back into the station. The destination board said the Platform 6 train was leaving for St. Petersburg in two minutes. I walked swiftly back to the newsstand and bought the magazine, together with a reel of Scotch tape. Taking off the plastic sleeve, I ripped it into two strips and wrapped the tickets individually. Now all I had to do was find a place to hide them that Tom would remember. It wasn't hard. The long banks of luggage lockers by the taxi exit were on legs, with a four-inch gap between them and the floor. Pretending to clean the slush off my shoes, I taped Tom's under Number 10 and mine under Number 11. If things went wrong, both of us had a ticket out of Finland. As I made my way back to Stockmann, Liv's meeting with the man in the camel-hair coat mulled round in my head. I took the elevator to the sixth floor. Once I'd passed the cold weather gear a sign told me that on the floor above was "cold storage for furs." I passed a restaurant, a juice bar, and found Tom in Cafe Avec, overlooking the shoppers below on the fifth floor. His half-cup of herbal whatever looked sad and cold on the table in front of him. The light-wood furniture had come straight out of an Ikea warehouse and the place was packed with people snacking on soup or little fish dishes. The noise was deafening people talking and cell phones going off with a million and one different tunes. "Wotcha, mate." He was all smiles, pointing at his bags, then opening one for me to look inside. I was pleased to see he'd bought himself a decent pair of boots, and the dark-blue, thick, woolen check lumberjack coat was just the sort of thing I'd told him to get. "Great, Tom. Now listen." I explained to him where his ticket was hidden. We'd pick them up on Wednesday, but if the shit hit the fan tomorrow night, he should head straight for the station, grab his bag, and catch the first flight home. He started to look a bit more cheerful. "I just want to get this job done and get back to London with some cash. I don't really like it here. Thought I would, but I don't. It must be the cold. That's why I got these for tomorrow." He bent down and brought out a set of silk leggings and a top. I tried not to laugh. They were the sort of thing you might buy for your very first ski trip, but never wear. He looked rather proud of them. "What do you think? Keep me warm or what? You should get some, Nick. The girl behind the counter said they're great." I bet she did; they probably cost three times as much as a set of proper thermals. "I've got some," I lied. "Actually, there's one more thing." He packed them proudly back into the bag. "What's that?" "I know you said you're nearly there, but can you really break through the firewall by tomorrow?" He looked at me as if I was mad. "No problem. But you will look after me, won't you? You know, when we're in there ..." I could sense that his bravado was fading slightly as the witching hour approached. I smiled, nodded and then saw him look anxiously over my shoulder. "Liv's here." I turned in my seat and watched her looking out for us both, hat in hand and the black coat still on. She saw my raised hand and came straight over. She sat down. "Everything all right at the station?" I nodded. "Good. Here are the keys for your car, Nick." She passed over two keys on a Saab key chain. "There are maps inside the glove compartment to get you there, and a detailed one of the area. None of the maps are marked. It will take you more than three hours to get there." "There'll probably be a list of things I'll need once I've seen the house." "No problem, so long as it's nothing exotic." Talking of which, she looked at her Carder watch. 1 got the hint and started getting to my feet. "I think I need to get going. I want to spend as much time as I can on target." She stood up. "I'll show you where the car is, then go back to the house with Tom." As we came out of Stockmann, Tom took out his new check coat and put it over the one he was wearing. He looked the perfect tourist. We walked back toward the station and I could see the Mere 4x4 still parked in the same position, with a shiny new blue Saab next to it. I said my goodbyes. Tom got in the front with her and they drove off. 18 The journey to the target seemed to be taking longer than she'd told me to expect. Maybe it just felt that way because there'd been nothing to look at but thousands of trees and lumps of granite. I needed to adjust my boredom threshold. It was just after three o'clock and it was already last light. The reflection from the Saab's headlights twinkled in the snow piled high at the roadside as I stayed obediently in the line of traffic, which all traveled within the speed limit. I hit the seek button on the radio a few times, but there wasn't much to listen to. I hated Europop, and didn't have a clue what was being said on any of the speaking stations. I used the time to think about Liv's station RV, but didn't come up with any answers. I decided I just had to get on with it. "It" was simple: I'd do the job, control the exchange with Liv, then get Tom and me back to the U.K." leaving Val to do whatever he wanted with the stuff. At least after tomorrow night, once on the ground, I was in control of my own destiny. After taking the exit for Lappeenranta, signs for Kuhala began to appear. Pulling into the side of the road, I checked the smaller scale, more detailed map. I had another eight miles to go until turning off the two-lane road and onto what looked like a minor gravel one. Then I'd need to find the private turning to the target building. I pushed on, driving through dense forest on a paved firebreak. Tall trees on either side of me cut down the headlights' capacity as if I was in a tunnel. Then I was suddenly out of it and rumbling across a wooden bridge, my lights blazing across the white ice of the frozen lake beneath me. Twenty seconds later I was back inside the tunnel, with just the occasional mailbox to let me know I wasn't the only person around. Passing a yellow triangle sign showing a silhouetted elk, I knew I'd well and truly hit the countryside. Stopping at the intersection, I checked the odometer and map. Five more miles and the third option right. I drove on, counting off the miles, crossing two more bridges and only a handful of mailboxes until I found the intersection I was looking for. The tire noise changed as I hit the two-lane gravel road. Like the one leading to Liv's, it was still iced over but had been snow plowed and sanded. With a few miles still to go, I wanted to make sure I had the right track to target first time. It wouldn't be a good idea to cruise around with headlights on and the engine revving up and down the road. The map showed a scattering of houses in the area, and I was passing a mailbox every quarter mile or so. I shifted down to first gear. There wasn't a light to be seen as I checked off each track into the woods on the map. I found the target track, but kept going, looking for somewhere off the road to leave the Saab so it looked parked rather than abandoned. About another 300 yards on I found a small cut in the woodline which seemed to be a firebreak. Once tucked in, I switched off the engine. It was freezer time again. Putting on the nylon padded gloves and black woolen hat I'd bought myself at Stockmann, I got out and hit the key chain. The four ways flashed as the central locking did its stuff, but I couldn't help that. Setting off down the gravel road, I made sure the hat didn't cover my ears; I was on a recce, I needed them to be able to work, without fighting to hear through half a lamb's coat. It was bitterly cold after the snug warmth of the Saab, and there was no noise or light. All I could hear was my own breathing and the snow crunching an inch under my feet before it compressed onto the hard ice beneath. My whole world was trees, snow, and a very cold nose and ears. Once at the top of the track, I stopped, looked, and listened. Nothing. It would take another fifteen minutes for my eyes to adapt to the lack of light. Then, with any luck, I'd be able to see a little more of the treeline than just a wall of black. I turned into the track and started slowly down it. A lot of vehicles had obviously been up and down; there was no snow in the ruts on either side of the small central mound, just compacted ice. The trees were hard up against the edge of the track. Three feet in front of me was pitch-black, but I knew it wouldn't be like that for long once my night vision kicked in. I moved like a tightrope walker along the rut, to cut down ground sign. The last thing I wanted was to slip and fall in the snow at the side of the track, leaving evidence that even a five-year-old would pick up. After about five minutes I began to see weak, intermittent light ahead in the direction of the target. The beams flashed up into the sky or straight at me, disappeared for a while, then bounced toward me again. I knew exactly what they were: vehicle lights, and they were coming my way. I couldn't even hear the engine yet, so it would be impossible for them to see me. The lights continued to flash against the trees. There was nothing I could do without leaving sign but dive out of the way. The rumble of the engine reached me and brighter beams of light swept the area around. I faced the drift at the trackside, hopefully aiming between two trees, rocked back to try to get some sort of momentum, then leaped. I managed to clear the first few feet of snow, rolling like a high jumper, and landed like a bag of shit. The snow lay over solid granite and I hit it hard, knocking the wind out of my lungs. I started to crawl like an animal, trying to burrow under the branches. The vehicle was getting closer. Still facing away from the road, I dug myself in and waited in the freezing snow, listening as it closed in on me. The transmission was in low ratio, suggesting a 4x4. It finally drew parallel with me, its wheels crunching into fresh snow on the side of the track as it was steered off line. Without hesitation, it kept on going. I raised myself slowly onto my knees, keeping my right eye closed: At least that way I would save 50 percent of what night vision I had. The smell of diesel hung in the air. The driveway was about fifteen or twenty feet away from me and it was a 4x4 for sure, but I couldn't make out what type or how many were inside. All I could see was a massive ball of white light in the front, and a red one at the rear, moving slowly along the tree tunnel, followed by a cloud of diesel fumes. I watched and listened as the light died. They must have reached the top of the track, because I heard revving and the transmission ratios change, then the noise disappeared completely. Crawling on my hands and knees to avoid the branches, I made my way back to my impact site, stood up, put one foot forward and launched myself over the bank again. My right shin connected painfully with the central mound, and the combination of stones and hard ice did its work on me big time. I lay on my back in one of the ruts, holding my shin, rocking, taking the pain and thinking of the money. After a minute of feeling sorry for myself, I got up and checked that the snow on the side of the track was still untouched. My dive had been Olympic, but the pain had been worth it. I was covered from head to toe in snow, like a bad skier. Brushing as much of it off me as I could, I readjusted my hat and carried on down the track, walking the tightrope with a bit of a hobble now. After about a half a mile, my night vision fully returned. I also started to hear the low, continuous rumble of what sounded like a generator. What had been concerning me most all along was, How many bayonets? How many were going to fight if I was compromised and couldn't run away? If there were, say, four people in the house, two of them might be Tom-type characters who'd played Quake for years but had never held a gun, but the other two could be hoods who had, and who'd go for it. They were the bayonets, male or female. The term went back to the First World War, when it wasn't the whole of an enemy