Holm had grabbed Javed and they’d legged it back to the fence as the forklift zoomed towards the building. No sooner had it disappeared inside than it was out again, sans pallet. The guard they’d seen round the front swung the gates to the airfield shut, and closed and locked the warehouse doors. They crouched behind some shrubs until the guard drove off in a small white van and then they climbed the fence and hid in the dense maize. After they’d watched the aircraft take off, Holm pushed up from the ground, brushing mud from his trousers.
‘That’s it.’ He stared to the west where a few minutes earlier the Saudi plane had disappeared into the night. ‘Weapons.’
‘In that crate?’ Javed stood. ‘How do you know?’
‘A guess based on where we are and the nationality of that aircraft. Worse, it looks as if it’s officially sanctioned.’ Holm started to trudge along the side of the field and back towards the car. He felt deflated. If he took any of this to Huxtable she’d close him down. ‘Certainly somebody turned a blind eye or two. A nod and a wink. An agreement to brush a little dirt under the carpet.’
‘Even if you’re right, it was only one pallet.’
‘One pallet of what, and how often?’ They reached the car and Holm scraped the bottom of his shoes on the sidewall of the front tyre, trying to shift the mud. ‘Whatever, the pallet is going to Felixstowe. Next stop Naples via Rotterdam. We need to get to the port and liaise with the Border Force so they can open up the container.’ Holm got in the car and started up. Javed slipped in the passenger side. Holm slid the car from the field and drove to the main road. He filtered into the traffic. ‘Otherwise the crate is going to Italy where the Angelo will ship it across the Med.’
‘To where?’
‘I don’t know.’ Holm paused as he overtook a coach. ‘Can you get that shipping app up and take a look at past routes the boat has sailed?’
‘Yeah, one mo.’ Javed pulled out his phone. His fingers slid across the screen and he whistled. ‘It’s like a slug’s trail, criss-crossing the Med and looping back on itself, but since the Angelo has been rescuing people in distress, that figures.’
‘But there’s one place the boat’s gone to multiple times, right?’
‘Yes.’ Javed turned his head, keeping the screen hidden from view. ‘Care to guess?’
‘I don’t need to guess, I know,’ Holm said. ‘Tunisia.’
‘The tourist resort of al Hammamet to be precise.’ Javed tapped his phone. ‘Huxtable. We have to tell her what we’ve discovered.’
‘On the contrary.’ Holm hunched forward. There was a junction ahead and he needed to take the exit if they were going to Felixstowe to alert the Border Force. For a moment his hand hovered over the indicator stalk, but he didn’t flick it. He’d changed his mind. ‘We’re telling nobody, Farakh.’
‘You just told me they’re smuggling weapons, right? Well they’re sitting in the warehouse right now just waiting to be picked up. We’ve got to stop them.’
‘Remember the mole? If it becomes common knowledge we’ve discovered the smuggling operation then Taher will vanish into thin air just as he’s done numerous times before. The most important thing we can do is find out the ultimate destination for the weapons and hope Taher is involved at the other end.’
‘And how the hell are we going to do that?’
Holm shrugged. ‘At the moment I haven’t a bloody clue.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Silva and Itchy took two rooms at a Travelodge a dozen miles up the A1 from RAF Wittering. There was a pub attached to the hotel, and after a meal they sat and drank a couple of beers and discussed what they’d seen. Silva put the battery back in her phone. Several texts pinged in from Sean. He’d be in Cambridge overnight. Did she want to meet tomorrow? She replied that she did and would arrive in time for lunch.
‘And what are you going to tell him?’ Itchy asked. ‘If he’s involved in this you’ll have shown our hand.’
‘I know,’ Silva said. ‘But I can’t believe he is. I think he was there on genuine US State Department business. You saw Greg Mavers? He’s the deputy ambassador. Then there was that American general and the UK defence secretary. I don’t think any of them would be aware of what happened later on.’
‘Do you think he’ll believe you?’
‘No idea.’ Silva took a sip from her beer. ‘But I want you to visit Fairchild and tell him what we saw. Stay there until I turn up or call you.’
‘And if you don’t?’
‘Then you’ll know Sean is part of the conspiracy, won’t you?’
Itchy’s eyes widened and he picked up his pint glass, taking a long draw before clunking the glass down on the table.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I guess I will.’
The next day she met Sean in the centre of Cambridge and they wandered through the city before having a meal in an old inn. Dark panelled walls, low ceilings, and a lack of natural light gave the place a conspiratorial atmosphere. The palpable tension between them when they’d parted in London had gone and Sean was back to his old self.
‘I love England,’ Sean said as they tucked into their food. ‘So much history. Did you know Isaac Newton supposedly drank in this pub?’
‘Let me guess, he liked to get smashed on cider, right?’ Silva said, trying to be her old self too, trying to behave as if the madness of the past few days hadn’t happened.
‘Cider?’ Sean cocked his head. ‘Oh, I see.’
Silva bent to her food and took a few mouthfuls. ‘I’m sorry about storming out.’
‘No.’ Sean put a hand across the table. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry. I was a bit blinded by Karen Hope and the whole occasion and I
