The Watchman (28 page)

I rode that one easily enough. There was a time when it would have been an easy label to pin on somebody – a not-so-veiled insult. Coming from Pryce it sounded petty. I couldn't figure out why she was so hostile, and wondered if it was anything to do with me being an outsider.

‘We all work for money,' I told her. ‘Me, you, Tober here – and Vale. But some people have the luxury of being able to dress it up in things like duty, honour or patriotism.'

She recoiled a little at that, and I noticed Tober grinning in the background. The bastard was enjoying this.

‘Like me, you mean?' Her eyes flashed with righteous anger. ‘I don't make any apologies for being patriotic.'

‘Nor should you. But don't get carried away with thinking that makes you better than anybody else, or because your boss is the British government. And –' I held up a hand as she looked ready to fly back at me, but kept my voice low – ‘don't forget it was you who came here to sit down and talk with terrorists and pirates. Those same people were plotting to take off your head.'

It was a low blow and not a particularly valid point, but I was tired and irritated by her snitty manner.

Tober nodded in approval, then put his head down and closed his eyes. The soldier's prime maxim: when you can't do anything, sleep; because you never know when you might get the next opportunity.

We sat and waited, alone with our thoughts, until I heard the familiar buzz of Piet's Daisy circling round from the north-west. He needed to see us clearly enough to get an ID, so he knew he wasn't flying into a trap. I told Tober to keep us covered and stepped out into the open with Pryce and Madar close behind.

I waited. I could hear the engine but couldn't see him. He was coming in low to avoid being spotted by Musa's men, but it meant the engine noise was dispersed over a wide area. I realized that there was a chance of him flying right over without seeing us.

Then Madar stepped up and whipped off his shirt, and began waving it frantically in the air.

I think he was just excited at the prospect of seeing an airplane. But it worked.

Seconds later Daisy appeared, the engine howling as Piet cleared the tops of a bunch of trees, scaring up a raggedy group of crows in protest. He banked sharply, his bush-trained eyes probably spotting Madar's shirt immediately, and set down on a clear stretch of ground about three hundred metres away.

‘I
f you're not Vauxhall Cross,' said Tober, ‘what are you?' We watched as Piet and Pryce disappeared over the trees, while Madar crept around in the bush watching out for signs of Musa's gunmen. ‘Special Activities Division? One of your black ops units?'

‘None of those. Like I told Pryce, I'm freelance.'

‘But you're American.'

‘So?'

‘How did Vale find you?'

I looked at him. His brow was furrowed and I knew what he was really asking. Why an American when the Brits had plenty of their own highly skilled private contractors who could have done this?

It was a good question.

‘He heard about some work I did and needed someone unattached. You know the way it goes.' With all the quiet time I'd had since arriving here, I had privately speculated about who else might have put my name forward to Vale, apart from Beckwith of the DEA. It was obviously somebody in the American intelligence community, but that was a seriously large field to choose from. Whoever they were, they'd been cute; queuing the selection of a freelance operator with no ties and no back-trail gave them clean hands if that operator was picked up. ‘What about you?'

He told me about joining the Royal Marines, then applying for selection to the Special Boat Service.

‘And I asked you if you could handle a boat.' I pulled a wry smile. ‘Consider me suitably embarrassed.'

‘Well, it is a sort of entry-level requirement for the job. If you don't do boats, you should join one of the other lot. You weren't to know.' He went on to explain that after spending some years in the SBS, he did a couple of black jobs for SIS and was posted to them on a two-year attachment, working in a team called the Basement.

‘Why do they call it that?' I asked, although I figured I knew. Part of getting to know and trust someone you're going to depend on in hostile circumstances is breaking the ice any way you can, even with obvious questions. At times like this, even the trivial stuff counts.

‘It's where we operate from: the basement of Vauxhall Cross.' He grinned. ‘Just occasionally, they let us out into the daylight to play with stuff.'

‘Like this time.'

