Angela glanced through the rain-spotted window. The airport buildings looked distant and cold. It reminded her of being sent away to school as a girl, when part of her wanted to leap off the train and run home, while the other part couldn’t wait to see what lay ahead for the new term.
She shivered again. She was dressed in a lightweight jacket and skirt, and shoes suitable for all terrains. Since nobody had appeared too certain where she and Tober might end up, she had decided on basic, interchangeable clothes, with spare trousers in case she needed to observe a degree of conservatism for local sensibilities.
She closed her eyes and went over her briefing, trying to pick out potential highlights in the detail. It was no more comforting than listening to the engines winding up and waiting for the first thrust of power to punch her in the back. But it offered a useful distraction for a few minutes.
The briefing room in SIS headquarters at Vauxhall Cross had been busy with maps, schedules, photos and details of the mission ahead. Talk had been muted but firm, concentrating solely on the mission. Nobody, Colin Moresby, Operations Director 4, had stressed, was underestimating the potential difficulties that lay ahead. She would be to all intents and purposes alone, apart from Tober, and certainly once they left Mombasa, would be beyond any immediate assistance. But there was nothing they could do about that. Assurances had been given by the other side and that was all they could expect.
‘Any show of force on land or offshore,’ he had stressed, eyeing her carefully, ‘will be construed as aggression, according to Xasan. And they control the region closely enough to detect any intrusions.’ That meant no covert backup from units of Special Forces ready to crash in on demand if things got sticky. It was a sobering reminder of what she had undertaken.
She had nodded, aware that they were taking on trust the words of a man with a dubious, if virtually unknown history, who was known for working with the Somali pirates and effecting trade-offs of hostages for money. The knowledge that he had successfully closed more than one such deal, with the safe return of people and ships, was to some, a justifiable claim to credibility. To others it was like approaching a street-corner moneylender rather than a bank. But in the present circumstances, it was all they had.
‘We need those people back,’ Moresby had continued smoothly, ‘especially the UN personnel. If they get moved further north, they’ll be in the hands of extremists and beyond our help.’ He meant al-Qaeda, but nobody wanted to hear that name. ‘Once gone, I fear we’ll lose them until someone, somewhere, wants a substantial deal … or a huge publicity coup. We can’t let that happen.’
‘What are the chances,’ Angela had queried, ‘of them finding out that they’re holding two UN people?’
Moresby had looked at Bill Cousins, Controller Africa, to answer that question. ‘Higher than we’d like,’ Cousins replied. ‘Both of them have appeared on UN websites, and both have their photos on the internet if anybody cares to trawl through the archives or check out current photos of personnel in the field. We know al-Qaeda has access to IT personnel and equipment, so they could get lucky and identify them any day. We have to move quickly.’
‘We also know,’ Moresby added, ‘that they are increasingly trawling the net for details on all western hostages, to determine their status and value. If they identify any with position, family or the slightest degree of importance, the price goes up.’
The briefing had continued, going over the plans with great care.
She and Tober were to fly to Nairobi, where they would make contact with a man named Ashkir Xasan. He was the first step in a chain of contacts and agreements going back two weeks — probably longer. It would culminate, if all went well, in the eventual release of the hostages. Xasan would take Angela and Tober via Mombasa to a point on the Kenya-Somali border, where they would meet a group headed by a clan chief called Yusuf Musa. It probably wasn’t his real name any more than Xasan’s was his, but that was beside the point. Knowing a man’s real name in a game like hostage taking was usually the least of one’s worries.
‘Any queries, Miss Pryce?’ Moresby was looking at her, his eyes blank. She felt like standing up and saying, Yes, this whole bloody idea is insane and I don’t want to go because I’m terrified we’ll both end up dead. But she didn’t. She could do this. She’d been trained and could handle herself in crisis situations. And in doing so, would enhance her career prospects in SIS. All she had to do was what most field operatives hoped to accomplish every time they were sent out: get through it successfully and come back in one piece.
‘No, sir,’ she said, and wondered what Tom Vale would have thought. She also wondered why he hadn’t been in on the briefing. ‘No questions.’
Eighteen
I recognized De Bont as soon as he walked into the foyer of the hotel, if only because he stood out among the dark suits and floral dresses. He was of medium height, heavy in the shoulders and chest, like a weightlifter, with rust-coloured hair in a brush cut, a spiky moustache and pink, sunburned skin. He was wearing a tan shirt and shorts, which on him looked like some sort of uniform.
He saw me, hesitated for a moment, then came over to where I was sitting.
‘Mr Portman?’ He held out a hand the size of a small shovel. ‘I’m Piet. Hope I’m not late.’ His accent was pure Afrikaans, with a faintly harsh rumble in the throat.
‘No. Shall we get a drink?’ It wasn’t yet fully hot outside, which suited me fine, but the air was dry and gritty, and making my eyes sting. I nodded at the bar, which was full of a convention of businessmen and women. ‘We need somewhere more private to talk.’
‘Sure. I know a nice bar along the street here. Air-con and privacy guaranteed.’ He turned on one heel and led the way out of the hotel, into the noisy, traffic-filled atmosphere of central Mombasa. Out here was a different world to the one in the hotel, and we were soon lost among a mass of humanity, honking vehicles and the smell of a busy city. If we’d had the time, I would have enjoyed the atmosphere.
We found the bar and settled at a table to the rear. It was gloomy, cool and deserted save for a barman, the air heavy with the smell of stale tobacco and alcohol. The barman wandered over and handed us a drinks menu without a word. Piet ordered beer and I had coffee. I needed to be awake for the next two days at least and didn’t need alcohol to get in the way.
‘Tom Vale mentioned you,’ I began, ‘and said you could help me move around. He said he’d settle the bill.’
He nodded but looked guarded. ‘Is Tom still keeping the empire safe?’ It was a hint that he knew what Vale’s job was. Up close I realized he was older than I’d first thought — somewhere in his early fifties at least — and he’d probably been around the block a few times if he’d served with the South African National Defence Force.
‘I don’t work for Vale. Just doing a job for him.’
‘Sub-contractor, huh? I did that for a while, after the army. Paid well enough but the conditions were shit and there was no pension. Where is it you want to go?’
I told him. The details on the data stick Vale had given me showed a map of the very north-eastern corner of Kenya, where it butted up against the Somali border, about 150 kilometres north of where we were now sitting. The nearest Kenyan town of any note was Kiunga, on the coast. Further north and it was into what Vale had referred to as pirate country.
Somalia.
Piet grunted. ‘Long way to go for easy trouble. I’m guessing this is covert, right?’