Andy McNab - Exit wound

There were plenty of people like her out there who were bent on saving the world, and a conscience was a good thing, I supposed – except that in situations like this it could easily get you killed. Crusaders for truth look great under the studio lights. But in the real world they get swatted like flies.

I thought about pushing her back down onto the floor and giving her the Timberland treatment while I packed my day-sack, in case she made the mistake of thinking we were new best mates.

‘M3C are trying to hide the SA-16 deal by using Iran as the broker. That probably explains the guy in the Mercedes.’ She gestured towards the Neptun building. ‘Look, I can’t prove it yet, but Brin is where all this shit begins. The Taliban may fire the guns and Iran may think it’s pulling their strings, but M3C loads the bullets. If we can close Brin down, that’s where it ends.’

‘Until some other fucker takes his place.’ I pulled the cord to close my day-sack and spotted a nylon shopping bag close by where I’d found her.

‘It’s not just the military who are killed by these things. People who have no say, who are just trying to get on with their lives – the ones everybody forgets. That’s why I’m here. We have to stop-’

‘For fuck’s sake, shut up. Here…’ Her bag contained the same sort of stuff I had in mine: cash, passport, camera, burqa . No weapon. I threw it at her. ‘You come in via the university?’

She nodded and pulled out her burqa .

‘We’d better get out the same way.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Your hotel.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘You throttle the life out of me, treat me like a silly little girl who doesn’t know shit, and then expect me to invite you back to my room?’ She gave a soft laugh. ‘They moved me out to the airport. I’m getting thrown out of the country tomorrow. They want me on the first flight out. I’m on the seven thirty to Astana, then Moscow – they’re in such a hurry to get rid of me they’re not even sending me back to Russia. They put security in the lobby so I just took the rear exit. What’s the worst they could do if they catch me sneaking back in with you? Threaten to throw me out in the morning?’

The worst they could do was a whole lot worse than that, but I didn’t think now was the right time to mention it.

We sat in the back of the cab in our burqa s, me playing the big, ugly sister. There wouldn’t have been a lot to talk about even if we’d both sounded local. We were on the outskirts of the city, in the glow of cheap orange streetlights and what looked like a shanty town thrown together with cardboard, wriggly tin, mud and straw. Dogs skulked and pissed on the pavement. Kids in rags played in the doorways.

Agnetha wore a plain band of gold on the third finger of her right hand. In Russia, that meant she was married. If she’d worn it on the same finger of the left, it would have sent a clear signal that she was divorced or widowed. Either her husband was at home doing a little light housework or she wanted people like me to stop bothering her.

It hadn’t taken us long to get out of the minaret and sneak past the drivers. They were now focused on the Iranian answer to Friday Night with Jonathan Ross . All we could hear was canned laughter, punctuated from time to time by giggles beneath the blankets.

The square was teeming again as women poured out of the mosque. We dusted ourselves down as best we could before taking our places in the crowd. We headed up to the main and jumped into a taxi – a Peugeot 305 with a sunroof, air-conditioning and a nice blue digital dash. Just right for the ladies.

Agnetha gave directions. Her Arabic was really good. These lads weren’t Arabs, but they understood her. After all, their religion was inseparable from the language. They’d known it since they were kids.

I felt my eyes beginning to droop in the comfort of the rear seat and the cocoon-like security of the burqa . I shook myself awake and tried to make sense of the M3C/Iran/Taliban triangle.

The Taliban had the drugs and the cash to pay for the weapons.

It didn’t add up.

Why did Altun need the gold?

Why would a guy who was so high up the food chain organize a robbery and use a Russian plane to cart away the proceeds? Why would the mullahs turn a blind eye? They weren’t that mad.

And then I realized that the deal wasn’t being brokered by the Iranians at all. Agnetha was wrong. They had nothing to do with it.

So what was Altun up to? And why did he need the gold?

I was going round in circles. I had to cut away. The answer didn’t matter. It didn’t do anything for me right now, and it couldn’t affect what I was going to do.

We were approaching the airport road. Red and white lights blinked on top of the towers. The terminal glowed brilliant white. It looked like a recently landed UFO.

The Peugeot drove towards Agnetha’s hotel. Beyond the flags in the driveway, the lobby was another beacon of white neon. A bored-looking guy in a uniform slouched at the reception desk. Agnetha asked the driver to go round to the back. I checked my watch. It was coming up to eleven.

She paid off the driver and pretended to look for her car. The blue glow of the dash faded into the night.

She led me to the steel fire escape. I took off my burqa and bundled it into my day-sack but she kept hers on. I was quite pleased about that. The bruises on her neck would be developing nicely. She was halfway up the stairs before she realized I wasn’t following. ‘Aren’t you coming up?’

I shook my head. ‘The room’s probably bugged.’

‘But I-’

‘You online?’

‘Yes.’

‘Whatever I find out, I’ll let you know. What name am I looking for?’

‘Anna Ludmilova. Shall I spell it?’

‘I’ll find you.’

I headed out of the car park, my day-sack on my back. I broke into a jog to get out of the light and make some distance. Being alone had never been a big deal for me. It was simpler than surrounding yourself with people the whole time, and I’d sometimes confused it with a kind of freedom. But I’d have given almost anything just then to have Lord Dex of Cards and his Hallowe’en torch beside me, and to be able to take the piss out of Lord Ken of t’Pit for firing up his thousandth roll-up of the day.

This might be a crusade for Agnetha, but it was a whole lot more than that for me. I reckoned I’d already discovered enough to keep Julian happy for a day or two. I’d done what I’d been asked to do. Now I was going to find Altun and his mates again. And then I was going to kill them.

It wouldn’t stop any missile deal; it might not even delay it. It wouldn’t get the Taliban flapping or make the world start smelling of flowers. But it would make me feel a fucking sight better.

I was pumping the Timberlands as fast as I could, but the Air France 747 overtook me with ease as it taxied down to the bottom of the strip about two hundred to my left and prepared for take-off.

I’d kept on the Imam Khomeini International Airport approach road so that I could move faster. I was soaked with sweat, but my head was clear. The M3C terminal was on the far side of the complex. Behind me, a never-ending stream of traffic roared along the main.

The 747 lumbered down the runway and climbed into the air. I turned off the tarmac and stumbled across a stretch of rubble-strewn sand, keeping out of the stark white light that separated the airport from the desert.

I picked my way past a spaghetti junction of rusty metal pipes and interconnecting valves that were due to bring water into or take waste out of IKIA at some point in Majid’s glorious future. A single-track road curved around the edge of the airfield. I turned onto it and speeded up again. My throat was dry. My hair was plastered against my face. The day-sack pounded my back with every step. I felt like a squaddie again, on a tab. Switch off, head down and make distance. It’s what you do once you’re there that counts, so get there fast.