I smile back. More of a grimace probably, given the circumstances. And the pilot calls that we are approaching the drop zone. Or the crash zone.
Captain Chandler opens the door when the pilot gives the signal. We peer out at the sporadic glimpses of green that flash through gaps in the cloud beneath us, hanging from our straps as the pilot swings back and forth in a rough grid pattern.
It is a prelude to disaster: the door of the helicopter open, the whirring blades, the low cloud cover. Searching for a scene of destruction and death.
Five-thirty a.m. My time was up. I would make the decision later. There would be time; these operations are often like that – a slow fuse that keeps seeming to fizzle out, and then just when you go to relight it the primer detonates and it is too late. As long as I made the decision before that happened, it would be okay.
Right now I needed to prepare for the task ahead of me. The physical preparation; the mental preparation could wait. I had to get moving, do the things I needed to do.
For this day in Ouagadougou I would wear a suit, not a uniform, because I was a businessman. That is what an arms dealer calls himself surely? A businessman, certainly not a soldier. At any rate: a pale linen suit, open-necked shirt, expensive watch and polished boots for the dusty roads. A handkerchief to wipe them clean for the meetings – and to wipe off the blood, should it come to that.
I was in Burkina Faso as a South African arms dealer doing business in West Africa. It was a part I looked forward to playing: being South African. My mother had been an Afrikaner, and although my real passport said I was British, I found myself identifying more often with my mother’s people, particularly since that helicopter ride into the Ugandan forest.
I had left the UK in an attempt to rebuild my life shortly after that Ugandan business, and had only recently started working with a small department of South African state security, although I knew they would deny employing me if anything went wrong. Just as the British had denied everything I had done for them, apart from the series of failed psychological evaluations at the end of my military career.
The South Africans had been the only people willing to employ me after all that. And they had taken me on for a different kind of work. No more jumping out of aeroplanes into terrorist-infested forests. A nice steady desk job. But then my skills at the things I had been trained to do had encouraged them to think I might be the right man for this job. And I wanted to prove to them that I was the right man. Because killing was the one thing I could do well, despite everything the psychologists said.
I dressed, packed my spare set of clothes into the briefcase. No weapon because I couldn’t have flown into the country with a weapon. Then I shoved the memory of that helicopter ride and the forest we dropped into as far back in my mind as it would go.
I needed to prepare for the task ahead.
There was a man I needed to kill.
Two
The sun was struggling over the horizon as I walked across the patch of dead grass beside the swimming pool. It was doing its best to brighten up the muddy browns of this African city where everything had the dull orange sheen of the dust blown on the Harmattan wind from the Sahara desert.
I was the first of the hotel guests to arrive at the grandiose, high-ceilinged breakfast area. A single staff member was laying out an unappetising array of pastries on the buffet table, together with fresh fruit, soft butter, smelly cheese and cold meats. Hot meals were only served after seven a.m. when the rest of the kitchen staff had arrived. Public transport in the city was restricted to curfew hours because of the terrorist threats.
I sat at a table in the corner and drank the brown liquid from the flask labelled as coffee, although it did not taste much like coffee. The ceiling fans swung lazily around, as the dusty windows gradually brightened.
The kitchen staff arrived after six-thirty, fearing for their lives; who wasn’t frightened to go near a hotel popular with foreigners? The recent attack on the Splendid Hotel in which twenty-nine people were killed was still fresh in everyone’s mind.
I sipped my coffee and watched the early guests brave the buffet table. And wondered why the ceiling fans did nothing to alleviate the heat.
The person I was to meet in the breakfast hall arrived on time. I recognised him from the photographs in my briefing folder, but even if I hadn’t, I would have known him for what he was. A government pencil pusher who described himself as a presidential aide. I was surprised to see that he had a companion: younger, and female. They helped themselves to the buffet and took a table in the middle of the breakfast hall, then glanced about anxiously without actually looking at anything. Low-level politicians playing at subterfuge. I stood and raised a hand. The woman noticed me. I beckoned them over.
The man was a few inches over six foot. His big chest, heavily muscled arms and small head made him look like an exaggerated figure from a superhero cartoon. Dressed in a black suit with a black tie, like he was on his way to a funeral. He had an envious look in his eyes. A clammy grip over the breakfast table.
“My name is Alassane,” he said. “But call me Alex. It is much easier for foreigners.” He spoke in the perfect French of the Burkinabé, the people of Burkina Faso.
“I’m sure I could manage Alassane,” I said, in my imperfect French.
Alassane introduced
