11 - Breaking and Entry:
I'm lurking behind the bins in a narrow back alley in the East End of London. It's the sort of place where you want to wipe your feet as soon as you get onto the main road.
I'm linked to VJ by an app on my phone that turns it into a digitally encrypted walkie talkie. A covert Bluetooth earpiece means that we're permanently linked.
"Remind me again, why am I the one who's got to do this?"
"Climb that fire escape? With my asthma?" VJ replied. "Besides, your military background makes you the logical choice."
It seemed far too bloody convenient the way he became a wheezy nerd when it suited him. And it always suited him to assume that role when there was anything with a vague whiff of physical exercise to it.
In front of me is a metal fire escape that leads up the back of a four story Victorian Gothic monstrosity. I'm interested in the glowing window on the third floor.
Behind me is the back end of a takeaway. I'm lurking between the bins, the kitchen window's open and a radio's tuned turned up to eleven, blasting out UK Grime from a pirate radio station. I didn't know who the track is by, but Dizzee Rascal it aint.
It's drizzling, in London, in the spring, what a surprise. Not.
It's the sort of penetrating wetness that cuts right through supposedly waterproof clothes. I've been here for two hours so far, waiting for the last workaholic to turn out the lights and go home so I can climb in through the window.
Then, suddenly and taking me by surprise, the office window's yellow glow is extinguished.
A couple of minutes later VJ's voice buzzes in my earpiece: "X-Ray is clear of building."
"Thanks mate."
"Don't you mean copy that?" Vik asks.
"Sod off!"
I don't feel any safer knowing I'm not alone. If the bully boys discover me lurking they'll give me a bloody good kicking. If, or when, that happens no one will come to help me.
There's no point in looking to VJ to come charging to my rescue. He's at least two hundred metres away in the back of a Mercedes Sprinter van, nice and warm, with a flask of tea and a stack of sandwiches.
We've set up our own Bluetooth cameras for surveillance. Oh, and he's got the the internet for company. He's dividing his time between covering me on CCTV and standing by for when I gain access to the target.
Or at least he's supposed to be doing that. But I suspect that he's surfing the net. And I know that given the choice between watching my back and watching the shenanigans of busty milfs on Pornhub, the fleshy delights of middle aged sex bombs are going to win out every time.
Besides, he's under strict instructions from Dirty Harriet to make a swift getaway if things go pear-shaped. Yeah matey, you leg it and leave me to face the sodding music eh.
"OK, going in," I transmitted.
"And the best of British luck to you sir," VJ replied in his best officer and a gentleman voice.
I ease out from where I've been lurking and climb up on top of a conveniently parked rubbish skip. From there I climb clumsily onto the fire escape itself.
I go up the metal staircase cautiously, trying to be as quiet as possible. Inevitably I do make a noise though. When I get up to the third floor and was squeezing myself through the half-open window I dislodged a saucer from the window sill.
Who the hell leaves a saucer doing on a window sill? Hang on. Make that a saucer full of fag ends. OK, question answered. Someone who doesn't want to leave the office to smoke when it's pissing down with rain, that's who.
I freeze and glance down as the saucer shatters on the cobbles below. Nobody comes out to see what all the racket's about. OK, it seems safe to continue.
I squeeze through the window on my stomach. There's a desk with three big computer monitor screens on it, blocking my way. There's only one option; I twist and contort myself and do a sort of half-handstand on the office chair at the desk.
The chair's on castors, it rolls away from my when I'm halfway through the manoeuvre. Almost inevitably I end up in a heap on the floor. It is, I notice, covered with those bloody awful, cheap industrial carpet tiles. Oh, and it could do with a damned good hoovering. I'm not, obviously, a happy chappy.
"It's never like this for James Bond," I mutter.
"What's that?" Vikram asks.
