Andy McNab - Agressor

Charlie switched the camcorder to standby. The plan was to record the layout of the place wherever we went, then check it on the way out to make sure we'd left everything exactly as we'd found it.

The doors off the corridor were all open, and I headed for the first one on my right. It was a living room, and by the look of it, Baz's answer to Mrs Mop hadn't been too energetic with her feather duster recently, though she had remembered to wind the grandfather clock. The dark wooden furniture and faded wallpaper somehow matched the smell.

Black-and-white pictures of a couple on the mantelpiece. His parents, maybe. Pictures of him as a little lad. Magazines littered across the floor, some quite recent ones in Russian, some in Paperclip.

The first phase of a house search is always a quick once-over. It would be pointless doing a detailed inspection of every room in sequence, only to find what you're looking for smack in the middle of the very last room, three hours later. It's on phase two that you start moving sofas, lifting carpets, looking up the chimney.

The two picture frames in the hallway held large, sepia photographs of the house during happier times. There were no bars on the windows, no other buildings in sight, and no wall, just a three-foot-high fence to keep the horses from munching the grass that had predated the courtyard.

We reached the door at the far end. It was hinged inwards on the left and open about an inch. I shone the torch round the frame to check for telltales. I couldn't see anything. I signalled to Charlie and he filmed the gap.

I nudged it open with the end of the canister. It didn't take long to realize this was the kitchen. The smell of margarine and old papers was so strong here it nearly made me gag, even through the ski mask. More old furniture; a wooden table and a couple of chairs. The cooker looked like Stalin might have done his baked beans on it. Had Whitewall pointed us at the wrong place?

I opened the door fully and found myself facing the external wall. Set into it, directly ahead of me, was what would have been the back door – if it hadn't been covered completely by a large steel plate, bolted firmly into place.

I turned to Charlie and nodded. We were in the right house.

I shone the torch around the kitchen from the doorway, picking out dented old aluminium pots and pans hanging from hooks over the cooker, and a half-drunk bottle of red wine on the table next to an open newspaper. A fly-screen in the corner seemed to lead to some kind of larder. Jars and cans glinted behind the mesh.

I stood and listened for another three or four seconds, but the only noise was the ponderous ticking of the clock. I turned back up the hallway, tapped Charlie on the shoulder, and aimed the torch at the door to our right, about three paces ahead. The small red LED on the camcorder began blinking again.

It was only just ajar. I checked for telltales round the frame, then gave it a gentle push. There was a window opposite, protected by an external grille, but completely filled by the perimeter wall.

It looked like I was in somebody's sewing room. A Singer treadle sat in the far corner, next to a wooden bench top, but there were no half-made clothes or swatches of material. There were no cupboards. Swirly carpet covered most of the wooden floor, apart from a couple of feet around the edges. The fireplace looked like it hadn't been used for years, not since the last time the pictures hanging either side of it had got within reach of a duster.

I walked round the edge of the carpet and checked the pictures for telltales, intentional or otherwise. The one on the left was of a bunch of flowers in a vase. There was nothing behind it except a paler square of wallpaper. There was no safe under the one of a mountain, either.

I made my way back into the hallway and signalled to the door opposite; Charlie was right behind me, recording.

This was much more promising. It was obviously Baz's office; what looked like Bill Gates's very first prototype was sitting on a desk in front of the window. Files and newspaper cuttings were strewn all round it, and on the floor as well. The shelf along the wall to my right had bowed under the weight of too many books. There was a cupboard in the far corner – a light oak veneer, flat-pack job, rather than somewhere Uncle Joe might have hung his uniforms.

I moved out of the way to let Charlie past. He panned the camera left to right before we started moving stuff around. Using the torch to make sure I didn't step on any of the paper on the floor, I headed first for the desk, in case there was a number on the phone. There wasn't.

We had better luck with the cupboard.

Having checked for telltales, I pulled open the door and bingo, we'd found what we'd come for.

I stepped back to let Charlie see the prize. He filmed the whole thing inch by inch, every bit of chipped grey paint, every word of Russian Cyrillic, no doubt proudly announcing its manufacture by royal appointment to the Tsar. It was about two foot square, and solid. The door was hinged on the right, with a well-worn chrome handle on the left, then a large keyway, and a combination cylinder dead centre. Once Charlie had the position of each on film, he handed me the camcorder, tested the handle, shrugged, and fished inside his bag.

I shoved the canister back up my sleeve and let him get on with it.

He brought out a towel and laid it in front of the safe. The bag was wet and he didn't want to leave sign.

Charlie knelt on the towel in front of the safe, the bag to his right, and carefully unrolled the fibre-optic viewing device from a strip of hotel towel. Every item in the bag had been wrapped to prevent noise or damage.

I fired up the camcorder and went over to Baz's desk, filming everything on the top first, then the positions of individual drawers. There were about ten of them each side, designed to hold a thin file or a selection of pens. Some were slightly open, some closed; some pushed further in than they should have been.

I lifted the telephone, but there was nothing taped underneath. There was a small wooden box beside it, loaded with pens, pencils, elastic bands and paper clips. No joy there, either.

I checked for telltales on each drawer, and went through them one by one. I found sheet after sheet of paper in Paperclip and Russian, but no key to the safe, or anything scribbled down that resembled a combination.

I looked over at Charlie. Torch clenched between his ski-mask-clad teeth, fibre optic inside the keyway, he was manipulating the controls like a surgeon performing arthroscopy – except that he was doing it on his hands and knees, with his arse in the air. He was attacking the day lock first, in case it was the only one being used.

It was decision time. Nothing had turned up on this sweep, and I could spend all night searching this place for the key or any hint of a combination, and the more I looked, the more I would disrupt the area. I called it a day and went and knelt down on the towel, waiting until Charlie was ready to speak to me.

It was as quiet as Tengiz's grave now – quieter, probably, if the knitting circle were still gobbing off right next door to it. The only sounds were the old disco-dancer's manic breathing and the distant ticking of the clock, and once or twice a vehicle in the distance.

He finally removed the fibre optic and leaned towards me. I got my mouth into his ear. 'How long do you reckon?'

He rolled the fibre optic into its piece of towel, and replaced it in the satchel.

That was a good sign; you never leave anything out that you're not using; it gets packed up straight away in case you have to do a runner.

'Piece of piss, lad. The day lock is warded, and the combination, well, it's a combination. Anything up to four hours. Don't worry, there were loads like this in Bosnia.' He paused and I knew there was a funny coming. 'Any longer than that and I'll let you blow it.' This time I could see the grin, even behind the nylon. He shoved the key-ring torch back in his mouth, taking the mask with it.