Chapters (37)
- Cover
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Chris Ryan Readers’ Club?
- Letter from Author
- About the Author
Bowman stood frozen to the spot. Kember glanced at him with a puzzled expression. ‘I thought you said you didn’t know Lang?’
‘I don’t.’
‘Then why is he staring at you?’
‘Maybe he thinks he’s seen me somewhere before,’ Bowman answered quickly. ‘That fucker never forgets a face.’
Groups of royal officials paced the transepts, gently steering the guests back to their seats. In his earpiece, Bowman heard Studley reporting that the groom’s party had just left their hotel. Lang slapped Seguma heartily on the back and then strutted back to his seat, his arms swinging at his sides like a couple of punchbags.
Up in the gallery, Kember and Bowman took their seats.
‘Do you think Studley was right?’ Kember asked in a low voice. ‘About the president’s enemies trying to have another crack at him today?’
Bowman sucked in air through his teeth. ‘After what just happened, we can’t rule anything out.’
But even as he sat down he heard the voice at the back of his head again. Telling him that he had nearly messed up. If he had been suffering with the cravings, Bowman knew, there was no way that he would have spotted the assassin. A fraction of a second later, and the president might have been killed.
The next time, I might not be so lucky.
*
The ceremony started at exactly twelve o’clock. The groom arrived first, a City poser with fashionably mussed hair, a swaggering gait and the kind of impermeable confidence you can only acquire after you’ve made your hundredth million. The organ music built to a booming crescendo, the guests hushed and then the bride appeared. Princess Amelia, sixth in line to the throne, plain and gangly, stuffed into a dress as white as uncut cocaine.
The service proceeded in a rigid, orderly fashion. Later, Bowman would remember it as a blur of Bible readings and hymns and vows. He wasn’t really paying attention. He was too busy thinking about his next pill and watching the guests below. At exactly one o’clock the newlyweds glided back down the red carpet, into a great wall of noise from the spectators. They rode off in their landau, and then the VIPs rose to depart.