‘It is a pity. But – nichevo!’ He smiled broadly. ‘We have beeg victory. Like in football – Arsenal nine, Tottenham Hotspot one!’ He gave a merry laugh and drummed his hands on the steering wheel. Then he added, ‘Only one problem.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Mafia bosses will be angry. For sure, they make counter-attack.’

‘On Omon?’

‘No, on government. The President, the Vice-President, the Minister of the Interior. Perhaps one of them will be their next target.’

Chapter Nine

NINE

I thought I was going to have nightmares, but in fact I slept like the dead, and woke up unable to remember where I was. Until I heard Whinger snoring, that is: then everything flooded back.

‘All in a day’s work,’ I’d said cheerily to Rick when we came in the night before – and a hell of a day we’d had. But it had been exhilarating too, and a sharpening change from the routine of training.

Naturally we’d had a wash-up with our own lads as soon as we had come in: they’d got a brew on, and we’d sat up till after midnight analysing the hit. We had also had a discussion – not quite an argument – about what had come to be known as the ‘diplomatic bag’. A count had shown it to contain 110,000 dollars.

When the lads saw that amount of money tipped out on the kitchen table they uttered, ‘Firekin ell!’ in a kind of chorus.

If there’s one thing that makes SAS lads take leave of their senses it’s money. Normally they’re pretty straight-up, but somehow the sight of cash sends them bananas.

‘There’s my Jag!’ Pavarotti cried with his eyes glazing over.

‘Bugger the Jag!’ Pete told him. ‘What about my kitchen extension?’

‘Bet it’s all forged,’ said Dusty, ever the cynic.

‘Never,’ Mal told him. ‘Big Mafia players wouldn’t be carting fake stuff around. Whose is it, anyway? Geordie’s and Whinger’s, I suppose.’

‘No, no,’ I said. ‘If it belongs to anyone, it belongs to the team.’

‘Buy a team Merc,’ said Pavarotti. ‘Get a five-hundred or something. Smoked-glass windows. Then we can take on the hoods at their own game. How much did you say they had?’

‘Meellions,’ I said, imitating Sasha. ‘Christ knows. It was a big briefcase and it was jam-packed. This lot was only a fraction of what we saw. There could have been stuff we didn’t see as well. We never looked in the other croc briefcase or in drawers or cupboards. The flat could have been full of money. Drugs too, I daresay. God knows what they were at: it looked as though they were carving up their empire.’

It was Rick who produced the idea of sending the cash back to the UK. ‘Put it in the Diplomatic Bag,’ he suggested. ‘Then at least it’ll be safe, and a nice little bonus for when we get home.’