Khalil made a phone call, and, even in Arabic, Grant knew it was to his wife. The tone, the familiarity and the sighing made that clear. He hung up.
‘Taziri is packing. I’ll get the boys myself,’ Khalil said.
‘No you won’t, sir – I will. Delay my plane, I’ll be back in half an hour. Phone the school and send them my iris recognition.’
Khalil nodded.
‘Where do you normally stay in Paris?’ Grant asked.
‘The Ritz.’
‘Call them yourself. Keep all of your staff here on full pay and conditions. The house should run as normal.’
‘Here.’ Khalil passed Grant a key fob from his pocket. It felt heavy in Grant’s hand and he recognised the wings of Bentley.
‘It’s in the second garage – I’ll walk you there. The house fobs are in the glove compartment.’
As they left the office, Grant heard a woman’s voice. She was arguing with someone. Khalil winced. Peace was something that the Dalmani family would not find again until their son was found.
Chapter 6
Just outside the Moroccan city of Fez, in a small village populated mainly by farmers, a man sat outside a two-storey stone building. One road dissected the settlement, and, under that, passed the river Fez. The city itself was the crossroads of Morocco and saw trade pass from south to north, east to west, in a never-ending criss-cross of goods coming and going, being sold and bought; the pulse by which the sprawling urbanisation had drawn air for thirteen centuries.
The roads in the city were tarmacadam of course, but here, in the suburbs, which was more like a rural wasteland, the paths were sandy and made of shifting dust, and the houses were simple and stone. Square, with a rooftop terrace, they kept residents cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The man, though, preferred to sit outside. It was the best position to be in to get paid every month. If he was nowhere to be seen, then how did they know he did his job? He sat on an old sofa pulled up to a metal table. On the table were all the things he needed to strip, clean, oil and reassemble the items laid before him. Nobody came to the village unless they came to pick up the goods produced in the factory inside the home he guarded. That was the same day he got paid. His job was to make sure that no one stole the commodities inside.
Not that anyone would. They’d be imbeciles to try.
He squinted in the afternoon sun, and a cigarette hung from his mouth as he worked. The array of objects before him was, to him, a vision of beauty, because only if one respected the equipment would it perform to the correct standard. Out here in the sand and heat, fine dust stuck to anything, like a whore to a prince’s leg. He had to go easy on the oil else all his efforts would be for nothing.
Two 9mm Glock pistols sat side by side, next to three Sig Sauer semi-automatics. Next to that, laid neatly, was an AK-47, a newly acquired AK-74, an American M4 carbine, and – his pride and joy – a Heckler & Koch MP5. There was an old and trusty Russian Dragunov sniper rifle too, and it sat there like a loyal dog, having accompanied its master on many missions.
He began with the smaller weapons, taking one of the Sigs and pulling back the upper case to check that it was empty. Next, he removed the two pins holding the casing in place over the barrel, revealing the mechanism inside. He removed the barrel and inspected the firing pin. He blew a few times, but the sand was stuck to the carbon deposits, and he swept the surfaces with a small wire brush. Happy, he pulled a lightly oiled flannelette through the barrel. He oiled the railings and wiped the spring, pulling the trigger as he did so, to test how smooth the weapon would be in its action now it’d had someone take good care of it. He got these weapons in all the time and they were in all kinds of states of shit. Someone nicknamed him Dirty Harry years ago, and it had stuck. Though, sadly, he’d never managed to get his hands on a Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum.
The larger weapons took longer to clean and put back together because they had longer and thicker elements, and it was worth taking out the firing pin and the trigger. That’s why the AK-47 was so popular – in fact, the bestselling gun in history – because it was so basic. Put it in the hands of an eight-year-old and they’ll figure it out, so that’s what they did.
Cleaning guns was like listening to music to Dirty Harry. He worked methodically and smiled occasionally when he managed to get some carbon off a barrel without removing the matt paint, leaving a shine that would glint in the sun.
A car approached, and Dirty Harry looked up. A Toyota Land Cruiser. He stopped what he was doing and took his cigarette out of his mouth. He stood up and went to the front of the table, covering the weapons with a cloth, but taking a newly clean and loaded Sig and sticking it into his belt at the back of his tunic.
Then he relaxed. He knew both the driver and the passenger, who was his regular contact, Abdul. He waved a greeting but still registered the extraordinary nature of the visit. The vehicle stopped, and the men got out. They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries about the price of ammunition and the football season.
‘Can I offer you some tea?’ he asked the men. They accepted, and he went inside and barked some orders. He beckoned them to sit on the dilapidated sofa but they declined. He waited. Finally one of them spoke and told him that a shipment had been apprehended between Tangier and
