by Chris Ryan
‘Yes, sir,’ Bowman said. Because he didn’t really know what else to say.
‘Beautiful women are attracted to me,’ Seguma said. ‘They cannot help it. They are attracted to greatness, I suppose. It is a kind of spell.’
Bowman nodded politely.
Seguma said, ‘Are your brother soldiers guarding anyone else today?’
‘Not as far as we know, sir.’
His grin widened. ‘That is good news. Very good news indeed. It means that my British friends must know that I am very important, do you see? That is why they have sent their best men to protect me, and no one else. I am their top priority.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Bowman said.
‘You agree, then? That I’m an important man?’
‘Of course, sir.’
The president searched their faces. ‘And you would sacrifice yourselves to save me?’
‘If it comes down to it, sir. That’s why we’re here.’
‘Good, very good.’ Seguma took a hit on his cigar and said, ‘It is a great day for our two countries. Our burgeoning friendship, and the marriage of a princess. We should celebrate.’
He barked an order at the bodyguard with the pencil moustache. Deka sighed and brought over a bottle of Macallan 25-year-old single malt and three glasses. He set them down on the desk, sank back into his armchair. Seguma cracked open the whisky, filling his glass to the brim. He offered the bottle to the soldiers.
‘You will join me?’
Bowman said, ‘No thank you, sir. We’re fine.’
‘I insist.’
‘We can’t, sir.’
‘This is good whisky, you know. The best. Very expensive.’
‘That’s very kind of you, sir, but we’re on the job. Me and Dave won’t be drinking.’
Seguma clapped his hands. ‘Excellent! The right answer. Well done.’
Bowman said nothing.
‘I was just testing you both, you see,’ Seguma added.
‘Yes, sir.’
He reached for his tumbler and sipped his whisky. He smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘You’re very professional, I see. Only a good soldier would refuse such an offer.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I know such things, because I am a great warrior too. First in my class at Sandhurst, you know.’
Bowman made no reply. In the background he could hear the two women giggling in the bedroom. Lungu chatted on the phone, shouting over the sounds blasting out of the TV. Seguma took another sip of whisky, pointed to the medals pinned to his jacket.
‘Do you like these?’
‘Very impressive, sir,’ Bowman replied, trying to mask his growing irritation.
There’s nothing we can do, he told himself. We’re on the job. We’ve just got to indulge this guy.
He listened as the president pointed out each medal.
‘This one is for bravery,’ Seguma said. ‘This one, for valour. And this one, this is very special.’ He tapped a fat finger against a silver cross-shaped decoration with an engraved medallion in the centre. ‘Do you know it?’
‘No, sir.’
‘The Karatandu George Cross,’ Seguma explained proudly. ‘It is the highest honour our country can bestow. I earned it for an act of outstanding heroism, fighting against my enemies. I believe you have a similar award in your country.’
‘Aye,’ Bowman replied. ‘We do.’
‘Mine is better, naturally,’ Seguma said.
‘Yes, sir.’
The tyrant set down his whisky glass, reached for the bottle and poured himself a refill. Some of the liquid splashed across the desk. He tipped more booze down his throat and burped.
‘Enough talk of medals. Tell me about the guns,’ he said. ‘I like to know the make of the guns my men carry,’ he added.
Bowman swallowed his irritation and talked the president through their hardware. The pistols, the longs. Seguma listened attentively.
‘And you’re absolutely sure there is no threat to me?’ he asked.
Bowman caught a flash of something in his eyes. Something like fear.
He said, ‘We’re simply here as a precautionary measure. If anyone does try it on, it will be to embarrass you, sir. Nothing more than that.’
Seguma nodded slowly. Bowman was thinking about that momentary look he’d seen in the president’s eyes. Then Lungu hurried over, interrupting his train of thought. She glanced contemptuously at the soldiers before addressing her boss.
‘Excuse me, sir. We need to go through those papers now. The ones I was telling you about?’
‘Yes. Of course.’ Seguma gestured to Bowman and Kember. ‘I was just speaking to these brave warriors.’
