by Chris Ryan
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Chris Ryan Readers’ Club?
Letter from Author
About the Author
Copyright
One
At eight o’clock in the morning, on a damp grey Saturday in late March, Josh Bowman felt the pain flooding through his system.
It came on suddenly, without warning, as he waited in the lobby of the Broxbury Hall Hotel, a swanky five-star establishment located just across the road from Hyde Park. The pain started as a sharp scraping inside his head, clawing along the surface of his brain and quickly migrating through his bones, pricking his skin. It would only get worse, Bowman knew. Twelve hours since his last pill, and he could already feel the first pangs of nausea in his guts. Soon the stomach cramps and the sweats would kick in. Then the hallucinations. Like the flu, but a million times worse. A few hours from now, he would be a pale, shivering wreck.
You know what you need to do, the voice at the back of his head told him. The one that had hijacked his brain, rewiring his pathways. The voice was always there nowadays, invading his every waking moment.
You need another hit.
Just one pill, that’s all.
Something to get you back on the level. Make the pain go away.
Bowman shoved the voice aside, forced himself to concentrate on the sleek TV mounted on the wall opposite. On the news, vast crowds lined the streets around Westminster Abbey, ahead of the day’s wedding between Princess Amelia and her investment banker fiancé, Lucas Wentworth. Bowman saw a huge cheering mass of people dressed in red-and-blue hats or jackets, many of them waving Union Jack flags. There was a definite buzz in the air, despite the crap weather. The biggest live audience for a royal wedding ever, the commentator said. A clock in the bottom corner counted down the time until the ceremony began. Three hours twenty-nine minutes.
Christ, Bowman thought. I’m supposed to be preparing for a mission.
Instead, I’m getting the bloody shakes.
The pain briefly faded. Dave Kember glanced at his watch and cursed.
‘What’s taking these idiots so long?’ the SAS sergeant snapped. ‘They were supposed to be here by now, for Chrissakes.’
Bowman glanced at his colleague. With his pitted skin and slab-like forehead, Dave Kember was one of the ugliest guys in the Regiment. The lads had nicknamed him ‘Toxic’ on account of his bad breath. A teetotal clean-eating fanatic, he also had a reputation as a world-class moaner. The kind of bloke who could have a Virginia ham tucked under his arm and still complain that there wasn’t any food to be had. Bowman couldn’t decide which was worse. The withdrawal pains, or the prospect of spending the next sixteen hours working with Kember.
They had arrived in London the previous afternoon, as part of a four-man team sent up from ‘The Wing’, a covert unit within the SAS working alongside MI5 and MI6. According to the briefing they had been given, Six had uncovered intelligence of a plot by dissident rebels to assassinate Ken ‘The Viper’ Seguma, the president of the tiny but mineral-rich Central African state of Karatandu, and a close friend of the royal family. Bowman and his colleagues had been tasked with boosting the president’s security during the royal wedding.
While the other two guys on the team carried out security checks at the Abbey, Bowman and Kember had been ordered to rendezvous at the Broxbury with the president’s personal entourage. They had driven over from their hotel, stowed their armoured Land Rover Discovery in the underground car park and sent a message to the president’s flunkey to let her know they had arrived. Then they had settled down to wait.
Thirty minutes later, they were still waiting.
Kember checked his watch for the hundredth time since they’d arrived. ‘Bloody typical. Bodyguard duty. Always a pain in the arse, waiting for some fucker to show up.’
‘I thought you’d be well up for this job, Geordie,’ Bowman said. ‘Rubbing shoulders with royalty and all that.’
It was one of the worst-kept secrets at Hereford that Kember was planning to leave the Regiment in the next few months. At forty-one, he was four years older than Bowman, a veteran soldier with more than fifteen years of service under his belt. The contacts gleaned from close-protection duty for a foreign head of state could be priceless for an ex-SAS man looking for work on the private circuit.
