ‘No. What now?’

  I shrugged. I never really knew what to do until I was doing it when these fuck-ups happened. We got out on to the main and this time I gave it some throttle and joined the rest of the mosquitoes weaving in and out. Her arm tightened round my waist and her legs squeezed tight against mine.

  She saw the brake light at the same time as I did, pulling at my stomach with her right hand and pointing over my shoulder with her left. I exaggerated my nod as the glare of neon and traffic lights merged in my badly scratched visor.

  The Lite Ace was nearing the crossroads, in the left-hand filter. I passed another car and was now just one vehicle behind, trying to get a better view inside. I pushed up the visor and a rush of cooler air hit the sweat.

  Neon bathed the two bodies in the front seats. The passenger was a man, younger than the target, and Malaysian. The good news was that he also wore a white shirt, and was obviously a model employee. When he turned his head to talk to the target I could see he’d already put on his bow-tie.

  The vehicle’s indicators flashed for the left turn and they left the coast road. The route inland was busy but not as chaotic as the one we’d just quit, and I could feel the contours almost immediately as we started to make height. After less than a kilometre the breeze-block shacks petered out, and with them the clatter of petrol generators and the yelps of their scabby dogs. As we climbed even higher there was nothing at the roadside but vegetation. Lights twinkled occasionally behind the greenery, suggesting habitation, but even those soon disappeared. The road narrowed; two vehicles could just have squeezed past each other.