In fact, the man who had passed on the note was a member of The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, but it amounted to the same thing. He was doing a favour for a friend of a friend of a friend, and the two men on the motorcycle were the final link in the chain, delivering a message they couldn’t read, on behalf of people they didn’t know, for ten US dollars apiece.

‘Which guy?’ said the policeman, but as he spoke the man dropped the letter in the dust and hurried back to the Honda.

Ordinarily, a letter handed in to an embassy in the dead of night by some anonymous no-mark would go nowhere, but the mention of Al Qaeda was enough for the senior officer at the gate to radio his superior, and before long the letter was in the hands of a bleary-eyed junior staffer, and five minutes after that it was in the hands of the bleary-eyed ambassador.

An hour later, a senior Downing Street staffer woke the Prime Minister and showed her an image of the note.

It said:

You have seen what we can do. We will release Charlotte Morgan and Martha Percival unharmed in return for $25 million US.

We will require $5 million US equivalent to be delivered to us by hand in cash as a good faith gesture, in mixed currencies of used, non-sequential, middle-denomination notes, to include Yen, Sterling, Euro, Australian dollar, US dollar, Canadian dollar and Swiss francs.

The remaining $20 million US is to be wire-transferred to a bank account of our nomination.

If you comply, we will release the hostages and guarantee them safe passage to the British embassy in a city of our choosing.

If you do not comply, they will be slaughtered like goats.

Further communications will be made via social media.

Warriors of Jihad.

Penelope Morgan folded the note carefully and looked at the staffer.

‘Thanks, Georgie,’ she said. ‘Not a word about this note to anyone. Please make sure they understand that in the Ivory Coast, too. Then please call the Cabinet Secretary, my Chief of Staff, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the press secretary. I’d like them all here within the hour.’

After the staffer had left, Morgan went back into the bedroom at No. 10 which she shared with her husband.

He was sitting on the bed in his dressing gown, looking a lot greyer and older than his fifty-six years.

‘A note from the kidnappers,’ said the Prime Minister, handing it over. ‘They want twenty-five million dollars.’

Chapter 53.

53.

IT WAS ALREADY a warm morning, with a bright sun rising overhead in a clear blue sky, when Penelope Morgan stepped out of No. 10 Downing Street to face the world’s media.

Her press secretary spoke first, to confirm that the Prime Minister would be making a brief statement, and that she would take no questions.

Then she stepped to the microphone.