A crashing to her right signalled the man was coming back. She held her breath. Then a darker shape than the background foliage appeared, charging through the thicket but moving with surprising speed.
Riley tensed. If he carried on his path, he’d crash right into her — and she had nowhere to go. She gripped the stick tightly and waited for the impact, hoping she didn’t get mown down like a helpless fairy.
But the intruder must have spotted her at the last second. He suddenly veered away with a muttered oath, hurtling at an angle through the trees and leaving behind a whipping frenzy of shaking branches and falling leaves. One of the branches swatted Riley across the mouth and sent her spinning, and by the time she got to her feet, the silent watcher was gone and a tall figure was standing over her with an impassive look on his face.
He was holding a pistol pointed at her head.
‘Did you see him?’ Riley asked, spitting out bits of bark and clambering to her feet. Her pride was more bruised than her face, and she wondered where this latest man had sprung from. God knows how they taught people like him and Palmer to move, she thought. They were like ghosts.
‘See who?’ he replied, and before she could protest, he’d spun her round and pushed her against a tree and was running expert hands over her. It was as impersonal and casually expert as it was demeaning, and she wanted to drop-kick him into the undergrowth.
When Palmer appeared, he was no longer carrying the shotgun, but had a furious Keagan in tow, shouting into a small radio. The minder who had searched her waited for a nod from his boss, then stepped back and disappeared among the trees without a word. Riley decided there was nothing wrong with their teamwork, even if their manners sucked.
‘You okay?’ said Palmer. He spoke automatically, but the look in his eyes showed concern.
‘No, I’m bloody not!’ Riley muttered. ‘That ape just treated me like a criminal.’
‘That was my fault,’ said Keagan. ‘I forgot to give him a description.’ He went back to his radio, clearly not too disturbed by the omission.
Palmer made a signal to Riley to follow him, and they walked back to the car. ‘We might as well leave,’ he explained. ‘Right now, we’re in the way. It’s still their job.’
‘They’ve got four watchers in place, yet someone gets close enough to lob a brick,’ Riley said angrily, pulling off her boots and replacing them with shoes. Her upper lip was smarting and she had a flash print of the man’s eyes in her mind, boring into hers. Not that it would help her recognise him again. The smears of black on his face had done a good job of breaking up his features. ‘Some protection team.’
‘Maybe.’ Palmer nodded, deep in thought. He looked back towards Keagan, busy organising his men to make a sweep of the woods for their missing colleague.
‘You’ve gone all quiet and moody,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’
Palmer climbed in the car and started the engine. ‘Something about this doesn’t add up. Keagan told me he’s been told to stand down as of tomorrow, ready for re-assignment. That’s another way of saying that Myburghe no longer rates a security team.’
‘So?’
‘If Myburghe was still an important member of the diplomatic corps, there’s no way they’d leave him exposed — especially if serious threats had been made against him. It would be like telling anyone who cared to listen that it was open season on Her Majesty’s Foreign Office staff. They’d have nutcases and terrorists coming out of the woodwork all over the world.’
‘So they’ve cut him adrift?’
He nodded. ‘Looks like it. The only question is why?’
‘Maybe Tristram will tell me.’
‘If you could get him to talk. And if he knows anything.’
They drove back to London.
‘You were out in Colombia, weren’t you?’ Riley looked across the table at John Mitcheson, who was staring dreamily back, a happy smile on his face and a glass of wine in his hand. They were in a local Italian restaurant having a late dinner. Mitcheson had completed his latest assignment earlier than he’d thought, but was about to go off on another the next morning. After the excitement of her day in the woods, it was a welcome diversion.
‘Uh-huh. For a while.’
‘What did you do out there?’
‘A bit of training, mostly. Their government supplied the anti-drugs units and the British army ran the courses. Why?’
‘Bear with me. What’s FARC?’
Mitcheson sat up, eyes instantly losing the dreamy look. ‘Bloody hell, that’s a conversation stopper.’
‘Sorry. It’s a work thing. Palmer told me a bit about them, their fight with the Colombian government. Are they dangerous?’
He nodded. ‘As snakes. The British and American governments are helping the Colombians wipe out the poppy fields, which is where FARC and the cartels make their money. No poppies, no money, no weapons, no fight. If they can’t have a pop at the army or the anti-drugs troops, they take it to the streets and try to knock off anyone they don’t like the look of.’
‘Successfully?’
‘When they want to. They’ve killed some DEA people — the US Drug Enforcement Administration — in the past few years, and a lot of Colombian army and police, along with some judiciary. They don’t mess about.’
‘Is it dangerous being an embassy employee down there?’
‘It can be. It’s a dangerous place.’
‘Does FARC ever target them specifically?’
‘It’s been known. Not so much the Yanks — they’re too well guarded, although they’ve lost some undercover people. But the British are less inclined to use high walls. Other than a team of Redcaps at the embassy, and a few special forces guys helping train the local army and police, embassy staff have to take care of themselves, how they travel, where they go and stuff. But nobody can be protected one hundred percent. On the other hand, FARC know if they go too far, they’ll bring down a lot of heat on themselves.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a sensitive situation, but so far it’s been self-regulating. Why the interest? What’s Palmer got involved in?’
She brought him up to date with the events of the past couple of days, finishing with the watcher in the woods.
He listened without interruption, then said gravely, ‘You should watch your back. The emails don’t sound like FARC, but if they are behind the threats, they won’t be playing around. It’ll come to a head sooner or later.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They play the odds. If something doesn’t pay, they’ll leave well alone. And they rarely take the fight outside their own boundaries unless they really get upset.’ He paused. ‘And that’s what Frank should be asking himself.’
‘What?’
‘If it’s FARC or any of the cartels, what the hell could a British Ambassador have done to stir up that kind of hornets’ nest?’
***********
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘Good morning,’ Palmer murmured. ‘ Rats ‘R Us. We’ve come about the infestation.’
Myburghe’s butler, Rockface, was standing in the doorway to Colebrooke House. He stared down at Riley and Palmer as if hoping for an excuse to pick them both up and toss them into the fountain, and looked quite capable of doing so. His shoulders seemed to twitch in anticipation.
‘Staff are supposed to use the side door,’ he growled. The faint sneer he gave Riley clearly indicated that Palmer had explained the reason for her previous visit.
‘We’re not staff, sunshine,’ Palmer replied easily. ‘Now, do we stand out here all day?’
The other man blinked slowly before stepping aside. ‘I’ll tell Sir Kenneth you’re here.’