Exit Wound (8 page)

21

We drove towards the Creek about four or five K away. The main drag really was main. Four lanes in both directions cut through the city. It was pointless checking if the Toyota was still behind us. We’d wait until we stopped, just as we did on foot. These guys weren’t complete amateurs. They must have had some training or they’d have stayed with us on the mall roof. But if they were internal security, police, whoever, why tag us? Was it because we’d been with Spag this morning? Maybe they’d been following him, seen us meet and decided to find out who we were and what we were doing.

Whatever, I didn’t like it. The job felt compromised before we’d even begun. A big part of me wanted to get these lads to call the whole thing off, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

We fell silent as we thought about the job and the Toyota. Well, maybe just Red Ken and I did. I had no idea what was going on in Dex’s head. But then neither did he.

We drove through the tunnel and followed the Creek towards the sea. Knackered old dhows were parked five and six deep all along the harbour front while their crews unloaded fridges and all sorts straight onto the pavement.

Dex gave the driver a tap on the shoulder. ‘We’ll stop here, chappie. Thank you very much.’

Red Ken and I got out and left Dex to pay. The Toyota passed us and disappeared down a side turning. The lads would be jumping out any minute to keep with us. We both checked to see if any other cars were doing the same. Maybe they had a team with us, or maybe they’d split when we were all pinged together at the golf course this morning. We did the tourist bit, watching the locals work their arses off unloading and then dicing with death as they barrowed everything, including the kitchen sink, to the shops on the other side of the road.

The sun cast long shadows as it began to bin it for the day. Lights were already on in the shops. Street signs flickered into life, and I started to feel the energy of the place. Night-time was when Dubai began to hop. Who but dickhead tourists wanted to wander around in the sun?

Red Ken tapped my shoulder. ‘There’s the subway. Get into the toilet block and do your stuff. We’ll wait here, see if the team have pinged us yet.’

I wandered under the road. As I emerged the other side, I passed an enclosed steel-and-glass bus shelter with an air-conditioning unit on the roof. It must have been nice and cool for all the people who never used it because they all went by car. It was almost space age compared with the place I was going.

I could smell the flat-roofed cube from several metres away. The cars around it looked as though they’d been abandoned rather than parked. The local dudes leant against the wall and smoked.

I went inside.

The place was boiling hot and stank exactly like a shit-hole full of tobacco smoke should. The two sinks were cracked. The taps were broken. There were four cubicles, and only one was being used. I always thought the hole in the ground with a hosepipe to sluice your arse was a better system than ours, apart from the squatting bit. There’s quite an art in keeping your jeans and slack belt out of the firing line.

Above my head, to the right of the entrance, was a ledge on which sat an ancient air-conditioning system, a plastic box caked in grime that probably hadn’t sparked up since this place was declared open – about twenty years ago, the same time it had last been cleaned.

I watched the shadow under the occupied cubicle door. The bloke was still squatting. I eased myself up against the wall. If anybody came in, I’d stop what I was doing and leg it.

I stood on the tips of my toes, and stretched up my hand as Red Ken had instructed. The ledge was shaped like a tray for the air-con unit. My fingertips brushed the taped-up plastic bag and the hard steel it contained. Red Ken’s three pistols were still where they should be. Now I knew precisely where they were we could head towards the old gold market and the wagon Dex would lift tomorrow night.

22

A mountain of sacks, crates and plastic-wrapped white goods covered every square metre of pavement. Indian lads loaded up with cargo ran up and down the line of dhows like they were stepping-stones. As we headed deeper into the old part of town we mostly had to stick to the road.

Once past the main offloading point, we could see the lights of Ye Olde Dubai across the Creek. Swarms of water-taxis waited to ply you over to the purpose-built tourist trap sited right opposite the real deal.

The two shirts were behind us, on the town side of the road.

Red Ken was deep in thought. He fished out his cigarettes and Dex and I took a couple of brisk paces to get ahead of his smoke cloud. ‘What are we going to do with them?’

I shrugged. There wasn’t much we should do right now. ‘They know where we’re staying. If they lose us they’ll go and wait for us there. We might as well keep playing tourist until tomorrow night. Then we ditch them and get on with the job.’

Dex nodded. ‘And then, Red, I think we should consider missing out on the Friday-morning golf. We should get an earlier flight.’

Red Ken took a big drag and, a moment or two later, smoke seemed to curl out of every hole in his head. ‘Agreed.’

‘I’m going to keep saying it, lads. You sure you still want to go on? We’ve just picked up another problem, something else we have no control of, and—’

‘Save your breath, son.’ Red Ken moved forward a little and slapped Dex between the shoulder-blades. ‘Right, boy? Still got your eye on that castle?’

Dex turned and grasped his hand. ‘Definitely.’

