Remote Control by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online Page B

elevator. Have a nice day!’
    All I had to do now was listen to their conversations while they were in their room, and to make that happen I went to the bank of payphones in the lobby and dialled the Firm.
    A woman’s voice asked me for my PIN number.
    ‘2422.’
    ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘I’d like a room, please. The Westin on M Street, Washington, DC – 401 or 405, or 303 or 503.’
    ‘Have you a contact number?’
    ‘No, I’ll call back in half an hour’s time.’
    They would now telephone the hotel using the name of a front company and request one of the rooms I’d specified. It didn’t really matter whether the room was above, beside or below the targets’, as long as we could get in and plant surveillance devices.
    I went back to the raised lounge area and read a few of the leaflets and cards I’d picked up, all the time watching the exit on to M Street.
    I ran through a mental checklist of surveillance equipment to ask for. I’d fit the first wave of kit myself – wall-mounted listening devices, phone-line devices, both voice and modem, and cables that fed into the TV in my room to relay pictures. They’d only take me about three hours to rig up once the Firm had dropped them off.
    The second wave, once McGear and Kerr had vacated their room for the day, would be fitted by technicians from the embassy. In their expert hands, a hotel-room TV could become a camera, and the telephone a microphone.
    Half an hour later I rang the contact number and again gave my PIN number. There was a bit of clicking, then the strains of a string quartet. About five seconds later the woman came back again.
    ‘You are to lift off and return today. Please acknowledge.’
    I thought I’d misheard her. There was a conference at the hotel given by the Norwegian board of trade and all the delegates were exiting for coffee.
    ‘Can you repeat, please?’
    ‘You are to lift off and return today. Please acknowledge.’
    ‘Yes, I understand, I am to lift off and return today.’
    The phone went dead.
    I put the phone down. Strange. There had even been a memo in green ink from the head of the service about this – the fastball job that had now come to a sudden halt. It wasn’t unusual to get lifted off, but not so quickly. Maybe Simmonds had decided these people weren’t that important after all.
    Then I thought, So what. Who gives a fuck? At the end of the day, they wanted me to do the job and I’ve done it. I called the booking agency and tried to get a flight out of Washington. The only one I could get on was the British Airways at 2135, which was hours away. Kev and Marsha were only an hour down the road towards the airport, so why not?
    I dialled another number and Kev answered. His voice was wary, then he recognized mine. ‘Nick! How’s it going?’ He sounded really happy to hear me.
    ‘Not too bad. I’m in Washington.’
    ‘What are you doing? Nah, I don’t want to know! You coming to see us?’
    ‘If you’re not busy. I’m leaving tonight, back to the UK. It’ll be a quick stop and hello, OK?’
    ‘Any chance of you getting your arse up here right away? I’ve just got the ball rolling on something, but I’d be interested to know what you think. You’ll really like this one!’
    ‘No problem, mate. I’ll hire a car at the hotel and head straight over.’
    ‘Marsha will want to go into cordon bleu overdrive. I’ll tell her when she gets back with the kids. Have a meal with us, then I’ll take you to the airport. You won’t believe the stuff I’ve got here. Your friends over the water are busy.’
    ‘I can’t wait.’
    ‘Nick, there’s one other thing.’
    ‘What’s that, mate?’
    ‘You owe Aida a birthday present. You forgot again, dickhead.’
    Driving west along the freeway, I kept wondering what Kev could want to talk to me about. Friends over the water? Kev had no connection with PIRA that I knew of. He was in the DEA, not the CIA or any anti-terrorist department. Besides, I knew that his job