Free Aggressor by Andy McNab Page A

whistled through the French windows and down the ramp.
    ‘Hey, Nick, watch this!’
    I got up and went to the door just as he lifted his front wheels and did a 360. ‘I’ve got to close up, mate. Want to wait in the front room and finish your brew? What about a pint, later?’
    I followed him outside and watched as he locked the garage doors with one of a bunch of about half a dozen keys.
    We went into the living room and he carried on to the bottom of the stairs. As I sat down he transferred himself onto the lift. Then he selected another key from the bunch, pushed it into a control box on the wall, and gave it a turn. The chair glided slowly upwards.
    ‘You need a hand, Dave?’
    ‘Nah, it’s rigged up like a monkey’s climbing frame up here.’
    The moment I heard the bathroom door close, I was on my feet and heading for the kitchen. No sign of the fuse box. I tried the cupboard under the stairs. There were two rows of cutout switches encased in a neat rectangle of plastic, but not one of them was labelled. Fuck it; I turned the whole lot off at the master switch.
    I went to the control box, grabbed the bunch of keys, and headed for the garage.
    Charlie’s card was right at the front of the Bayonets box. It didn’t say who for, where, or what the job was, just that Dave had booked him a hotel room in Istanbul.
    I locked up and went back to the living room.
    ‘Nick! The fucking power’s gone. Nick, you there?’
    ‘Coming, what’s up?’
    I got the key back in the box just as Dave eased himself off another wheelchair at the top of the stairs and onto the lift. He hammered away at the down button like a lunatic.
    ‘See? I can’t even have a fucking dump in peace. Try a light for us, see if the power’s gone.’
    I hit the hall switch. ‘Where’s the fuse box?’
    Dave told me and I headed for it. A few moments later the microwave in the kitchen buzzed a power-cut warning and he started to make his way back down.
    ‘Dave – sorry, mate, but I can’t stay for that pint. If Charlie’s in touch, tell him to phone home – Hazel’s lost something and he’s the only one who knows where it is.’

3
    Istanbul
    Thursday, 28 April
    One of the first things I always noticed about a new country was the smell. In the arrivals lounge at Ataturk International it had been of strong aftershave; in the back of this cab it was even stronger cigarettes. The driver was already sucking on his second since leaving the airport.
    The traffic was chaos, and to add to the misery the driver sang along, between drags, to the loud Arab pop music that blared from the radio. He kept turning his head for approval, like he’d mistaken me for Simon Cowell and I was about to sign him to a billion-lira contract. His blue-eye talisman swung wildly from the rear-view mirror as we hurtled from one side of the road to the other. I hoped it worked as well with articulated lorries as it did against evil spirits; the driver’s eyes were everywhere but on the road.
    Every leg of this journey had been a nightmare, Australia to Hereford, Hereford to Stansted, Stansted to Turkey. Stansted on its own deserved some sort of prize. It felt like I’d spent longer there than I had in the air from Brisbane.
    I’d made my way to it from Crazy Dave’s without checking flights. I’d assumed one of the bucket carriers would be my best bet, and I just hoped I’d walk straight on. But of course I’d missed the last one by an hour, so had to spend the night stretched out on a row of anti-sleep seats in the terminal. And because I got there late, I’d missed the last of the baguettes at the only café still open. I settled for four packets of salt and vinegar instead, and two large coffees that proceeded to keep me awake all night.
    Even though the weather was cold, grey and blustery, I kept the back windows of the taxi open, partly because I needed the ventilation, and partly because I thought it might help me in a crash. We finally got to the Barcelo