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Back Manhunter Save as PDF
Chapters (37)
  1. Cover
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. Four
  6. Five
  7. Six
  8. Seven
  9. Eight
  10. Nine
  11. Ten
  12. Eleven
  13. Twelve
  14. Thirteen
  15. Fourteen
  16. Fifteen
  17. Sixteen
  18. Seventeen
  19. Eighteen
  20. Nineteen
  21. Twenty
  22. Twenty-One
  23. Twenty-Two
  24. Twenty-Three
  25. Twenty-Four
  26. Twenty-Five
  27. Twenty-Six
  28. Twenty-Seven
  29. Twenty-Eight
  30. Twenty-Nine
  31. Thirty
  32. Thirty-One
  33. Thirty-Two
  34. Thirty-Three
  35. Chris Ryan Readers’ Club?
  36. Letter from Author
  37. About the Author

As soon as the first guests got to their feet, Lomas and Studley hurried out of the Abbey to retrieve their wagon from the parking area. Kember left to fetch the other Discovery, while Bowman slipped out of the muniment room and jogged down to the ground floor. He moved alongside Seguma and Lungu, then they joined the bottleneck forming at the nave. There was a delay as the guests at the front waited for their coaches and private cars to collect them. Then the bottleneck cleared, and Bowman spoke into his mic, notifying the other guys that the principal was on the move. Thirty seconds later, they walked out of the Abbey into the weak grey light of the early afternoon.

They ferried Seguma back across town to his hotel, sticking to the back roads. Then the team split up again. Lomas and Studley continued on towards the reception venue while Bowman and Kember stuck with the principal. They took up their positions outside the presidential suite and settled into a tedious routine of sitting around and checking their phones.

At four o’clock, Bowman snuck into the lobby toilets and popped another pill. Which left him with one tablet in the container. To last him another forty-eight hours.

Not enough.

Nowhere near.

The thought of running out filled him with dread. One way or another, he was going to need to source some more opioids. Tonight, he knew. Before the withdrawal pains started again.

Eighty minutes later, they left for the reception party.

Five

Five

They arrived at the Greybourn Hotel at six o’clock. The team went through the exact same procedure as the journey to the Abbey. The same three cars with the same occupants moving in the same column formation. Except this time, they hung a left off Park Lane, zigzagging east and then south. Passing the neat Georgian squares and the trendy Russian restaurants. Plunging deeper into the heart of Mayfair. Three minutes later, they drew up at the side entrance to an imposing redbrick building shaped like a medieval castle, with cone-roofed turrets and tall arched windows and stone columns.

Bowman, Jallow and Deka left their vehicles. They formed up in front of the limo and accompanied Seguma and his PA towards the side entrance. Bowman stuck close to the principal, eyes shifting from side to side, alert to the slightest danger. The roads surrounding the Greybourn had been sealed off to the public; every room had been booked out for the occasion by the wedding party. The chances of an attack at the reception were low. But Bowman didn’t want to take any chances. Not after what had happened at the Abbey.