battalion of 1,200 that you had to worry about, it was the 800 fighting men. The remaining 400 cooks and bottle-washers didn't matter. I didn't know how many I'd be up against, and Liv couldn't tell me. It was quite worrying. Getting to the house to discover there was a Hoods '% Us convention going on in the front room would not make for a good day out. The track went gently downhill and I got closer to the noise. It began to sound quite substantial; if they were running lots of machinery they would need more juice than the trickle the local substation would give them. To check if they were on the electrical supply I tried to look above me for power lines, but it was too dark to see anything. The track began to curve. As I rounded a gentle right-hand bend the ground started to open up on either side of me. The treeline here wasn't so close to the track. I could see two dim lights directly ahead, maybe one hundred yards away. Now that I was in line with the house the rumble of the generator was louder still, channeled toward me by the trees. Cupping my hand round my wrist, I pressed the backlight on Baby G. It was just after 4:45. Edging forward, still in the rut, I kept looking for places to dive if the vehicle came back or there was some other kind of drama-such as coming across the Maliskia on the same sort of outing. I was a bit pissed this was the only approach route available to me, but any other would leave sign. Every five or six paces I stopped, looked, and listened. The trees stopped about fifteen feet from a fence that I could now clearly see in front of me, leaving an empty area running left and right of the track, about two or three feet deep in snow. A large set of double gates was directly ahead. Keeping in the rut, I moved up close. It was made of the same material as the fencing: diamond shaped latticework pressed out of quarter-inch steel sheeting; the sort you'd see in the windows of liquor stores or the protected kiosks of twenty-four-hour shops. A large chain fed through both gates and was secured with a heavy steel high-security padlock--a pain in the ass to decode and do up again; it wasn't the type that just snapped into position. As I lay along the rut, I could feel the hardness of the ice beneath me and knew the cold would start attacking me long before the Maliskia did. I wasn't worried about them at the moment, or the players in the house. Fuck 'em. At such short notice there was no other way to recce this place. The fence looked about forty-five feet high, and was made up of maybe three sections of latticework, bolted together and supported by spaced steel poles about a foot in diameter. The house was beyond the fence, about forty yards away. There were no Christmas decorations in this one, just the two lights. One came from a stained-glass panel that I thought was the top half of a door, set back on a deck. The other was coming from a window further to the left. I couldn't see that much detail, but the house seemed quite large and old. It had a chateau-style tower on the far right-hand side, with a Russian onion-shaped dome that I could just see silhouetted against the night sky. I remembered Liv on the way to Helsinki saying that the Russians controlled Finland until Lenin gave it independence in 1920. The old clashed dramatically with the modern: To the left of the house were five satellite dishes, massive things at least ten feet across and set into the ground, looking like something an American would have had in his yard in the early eighties, the sort that picked up 500 channels telling him what the weather was like in Mongolia but still couldn't give him the local news. This was a proper little Microsoft HQ. I could clearly see their dark mesh dishes looking upward, each in a different direction or elevation, and they all looked as if the snow had been dug away from the base and scraped off the dish. As I lay there, chin on forearms, taking in as much information about the target as I could, I saw why the bases were dug out: All of a sudden there was a high-pitched whine that drowned out the noise of the generator, and one of the dishes started to swivel. Maybe they were trying to catch the Japanese repeats of Friends. Or maybe they were up and running already? It seemed a strange location for a setup like this. Maybe these people were as illegal as Val? I started to wonder, but soon gave myself a good mental slapping. Who cared? I was here for Kelly, to get this job done and paid for before the dollar exchange rate took another tumble. Getting back to the real world, it seemed that concealment was their biggest weapon. The lattice fence was as high tech as they got on the security front, apart from the sterile area between it and the treeline. That not only stopped anyone climbing a tree to get in, but also meant they could look out of their windows in the morning while cleaning their teeth and see at once if people like me had been lurking about. I lay in the rut, working out how to get in based on the little information I had. The numbing cold ate through my clothes and the snow that had found its way down my neck when I fell started to attack my back. My toes were beginning to freeze and my nose was running. I couldn't make any noise by clearing it into the snow, so had to be content with wiping it on my icy-cold glove. There was a sound behind me. I cocked my head so my right ear was pointing back toward the track. The vehicle was returning. No time to think about it, I just got up and ran back to the nearest of my dive points. To clear the bank and the trees, which were slightly off the track, before the headlights rounded the bend, I had to throw myself about three feet up and five feet over, just to get near the treeline's branches. I went for it, not quite making the five feet and hitting rock again. It probably hurt, but I wouldn't feel it until later; adrenalin was doing its job, fighting the pain. Plowing through the snow, trying to get under the branches once more, I listened as the wagon got closer. The vehicle noise suddenly increased as it rounded the bend. I swiveled round on my hands and knees, slowly lifting my head, and tried to get into a position from where I could see the track. I didn't bother to wipe the snow off my face in case the movement was detected. A moment later the 4x4 passed, its headlights sweeping across the gates, the rear lights turning the snow behind them bright red. My face was stinging, but now wasn't the time to deal with it. I needed to take in anything from what the occupants of the 4x4 were going to do to what the front and rear lights revealed to me about the surroundings. Fuck the night vision now. The vehicle stopped just short of the gate and the red glow brightened as the brakes engaged and the engine idled. Pulling two branches apart with my hands, I saw the right-hand passenger door open and the interior light come on. It was two up two people aboard and a very padded body climbed out and started to move toward the gates. The clatter of the chain was momentarily louder than the engine noise. It was left dangling as both gates were pushed inward, creaking and rattling, just enough to let the vehicle pass. The wagon inched forward, its headlights revealing that the snow beyond the gates and inside the target was full of ground sign, feet and tires. Just as importantly, no alarms or trips appeared to have been turned off before entry. The headlights splashed across the house, and without the fence in my way I had a clear view. The building was faced with faded red or brown painted wooden slats and closed shutters on all the windows. The dim light on the left that I'd noticed earlier was escaping from a few missing slats in one of the shutters. The chain rattled again, but I wasn't paying much attention to the gate-closer any longer. It was more important that I saw what was being lit up, looking rather than thinking: My brain would absorb all the information and I'd work out later what I had seen. I kept my eyes on the 4x4's headlights as they swung to the right. A covered deck ran along the right half of the house. The gate loser came back into view as the 4x4 rolled to a stop parallel with the deck railings. I could hear the rustling of a nylon jacket and the crunch of snow boots as the brake lights went off and the engine and headlights died. I heard a man's voice as the passenger shouted something I couldn't understand to the driver as he was pushing open his vehicle door. My nose was stinging and dripping but I couldn't risk missing a thing as the interior light came on and the driver barked a reply. The gate man carried on past the 4x4 and onto the deck as the driver leaned into the passenger foot well and lifted out some flat boxes and a small bag. The pair moved together, stamping their feet on the wooden floor of the deck to clear them of snow. The driver opened the front door of the house with a key. Light spilled out and I caught a brief glimpse of a hallway that looked invitingly warm and bright before they disappeared into the house. I stayed still, smearing the contents of my nose slowly into my gloves before wiping them on a tree branch, visualizing my entry first getting to the house, then into it. After that I'd have to play it by ear. I didn't even know which room the computers were in. So what was new? I seemed to have spent my life breaking into houses, offices, and homes, stealing, bugging, and planting stuff to incriminate people, all with hardly any information, no backup if it went wrong and no recognition for a job well done. The best I ever got was a "What took you so long?" I had to assume that the fifteen-foot sterile area from treeline to fence ran all round the house; even if I could fight my way through the trees and cover up any tracks, there simply wasn't enough time to check. Fuck it, it was too cold anyway. Moving forward to my splash point, I dived out again, this time taking the hit on my knees. I recovered on my back in the wheel rut for a while, just long enough for my shoulder to start reminding me that I'd taken a fall on some rocks on the way in. So adrenalin wasn't entirely effective as a means of pain relief. When I'd got my breath back, I rolled over and got up, keeping my eyes on target for that last look about. There was one more thing to be done. Going back to the gate, I took my glove off and very quickly touched the metal lattice, then leaned over to the left and did the same to the fence. Only then did I turn round and start hobbling back up the driveway, waiting for my knees to warm up so I could stop walking like an old man. Once I'd rounded the bend, I pushed my left nostril closed and cleared my right, then changed sides. It felt a lot better. Twenty minutes later I was scraping ice off the Saab's windshield. Moments after that I was heading back toward Helsinki, the heater blasting away ready to bust on hot hot hot. The driveway to the lead house came into sight after just under four and a half hours. I'd stopped at an unmanned gas station on the way, just two pumps and a pay machine between them. It was in the middle of nowhere and the bright white light burning down from the canopy made it look like a UFO landing site. You just placed your cash or credit card in the slot, selected fuel type and off you went. I wondered how quickly it would have been trashed and robbed if this was the U.K. I took the rest of the drive slowly, thinking things through, compiling a mental checklist of all the kit I'd need to make entry. Pulling up outside the big glass shutters, gagging for a coffee and something to eat, I realized I didn't have a key. There was nothing to do but hit the horn. A few seconds later a light came on and Liv appeared at the door. Thunderbird 3's hangar door opened and I drove in. Before I'd even switched the engine off she was making a drinking sign. I nodded and gave her a thumbs up, and she went back upstairs. By the time I joined her she was in the kitchen and I could smell coffee. "So, Nick," she called out as I closed the stairway door, "will you be able to get in?" "No