Andy McNab: Exit wound

Red Ken had got his BlackBerry out and was already online. He tuned in to bullionvault.com and turned the screen towards me.

‘Structure?’

The screen filled with charts and Red Ken held it closer. ‘You’ll find out if you’re in, won’t you? Now, the price of gold this minute is thirty thousand, six hundred and fifty US dollars per kilo. That’s already up six hundred a kilo today.’

He came out of the site and started on the calculator. I didn’t have to bother with the mental arithmetic. I knew it was going to be buckets.

Red Ken’s extra-large thumbs pounded the keys. He had to start again as they hit too many at once.

‘Six days ago, Nick, the price was twenty-eight thousand, six hundred. So… Right, here we are… We’re now looking at-’ He shoved the BlackBerry back towards me. ‘Thirty point five bar.’

I looked at the calculator. He was right: 30,500,000. ‘A few zeros ain’t going to make me jump in. I need to know where it is, what it is, who it belongs to, how you plan to do the job, and where the gold goes afterwards.’

Dex’s laugh came so suddenly and so loudly it made both of us jump. ‘We knew you were our man. Just like the old days!’ The laughter stopped, and I wasn’t sure who he was talking to next. ‘Well, not exactly, come to think of it. I’m not doing it for Queen and country any more, I’m doing it for me. So really, it’s-’

Red Ken sank back into the leather. ‘Dex, shut the fuck up, will you?’

I still wasn’t getting the questions answered. ‘Lads, I need to know what I’m getting into here.’

‘I want to tell you. I’d lay the cards out, but there’s someone else involved. I got to talk to him first.’

‘Who?’

Red Ken sat back up and turned to me. ‘Nick, it’s a tough call, I know, but I can’t tell you, not yet. You know the score. Listen, the reason you’re here is because we need you and we trust you, so you got to trust us.’

‘Sorry, lads, I’m not getting into anything I don’t know about. I’m not going to be part of it until you-’

‘Chaps!’ Dex’s hand was off the wheel. ‘This is all getting rather boring. Nick, the job is in Dubai. It’s a pair of gold doors that Saddam had made in the UAE for his palace in Basra. But, of course, they never made it into Iraq, did they? They’re just sitting there, ready for an extension to put them on.’ He laughed at his own joke. ‘The gold won’t even be missed. No one knows the doors exist – and is the UAE going to jump up and down when they disappear and let the world know they were dealing with big bad S a year before the invasion? Not on your nelly! It’s a victimless crime. It’s not like we’re mugging someone’s granny.’

‘That’s all well and good, but we’ll still have to sell the shit. How much are we getting out of that thirty and a half bar?’

Red Ken wasn’t happy with Dex, but so what? ‘Forty cents on the dollar.’ He tapped away on his BlackBerry. ‘That’s twelve and a quarter bar.’

Dex laughed. He was probably already walking round the Ferrari showroom in his head.

‘But who’s buying it? Where’s it going?’

Dex was now driving as if he was in one. ‘That’s the thing we don’t know, old chap – and, quite frankly, I don’t care.’

Red Ken nodded. ‘Nick, we’re the only ones who are going to look after us. It’s time for some steak. What do you say, mate? Twelve and a quarter bar three ways – and a bit for Janice and the kids.’

Dex was studying me in the rear-view. He winked. ‘You know it makes sense, chappie. You look as if you could do with the world’s biggest leg-up. The doors are even flat-packed for us. Six crates, six by four by two. It’ll be like loading up at IKEA.’

I turned back to Red Ken. ‘You really going for it?’

‘It’s all planned. Two weeks, wheels turn. You need to be with us, mate. It’s what Tenny would have wanted.’

‘Lads, it sounds too good to be true. If anyone else came to me with this I’d think they were pissed.’ I sat back while they waited for an answer. ‘You’re not selling it to me, but I’m in.’

They exchanged a big smile.

‘But the only reason is because you two have shit for brains. I’m coming to look after you.’

Wednesday, 29 April 2009

0220 hrs

Dex studied the little plastic cup his G-and-T had been served in like it was something he’d found under his shoe. He finally gave it a squeeze and moved it to his mouth. He took a sip and turned in his seat to face the two of us in the row behind. ‘Cheers, chaps.’

I returned the toast with a red wine that perfectly matched the shit-on-a-tray in front of me.

Kenneth Merryweather, as his cover passport called him, wasn’t so enthusiastic. ‘Yeah, cheers.’ He dunked his bread roll in his wine and had a munch.

We still had half the seven-hour flight from Heathrow ahead of us. I’d been expecting us to be packed in like sardines, the price you pay for taking your golf trip on the cheap, but I was wrong. There were fewer than a hundred people on the aircraft. Nearly everyone, except Red Ken and me, had their own row of seats to spread out on.

‘Empty planes out, full planes back.’ Mr Merryweather was taking a lot of pleasure in how hard the recession had hit Dubai. ‘There are more than three thousand wagons abandoned in the airport car parks at any one time because of expats doing runners.’ He shook his head. ‘Lose your job, and those fuckers hold your bank account until you pay your debts – and lots of people are losing their jobs. It’s better to get straight to the airport and fuck off before they get a grip of you.’

I’d never been to Dubai, and Dexter Khan had only ever transited through before the two recces he’d made with Red Ken. Tenny would have been fresh to it too. Red Ken and Dex had already prepared the ground on those two trips. As soon as we met the guy who’d brought Red Ken the idea in the first place, it was straight into the job.

Red Ken knew Dubai like the back of his hand. He had worked there on the BG (bodyguarding) circuit for the best part of a year. It was supposed to have been for much longer. Chrissie had even gone out and joined him. Whatever it was that had gone wrong in their marriage, I got the sense that Dubai had tipped the scales. I wasn’t going to ask specifics. If he’d wanted me to know he would have told me.

Of much greater concern for me was the lack of information. Not just the little I had been told, but the little they seemed to know. It was unlike these two to go into something so serious without being in control. Something was wrong with this job, and something was wrong with these two to make them take such a risk. They’d thought it was a joke when I’d said I was coming along to look after them. It wasn’t.

Dex turned to face us again. ‘Tuck in, chaps – you’ll need plenty of energy for eighteen holes.’ He was a member of a posh club in Surrey and had brought his own clubs with him. He was even wearing a blue Pringle sweater and Burberry patterned slacks. Red Ken was dressed much the same, and unfortunately so was I. We looked like P. Diddy’s entourage.

Three days ago, Red Ken had let me rant on about how much I hated golf. I couldn’t see the reason for it except as an excuse for dickheads like Dex to wear clown outfits. To me it was a waste of land, sand, time, water and metal. Only once I’d finished condemning every golf player on the planet did Red Ken admit he also played – and that Dex had put him up for membership.

The worst news was that he had an old set of clubs he was going to lend me. Everything had to look normal. I couldn’t be walking round with brand-new gear. We were three car-showroom salesmen, off to ‘swing a few’, as Dex put it, and maybe have some other fun. Dubai was awash with Russian whores, Red Ken said. One of the things Chrissie had hated about the place was prostitutes looking her up and down if she had a drink with her husband in a hotel bar. They’d thought she was invading their turf.