Kember said, ‘Aye, it’ll look good on our CVs, I guess. But that’s the only good thing about this op.’
Bowman looked away, gritting his teeth. Jesus, he thought. This bloke really is a serial whinger. It’s only eight in the morning and he’s already getting on my nerves.
‘It’s not that bad, mate,’ he said, trying to lighten his mucker’s foul mood.
Kember snorted. ‘Ain’t it? We’re staying in a crap hotel, living on shite food and sitting around waiting to take orders from some jumped-up flunkey.’ He nodded at the TV. ‘And the bloke we’re safeguarding is a murderer.’
Bowman looked up. The cameras had cut away from the streets of Westminster to a grey-haired presenter in a news studio, rounding up the rest of the morning’s headlines. There was a report on the protests in Karatandu. Some sort of violent government crackdown against pro-democracy activists. People were fleeing through the streets, pursued by security forces decked out in black riot gear. Several officers opened up with tear gas canisters while their colleagues battered the helpless civilians with sticks and batons. The background was a tableau of burning cars and bloodied corpses and screaming children.
The camera cut to a short, stout figure dressed in army fatigues, aviator sunglasses and a purple beret. A chinstrap beard accented the officer’s strong jawline. He sat on a mountainside, flanked by a couple of tough-looking soldiers, their massive arms crossed in front of them. The caption at the bottom of the screen identified the guy in the middle as General Moses Kakuba, leader of the main rebel opposition. He smiled at a question asked by a journalist off-camera, revealing a pair of golden front teeth.
‘We will not be cowed into surrender,’ Kakuba was saying. ‘If Seguma thinks we are afraid, he is badly mistaken. We are ready to fight . . . even if it means death. Our lands have been ransacked. Our people have been tortured and murdered in the thousands. We have nothing to lose. We will not stop fighting until we have achieved a new dawn for Karatandu, for our people. A new socialist dawn.’
The camera cut again to a shot of President Seguma waving at his supporters as he boarded a plane. Kember shook his head in disgust. ‘I still can’t believe we’re having to protect this twat.’
Bowman said, ‘We’ve protected worse, mate.’
‘The guy is nicknamed the Viper, for fuck’s sake. He tied up one of his political opponents and tossed them into a pit of poisonous snakes.’
‘Come off it, mate. That story isn’t true.’
‘How would you know?’
Bowman shrugged. He was on the verge of an opioid withdrawal. He didn’t want to get dragged into a debate on ethics with Kember.
‘What about all those other stories about him personally torturing victims?’ said Kember. ‘Cutting off fingers and ears and toes, burying people alive, crucifying protestors and putting their heads on stakes? Are you saying it’s all bullshit?’
‘It doesn’t make any difference. We’re here now.’
‘You’re telling me you’re OK with this?’
‘We’ve got a job to do,’ Bowman replied tersely. ‘That’s it. Whatever you personally feel about the bloke, it doesn’t matter.’
Kember shook his head. ‘He’s a world-class psychopath. He’s slaughtering his own people. We shouldn’t be protecting him.’
‘It’s not that simple,’ Bowman said quietly.
‘Yeah, it bloody is.’ Kember nodded at the news report. ‘We’re putting our balls on the line for some tinpot dictator committing atrocities.’
‘This isn’t about Seguma. His country’s sitting on a load of gas and oil. It’s in our interests to keep him onside. If he gets plugged, the next bloke might not be so friendly.’
Kember sneered. ‘I don’t care if the country’s paved with gold. Doesn’t mean we should let the prick get away with murder.’
‘Your feelings about Seguma are the least of our problems.’ Bowman nodded at the screen. ‘Those protests are getting hot.’
‘What’s that got to do with our op?’
‘Think about it, Geordie. Seguma’s enemies will be even more motivated to get rid of him now.’
‘You ask me, they’d be doing the world a favour,’ Kember muttered. ‘But it ain’t gonna happen.’
