‘Where is everyone?’ Loader rasped.
They hurried back down the corridor towards the reception area. From upstairs Bowman could hear the stomp of boots on carpet, Casey and Webb shouting, ‘Clear!’ to one another as they rapidly searched through the rooms on the first floor.
Only one floor left to clear.
‘Come on!’ Bowman roared as he cantered across the reception. Glass shards cracked like ice underfoot as he sprinted back down the corridor to the right. Loader ran after him, and they crashed through an unmarked door leading down to the basement level. A secret network of emergency operation rooms ran underneath the main house, Bowman recalled from the layout. Somewhere for the president and his entourage to bunker down if they came under attack.
He raced down the corridor, past the exposed pipework and ducts, past the ammo crates stacked against the bare walls. They ducked in and out of the various storerooms, the admin offices, the living quarters. The private cinema. The games room.
Empty.
So where the fuck is the family?
Bowman swung back into the corridor and made for the door at the far end. The last room to check. The president’s private library. Which also housed the palace broadcasting equipment. Bowman remembered something from the briefing about Seguma’s family issuing hourly radio broadcasts from the same room. Imploring the soldiers to stay loyal to their great leader.
He crashed through the door, stumbled and almost tripped over the corpse of a palace guard. The man lay on the floor, his dead eyes as wide as golf balls. His lower jaw had been completely blown away. Bowman stepped around the slotted guard, dread flooding his guts as he pushed into the room. He looked up. Turned to his left.
Then he saw the bodies.
Twenty-Three
Bowman stopped cold just inside the room. He was looking at a tangled mass of limbs and torsos. Five guys and two women. Two other victims, dressed in the uniform of the Presidential Guard, were sprawled on the carpet beside a desk. There was a presidential seal on the wall behind the desk and a cluster of lighting equipment and camera tripods and cables. The other seven corpses all wore civilian clothing. Dark suits for the men, skirts and blouses and heels for the women. There was blood everywhere.
Bowman lowered his weapon and approached the victims. The hot stink of gunsmoke and blood clung to the air, thickening in his nostrils. He dropped down beside the dead civilians. Some of them appeared to have been mutilated beyond recognition. One guy had been shot in the face, seemingly at point-blank range. The killers had taken their time. Bowman saw a woman with her eyes gouged out. A man with his throat slashed open. A yawning gash of cartilage and tissue glistened beneath his slackened jaw.
The second time in his life he’d walked into a murder scene.
‘It’s the family,’ Loader said between ragged draws of breath. ‘They’ve been murdered.’
Bowman stared at them in silence, his jaw tightly clenched. He didn’t immediately recognise any of the victims from the photographs in the Shed. But it was hard to be sure. He’d only glanced at the snaps on the wall for a few seconds. The early hours of yesterday morning. Another lifetime. And some of the faces were horribly disfigured.
‘I don’t know, mate,’ he said. ‘It might be them.’
‘Who else could it be? The family are the only civvies we’re expecting to find here. We’re too fucking late.’
Bowman ran his eyes over the corpses. Something about the scene didn’t make sense. ‘I don’t see any kids.’
‘So what?’
‘The president said we’d find his wife and children here. His youngest kid is only a few months old. His brother has a couple of twin girls. If this lot are his relatives, where are the children?’
‘What difference does it make?’ Loader said. ‘The family has been massacred.’
He left the room and hurried upstairs to fetch the others. A short time later there was an urgent patter of footsteps in the corridor. Mallet and Mavinda entered the room, stepping awkwardly around the guard with the missing jaw. Loader followed them inside with Casey and Webb. The major took in the scene, then knelt down and examined the bodies. He inspected each of them quickly, stretched to his full height and gave a slow shake of his head.
‘These are not members of Mr Seguma’s family,’ he announced.
Loader’s brow dropped. ‘Who are they, then?’
Mavinda gently tapped his foot against the nearest body. ‘This one is the education minister. This one, over here, is the minister for agriculture,’ he added, indicating the guy with the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. ‘Or was, I should say.’
‘And the others?’
‘Two others are cabinet ministers. The rest are staffers. Administrators. Nobodies.’
His voice was callous, cold.
‘What about the first floor?’ Bowman asked. ‘Anyone up there?’
‘All clear,’ Webb replied.
‘The barracks?’
Mavinda said, ‘Some of my guys are searching it as we speak. But it looks like they’re empty.’
Loader stared at the major. ‘So where the fuck is the family?’
‘Maybe the KUF has taken them hostage,’ Bowman said, thinking fast.
‘Why would they do that?’
‘General Kakuba could use them as bargaining chips. He could threaten to execute the president’s wife and kids immediately unless he agrees to step aside.’
Webb made a pained face. ‘If that’s true, we’re finished.’
‘We’ve got a live one here!’ Casey called out.
The others ran over. She was kneeling beside one of the guards. A skinny hollow-cheeked guy with long bony hands and eyes set deep in their sockets. He had the drowsy, comatose look of the almost-dead. Waiting for the light to appear at the end of the tunnel. His lips were cracked. His breath escaped his lungs in shallow, erratic rasps. Bowman glanced down at the man’s wound. The man had been drilled through the guts. The lifeblood was oozing out of him, drenching his shirt and groin.
His lips moved slightly, making a feeble sound. He repeated the same word over and over.
‘What’s he saying?’ Loader asked.
‘He is
