Andy McNab - Dark winter

Suzy stayed by the door. Her expression told me we were both thinking the same thing.

'Facemask, my arse.' I gave a thumbs-down. 'N95 or UK standard F something or other? I want full NBC [Nuclear, Biological and Chemical warfare protection] kit.'

'I'll phone the Golf Club.' She disappeared into the bedroom.

'And tell her we want the older stuff, not the newer camouflage version,' I called after her.

She got on with it as I just sat there, trying to feel pleased with myself for doing a nice thing for Mr Niceness instead of worrying myself sick about Kelly. George had been right: if these people weren't stopped, then all the therapy in the world wasn't going to help her. There was no way round it. She had to go back to Laurel.

Suzy came into the room with two of the Nokias. 'The Golf Club is coming later tonight. If we're at the source meet she'll just drop the NBC kit off.'

'The older suits?'

She nodded, trying to untangle the car chargers from the hands-free sets, then passing one to me. We both set about programming out the start-up tune.

Suzy did her best to look as though she was concentrating on her cell, but I could see a little smile creeping across her face. 'So, Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, you're not Mother Teresa, but you're not a K either, are you?'

I was too busy hunting for the sound-options menu to look up. 'Come on, you know the score. You're going to have to work a lot harder than that…'

'Fair one.' She shrugged and went back to the administrative side of Nokia ownership for all of five seconds. 'You're obviously ex-military and a Brit.'

I just got on with what I was doing and listened.

'I was in the Navy -'eighty-four to 'ninety-three. I ran away to sea – well, sort of. The last six years of it were in the Det.'

I did look up then.

She grinned. 'I knew that would ring a bell.'

'What is this? I'll show you mine if you show me yours?'

She was right, though. Northern Ireland in the seventies was a nightmare for the Firm and the Security Service, and the quality of information they were gathering was piss poor, so the Army started its own covert intelligence-gathering unit. Recruited from all three services, operators worked in a series of area detachments or Dets.

She was in full flow now. 'I did two tours in East Det, then became an MOE instructor down in Ashford.'

'Is that how you became a K?'

'Yep, I was approached when I left.'

'Why leave the Navy? Meet the man of your dreams or something?'

'Come on, now, no personal shit, remember?'

'So, all that stuff about your dad going AWOL – was that all bollocks?'

'No, but he's dead and it fitted with the cover story. So, come on, how do you know about the Det?'

Fuck it. I wasn't going to spend the next few days in total silence. 'I was a team leader in North Det in the late eighties.'

'North Det?' She laughed and waved her hands about as if she were holding a set of reins. 'One of the cowboys? A bit of a law unto yourselves, weren't you, you lot?'

'Let's get these moan-phones up and running, shall we? What's your number? 07802…'

She called out the last six digits and I hit the newly silenced keys. I'd got that much right. I finished dialling, then hit the hash key twice. 'Hello, hello…' In the background I could hear a low bleeping tone every three seconds, and so would she. It was the signal that we were on secure, the fill hadn't dropped.

'Good, that works.' I hung up, then saved her number to speed-dial.

Her expression suddenly became more intense. 'Nick, does it worry you – you know, working with me?'

I frowned.

'Course not. Why should working with a woman be a worry? I wish you'd be a bit more scared now and then, but we did OK in Penang, didn't we?'

'I'm not talking about that, dickhead.' Her face was still serious for a moment, then split into the world's biggest grin. 'I'm talking about me being so five-star good.' She laughed, but I wasn't sure just how much she was joking.

I always worried about people who thought they couldn't get hurt. She was starting to sound a bit like Josh, but without God's Kevlar jacket.

'Being so wonderful, I suppose you're permanent cadre?'

Permanent cadre were Ks, and some of them were deniable operators. They were on a salaried retainer, not freelance like I'd been, but they still had to do the shit jobs that no one else wanted.

'I will be after this. So don't fuck up, all right?

'Only if you promise to empty the ashtray.'

She picked it up and disappeared into the kitchen. I heard the tap running. She shouted through, 'Do you want that brew now, or what?'

'Good idea.' I put the Nokia in my bumbag with my own cell. I needed to break the news to Kelly soon, and get hold of Josh. I tried to forget the look on Archibald's face.

The kettle was bubbling away as the moan-phone rang. Reluctantly, I pulled it out. The Yes Man was on the other end and the moaning started at once. 'Hello? Answer me.'

'Hello.' The gentle bleeps did their stuff in the background.

'Starbucks, Cowcross Street, Farringdon. Do you know it?

'I know the station.'

'The source meet is at twenty hundred.' He carried on with the meet details as Suzy appeared and stood expectantly at my elbow, like a schoolgirl waiting for her exam results.

Once he had finished, and I had finished with Suzy, we both headed for the bedroom and got the two 9mm Brownings out of the suitcase, a little extra treat Yvette had popped into Packet Oscar. The Browning had been in production for something like a million years, but I still liked it and saw no need to go trendy and plastic or whatever the latest fashion was in pistols. These two were starting to look their age. They'd been jazzed up a little: the wooden sides of the pistol grip had been replaced with rubber. There was no extension welded on to the safety catch above the grip, where it could be flicked on and off with the firer's right thumb, which was a pity, since I had fairly small hands, but I had no complaints. It was a simple weapon: you knew that if you squeezed the trigger, it was going to go bang. What more did you need?

We carried out NSPs [normal safety precautions]. With my right thumb and the side of my forefinger I pulled back on the serrations at the rear of the top slide and checked inside the ejection opening to make sure there wasn't a round stuck in the chamber, then released and let the top slide return under its own steam. Then, placing an empty magazine in the weapon so I'd be able to squeeze off the action – it wouldn't fire without a mag on – I rested the top pad of my right forefinger on the trigger and felt for the first pressure.

Most triggers have two pressures. The first is normally quite loose, allowing a little play between its resting position and the point at which it will actually fire the weapon. This one's trigger had maybe three or four milli-metres' play before it became solid again. I squeezed gently on the second pressure and the hammer came forwards with a click.

Knowing the position of second pressure is critically important. I always took up first pressure if the target was close and I'd have maybe a second to react once I'd seen them. There might only be a few millimetres in it, but that could make all the difference and, despite everything, I was still in no hurry to end up dead.

We put on surgical gloves and started to load the half-dozen thirteen-round magazines. When we fired the SDs or Brownings, empty cases would be flying all over the place. No matter who found them, friend or foe, neither of us wanted to leave any evidence of our presence. This was a deniable job. Even the ammunition was German, judging by the markings on its base.

Holding the short magazine so that the base of the stubby 9mm rounds would be facing away from me once loaded, I grabbed a handful and pushed them down one by one into the top recess, then eased them back to make sure they were correctly seated.