problem. Where's Tom?" "He's working." She came round the kitchen door, indicating the other side of the house with a tilt of her head. "He's broken through the firewall, as I hoped." She said it without any excitement, and noticed my surprise. "You still have to get Tom into the house, Nick. Sit, I'll get the coffee." I did, taking off my jacket and checking Baby G. It was just before midnight. I'd see Tom later; there were more important things to be dealt with first. I called out, "You'll need a pen and some paper." She came back in with the coffee tray and writing materials, still dressed in jeans and a sweater. She sat on the sofa opposite mine and poured two mugs. I picked one up. Black would do fine; what I needed was an instant wakeup after hours of car heating. "I'll run through a list of equipment with you," I said between sips. "I'm going to need quite a lot of stuff." She picked up the pen and pad and wrote as I dictated. She was surprised by my request for six-inch nails 150mm once she had converted them plus a three-foot length of 2x4 wood, which became a one-meter length of 100 x 50mm. "Why do you need this, Nick? Aren't lock picks and electronic gadgetry more the sort of thing?" "Can you get me some?" She smiled and shook her head. "That's why I want the electric toothbrush. Don't worry, I'll show you what it's for tomorrow. I'll also need the weather forecast, by the way, for a twenty-four-hour period starting at 9 A.M." I liked not telling her what these things were for. At last she was entering my world, things I knew about. There was one last item. "I'd also like a weapon a pistol, preferably silenced or suppressed." She looked genuinely taken aback. "Why?" I thought it was obvious. "Better to have it and not need it than the other way round." "Have you any idea of the weapons laws in this country?" I reminded her what my Russian friends and I had been doing to her Russian friends only a week earlier at the Intercontinental. It didn't work. "I'm sorry, Nick, I wouldn't get you one even if I could. I have nothing to do with that sort of thing. Besides, you were employed precisely because Valentin wanted finesse." The last time I'd gone on a job unarmed I'd ended up shot. After that I promised myself I'd always carry, even if I thought I didn't need to. I wanted to tell her it wasn't just finesse that got Val into the trunk of the Volvo, but I could see by the look on her face that it was pointless. It was strange, ROC probably had more weapons than the British Army. I thought about asking if her guy from St. Petersburg could get me one, but decided against it: It's always best to keep an ace or two up your sleeve. She stood up. "I'm going to bed now, Nick. Please, help yourself to food. I should be back by ten thirty tomorrow with your list." I was beginning to feel hungry and headed for the kitchen. Digging out cans of tuna and sweet corn from a cupboard, I emptied them into a bowl and went in search of Tom as I mixed it up with a fork and got it down my throat. He was sitting at the Think Pad his head in his hands. He didn't look up as I came in. "All right?" "Yeah, all right." There was a blocked-up nasal sound to his reply. All was not well at Camp Tom. "Seriously, you okay?" I wanted to sound surprised at finding him so down, but I could guess at the reason. Being so near the witching hour, reality was grabbing him by the throat. "I'm really worried, Nick. You know, I... I..." There was a big sigh from him, and I knew he was trying to get out what he really wanted to say. "I want to get home, Nick. I don't wanna do it, mate. No way am I going back inside .. ." He didn't want to go back home; he just wanted reassurance that everything would be fine. I'd seen it plenty of times, men on jobs asking for one thing but really needing another, especially when they're scared. It's not a bad thing; fear is natural, and the secret is understanding that it's normal. Only then can you do the abnormal. "Tom, I told you, this won't get you put away. No way would I be doing anything that would get me within a thousand miles of a prison. I've done some, too, you know." He looked up at me with tears in his eyes. "I don't wanna go back, Nick. There were some hard boys in there, know what I mean?" His mouth quivered. "I couldn't hack it, mate." I knew then exactly what he was crying about. Tom might play at being Jack the Lad, but behind bars he'd been fair game for the boys locked up for a long stretch. I thought about my time in reform school and how much I'd hated it. If the wing daddies weren't fighting each other, they were keeping a grip on their little empires and just generally fucking up the lives of those who were within reach. The only way I'd survived, being, like Tom, one of the youngest, had been to act mad. That way the older ones, being locked up and confused about their sexuality, thought I was just a weirdo and left me to it. Because, who knew, I might try and kill them if they touched me. I didn't see Tom being able to act that weird and get away with not being made someone's special friend. I nodded and felt genuinely sorry for him. "Don't worry, mate. All that's finished with, I guarantee it, Tom." He sniffed and wiped his nose, embarrassed at his display of vulnerability. "Best bet is to go take a shower and get some shut-eye. We have a busy night tomorrow." I tapped his shoulder playfully, leaving him to sort himself out. He didn't need me there to embarrass him even more by seeing him like this. Besides, he was coming with me tomorrow night whether he liked it or not. As I headed back to my room I thought that, in addition to nails and lumps of 2x4, Liv had better get Tom a brave or stupid pill, depending on which way you looked at it. I started to undress and listened as Tom walked past my door, going in the direction of the living area, probably in search of a glass of water to replace all the liquid leaking down his face. In the shower I checked out the nice knee, shin, and back bruises I'd got from my snow jumping and went to bed. I was beat, but thoughts about the job kept me awake, going over making entry and actions-on if there was a fuckup. I must have been lying there for an hour, listening to the hum of the air-conditioning, when Tom shuffled past once more toward the living area. He would probably be like this all night now, but he'd live. If he was still wobbly in the morning I'd remind him again about how much money he'd soon have in his pocket. More than enough to get away from that scrubby flat and Janice. I'd already decided that I would give him the full $300,000. Why not? I wouldn't have got this far without him. Another half-hour hummed by. I was still thinking about tomorrow night, mentally checking that Liv's shopping list was complete, when I realized that Torn hadn't come back. Yawning, I put on my jeans and shirt and wandered off to have a coffee with him, maybe talk him round a bit more. The lights were still on in the living area, but there was no sign of Tom. I checked the kitchen. He must have gone back and I hadn't heard him. As I turned, I noticed that the door leading to Liv's side of the house was open, and I knew that she'd closed it behind her. Crossing the living area, I started to saunter down her hallway. The door layout was the same as our side, so she'd be in one of the two bedrooms. It wasn't hard to tell which. There was noise coming from the first door on the left. I didn't know who was doing what to whom, but the grunts and moans were unmistakably theirs. I turned back up the hall, leaving them to it, realizing, yet again, that I didn't have a clue when it came to women. 19 Tuesday. December 14,1999 By the time I got up Tom was showered and dressed, hair still wet, sitting on the sofa drinking milk. He was certainly cheerful enough. "Morning, Nick. Coffee's in the pot. Liv has gone to get your stuff. Said she'll be back about tenish." I went into the kitchen, poured some coffee and checked out the food. I was dying to ask him about last night, but decided to wait and see if he said anything first. I didn't want to sound like a dickhead, and things were getting very weird. First Liv and her friend at the station, and now this. I wondered if she'd been fucking Tom for years, but immediately dismissed the thought. Once you'd had a taste of Liv, you wouldn't decide to settle down with Janice, and why bother to get me to do the job of recruiting him in the first place? Fixing myself a plate of crackers, cheese, and cherry jam, I dumped it all on a tray and went and sat opposite him. I put on my concerned face and asked, "How do you feel this morning, mate? Still want to quit?" I concentrated hard on spreading my jam "I'm sorry about last night, Nick. I was just worried, you know." I nodded. "These things happen to everyone at some time or other. Anyway, you look a lot better this morning." I gave him a grin. "There's nothing like a good night's sleep." He avoided the subject. "It is going to be okay, Nick, isn't it?" "Of course. I had a really good look at the house last night. It's just a big old mansion in the woods, trying to look like Microsoft HQ. No drama. Next stop, the bank--that's the beauty of it." I got back to my cracker, relieved that I didn't have to deliver another mammoth pep talk. He grinned back. "Nice one, mate. Nice one." His head had gone back into jerky chicken mode. I took a mouthful of coffee. "Yep, it's good we both got some sleep. We'll certainly be beat tomorrow morning." He sipped his milk, trying to hide his face in his mug. I couldn't resist any longer. "I heard you, you know." He turned bright red. "What? What are you on about?" "Hey, listen, good luck, mate, but keep the noise down in future, will you? Some of us old fuckers can't take too much excitement." He laughed nervously, embarrassed, but at the same time rather proud. I couldn't blame him. "What's the secret, Tom? I mean, no disrespect to Miss Nordic Myth, but warm and wonderful she isn't. Have you met in a past life?" He shifted in his seat as embarrassment took over. "Nah, mate. Never met the girl before. But, you know, I was out here getting a drink when she came out. She saw I was worried, and we got talking and that.. . you know." I didn't, that was the problem. One minute he's asking me if I trust her, a minute later he's making the earth move for her. Well, probably the other way round. I gave myself another mental slap. Fuck it, I didn't care what was going on. I realized, with a shock, that I was jealous. I needed to sort my shit out, concentrate on making money and leave anything else that was going on well alone. I got up, leaned over and tapped him on the shoulder. "Just make sure you've got those daps of yours for tonight." "Daps?" "Gym shoes, whatever you call them. Make sure they're clean and dry. Don't wear them today, just keep your new boots on, all right?" With that I picked up my mug and left. Freshly showered, I lay on my bed and visualized once again making entry on target. I always found it easy to run the film in my head, as if my eyes were the camera lens and my ears the recording equipment I listened to what the snow sounded like as we walked to the deck, then the creak of the wooden decking, working out how I would deal with it, attacking the lock on the door and then moving Tom around the house until we found what we were looking for. I replayed the footage three or four times, from leaving the car to returning to it; then I started to edit it with different versions: What if Tom and I were on the deck and the door opened? What if there were dogs in the compound? What if we were compromised in the house? I played the different versions and stopped the film at the crisis points, thought about what I should do and then hit Replay, trying to come up with answers. It wouldn't go exactly to script, it never did. On the ground, every situation would be different. But the film was a starting point; it meant I had a plan. From there, if the shit hit the fan, it would be a matter of adapting the plan in the one or two seconds available, so that I could react to whatever the threat was instead of standing there feeling sorry for myself. I'd been in my room for about two hours when there was a knock on the door. "Nick?" Tom poked his head round the corner. "Liv's back. You won't tell her you know, will you? It's just that... well, you know." I got off my bed and walked out with him, using my forefinger and thumb to mime zipping up my lips. She was in the living room, dropping her hat and black leather coat on the sofa. There was no exchange of eye contact between them and her whole manner announced there was no time for small talk. "Good morning," she said briskly. "It's been confirmed: They're now online." She must have been to meet her St. Petersburg friend as well this morning. "Could you two give me assistance? There are quite a few bags." We followed her downstairs, where the first thing she passed me was a sheet of paper with the weather forecast printed out in Finnish. "It says there is a possibility of snow showers in the early morning. That is good for you, no?" Tom was busy opening the rear door of the Mere. "What do they mean by early morning?