Bowman and Loader moved quickly across the reception, index fingers feathering triggers. They tacked right, moving down the corridor leading towards the banqueting room. Webb and Casey leaped up the stairs to clear the private quarters on the first floor. As Bowman moved down the corridor, he tried to recall the faces of the president’s family. His wife Christel, his three kids. His brother, Francis Seguma. His sister-in-law. Their twin daughters. He’d seen them pinned to the display board back in the Shed. Twenty-one hours ago. Another lifetime. Before the briefing with the Voice, the arrest in Monte Carlo.

His heart was beating frantically as he barged into the staff kitchen. He didn’t know what they would find inside the palace. But he feared it wasn’t going to be good news. The Machete Boys weren’t professional soldiers. They wouldn’t have risked ransacking the palace unless they were sure the fighting was over. And that could only mean one thing.

The rebels have already wiped out the family.

They’re dead.

They cleared each room rapidly, arcs swinging from left to right, looking for enemy targets and friendlies, moving with the speed and controlled aggression of elite operators. They checked the kitchen, the pantry, the banqueting room, the music room. Then they crossed the reception and cleared the offices and the grand meeting chamber on the south side of the ground floor.

Every room had been stripped bare of its valuables. Cupboards had been emptied. Drinks cabinets raided. Carpets ripped up. Furniture broken up or stolen. The looting parties had been extremely thorough. Anything they couldn’t take with them had been damaged or destroyed. But there was no sign of the family, or Mike Gregory, or the other members of the Presidential Guard.

There’s no one here. Just a handful of slotted guards.

‘Where is everyone?’ Loader rasped.

They hurried back down the corridor towards the reception area. From upstairs Bowman could hear the stomp of boots on carpet, Casey and Webb shouting, ‘Clear!’ to one another as they rapidly searched through the rooms on the first floor.

Only one floor left to clear.

‘Come on!’ Bowman roared as he cantered across the reception. Glass shards cracked like ice underfoot as he sprinted back down the corridor to the right. Loader ran after him, and they crashed through an unmarked door leading down to the basement level. A secret network of emergency operation rooms ran underneath the main house, Bowman recalled from the layout. Somewhere for the president and his entourage to bunker down if they came under attack.

He raced down the corridor, past the exposed pipework and ducts, past the ammo crates stacked against the bare walls. They ducked in and out of the various storerooms, the admin offices, the living quarters. The private cinema. The games room.

Empty.

So where the fuck is the family?