The Judas gate

'Good heavens, no.'

'I see, so I am not attractive to you?'

'You are immensely attractive, Fatima. It's just that I wouldn't be good enough for you.'

'Do you mean in bed?'

'That's only about one per cent of any relationship. I'm not good enough for you or any woman: I'm a bad man. I spoil things and that includes relationships. I have a very, very wonderful mother and I spoil it for her, too.'

'I think that's the saddest thing I ever heard,' Fatima told him.

'I'm inclined to agree with you.'

She walked out and he sat there for a while, then pulled his rucksack over, produced his AK47, took it apart then put it together again effortlessly. Dillon came out of a catnap and found Holley standing by the other bunk, his face – beneath the crumpled jungle hat – already darkened. 'Come on, Sean, ready to go.'

He moved out, Dillon pulled on his hat, grabbed his weapons bag and AK47 and followed him into the saloon, where he found Miller already geared up. Hakim was sitting, waiting, and Holley was slinging his weapons bag across his body to the left. He picked up his AK47 in his right hand.

Dillon took some camouflage cream from a tin on the table and rubbed it on his face. 'What about the sentries?'

'I've taken care of that,' Holley told him. 'Shot them both.'

Hakim looked sick as Dillon said, 'That's all right then. Let's get out of here.'

They left the launch very quietly, everything still in the darkened shack, and moved along the path of the marsh in line, Dillon leading the way, Hakim next, then Miller, with Holley at the rear. When they reached the boats, they examined them quickly.

'I think we should take both,' Dillon said. 'Holley and Hakim in one because of that "special relationship", and Miller and me in the other. It means we've got backup.'

'I'll buy that,' Holley said. 'We'll row for a couple of hundred yards before starting the engines and, with luck, they can coast along on a very low rumble.'

'And remember the mobile phone,' Miller said. 'It'll be useful in this kind of terrain if you stray.' He said to Hakim, 'Get the oars out then, you bastard, and show us what you can do.'

The Colonel did as he was told. They led the way and Dillon and Miller followed, the Irishman at the oars. The reeds were alive with life in the pale moonlight as they floated past, wings beating and muted cries as they disturbed the birds.

After a while, Dillon said, 'I've had enough of this, so I'm shipping my oars and starting up.' His thumb on the button produced a gratifying growl, which he turned down until it balanced out to a pleasant throbbing. Hakim achieved the same results and they nosed into a sort of small lagoon, the reeds towering above them, the half-moon still glowing in a dark sky that was already clearing. They floated there together.

'Where are we?' Holley asked Hakim. 'How far to Diva?'

'Perhaps a mile,' Hakim told him, and pointed. 'From here, think twelve o'clock as you look ahead, and Diva is ten o'clock.'

Way behind them in the distance, there was the sound of an engine. 'It's one of the launches,' Hakim said and stood up.

There was the crack of a rifle quite close by and he was struck in the left side of his chest, spun round and went into the water. Holley reached over and got him by the collar and half turned the boat, towing Hakim behind.

'Get out of it, for God's sake, and into the reeds as quickly as you can,' he called. He crashed the boat through, came to a halt, switched off the engine and realized he was alone, except for Hakim in the water. So often in life, the most careful plans are disrupted for the simplest of reasons – in this case it was due to a police officer named Abu, one of those sleeping in the shack. Awakened by a bad stomachache, he had taken a torch and visited the outside latrine. He had noticed the absence of the two sentries and, on investigation, had found one of them in the water between Evening Star and the jetty. The further discovery that there was no one on the launch had sent him on the run to alert Nadim. The Sergeant's more thorough check had discovered the second sentry also in the water.

It seemed absurd to deduce from what had happened that Ali Hakim had been party to the murder of two of his own men, and the only plausible explanation was that the others had been responsible. As a quick search failed to discover Hakim's body, Nadim could only conclude that Dillon and his friends had taken him with them. But what for? He called Omar Hamza on his mobile.

Hamza listened to him, and Fatima and Talbot, awakened by the disturbance, awaited an explanation. Hamza said into his phone, 'God knows what's happened, but I suggest you come into the marsh heavily armed. I'll stay put in the trading post and greet them with a machine gun if they turn up here. Get moving.'

'What's going on?' Talbot asked.

Hamza told him. 'It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.'

'Well, it certainly does to me.' Justin was actually smiling. 'What bastards they are, Dillon and Holley. They know what we're up to. Don't you see, they've got Hakim with them, who's probably shot his mouth off, and he's leading them to me.'

He was full of energy, went back in the other room, hooked up his veil, slung his weapons bag across his chest and picked up his AK47.

'So what are you going to do?' Hamza asked.

'Go hunting, give them a nice surprise. What about you?'

'I've got an old Browning machine gun. I'll set it up on the jetty and await events.'

'Fort Zinderneuf?'

'Ah, you've read Beau Geste?' Hamza smiled. 'An Englishman named Wren wrote that book. He actually served in the Legion.'

'Very interesting, but that was then, this is now. These men who are coming are killers of the first water.'

'I know this, my friend, if only because I trained Daniel Holley myself. I can only wish you luck.' He turned to Fatima. 'What about you?'

'I think I'll go with him. You know what you're doing, he doesn't. He thinks he knows everything, this one, but he doesn't know the marsh and he could get lost. We'll take Stingray.'

'You're worse than your mother was.' Hamza shrugged. 'As Allah wills.'

Talbot followed her outside and looked down at the Stingray. 'Is the sport fisherman the sensible boat to use? I'd have thought an inflatable with an outboard.'

'The reeds are fifteen and sometimes twenty feet high, so they'll conceal the upper deck, but at the same time, standing at that wheel, I can peer over occasionally and see where we are and what's going on.'

'That makes perfect sense.' He dropped down to the deck and she followed. 'I'll be guided by you, so let's get moving.'

She cast off and went up the ladder to the wheel, and Talbot followed and stood beside her, the AK cradled in his arms. It started to rain; as they drifted out, she switched on the engine and kept it down to a low rumble. There was the grey light of dawn now, and a curtain of mist floated in.

'When we have the heat of high summer and unexpected heavy rain, it produces the mist,' she told him.

'At least it makes it easier to play hide and seek,' he said.

They nosed into the reeds. Suddenly, wildfowl lifted in a cloud some little distance away, the birds angrily calling, and Fatima cut the engine.

'Something caused that. Keep your head low, but we can look with caution.' She produced a pair of Zeiss glasses from the map compartment and focused them. 'Ah, a flash of orange.' She nodded and turned to him, handing the glasses over. 'And another. Two of them. Inflatables with outboards.'

'Can we get closer?'

'Not without making a noise. I'll try using the pole. You stay here watching.'

She went down to the stern and commenced, and Talbot watched cautiously as the reeds parted and Stingray floated through; some distance away to the left he could hear the sound of an engine.

'What do you think?' he called down to Fatima.

'It sounds like two engines. I think Nadim has probably brought both boats.'

'How many men?'

'Sixteen or so. Each boat has a machine gun mounted. There's nothing those bastards like better than sweeping the marshes with those things, shooting everything in sight like schoolboys playing with toys.'