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I asked the same question. I'm afraid no one could tell me exactly. Anything between two and ten." I handed it back to her and walked to the rear of the 4x4, not letting Tom see my concern. This was bad. Snow is good for hiding sign, but bad for making it. We had to get in and out as quickly as possible, otherwise the only footprints left on the ground at first light would be our fresh ones, not mixed in with the others I'd seen in the compound last night. Unless, that was, the shower kept falling for long enough to cover our tracks once we had left. This wasn't good at all; you just don't take that sort of risk if a job has to remain covert. But a deadline is a deadline, and I had no choice but to go in regardless. I was stressing and hoped that God hadn't really been listening to me in Tom's apartment, just waiting to get his own back by stopping the snow the moment we got into the house. Tom picked up a set of eighteen-inch bolt cutters from the back seat and held them out with a quizzical expression on his face. I had lifted the tailgate and was holding an armful of bags and boxes. "Just a bit of standby kit we might need tonight, mate. Come on, let's give her a hand." Tom followed me upstairs, the bolt cutters under his arm and his fists full of shopping-bag handles. He dumped it all next to the stuff I'd carried up on the wooden floor outside the kitchen and was soon sniffing around in the bags like a child on the hunt for sweets. Liv was close behind. It was time to put the work disk into my hard drive again. "It's pointless you two hanging around," I said. "Give me a couple of hours to sort myself out here, and after that I'll explain why I needed all this stuff. Make sure those daps are clean, Tom. No mud that could flake off, or grit in the soles, okay?" He nodded. Liv looked at him, puzzled. "Daps?" "The canvas shoes I've been wearing." He had already put his new boots on. She nodded, mouthing the new word to herself as she logged it in her memory bank and left in the direction of her room. "I'll see you both later." Tom was looking at me as she disappeared down the hall and the door closed. I knew what was going on in his head. "Don't worry, mate, not a word." He smiled, relieved. "Thanks, 'cus, well, you know."" He waved to me as he walked toward our side of the house. "Tom, is there anything you need me to do for you?" "No thanks, mate," he said with a sudden twinkle. "Liv's already done it." He stopped, turned, and tapped his forehead with his index finger. "Nah, seriously, everything I need is up here. Do you want me to run through it?" "No point. I'll just concentrate on getting us in and out of there. What are you looking for, anyway?" He grinned. "I won't know until I see it." He disappeared and I emptied the shopping bags and boxes onto the floor. I sorted the clothing first, as it was the easiest to check. Shiny nylon down jackets were not what we needed at a time like this; all the stuff I'd asked Liv for was made of wool and thick cotton. We had to have clothes that weren't going to rustle, and they had to be dark and completely nonreflective no shiny buttons or safety tape. I cut out any Velcro holding pockets or flaps with my Leatherman: Velcro makes quite a noise when pulled apart, and I couldn't afford for that to happen on target. Anything dangling, like draw cords I also removed. Once in the house, I couldn't afford for something to get caught and be dragged onto the floor. All this might sound over the top, but people have been killed for less. I'd learned by others' mistakes, and I'd never forget seeing a mate of mine hanging from the top of a fence in Angola by the nylon cord in his combat smock. He didn't have anything to cut himself free with and had to watch as guards came, stopped to take aim just feet away, and put at least fifty rounds into him. Liv had chosen some good woolen outer gloves for us, as well as a pair of thin cotton contact gloves, so I could manipulate the door lock or whatever without my bare hands freezing onto the metal. There was also a pair of sneakers for me to wear, from which I cut out the reflective heel piece. I hadn't ordered any for Tom; he had his daps. We would put them on just before entering the house. Heavy-soled boots make noise and drag in snow, leaving sign. The outside world needs to stay out there. I found the bag of six-inch nails, some lengths of one-inch thick nylon webbing and a handful of metal washers. The length of wood was exactly as specified. I couldn't help laughing to myself at the thought of Liv in a hardware store. She probably hadn't even known these places existed. There was a neat little hacksaw in a cardboard and plastic shrinkwrap. I ripped it out of its packaging and used it to cut half a dozen six-inch lengths of wood. Liv had done her work well; the washers went over the six-inch nails and were stopped by the nail head. I slipped two washers over each, since they would be taking quite a strain. Fifteen minutes later, I had six fist-sized lumps of wood, each with a nail hammered through. The nail had then been bent into an acute angle about halfway along with pliers, so the whole thing looked a bit like a docker's hook. The exposed metal of the nail, apart from the bit at the bend and about half a centimeter either side of it, had then been covered with rubber bands to eliminate noise when they were used. Tom and I would use one hook in each hand and carry one each as a spare. The dark-green two-inch webbing was meant for strapping skis to a roof rack. I cut four six-foot lengths of it, knotting together the ends of each so that I ended up with four loops. These I put to one side with the hooks, away from the chaos around me. The climbing kit was ready. Liv had been right: The old ways sometimes are the best, and this method took a lot of beating. It was a little gem from the files of MI9, created during World War Two when they were asked to think up new ideas and design equipment so that POWs could escape from their camps and travel through occupied Europe to safety. They came up with silk maps, sandwiched between the thin layers of a playing card and sent in Red Cross parcels. They even changed the design of R.A.F uniforms to make them easily convertible into civilian clothes. This hook-and-loop device, easy to make and easy to use, was just one of the many ideas they'd come up with for scaling POW camp fences. It had worked for them; I hoped it was going to work for us. Next I unwrapped the Polaroid camera and four packs of film. Once a film was inserted, I took a quick test shot of my foot. The camera was working fine. I stripped the other three films of their wrapping. Each cartridge of film contained its own battery power source, but batteries tend to get sluggish in cold weather, and I couldn't afford for that to happen. To keep them warm I'd make sure I kept them close to my body. Once we'd put on our sneakers and I'd made entry, I would take pictures of wherever we were on target, camera noise and flash permitting. On a covert operation, everything has to be left exactly as you find it. People notice straightaway when something is not precisely where it should be. It could be something obvious, like a folded rug that has suddenly been laid flat, but more often it's something almost indefinable that compromises the job; they just feel instinctively that something is wrong. Maybe their pen isn't in the position they always leave it, even by as little as half an inch; or the morning sunlight isn't shining through the blinds exactly how it normally does, lighting up half the desk; or some dust has been disturbed. We might not consciously notice these things, but our subconscious does; it takes in every detail and tries to tell us. We aren't always clever enough to understand, but we feel that something isn't right. A switched-on target will know that even an out-of-place paper clip constitutes a drama, and will take whatever action he feels is called for. The fact that people would be on target gave this job a high chance of compromise, but I couldn't let it affect the way I thought about what I needed to do, just the way I planned it. I'd been successful on similar jobs in the past, so why should this one be any different? Thinking about making entry reminded me to charge up the electric toothbrush. I went into my bathroom and plugged it into the outlet. Back in the living room, I picked up the set of Alien keys. A large metal ring held about twenty of the things, in order of size. I chose the smallest one and eased it off the ring. The room was beginning to look like Santa's workshop, with sawdust, ripped packaging, plastic bags, clothes tags, and me sitting in the middle of it all. The Alien key had a right-angle bend about half an inch from the end. With the pliers and hammer I straightened it out until the angle was more like forty-five degrees than ninety, being careful not to snap the soft steel. Then, having ripped the metal file from its shrinkwrap, I started to round off the end of the shorter section. It only took about ten minutes. Going downstairs to the main door, I slipped it into the cylinder lock to check. It fitted perfectly. Back in Santa's workshop I opened the pack of Isopon and mixed equal amounts of resin and hardener from both tubes on a piece of cardboard. I took it and the Alien key back to the bathroom. Not many minutes later the key was fixed firmly to the oscillating steel shaft of the toothbrush, the bit the brush head would normally fit onto. When I'd watched the door of the target house being kicked closed, no keys had been turned, it had just been shut and left, which suggested that the lock was a Yale-type cylinder. This gadget should do the trick. Bringing back two white hand towels I sat on the floor and started to file another Alien key the same way. What I had made with the toothbrush and first Alien key was a makeshift Yale gun, a device that simulates a key by manipulating the pins inside a lock. The oscillation of the toothbrush shaft would move the Alien key tip up and down strongly onto the pins. With any luck it would displace them long enough for the lock to be opened. If not, it would be down to the old way. Still using the Alien key on the toothbrush, but with no oscillation this time, I would have to push up one pin at a time, then hold it there while I attacked the next one in line. For this a second Alien key was needed, and that was what I was busy filing down. Once I had attacked the second pin I would simply move the other Alien key along, so that it held both pins up, then keep on going until, in theory, I could open the door that was if it wasn't bolted on the inside, of course. Which it probably would be if they had even one brain cell allocated to security. It took me another hour to finish preparing the kit and packing it into a medium-sized dark-blue backpack. Everything was wrapped in my nice white towels, so as