The sun reached its zenith, beating down on the men on burial duty. Tractors were brought in from one of the nearby farms, and then D Squadron began the grisly task of clearing away the dead. Bowman looked on as they scooped up the corpses into the loading buckets and dumped them in an agricultural trailer. Another group of soldiers from the Karatandan platoon picked their way across the battlefield, gathering up body parts and severed torsos. The dead would be buried in a mass grave by the local forces, removing the evidence of the struggle before the arrival of the foreign press corps. The Foreign Office would be keen to downplay the fighting; they didn’t want some freelance photographer taking snaps of a field littered with hundreds of bodies. That would undermine the narrative they were building. The truth would remain buried for years, decades perhaps. Maybe even forever.
Ten minutes later, Gregory emerged from the mansion. He made his way over to the team, grinning broadly.
‘This way, guys,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some entertainment lined up for you in the basement.’
Webb lifted his chin and frowned heavily. ‘This is hardly the time for a celebratory piss-up.’
‘Trust me, you’ll want to see this.’
Bowman looked up at him. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Booze? Women?’
The grin stretched across Gregory’s face. ‘It’s something better than that.’
‘Like what?’ Casey said.
‘It’s a surprise,’ Gregory replied. ‘But I can guarantee you’ll enjoy it.’
Bowman sighed wearily. They had just lost a close friend, they were physically spent, tired beyond belief, and now Gregory was suggesting they hit the basement for a party. He couldn’t think of anything worse. Or less appropriate.
‘Come on, guys,’ Gregory insisted. ‘This won’t take long, I promise.’
Bowman and Casey looked at each other. Gregory stood there, his eyes glowing with excitement. Then Webb shrugged indifferently. ‘May as well go and have a look,’ he said. ‘Nothing else to do until we get the clearance from Six, anyway.’
‘All right,’ Bowman said, climbing stiffly to his feet. ‘Let’s see it.’
‘Great.’ Gregory clasped his hands together. ‘You won’t regret it, guys. You’re in for a treat.’
Webb gave Casey a hand, helping her stand up, and then they followed Gregory towards the front door. Bowman looked round but Mallet was nowhere to be seen.
‘Where’s John?’ he asked nobody in particular.
‘Guest house,’ Gregory replied. ‘He’s in the conference room with Thriepland. They’re having a joint briefing with Six. He can join us later on.’
He led them through the entrance, past the river of splintered wood and broken glass in the atrium. As they trudged down the stairs to the basement, Bowman wondered why Gregory was so excited. He obviously had something big to show them. Entertainment, he had said. I guarantee you’ll enjoy it. But not beer or women. Some sort of orgy, perhaps, Bowman reflected. He’d heard of dictators hosting private sex parties. Maybe Seguma kept a secret harem in the basement.
Gregory paced down the corridor until he reached the door on the left, several metres short of the wine cellar. The rusted hinges grated in protest as he ushered the team into a dimly lit corridor with bare concrete walls and several steel doors on either side. Bowman counted twelve of them in total. The doors were closed, with arrow-slit viewing panels and food hatches set above the locks. Like cells in a police station, thought Bowman. Or a prison wing.
‘Where are you taking us?’ he asked.
‘You’ll see,’ Gregory said.
He stopped in front of one of the cell-like doors and fished out a set of keys from his pocket. A queasy feeling moved through Bowman as he watched Gregory twist open the heavy-duty lock. Something was wrong here, thought Bowman. Very wrong.
Bolts clanged. The door groaned open.
‘In here, guys,’ Gregory said.
They entered a damp, dingy space with bare concrete walls and strip lighting. Dried patches of blood scabbed the floor. A bucket in the far corner overflowed with faecal matter. On the left side of the room Bowman saw a bundle of bloodied cloths on a wooden bench, next to a set of DIY tools. There was a power drill, a bone saw, a blowtorch, an iron bar, several knives, a claw hammer and a selection of rusted nails. A GSh-18 semi-automatic pistol.
And a cattle prod.
In the middle of the room, a rebel had been stripped naked and chained by his wrists and ankles to a metal bedframe. A short, stocky man with a chinstrap beard. Bowman had seen his face before, two lifetimes ago. Back in London. The lobby of the Broxbury Hall Hotel. On the TV. The mountainside interview with the reporter. The man had been wearing a pair of aviator shades back then, but the face was unmistakably the same.
General Moses Kakuba.
The rebel leader’s torso was covered in bruises. One of his ears had been sliced off. Chunks of flesh were missing from his arms and legs. A filthy rag had been stuffed into his mouth, stifling his screams of terror.
Colonel Lubowa stood over the prisoner, the sleeves of his army shirt rolled up to the elbows. He was beating General Kakuba senseless with his fists, delivering vicious blows to his stomach, his face. A second man dressed in the uniform of the Presidential Guard leaned against the bench, cheering Lubowa on. The dull wet slap of bone against flesh echoed through the cell as the Colonel shovelled a punch into the prisoner’s ribs.
Bowman’s stomach went cold. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said.
‘What the fuck is going on here?’ Webb snapped.
‘I wanted to show you the secret interrogation centre we run down here. This is where
