by Chris Ryan
Bowman shrugged. ‘They don’t call him the Viper for nothing.’
‘It’s immoral. He was prepared to turn his back on us, and now we’re treating him like royalty.’
‘London has got to keep him sweet, mate. If he had agreed to the deal with the Russians, we’d lose everything in Karatandu. The cobalt, all our commercial interests and training facilities. The lot. They’d do anything to stop that from happening.’
‘Doesn’t make it right,’ Loader said.
Mallet overheard them and said, ‘We’re soldiers. We’re not paid to have an opinion. Even your short Welsh arse should understand that.’
‘I’m just saying, John.’
‘Well, don’t. Six has given us a job to do. We’re doing it. End of.’
The Cell leader marched aft to consult with Webb. Casey kept her gaze fixed on the president at the far end of the cabin as he finished his Scotch and yelled at the attendant for a refill.
‘He doesn’t seem too concerned about his family,’ she observed softly.
Bowman laughed. ‘That guy doesn’t care about anyone other than himself. He’d throw his family under a bus if it benefited him.’
‘Why ask us to protect them, then?’ said Loader.
‘The only reason Seguma wants them safe and sound is because they know all the skeletons in his closet. If they’re captured, it’ll all spill out. His relatives have been dipping their hands in the till for years. They’re just as corrupt as him.’
Casey said, ‘If you feel that strongly, why did you agree to come along?’
‘I’m only here because of Mike,’ said Bowman in an undertone. ‘He was one of the best officers they’ve ever had at Hereford.’
‘You’ve had better luck than me, then,’ Loader scoffed. ‘Most of my officers were bleeding idiots.’
‘Mike’s a friend. He’s in trouble, and he needs our help. That’s all I care about.’
Loader finished packing the mags into his webbing, then moved over to the luggage compartment to check on the rest of his kit. Casey remained quiet for several moments as she reassembled her Glock pistol. When she was sure they were alone, she said, ‘Do you really think this mission could go wrong?’
‘There’s a chance,’ Bowman admitted. ‘We’re rushing in. That’s when mistakes get made.’
‘Six doesn’t think so.’
‘That’s just the typical Foreign Office mindset. They’re academics.’ Bowman spat the word out. ‘They don’t know how it works in the field. They think we’re a bunch of super-soldiers.’
‘I hope you’re wrong.’
‘Me too,’ Bowman said. He nodded at her. ‘What’s your story, anyway? How did you end up in the Cell? I’m guessing you had a nice upbringing.’
She gave him a wry smile. ‘What you really mean is: What’s a privileged middle-class woman like you doing here?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘It’s fine.’ She sighed. ‘I’m used to it. Everyone else asks me the same question. Or they think it behind my back. Which is basically the same thing, I suppose.’
She set down the Glock, stared at it in her lap.
‘I never planned on joining the army,’ she went on. ‘I was what you might call a geek growing up. My days were spent in the library, burying my head in books. I’d always assumed I would follow my father into teaching. Or maybe even academia.’ She gave him a look.
‘What happened?’
‘I woke up one day and realised it wasn’t my dream after all. Oh, I enjoyed studying and so on, but the prospect of spending my career in some stuffy corner office in a university, writing papers for obscure academic journals, wasn’t for me. I decided to quit my degree and enlist.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘When I told my parents what I’d done, they almost hit the roof. They’re both teachers, you see. We had a big argument. Some unpleasant things were said.’
‘Why the army, though? You could have had the pick of any career you wanted.’
‘My grandfather had served in Korea. He fought at Imjin River, with the Gloucestershire Regiment. He never said a word about it until one day I sat down with him and asked him for the full story for a paper I was working on. He talked for hours. A whole afternoon. For some reason, that story stayed with me. That idea of being part of something bigger than myself, you know? So I thought, why not join the army?’
‘It’s as good a reason as any,’ Bowman said. ‘I’ve heard worse.’
‘I’m sure.’ She sat upright. ‘Anyway, the army proved the making of me. I realised I was much stronger than I’d assumed. One thing led to another, and here I am. I’ve never regretted my decision. Although my father and I don’t talk anymore.’