The anxious look in his eyes had vanished. He was back to his old self. Like an actor on stage, changing impressions mid-performance. Seguma puffed out his chest and nodded at the soldiers.
‘We will speak again later,’ he said. ‘We can exchange war stories. I’ll tell you the story of how I won the George Cross.’
‘Yes, sir.’
*
They left the suite thirty seconds later. They had offered to run through the details of the new route to Westminster Abbey with the bodyguards, but they had merely shrugged and told Bowman and Kember to discuss it with the driver. They seemed oddly disinterested in the safety of their leader, Bowman thought.
He made his way down to the lobby with Kember. They showed their SIS-issued ID cards to the concierge and asked to speak with Seguma’s chauffeur. The concierge made a call. Two minutes later, a thin stern-faced man with silvery hair trotted into the lobby and introduced himself. A diplomatic driver employed by the local Karatandu Embassy. He had spent the past forty minutes sitting behind the wheel of a stretch limo in the underground car park and seemed grateful for the opportunity to stretch his legs. Kember showed him the maps he’d been carrying, pointing out the directions to the venue, the various escape routes if the principal came under attack. Once they had gone through the details, Bowman and Kember hustled back up to the fourteenth floor and took up their stations outside the suite.
At ten o’clock, Kember checked in with Lomas and Studley, the two guys in position at the Abbey. Bowman watched his partner wander down the corridor, phone clamped to his ear as he searched for a decent signal. He waited until Kember’s back was turned, hastily grabbed a tablet from his pill crusher and popped it into his mouth. He stashed the crusher back in his jacket pocket moments before Kember marched back over.
‘What’s the craic?’ asked Bowman.
‘All clear. The lads are in position. They’re ready.’
Kember stared at his partner, his brow heavily furrowed.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ he said. ‘You’re sweating like a Russian athlete at a dope test.’
Bowman shrugged and said, ‘Just a bit of a chill. Think I’m coming down with a cold or something.’
Kember stared closely at him. ‘You sure that’s all it is?’
‘It’s nothing, Geordie.’
‘We’ve got a long day ahead of us. The last thing we need is you coming down with the fucking flu.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You’d bloody better be. I really don’t want to have to bodyguard this twat by myself.’
Twenty-nine minutes later, the suite door clicked open.
Lungu swept into the corridor first, clutching a small leopard-print handbag. President Seguma followed a couple of paces behind, wearing his trademark trilby hat. In his right hand he gripped a stout rattan cane topped with a gleaming gold crown. The bodyguards brought up the rear, all three of them decked out in dark sunglasses in spite of the grey English weather.
Lungu took out her crocodile-leather-cased phone and called down to their driver. Letting him know they were on the way down. Then Okello, Bowman and Kember rode the lift down to the underground car park. Okello hopped into a black Mercedes S-Class sedan, while Bowman and Kember made for their Land
Rover Discovery. They were driving the petrol model, with bulletproof glass, armour-plated sides and enhanced brakes and suspension. The Discovery also came fitted with a covert radio, allowing them to stay in touch with the other guys on the Counter-Attack Team.
They got into the wagon, Kember took the wheel and steered out of the parking space. He followed Okello in the S-Class as the latter drove up the ramp and parked in front of the hotel, two metres behind the president’s car. Which turned out to be another S-Class, but the stretch limo version, with blacked-out windows and a Karatandu national flag mounted on the front fender.
Kember pulled up directly behind Okello’s S-Class, with the presidential limo ahead. A few moments later, Jallow and Deka strolled out of the lobby. Jallow shoved aside a businessman blocking the entrance, needlessly drawing attention to the team. An amateur move. Seguma walked a few steps behind his bodyguards, swinging his gold-crowned cane. Jallow yanked open the rear passenger door and said something to the president. Bowman didn’t catch the words. But the tone wasn’t friendly. Not a polite request. More like an order. Hurry up.