not to make any noise, or get smashed by the bolt cutters, the handles of which were sticking out each side of the top flap. Tom wouldn't be needing a backpack. The only kit he'd have with him was the Think Pad and cables in their carry bag. Liv emerged from her hallway. By now the jumper was off, and she was in her tight jeans and a white T-shirt no bra. That would have been interesting a couple of nights ago, but now I was getting on with the job. The circumstances had changed. She surveyed the mess as coolly as ever. "Having fun?" I nodded. "Want to get Tom in to see what toys I've made for him?" She walked past me to the main room and I got to my feet. I was still brushing off sawdust when they both reappeared. Tom laughed. "Tell you what, mate. Lego would have been easier!" I smiled my yes-very-funny smile. "Tom, I'm going to show you how to use this stuff." I pointed at the hooks and straps by the sofa. Tom watched Liv disappear into the kitchen. "There's your clothes, mate. You're going to need a bit more on than you bought yesterday." He picked up the contact gloves and tried them on. "Hey, Nick, I'll wear my silk stuff underneath and be a bit kinky, eh?" I smiled. As far as I was concerned silk thermals were about as much use as paper lifejackets. Mr. Helly Hansen's stuff was the one for me. He pointed down at the hooks and straps. "Go on then, what are they for?" When I explained, he looked a bit taken aback. "We'll be like fucking Spiderman, or what?" His head jutted, but not as confidently as normal. "You sure you'll be all right doing this, Tom? Have you climbed before?" "Sure I have." He thought about that for a second. "Can I have a practice?" " "Fraid not, mate. There isn't anywhere." He picked up one of the hooks and twanged a rubber band. "Is this the only way, Nick? I mean " "Listen, this is the only thing you've got to do for yourself. Everything else I'll do for you." I broke into a whisper, as if we were in a conspiracy that I didn't want Liv to join. "Remember, we're in for a lot of money here." He seemed to spark up a bit and I felt quite proud of my little speech. The coffee arrived well, for Liv and me. The string of one of Tom's newly purchased herbal tea bags was hanging over the rim of the third mug. We sat down, Tom at my side. "Okay," I said, "what I want to do now is explain exactly how we're going to get into, and out of, this place with your" I looked at Liv as she pulled her feet up onto the sofa "box of tricks." There was no need to set out the various phases military style, as if I was briefing an orders group, running through all the actions-on for each phase. It would be counterproductive: I didn't want Tom to have so much stuff floating around in his head that I ended up confusing him. If he got muddled he might get even more scared. He didn't have to know why, just how. I unfolded the map and pointed at the key locations with a pen. "This is where we're going to park. Then we're going to walk down here." I ran my pen down the marked track as he took small, sharp sips of his tea. "Once we get to the area of the house, we climb the fence using the hooks and straps. Then I'll get us into the house and you can do your stuff. After that, it's out of there the same way. I'll tell you exactly what to do and when to do it. If you see or hear anything different, or there's a drama, stop doing whatever it is you're up to and stay exactly where you are. I'll be there to tell you what to do. Okay?" "Okay." "I want to leave dead on nine, so you need to be ready fifteen minutes before. If the weather's good, we'll be in Helsinki before first light. Then we'll organize the exchange." This time they both nodded. "Okay, now I'm going to get something to eat and then crash out for a couple of hours, and I suggest you do the same." I was going to treat him like an ET (escort to target), telling him only what he needed to know, and if there was a drama, all he had to do was stand still, I would be there to take action and tell him what to do. The less the person you're looking after has to think about, the better. I stood up and nodded a see-you-later to them both as I went to the kitchen for some of the cheese and cold cuts in the fridge. Tom left for his room. As well as not telling Tom too much to save confusing him, I also didn't want to scare him by suggesting anything about dramas, let alone the problems we were likely to have with the snow. Once people get negative thoughts into their heads their imaginations go into hyper drive and they start to panic. Every noise or shadow becomes a major event, which slows down the job and also increases the chance of a compromise. Tom already knew what to do if we got split up, without realizing it: get himself to Helsinki train station. He had enough money in that bag to charter a private jet home. I started to pull the fridge to bits, throwing all sorts onto a plate. I'd have loved to have left right away and be on target before it had a chance to snow, but what was the point, we couldn't get in until people were asleep. I knew better than to worry any more about the job; it only gets you all keyed up, too keen to get on with it, then you hit the target before the time is right and fuck up. I headed for my bedroom with the food, picking at it as I went. Liv had gone. Once on my bed, I started visualizing again exactly what I was going to do, with some more what-ifs, except that now in my film it had started to snow. There was a knock on the door. I looked at Baby G. I must have been asleep for three hours. The door opened and Tom appeared, his long hair dangling over his shoulders. "Got a minute, mate?" "Sure, come in." As if I was going anywhere. He came and sat on the bed, looking down and chewing his bottom lip. "I'm worried about this hook thing. Look, to tell you the truth, I ain't never done anything like that before, know what I mean? What happens if I can't do it? You know ... if I get it all wrong?" I sat up. His shoulders were hunched and his hair covered his face. "Tom, no drama. Don't worry about it; it's all in the legs." I stood up. "This is how easy it is." Putting my hands above my head, I bent my knees and slowly lowered myself all my ass was level with the floor, then lifted up again. "Not exactly difficult, is it? Can you do that?" He nodded. "S'pose so." "Come on, let's see you, then." As he lowered himself toward the floor, knees cracking and creaking, he looked and sounded very uncertain, but he managed to do it. I gave an encouraging smile. "That's all you need to do. If your legs can do that later on, we're home free. But remember, small movements. No more than a foot at a time, okay?" "Small movements. Gotcha." He didn't look convinced. "Just do what I do. Like I said, no drama." "You sure?" "Positive." He bit his lip again. "I don't want to mess things up ... you know, get caught or whatever. You know, what we talked about last night." "You won't. Fucking hell, kids do this for fun. I used to do it when I was a kid, trying to skip school." The school I was talking about was reform school, and I only wished I'd known this little trick at the time. I would have been out of that shithole lickety-split. "Tom, relax. Have a bath, do anything you want. Try your clothes on. Just don't worry about it. The only time to worry is when I look worried, okay?" He hesitated in the doorway. I waited for him to speak, but he changed his mind and turned to go. "And hey, Tom?" His body stayed facing out and he just turned his head. "Yep?" "Don't have anything to eat when you get up, mate. I'll explain later." He nodded, and left with a nervous laugh as he closed the door behind him. I stretched out on the bed and went back to visualizing each phase of the job. I wasn't happy about the prospect of snow and I wasn't happy about not having a weapon. The vegetable knife I'd used to cut the cheese with wasn't much of a substitute. 2D I got up groggily just after eight and took a shower. I hadn't slept since Tom's visit, but because I'd been trying so hard I now wanted to. Dragging myself to the kitchen for a coffee, I found Liv and Tom in bathrobes sitting on the sofa with mugs in hand. They both looked as tired as I felt, and we exchanged only mumbled greetings. I still had one more thing to do with the kit before I double-checked the lot, so I took my coffee with me to my room and got dressed properly. At just before nine o'clock I took everything down to the car. Tom was on parade, showered, and dressed. Liv didn't follow us down; she would be emptying the house tonight and was probably already busy getting it sterile. She'd take our bags with her, handing them back with the money in them. Tom and I faced each other as I checked him out, first his pockets to make sure the only stuff in them was the equipment he needed: daps, spare hook, nylon loop, and money. He didn't need 100 marks in change rattling around in his pockets, just the paper money in a plastic bag tucked into his boot to get food and transportation if he was in the shit. Most important was the Think Pad and cables, jammed into the nylon carry bag hanging over his shoulder but under his coat. I didn't want the battery getting too cold and slow on target. I then had to make sure that none of it fell out, especially his spare hook. I got him to jump up and down. There were no noises and everything stayed in place in his large, padded blue-check coat. Finally I made sure he had his gloves and hat. "All right, mate?" "No drama." He sounded convincing. I put the backpack on over my coat. We looked like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. "Okay, you check me now." "Why?" "Because I might have fucked up. Go on." He checked me over from the front first, then I turned so he could check the backpack was securely fastened. Everything was fine until I jumped up and down. There was a noise coming from the pocket my spare hook was in. Tom looked almost embarrassed as he reached in and brought out the two nails that had been raiding around. "These things happen," I said. "That's why everyone needs to be checked. Thanks, mate." He was very pleased with himself. It's amazing what a couple of well-placed nails can do to boost someone's confidence and make them feel they're contributing to things. Tom and I got into the car and wheels turned just after nine o'clock. Liv hadn't made an appearance to say goodbye. He was pretty quiet for the first twenty minutes or so. As I drove, I talked him through each phase again, from stopping the car when we got there, to entering the house and finding what we were looking for, to me turning the ignition back on once I had the Think Pad securely in my possession. I concentrated on being relentlessly positive, not even beginning to suggest that things could go wrong. We got to the drop-off point after three and a half hours, with me stressing every time I'd had to turn the wipers on to clear the windshield of shit thrown up by cars in front, thinking that the snowfall had started. Once in the firebreak near the target I killed the lights, but I left th e engine running as I looked over at my passenger. "You all right, Tom?" When we'd done the drive-past a couple of minutes earlier I'd pointed out the driveway we were going to go down. He took a deep breath. "Ready to roll, mate. Ready to rock 'n' roll." I could sense his apprehension. "Right then, let's do it." I got out of the car, closing the door gently onto the first click, just enough for the interior light to go out. Then I unzipped my fly. Tom was on the other side of the car doing the same, exactly as I'd told him. I could only manage a little dribble as I checked the skies for even the slightest sign of snow. I couldn't see a thing in the darkness, of course, but somehow it made me feel better. I got the backpack and my coat out of the car and rested them against one of the wheels. It was bitterly cold and the wind was getting up, each gust biting at the flesh of my face. At least we should be out of it as we moved down the driveway, protected by the forest, and the noise of the swaying treetops