defence minister would be handing over funding for something which was clearly a health ministry responsibility.
As they drove through London to Westminster, Greeves finished annotating the last of a stack of briefing notes he had pulled from his briefcase. Tom saw his chance to raise the concerns he had about the lack of protection officers. ‘Sir, I’d like to bring some additional security equipment with us to South Africa — a passive alarm system which I’d set up on the door and balcony of your suite at Tinga.’
‘Are you asking me or telling me, Tom?’
‘It’s not intrusive, sir, and I wouldn’t be monitoring you, only the access to your room. It’s my recommendation, sir, given that we’re one man down on the team.’
‘Very well.’ Greeves signed another file and closed his bag.
Their car pulled into the security parking area beneath Portcullis House, the multistorey labyrinth of parliamentary offices opposite the Palace of Westminster but joined to it by underground passageways.
During the afternoon tea in the anteroom of Greeves’s offices, Tom introduced himself to Helen MacDonald, the press secretary. Tom was curious about why the minister was presenting a cheque to a healthcare organisation which was clearly outside his portfolio.
‘It’s his own money,’ Helen said, sipping a cup of tea while Greeves entertained some housewives, local businessmen and a gaggle of grey-haired grannies.
‘Really?’ Tom was surprised. ‘How much?’
‘He wouldn’t want me to say, even if I knew — but you can bet it’d be at least five figures, from what I know of his past donations to charity. He’s a true philanthropist, is our Robert.’
Tom nodded, impressed. He knew Greeves was rich, but he didn’t know that he was generous as well. ‘Why didn’t he get some publicity for it? Help raise awareness of AIDS and all that?’
‘I used to try to get him to let me tell the media, but it’s a firm rule of his never to publicise his personal donations.’
‘I suppose he doesn’t want to be hit up by every other charity in the country,’ Tom speculated.
Helen shook her head. ‘No. You know, I think he does it in private because it’s the right thing to do. He’s not like any other politician I’ve ever come across, in that respect. Not cynical — at least, not in that way.’
Tom told Helen about the questioning from the journalist, Fisher. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ she said. ‘They’re flogging a dead horse, but do try to keep him out the way of photographers in South Africa. The World ’s gunning for him for some reason.’
There was nothing Tom could do to stop anyone taking a picture of Robert Greeves in a public place, especially in another country, other than try to alter their routes to avoid the paparazzi. To try to outrun them could be fatal — as had been the case with Princess Diana — and to manhandle reporters and photographers who weren’t actually physically threatening someone was considered to be assault. Still, Tom held his tongue and simply nodded to Helen. He was sure she knew the limitations he worked under.
Tom travelled armed with his Glock, Asp, knife and ammunition as they passed through Heath-row escorted by two uniformed police — one with a Heckler amp; Koch — and a security officer from British Airways special services. Once through immigration he, Greeves and the minister’s policy advisor, Bernard Joyce, parked themselves in the first-class lounge for the hour before departure.
The flight was uneventful and Tom slept well in the first-class seat behind Greeves, though he couldn’t drink alcohol.
At Johannesburg they were first off the aircraft, and the British Ambassador to South Africa was waiting on the air bridge, along with the South African Minister for Defence, Patrick Dule. Sannie was there, protecting the minister, and she nodded a curt hello to Tom. They were led by airport staff and security to a VIP lounge, where their passports were stamped by immigration officers and the two ministers had coffee with the British ambassador, who would not be accompanying them to Kruger.
South African soldiers in dress uniform, incongruously armed with umbrellas, were waiting downstairs outside the terminal to cover the official party for the couple of metres to two cars parked waiting in the torrential rain. They were driven across the taxiways to a South African Air Force Boeing business jet VIP transport aircraft, which was waiting on the Tarmac with its engines already turning. This time they would be flying to the Kruger National Park. Tom sat at the back of the aircraft, but was still three seats away from Sannie, so he couldn’t converse with her.
There was no one from the company which manufactured the jet trainers travelling with Greeves; this was ostensibly a political visit and, while Greeves would talk up the merits of the UK bid and its benefits to the British economy, he would also be discussing other defence issues with Dule.
Dule was an affable, urbane, rotund man in a tailored designer suit with a crisp white shirt, burgundy silk tie and matching handkerchief in his pocket. Tom remembered Sannie’s bitterness about the poverty in which so many South Africans still lived. Majority rule hadn’t brought fresh water and decent housing to all, but it had made some well fed and well off, Tom reflected.
Tom had been unable to put Sannie out of his mind completely these past couple of days. He’d also been unable to shake the feeling that something good had passed him by, and he wanted at least to make amends with her, if not pick up where he thought they had left off. She looked cool and sexy in her lightweight cream business suit. He had tried a smile on her as she took her seat on the aircraft, but she ignored him. It was annoying. For some reason he felt compelled to tell her that he had not slept with Carla Sykes. It was none of Sannie’s business, but he sensed she thought less of him because of what Carla had said.
Carla had some cheek, he mused, telling Sannie she believed she had left an earring in his suite at Tinga. Perhaps it was because she had been with Nick — and somehow he felt he was intruding on something — or perhaps it was just her over-the-top personality, but he didn’t feel she should be the first woman he slept with after Alex’s death. He had felt the stirrings of physical arousal when they had been drinking together and Carla had laid her hand on his thigh, but he had put the inevitable thoughts out of his head. He’d never had sex while away on a job; he’d been faithful to Alex during their marriage, and since then the opportunity had never arisen.
He’d politely fobbed off Carla, saying he was tired from his flight and his game drive. Undeterred, she had said, ‘Well, that’s one cup of coffee you owe me when you come back with your VIP.’ He’d turned her around and gently ushered her out of his room.
He wondered, as the aircraft took off, if Carla would still be interested in him when they returned. She had said, as she’d left, ‘I can’t promise not to try again.’
‘Mint?’ Bernard Joyce, Greeves’s defence policy advisor, asked him from across the narrow aisle. ‘Helps me unblock my ears when we take off and land.’
‘No thanks,’ Tom said.
Helen MacDonald had told him: ‘You’ll like being away with Bernard. He’s a scream. Camp as a row of tents, and sharp as a tack. He’s ex-Royal Navy — youngest second-in-command of a nuclear submarine ever.’
‘I hate Africa,’ Bernard said, leaning across. ‘Bloody dust and heat, and all those wild animals.’
‘I saw a leopard on my first visit, just a few days ago,’ Tom said.
‘Bully for you. Completely unnatural, if you ask me, driving around with no doors and windows, three feet away from lions and hyenas and the like.’
‘As opposed to cruising around half a mile under the water?’
‘Ah,’ Joyce said, raising an eyebrow, ‘I imagine our big-mouthed Kiwi spin doctor has been giving you the gossip on everyone?’
‘It’s all been good so far,’ Tom assured him.
‘I’m sure it has. We’re an odd bunch, we loyal foot-soldiers of Robert Greeves, but he’s a great man, Tom, don’t doubt it.’
He nodded. He was starting to think so himself.
Three of Tinga’s open-sided Land Cruisers were waiting at the Skukuza airstrip.
Once the official airport for the Kruger National Park, the Skukuza runway, which was inside the park’s borders, had been reserved for private charter aircraft since the building of a new regional international airport near Nelspruit about forty kilometres to the south.
‘Welcome, Minister Dule, Minister Greeves,’ Carla Sykes said. She looked sophisticated and attractive, despite the shimmering heat haze rising from the Tarmac. Tom reminded himself to concentrate on the job.
At Dule’s urging, Greeves posed for a photograph of the two of them, with three air force flight attendants, in
