Games Traitors Play

37

Marchant and Prentice waited until the police had led the Russian couple away to reception before they stepped out of the villa. Giuseppe Demuro had sent a small golf buggy to pick them up, and the driver was waiting patiently in the shade, trying not to show any interest in the police activity. Discretion at all times, Giuseppe had told him. That was why, perhaps, he didn’t spot the two suited men moving fast and silently along the tiled path that cut behind the villa, only their heads and chests visible above the privet hedge. But Marchant saw them, and wondered how they could be travelling so fast with their upper bodies remaining still. They weren’t on bikes, their posture was too upright. Then he recognised one of them, and didn’t care about the laws of physics any more. It was the man who had ushered him onto the plane at Agadir.

‘We need to go,’ Marchant said to Prentice, nodding towards the two men, who were closing in on them quickly. Marchant jumped onto the back of the buggy with Prentice, who had a small hold-all with him. Marchant had nothing other than his phone, which Prentice had managed to retrieve from the Russians’ villa.

‘Giuseppe’s arranged a taxi, back entrance, where the staff live,’ Prentice said, looking at the two men, who were now less than fifty yards away and arcing around towards them. ‘Friends of yours?’ He had fixed the Russians, but hadn’t anticipated another threat.

‘Let’s move,’ Marchant said to the driver, ignoring Prentice, taking control. ‘Pronto.’

The driver sensed the urgency in Marchant’s voice and accelerated away across the smooth tiles, glancing back at the two men, who were looking across the hedgerows, their speed still a mystery.

‘They work for Abdul Aziz,’ Marchant said, holding on to the side of the buggy as it rounded a corner. ‘Gave me a free upgrade in Morocco.’

‘And they appear to have perfected the art of low-level flying,’ Prentice said. It was then that the path the Moroccans were on joined the main thoroughfare, revealing their means of transport. They were riding on Segway Personal Transporters, their big rubber wheels rippling across the tiles. Marchant had seen a member of the resort’s staff passing the pizza restaurant on one during lunch, thinking at the time that it was travelling faster than normal. They were meant to have a top speed of 12.5 mph, but the two Moroccans were travelling at least twice as quickly as that, leaning on the T-bars to propel themselves forward. The resort’s machines must have been customised, making them much quicker than Marchant and Prentice’s electric-powered golf buggy. Marchant had heard that the police in Britain had made similar changes to their own fleet of Segways.

‘Turn left up here, to the beach,’ Marchant said. The Moroccans were thirty yards from them now, and closing. ‘Pick me up in the car, further down the coast. I can outrun the Segways on sand.’

Before Prentice could say anything, Marchant had jumped off the buggy and was sprinting down to the beach, kicking off his flip-flops. Prentice turned around just in time to see the two men passing him. Without pausing, he swung his hold-all up and out of the buggy, knocking the nearest Moroccan off his Segway. He hit his head hard on the tiles and rolled over. The other man stopped, pulling hard on the T-bar, looked down at his colleague and then across to the beach, down which Marchant was running away from them. For a sickening moment, Prentice thought the Moroccan was going to pull a gun on him, but he just cursed and accelerated off on his Segway, staying on the smooth path that ran parallel to the coast.