They touched down in Libreville five hours later. Ten o’clock in the evening in Gabon. The team snatched up their C8s and deplaned from the jet with the other passengers. They left their personal luggage on the Gulfstream. There was no point taking any non-essential kit with them to Karatandu. They were going into a potential firefight. Mobility and speed would be crucial. Better to keep their individual loads as light as possible. They could collect their holdalls later, once the coup had been successfully crushed and the crew got the all-clear to return the president to his country.

A couple of officials in shiny suits greeted Seguma at the foot of the airstairs. They guided the president and the two diplomats towards a waiting Lincoln Town Car. At the same time, Mallet and the rest of the team circled round to the rear of the Gulfstream to unload their kit. A Short SC.7 Skyvan twin turboprop aircraft was parked on the tarmac seven metres away from the Gulfstream. A sturdy short-distance load-lifter. Ugly but reliable. The Karatandu national flag was affixed to the fuselage and the tailfin. One of the president’s private aircraft, Bowman guessed. A portly loadie in a Karatandan army uniform stood beside the lowered ramp.

As the Gulfstream engines wound down the co-pilot hurried over and opened the rear cargo hold. Webb crawled inside the space, the other soldiers formed a chain and they began transferring the kit from the back of the jet to the Skyvan: the mortar assembly and sights, the Gimpys, the .50 cal rifle, the AWC sniper rifle, the boxes of ammo and shells, the grenades, the Claymore satchels. Like pass-the-parcel. But with deadly hardware instead of birthday presents. They piled everything in the middle of the Skyvan’s boxcar-shaped cabin. The loadie secured the ammo crates with netting, Mallet gave him a thumbs-up to confirm that everything had been loaded into the hold, and then the team hurried over from the Gulfstream.

As they approached the rear loading ramp, Mallet’s phone buzzed. He stopped short as he read through a stream of incoming text messages.

‘What’s the news?’ Loader shouted above the high-pitched whine of the jet engines.

‘Confirmation from Six,’ Mallet said. ‘They’ve established comms with the military base at Marafeni airport.’

‘And?’

‘Everything’s arranged. The escort is waiting for us on the ground with our transport. We’ll be ready to roll out of the gates as soon as we get off the plane.’

‘How many guys in the escort?’

‘A platoon. Fourteen blokes.’

‘Should be enough to deal with any bullshit we might encounter along the way. Checkpoints, roadblocks, rioters.’

Mallet nodded. ‘We should get to the palace for midnight.’

‘If it goes smoothly,’ Bowman added.

‘No reason it won’t.’

‘What about those SF teams coming in?’ Casey asked.