The Watchman

Fifty-Four

‘If 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?