Andy McNab - Zero hour

I pulled in beside it as soon as there was enough clearance, then got out and hit the green down button. The floor was covered with dust and the kind of tyre prints they get very excited about on CSI: Miami. Beyond the cars there was an empty space where whatever came into or out of this building was stored, and a set of steps that led up to a gallery.

'Mr Smith…'

A man in jeans and a leather jacket came down them to greet me. His voice was accentless but educated and his smile was ironic. He thrust out a hand, allowing me a glimpse of cufflinks in the shape of miniature shotgun cartridges, and we shook.

Bradley's hair was short and blond, and casual dress wasn't his thing. He reminded me of my estate agent, and the kind of officer I'd done my best to forget about since leaving the Regiment. He had a blue plastic folder tucked under his arm. 'Shall we go inside? I have your briefing pack.'

He led me back up to the gallery and through a thick wooden fire door. A narrow concrete stairway went up the centre of the building, past a landing with a push-bar fire escape, to a corridor which ran the length of the top floor. Three doors, all of them open, led into empty offices that overlooked the road. A couple of old wooden filing cabinets was all that remained of the furniture, but indentations in the carpet marked where desks had once stood, and worn areas traced the most popular routes between them.

'What is this place? Who does it belong to?'

He checked his stride, as if he couldn't walk and talk at the same time. 'It was built just before the Germans invaded. The Resistance used it as a hide for downed Brit air crews.'

'Who else knows I'm here?'

He looked disappointed that I'd needed to ask. 'No one apart from Mr T and Julian. Did Julian tell you he and I knew each other at Marlborough? I joined the army and he… Well, he's done all right for himself, hasn't he?'

'Don't know, mate. Never set eyes on him. Where do the Dickinsons fit in? Do they know what's going on?'

'My mother's family. They were the ones with the money. Her grandfather started in paper packaging in 1936. He ended up with businesses all over Europe. My father took over the group when my mother inherited, and they both died just over ten years ago. A boating accident…' The blood rushed to his cheeks. 'It was only then that I discovered he was bankrupt. I managed to keep a little of the empire, and this is part of it.'

'Are you in the service?'

He smiled. 'I like to think so. The company has had links with HMG since those Resistance days. During the Cold War, my father gave the Firm any titbits he picked up while on business in the East. I'm more a sort of roving ambassador myself – one foot in the import/export world, the other with you guys, whoever you are. I don't need to know. We're not exactly a new breed, I suppose. Private enterprise doing its bit to defend democracy.'

He gave me a smile that didn't go anywhere near his eyes.

'What about the road? Any movement?'

'Virtually none. The office block next door had less than tenper-cent occupation even before the recession. Now everyone has gone. The whole area is due to be redeveloped.'

'What about the porno shop?'

'They don't get out much. Must be allergic to sunlight. They'll be forced out eventually, though. The natives are getting restless.'

I followed him into a narrow, box-like room at the back of the building. He turned on the light. Varnished wooden pigeonholes with rusting metal card-holders covered one wall, and a galvanized steel ladder led up to a hatch in the roof.

'What about the Dutch? They know anything about the job?'

However much you've been told, the guys on the ground always know a little bit more.

'Nothing. The police are really only here to liaise with the Muslim community. They keep an eye on the drug situation, of course. Ironic, really, given what you can get your hands on legally in a bog-standard Amsterdam coffee shop – but they're trying to keep a handle on it. The violence, the people smuggling, the prostitution all follow in its wake.'

Fluorescent lights flickered into life above us as we moved into the room at the end. Bicycle hooks protruded from the wall opposite another push-bar fire escape.

A brand new kettle, a box of tea bags and a couple of cartons of milk were spread out on the work surface beside a stainless-steel sink with exposed pipe-work beneath it. A large cardboard box sat on the floor with a sleeping bag and one or two other bits and pieces bundled inside.

'I bought you a few essentials. I didn't know what you were bringing. There's an airbed in there and some toiletries, pens, paper, that sort of thing.' He opened the milk. 'UHT, I'm afraid. There isn't a fridge. And of course the tea bags aren't as good as English.'

He flicked on the kettle and pointed towards an archway in the partition wall. 'Shower and the like. All the plumbing works.'

I poked my head round the corner and made admiring noises about the unopened multi-pack of toilet paper. He'd thought of everything.

Bradley unwrapped a couple of mugs.

I ran a finger along the push-bar on the door. 'Do the alarms kick off if I open it?'

'I don't think so.'

I shoved against it and emerged onto a cast-iron staircase that led past the door from the landing below us and down to the wasteground. No alarm sounded. I couldn't see any contact points on the doorframe; no sign of a circuit.

'I'll check downstairs. Can you do the roof?'

The other door was the same.

I returned to see Bradley giving the roof-hatch bolts the good news with a rubber mallet.

I fixed the brews while he finished the job.

Bradley reached for the blue plastic folder and tipped its contents onto the brown carpet between us. I shuffled through a printout of Slobo's Facebook picture and a couple of A4 Google Earth images. One was a straight satellite view of the target, the other a hybrid with street names superimposed. We were less than two K from where the possible and her companions were being held.

I held up the shot of the square, flat-roofed building. The image was fuzzy, but the tower was identifiable from the shadow it cast across the ground. 'Any idea what's inside?'

He hadn't.

'What about the outside? Cameras?'

Bradley looked like he was having a tough time in the Mastermind chair. 'I don't know, sorry.'

'Do you know what this job is all about?' I jabbed at the picture, pressing the paper into the carpet. 'You know about these two?'

He flashed another of his special smiles. 'No. And I don't want to know.'

There are lots of people like Bradley. They range from retired civil servants to company CEOs, all of them out in what they like to think of as the real world. Some help with information. Some are in it a lot deeper, and I had the feeling he was one of them, despite his attempts to distance himself. Maybe he was on the Firm's payroll. Maybe they had something on him and he had no choice but to play ball. Maybe he was one of the weirdos who liked doing this shit because it fulfilled some fantasy.

'Do you have secure comms? How do we talk?'

Bradley looked sheepish. 'I'm afraid people like me aren't trusted with that sort of thing. I'm not complaining. I'd be at their beck and call, wouldn't I?'

'Tell you what, Brad. I have to stay here and crack on. Come back, on foot, tomorrow morning at ten?'

He took a final sip of his brew and put it on the drainer. 'Ten it is, Mr Smith.' He dusted down his jeans and threw me some keys.

'Who else has a set?'

'Just me.'

That probably wasn't true. The locks weren't new. There would have been quite a few sets in circulation over the years.

'Good. Tomorrow, be precisely on time and use your keys as if the place was empty. Just let yourself in, then stay right there. I'll come and get you.'