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

Jallow across the lobby and crowded into the next available lift. Lungu retrieved a card from her jacket pocket, touched it against a reader below the control panel and thumbed the button for the fourteenth floor. The lift whispered upwards, the doors sucked open and then Lungu led them towards the suite at the far end of the corridor.

Two figures sat on a pair of chairs outside the presidential suite. One of the guys was slender with close-cropped hair, a pencil moustache and a pair of dark tinted sunglasses. His mate was thickset and lighter-skinned, with a wide nose and a round head shaped like a bowling ball. They were both dressed in the same plain suits as Jallow. Both of them had the same peculiar scars on their cheeks. The other members of the president’s BG team, Bowman assumed. At the sight of their colleagues they rose slowly to their feet and nodded greetings at Jallow. The latter exchanged a few words in his mother tongue with the bodyguards. Then he turned to the soldiers.

‘This is Isaac Deka,’ he said, gesturing the guy with the pencil moustache. Then he pointed to the guy with the bowling-ball face. ‘And this is Patrick Okello. My colleagues.’

Jallow addressed the bodyguards and gestured towards Bowman and Kember, making the introductions. Okello, the guy with the bowling-ball face, slanted his eyes towards the soldiers, slowly. Stared at them with naked hostility.

Kember said, ‘What’s the craic with them scars?’

‘Tribal marks,’ Jallow explained. ‘Every man in our tribe is scarred on his twelfth birthday.’

‘Lots of tribes, are there?’

‘Hundreds. But ours is the most warlike in Karatandu. Only men from our tribe are trusted to guard the life of the president.’

There was a clear note of pride in his voice. Which was understandable, Bowman thought. Personal bodyguard to the president was a position of great trust. Their appointments would have had less to do with their capabilities than their absolute loyalty to the boss. Now they were reaping the rewards. Foreign travel, the chance to line their own pockets. The perks of the job. Probably an honorary leadership role in their tribe as well.

Lungu said, ‘Wait here. We have some business to discuss with Mr Seguma first.’

‘How long is that gonna take?’ Kember asked.

‘Not long. We’ll call you when Mr Seguma is ready.’

She tapped her smart card against a reader above the lock, waited for the light to blink green, then wrenched the handle and disappeared inside. Jallow and Deka and Okello shuffled in after her. The door clicked shut.

Bowman took the chair Deka had just vacated. Kember sank into the chair next to him and scowled.

‘Can you believe this shit? Here we are doing them a favour, and they’re treating us as if we’re a pair of turds they’ve trodden in.’

‘Leave it, Geordie,’ Bowman replied.

Kember shook his head. ‘We’re Regiment. We shouldn’t have to put up with this crap.’

‘We don’t have a choice.’

‘Yeah, we do. We could tell Mr T and his mate to go fuck themselves.’

Bowman glanced sidelong at his colleague. ‘That’s not a good idea,’ he said. ‘It’s not worth the hassle, mate.’

‘You think we should let this lot talk to us like we’re scum?’

Bowman drew in a breath. ‘Look, we both know that we’re in charge of this op. But we can’t piss these guys off. They’ve got the ear of the president. It’ll make our lives easier if we get along with them.’

Kember shook his head. ‘This mission is a joke.’

‘That’s a bit extreme.’

‘Come on, Josh. We both know that this is a job for the plod, not us. The threat is low level. Some amateur nutcase with a butcher’s knife trying to hack his way into the principal’s car. Nothing that the royal protection squad couldn’t deal with.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘It’s obvious. This op is a PR exercise. We’ve been drafted in to make this guy feel appreciated.’

‘Six wouldn’t send us up here just for that.’

‘Wouldn’t they?’ Kember cracked his knuckle joints before he went on. ‘Everyone knows Seguma is a big fan of the British army. He was a cadet at Sandhurst and everything. Sending us in to guard him is bound to put a big smile on his mug.’

‘Even if that’s true,’ Bowman said, ‘it doesn’t change our mission.’

‘It ain’t right. We’re being used.’

‘Could be worse.’

‘Aye? How’s that?’

‘If we weren’t doing this, we’d be doing some other crap. We could be out in the desert right now, sleeping in tents and shitting in a hole in the ground. At least here we’ve got a warm bed, clean dry clothes, a good wash. There are worse jobs.’

That drew a scornful look from Kember. ‘Frankly I’d rather sleep in the desert than put up with any more shite from that PA.’

Bowman glanced at his colleague, fighting a strong urge to punch him in the face. Kember was beginning to really piss him off.

I’m trying to concentrate on the mission, he thought, and this guy is dragging me down with his constant negativity. If he keeps this up, I’ll give him a slap.

They waited several minutes. Kember tapped out messages on his phone, checking in with the two guys at Westminster Abbey. The advance party. A pair of experienced SAS sergeants, Lomas and Studley. Kember’s phone buzzed with incoming texts from the guys on the team, confirming that the location had been cleared and they were in position at the Abbey.

Bowman checked the time on his G-Shock Gravitymaster.

08.39.

A little over an hour since they had arrived at the Broxbury. Less than two hours until they were scheduled to leave for Westminster Abbey.

Six minutes later, the suite door swung open. Then Lungu stepped outside.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Mr Seguma is ready to meet you now.’

She guided them into a high-ceilinged room adorned with oriental rugs and gold-framed mirrors. In the middle of the room stood a pair of gilt-trimmed armchairs and a sofa arranged in a semicircle around a marble-topped coffee table. Gift boxes from luxury department stores littered the floor. None of them had