would help cover any sound we made. The bad news was that the same wind would be bringing the snow. I put my coat on and watched Tom do the same as the backpack went on my back. So far so good. He even remembered to close his door slowly to keep the noise down. After fully closing mine, I pressed the key chain. The lights flashed as I walked round to Tom and made sure he watched me as I placed the key behind the front wheel, covering it with snow. Getting back up, I went to his exposed ear and whispered, "Remember, no flaps." I wanted him to keep his ears exposed two sets were better than one, and I still wanted him to think I needed his help, though I wasn't holding my breath on that one. He nodded as our vapor clouds billowed together in front of us. "We're going to have to keep quiet now." I had to force myself to keep my mouth against his ear. This boy needed to do something about his earwax. "Remember, if you want me, don't call, just touch me, then whisper right in my ear. Okay on that?" "Got it." "Do you remember what to do if a vehicle comes?" "Yeah, yeah, make like Superman." His shoulders heaved up and down as he tried to suppress a nervous laugh. "Okay, mate, ready?" He nodded and I clapped him on the shoulder. "Right, let's go then." I felt like an old sweat in the First World War trying to coax a young bayonet over the top. I set off slowly, my ears exposed to the night, with Tom two or three paces behind. When we were about fifteen feet down the driveway I had a check of Baby G. It was just before a quarter to one; hopefully Friends was crap tonight and they'd gone to bed. We were going down the gentle incline, coming toward the bend that would take us into line of sight of the house, when I stopped, and so did Tom, just as he'd been told to. If I stopped, he stopped; if I then lay down, so must he. Moving back to him, I put my mouth to his ear. "Can you hear that?" I backed my head away so he could listen. He nodded. "Generator. We're nearly there, mate. Need another piss?" He shook his head and I slapped him on the head in my best what-good-fun-this-is sort of way and started to walk on. Keeping in the left-hand tire rut, the compacted snow solid beneath our feet, we slowly rounded the bend. All I could hear was the wind high above us, whipping the tops of the pines; the sound of Tom moving behind, and the generator, its throbbing getting louder as we closed in. I looked up at the sky. Fuck it, it didn't matter if it snowed now or not; I was totally focused on doing the job. Even my nose and ears didn't feel as cold as they had last night. There was nothing I could do about the weather and nothing I could do about the conditions of the contract: It was tonight or nothing, and I was desperate for the money. Once we were virtually in direct line of sight of the house I stopped again, listened, had a good look around, then moved on another eight or nine steps. My night vision had fully kicked in. I'd explained to Tom how to look at things in the dark just above or below an object to ensure a good focus and how to protect his night vision. It was a waste of time explaining why he had to do these things, all he needed to know was how. From what I could see at this distance there didn't appear to be any lights on in the house, nor anything else to indicate that anybody was up and about. That didn't mean, however, that I was just going to bowl up to the gate. Every few steps I stopped, turned and checked on Tom, giving him a thumbs-up and getting a nod back. It was more for his benefit than mine; I just wanted to make him feel a bit better, knowing that somebody was thinking about him. We were a few feet short of the gap between the treeline and fence when I stopped again and listened. Tom did the same, one pace after mine. If they had NVG (night viewing goggles) and were keeping watch, we would find out very soon. There was nothing I could do about it; this was our only approach. Tilting my head so my ear pointed toward the house, I tried to listen just that little bit harder, my hearing trying to overcome the noise of the wind, while at the same time edging my eyes round in their sockets toward the house to check for movement. I must have looked like a mime artist to Tom. There was a faint glimmer of light coming from the left-hand shutter on the ground floor; it was far weaker than last night. I could only just see it. Did that mean everyone was in bed, or crowded round the TV? I put my hand up in front of his face and signaled Tom to wait where he was. Then my fingers did a little walking-sign motion. He nodded as I moved off into the darkness, following the wheel rut toward the gate. I was exposed to the wind once I'd passed the treeline. It was now strong enough to push against my coat, but not enough to affect my walking. Nothing much had changed on the other side of the fence, even the 4x4 was parked in the same position. On the recce there hadn't been any electrical current running through the fence; I would have known when I'd touched it. If there was some tonight I was just about to find out. Biting off my right outer glove, I pulled the touch glove down and quickly felt the gate, not even taking a breath in anticipation. Fuck it, just get on with it. If it was wired up, the shock wouldn't be any different because I'd hesitated. As I put the gloves back on I checked the padlocks. They hadn't been left undone, not that I'd expected them to be. That would be too much like good luck. There was no way I could cut the gate chains or fence, because that would compromise the job. The bolt cutters weighing a ton in my backpack were only to get us out of the compound if we were compromised on target without them we'd be running around in there like rats in a barrel. Getting out of a place had always been more important to me than getting in, 21 I headed hack to Tom and out of the wind. He hadn't moved an inch since I'd left him; head down, arms by his side, a vapor cloud rising above him. Slowly easing the backpack off my shoulders, I knelt down in the wheel rut and tugged on his sleeve. Tom lowered himself to join me. You only take out one bit of kit at a time from a backpack, then deal with it, which means packing so the first item you want is the last bit you put in. Getting him to keep the backpack upright by holding the bolt-cutter handles sticking out on either side of the top, I undid the clips and lifted the flap. Then, moving some of the toweling that stopped everything from rattling around, I took out one webbing loop and a hook. Twisting two turns of the strapping around the nail hook, where it emerged from the wood, I handed the device, now with a three-foot loop hanging from it, to Tom. He gripped the wood in his right hand, exactly as he'd been shown, with the hook angled down and protruding between his index and middle fingers. Attaching another webbing loop in exactly the same way to another hook, I handed it over, and he took that in his left hand. I then assembled the other two devices in the same way, and re clipped and replaced the backpack on my back, then took one in each hand. Looking around at both the target and the sky, I noticed no discernible change in either. I just hoped it would stay that way. Taking a step closer to Tom, I whispered into his ear, "Ready?" I got a slow nod and a couple of short, sharp breaths in return. I started to move the last few feet toward the gate. My eyes were fixed on the house, but my brain was already crossing the fence: It was going to be our most vulnerable time. If things went wrong in the house, fine, I could react. Up there on the fence, we'd be fatally exposed, just like my friend hanging from his jacket cord, watching helplessly as they walked up and shot him. I stopped, my nose six inches from the gate, and turned. Tom was two paces behind, head bent to the left, trying to keep the wind out of his face. Turning back to the gate, I raised my right hand to just above shoulder height, the hook facing the diamond-shaped lattice, and gently eased the bent nail into a gap. The rubber bands around the nail were to eliminate noise, but I'd deliberately left the bend itself exposed: When I heard and felt metal on metal, I'd know it was correctly in position. Otherwise, if weight was applied with the hook badly positioned, there was a possibility of the nail straightening under the strain. That was why we both had a spare device. If there was a drama and one of these things started straightening while we climbed, the other loop and hook would have to hold our weight while the broken one was replaced. The bend in the nail engaged the fencing with the gentlest of scrapes, the bottom of the strapping loop hanging about a foot above the wheel rut. I inserted the left hook about six inches higher, and a shoulder width apart. It was pointless at this stage worrying about being so exposed to view from the house. All we could do was just get on with it, hoping they didn't see us. There was no other way. If I'd tried the previous night to find somewhere to cross on the side or rear of the building, I would have left tracks everywhere for someone to spot this morning, and my boot prints sure didn't look like reindeer hooves. Even if I'd been able to recce all the way around, I would still face the problem of sign inside the compound. At least the front of the house was crisscrossed by footprints and tire tracks. Gripping both chunks of wood so the hooks took my body weight, I placed my right foot in the right loop and, using my right leg muscles to push my body upward and pulling up with my hands and arms, I slowly rose above the ground. As the loop began to take the strain I could hear the nylon creaking, stretching just a few millimeters as the fibers sorted themselves out. The gate and chains rattled as the structure moved under my weight; I'd expected this to happen, but not so loudly. I froze for a few seconds and watched the house. Satisfied that the right loop was supporting me, I lifted my left into the bottom of the one about six inches higher. I was now a foot off the ground, only about another forty-four to go. I didn't bother looking at Tom again. From now on I was going to concentrate on what I was doing, knowing that he would be watching me closely and that he knew what was required of him. I shifted my body weight again until all the pressure was on my left foot and hand; now it was this loop's turn to protest as it stretched that few millimeters for the first time. Lifting out the right hook, but keeping my foot in the loop, I reached up and put it back into the fence six inches above the level of the left one, again a shoulder width apart. Tom was right, it was like Spiderman climbing a wall, only instead of suction pads my hands had hooks and my feet had loops of nylon strapping. I repeated the process twice more, trying to control my breathing through my nose as my body demanded more oxygen to feed the muscles. I checked below me. Tom was looking up, his head angled against the wind. I wanted first to gain height and clear the snow drifts in the gap, then traverse left over them and continue climbing near a support post. I didn't want us to climb directly above the wheel rut, not only because a vehicle or people might appear at the gate, but also because the higher we climbed, the more noise the fence would make as our weight moved it about. I was aiming for the first of the steel poles that the lattice sections were fixed to. If we climbed with our hooks each side of it, it would stop the fence from buckling and lessen the noise. I now moved vertically to the left six inches at a time. After three more moves I was off the gate and onto the fence proper, and halfway up the first of the three sections that gave the fence its height. The smooth, unmarked snow was a couple of yards below me. There was still a few feet to go before I reached the support, but I didn't want to get too far away from Tom. Stopping, I looked down at him and nodded. It was his turn to play now and follow my route. He took his time; there was a slight grunt as he took the weight