Andy McNab - Exit wound

Red Ken wasn’t seeing the funny side. He walked towards me. ‘Doesn’t it piss you off?’

‘Don’t know enough about it, mate. I’m used to being treated like shit, but I can see these lads get it a whole lot worse.’

Dex came to join us. ‘Well done, Red, you got rid of him a lot quicker this time.’

Red Ken wasn’t in the mood for praise. ‘That’s him fucked off until the airstrip RV. Let’s get on with it. Listen in, we got six crates to lift, right?’

We both nodded and I guessed what was coming.

‘Well, we’re going to have one for ourselves. I don’t trust the twat – and, besides, we’re here for us. You both OK with that?’

Dex was more than happy, but it wasn’t that simple.

‘How do we lift it? How do we hide it? I presume we come back later for it?’

‘Correct. I got a wagon parked up at the airport among those three thousand vehicles. Me and Chrissie just binned it when we left. We load it up, re-park it, and come back later. Then we melt it down and sell it.’

They’d only agreed with Spag about not having weapons, Red Ken said, because they already had some. ‘If it all goes tits up, we ain’t rotting in some fucking Arab jail. We’re going to get out of this shit, spend the cash – or die trying.’ He shared eye to eye with Dex. ‘It’s do or die, isn’t it, mate?’

Dex looked at me and for the first time there wasn’t a smile. ‘It’s our time. Our one chance to change our lives for ever. Make or break. If it doesn’t work, we’re dead anyway. You OK with that? If not, maybe it’s time to rethink, Nick.’

I didn’t need time to re-anything. ‘No, I’m not OK. This is getting worse by the minute. Have you two really thought about what we’re involved with here? Have you approached this job like you would have done anything else we’ve been involved with?

‘Think about what that fat fuck might have up his sleeve. Think about all the details we don’t know. I’m here because I’m here, and I’ll stay with you two whatever. We’re mates, and mates stick together. But think about the risks. We can walk away any time we want to, lads.’

Red Ken climbed into his buggy. ‘I’m not walking away from anything, son. I can’t. There’s too much at stake for me.’

Dex followed. ‘Come on, Nick. Let’s finish playing golfers, and then we can get to work. You have a lot of recces to do.’

Mall of the Emirates

1450 hrs

The mall felt like Monaco with a roof on, only bigger. All the usual international suspects were there, from a Carrefour hypermarket that took up half the ground floor to Asprey, Rolex and hundreds of others in between. To make Brit tourists feel at home, it even had an indoor funfair a few escalators up, complete with bumper cars and fluffy toys.

Most bizarre of all was the world’s biggest indoor ski slope. A huge steel cocoon towered over the car park and taxi drop-off point on the roof. Inside, I imagined, Arabs were skiing in dishdash es under Versace Puffa jackets, but I hadn’t got to see it yet. After the golf game we’d gone to the hotel for a quick shower, then straight out again. Ken and I were now busy keeping up with Dex as he bounced from one perfume shop to another.

We’d had a white Toyota behind us all the way from the hotel to the mall, a good twenty-minute drive. Not unusual on its own, as the mall was one of the city’s major venues. But it was three up, all Arab males in Western dress, and they’d stuck to us like glue. We’d soon see if we’d been pinged, and maybe by whom. It could be UAE internal security – or Spag’s people keeping tabs on us. Right now, it didn’t matter who. What did was confirming that we were targets and then deciding what to do about it.

‘Doesn’t anyone here sell Amouage Homage?’

‘They must do – it’s the most expensive perfume on the planet. Nick and me’ll go and ask at McDonald’s.’

I followed Red Ken as Dex disappeared into yet another shop. He shook his head. ‘A whole field of rose petals to produce a teardrop of the stuff. They make it in Oman. I bought Chrissie some and she went crazy about it. I think that’s where Dickhead got the idea. He’s trying to get Cinza back.’ Red Ken smiled at me. ‘Can you see the one with the checked shirt? He still about?’

We headed for the food court.

‘Nope. He could have gone with Dex.’

There had been a young guy, maybe mid-twenties, who hadn’t got past Surveillance 101. He was always getting in our eye-line. Either he was bad, or we just happened to share exactly the same shopping preferences.

‘We’ll soon find out, Nick. Not that it’s going to make a difference to me. Fuck ’em, whoever they are.’ Red Ken led me past the falafel and vegetarian joints. ‘He really is soft in the head, that lad. You can’t just bribe women back – and don’t I know it.’

We reached the counter and ordered Big Macs. We didn’t check for anyone or anything yet. There was no need – we’d soon see if someone had a trigger on us once we sat down. Besides, we didn’t even know for sure we were being followed. And if we were, we didn’t want to look aware.

‘Dex want anything?’

‘He won’t touch any of this shite. I’ll get him an orange juice.’

We carried our trays to the seating area and sat each side of the table to maximize our view of the hall. Three women on the next table were burqa ’d up in black gear. Each time one of them brought food to her mouth she had to lift the beak and try to post it through without leaving a blob of mayonnaise on the flap of the letterbox.

Beyond them, a table-load of local kids were busier texting than eating. On our other side, two overweight American lads with goatee beards, ball caps and overalls emblazoned with an energy company logo and the Stars and Stripes were making up for them, in supersize.

Women of all races paraded around us in short, strapless dresses. A couple of hours down the road in Saudi it would have been a capital offence. There were a lot of girls down that way with mayo stains round their letterboxes.

I reached for my Pepsi. No Coke here: most of the Middle East seemed to think Coca-Cola was a Jewish company.

As on the aircraft, there was no talking shop while we were around others. ‘What made you get out of here so quick, mate?’ I was thinking about the abandoned vehicle. ‘Just that Chrissie didn’t like it?’

He took the top off his drink and rejected the straw I offered. ‘The whole expat lifestyle. The way they treat these lads-’ He nodded in the direction of the Filipinos sweating at a stir-fry counter. ‘Me and Chrissie, we’re from shite. Our dads were both down the pit. They had principles. Socialism rubs off, you know. Seeing these people treated so badly pissed us both off. She couldn’t handle it.’

He took a bite out of his burger. ‘I said we’d bin it – but maybe just another month or two to get some money together.’ He over-concentrated on the tabletop all of a sudden. ‘She had a breakdown. It wasn’t just the being here… it was a culmination of years of me fucking off working. I was just too engrossed in what I was doing to see it coming.’

He raised his paper napkin to his eye, trying to persuade me that he had a bit of grit in it. ‘We left, but it was too late. She binned me. I should have listened to her. I fucked up, mate – forgot there was another life, something more important.’

He looked at his Big Mac and put it down. He’d lost the taste for it. He sat back with his arms on the table, his hands squeezed together. ‘I kidded myself I was doing all my soldiering for them. Creating a family, putting together a nest egg. But guess what? It was all for me, because I loved it. Now it’s make or break. My last job – and this time it’s for Chrissie. No more bullshit. I’m going to get some of the good stuff and give it the big fuck-off to everyone else – including you and Dex. It’s end-ex for me.’