The Rock (2 page)

Gardner thought about what Land said.

‘You faked my death because otherwise John would think his deal had been compromised?’

‘Just so. As for his accomplices, the BOPE captain is dead and Mr Hands is currently lying in a coma at the Copa d’Or hospital around the corner. At taxpayers’ expense. I’m led to believe he has a nice view of the sea – if he ever wakes up.’

The waiter reappeared and cleared away the plates of half-eaten tapas. He gestured to the drained bottle of Antarctica.
Another?
Gardner shook his head and asked for a glass of water.

‘I understand what you get out of busting the ring, but what’s in it for me?’

Land wiped his lips with his napkin, and Gardner could have sworn he was hiding a smile beneath it. ‘Spoken like a true opportunist. God, we train you chaps well, don’t we? Name your price, Mr Gardner. I have mine, you no doubt have yours, and I’m sure we can meet somewhere in the middle.’

‘I’m not interested in money.’

Land frowned. ‘What, then?’

‘I want a way back in.’

‘To the Regiment?’

Gardner nodded.

‘I’m afraid that’s quite impossible. We carry a lot of clout around Whitehall, as you know, but breaking the rules on entry to the world’s most elite unit is not in our gift. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a problem, but that hand of yours, well—’ He shrugged the rest of the excuse.

‘Sorry, mate. It’s the Regiment or nothing.’

Land was quiet for a moment, eyes drifting over his wine glass.

‘Possibly we could arrange something else. Not on the frontline. I mean as a grey man. Working in the shadows. Eliminating national security threats in countries under the radar. Strictly deniable, of course. You’d officially be in Regiment colours and rank, but answerable to the Firm. If I could wangle that, do we have a deal?’

A year on the sidelines had hardened Gardner, made him more cynical about the world and its workings. But fuck, the offer was tempting. A voice scratching at the base of his skull told him that he’d trusted the Firm before – and had got his fingers burned. Land’s proposal sounded too good to be true.

‘I’ve skimmed your file,’ Land went on. ‘Being a Blade, it’s all you’ve ever known. I’m offering you a way back into the magic circle.’

‘And if I say no?’

‘Then you’ll leave me with no option but to green-light your immediate termination. I speak of no idle threat. At this very moment dozens of agents are in Rio. Indeed, eight of them are based in this very hotel. As I said to you before, Bald cannot afford to think his plan has been put in jeopardy. Letting you walk away scot-free is not an option.’

Gardner hated to admit it, but Land had him by the bollocks. Even if he did evade the Firm in Rio, where would he go? They’d put the squeeze on him. With their vast resources and without a passport or access to funds, they’d slot him sooner or later.

Besides, he missed life in the Regiment. The camaraderie and sense of purpose. Adjusting to the outside world had proved difficult, which is why he’d become a drifter. Look what’s on the table, he told himself. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go back to doing what you do best.

‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘I’m in.’

‘A wise choice. Welcome aboard.’

Land gestured over Gardner’s shoulder for the bill.

‘Now, I cannot overstate how crucial it is that Bald is captured alive – and after he’s exchanged the cocaine. Nab him too early and we run the risk of granting him wriggle room in a court of law. He has to be caught red-handed.’

‘No problem,’ Gardner said. ‘Just tell me where and when.’

‘Go down to the Copinha bar on Rua Bolívar. Ask the owner for a lady called Carlotta. She’ll be expecting you. Carlotta will hand you a package. New passport, sterling to exchange at the bureau and the keys to a hotel room on the Rock. There’s also a mobile phone, secure line. You know the drill: don’t call me, I’ll call you. Understood? Good.’

Land stood up and casually dropped a black AmEx card on the table.

‘Life is all about second chances, Mr Gardner,’ he said, pulling on his jacket. ‘And you’ve just got yours.’

Gibraltar. Seven days later. 1122 hours.

Winston Churchill Avenue was closed for business. Traffic on the road connecting Gibraltar to the Spanish mainland honked its horns as red-and-white barricades lowered, cutting off the intersection between both ends of the road and the airport. A British Airways plane touched down and taxied along the runway, wingtips several metres from the lines of impatient cars. The plane’s tail dipped behind a line of low buildings. The barricades lifted, the lights blazed green.

