He was just mentally tidying up a few things, as if this were his last opportunity for redemption. He processed a series of thoughts that weren’t sugar-coated or, indeed, coated in anything. They were the honest feelings of someone who would never again have the luxury of speaking to his partner, a member of his family or his friends. Oddly feeling at peace with himself and not morbid, he was moving on to the two things in his past life that he really regretted when something leapt through the window opening.
A scruffy, black-and-white dog landed in front of him and started running around.
He almost burst into tears, not because he had said goodbye to this earth and the dog had brought him back to the present, but just to see a free spirit unconstrained by handcuffs and chains. It leapt up and started kissing him.
“God, you stink of fish.”
The noise attracted three new people into the room: a large black man in a shiny, grey suit, plus two local Berber tribesmen. They hurriedly chased the dog out and closed the door behind it. A few seconds later, it jumped back through the opening, much enjoying the game. One of the Berbers led it by the scruff of its neck out of the door and, presumably, locked it away somewhere. The remaining Berber spoke in broken English.
“I am Aksil Zadi. Mr Ramirez, now we meet. Time for video.”
“You will be a big, international star.” The man in the shiny suit spoke in good English and what sounded like a Nigerian accent.
“I’m not looking my best,” came the reply.
“You read this.” Aksil Zadi produced a sheet of paper from inside his djellaba.
“Mr Ramirez, my English is good. Do not waste our time trying to put in anything extra. If you do, it will upset us. Please don’t upset us. We will come back soon to begin the filming,” the man in the shiny suit said.
The sheet of paper was handed over, and they left the room. It read:
The Sahrawi People’s Army (SPA) supports the legitimate liberation struggle waged by the Sahrawi people against the illegal Moroccan occupation of parts of the Sahrawi Republic and the continued acts of aggression carried out by the occupying Moroccan state on the Sahrawi Liberated Territory.
Despite terrorist attacks in London, Paris, Barcelona, Brussels and Finland, which were almost exclusively carried out by terrorists of Moroccan origin, the US continues to support Morocco.
The Moroccans blew up an Algerian gas pipeline on Wednesday last week, but there has been no international condemnation, apart from by our friends in Russia, India and China.
The US and its allies insult the Sahrawi Republic by holding the G20 meeting in Marrakech and sending its spies to destabilise the region.
The US and its allies must agree to support the complete independence of the Sahrawi Republic immediately.
If it does not announce this publicly at the G20, American hostages will be killed.
Two hundred yards away, Mike Kingdom was sitting in the pickup, cursing Chips – a thought that, until an hour ago, she never believed would ever enter her mind. Now she had a dilemma. Common sense said that she should leave the dog, drive back to the port, call Leonard and leave the rest to the professionals. They would quickly trace the three individuals and any connection they might have with Randy. Another side of her wanted to check whether Randy was in any of the farm buildings. If challenged, she was just looking for her dog.
The approach to the right-hand corner of the first building was reasonably well hidden, and there were no windows – only whitewashed walls and a rotten, old wooden door. She muted her phone to avoid any noise occurring at some embarrassing moment and got out of the pickup, trying not to look suspicious. After fifty or so paces, she found herself next to the wall and could hear nothing apart from the blood thumping in her ears. She thought it was odd that she couldn’t hear or see Chips, who seemed incapable of sitting still or not barking for more than ten seconds.
To her right, away from the house, she could now see the free-standing stone arch, of which one was half-filled in with a much later wall; it appeared to be a dark entrance to something underground. There was no door, and it was partially overgrown. It didn’t look as if anyone had used it for years. Unfortunately, she would have to cross open ground to check it out, and she felt safer up against the whitewashed wall of the main buildings.
She leapt when Chips came running around the corner only to bark when he saw her. He skidded on the loose sand and charged back out of sight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“How long is this going on for, Charles?” Maria Yelland was beginning to get tired of her gilded cage in Spain. “I might as well be back in Mexico. Nobody will find us at the hacienda.”
This was probably true. Her family was descended from the conquistadores and were now landed gentry with an income effectively coming from a drug cartel. Security around the family was extensive, and strangers could get nowhere near.
“Anyway, I want to go home.” Angelica did not want to be in Spain or Mexico. She wanted to be in Beswick Manor with handy access to London. “Or, like, Dubai. Like, half of my friends are there at the moment.”
Charles was sitting eating some cold meats and bread that Paco had just placed on the table, together with a glass of white Rioja. “Mexico might be a possibility, Maria, but it’s easier if we’re together until these crazy people are caught and we can go back to normal. And by easier, I mean it’s easier for Wazz and the rest of his security team to look after us.”
“What is it that these ‘crazy people’, as you call them, want? Is it really worth it? Why don’t you give it to them? We’re not exactly down to our last peso.”
“Gabriela and Camila have gone back to Mexico. I don’t blame them.” Angelica was talking while tapping the keyboard of her phone.
“These people were asking that I give them something I didn’t have.” Here, Charles, as usual, was playing games with the truth or, more accurately, with the tense of the verbs, because he now had it in his possession since Yves Dubuisson had visited.
Conrad was not a happy man.
“The three of you had better give me a good reason not to get on Air Force One and fly out of this godforsaken hole right now. I don’t want any BS.” He paused, but the other people on the video call were wise enough to keep quiet. “This smells like Stan Turner and Carter in 1977. The CIA was completely asleep back then, with its foot off the gas and putting all of its eggs in one basket – the Shah of Iran. Suddenly, it was revolution under an ayatollah and sixty-six Americans were held hostage for over a year. The CIA got Iran all wrong. Now tell me it’s not the same here in Morocco?” He paused again. “The US has been supporting the Moroccans and their kings since the Founding Fathers. What if this is about to go belly up? Why did we let the Russkies cosy up to the Algerians? Why not let the Algerians control Western Sahara in return for a whole slice of their gas?”
It fell upon the Secretary of State, who was in a separate hotel not far away, to try to calm the President down. “Mr President, trust me that we’re backing the right horse. It’s better that Morocco has tacit control of Western Sahara. If the Algerians get control via the Polisario, then the Russians have control as well. We’ll have lost out big time.”
“But what if there’s an Islamic revolution in Morocco? Like Iran. Or an Arab Spring?”
“That would be unfortunate, but we’re doing everything we can to stop that. Morocco has the best intelligence service in Africa other than the South Africans. They’re on the case.”
“Carrying out attacks in Europe and bribing EU Commissioners?” Conrad was not appeased.
“Nobody in this region of North Africa is as pure as the driven snow, even the Moroccans, and especially not the Algerians.”
“Why are half the leaders at this G20 getting warnings from their intelligence agencies that there’s going to be trouble?” Conrad was darting all over the place.
“Leonard?” the CIA director of operations (DO) in Langley prompted his man in London, who was also on the call, to respond.