on his right leg, and I hoped he remembered what I'd said, that it was all in the leg muscles, even though that was a lie. He'd need quite a bit of upper-body strength as well, but I wasn't going to tell him that. I didn't want to put him off before he'd even started. The gate moved and the chains raided far too loudly for comfort. Thankfully the wind was blowing from left to right, carrying some of our noise away from the building. Tom hadn't quite got the hang of how to balance himself. As he went to insert his left foot in the loop he started to swivel to the right, forcing himself round to the left so he was flat against the fence once again. I could hear clown music playing in my head already. As I looked down at him under my right armpit, I thought of all the other times I'd had to climb over obstacles or move along roofs with people like Tom, experts in their field but simply unused to anything that demanded more physical coordination than boarding a bus or getting up from a chair. It nearly always ended up in a gang fuck He looked so ridiculous that I couldn't help smiling, even though his incompetence was the last thing I needed right now. For a moment I thought I'd have to go back down to him, but he eventually got his left foot into the loop and made his first ascent. Unfortunately he was so jittery that he started to swing over to the left as he released the right hook from the fence. Tom worked hard at it, huffing and grunting as he struggled to sort himself out, then, strangely, he found the traverse a bit easier. He still looked a bag of shit, but he was making progress. I kept my eyes on target while he made his way toward me. Moving up and across a few more times, my hooks were soon on each side of the first support. The massive steel pole was maybe a foot in diameter. I waited again for Tom, who was generating less noise now that he'd traversed onto the more rigid fence. The wind burned my exposed flesh as I forced myself to look around and check. The snot from my runny nose felt as if it was freezing on my top lip. Ages later, Tom's head was less than a yard below my boots. Beneath us lay a deep drift of snow which extended back fifteen feet to the treeline. Now that we both had a hook on each side of the support, the going was good and firm. All we had to do from here was climb vertically and get over the top. Pulling one hook away at a time I checked the nails. They were standing up to the strain. Tom was going at it like this was Everest, great clouds of vapor billowing round him as he panted for breath, his head moving up and down with the effort of sucking in more oxygen. He'd be sweating big time under his clothes, as much from the pressure he was under as from the huge amounts of physical energy he was needlessly exerting. I moved another six inches, then another, edging my way upward, wishing we were going a bit quicker. About two-thirds of the way up, I looked down again to check on Tom. He hadn't moved an inch since I'd last done so, his body shape flat against the fence, holding on for dear life. I couldn't tell what had happened and there was no silent way of attracting his attention. I willed him to look up at me. He'd completely frozen, a common occurrence when people climb or rappel for the first time. It certainly has nothing to do with lack of strength--even a child has enough muscle to climb--but some people's legs just give out on them. It's a mental thing; they have the strength and know the technique, but they lack the confidence. At last he looked up. I couldn't make out his expression, but his head was shaking from side to side. From this distance there was no way I could reason with him or offer assurance. Fuck it, I'd have to go down to him. Extracting the right hook, I began descending and traversing to the left. This was turning into a Ringling Brothers Circus act. Getting level with him, I leaned across until my mouth was against his left ear. The wind picked up more and I had to whisper louder than I wanted. "What's the matter, mate?" I moved my head round to present an ear for his reply, watching the house as I waited. "I can't do it, Nick. I'm fucked." It came out somewhere between a sob and a whimper. "I hate heights. I should have told you. I was going to say, but.. . you know." It was pointless showing him how pissed off I was. That's just the way some people are; it's no good shaking them or telling them to get a grip. If he could, he would. I knew he wanted to get over the fence just as much as I did. "Not a problem." Moving his head away from mine, he looked at me, half nodding, half hoping I was going to call it a day. I got my mouth into his ear again. "I'll stay alongside you all the time, just like I am now. Just watch what I do and follow, okay?" As I checked the house I heard him sniffing. I looked back; it wasn't just snot; he was in tears. No point rushing him; not only did we have to get over, but we had to do it again once we'd done the job. If it started snowing now this really would turn into Ringling Brothers' evening performance. My feet were in the wrong position; his right foot was down, but mine was up. Moving to alter that, I put on my best bedside manner. "We'll just take it nice and easy. Lots of people are scared of heights. Me, I don't like spiders. That's why I like coming this far north, there's none of the fuckers here. Too cold, know what I mean?" He gave a little nervous laugh. "Just keep looking at the top of the fence, Tom, and you'll be okay." He nodded and took a deep breath. "All right, I'll go first. One step, then you follow, all right?" I slowly put my weight on the left strap, moved up one and waited for him. He shakily raised himself up level with me. We did the same again. I leaned toward his ear. "What did I tell you, no drama." While I was close to him I quickly checked his hooks. They were fine. I decided to let him have a rest, let him bask in his glory and gain some confidence. "We'll rest here a minute, all right?" The wind gusted around us, picking up ground snow in flurries. Tom was staring straight ahead at the fence just inches from his face. I was watching the house, both of us sniffing snot. When his breathing had calmed down I gave him a nod; he nodded back and I started climbing again, and he kept pace, stride for stride. We reached the top of the second of the three sections. Tom was getting the hang of it; a dozen or so more pulls on each side would take us to the top. I leaned across. "I'll get up there first and help you over the top, okay?" I needed to traverse again. I wanted to cross away from the top of the pole so we didn't kick off any of the snow that had collected on its top. Something like that would be too easy to notice in daylight. Tom was getting worried again and started to slap my leg. I ignored it at first, then he grasped my trousers. I looked down. He was in a frenzy, his free hand waving toward the track as his body swung from side to side. I looked down. A white-clad body was fighting its way through snow that was nearly waist deep in the gap on the other side of the driveway. Behind him were others, and yet more were emerging from the treeline and moving directly onto the track. There must have been at least a dozen. I could tell by the position and swing of their arms that they were carrying weapons. Shit, Mahskia. "Nick! Whatdowedo?" I'd already told him a few hours ago what to do if we had a drama on the fence: do what I did. "Jump. Fuck it jump!" 22 Gripping the wood hard and lifting with my arms so the hooks took my body weight, I kicked my feet from the loops and let go with my hands. I just hoped the snow was deep enough to cushion my thirty foot fall. I plummeted past Tom, who was still stuck to the fence, and prepared myself for the jump instructor's command when the wind is too strong and the drop zone, which should have been a nice empty field, has suddenly become the beltway: accept the landing. I plunged into the snow feet first and immediately started a parachute roll to my right, but crumpled as my ribs banged hard against a tree stump, immediately followed by one of the handles of the bolt cutters giving me the good news on the back of my head. It was starburst time in my eyes and brain. Pain spread outward from my chest, the snow that enveloped me muffling my involuntary cry. I knew I had to get up and run, but I couldn't do a thing about it: My legs wouldn't play. Eyes stinging with snow, I moaned to myself as I fought the pain and tried to work out how deep I was buried. Tom had found the courage to jump. I heard the wind being knocked out of him as he landed to my left, on his back. I still couldn't see anything from under the snow. He recovered, panting hard. "Nick, Nick!" The next thing I knew, he was towering over me, brushing the snow from my face. "Nick. Come on, mate, come on!" My head was still spinning, my coordination screwed. I was no good to him and knew it would be only seconds before we were caught. "Station, Tom! Go, go!" He made an attempt to pick me up by my arms and drag me, but there was no way that was going to happen. It would have been hard enough for him in normal conditions, let alone in deep snow. "Tom, the station. Go, just fuck off!" His breathing labored a second time as he tried to take me with him. The pain in my chest increased as he pulled my arms, only to be relieved as he let me drop back down. At last he'd got the message. I opened my eyes to see him pulling the spare hook out of his coat. For a split second I couldn't work out why, and then I heard grunting right behind me. The Maliskia had got to us. Tom launched himself over me. There was the sound of a thud, and a scream that was too low-pitched to be his. The next thing I knew, Tom fell beside me, sobbing. There wasn't any time for that shit, he had to go. I pushed him away from me with my hands. Not checking behind him, he left, stumbling over me on the way. I wanted to follow but couldn't. Rolling over onto my stomach and pushing myself onto my hands and knees I started to drag myself up out of the hole. As I crested the top I saw Tom's victim, just ten feet away and trying to get to his feet. He brought his weapon up, blood oozing from the thigh of his white cold-weather gear and all around the climbing hook that was embedded in it. Diving back down into the snow, I heard the unmistakable, low level dick-thud, dick-thud, dick-thud of an SD, the suppressed version of the Heckler & Koch MP5. The click was the sound of the working parts as they ejected an empty case and moved forward to pick another from the magazine. The thud was the gas escaping as the subsonic round left the barrel. I heard another click-thud, click-thud as two more rounds were fired. I wasn 't his target, but I lay there not wanting to move and risk getting hit. I wasn't even too sure if he knew I was there. The firing stopped and I heard short sharp breaths as the hooked body took the pain. Then more arrived and I heard a shout. "Okay, buddy, it's okay." My pain suddenly disappeared, to be replaced by an enormous feeling of dread. Shit. They well Americans. What the fuck was I in here? The hooked man answered haltingly between anguished gasps. "Help me to the driveway, man. Ah, sweet Jesus ..." They were swarming all around me, and I knew it wouldn't be long before they took me out. I turned my head and, as I opened my eyes and looked up, two white-covered figures with black ski masks under their hoods were nearly on top of me, their breath clouds hanging in the cold night air. Hovering over me, one pointed his weapon soundlessly at my head. It's okay, mate, I'm not going anywhere. The other came forward, snow crunching beneath his boots, keeping out of his friend's line of fire. Vapor was the only thing coming from his mouth. There still wasn't any communication between them. I heard gasps and labored breathing as Tom's victim was helped back to the driveway. He was in a bad way, but he'd live. Other bodies passed, pushing hard through the waist-high snow, heading in the same direction as Tom. Any thought of