Shai Golan cruised on a bus to La Linea de la Concepción and walked the final kilometre or so to the border. He flashed his passport to the border guard, announcing himself as Alain Robbe. The guard nodded, took a quick peek inside his Nike gym bag and waved him through.

Had the guard stopped to quiz him, Golan was prepared. He looked the part; spoke it too. He was fluent in French, in addition to English, Mandarin, Russian and his native Hebrew. Golan was six foot five tall. His face was ninety percent hair and his eyes black as pitted olives, as if they were permanently dilated. He could carry off the look of a dozen Mediterranean countries.

A policeman with a starch-white face monitored the expats and locals flooding in from La Concepción. Golan was glad he’d entered on foot rather than by car: the traffic was gridlocked, caused by a runway shorter than a Jap’s dick. Each time a plane landed or took off, the road was shut off in both directions.

He trekked south along Winston Churchill Avenue, past the Victoria Stadium. After four hundred metres he reached the central roundabout and paced down Smith Dorrien Avenue for ten minutes, then took the first left, to join Main Street.

Golan considered himself a man of taste and culture. He appreciated the bustling, chaotic architecture lining Gibraltar’s main arterial road. Moorish horseshoe arches sprouted over a sprinkling of shop fronts; other stores had painted shutters over the upper windows. In between stood white-stucco façades airlifted from Kensington. The effect was somewhat ruined by the shops themselves, a succession of branded fashion outlets and chain restaurants that left Golan feeling cold.

A taxi rank presented itself halfway down the granite-sett road. Golan hailed a cab and chucked his gym bag on to the back seat. He sat alongside it, resting a hand on the zip.

‘Where to, mate?’ the driver asked. He had olive skin and curly black hair, but his accent made him sound like a character in a British soap.

‘The Botanic Gardens,’ Golan said.

‘Come for the wildlife, have you? Just be careful with the monkeys. They look harmless enough but they’re vicious little bastards. I’ve seen one of them rip a young girl’s hair out.’

Golan nodded.

‘Name’s José,’ the driver continued. ‘Lived here on and off for twenty-five years. Where did you say you were from?’

‘I didn’t,’ said Golan, before adding, ‘France. Paris.’

‘Paris, eh?’ The cabbie shot him a glance. ‘Never been there personally. This is the place for me.’

He drummed his hands on the steering wheel, then pointed out of the passenger window to the west down King Street, beyond Linewall Road and Queensway, directing Golan’s gaze towards the old fortifications lining the banks of the Strait of Gibraltar. Relics of the Great Siege.

‘The thing about us, mate, is that we’ve got long memories. We remember the days of Franco and the terror. The closing of the border, yeah? We’re only a small island but we’re also the closest point between Europe and Africa. This place is special.’ He glanced at Golan in the rear-view mirror. ‘Do you see what I mean?’

Golan didn’t, but he smiled his agreement.

The cabbie dropped him at the Alameda Botanical Gardens on Europa Road. Golan paid the fare and slung the gym bag over his shoulder. Once the taxi was out of sight, he trudged north-east up the steep Green Lane, past the O’Callaghan Hotel.

Age and experience had calmed Golan. His mentor, Zohar, took him aside one day and told him that either he exercised self-discipline or his contract would be torn up. But there were days when the old impulses stirred inside Golan and he hungered to be twenty again, wandering the Gaza Strip. The small scar on his neck, like an upside-down Nike swoosh, served as a daily reminder of – what? Why, the importance of being vigilant.

Green Lane arched north and then doubled back on Old Queen’s Road. Golan made his way up a secluded trail lined with nettle and eucalyptus trees. Midway up the trail he detoured into the woodland until he hit a spot a little way down from an old artillery placement. Here the trees were dense enough for his needs, and he hunkered down beside the base of a ruptured trunk.