There was a lot going on there that obviously went beyond words. I felt a little jealous, and pissed off with myself at the same time. These two and Tenny had made the effort to stay tight all these years. ‘What’s all this Monarch of the Glen shit?’

Dex gave a smile that seemed more wistful than his normal don’t-give-a-fuck version. ‘It’s not shit, Nick. I’ve been thinking a lot about my father lately. The night before I went to Eton, he sat me down and gave me just one piece of advice. It’s something I’ve never forgotten.’ The smile faded. He was lost in another world. His voice deepened. ‘“Son, the only way for people like us to succeed in this country is by keeping our heads below the parapet. Laugh, be the happy chappie. Don’t let anyone see you’re cleverer than they are. If you do, you’ll become a threat.”’

We walked some more. ‘And you know what, chaps? He was right. I was the class clown all through school. They called me the Wacky Paki and I crept in under the wire and was top of the class before they knew it.’

We stopped and looked across the hundred metres of Creek. The lights of Ye Olde Dubai danced on the water.

‘And then I joined the RAF, just like my dad. He flew Hurricanes, as you know. They called him Curry-in-a-Hurry. He was brilliant at putting on the smiley face, but in his head he was giving everybody the finger. I’ve done the same, but I’m fed up with smiling now. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to become a Scottish laird. I’m going to buy the title. I’ve got a castle in mind.’ He looked at Red Ken. ‘Five acres when the tide’s out . . .’

He came in on cue: ‘. . . three when it’s in!’

They laughed.

‘I’m going to invent a McWacky-Paki tartan and join Gleneagles and the Royal and Ancient. Two fingers up to the lot of them. One for me, one for my father. He’d be proud of what I’m doing here. I’m going to have the last laugh, something he never had the good fortune to have.’ Dex put a hand on my shoulder. ‘And you, Nick? There has to be something more than just cash.’

‘There is – I told you. I’m here to cover your arses.’

Red Ken flicked his butt into the Creek. ‘Nearly there. You see the compound?’

Seventy or eighty metres ahead of us stood a construction site that took up the entire centre of the road. Diversions and temporary traffic-lights funnelled the traffic into one lane.

I was the only one who looked. Too many eyes on one point at the same time would prompt the boys behind us to ask, ‘What the fuck are they all looking at, and why?’

Red Ken stopped and made a meal of firing up his latest B&H. ‘This whole area is being regenerated. They’re going to tart up the promenade road like the Corniche the other side, make it all Gucci. And that’s where Dex lifts our wagon.’

Above the blue-painted wooden perimeter walls, I could see Portakabins stacked four or five high, linked by wooden staircases. Cranes reached up into the sky. Arrows and strips of yellow-and-white plastic tape guided us away from the Creek and around the construction site.

‘That’s if the wagon we want is still there, of course. This is our final recce, so it had better be.’

The site entrance was floodlit. A dozen or so lads squatted on their haunches in the dust around a kettle on a propane burner. A hut that looked like a garden shed provided the only security. Its windows and door were open because of the heat. The guard was watching one of the Indian star channels that played Bollywood 24/7. Flies bounced around in the light.

We let Dex check the place out as we passed the fire station on the opposite side of the road.

‘Everything’s fine, chaps. Three Tatas on parade, present and correct.’

23

The souk was a collection of narrow pedestrian streets covered by a corrugated roof. To create some kind of air flow, domestic fans had been screwed into each of the supporting pillars. It was packed with brightly lit shops, each with five or six bored-looking Indians sitting behind the counters watching TV. Every window was filled with shiny gold headdresses and belts, and the sort of breastplates they used for weddings out here.

Dex pointed excitedly. ‘I’m going to pop into this one. Look at the name.’ The shop was called Baghdad. That was where Dex had won his DFC, flying into a contact to pick up a wounded American infantryman. The Brits had wanted to bollock him for risking an airframe, but the Americans said if the Queen didn’t give him something, they would. That would have been very embarrassing.

Red Ken and I carried on walking. ‘See you down by the junction.’

He shook his head. ‘He wants to take Cinza to that ridiculous castle. Like I said, soft in the head, that one.’

I caught a glimpse of the checked and white shirts. They had split up, one on each side of the road.

Red Ken had pinged them as well. ‘Fuck ’em, Nick. We’ll deal with them when we have to.’ He pointed back to Baghdad. ‘You know what? She actually likes him. Both of them are nuts. They suit each other.’

‘He buying a ring?’

‘Been trying since the funeral. He can never find the right one, and then when he does, he forgets her finger size. He’s all over the place.’

A group of Indian guys were suddenly all over us like a rash, trying to herd us towards a once-in-a-lifetime bargain. ‘Buy watch, very good? OK Rolex, OK Breitling . . .’