Seguma and Lungu ducked into the rear of the stretch limo. Jallow slammed the door shut, then swung round to the S-Class sedan parked to the rear. Jallow crammed his enormous frame into the back seat while Deka took the front passenger seat.
Then the convoy set off. The limo departed first, steering into the mid-morning traffic. Then the bodyguards in the sedan, followed by the SAS men in the Discovery. Thirty seconds later, they were motoring south on Park Lane, leaving the hotel in the rear-view.
Heading for Westminster Abbey.
Three
The column tooled south for half a mile, dominating the road in a loose line formation. The stretch limo in the lead scout position, the three bodyguards in the sedan four metres behind, Bowman and Kember bringing up the rear in their Discovery. Riding almost bumper to bumper with the S-Class in front. The roads around Buckingham Palace, Pall Mall and Victoria Street had been closed off to traffic, but the police had been notified of the alternative route being taken by President Seguma and the small convoy was swiftly waved through.
As they carried on, Bowman felt a vague anxiety creeping through his bones. He wondered when he’d be able to take his next pill, how long he’d have to wait. The anxiety gnawed at him as they motored south-east on Vauxhall Bridge Road. Kember was driving on the right side of the road, ready to overtake the two vehicles in front in case of an immediate threat to the president. Making sure they owned the road. Like a fat guy in the street, dominating the pavement, not allowing anyone to get past on either side.
‘Look at that shit,’ Kember said, pointing with his eyes at the sedan. ‘Those tossers are too far back from the principal.’
Up ahead, the limo eased to a halt at a set of traffic lights. The sedan carrying the bodyguards stopped two whole car lengths from the lead vehicle.
‘Bloody amateurs,’ Kember said as he stopped behind the sedan. ‘They should be riding bumper to bumper with the principal. If it kicks off, they’ll be too far away to do anything.’
Both soldiers automatically lowered their hands to the chrome door handles. Standard operating procedure when the target went static. If the principal came under attack, you could spring the handle and instantly debus from the wagon, rather than having to fumble with the lock. A tiny detail but in the heat of an ambush it could save a second or two. The difference between saving the principal’s life or failing to stop an assassin.
The lights stayed red. Bowman checked the side mirror, the pavement. He was looking for anyone approaching the limo, on foot or from another vehicle. He figured the most likely method of attack would be a gunman riding pillion on a motorbike. Easy enough to execute. Pull up alongside the limo while it was static. Empty a clip through the window, speed off again. By the time either bodyguard team had debussed, the killers would be long gone.
The lights changed.
Six metres ahead of the Discovery, the stretch limo set off again. Four metres further back, the sedan was slower off the mark. The limo started pulling ahead, increasing the distance between the principal and the three bodyguards in the second vehicle. Six metres, then eight. Then the sedan set off, moving slowly past the lights as it made no attempt to catch up with the limo.
‘Fuck this,’ Kember said.
He stamped his foot to the floor, mashing the accelerator. The engine roared as the Discovery surged forward, racing ahead of the sedan. As soon as they had overtaken it, Kember wrenched the wheel hard to the left, nudging the Discovery into the limo’s slipstream. Taking up the position in the middle of the column. They were directly behind President Seguma in the lead vehicle now, the rear of the limo no more than a bumper’s width ahead of them, with the bodyguards in the sedan trailing six or seven metres behind the Discovery.
Kember eased off the pedal, dropping the speed to twenty miles per hour, sticking close to the limo as they continued south on the near-empty road.
‘The BGs won’t appreciate that, Geordie,’ Bowman said.
‘I don’t give a crap. They’re pissing me off with their schoolboy tactics.’
‘Thought you said the threat to the president ain’t real.’
‘It isn’t,’ Kember said. ‘But I’m not having these twats make us look useless.’
The puzzling thought nicked at the base of Bowman’s skull again. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’ said Kember.
‘These guys are supposed to be the president’s top bodyguards. But they don’t seem bothered about keeping him safe.’
‘Hardly surprising, is it? They’re poor quality.’