Bowman turned to him. ‘You don’t think the threat is real?’
‘We’re talking about a few protestors in some African backwater,’ Kember argued. ‘They’re not exactly Delta Force. There’s no way they’ve got the organisation to plan a hit.’
Bowman shook his head, slowly. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’
‘Bollocks,’ Kember said. ‘There’s no threat. You heard what they said at the briefing yesterday. Five thousand officers on the ground, plus sniper teams on the rooftops, the guys from Five and Six and the private security teams. No way anyone could get close enough to slot the principal.’
Bowman didn’t reply. The grating flared up between his temples once more. There was a strange tingling sensation in his muscles, like a million invisible ants crawling under his skin. Every cell in his body screamed at him to make the sickness go away, before it became unbearable.
With the pain came the first terrible murmurs of memory, the resurfacing of the nightmarish images he had tried desperately to forget. Like the echo of a bad trip, creeping up on him when he least expected it. Except these visions never faded away. They grew stronger, stalking Bowman. He remembered stepping through the front door. The stillborn quiet in the air, where there should have been laughter, noise. He remembered, too, the knife discarded on the carpet. The blood splashed across the kitchen floor. The bodies . . .
Bowman closed his eyes, as if he could somehow factory-reset his brain. As if it was that simple. Then the pain stabbed at him again, and he knew he couldn’t last much longer without a pill.
Kember was watching him closely, a quizzical look on his mug.
‘Fella? You all right?’
‘Fine,’ Bowman said. He could feel the sweat running freely down his back, seeping through his shirt. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Don’t look it,’ the Geordie said. ‘You ask me, you look like a bag of shite.’
‘It’s nothing.’
Kember shook his head. ‘I know what your problem is.’
Bowman tensed. Did Kember know he was using drugs? Or was that just the paranoia talking?
If he knows about my addiction, I’m done for.
‘It’s all that processed meat you’ve been eating,’ Kember went on. ‘No good for your body. Plant-based, that’s the way you want to go. Clean all that crap out of your system.’
‘Yeah,’ Bowman said non-committally. ‘Maybe.’
The pain intensified. Like holes being drilled into the sides of his skull. Nausea clogged the back of his throat. His hands were trembling. Bowman realised he was perspiring heavily.
He stood up. ‘Wait here,’ he said.
‘Where the fuck are you going?’ Kember asked.
‘Gotta take a piss.’
He hurried across the foyer towards the toilets, brushing past a group of Chinese tourists. The decor inside the toilets matched the rest of the lobby. Polished marble floor, granite countertop, brass taps. Luxury handwash, a posh brand Bowman didn’t recognise.
His hands were shaking as he fished out the plastic pill crusher he always carried. There was a storage compartment above the crusher but the pills inside weren’t the kind of thing you bought over the counter at your local Boots. Four tablets left in the container. Bowman knew he’d have to score a fresh supply soon, but he didn’t have time to worry about that now.
He flipped the cap open, plucked out one of the oval-shaped tablets and placed it in the crusher on the underside of the bottle. He secured the base and twisted the cap several times, grinding the tablet down to a fine white powder. Tipped the contents onto the countertop, dug out a ten-pound note from his wallet, rolled it up and inhaled the lines. The powder burned in his nostrils. Then he clamped his eyes shut.
After a couple of minutes, he felt a buzz as several milligrams of opioid flowed into his blood. Slowly, the pain in his body faded. The sickness ebbed away. He stopped sweating.
Bowman put the note back in his wallet. He looked up, caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. He saw a face he barely recognised. The body was still lean and hard, his hands were rock-like, his shoulders broad. But the hair was streaked with grey now. His skin was pale. His pupils were the size of pinpricks.
You’re supposed to be a staff sergeant in 22 SAS, Bowman told himself. A decorated soldier with more than a decade of experience in the world’s most elite SF unit. You can’t be a bloody addict.