‘Not today, mate.’

Dex reappeared and they descended on him instead. ‘I’m all right for Rolexes, chaps.’ He lifted his wrist to show a few thousand quid’s worth of chronograph. ‘Already got a real one!’

It was all good tourist banter. We were blending in.

The next assault was launched by guys with trays of cold cans and bottles. This time we were buyers. We stood under a fan and swigged our cans of Fanta. White Shirt followed suit beside a pillar about fifty away. Checked Shirt disappeared down one of the alleyways the watch-sellers wanted to lure us along. They weren’t doing too bad. They’d learnt a thing or two since the mall.

Red Ken took a couple of gulps and moved his head from side to side in the draught from the fan. ‘OK, listen in. We have a walk round, buy some tourist shite and head for a curry before we go back to the hotel. Tomorrow morning we play golf. If these lads stay with us, they’ll have a trigger from the clubhouse – they’re shite, but not so shite they’ll try and follow us round the course. So that’ll give me time to leg it, go get my wagon and position it for tomorrow night. Questions?’

I had plenty. But nothing I had said so far had had any effect, so I kept my mouth shut.

Something in a shop window grabbed Dex’s attention. ‘Now that really is something . . .’

Red Ken groaned.

‘No, Red, I mean really – behind the counter ...’

We looked past the mountains of gold to a digital display. It took me a second to realize it was quoting gold prices in a comprehensive range of different currencies. $27,865 USD. That was about 3K lower than the price at Tenny’s funeral.

‘Fuck me, lads,’ Red Ken said. ‘We’d better get a move on.’

24

Mall of the Emirates
Thursday, 30 April
1737 hrs

The taxi stopped off by the rank opposite the Virgin Megastore and I jumped out. Under my arm I had a shirt and a pair of flip-flops wrapped up in one of the hotel’s plastic laundry bags. The white Toyota peeled away and pulled into the valet-parking area. I leant back in to ask the boys whether they were absolutely sure they wanted to carry on.

Red Ken didn’t even wait for me to open my mouth. ‘Wheels already turning, son. We’re past the point of no return.’

‘OK.’ I nodded. ‘Good luck.’

I closed the cab door and tapped the roof as it drove away.

Harvey Nichols and Debenhams faced each other and took up three storeys of the mall. I headed between them, towards the huge Carrefour hypermarket. I grabbed a trolley and pushed it through the automatic barrier. If it hadn’t been for the
burqa
s, I could have been on the outskirts of Paris or Marseille. It was a one-stop shop for everything from milk to laptops.

I played around with the mobiles and Nintendo games while I waited. It wasn’t long before I spotted Checked Shirt, only today he was in plain blue. He mooched along the store front the other side of the barrier, casting down the aisles for his target. I let him get on with it. When I saw him turn back into the throng of people moving up and down the mall I knew he’d pinged me. He knew I wasn’t going anywhere. Now that I was in, I could only exit through one of the checkouts. He could sit back and keep the trigger. Maybe somebody else would come in later on to see what I was up to.

We’d been followed from the moment we’d left the hotel. This time it was a two-car team: the Toyota and a dark blue Mazda saloon. Going by the way they operated, I was pretty sure they’d been trained by the Brits. They used the same stake-out procedures and trigger techniques.

This morning we’d played another round of golf at the same club, but instead of a buggy each this time Red Ken and Dex shared. Red Ken left us on the sixth tee, which was out of line-of-sight of the clubhouse. He’d collected the Suburban from the airport, rattled it off to the RV and got back while we were still fucking about on the fifteenth.

Checked Shirt had come into the clubhouse as we signed in, just to see if we were meeting anyone. As soon as he saw it was just us on the greens, he went and sat at a table in the corner. They couldn’t come out and follow us round the golf course. All they could do was hole up and put the trigger on where we’d come back.

They’d followed us back to the hotel. If our rooms were bugged, they’d have been disappointed. There was no planning, no talking. We’d done all that on the golf course where nobody could hear us.

I moved further into Carrefour. By now Red Ken would have arrived at the Bur Juman Centre, another of Dubai’s fifty-odd malls. They were the only places we were able to walk around and where we were guaranteed crowd cover. The streets were empty apart from Indians or Filipinos on their way to work.

The plan was now to split up and for each of us to lose his tag. Then we’d RV in the old quarter to carry on with the job as planned. Once Red Ken had dropped him off, Dex wasn’t heading for a mall. He was going to the street markets. He had clothes to buy so he could make like a local and go and nick the wagon.

I was moving down the aisles of pots and pans when White Shirt made an appearance. He wasn’t there long. His job would be to confirm I was still in the store, that I wasn’t meeting anybody, and that if I was, to decide whether they had to follow them as well.