Fire Force(11)

‘Or a vodka?’ added Maksim, emerging from the hold.

‘The boat is dry,’ said Steve. ‘And considering the amount of trouble you boys have caused when drunk, it’s staying that way.’

‘In the Spetsnaz we found a way to distil tank fuel,’ chuckled Maksim. ‘Maybe we could take one of the spare barrels of diesel?’





It was after ten by the time they finally pulled in at the dock. Being early November, it had been wet and drizzly when they left Heathrow, but out here close to the Equator, there was hot and brilliant sunshine. The city was built on the delta of the Komo River. A former French colony, it remained one of the richest, best-organised and safest cities in Africa - a haven for tourists and businessmen travelling through the centre of the continent.

They handed the boat back to Hassan Ramzey, an Egyptian businessman who, for an extra $1,000 on the rental fee, politely ignored the two bullet-marks on its prow, and the fact that the M40 he’d supplied with it had used up most of its stock of ammo.

From the dock, Steve organised a taxi to take them straight up to Libreville International Airport. Bruce Dudley had promised there would be tickets waiting for a plane to take them home.

The prisoner had been woken up, washed, and the wound to his arm where Ian’s bullet had shot him free of the wall had been patched up. He’d introduced himself as Newton Bunjira, but apart from that he wasn’t saying much. To Steve, he looked around fifty, but it was hard to tell. A guy could be thirty and come out of Broken Ridge looking like a grandfather. He was rake thin, with ribs that stuck out of his chest, and his skin was blotchy and covered in small scabs that could be wounds, could be fever, or could be malnutrition. Maybe all three.

They bought him a sweatshirt and some new jeans and trainers from a market stall at the dock, then told him to get changed in a café. There was no way they wanted to take him to the airport in the bloodied rags he’d been wearing in the jail.

We’ll deliver him to Dudley, collect our money, and then get rid of the guy, decided Steve. He smells like trouble.

The airport was clean and modern, but Air France was the only European airline that flew there, with a three-times-a week service from Charles de Gaulle in Paris. ‘Your plane is ready, Mr West,’ said the lady at check-in when Steve asked when the next flight was available and whether they could get a seat on it.

‘Our plane?’

The girl nodded, and flashed him the kind of smile check-in staff reserve for the first-class passengers wielding triple platinum Amex cards.

‘Mr Dudley has booked a private jet for you and . . .’ She glanced slightly suspiciously at Ian, Maksim, Ollie, Nick and Newton standing behind Steve. Even after a wash they looked rougher than a landfill site after a bad storm ‘. . . your, er, colleagues.’

‘We’ll take it,’ said Steve. He nodded to the others to follow him out onto the airstrip. Private plane, he thought to himself. Somebody must want this Newton guy pretty badly. But if he’s so important, how come he’s been languishing in Broken Ridge for the last ten years? And how come someone just paid three hundred and fifty grand to get him out?

Nothing about this job is making any sense.

The plane was a Cessna Citation 500 Series II, a small executive jet that was also used as light transport by armies around the world, including the Swiss, the South Africans and the Spanish. The first models had been flown in 1969, and the plane had been continuously updated since then: it was a rugged and reliable workhorse that had clocked up millions of flights with very few accidents. With a capacity for eight passengers it could cruise at 464 miles an hour and had a maximum range of 2,300 miles. The plane was configured with eight plush, black leather seats, a computer screen, a bar, and came complete with a hostess and a pilot. It was sitting in a side bay of the airport.

‘We can take off when everyone is ready,’ the Captain, a South African called Jim Stapleton, told them. ‘Libreville only has about a dozen flights a day coming in and out. None of that stacking nonsense you get at Heathrow,’ he added with a polite smile.

‘Have you got the range to get us back to Britain?’ asked Steve.

‘Could do,’ said Stapleton. ‘But we’re heading to Cape Town.’

‘Cape Town? In South Africa?’

‘It was, the last time I checked. Now, if you boys want to strap yourselves in, I’ll get us out onto the tarmac.’

‘What the hell are we doing in South Africa?’

Stapleton just shrugged, and walked back towards the cockpit. ‘How should I know?’ he said tersely. ‘The guy who’s paying the bill wants this crate flown to Cape Town so that’s what we’re doing.’