But in that moment, Bowman didn’t really care. He didn’t care about much, not now. He had long ago stopped looking to the future, to a time when things could be better. His dreams, such as they were, had been shattered in an act of horrific violence fifteen years ago. Now he had no plans, no hopes. He kept his distance from others. He had no real friends. He looked no further ahead than his next pill. Nothing mattered except shutting out the pain. Getting from one day to the next.
He took a deep breath and headed out the door.
*
The tourists were still hanging around the reception area as Bowman emerged from the washroom. He strode past them, a warm feeling from the pill washing over him. Kember sat alone, staring at his phone screen. Bowman glanced round but there was still no sign of the president’s lackeys.
He planted himself in the armchair next to Kember. The news had switched back to the royal wedding. People were getting into the spirit of the occasion, smiling and waving at the cameras.
Twelve minutes later, two figures stepped out of the nearest lift. A burly guy in a black suit and a tall slender woman in a mustard yellow dress, matching jacket and heels. The woman paused while she scanned the lobby. She spied Kember and Bowman and walked over, nodding at the two SAS men as they rose to their feet.
‘You’re the soldiers, yes?’ she asked.
‘That’s us,’ Kember said, extending a hand. ‘I’m Dave, but you can call me Geordie. This is Josh. We’re from the Regiment.’
The woman stared at his outstretched hand as if it belonged to a leper.
‘Martha Lungu,’ she said. ‘Personal assistant to President Seguma.’
She sized the men up with a look of disapproval. She was in her late twenties or early thirties, Bowman guessed, with the high-cheekboned, pouting look of an ex-model. She was wearing enough jewellery to fill a Hatton Garden vault. Diamonds the size of fists sparkled in her earrings. The pearls on her necklace were as big as golf balls.
Lungu waved a bejewelled hand at the guy i
n the suit.
‘Samuel Jallow. Mr Seguma’s chief bodyguard. He’s in charge of Mr Seguma’s security arrangements.’
Bowman turned to the bodyguard. He was enormous. The biggest guy Bowman had ever seen. In the top three, certainly. His tightly corded neck muscles were as thick as anchor chains. His arm muscles bulged inside his suit. Pinkish scars ran down both of the bodyguard’s cheeks. His head was mostly clean shaven, except for a belt of short curly hair running down the middle.
‘Where’s the principal?’ asked Kember.
‘Mr Seguma is upstairs in the presidential suite,’ Lungu replied. ‘He’s a very busy man, as you might expect. You’ll meet with him shortly. In the meantime, you will liaise with us.’
Bowman nodded.
‘I’m guessing you know why we’re here?’ he asked.
Lungu said, ‘Our friends at the Foreign Office called last night. They mentioned something about a potential incident today.’
‘It’s possible that there’s going to be some trouble with a few protestors,’ Bowman replied, repeating the line that they’d been told to use at their earlier mission briefing.
The powers-that-be had decided not to share the details of the assassination attempt with Seguma or his staff. Too risky. There was a serious danger of leakage. The president or one of his advisers might post a message online about the threat or share the news with a journalist. With an audience of two billion people, the last thing the government wanted was widespread panic overshadowing the wedding itself.
‘As you know,’ he went on, ‘a small group of activists planned to stage a protest in Hyde Park this morning.’
Lungu said, ‘I thought they were denied permission?’
‘They were.’
‘So what is the problem?’
‘We don’t have specifics, but we think that a few of their mates are planning to go proactive. Disrupt the ceremony somehow.’
‘How so?’
‘As I said, we don’t know the details. The protestors might try to infiltrate the crowd. Or they could be planning something later on, at the reception party.’
‘Is Mr Seguma in any danger?’
‘We don’t think so, no.’
‘The protestors want to embarrass your boss on national TV,’ Kember put in. ‘Throw paint on his car, toss eggs at him. Shit like that. There’s no real threat.’