I could do. Anywhere else, I'd stand out like a bulldog's bollocks.
Flower Street was too narrow to hang about unobtrusively, and there were no options left or right close enough to the target where I could step back into the shadows. If the target came out of AM Net and headed my way, we'd have a head-on.
I couldn't just walk up and down the street, waiting. This was the city of kidnappers and suicide-bombers. Their kids were running around delivering tea and cooking kebabs. So there I sat with the main drag between me and the target.
Sirens warbled. The gates to my left swung open and two Merc ambulances screamed out, heading south. The traffic stopped briefly to let them through, then the trigger on the shop disappeared intermittently again as more vehicles drove between us.
There were a lot of old jeeps that had been rebuilt to carry sixteen people on the tail-bed. They obviously kept these things on the road until they finally fell apart. There was plenty of old Russian gear still about as well: big trucks with bulbous noses that were made in the 1980s but might have been at the siege of Stalingrad. They laboured up and down blocking my view, overloaded with bricks and rubble.
My normal clothes, the map, the Mini-Ero and mags were stuffed into my Bergen, which I'd kept on my back. The straps were loosened so it fell back and rested on the top of the bench. My arm itched and I hadn't resisted much up to now.
The young lad came back out of the target with an empty tray. I could have done with a brew right now. I eyed the two old guys selling tea on the corner at the other side of the road, under the sign pointing to AM Net. They'd sparked it up about an hour ago and were doing a brisk trade. If only . . .
Another guy went into AM Net – maybe young, I couldn't tell under the beard and cowpat.
I gripped the phone.
A knackered truck pulled up at the kerb and a gang of workers with shovels clambered out. They moved further along and started having a go at the ditches. A few had black and white shemags like mine, but all wore orange fluorescent jackets over their other gear. Health and Safety had even weaselled their way into Kabul. They should have had a look round the back of the Jock's place.
He came back out of AM Net. The Yes Man hadn't rung.
I used the phone to give the sutures another rub instead. The traffic was binding, sometimes stopping altogether and blocking my view.
It was just after half eight when I felt more vibrations in my hand.
I got my head down again but strained to keep my eyes on target. 'They online?'
'Yes . . .' He hesitated, perhaps checking monitors. 'Is it him? Do you have Dominik?'
'No.' I kept my eyes on AM Net, waiting for the sender to sign off and come out.
'The email has confirmed proof of life. The tree fell on John's BMW in the storm last winter.'
The traffic snarled in front of me again. I kept my head pressed firmly to the phone.
The Yes Man read out the reply word for word as it came up on his screen. ' "They – are – getting – impatient – please – hurry . . ."' Shit. Two trucks blocked my line of sight. I'd lost the trigger again. I cut him short. 'I don't give a fuck what's being said. Call me when the link closes down.'
'Just has.'
I closed down, too, and slipped the phone back into my pocket. I got up, resisting the temptation to run like a lunatic. I smiled goodbye to my friends and stepped off the pavement.
I squeezed between the two trucks and reached the other side by the tea stall. I checked right, then left, then back up towards the embassy, as if I was meeting a friend. There was no one but pepper-pots and kids within the time and distance anyone could have walked from AM Net.
I played phone call to the mate and glanced through the target window as I crossed Flower towards it.
I could see the old man near the window, but no one else.
I'd fucked up big-time.
66
The young lad brushed past me with another tray of tea glasses. He disappeared into a baker's as I started checking down Flower. There was fuck all else I could do.