Andy McNab - Payback

Now, after watching the camcorder footage and seeing for himself the full dangers awaiting his grandson, Fergus was reassessing the whole plan. Ultimately the final decision on the go-ahead was still his. It all went completely against the maxim which he had followed since his first days in the Regiment: the famous seven Ps – Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Piss Poor? This plan wasn’t even that good. It was fucking crazy. But it was all they had, and as the nagging, constant pain seared through his leg, making him want to scream in agony, he knew that Danny was right. He wouldn’t last long enough to come up with a Plan B. It was now or never.

Slowly Fergus nodded and then spoke quietly. ‘All right, we go tonight.’ He looked at Danny. ‘If Joey gets the pass.’

Joey stood up, wandered over to the window and stared out through the bars. ‘Oh, I’ll get you your pass. I’ve had more than enough of being cooped up in this place. I need to spend some time with the lovely Joyce.’

It was raining. Just a light drizzle, but enough to dampen Danny’s spirits as he leaned against the back wall of the pub and waited for Joey to complete the first part of the operation.

Danny felt uneasy. He could depend on his grandfather and Elena completely. He would trust either of them with his life. But Joey? Unpredictable, unreliable Joey? Even the thought of it was scary.

The strange thing was that ever since they’d driven away from the industrial unit, leaving Fergus to wait and worry alone, Joey had seemed to find a new confidence and sense of purpose. Maybe it was because he was at last doing something familiar; something he felt he was in control of. Or perhaps it was just that he was looking forward to getting the job done and re-establishing his relationship with Joyce.

Joey’s greatest skill was his ability to mix and get on with people. He could be anyone and everyone’s friend, and with the cash that Elena had provided in his pocket he intended to make a few very good friends tonight. So long as they were in the RAF.

He parked the car and told Danny and Elena that it might take a little while and that Danny should wait by the small frosted window at the back of the pub. On his recce earlier Joey had discovered that the window in the gents toilet could be opened. He would lift the security card and then pass it out to Danny. Elena was waiting in the car on the far side of the car park with her laptop powered up waiting to swipe the card and burn a copy.

Everything depended on Joey, and as Danny stood in the drizzle his thoughts drifted back to another apparently unreliable character he had depended on once before – Eddie Moyes.

Danny hadn’t dreamed or even thought about Eddie in a while – too much had been happening – but as the raindrops dripped from the peak of his baseball bat, the nightmarish vision of his dream returned.

Eddie is running from the gunman and Danny is running towards him, trying to save him but knowing it’s hopeless. Getting closer and closer as the pistol slowly rises in the gunman’s hand.

He hears Eddie shout; always the same words: ‘Danny, help me! Please, help me!’ He hears the words again. ‘Danny, help me! Please, help me!’

And then suddenly the words are different. This is new, strange, bewildering; even the sound of the voice has changed. It’s still urgent, but not desperate, and the words are not shouted, but hissed in a loud whisper. ‘Hey, come on, Danny, help me out here. Danny!’

Danny shook his head to free himself from the confusion of the dream.

‘Danny, what’s wrong with you?’

It was then that Danny became aware of the hand dangling from the window just above his head. Joey was glaring out at him. ‘Come on, take this card. We ain’t got all night.’

The thoughts of bad dreams and Eddie Moyes were instantly thrust from Danny’s mind. He reached up and grabbed the security pass. ‘Everything OK?’

‘Sure, no problem. But I can’t hang around in here too long – my friends back in the bar are waiting to hear another fascinating episode from my life story.’

Danny went running across the car park to the hire car. He jumped inside and gave Elena the security pass. She swiped it through the reader and the details instantly appeared on her laptop screen.

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Elena pointed at the screen as she handed Danny a pen. ‘The last four figures – it’s the pin number. You’ll need it, so write it down.’

As Danny wrote the numbers on his hand, Elena tapped the figures into her computer in preparation for burning the security pass details onto her own Halifax bank card. She needed to keep the security pass for a little longer just in case the burn didn’t work and she had to start again.

Danny was impatient to get the pass back to Joey before its owner discovered it had been taken. ‘Come on, Elena, we haven’t got all night.’

Elena didn’t reply or even look away from the screen. She continued with the job calmly and carefully, concentrating on getting it right first time. Once she hit the burn icon, her own card would be gone for ever as the details were erased. That was why she had withdrawn the maximum she could take out in any one day from a cash point on the way to the pub.

The card was ready to be burned. Elena hit the burn icon and swiped her Halifax card. Twice. Once to erase her details and then again to burn the security pass details.

She smiled. ‘It’s done. Now go, go!’

Danny leaped from the car and ran back to the window, where Joey was still waiting. He snatched the security pass from Danny. ‘All done?’

‘Yeah, we’ll be waiting in the car. Quick as you can, eh?’

‘Sure. But I got to pick my moment to get this pass back where it belongs. And I do believe it’s my round.’

Marcie Deveraux had spent a highly frustrating day and her evening had been little better. She hadn’t appreciated receiving Elena’s brief, insolent e-mail, and with Fincham becoming increasingly twitchy she knew that the time Dudley would allow her to complete her mission was running short,

She was in a foul mood as she walked towards her very exclusive members club for a late supper. The discreet ringtone of her Xda sounded and she answered the call with a bark, reminiscent of Fincham’s telephone manner. ‘Yes?’

Curly was sitting in front of the monitor in the Pimlico safe house, and if he noticed Deveraux’s impatient and aggressive tone, it didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was about to make her day. ‘We’ve found the money! We know who the broker is! Fincham called him again to say he’d take whatever money he could. He’s going over to get it, on the morning flight to Moscow, eight-thirty. We picked up everything: the conversation, the broker’s number, the lot. It means you can get the money back, and I reckon I should be in line for a decent Christmas bonus.’

Curly had every reason to feel proud of his achievement. After Fincham’s first call to his mysterious broker, he had programmed the numbers he had used to identify himself into the Firm’s satellite ECHELON computer system. It meant that within seconds of Fincham giving his pass numbers again, they had been recognized and identified and Curly and Beanie were locked onto the call to Moscow.

‘You’ve done well,’ said Deveraux. ‘I’ll make sure it’s mentioned.’

‘Yeah, he thought he’d be safe using another new pay-as-you-go mobile, but I got him. And that’s not all – Fincham also called Northwood, said he needs to check some files. Maybe he wants to see if there’s anything on the mainframe that could help trace him after he does a runner in the morning.’

‘What’s he doing now?’