De Payns headed towards the stairwell—to get down the stairs and into the street would take forty-three steps—if he wasn’t stopped by a hood over his head or a bullet in his back. He was at their mercy. The sweat on his scalp was ice cold.

He took the first of what would be the longest forty-three steps of his life.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

CHAPTER

FIFTY-ONE

In the Cercottes training they’d been taught to regulate their breathing when fear made the breaths shallow. If you let fear take over your physical self, oxygen in the brain dropped and decision-making capacity reduced. They’d undergone similar simulations in the air force, to show the pilot trainees what happened to cognitive function when the brain was deprived of oxygen. The lower the oxygen intake, the worse they’d become at breaking down a pistol or doing basic multiplication.

De Payns kept that in mind, counting steps and breathing deep through his nose as he descended the stairs. He had to make good decisions over the next half-hour—good, professional decisions. Romy and the boys belonged to another life at this moment. Behind him he could detect at least one of the bodyguards, following him but not close enough to attack. A decent backhand fist to a point just below the kneecap might give him enough time to dispossess the bodyguard of his weapon. But while keeping himself alert to the possibility of violence, he wasn’t going to start a fight. He was going to do what he had been taught—play it out, let the followers follow and never let an adversary see that you’re trained.

He opened the lobby door at thirty-eight steps. The second bodyguard was visible in the reflection of the glass as he pulled back on the handle. The minder wasn’t holding a gun, but his hands were held in such a way that the gun would be very close.

He pushed onto the street and found the black S-Class Mercedes parked directly in front of the building, in a no parking zone. He knew this car well. Behind the car was the LandCruiser and leaning on it were two ISI thugs, one of them carrying an MP5 machine pistol over his shoulder on a black strap.

The thugs stood up straight and watched de Payns as he exited the building. Behind him, the second bodyguard said something to his colleagues, and across the road, the orange glow of a cigarette flipped through the air and another bodyguard—this one carrying a shortened assault rifle—stepped away from a lamppost and joined the watching.