From the gym bag Golan removed a thermal-imaging camera equipped with a GPS unit, magnetic compass and laser rangefinder, capable of picking up and tracking human targets up to twenty kilometres away. The camera was also designed to survive extreme temperatures. He mounted the camera on the tree trunk and fixed a remote-controlled pan-and-tilt system to the set-up.

Golan aimed the camera towards the naval dockyard, next to the industrial park on the western edge of the peninsula. He spotted a Type-23 frigate, the HMS
Westminster
, sailing out through the breakwaters. Docked at the harbour was the HMS
Lizard
.

He paced north for thirty seconds and established a second camera site. No need to link the cameras with a cable of some kind; everything was connected wirelessly over a secure TCP/IP network. Golan slotted a remote network card into the back of both cameras. Then he fished a Dell laptop out of his bag and booted up to check the link had been established. Accessing the remote network prompted him to enter a password. He typed it in. The computer found both devices and opened up a pair of windows. Golan was treated to glowing thermal images of the
Lizard
. He pressed a key and the image on the left camera switched to a night-vision green. Another key caused the camera to zoom in. He dragged a finger over the mouse pad and the camera pitched on its mount.

Golan had killed his first man at the age of ten. Not a man, but a boy. A friend of his at the elite Château de Rosey boarding school in Rolle, Switzerland. Golan had no reason to murder Wei Chang, but he did it anyway, smashing his face in with a claw hammer behind the tennis courts. Killing Chang made Golan feel important in a way he’d never experienced. He had been a bad student, despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars his father, one of Israel’s richest men, had lavished on the best schools and tutoring. Murder was different. He was good at it. Better than good. Exceptional.

Leaves crunched at his back. Golan spun around, fists clenched. Technically, he was unarmed. That’s if you didn’t count his body as a lethal weapon. There were many who did, and quite a few of them were dead.

He expected to see a police officer or perhaps a nosy tourist.

A Barbary macaque squatted a couple of metres away, hind legs tucked in as it chewed on a slice of apple. The apple seemed to be the monkey’s whole world. The thing didn’t so much as glance at Golan.

Sliding forward, Golan palm-struck the macaque in the face, the palm of his hand colliding with its flat nose. The monkey wobbled on its hind legs, swiping at his hand. Golan swiftly followed up with furious kicks to the belly. Sensing it was being overpowered, the macaque opted for flight over fight. Golan seized its trailing leg and smacked its skull against an olive tree, the monkey squawking, blood spattering up and down the bark, until it was silent, limp.

He retraced his route down the Rock and strolled a kilometre north back towards the town centre. On Cathedral Square, just one road from the clamour of Main Street, Golan checked into the Bristol Hotel as ‘A. Robbe’, paying in advance with cash. The chubby girl behind the reception gave him the keys to a single room. Inside, he locked the door and pulled out a BlackBerry Storm from his gym bag, as well as a silver cigarette case filled with pin chips. Inserting one into the phone, he dialled the number from memory.

A man answered after the first ring.

‘I’m in,’ Golan said in Hebrew. The British government, he knew, used Gibraltar as a SIGINT listening post for communications from North Africa and the Middle East. Be careful, they’d told him. Keep things as brief as possible.

‘You’re late,’ the other man said.

‘I was held up. But everything’s ready.’

Silence.

Golan was insulted. ‘Have I ever let you down before?’

The reply was a dial tone. Fuck them, he thought, fishing the pin from the BlackBerry and flushing it down the toilet. They could tell him where to go, who to target, but they had no right to tell him how to do his job. He fired up the laptop. Accessed the imaging cameras fixed to the Upper Rock. And waited.

1400 hours.

Gardner kept the engine ticking over as he sat in the Grand Cherokee parked on Cumberland Road, up the street from the police club. A sleepy post-lunch hour on the Rock, and the Jeep’s air-con was working overtime.

He had an unrestricted view north-west across the harbour. Fifteen hundred metres distant and parallel to the airport runway stood the northern harbour, where cruise ships and ocean liners disgorged tourists. At the midway point was the private marina, where the locals stowed their quarter-of-a-mil yachts and speedboats. To his rear a Second World War artillery placement taunted the Spanish coastline at Algeciras.