Manhunter by Chris Ryan (the false prince series .TXT) 📗

into the toilet, his palms greased with sweat. He felt like shit. The cravings had been getting worse for the past hour, but he’d soon be feeling normal again. He dipped a hand into his jacket pocket, removed the cap on the base of the pill crusher and tipped one of the tablets into his shaking hand.

The cabin jolted.

The plane banked hard to the right, throwing Bowman off-balance. He lurched backwards, crashed against the door, steadied himself against the countertop, then looked up in despair as he saw the pills clattering around the basin. Like balls on a roulette wheel. He stumbled over to the sink, panicking. The plane pitched heavily again as he clawed at the pills, but they disappeared down the plughole before he could scoop them up.

A few moments later, the plane stopped shuddering.

Bowman stared unblinking at the plughole, feeling the cold hand of dread clench around his throat. His stash of pills – gone. All of them.

For a moment he didn’t know what to do. He contemplated unscrewing the pipe but figured the pills would have dissolved by now. Then he began to think more clearly. The situation wasn’t good. He had no spare tablets in his luggage. No emergency stash of meds. Somehow, he was going to have to wing it for the next few hours without any pills. And pray that the shakes didn’t get too bad.

He walked back down the aisle, sat down opposite Casey. She half smiled, a questioning look on her face.

‘Everything all right? You look like you’ve had a fright.’

‘Just a lack of sleep. I’ll get over it.’

He looked away, panic rising in his chest. He tried telling himself to stay calm. But it was no use.

We’re about to go in and arrest a violent mobster, and I’m staring down the barrel of an opioid withdrawal.

And there’s nothing I can do about it.

A few minutes later, the Gulfstream began its descent.

Thirteen

They landed at eight o’clock in the morning, on a grey windswept day on the French Riviera. The Gulfstream taxied off the runway to the tarmac stand, the engines dialled down to a whine, the airstairs unfolded. Loader gave the attendant a parting smile, and then the team deboarded. It took them only a few minutes to clear through security and transfer to the heliport. Mallet had explained that they were on the fast-track programme. Something called the Elite Service package. Which brought with it certain privileges, such as a streamlined check-in procedure. A short, squat official gave their passports a cursory glance, and then a pair of waiting airport buggies whizzed them round to the heliport.

The chopper was an AgustaWestland AW109. The civilian variant. Helicopter of choice for the executive community. The team ascended the retractable steps and made themselves comfortable in the six-seater cabin while another official loaded their holdalls and rucksacks into the luggage compartment. The twin engines screamed, the rotor blades swathed through the air. The pilot performed a series of final checks, testing bits of equipment, gauging dials and meters.

The Agusta soared into the air above Nice. The pilot rounded the beaches of Cap-Ferrat, roughly following the coastline running north-east towards Monaco. Cruise ships and yachts were strung out like stepping stones on the deep blue water. As they neared the principality, Bowman’s hands began to tremble. His palms were clammy with sweat; veins of it slicked down his back, gluing his shirt to his skin. With the tremors came the deep throbbing pain. The involuntary twitching of his muscles, the drip-drip of anxiety into his guts. Bowman balled his hands into tight fists and hoped the others hadn’t noticed.

They might realise I’m getting withdrawals, he thought.

Or worse . . . they’ll think I’m afraid.

He tried to stay calm. Which wasn’t easy. The cravings were getting intense. He clung to the hope that he might find a stash of drugs at Lang’s apartment. Lang himself didn’t smoke or drink, but he was known to host parties for his friends. Celebrities, financiers, models. The kind of people who dabbled in narcotics. Bowman didn’t know for sure, but there was a slim chance he might find something there. Maybe pills. Maybe something else. Right now, he’d take anything.

The Agusta approached Monaco from seaward. Below them, Bowman spied a harbour crammed with small fast boats and flashy yachts. Apartment blocks hugged the edge of the marina. From this height they seemed as small and white as sugar cubes. Further inland he glimpsed the football stadium, partially obscured behind a cluster of offices and hotels.

Seven minutes after they had taken off, the chopper descended towards the marina. They landed at the heliport at the water’s edge, the engine whined and then the team piled out and made for the terminal. Casey consulted her phone, verifying Lang’s last known location, pinching and swiping. Bowman avoided the border official’s gaze as he gave his passport a quick scan. The tremors were much worse now. His left hand began shaking as he strolled out of the terminal building. An hour from now, he would be a shivering wreck.

You need to get something in your body, the voice in his head warned. Any opioid will do. It doesn’t matter. Just get to Lang’s apartment and find something.

An enormously overweight man in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts waited for them outside. His face was glossed with sweat. A great hammock of flesh sagged beneath his chin. He had no neck; it had been submerged beneath the fleshy folds of his jowls and shoulders. His arms and legs protruded from his torso like sticks out of a snowman. The man wiped perspiration from his brow with a pocket handkerchief, a seemingly futile exercise, and offered a moist hand to Mallet.

‘You must be Peter,’ he said, using the name of Mallet’s ghost ID. UKNs were never told the real names of the people they worked with.

Mallet shook the man’s hand with great reluctance.

‘I’m Barry Vokes,’ the man went on. He spoke with a strong Mancunian accent.