Mallet spent the rest of the journey firing off messages and glancing at his phone screen, checking for further updates from Six. Bowman kept his gaze fixed on the road, barely able to keep his eyes open. He was knackered. He hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours. The adrenaline he’d felt during the arrest had worn off. And now he was going to get on a plane and fly to a country on the brink of chaos, to protect the relatives of a despised tyrant. Every so often he glanced at Seguma in the back seat. The guy looked pensive. Three hours ago, he had been on the brink of losing his presidency. Now he was back in the game. The biggest gamble of his life. Like a guy at a roulette table, staking everything he owned on red. He could win big, or lose bigger, but the result was out of his control.

The convoy joined the slow crawl of traffic at the airport and hit the private terminal a few minutes before noon. Bowman swung round to the front of the terminal and stopped in front of the canopied entrance. Mallet and Seguma piled out and joined Casey and Webb at the side of the E-Class. The soldiers grabbed their luggage and escorted Seguma through the sliding doors to the reception. Then Bowman circled round to the complimentary parking bay and guided the Volvo into the nearest space. Loader went through the same manoeuvre with the E-Class, they gave the vehicles a once-over to make sure they had left nothing inside. Locked them. Then strolled into the terminal.

Bowman and Loader found the others waiting to one side of the reception area. Then Mallet led the group over to the main desk. A rose-cheeked blonde woman in a tight-fitting white blouse greeted them with a polite smile and immaculate English. Mallet handed over their passports, told her the tail number of the jet coming over to pick them up. Loader gave the receptionist a long admiring look as she glanced cursorily through the documents. She handed the passports back, wished them a safe trip and directed the team down a marble-floored corridor towards the private lounge.

‘Really, Tiny?’ Casey said as they walked away. ‘Do you think about nothing else?’

‘What’s wrong? No harm in doing a bit of window shopping.’

‘That’s all you’re doing,’ Mallet said. ‘There are monks who have had more action than you.’

‘That’s not true. I was a legend at Hereford. Ask any of the lads. The women couldn’t get enough of me.’

‘That’s not how I remember it. I seem to remember the groupies running out of the pub to avoid your ugly mug.’

‘Piss off, John.’

‘Tiny, we all know you secretly love your wife,’ said Casey, a trace of sympathy in her voice. ‘You don’t have to pretend to be God’s gift to women.’