Bowman tried to think of something comforting to say. ‘I’m sure your old man is proud of you. Even if he won’t say it.’
Casey smiled sadly. ‘Somehow, I doubt that’s true. Nothing I do will ever be good enough for him. In his mind, I’m just the pig-headed daughter who threw away a promising future just to piss him off.’ She angled her head at Bowman. ‘What about you? What made you enlist?’
‘I grew up in a rough area,’ Bowman said. ‘Everyone was in a gang or knew someone involved in one. I had a choice between the army, or a life of crime. I chose to fight.’
‘Smart choice.’
‘I reckoned so at the time.’
‘What about your parents? Siblings?’
‘Mum and Dad have been dead for years. The cancer took my mother when I was seventeen. Dad joined her a year later. Heart attack. I’ve got a sister, but we’re not really in touch these days,’ he added, remembering the promise he’d made to Mallet back at the interview in London.
Casey paused and bit her lower lip. ‘The others told me about your family,’ she said. ‘What happened to your wife and little girl.’
Bowman lowered his gaze to the floor. He thought again about the blood. The bodies. For a fleeting moment, he saw them lying on the kitchen floor. The way he’d discovered them when he came home from the job. Amy with the bullet hole in her head. The wide gash in his daughter’s throat. He saw, too, the face of the man responsible. The Albanian mobster. His monstrous scarred face, his cruel laugh. Bowman set his jaw as a hot current of anger stirred inside his guts.
‘I’m sorry,’ Casey said hastily. ‘It’s not my place.’
‘You’re right,’ Bowman growled. ‘It isn’t. And I don’t need your fucking sympathy.’
Casey mumbled a hasty apology, made an excuse and left him alone. Bowman sat in silence, checking his kit, tortured by the images seared into his memory. He suddenly craved another pill. Bowman waited a while, slipped into the toilet and snuffed two of Lang’s yellow pills. He felt better, but not by much. The tablets weren’t as potent as the synthetic opioids he usually took. The effects wore off much more quickly. Which was a problem, he knew. He’d have to sneak off more often. One of the others might notice sooner or later.
He dropped into his seat, and then the attendant brought over food for the team. They tucked into sandwiches, crisps, biscuits, chocolate bars. Loading up on calories, because they didn’t know when they’d next have a chance to eat. Bowman inhaled a BLT sandwich and a protein bar, washed it down with a cup of strong black coffee. He drank another. Soon, a leaden fog clouded his brain. His eyelids were heavy. Everything felt fuzzy and slow. The tiredness of the last forty-eight hours was catching up with him. Every muscle in his body demanded rest.
While the others chatted, Bowman closed his eyes. He tried not to think about his family, or the mission. Eventually the faces of his dead wife and daughter faded away. In the empty blackness of his opioid-numbed mind, Bowman found a brief respite from his torment, and he settled into a fitful sleep.
*
They touched down in Libreville five hours later. Ten o’clock in the evening in Gabon. The team snatched up their C8s and deplaned from the jet with the other passengers. They left their personal luggage on the Gulfstream. There was no point taking an
y non-essential kit with them to Karatandu. They were going into a potential firefight. Mobility and speed would be crucial. Better to keep their individual loads as light as possible. They could collect their holdalls later, once the coup had been successfully crushed and the crew got the all-clear to return the president to his country.
A couple of officials in shiny suits greeted Seguma at the foot of the airstairs. They guided the president and the two diplomats towards a waiting Lincoln Town Car. At the same time, Mallet and the rest of the team circled round to the rear of the Gulfstream to unload their kit. A Short SC.7 Skyvan twin turboprop aircraft was parked on the tarmac seven metres away from the Gulfstream. A sturdy short-distance load-lifter. Ugly but reliable. The Karatandu national flag was affixed to the fuselage and the tailfin. One of the president’s private aircraft, Bowman guessed. A portly loadie in a Karatandan army uniform stood beside the lowered ramp.
