Andy McNab - Exit wound

I binned the mobile as I legged it towards the terminal.

It was 06.45.

Inside, it was busier than I’d expected, a lot busier than when I’d flown in. I looked up and scanned the departures board. The Moscow flight stopped off first in Astana. I headed towards the ticket-sales counter. The girl standing behind it looked as though she’d just come off the high-cheekbones-and-perfect-teeth production line.

I took some deep breaths as I went to slow everything down inside my body and my head. I got into the zone. I’d always known that people like Red Ken, Dex and I were lucky to be able to do that. I didn’t know if it was genetic or acquired or a combination of the two, but when everything went to rat shit, thinking clearly just sort of happened. It had nothing to do with being brave or, in Dex’s case, certifiably insane. It had to do with mastering the stress when it would be natural to flap big-time.

Stress improves performance. Your heart-rate is governed by adrenalin levels. That’s all good stuff when you need flight, fight or bluff, but there is an optimum state – when it’s hammering away at between 115 and 145 beats per minute. Anything above that and your body stops being able to control what it’s doing and you get killed because you fuck up. Or in this case it arouses suspicion and encourages the uniformed automaton in the driving seat to check everything about you more closely, starting with your passport.

She finished her call as I reached the counter. She looked up and switched on her brilliant white smile. I tried my best to match it.

‘The seven thirty for Moscow via Astana. I’d like a seat, please.’

She tapped away at her computer keyboard as I flipped Tattoo’s passport out of his jacket pocket and got extra busy looking down and fucking about in my day-sack.

She scanned it and passed it back to me with just a cursory glance at the personal details. She certainly didn’t see anything odd about a guy with a British accent presenting with Russian travel docs. I know people who’ve travelled the world on their wife’s passport. You just have to show a bit of front.

‘How would you like to pay, Mr Sinitsin?’

‘US dollars, please.’

She checked her tariff. ‘That will be ninety.’

She gave the keyboard a really good hammering and a ticket eventually clattered out of the printer beside her. She passed it across the counter, giving me the opportunity to admire her green wristband and immaculate manicure.

‘You are boarding at gate ten. Air Astana do not allocate seats, but that is no problem – the flight is nearly empty. Please hurry. The gate is closing in fifteen minutes.’

Immigration and security were a piece of piss. They were there to tag foreigners coming in and nationals going out, not the other way round. The camera had lost its memory card; it was now in my mouth. My James Manley passport was in Tattoo’s wallet.

A stewardess looked at my boarding pass and waved towards the hundred or so empty seats. As I moved down the aisle I heard the door close behind me. I spat the memory card into my hand.

The aircraft was relatively new, much better than the ropy gear that former Soviet Union countries used to fly. There were three seats either side of the aisle. I spotted Anna about three-quarters of the way back, on the right-hand side, hunched over her netbook. Judging by the expression on her face, she was using the last few minutes before take-off to spit teeth and feathers at her readers about the misdeeds of M3C. She had a silk scarf tied loosely around her neck. I knew she was going to be wearing it for a good few days.

I didn’t know where the Falcon was headed, and Julian wasn’t going to be of any help. I had to get out of the country. So here I was, with the only person who could help me find out what the fuck was going on.

I carried on down the aisle and took the seat next to her.

Anna looked up, eyes like saucers. She opened her mouth to speak, but I silenced her with a finger to my lips. My other hand swivelled the netbook towards me. I hit the keys with my two middle fingers.

talk like this

Nowhere is safe from surveillance, especially on an aircraft. Even the toilets can be bugged. State-of-the-art systems can screen out the sound of running water.

falcon left with the 2 players onboard – do you know where?

no

People were still thronging the aisles and waffling away on their mobiles, but the plane had started to taxi.

I slotted in the memory card. Spag’s picture filled the screen.

know him?

She shook her head and typed.

who is he?

dont know

I didn’t need to tell her anything that didn’t help me.

he with the other two?

I nodded.

how did you know about neptun building and the meet?

She smiled.

a source

who?

She smiled again.

go fuck yourself

I tried again.

can you find out where the falcon is going?

There was a commotion behind us. The stewardess had started bollocking people big-time. She spotted the netbook so we got a verbal slapping as well.

Anna turned and nodded.

We touched down in Astana at 12.15 local. Once we’d left the plane, Anna scrabbled around in her day-sack and pulled out a mobile and battery. Good drills: no tracing. Once she’d reunited them and found a signal, she started dialling. It wasn’t long before she was mumbling away, her hand covering her mouth to hide the sound.

It took no more than a minute. As she closed down and removed the battery again, we exchanged our first words since I’d sat down next to her.

‘Well?’

‘He will help us.’ She raised a finger and tugged her scarf far enough down her neck for me to glimpse a bruise that was pretty much the same colour as Tattoo’s prize tattoo. ‘At least until he sees this, you bastard.’

We transited through for the 13.25 flight to Moscow.

Astana airport

IKIA had been a palace compared to this dump. The transit lounge was old-school Communism back with a vengeance – drab, dirty, full of cigarette smoke and people lying on top of crushed cardboard boxes because there weren’t any seats.

Anna toyed with her plastic coffee cup and looked at the empty tables all around us. I asked her the question again. ‘Why are you so fixated on just one man?’

She took a big pull on her cigarette.

‘Br-in…’ She almost choked on the word. ‘Brin was one of those people who found themselves in the right place at the right time the day the Soviet Union ceased to exist – the first of January 1992. He was in his mid-thirties, an ardent Communist and, until Gorbachev and Yeltsin pulled the plug on the old system, a man at the very height of his career – or so he believed. Back then, even he couldn’t have guessed quite how big and successful he would eventually become. None of Russia’s oligarchs could…

‘Brin was extremely ambitious. He came to Moscow from the fourth largest city in Russia – Gorky, which is now known as Nizhny Novgorod. During the Communist era, Gorky was a closed city – the reason many dissidents were sent there. Once you arrived in Gorky, it was almost impossible to leave, such was the ring of security the KGB placed around it. And for good reason: Gorky was a strategic industrial centre for weapons production, something Brin knew a great deal about.’

She paused and gazed into the middle distance for a few moments, watching the smoke she exhaled blending with the grey wall of the cafeteria.