‘It’s not just their training, mate.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘It’s their behaviour. The way they act around Seguma. They’re not timid. It’s almost as if they don’t respect him.’
‘Maybe they’ve got some leverage over him. They might know about the skeletons in his cupboard. Or maybe they just hate working for the prick.’
‘They’re working for a violent dictator, mate. You’d think they’d be treading on eggshells around him all the time.’
‘What else could it be?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bowman. ‘But there’s something off about him. He seems small.’
‘He’s hardly gonna be a bloody giant, is he?’
‘I mean, he looks ordinary. I can’t see anyone being afraid of this guy.’
Up ahead, the limo turned off to the left. Kember took the same turn, following the limo and the sedan as they trundled down a side street flanked by white stucco terraces. They hung a left at Millbank and shuttled north towards the Houses of Parliament.
They were getting close now. Bowman could hear the whump-whump of helicopters circling overhead. The area was swarming with police. Armed officers in dark uniforms, tactical vests and baseball caps patrolled the streets, clutching their Heckler & Koch MP5 carbines. Yellow-and-blue liveried cars and motorbikes lined the sides of the road.
Bowman kept his eyes pinned to the limo, searching for any potential threats. But apart from the heavy police presence the area was deserted.
‘Look at this,’ said Kember. ‘You can’t swing a cat without hitting a police officer or a bodyguard. There’s no way anyone could get close to the president.’
‘Seguma has got plenty of enemies,’ Bowman reminded him. ‘Someone might slip through the net, even with all these guys about.’
Kember looked at him. ‘Weren’t you a cop once?’
‘Three years,’ said Bowman. ‘In the Met. Before I enlisted.’
‘You weren’t one of them tossers with a speed gun, were you?’
Bowman laughed. ‘Nah, mate. I never did traffic duty.’
‘What were you, then? Plod?’
‘I did two years as a constable. Then I went into specialist work.’
‘Doing what? Arresting climate change activists?’
Bowman shook his head. ‘U
ndercover operations. Infiltrating gangs. Drug traffickers, arms dealers, that sort of thing.’
Kember gave him a long look. ‘Where? London?’
‘Sometimes. But I worked all over the country. Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester. Wherever they needed me. Sometimes I’d be undercover for months at a time.’
‘You make it almost sound dangerous.’
Bowman heaved his shoulders in a shrug. ‘There were less stressful ways to make a living. You had to have your wits about you all the time. One wrong move and your cover would be blown.’
‘You miss it?’
‘Not really,’ said Bowman. ‘I was a different person back then.’
‘Meaning?’
‘The police have a different priority to the army. They’re interested in putting the bad guys in handcuffs.’
‘And you ain’t?’
‘I want to kill bad guys,’ Bowman said. ‘That’s why I joined the Regiment, mate.’
The first weak shafts of sunlight were breaking through the clouds as they passed the Houses of Parliament. They took another left, turning on to Broad Sanctuary, and then Bowman saw the crowd.
A sprawling mass had gathered on Parliament Square, hemmed in by steel barriers, cheering and hollering. Dozens of police lined the side of the road, some dressed in black-hatted, white-gloved ceremonial uniform. Others wore less formal hi-vis jackets. Further to the west, a hundred metres away, a temporary stand had been erected for the world’s media. Camera crews jostled with reporters for space on the tiered benches, preparing for the arrival of the bride. No one was filming at the moment: the government had imposed a media blackout during the arrival of the VIPs.
Kember stayed bumper-close to the limo as it continued west on Broad Sanctuary. Bowman looked behind him and was surprised to see that the bodyguards in the sedan were still lagging several metres to the rear, making no attempt to close the gap to the rest of the column.
Up ahead, more spectators had been crammed into the space in front of the media centre. Many of them waved flags or clutched balloons, shouting ecstatically. After a hundred metres the limo veered off to the left, abruptly pulling up at the drop-off point on the west side of the Abbey. Twenty metres to the south, a tongue of red carpet ran from the kerb to the grand West Door.
