Andy McNab - Exit wound

‘What about next of kin? How are you going to cover it?’

‘The normal, I suppose: no knowledge of anything, and if the bodies show up the Foreign Office will put it down to criminal activity.’ Julian got to his feet. ‘Get yourself cleaned up and into your own clothes. I’ll see if we can get the ball rolling for the Canadian couple. I’ll be back soon.’

He got up but didn’t turn for the door. ‘Nick, I’m very sorry about Red and Dex. I know you all went way back.’

‘Yep, we did, mate. Let’s find these fuckers, yeah?’

Julian came back into the interview room about two hours later with a pile of blue folders under his arm. ‘Nice work, Nick. Nice work.’ He dropped them onto the table as he sat down. ‘We know who owns the Falcon. Well, which country. It’s the Federation.’

I tried not to laugh because he didn’t. ‘Captain Kirk at the wheel?’

I knew he meant Russia, but I was feeling a lot better now after my shit, shave, shower, and getting back into my own clothes – and, of course, after the full English in the police cafe upstairs. All my stuff had been packed and brought from the hotel room. My pink golfing shirt looked a bit out of place in the interrogation room, but not as much as Julian’s suit and blue striped shirt with white collar and cuffs.

‘At the helm, actually, I think you’ll find.’ He shoved the folder across to me. ‘Space, the final frontier…’

I leafed through endless pictures of Middle Eastern males – posing, swimming, eating, alone and in family groups. ‘I’m looking for the face, right?’

‘Correct. We’ve tracked the Falcon to Tehran. So these-’ he slammed his hand onto the folders ‘- these are Iranians who we believe have connections with the Russians. Russian arms trade, terrorism, you name it. Go through them, see what you come up with.’

He stood up and left.

There must have been a couple of hundred photographs, but it didn’t take long to go through them. Just as well. Julian was back within thirty minutes with more. By then I had just a handful of pictures spread out in front of me and the rest were piled up on the table next to my empty coffee cup.

He sat down next to me.

I’d picked out a selection of faded black-and-whites of a man in his twenties with a full head of curly hair. The focus was fuzzy, but the clothes and winged American pimpmobile he was posing against pegged it to the seventies.

‘You sure, Nick?’

I nodded. I’d never forget that face – proud cheekbones, a big Roman nose, and those eyes… ‘These must have been taken thirty years ago – I reckon he must be in his sixties now – but the eyes haven’t changed. Yeah, this is almost certainly the man I saw… how many nights ago?’

‘You’ve been in transit two days.’

‘So who is he?’

I looked up at the camera. ‘Any chance of another brew?’ I gave the universal gesture.

Julian stared down at our man. He tapped one of the pictures with a well-manicured finger. ‘We don’t know his name. We call him Altun. It’s Farsi for “golden”. Ironic, isn’t it?’

‘How do you lads come up with them?’

‘I blame the computer – it just spews them out. The Americans are using the same codename.’ He raised his bottle of Tesco’s sparkling. ‘Here’s to the Special Relationship.

‘This is the last known picture of him.’ He tapped it with a fingernail. ‘Taken in Tehran, just before the Islamic Revolution.’

The cell door opened and Ginger came in with two proper mugs and a couple of mini-packets of ginger nuts. I was still in a good mood. ‘Family recipe?’

He laughed. He was all right. I’d had a brew with him in the canteen over breakfast. He’d even apologized for giving my wrists the good news.

Julian wasn’t one for distractions. ‘He was a student when Khomeini took power in ’seventy-nine. He spent four years piecing together documents that the Shah had shredded before he fled. Imagine working on the world’s biggest jigsaw puzzle, day after day.’

‘So what’s he doing now, on a Russian aircraft? Doesn’t sound good, mate.’

Julian’s jaw hardened as he opened one of his new folders. ‘He’s Iran’s backroom negotiator. He makes the deals with the Taliban, Iraqi insurgents, Hezbollah – any extremist group that needs training, support, weapons. In fact, anyone Iran supports against the West.’ He passed over the folder. ‘We have a big problem, Nick. That aircraft is not just any Russian aircraft. It’s Russian government – hence the RF marking. That would be bad enough, but worse still, the plane really belongs to M3C.’

‘The rapper? He a mate of yours?’

The most recent folder was brimming with brochures. Like any other company on the planet with something to sell, Moscow Missile Manufacturing Complex didn’t hold back on the glossy marketing bumph. The only difference was that M3C wasn’t flogging shower units or timeshares by the Black Sea.

We sat there in silence. I was sure we were thinking the same thing. Had Saddam’s doors been used as payment for some of this shit? If so, where was it going to end up, and who was going to be on the receiving end?

Julian grimaced. ‘Scary thought, isn’t it? Can you imagine a C-130 full of troops or an Apache getting shot down over Kandahar? Or missiles coming into this country, taking out commercial flights on their way into Heathrow? The good citizens of Putney won’t be too pleased if a giant Airbus comes down their chimney.’

I dunked my ginger nut and gave it a munch. ‘Not good, mate, not good. But I’m in north London. I don’t think I’m on a flight path.’

He wasn’t about to let himself be thrown off course. ‘It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the US cannot stabilize Afghanistan or Pakistan. This company’s activities could result in a mountain of body bags. If domestic pressure made Obama pull out, China would close its borders with Pakistan and establish a Pak-Taliban pact. Iran would then pull out all the stops in Afghanistan, just as it has in Iraq. And nuclear India? They won’t just stand by and watch. They’d be forced to take action against a nuclear Pakistan.’

He turned down my offer of a biccie. ‘Then we all bunker down and wish we were born two hundred years ago.’

‘You’d have been singing “Old Man River”.’

I finally got a smile. ‘While we’re on the subject of slavery, I have a job for you. More CONTEST.’

I didn’t reply, but I didn’t have to.

‘The Falcon landed in Tehran. There were no stopovers, so that’s where the gold was taken. There’s an arms fair starting there in three days, and M3C is an exhibitor. You’re the only one who might be able to make a positive ID of our prime suspect. I want you to find this guy Altun and get me an up-to-date photograph. I want to know who he meets, where and why. Maybe then we can find out what’s being sold and to whom.’

Julian went into smile overdrive. ‘Today Paddington. Tomorrow Tehran. We’ll finish my briefing here, then there’s someone across town who needs your full attention.’

‘Can’t I go home first and get some real gear on?’ I tugged at my polo shirt.

‘Don’t worry about it. Trinny and Susannah won’t be there.’

DIS building, London

Sunday, 3 May

1430 hrs

We walked the three miles from Paddington Green to Whitehall. After two days of incarceration, Julian thought I’d want to stretch my legs. While we were at it, he briefed me on the DIS and Squadron Leader Gavin Kettle.

According to their website, the mission of the Defence Intelligence Staff was to provide ‘timely intelligence products, assessments and advice to the Ministry of Defence to guide decisions on policy and commitment and employment of the UK’s armed forces, to inform defence procurement decisions and to support military operations’. Alongside MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, it went on, DIS also contributed to the UK’s threat assessment picture at any given time. Despite the general cutbacks, the DIS still seemed to be relatively well resourced.