His face went serious. ‘Yeah, well. This was something else. Somebody screwed up. Shit happens, though, right?' He shrugged, although I got the feeling he wasn't going to forget this mission anytime soon. ‘You got family?'

‘No.' More personal stuff, although I didn't mind him asking. ‘Never got round to it. Got close once, but it didn't work out. You?'

‘Married, divorced, currently seeing a girl. She'd be royally pissed off if she knew where I was right now. I told her I was in Norway on a training exercise.' He scrubbed at his face. ‘Good job I was cooped up in that villa and not getting a suntan, eh? I'd have some real explaining to do.'

‘You might have to yet,' I reminded him. ‘They do get sun in Norway. Reflects off the snow.'

He gave me a look, no doubt full of questions, but now wasn't the time.

Just then Madar gave a soft whistle. We moved over to join him and scanned the horizon where he was pointing. Trees, shrubs, rocks and … movement.

‘Two men,' he said quietly, and used the AK to point them out. ‘They have guns and are coming this way.'

I took the rifle from him and checked through the scope. Sure enough, two figures were walking towards us. They were a good kilometre away, easily visible in the clear morning air. One of them was looking down at the ground, while his companion had his head up, watching for trouble. They looked like they had done this before.

‘Trackers,' I said, and checked the area behind them. I couldn't see anybody else but they were probably out there somewhere. Musa had sent men ahead who knew how to read the ground, and by the way they were moving they weren't having any trouble reading our trail. I gave it another fifteen minutes at most before they were right here where we were standing. Piet's machine landing and taking off had been a dead giveaway.

We set off at a good clip directly east, keeping between the two men and the sun in case we had to turn and blindside them. My plan was to make for Kamboni and liberate a boat. It would mean walking a little further rather than heading directly for the town, but it was a safer way of approaching the beach and seeing what was on offer.

It was thirsty work and getting hotter with each step as the sun crawled higher. I kept a close eye on Madar, although he seemed to have the resilience of youth on his side, in spite of his injuries. But I knew that with youth, when tiredness comes it does so suddenly. I didn't want him collapsing on us.

I also kept watch on the cloud cover. Just before taking off, Piet had mentioned rain coming. I wasn't seeing any signs of it yet but I knew that rain in this region arrived with little warning.

‘It'll be short and heavy,' he'd warned, handing over a bottle of water and some energy bars. ‘Not monsoon, but enough to get you soaked through. It'll also make your tracks easier to follow on soil, so stick with grass or rocky ground wherever you can. Whatever you do, don't stop, because the guys following you won't.'

‘Thanks.' I didn't mind the rain. If it was enough to provide cover, but not stop us moving, we could use it to get further away from the men tracking us, who would be slowed down by having to read the ground for signs once they found we'd changed direction.

‘Call Vale as soon as you can,' I told him. ‘I'll be in touch later.' I backed off to let him taxi ready for take-off, and with a brief wave, they were gone.

We made good time before the clouds scudded over and the rain fell. It was like walking into a warm shower. At first it was enjoyable; it was my first soaking for days and I relished the feel of water on my skin, which felt cracked and dry. But after twenty minutes non-stop, I was beginning to worry about the men behind us. If they had reached our last position, and worked out our direction of travel, they might be pushing on at a faster pace and not bothering to look for tracks that might have been obliterated by the rain in the hopes of catching up with us.

I put on speed. Tober matched it easily but Madar was struggling until the former Royal Marine hustled him along with one hand on his arm. It was tough on the kid but nothing like what he'd experience if Musa's men caught us.

Most of the going was fairly flat, the harsh soil dotted with brush and coarse grass littered with spiky thorns. I used the occasional elevations in the terrain as cover by going around them, then putting them squarely at our backs, and splitting up for short distances. It was a messy way to travel, but if it messed with the trackers' minds and had them scouting for our trail, it might give us a brief head start.

When we reached a track running north-south, we stopped just long enough to check for traffic, then ran across and into the bush on the other side.

I now knew where we were, even through the curtain of rain. We had angled further south than I'd planned and were uncomfortably close to the villa.