As the Gulfstream engines wound down the co-pilot hurried over and opened the rear cargo hold. Webb crawled inside the space, the other soldiers formed a chain and they began transferring the kit from the back of the jet to the Skyvan: the mortar assembly and sights, the Gimpys, the .50 cal rifle, the AWC sniper rifle, the boxes of ammo and shells, the grenades, the Claymore satchels. Like pass-the-parcel. But with deadly hardware instead of birthday presents. They piled everything in the middle of the Skyvan’s boxcar-shaped cabin. The loadie secured the ammo crates with netting, Mallet gave him a thumbs-up to confirm that everything had been loaded into the hold, and then the team hurried over from the Gulfstream.
As they approached the rear loading ramp, Mallet’s phone buzzed. He stopped short as he read through a stream of incoming text messages.
‘What’s the news?’ Loader shouted above the high-pitched whine of the jet engines.
‘Confirmation from Six,’ Mallet said. ‘They’ve established comms with the military base at Marafeni airport.’
‘And?’
‘Everything’s arranged. The escort is waiting for us on the ground with our transport. We’ll be ready to roll out of the gates as soon as we get off the plane.’
‘How many guys in the escort?’
‘A platoon. Fourteen blokes.’
‘Should be enough to deal with any bullshit we might encounter along the way. Checkpoints, roadblocks, rioters.’
Mallet nodded. ‘We should get to the palace for midnight.’
‘If it goes smoothly,’ Bowman added.
‘No reason it won’t.’
‘What about those SF teams coming in?’ Casey asked.
‘The SFSG and SBS guys are en route to Libya now. Due to land at around eleven o’clock our time. They’ll link up with D Squadron and take off around midnight. Which is one o’clock their time. Looks like they’ll reach Marafeni at around six o’clock tomorrow morning.’
‘Any word on the coup?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘Have they spoken to Mike?’ asked Bowman.
Mallet shook his head slowly. ‘He’s offline.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Six reached out to him half an hour ago for another update. They’re still waiting to hear back. Once they’ve spoken to him, they’ll let us know.’
‘Might be a blackout,’ Loader suggested. ‘Power shortages are a fact of life in Karatandu. If it’s out, the mobile phone network will be down. Or maybe he’s just busy arranging the perimeter defence.’
‘Or it could mean something else,’ Bowman said.
‘The last time Six checked in with Mike, the capital was fairly quiet. We’ve got no reason to think the situation has changed.’
‘If the rebels are moving in early, Mike will be in the shit.’
‘We’ve got no proof of that,’ Mallet snapped. ‘The plan stays the same. We’ll get in, get the family and guard them until the strike force gets in. Then we can go home and celebrate. Or in Tiny’s case, get plastered and spend the night wondering what it must feel like to be over five foot tall and attractive to women.’
‘Sod off, John.’
They ascended the loading ramp and strapped themselves into the seats on either side of the cabin, their C8 rifles placed across their laps and the rucksack filled with emergency kit between Mallet’s feet. The tailgate closed, the twin engines hummed. The Skyvan taxied across the runway, catapulted forward, and suddenly they were climbing into the murky night.
No way back now.
Sixty minutes later, they landed in Karatandu.
Twenty
A hot breath of wind hushed across the runway, thrusting through Bowman’s hair as he stepped off the loading ramp. Shortly after eleven o’clock at night in Karatandu. The western coast of Central Africa. The heat was oppressive, like being smothered in a hot towel. The air was thick with the smell of hard rain, mixing with the potent tang of jet fuel and the faint whiff of woodsmoke. Apricot lights shimmered in the impermeable darkness beyond the airport perimeter. To the north of the tarmac stand, a hundred and fifty metres away from the Skyvan, stood a decrepit terminal building. A sign was draped above the entrance: WELCOME TO KARATANDU, THE NEW HOPE OF AFRICA.
The rest of the team glided down the ramp as a pair of soldiers marched quickly over from a tented encampment behind a chain-link fence, to the east of the terminal. A lanky, long-necked guy with a shaven head, and a squat man with a badly pockmarked face. They were dressed in loose-fitting camo fatigues, with short-sleeve jackets and AK-47 assault rifles slung over their shoulders. They stopped at the rear of the Skyvan and cast their eyes over the five Brits. Both of them seemed agitated, thought Bowman. Unnerved. The soldier with the pockmarked face kept glancing around, gripping his AK-47 tightly, as if expecting an attack at any moment. Lanky jutted his chin out at Mallet.
