one stopped him.
The end of the ramp scraped against the concrete. The sergeant nodded at two young constables.
'Take him over there, lads,' said the sergeant.
'Someone wants a word with him.' The two police officers escorted Donovan to the back of the ramp, where an obese man wearing a black Customs jacket a size too small was waiting for him.
'Den Donovan,' said the man, barely able to contain his glee.
'You've no idea what a pleasure it is finally to meet you. Raymond Mackie, Head of Drugs Operations, Customs and Excise.'
'Yeah, I know who you are,' said Donovan.
'They call you the Doughboy, don't they? Why is that? Can't just be because you're a fat bastard, can it?'
Mackie's eyes hardened.
'Up until today you were designated Tango One, Donovan, but as of this evening you're no longer a target, you're a prisoner. Come on, I can't wait to see what eight thousand kilos of heroin looks like.'
Mackie strode up the ramp, breathing heavily, flanked by four young Customs officers wearing similar black nylon jackets. One of the police officers pushed Donovan in the small of the back.
'Okay, okay,' said Donovan, glaring at the man. The officer was barely half Donovan's age.
'Be nice, yeah?'
Donovan followed Mackie and the Customs officers up the ramp into the cavernous interior of the plane. Two men in their twenties wearing stained khaki jumpsuits were sitting on two seats fixed to the fuselage. Other than the two men, the plane was empty.
One of the men waved at Mackie.
'We want claim political asylum. Okay?'
Mackie's jaw dropped.
'What?'
The other man punched his colleague on the shoulder.
'He make joke,' he said to Mackie.
'My friend has big mouth. Make big joke.'
Mackie looked around the vast space, five times the height of a man, his mouth still open in astonishment. The other Customs officers were equally surprised.
'What the hell's going on?' spluttered Mackie.
A door opened at the far end of the cargo area and Gregov stepped out carrying a white plastic carrier bag in one hand. He walked through the hold. Two SAS troopers, their weapons hanging from slings, followed him.
Gregov opened the carrier bag and took out two cartons of Marlboro cigarettes. He held them out to Mackie.
'I was going to declare them,' he said.
'Honest I was.' He winked at Donovan.
'Hiya, Den. Good to see you again.'
Jamie Fullerton took a swig of his beer and plonked it down on the desk next to his computer. He stared at the screen and for the one hundredth time checked to see if he had e-mail. There were no new messages for him. Fullerton had sent a full report to Hathaway on what had happened at the airfield and had expected an immediate reply.
Hathaway must have known about the abortive raid at the airfield and must have realised by now that Fullerton had been there. Fullerton had said in his e-mail that Donovan had only told him about the flight at the last minute and that there hadn't been time to get a message to Hathaway.
Fullerton had been held in a cell for an hour, interrogated by two plainclothes detectives whose hearts clearly weren't in it, and then released. No laws had been broken, not the least because of Donovan's insistence that nobody carried a gun. They were all guests of the Russian aviation company, and the Ilyushin had filed a valid flight plan. It was suspicious, there was no getting away from that, two dozen men and a convoy of vans all waiting for an empty plane, but there was nothing illegal about it.
Fullerton had tried calling Donovan's mobile several times but it was switched off.
He took another drink of beer, then decided he needed something stronger. Something with a real buzz to it. He headed for the bathroom where he kept his coke. The door intercom buzzed as he walked down the hallway and he stopped to look at the CCTV monitor. It was Charlie Macfadyen.
Fullerton picked up the receiver.
'Charlie? What do you want?'
'We want a word about yesterday's fiasco,' said Macfadyen, running a hand over his shaved head.
Fullerton buzzed him up. He went back to his computer and checked one final time but there were still no new messages. He shook his head, switched off the computer and picked up his beer bottle.
He had the door open for Macfadyen by the time the elevator reached his floor. Macfadyen wasn't alone. There were two men with him. Fullerton didn't know their names but he recognised them from the airfield they had been driving two of the rental vans.
'What's up, Charlie?' asked Fullerton, though he could see that Macfadyen was in no mood for polite conversation. Mac-fad yen mouth was a tight line and his eyes were as cold and dispassionate as a reptile's.
'Not much,' said Macfadyen, walking into Fullerton's flat.
'You said you wanted a word?' said Fullerton. He still had the door open, but Macfadyen's companions made no move to walk inside.
'Yeah,' said Macfadyen. He reached behind his back and pulled a large automatic from a holster clipped to his belt. He thrust the gun against Fullerton's chest.
'And the word is grass.'
Bunny paced up and down his sitting room. He punched PM's number into his mobile phone, but for the hundredth time he went straight through to his message service. Where the hell was PM? And what the hell had gone wrong?
Had Donovan been tipped off? And if he had, why had he gone to the airfield? If he'd known that police and Customs were going to turn up with SAS back-up, why hadn't he just got on the first plane back to the Caribbean?
Bunny had been watching Donovan when the helicopters swooped over the perimeter fence. There'd been no panic in the man's eyes, no attempt to run, he just stood and watched the helicopters with an amused smile on his face.
The police had roughly searched Bunny and PM, practically kicked them to the ground before going through their clothing, and the next time he'd been able to catch a glimpse of Donovan he was being taken to the rear of the transport plane. Just before Bunny had been thrown into the back of a police van, he had seen Donovan being escorted up the ramp into the bowels of the giant plane. There had been no sign of tension on Donovan's face. Just a quiet, almost self-satisfied, smile. It was as if he knew what was coming. As if it had all been planned.
They'd all been split up at the police station. Bunny had been asked if he wanted a lawyer but he'd just shaken his head. He'd given them his name and address and his date of birth, but other than that he'd remained resolutely silent. Without the drugs, there was no case. Even conspiracy to import wouldn't stand up, not with the plane arriving empty.
Two detectives had questioned him and then he'd been left in a cell for six hours. He hadn't seen PM again. As soon as he'd been released, Bunny had caught a cab home. He wanted to get on the internet and get a message to Hathaway, though there was no doubt in Bunny's mind that Hathaway already knew what had happened. He figured that he should stay put until PM got in touch, though. Two drug deals had turned to shit and PM would want to know why.
The doorbell rang and Bunny jerked as if he'd been stung. He hurried over to open the door, but not before making sure that the security chain was on.
It was Jordan. With three other men Bunny had last seen at the airfield.
'How's your luck, Bunny?' asked Jordan.
'I've had better days,' said Bunny, wondering why Jordan had turned up on his doorstep.
'You here for a reason, or is this social?'
