‘If anything should happen?’ Silva took the card. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘Standard procedure, isn’t it? A backup plan?’
‘Mate,’ Itchy said, ‘we wouldn’t have needed a backup plan if you’d stayed calm.’
For a moment Gavin concentrated on the road ahead. Then he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I guess I got carried away with the operation.’
Silva said nothing. When someone got carried away things went wrong. That’s how it worked in the army. That’s why you obeyed orders, did your bit, but no more.
It took them an hour of tortuous driving along tiny roads and tracks to get to the rendezvous point, and it was close to midnight when Gavin pulled into a lay-by behind a red sports car. He dimmed the lights on the van.
‘Lona,’ he said.
Javed expressed his disappointment when Holm said there’d be no Italian meal.
‘We’re going to sit here and watch the boat,’ Holm said. ‘After driving all this way I’m not going to give up so easily. We’ll stay all night if necessary. If Kowlowski leaves with the container, we’ll follow him.’
The refugees were processed and taken away in a couple of coaches. The police and customs officers left and several of the Angelo’s crew disembarked. An array of sodium lights bathed the empty dockside in orange.
‘This is a waste of time, boss,’ Javed said. ‘We could have been on our second bottle of Chianti by now, bellies nicely full with pasta, the prospect of some delicious gelato ahead.’
‘This isn’t a culinary tour,’ Holm said.
‘More’s the pity. Do you think old Huxtable would let us take a couple of days off? See Naples and die?’
‘If Huxtable finds out you’ve been gallivanting on taxpayers’ money, you will see Naples and die.’
‘Whatever. It would be better than going straight back to—’
‘Stop.’ Holm held up his hand and pointed at the ship. ‘Look, some more people are leaving the boat.’
The captain of the Angelo – a tall figure in a smart uniform, a cap on his head – led two men down the gangway. In the dark it was hard to make out their faces, but Holm was sure one had a full beard. They stood on the quayside and raised voices drifted in the night air. Broken English from the captain. He gestured first to one side and then the other. A shrug which said there was nothing he could do. Holm caught snippets of the conversation. There’d been a change of plan, the captain announced. Many police. Helicopters. Way too risky. The meeting was off. They’d proceed directly to the UK.
The two men stepped away from the captain and conferred for a moment before following him along the dock to where a shadow stood beneath one of the floodlights, a cigarette in his hand.
‘That’s Kowlowski,’ Javed said. ‘The truck driver.’
‘Just so,’ Holm said.
As they approached Kowlowski, the truck driver stuck out a hand and greeted the captain. He nodded towards the two men. As one of the men turned, the light from overhead swept his face.
‘Christ,’ Holm said. ‘That’s Latif. The guy from the cafe attack in Tunisia.’
‘Mohid Latif? Are you sure?’
‘Yes, of course I’m bloody sure.’
Kowlowski gestured to his lorry. The vehicle sat by a vast warehouse and it was hard to discern what was going on, but Holm heard the scrape of metal on metal.
‘They getting into the container,’ Javed said. ‘You were right. How did you know?’
‘A hunch, lad.’ Holm turned to Javed and winked. ‘And if we’d been in a restaurant eating gelato we’ve never have seen this.’
‘Are we going to stop them?’
‘On what grounds and by what authority? We have no jurisdiction here and no evidence either.’
‘So what the hell are we going to do?’
Holm nodded at the dashboard and tapped the steering wheel. ‘Drive,’ he said.
In the shadows the door of the car clicked open and a figure got out. No glamour this time, no friendly greeting. Just jeans and a jogging top and an angry glare. Lona walked across and stood by the passenger door to the van.
‘What the fuck happened?’ Lona said. ‘You’re supposed to be one of the best shots in the world.’
‘Is the woman badly hurt?’
‘Yes. As I understand it she’s in a hospital in Naples. Haddad is sending a team of doctors from Saudi. The bullet hit her in the chest close to her heart. It’s touch and go.’
‘And the boy? Is he all right?’
‘What boy?’
‘Brandon’s son.’
‘Oh, him. He’s fine,’ Lona said dismissively. ‘You, on the other hand, you’re in some serious—’
‘It wasn’t Rebecca’s fault,’ Gavin said. Despite his size and muscles he tensed as Lona turned to him. ‘I pulled the trigger. I shot Lashirah.’
‘You?’ Lona was open mouthed for a moment. ‘How this can be any more fucked up, I don’t know.’
‘Ms da Silva wouldn’t take the shot because Karen Hope was holding the boy in his arms.’
‘She wouldn’t—?’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Silva said. ‘Got a problem with that?’
‘I haven’t got a problem with anything, but Hope’s still alive and that is a problem.’
‘Tactically it was wrong to take the shot. The risk was too high. If I’d hit the boy then I’d have missed my chance for good.’
‘Fuck tactics, strategically we’re stuffed. How easy do you think it will be to set up another operation now Hope’s been forewarned? She’ll be whisked away from here and her security will be tightened. We won’t stand a chance of getting close again.’
‘It doesn’t matter. We’re done.’
‘I’ll need to speak with my boss and see what he says.’
‘He can say what he likes, I said we’re done.’
‘Sure.’ Lona appeared not to have heard. She pulled out a phone. ‘I’m going to call him now. Don’t go anywhere.’
Silva looked across
