Exit wound

He would wait until I was ‘temporary unsighted’ – perhaps because I turned a corner and was out of view until he did the same – and if he and his mate had any brain cells, they’d try and get ahead of me via the fire-escape stairs or another escalator. But I wasn’t going to let that happen. As soon as I hit the first floor, I moved right and headed for the toilets.

I took a cubicle and locked myself in. There was a gap of about forty centimetres under the door. I sat, feet up, on a very comfortable European toilet seat, surrounded by glossy marble and stainless steel. Everything smelt wonderful. I whipped off my Timberlands and socks and rolled up my cargos then shoved on the flip-flops, put my feet on the floor, and waited.

I hadn’t yet made it look like I was trying to lose them. They’d be checking the immediate vicinity for the VDM, my orange day-sack. They’d be looking through the crowds, trying not to make themselves stick out by pushing people out of the way, all the clumsy stuff you see in films. When they didn’t find me, they’d check the men’s clothing stores, electrical shops and toilets. All they’d see under the door was a pair of white legs and flip-flops. I was now just one of the hundreds of European men in the mall who could be taking a dump in here – and not the one they were looking for.

Soon they’d have to make a decision. I was no longer just temporary unsighted. I was unsighted – and that was a nice way of saying they’d lost me.

Then what? They’d try to lock the place down. They’d need to put triggers on everyone coming out, but that just wasn’t possible. There were too many exits to have eyes-on. Maybe they’d go back and check the taxi ranks. But there wouldn’t be enough of them to go round. They’d have to go back to known locations – either the hotel or the golf club. They’d have to go themselves, or tell their mates to go and stake them out.

There were other known locations. We’d been cruising round the old quarter; we’d visited the gold souk. Maybe they’d check Baghdad and the Indian place we’d eaten at last night.

I sat right where I was as cisterns flushed either side of me and dads coaxed their kids to wash their hands. You didn’t have to be multilingual to understand what was going on out there.

I checked my watch. I’d been there nearly half an hour. It was time to move or I’d miss the RV with Red Ken and Dex. I put my boots back on, replaced my shirt with the dark blue one in the plastic bag and shoved my purchases into my pockets. I put the flip-flops and cream shirt in the day-sack and left it hanging on the back of the door.

I headed for Debenhams without glancing left or right, then down their internal escalator towards the ground-floor exit.

I was surrounded by people getting into cars or cabs, some in burqas, some in European summer dresses with half their tits hanging out.

The sun was sinking but I didn’t want to hit the taxi rank yet. The Toyota was still out there. I ducked back towards the building. It was still only one up. The lads inside the mall would have to make their decision soon.

The two shirts emerged. Checked was on his mobile, waving his free hand like a madman. White bollocked the driver, as if it was his fault they’d lost me.

They jumped into the car and took off, and I joined the taxi queue.

26

Last light

I went straight into the toilet block without hanging about. Dex was lifting the Tata. Red Ken would meet me opposite the construction site to back him if things went tits up. A guy in dishdash and sandals bent over the sink, a finger blocking each nostril in turn while he snorted snot from the other into a trickle of water. I headed for one of the cubicles. Glossy marble and stainless steel it wasn’t, and the smell was indescribable.

With my feet on the porcelain pads each side of the hole, I fished my docs and cash out of the dark blue Rohan trousers I’d chosen to match my long-sleeved shirt. They were wrapped in a hotel laundry bag. As soon as the snorter had left the block, I moved out and reached up to the ledge. My fingers found two more sets of docs up there, and the weapons gone. This was our final RV. We stored our means of escape here so we could go into the job sterile. All I had on me now was about six hundred dollars of on-the-run money.

It didn’t matter what I felt about the job now. It was happening. If I let myself think too much about what might go wrong, I’d end up paralysed.

I retraced my steps through the subway towards the Creek. I turned right as I came out, following exactly the same route as yesterday. Dhows were still tied up along the pavement, half a dozen deep. The Indian lads were still working their arses off in the dark.

I chose the ill-lit side of the road. As soon as the construction-site floodlights came into view I waited for a break in the traffic and crossed back.