Defender(17)

Arena had seen him as he boarded. He was fairly unmissable, she thought with an appraising eye.

The last to board, Alex Morgan had strolled between the rows of seats with imoxicating self-assuredness. He looked fit and strong. He was wearing some kind of combat-style jacket with zips and pockets all over it, a navy polo shirt and sandy-coloured cargo pants. Not classically handsome, he was good looking in a knockabout kind of way. His face, under short, dark hair, held the hard edge of his profession, while retaining a boyish, mischievous quality. But it was the eyes that truly captured Arena. They were dark and intent, and the skin around them finely lined. She knew he was in his mid-thirties and had spent many years as a soldier. According to his dossier, Morgan was Australian - the son of a Welsh father and an Australian mother. He had begun his career as an officer in the Royal Australian Regiment and then at some point had left Australia to join the British Army, serving with the Parachute Regiment. He'd served in most parts of the world; Africa, South-East Asia and the Middle East. He had been a Major with the Para's before being recruited to INTERPOL.

All in all, he was exactly who she'd want to have around if things in Malfajiri went the way that everybody in London was saying they would.

At the onset of the usual pre-takeoff activity, she left her musings over the 'Phantom Major', as she privately referred to him, and her thoughts turned back to the task ahead.

She wondered, not for the first time, if she wasn't in well over her head, and struggled to understand exactly why Johnson had involved her in a matter that sat well beyond her skills and experience.

A deep sense of unease pervaded her thoughts.





* * *





Morgan was relieved to have scored a row of three seats to himself. With his khaki bush jacket and black canvas grip on the seat beside him, he'd settled in as the big plane began to rumble and shake in preparation for takeoff. He looked out of the porthole window and saw the Gatwick ground crew preparing themselves for the deafening whine of the engines. He immediately squeezed into his ears the rubber pellet hearing protection that had been handed out as he boarded. One by one, the four big props turned over as the pilot coaxed them to life. Minutes later, the Herc was thundering down the runway, lunging into the cold, grey sky. It was about 5000 kilometres to Malfajiri. He'd be in Cullentown in just a few hours. With that, Morgan caught the same last glimpse of England that Collins must have, just a few short weeks before and, like his friend, he mused, he was headed straight for the dead centre of hell on earth.

Deciding to save the Ambler for later - dropping it instead onto the seat beside him, Morgan opted for The Telegraph , and returned to an article he'd been reading at the airport on the deteriorating situation in Malfajiri. It was no surprise that the story was almost a by-line, buried in the section on world news. But there was something new in this story. It reported the death of a young English tourist, whose body had been found horribly mutilated and dumped in the grounds of the British embassy. The parallels to the killing of Collins were clear, and Morgan knew only too well that the Whitehall spin doctors of the British intelligence community were behind the smoke screen. The situation was getting worse by the hour. The list of fatalities, locals and foreigners, kept rising, yet nobody wanted to know about Malfajiri. The story wasn't big enough.

To the rest of the world, Malfajiri was just another failing African nation on the verge of collapse. There'd be plenty of interest if the British government stood accused of supplying a rebel army with the weapons and expertise to take down a democratically elected government, he thought. But thousands of innocent Africans dying each day, caught in the crossfire between government and rebel troops? Apparently not newsworthy. And now, with the Malfajiri President due to arrive in London, cap in hand, seeking Britain's support in the war against the rebels, would people finally start taking notice? Although, according to Davenport, with the arrival of Collins' remains in London and the uncertainty over the fate of the other SIS agent, Lundt, plenty were only too keen to wipe their hands of the whole mess.

The unexpected news of Sean Collins' brutal murder had really affected Morgan. He was prepared for death, conditioned to its inherent proximity. But for some reason, this latest addition to the tally of lost friends, hit him hard. Was it a sign of age, or fatigue, resulting from a succession of back to-back missions?

With final thoughts of his mission, and the face of his dead friend at the forefront of his mind, Morgan dropped into a deeply troubled sleep.





CHAPTER 11





Foreign and Commonwealth Office K ing Charles Street, London





"You called for me?"