I called a brief halt and explained our location to the other two. Madar looked ready to freak out, eyes rolling at the thought of running into Musa again. I didn't blame him; some of the men had given him a hard time and Musa had a zero-option policy on those who displeased him. I patted his arm to reassure him and explained that neither of us would allow him to get caught. Tober joined in and this seemed to work. Madar looked doubtful but managed a sickly grin.

The next problem was what to do now. We couldn't exactly walk into town and take a boat – we'd be spotted immediately. And I doubted all of Musa's men would have left the area. But finding a place to bury ourselves until darkness fell wasn't going to be easy.

Tober solved the problem with cool logic.

‘They won't expect us to go back to the villa. It's not far from there to where the fishermen beach their boats, and it's easy enough to hold for a while if they do find us.' He smiled easily. ‘Not great, I grant you, but we don't have a lot of choice.'

I agreed. The idea was sound; going back to the villa was the last thing Musa would expect us to do. The last he or his men had seen of us was hightailing it into the bush, heading due west. And Tober was spot on with the boats: our fastest way out of here was finding a skiff with an engine to carry us south down the coast to Kenyan territory. As long as we got a good head start on any pursuit, we didn't have too far to go.

The only question was, how much of the villa had survived the double blast of the C-4?

‘
Y
ou what
?'

Vale thought Moresby was going to explode. He'd just informed the operations director of Angela Pryce's escape from Somalia. As soon as he'd received confirmation of her arrival with Piet in Mombasa, he'd made arrangements for her onward journey to Nairobi accompanied by two embassy security officials. Then he had made his way upstairs.

He had no clear plan on how he was going to handle the revelation, but given the circumstances the direct approach seemed best. With an SIS officer coming in out of the field under close escort, and reports of the mysterious explosions on the coast already out there, news would soon filter out among embassy staff. The wires to London would be buzzing as the dots were joined up and speculation increased.

‘She was lifted out of the area near Kamboni by light aircraft at daybreak and is now on her way back to the UK,' he explained ‘What could have been an unmitigated disaster has been averted – at least in part.' He sat down without being invited and waited for the storm to sweep over him.

It wasn't long in coming.

‘This is outrageous!' Moresby's face was swollen with rage. He jumped up from his desk and kneed a drawer closed with a bang, sending a bundle of Top Secret papers sliding to the floor. ‘What the hell have you done, Vale? If you've compromised these talks I'll have you charged with violation of protocol and abuse of office. You'll be lucky to walk the streets when I'm finished with you!'

‘Sit down, Colin.' Vale's voice was as sharp as a whip, and stopped Moresby in his tracks. ‘Listen to me and I might manage to save your career. As it is, there's no guarantee that you haven't already lost a fine support specialist with this idiotic plan of yours. I'd stay away from the Basement for a while until it blows over; they might tie weights to your ankles and drop you in the river.'

Moresby sat down, his mouth slack. ‘What do you mean? I don't understand. How did you—'

‘I ran a black op. Off the books.' There. It was out in the open. The shocked expression on Moresby's face told its own picture. There was no going back now; it was full disclosure and wait for the fall-out. But he wasn't going to wait for Moresby to pick up the phone and call the dogs on him. ‘I had no confidence in your plan from the start, not once I heard you'd provided no backup for the two officers going in, nor any workable exit strategy. As soon as I heard who was involved at the other end, I had a feeling it would end badly. So I took steps to protect our personnel.' He brushed a speck of lint from his knee. ‘Would you like to hear how before you turn me in?'

Moresby's eyes were like flint. ‘This had better be good, Vale. Not that it makes any difference. You're still finished.' He reached out a hand and tapped a button on his desk console, a sign that he intended recording every detail.

‘Because I had no faith in the safe conclusion of your plan,' Vale continued, ignoring the threat, ‘I hired a specialist of my own. One man to keep tabs on Pryce and Tober and monitor their progress. He remained in the background and reported back to me. He had orders to step in if things went bad … which didn't take long, as it happened, thanks to your misplaced confidence in Xasan and Musa.'