Andy McNab: Payback

‘But they’re not like Dean, are they?’ boomed his mate Benny, who sounded as though he should be selling fruit and veg off an East End barrow. ‘They’re different, these Muslims. It’s a different mentality, a different attitude to life and death. We’ll never understand it.’

The two builders were customers at a tea bar by the side of the sun-baked road. It was not quite like the mobile cafes and burger bars seen at roadsides back in Britain. This was a more casual set-up. A canvas awning sheltered a couple of trestle tables from the blistering Spanish sun. On the tables were propane gas-powered griddles, hotplates and an urn. Two Union flags drooped limply from extensions to the poles holding up the awning.

Paul and Benny, and anyone else who asked, knew the owner by the name of Frankie, a fifty-something Englishman. Frankie was helped out at the tea bar by his young nephew Dean, who was on his gap year.

That was the story. It was far from the truth.

Every evening, when business was over, Frankie and Dean would load the mobile tea bar into the back of their second-hand Toyota pick-up truck and carry out routine anti-surveillance drills as they drove back to their small rented house in the town of Valverde del Camino. The route back to the house was quiet and little used, but Frankie stuck to all speed limits and regularly checked his mirrors, taking a mental note of vehicles following for any length of time. A few kilometres before the town he would pull over to the side of the road so that following vehicles were committed to passing. Once they got back to town, they would make a further check to see if any such vehicle was still being driven around or parked up anywhere near the house.

Accommodation had been easy to find: they had cash, the landlord wanted tenants and he wasn’t bothered about inconveniences like references. Only when they had returned to the security of the white-walled house could Frankie and Dean revert to their true identities – Fergus Watts and his grandson Danny.

It was six months since they had last seen England, a long six months, especially for Danny. Six months in which answering to his assumed name had become second nature; six months in which the constant fear of ambush or attack had gradually subsided; six months in which he had got used to living an anonymous life; six months in which he had dreamed of returning home every single day.

But that was impossible – for now, at least.

For now, they had to wait. And watch. And take the same precautions Fergus had learned during his years in the SAS. For now, they would live a lie as Frankie and Dean. They would cook and make endless mugs of tea and coffee while listening to other people’s conversations. About football. About the weather. About terrorist attacks in the heart of London.

‘The thing is, Paul, the world’s changed since nine/eleven,’ said Benny, continuing the heated discussion with his friend. ‘Terrorism has taken on a new dimension. Look at those other suicide bombers – you know, those Chechen Black Widows: they’re not just prepared to die for their cause, they want to die for it. It’s a holy thing for them – it’s a… a…’ He was floundering for the right word.

‘A jihad,’ said Frankie, looking up from the hotplate.

‘That’s it, that’s the word,’ said Benny. ‘Jihad.’ He looked at Frankie. ‘What d’you reckon about all this then, Frankie?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ said Frankie, going back to his hotplate. ‘I just cook.’

‘But you got to have an opinion,’ snapped Paul, slamming his empty tea mug down on the trestle table. ‘I think it’s disgusting. Worse than that, it’s inhuman. It’s murder, cold-blooded murder. They should round the lot of ‘em up and shoot ’em.’

Dean placed the lid of the urn back in position and glared at the young builder. ‘You mean murder them?’

Paul returned the angry stare for a moment, and then glanced over at his mate before smiling at Dean. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Be like sinking to their level, wouldn’t it? And we’re more civilized than that. Give us another tea, Dean.’

Before Dean could pick up the empty mug, the builder’s mobile phone rang. He took it from a pocket in his cut-off jeans, mumbled a quick ‘Hello’ and walked away from the tables to continue his conversation.

‘Don’t mind him,’ said Benny to Dean. ‘He gets a bit steamed up about these things.’

Dean saw Frankie flash him a look that said, Leave it. He just nodded to Benny and said nothing.

Benny laughed. ‘That’ll be his girlfriend, giving him grief about being over here. I’d better have another tea. She keeps him on that phone for hours.’

Marcie Deveraux looked calm and unruffled as she went into a Coffee Republic and joined the queue of people waiting to place their orders. But she was anxious: the secret operation she had nurtured and overseen for many months was close to being blown. And it seemed there was little she could do about it.

She took off her designer sunglasses and turned to watch the pedestrians going by outside. Nothing suspicious. She bought a latte, found a seat and took a single sip of her coffee before pulling out her Xda mobile phone and computer. Once the connection was made she didn’t waste time with small talk. ‘I’m coming in. Five minutes.’

Deveraux left the cafe and headed towards Pimlico. Soon she reached a street where rows of three-storey town houses were grouped around their own private gardens. She pushed open a black iron front gate and walked along the cobblestone path. The red velvet curtains at the window to the left of the front door were smart and respectable. Anyone getting close enough to peer through the nets would have seen a decent three-piece suite and a good carpet. But there was no expensive TV or music system to attract the attention of ambitious housebreakers.

Three paces before Deveraux reached the door there was a low buzzing sound as the bolts slid back. She walked straight in, closed the door, and the three steel bolts returned to their locked position.

From the outside, and through the front window, the house seemed virtually identical to the others in the street. But the front room was exactly that: a front – a front of respectability and normality.

The rest of the house was different. In the hallway the paintwork was dull and faded, the carpet threadbare and the air stale and musty, as though the windows hadn’t been opened in years. They hadn’t. Every window in the house was screwed securely into position. They couldn’t be opened. And the front room was the only place where natural light found its way into the building. The rest of the house was artificially lit. Every other window had internal shutters closed and firmly secured.

It was a safe house, manned and run by the Security Service, or M15, the organization responsible for protecting the UK from terrorists, spies and traitors. And this safe house was special, and known to very few in the Security Service. But they were after a big fish, and Marcie Deveraux had been secretly seconded from M16 to help catch that fish.

She went past the stairs into a back room that opened onto the kitchen, and was immediately struck by the pungent smell of tomato soup and burned toast. Two men in their late twenties – one with long curly hair and the other wearing a blue beanie – were sitting at a long wooden trestle table. They were facing the doorway, their eyes fixed on three TV monitors on the tabletop, their ears covered by headphones.

No sound came from the monitors, or from a fourth TV mounted above the kitchen door. The only noise was the constant hum of the internal fans cooling the monitors and the vast array of electric equipment around the room.