As they neared the city centre, Bowman saw more signs of the violent uprising. Dead bodies littered the streets. Some of the victims had been hacked to pieces. Several others were missing arms and legs; blood gushed out of ragged stumps. Gangs of escaped convicts in bright-orange overalls roamed the city, armed with clubs or machetes. Directly ahead, the Hilux rocked as it drove over a corpse in the middle of the road. Bowman wrenched the steering wheel to the right, swerving to avoid the dead body rolling in the dirt.

‘What the fuck are these guys playing at?’ Loader growled in the back seat. ‘We’re supposed to be protecting this lot, not mowing them down.’

‘Not our concern,’ Mallet said coldly. ‘We’re here for the family. That’s it.’

‘Guess the major wasn’t kidding when he said they wouldn’t stop for anything,’ Webb said.

The convoy stuck to the backstreets, avoiding the main thoroughfares. After several quick turns they hit the government district on the western side of Marafeni. The downtrodden huts were replaced by crumbling colonial villas and modern-looking office blocks. The wealthier part of town. But only just. There were signs of decay here, too, in the cracked pavements and potholed roads, the neglected gardens.

Bowman checked the console again: 23.55. A few more minutes until we hit the palace.

The convoy slung a left past the German Embassy and hit down a wide street lined with restaurants and state banks. Two hundred metres further to the west was the presidential palace. From a distance, in the semi-darkness, Bowman couldn’t pick out many details. There was an outer guard post, an inner gate. A high security wall surrounded the compound with guard towers spaced at regular intervals. Beyond the wall stood the palace itself, as white as icing sugar on a cake.

Two bodies were slumped on the ground next to the guard post. Dressed in the uniform of the Presidential Guard.

‘Shit,’ Loader muttered.

Bowman felt his stomach drop.

We’re too late.

The convoy cautiously passed the outer guard post and started down the driveway. It ran on for a hundred metres towards a wide carriage circle in front of the presidential palace. Which looked like a renovated colonial villa, with a porticoed entrance, surmounted by a pediment with the Karatandan coat of arms in the middle: a lion and a snake locked in a fearsome struggle in front of a pair of crossed spears, below a plentiful fruit tree. A gold dome rested on top of the roof. The palace was situated at the northern side of the compound, backing on to the ocean. To the south, eighty metres away, Bowman saw a couple of smaller buildings. From the maps he’d studied at Nice, he knew that these structures housed the guard barracks and servants’ quarters. A service road ran from the barracks to a secondary gated exit in the south-eastern corner of the compound.