Andy McNab - Brute force

Lynn emerged from below as the first drops of rain started to hit the windshield. He made us both a brew and came and sat down beside me.

I showed him the Google map. 'See this? A stretch of deserted beach. And just here' – I pointed to the T-shaped building – 'is a hotel.' At least I assumed it was, judging by the pool on the roof. I looked at him. 'You recognize the place?'

Lynn studied the picture. 'I know the area. There used to be a little seafood restaurant nearby. It served the best prawns in Tripoli. But the hotel is new.'

Twenty years ago, Libya was a closed society. Since the Lockerbie settlement, however, tourism was on the increase. There were a lot more white faces moving about the country but every one of them had to be accompanied by a 'guide' – tourist-board-speak for policeman.

Whereas there had only been a handful of border crossings in Lynn's day, there were many more now. I hoped that we'd find one that would pay a lot more attention to a fistful of dollars than a compromised passport and no visa.

Egypt, Tunisia, Niger, Algeria, Chad or the Sudan. I didn't fancy Niger, Chad or the Sudan much – and taking my chances again in Algeria, home of the headless Adel Kader Zeralda, didn't thrill me either. That left either Egypt or Tunisia, both tourist hotspots, so great cover once we were across the border. And with Lynn's knowledge of ancient history, we could always say we were on a tour of North African archaeological sites.

But first we had to find Mansour.

My plan was to wait until the worst of the weather had passed then take to the tender. It was around twelve miles to the coast. All being well, we'd reach the beach shortly before five. There was a cliff between the beach and the hotel, but the satellite overlays on the map showed what looked like a number of paths leading to the top. Once we'd disposed of the dinghy, we'd make our way to the hotel and grab a taxi to the Medina.

Lynn wasn't too keen but knew he had to do it.

'We have to appear as if we belong. It's a psych-job. It all starts and ends up here.' I tapped the side of my head. 'You have to convince yourself that you have a reason for being on those streets. If you convince yourself, you'll convince others. Humans – like animals – sense strength and weakness. If we seem in the least bit uncomfortable, they'll pick up on it.'

'I know what the manual says, Nick.' The fact that the boot was on the other foot and I was calling the shots still rankled with Lynn, but I didn't give a shit. This was no time for pride or hurt feelings.

'We've switched manuals here. In London, our primary objective was to lie low.' I studied his eyes to see if he was taking all this in. To be honest, it was pretty hard to tell.

'There won't be CCTV in Tripoli; at least, none to speak of. We'll need to take precautions all the same, conduct all the usual streetcraft. But we'll have to do it in a way that doesn't alert the man on the street. Third-party awareness is going to be a very big deal. We're going to be noticed everywhere we go. The colour of our skin, our clothes, everything about us will attract attention, because – there's no getting away from this – we're different. We just have to make a virtue of it; finding Mansour will give us a sense of purpose – it'll make it look like we belong.'

Lynn was clutching his brew, staring into the steam rising from the cup.

'Any of this making any sense?'

He nodded. 'Yes, of course. It'll make it look like we belong.' He even managed to sound like me.

I got to my feet. 'The alternative is just to turn the boat around. Go back to Italy. Stay tucked up in that nice, cosy apartment of yours while they track you down and then you're dead without ever knowing what the fuck this was all about.'

He shook his head. 'You're right. I'm sorry, Nick. I really should have told you. I'm-' He stopped. 'I've been living on my own so long I'm not really used to explaining myself.'

Something in the way he said it made me stop. I knew then that this was about his wife.

'You never separated or divorced, did you? What happened to her?'

He rubbed his eyes. When he looked up, they were red-rimmed and raw. Lynn stared long and hard at me. There was no anger, no resentment any more; just that increasingly familiar resignation. 'She's dead.'

He sat back in the big leather chair. The rain was falling harder. Rivulets ran down the Predator's windshield. 'You never did remarry, did you, Nick? At least, you'd successfully managed to avoid tying any more knots last time I checked your file.'

I shook my head. 'Strange, really. Nice, steady job, good money. Always saw myself as a bit of a catch. Can't quite think what went wrong…'

Lynn managed a bleak smile. 'I met my wife at Cambridge. We read Classics together. She was beautiful, but serious – serious when it came to her chosen subject, although as game as the next girl when it came to letting her hair down. She adored Italy. Had spent some time in Florence on a foundation arts course before she went up to Cambridge. I don't know what she saw in me, really. Perhaps it was the fact that I was the only other student who shared her passion for all things Italian – not, funnily enough, that I had ever been to Italy when we met. I just loved the history – knew very little about the place itself.

'She promised me she'd show me all the things that she most loved about it; not just the stuff the tourists see, but the real Italy: the Etruscan tombs of Umbria, the Greek temples at Paestum, the place north of Naples where Aeneas came ashore, the food, the people…'

I still didn't know where he was taking this. I sat there and let him continue. Fuck it, we had to wait for the storm to pass.

'It didn't take us long after we graduated to tie the knot, much to the horror of her parents. Caroline was from a smart Norfolk family and, given the set that she used to socialize with, I knew that they had high hopes she'd marry a lord or a duke or an earl – of whom there are quite a few in that neck of the woods. Not for a moment, Nick, did they think that she would end up with someone like me.'

I said nothing, but the surprise must have shown on my face.

'It never bothered Caroline. It never bothered her that we lived in small, dingy junior officers' accommodation in Germany or Wiltshire or North Yorkshire. It never bothered her either that our two children came into the world in an NHS ward instead of some smart, private London clinic – the kind of place where she and her siblings were born.'

'You found the apartment together?'

'She showed me her Italy and because she had a little money we were able to buy the place outright – or rather, I should say, she was. I didn't have a bean, other than what I was earning. That's why there is no trace to me. She bought it in her maiden name; she even had an Italian fiscal number. I had nothing to do with it at all.

'When I joined the Firm, she wanted us to have somewhere – a place we could retreat to if I ever needed to get out of the UK quickly: you know, if the shit ever hit the fan, as you put it. Nobody else knew about it. Not even the children. They still don't.'

'How old are they?'

Lynn's eyes glazed over for a moment. He seemed to search the roof for answers. 'Miranda's twenty-one and Freddie's eighteen. Good kids, both of them.'

'Why didn't you mention them before?'

'Patience, Nick. We're getting to the heart of my somewhat sad, sorry little tale. Caroline took responsibility for the apartment. It was her money that bought it. Her money that renovated it and furnished it – her time and energy that made it the place you saw. There were no footprints to me at all. When the children were at boarding school and I managed to get some time off, we'd often jump in the car and drive there. The kids, Caroline's family, our friends – still no one knew. The apartment became a refuge. Our place. Somewhere we could shut out the world.