‘You’re the team from London, yes?’
‘Aye,’ Mallet said. ‘That’s us.’
‘Come with us. Major Mavinda is waiting for you.’
He walked stiffly off in the direction of the tented area, Pockmark hurrying along at his side. Mallet turned to the others.
‘Tiny, Alex, Patrick. Stay here and watch the heavy kit. Josh . . . come with me.’
Bowman hurried alongside Mallet, leaving the three others behind as they followed the Karatandan soldiers towards the chain-link fence. On the far side of the tarmac stand, a long queue of civilians snaked out from the terminal entrance towards an ancient-looking Boeing 737. Most of the passengers appeared to be local, weighed down with their worldly possessions, clutching plastic shopping bags and backpacks and bulging suitcases. Men argued with one another. Mothers berated their screaming children.
‘Looks like they’re in a big rush to get out,’ Mallet said.
‘Not just them,’ Lanky said. ‘Anyone who has the money is trying to leave Karatandu.’
‘Can’t blame ’em,’ said Bowman. ‘I’d be doing the same thing in their shoes.’
Lanky led them through the gate into a wide open-sided tent. They waited outside while Lanky approached a heavily built officer wearing a red beret. A haze of cigarette smoke hung like a curtain in the air. Soldiers lazed around the tables and chairs. Bowman counted at least thirty of them. Some smoked or drank from plastic bottles filled with some sort of local brew. Others played card games on upturned ammo crates. Two soldiers watched porn on a laptop. Much of their equipment seemed to be in poor condition. Bowman saw rusted AK-47s propped against tables or lying on the dirt floor. The men cut a slovenly appearance. One of the guys wore his water bottle upside down.
‘Let’s hope these lads fight better than they look after their kit,’ Bowman muttered.
Mallet said, ‘We’re not looking for first-rate soldiers. Just guys who can help us out if it goes noisy.’
Bowman looked up as the officer in the red beret strolled over. He was hard-faced and big all over, like an athlete gone to seed, thick fat layered on top of hard muscle. Small round pupils peeked out from beneath his low drooping eyelids. His lips were curled upwards into a permanent sn
eer. He had the same tribal markings on his cheeks as the bodyguards in London, Bowman noticed.
The man offered a meaty paw.
‘Major Julius Mavinda, commanding officer of the Marafeni airport garrison.’
Mallet shook his hand. ‘John Mallet. This is my colleague, Josh Bowman. We’ve been sent here to safeguard the president’s family and key members of the national government.’
They were in a powerful hurry to get to the family. There was no time to waste shooting the breeze with the Karatandan major and his vicious-looking soldiers.
Mavinda nodded. ‘We’ve received our orders. My men are ready to accompany you to the palace. I’ll be leading the escort personally. But we must proceed with caution. Considering the latest news.’
Bowman caught a glimmer of anxiety in the major’s eyes.
‘What news?’ he asked.
Mavinda nodded at a soldier operating a radio set across the tent. ‘We’ve had multiple reports of gunfire.’
A cold feeling prickled the back of Bowman’s neck.
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘Many places,’ Mavinda replied. ‘An army barracks fifty miles south of here. A police station in Akbeni, in the west. An armoury in the same area.’
Mallet said, ‘Did they give any more details?’
Mavinda scratched his jaw. ‘All we have been told is that there are reports of possible disturbances in other parts of the country. It looks like the KUF paramilitary forces are responsible. General Kakuba’s men.’
‘That’s it? Nothing else?’
Mavinda shrugged. ‘That’s all I know.’
‘When did you hear this?’
‘An hour ago.’
‘What about the capital?’
‘I don’t know. We have tried to contact the other bases and police stations, but no one is answering.’
‘Shit,’ Bowman said under his breath. ‘It’s started.’
Mallet inhaled sharply. ‘How long will it take to get to the capital, Major?’