They spent the first hour of the flight sorting out their kit. Six had supplied them with several bags filled with weapons and equipment. Bowman and Webb changed back into the civvies they had stashed in their holdalls, then joined the others at the rear of the aircraft as they dished out the hardware. They would carry Colt Canada C8 rifles as their primary weapons, fitted with suppressors and scopes with mini red-dot sights, plus four spare thirty-round magazines apiece. Including the clip in the weapon, each member of the team had 150 rounds of 5.56 × 45 mm NATO brass. They had Glock 17 pistols as their secondary weapons, with two seventeen-round mags per person, body plate armour and webbing, military radios, a rucksack filled with first aid kits and bottles of water, ballistic helmets, two thousand dollars of bribery money in small denominations. The rest of the kit was stowed in the cargo hold, Mallet had said. The heavy firepower. Two belt-fed L7 GPMG ‘Gimpy’ machine guns. A Barrett .50 calibre sniper rifle in a pelican case, complete with clip-on telescopic sights, deadly at a range of up to two thousand yards and capable of punching through brickwork. An Accuracy International AWC sniper rifle in a weapon sleeve. Claymore anti-personnel mines. An M224 60 mm lightweight mortar. Frag grenades, smoke grenades, boxes of ammunition: 7.62 mm belt for the Gimpys, shells for the mortar.

The team went through the usual pre-op checks. They filled the spare magazines with ammunition, packed them into the pouches on the front of their webbing. They tested the radios. Checked their vest armour. Stripped their weapons back, inspected the moving parts, put them back together. Basic stuff. But essential. Missions had been known to fail because of faulty kit.

In the front cabin, Bird’s Nest and Dimpled Chin went through a long checklist with President Seguma. They discussed the statements he would make to the world’s media during the rebellion, his victory speech once he had returned to power. Seguma listened while gorging on a slap-up meal and double measures of Scotch. He appeared to have regained some of his old arrogance. Between mouthfuls of food, he described in gory detail what he would do to his enemies after the coup had been crushed. People would be thrown to crocodiles or buried alive. The diplomats smiled obsequiously. They were pushing the boat out. Indulging him. Pandering to the tyrant’s every whim.

‘Can you believe this bloke?’ Loader muttered softly as he slid a spare magazine into one of his webbing pouches. ‘We’re bending over backwards to help him crush this rebellion, and all he’s interested in is butchering people.’

Bowman shrugged. ‘They don’t call him the Viper for nothing.’

‘It’s immoral. He was prepared to turn his back on us, and now we’re treating him like royalty.’