Andy McNab - Dark winter

I took the bike back; it cost me $150 for the damage, but I was just dismissed as another incompetent tourist. The killing, even the disappearance of the two waiters, hadn't made it to the New Straits Times in the remaining four days, which probably meant that no one had come across the Lite Ace or a fly-infested body by the time we left the country. In fact, the main event in the papers was some politician's wife being accused of khalwat, an offence that involved being in close proximity to a member of the opposite sex who wasn't a relation. She had been watching television with three students from the International Islamic University when a team from the Federal Territory religious department raided the apartment following a complaint from neighbours. If found guilty, they could be fined three thousand dollars and jailed for up to two years. As Suzy said, she should count herself lucky she hadn't been sitting with three drug-dealers watching satellite channels with an iffy Sky card.

Suzy's revolver had been dropped off by a courier in the Firm into a dead-letter box in the women's toilet at Starbucks. I took another sip of their coffee; globalization was a reality, these guys were getting everywhere. That one had been in the shopping mall in a good part of Georgetown, the island's capital. The weapon and six rounds were all we'd been given, so Suzy had to make sure she did a good job. No wonder she'd acted like a lunatic, diving in through the Lite Ace's window. She knew she couldn't afford to waste a single shot.

It would have been better for us if the handover of the wine box had been done on the last night, so we could have carried out the task and left Penang the following day. But I was just pleased that it hadn't happened on the first night, which wouldn't have given us enough time to do the recces and would have exposed us on the island for a whole fortnight. We'd spent a lot of time establishing his routine: the route from his house to the restaurant, what time he started work, what time he finished, whether there was anyone else living in his house. We knew where he kept his vehicle, and we knew the best time to go and tamper with the brake light. We knew almost everything about him, except his name – but then again, it wasn't as if I'd wanted to have coffee with him.

By the time I reached the mansion block there was still about half a paper cup of latte left. I walked up the six or seven steps of the large Victorian brick building, long ago converted into office space and flanked by modern concrete blocks at either side. Large glass double doors took me into the hallway and down towards a huge black guy in a white shirt and blue uniform at the front desk. I showed him my Virginia driver's licence, as required everywhere since 9/11. I hadn't got round to buying a car yet because I had my bike – if I could get hold of it – at Carrie's house in Marblehead.

I glanced at the security guy's name badge. 'Hi, Calvin. My name's Stone – I'm going to the third floor, Hot Black Inc.'

'Can you sign the book, sir, please?'

I signed in while he checked the visitors' list and gave me the once-over. DC was still quite a formal town when it came to dress codes and I was in my jeans, Caterpillar boots and brown leather bomber jacket. I placed the pen back on the desk and gave Calvin a smile. 'It's dress-down Friday.'

Calvin didn't bat an eyelid. 'Thank you, Mr Stone. The elevator is just round the corner there to the right, and you have a good day, sir.'

As I walked away I gave him the standard, 'And you.' I had a smile on my face: the name Hot Black Inc still made me laugh. I'd always thought it was only in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. that they invented weirdly named companies as fronts.

I'd been on Hot Black's payroll for just under a year now. It was a marketing company that didn't really have anything to market, which was just as well because I didn't know the first thing about that. Life was good. I got paid a salary of $82,000 a year, my apartment was taken care of, and on top of that I got cash in hand after every job. It was a much better deal than working as a K for the Firm on?290 a day, all in. As a Hot Black employee I'd been given a US social-security number, and I even had to file tax returns. It gave me the chance to have a kind of real life. After George's daughter, Carrie, had binned me, I'd even managed to have a new girlfriend for about six weeks. She was the area manager for Victoria's Secret for DC and Virginia, and we lived in the same apartment block. It worked out quite well until her husband decided he wanted to try to make a go of their marriage. I guessed he'd been missing the free samples she brought home.

I even had a pension plan. It was one of the ways George could slip me extra cash without it being noticed in the real world: walking into a bank with $20,000 in cash, these days, would do more than just raise eyebrows. For the first time in my life I was starting to feel a bit secure.

The elevator arrived, pinged open, and I stepped in and pressed the button for the third floor.

I still wasn't too sure what military or government department George worked for and therefore who paid my salary, but I wasn't complaining. Things had been really busy for me since I'd thrown in my lot with him: in the last few months I'd been in Bombay and Greece on 'rendering' operations; the targets were three suspected al-Qaeda operators who, I presumed, were now shuffling around Guantanamo Bay sporting shaved heads and orange coveralls.

I finished my coffee as the elevator doors closed behind me, and turned left down the corridor towards Hot Black's offices. It was a world of shiny black marble walls, alabaster statues in alcoves, and bright fluorescent lights set into suspended ceilings. The corridor had just been refurbished and the smell of thick new carpet was in the air. Hot Black Inc was no two-bob company.

I went through the smoked-glass double doors into the deserted reception area. A large veneered antique table served as a front desk, but it was unmanned. To the left of it, two long red velvet sofas faced each other with a low glass coffee-table between them. There wasn't as much as a daily newspaper or a copy of Marketing Monthly in sight. The desk was the same, completely clear apart from a phone. Even the drinking fountain was missing its huge upturned plastic bottle; there were just six lonely crystal glasses to one side.

I carried on to the main office doors, tall, black, very shiny and substantial. When I was just a couple of paces away they were pulled open. George spun on his heel without a word of greeting and strode back towards his desk, framed by the window a good ten metres away. The cleats in his heels clunked on the maple floor. 'You're late. I said seven a.m.'

I'd known he'd say that. He'd probably been up since five, gone for a run, said a prayer over his healthy bowl of granola, and left his house at precisely the time he'd planned. Not five or ten past the hour, that wasn't precise enough, and would have meant time wasted. It was probably eleven minutes past or something like that, to get him to the office at exactly six fifty-six.

I closed the doors behind me. 'Yes, I know, I'm sorry. There were a few delays on the metro.'

He didn't reply. The Washington metro was never late. What had made me late was the line at Starbucks, and the not-too-bright people behind the counter.

He rounded the desk. 'What's that one called?'

'A latte.'

The windows were triple-glazed so I could see traffic moving beyond the blinds but not hear it. The only sound, apart from our voices, was air droning through the air-conditioning ducts.

'Doesn't anybody just buy a cup of plain Joe any more? You're paying over two bucks a hit just because it's got a fancy name.'

The room was well furnished. One wall was panelled with oak and had what looked like an eighteenth-century portrait of a guy wearing a tricorne hat and a mason's apron, with a bunch of American Indians in the background killing someone.