There was no border crossing. They simply followed the road signs pointing to Nice, steered into a one-way tunnel bored into a sheer rock wall, and when they came out the other side they were back on French soil. Sixteen miles from the airport, according to the satnav. A forty-minute drive through winding coastal roads and city traffic. Which meant they would arrive at the private terminal building shortly before noon.
Bowman stuck to the cliff road as it snaked around the mountainside, roughly parallel to the coastline. Loader, Casey and Webb tailed close behind in the E-Class. Several minutes later, Mallet’s phone vibrated with an incoming message. He scrolled through a long message, hit Delete, put his phone away.
‘Any word on that jet?’ Bowman asked.
‘It just landed at Northolt. There’s going to be a short turnaround before it can take off again. They need to refuel the jet, procure our weaponry and kit, ferry the diplomats over.’
‘How long before it gets here?’
‘Three hours or so, Six reckons. We should be in the air by three o’clock at the latest.’
Bowman glanced at the digital clock: 11.26. The jet would land in Nice soon after two o’clock. There would be another brief turnaround before they took off again. Then a seven-hour flight to Libreville, followed by a sixty-minute connection to the only international airport in Karatandu. Both countries were in the same time zone as France, he knew. They would touch down in Karatandu at around 23.00.
‘What’s the word on the coup?’ he asked.
‘No news. It’s all quiet at the moment.’
‘Not for much longer.’
‘No.’
Bowman gripped the wheel tightly. ‘Let’s hope this thing doesn’t kick off before we land. I’ve had enough nasty surprises for one day.’
Mallet stared at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Have you got a problem?’
‘I thought we were going in to arrest Lang, not chuck him off a balcony.’
‘The plan changed.’
‘Is that really what happened?’
‘Don’t get shirty with me, lad. The decision was down to Six. We were following orders. There’s nothing more to it than that.’
‘I just want to know what’s going on.’
‘You’re part of the Cell now. This is how we work. You’ve got to stay fluid. React to situations as they happen. Things can change very quickly in our line of work.’
Bowman glanced sidelong at him. ‘The other guys didn’t look too surprised to me.’
‘They’ve been on the Cell for a while. They know the score. You don’t fight criminals with kid gloves.’
‘Still, you could have warned us before you threw Lang over the balcony.’
Mallet made a face. ‘Christ, don’t tell me you feel sorry for the bastard.’
‘I couldn’t give a crap about Lang,’ Bowman said. ‘I’m talking about the watch he was wearing. That was worth half a million quid, John.’
Mallet chuckled. ‘I’ll buy you a fake Rolex when we get back home. Call it even.’
They drove on. After a couple of miles, Mallet pointed to a rest stop at the roadside. Which was really just a patch of worn blacktop with an overflowing bin and a chicken-wire fence, bookended by tufts of dense vegetation. Beyond the fence, the ground sloped sharply away towards the glittering sea. A grey Volvo XC90 SUV was parked up on the far side of the lay-by. Bowman looked round but saw no other motors or people in the area.
‘Pull over,’ Mallet said.
Bowman pointed the Range Rover into the lay-by and skid-halted to the rear of the XC90. Loader pulled up a couple of metres behind, loose gravel crunching beneath the tyres. Bowman cut the engine.
Mallet said, ‘Everyone out.’
Boots thudded on the worn blacktop as the three men got out. They waited while a familiar face debussed from the XC90. Bowman recognised him immediately. The guy with the terrible comb-over. The UKN they had met in the underground car park.
He lumbered over to the wagon, handed Mallet a set of keys.
‘I was told to expect a live package,’ he said.
‘He’s in the boot,’ Mallet said back.
‘Hardware?’
‘Holdall in the front passenger footwell. Everything’s inside.’
‘Anything I need to worry about?’
‘The guns haven’t been fired. Nothing to link to any crime.’
‘The wagon?’
‘It’s hot. You’ll need to dispose of it.’
‘Keys?’
‘Inside.’
They swapped cars. Comb-over plodded over to the Range Rover and squeezed himself behind the wheel. Bowman, Mallet and Seguma took the Volvo. The president spread himself on the back seat, the soldiers sat upfront. Mallet tapped icons on the built-in satnav, entering the address for the airport. The Range Rover pulled away from the lay-by and motored west. Bowman waited until it was out of sight around the bend. Then he steered onto the mountain road, Loader and Webb and Casey shadowing them in the E-Class.
The satnav told him they were eleven miles from the airport. Twenty-three minutes away. Arrival time, 11.58. Bowman gripped the wheel tightly and clenched his jaw.
Eleven hours from now, we’ll be landing in Karatandu, he thought.
And God knows what’s waiting for us when we get there.
Eighteen
Mallet spent the rest of the journey firing off messages and glancing at his phone screen, checking for further updates from Six. Bowman kept his gaze fixed on the road, barely able to keep his eyes open. He was knackered. He hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours. The adrenaline he’d felt during the arrest had worn off. And now he was going to get on a plane and fly to a country on the brink of chaos, to protect the relatives of a despised tyrant. Every so often he glanced at Seguma in the back seat. The guy looked pensive. Three hours ago, he had been on the brink of losing his presidency. Now he was back in the game. The biggest gamble of his life. Like a guy at a roulette table, staking everything he owned on red. He could win big, or lose bigger, but the result was out of his control.
The convoy joined the slow crawl of traffic at the airport and hit the private terminal a few minutes before