escape or trying to give them a hard time was laughable. I curled up and waited for the inevitable subduing, closing my eyes and gritting my teeth to protect my tongue and jaw. The breathing was now directly overhead and I could feel their boots disturbing the snow around me as I waited for the first kick to open me up for a search. It didn't happen. Instead, a cold snow-covered glove pulled my hands from my face and I caught a glimpse of a canister. I didn't know if it was CS, CR liquid, or pepper, and it didn't really matter. Whichever it was, and even if I closed my eyes, it was going to fuck me over big time. The moment I felt the ice-cold liquid make contact, my eyes were on fire. My nose filled instantly with even more snot, and I felt as if I was choking. The flames spread all over my face. I was conscious of what was going on, but was totally incapacitated. There was nothing I could do but let it take its course. As I choked and gagged, a hand forced my face back into the snow. There were no commands to me, or any communication between the bodies. Snorting and gasping like a suffocating pig, I struggled for oxygen, trying to move my head against the hand that was still holding it down, desperate to clear the snow pressing on my face so I could breathe, but he wasn't letting that happen. A kick aimed at the side of my stomach got between my arms which were wrapped protectively around it, and I half coughed, half vomited the mucus that had built up in my mouth and nose. As I rolled with the pain, Sprayman pulled me onto my back, arched because of the backpack. My neck stretched as my head fell backward. I was still choking and snot was running into my eyes. A gloved fist hit me across the head and my jacket was unzipped. Hands ran over my body and squeezed my coat pockets. They found the spare hook, the vegetable knife, the makeshift Yale gun. Everything was taken from me, even the Polaroid film. One of them pressed his knee into my stomach with all his weight and vomit flew from my mouth. The taste and smell of strong tea from the journey filled the air around me as it spilt onto the snow. I tried lifting my head to cough up the last remaining bits in my throat, only to be slapped down. There was nothing I could do but try to keep breathing. The character kneeling on my stomach was joined by the weapon-pointer on my right-hand side, and his freezing, fat muzzle raked against my face, pushing into the skin. The two of them just knelt there, waiting. The only sounds were their heavy breathing and me snorting like a pig. They knew I was fucked and were just maintaining me in that position. From what I could make out through watery, painful eyes, they looked far more concerned with what was going on by the gate. I knew I had to recover from the impact of the fall and the spray before doing anything about getting out of this shit. I accepted I had no control over myself physically, but I still had control of my mind. I had to watch for opportunities to escape, and the quicker I tried to do it, the better chance I would have of succeeding. There is always confusion in the heat of things; organization only comes later. I analyzed what I had seen. They were all in winter-warfare whites; they even all had the same weapons and were highly organized, and at least two of them spoke English with American accents. This wasn't the Maliskia, and this wasn't about commercial intelligence. I started to feel even worse about my future prospects and was pissed big-time with Liv and Val, who obviously hadn't told me everything. I just hoped I'd be able to get my own back. I thought about Tom and hoped that if he was alive he'd make it back to the real world as quickly as he could. He had tried to save me. The bull's-eye with the hook was probably more to do with luck than skill, but at least he'd had the balls to do it. Winning a fight isn't important, it's being ballsy enough to get stuck in that is. I'd been wrong about him. As I lay passively facing the sky, I felt something wet and cold dissolve on my lips: the first heavy flakes of a snowfall. The few seconds of silence were broken by the crunch of snow coming from the direction of Tom's escape route. It must be the bodies returning from pursuing Tom or collecting his corpse. I tried to look, but my vision was too blurred for me to see anything. I was down in my hole and they didn't walk near enough for me to see if they had him. If so, he must be dead; I couldn't hear him, and I assumed he'd be in pain if shot, or crying if captured, thinking about returning to jail. There was the crash of the chain as the gate was forced open, but still no sound from the two with me. Their silence made the situation feel even scarier than it was already. Tom and I were probably a sideshow they hadn't been expecting. They must have had their hands covering their mouths, trying not to scream with laughter, watching our attempt to climb the fence, just biding their time for when we were at our most vulnerable. Whatever we were trying to get hold of, so were they. That scared me very much. It seemed the race wasn't only against the Maliskia. Things were happening at the house. The front door was being battered. Then I heard screaming cutting through the wind, men's voices that couldn't be from one of the teams. These were the voices that went with high-pitched, big-time commotion. My two new friends were still looking around, and whatever they were waiting for, they got it. Muzzleman tapped Sprayman on the shoulder and they both stood up. It was obviously time to go. As soon as the pressure on my stomach was released I was thrown over onto my front, face down in the snow while the left-hand strap on my backpack was cut, accompanied by their labored breathing. My right arm was dragged behind me as it was pulled away from my body. Gritting my teeth, I took the pain it generated in my chest. Then I was kicked over onto my back again, and I brought my knees up instinctively to protect myself. I didn't want eye contact, not that much of it could be done in this darkness, but I wouldn't want them to construe any look I might give them as defiance and get them sparked up, or as a sign that I wasn't as injured as I was trying to pretend. Through semi closed angled eyes I could only see one of them, swinging his weapon on its chest sling until it was across his back. Nightmare sounds were still coming from the house as he knelt down, gripping my throat with one wet, cold, gloved hand, putting another round the back of my neck, and started to pull me to my feet. I wasn't going to resist at this stage and jeopardize any chance of escape. As my body emerged from the snow hole, the wind started hitting the tears and mucus on my face. My snot started to feel like freezing jello. I was marched, with hands still in place around my throat, following tracks that had already been made in the snow. Not leaving signs didn't seem to be a high priority for these boys. We went through the now open gate. I could feel the wind forcing the falling snow against my face and hear the crunching footsteps of my escorts. Looking toward the house, I felt like I'd dived into a swimming pool and was moving up toward the surface, the shimmering shapes and sounds slowly becoming more distinct. I made out more white shapes through the snow falling in front of me, in the lights that were now blazing on both floors. There were ransacking noises, furniture being thrown about and glass breaking, but the screaming had stopped. Still not a murmur from the team. The only reason the injured guy and his helper had spoken was probably because they hadn't realized where I'd landed. I was dragged past the 4x4 and bounced onto the wooden deck, my shins banging painfully against the steps, no doubt adding to the bruises I'd got last night. They carried on along the deck with me, the sound of their footsteps echoing along the boards. A battering ram had been abandoned on the threshold, a long steel pole with two rectangular handles on either side. The top hinge of the door had been pushed in and the bottom one was holding the door at a 45-degree angle inward, the glass from its windows in shards on the floor. These guys hadn't bothered with electric toothbrushes. We crunched over the broken glass and entered the house. The warmth enveloped me, but there wasn't time to enjoy it. A few paces inside I was forced face down onto the wooden floor of the hallway. To my right were three other people, tied up and face to the floor, two of them in just boxer shorts and T-shirts. Maybe this was the reason there was no voice contact. They didn't want these three to know who they were. The three captives looked about Tom's age, with long blond hair. One of them had his done up in a ponytail, another was crying and his hair was sticking to his wet cheeks. Shit, and I'd been worrying how many bayonets would be on target. They looked at me with the same question in their eyes as I had in my head: Who the fuck are you? I looked away. They weren't important to me. Working out how to separate myself from these Americans was. As I turned my head a boot tapped me on the side of the face and motioned for me to look down. I rested my chin on the floor and my hands were forced in front of me, where they could be seen. They'd taken prisoners before. I counted a few seconds, then lifted my eyes and tried to look around, trying to gather as much information as possible to help me escape. I saw no scenes of frenzy; everybody seemed to know what they were doing. There was a lot of efficient movement by bodies in white, some with their hoods down, exposing their black ski masks. There are many different reasons for wearing uniform, but mainly, in situations like this, it's for identification purposes. The atmosphere seemed to be that of an efficient open-plan office. They were all armed, everybody had the same type of weapon, all suppressed. The pistol that each of them carried was very unusual. It had been a long time since I'd seen a P7, but if I remembered correctly, it fired 7.62mm rounds. There were seven barrels, each about six inches long, and contained within a disposable, Bakelite-type plastic unit. The unit was sealed and watertight and clipped into a pistol grip. The rounds were fired conventionally by pulling the trigger, but instead of a firing pin, an electrical current was sent to one of the barrels each time the trigger was pulled, via terminals, which married up when the barrels and grip were clipped together. The power source was a battery in the pistol grip. Once all seven rounds had been fired, you simply removed the barrel unit, threw it away and put on another one. The P7 was originally designed to be fired at divers at close range and underwater, to penetrate their diving sets and, of course, their bodies. I didn't know if they were any good at longer range; all I knew was that they were silent and extremely powerful. Because of their size, they were being carried by these guys in shoulder holsters over their whites, along with thick black nylon belt kit that held their HK mags. I couldn't remember who made P7s, or if it was the weapon's real name. Not that it really mattered to me at the moment. What did matter was that these people were uniformed and efficient, and they hadn't been sent here because the computers on site weren't Y2K compliant. They had to be from a security organization CIA, maybe, or NSA it didn't matter which. It was highly unusual for them to be carrying out such an operation within a friendly nation's territory. That sort of thing was normally left to dickheads like me, so that everything could be denied if it went wrong. The reason they were on the ground must be that they desperately wanted something that belonged to them, and whatever it was, it must be so sensitive that they didn't want, or trust, anyone else to go and get it. Had I been trying to steal American secrets? I hoped not. That was spying, and with no help from Her Majesty's Government I'd be lucky if I got out of prison in time to see Kelly's grandchildren. I realized what had