Ahmed’s eyes widened. Although the choice of words had been innocent, a vision of one of Monsieur Blanc’s team pushing him out through an open aeroplane door, falling thousands of feet to his death, swam before his eyes. He forced another of his sickly smiles.
“Yes, yes I see. And it is a good plan. But the thing that troubles me, Monsieur Blanc, is the boy. You did not see him with the attackers earlier. He was very quick, very, what is the word? Efficient. I would feel more comfortable if I had some form of protection for myself. A gun for example.”
Monsieur Blanc looked at him for a moment. The man looked on edge, close to panic. A dangerous state for a man with a gun. On the other hand, if he didn’t give him a weapon he suspected the man might simply flip. Refuse to fulfil his part of the bargain, extract the device.
“Very well, Dr. Seladin. You will have your gun.” Monsieur Blanc reached behind him and unlocked the flight case containing the two spare Glock 45s. He handed one over. “I trust you know how to use that thing?”
Dr. Seladin nodded, greedily taking the gun, turning it over in his hands, examining it. One of the few things he been successful at during his brief period in military service was target practice. He tucked the weapon into his jacket pocket.
The driver leaned over his shoulder and spoke quietly to Monsieur Blanc. It is time, he whispered. Monsieur Blanc nodded. He passed a map and a digital camera to Dr.Seladin. “Hold these, try to look a little more like a tourist and little less like a terrorist.”
25
Carla entered Harvey’s office and placed the coffee on his desk, flashing another of her seductive smiles at the boss.
“I’ll be at my desk if you need anything,” she said, somehow managing to make the phrase sound both innocent and loaded at the same time.
“Can that woman actually type?” Bob asked once she’d left the room. Harvey nodded, “she types, does great shorthand, manages my diary and makes a damn good coffee,” he said. Bob sipped the coffee, his face said he didn’t think the coffee was that great, but he didn’t bother speaking his mind, didn’t have to.
Harvey found that part of his character grated. The impression he gave that he knew more than you, but wasn’t going to bother explaining because you probably wouldn’t understand.
Still, you had to give the man his due, an astrophysicist, who’d graduated top of his year group at Harvard then gone on to complete his doctorate before he turned 24, followed by a highly successful career in research and development at a number of blue chip defence firms. The man had earned certain privileges, he obviously thought not explaining himself was one of them.
It was Bob’s suggestion they develop a PEP device and the suggestion had taken Harvey by surprise. Pulsed energy projectile weapons, known as PEPS, had been around since early 2000. Large prototypes, vehicle mounted non-lethal weapons sold as a means of crowd control to an assortment of friendly dictators. They emitted an infrared laser pulse using the chemical deuterium fluoride. The plasma produced exploded on impact. A small dose delivered quite a shock. A large dose simply burnt up those who got in the way. The weapon they’d developed could fire that dose over an area fifty metres in length and ten metres in depth, or it could be set to pin point one particular target.
So far no one had been able to get them down in size to something an infantryman could carry, not without reducing their effectiveness. Bob’s Systems and Development division had finally achieved it, that was until the conflict in the Congo had disrupted supplies of coltan, the only place with a large enough quantity of the ore in the ground to enable them to meet the contract they’d secured with the Defence Department.
Bob’s mobile buzzed. He flipped open the receiver, muttered a series of low ‘hmms’ that sounded like a fly buzzing against a window pane, and turned on the screen that sat at one end of the boardroom table.
“Sir Clive’s online,” he said.
“Sir Clive, how you doing?” Harvey announced loudly to the less than impressed features of Sir Clive Mortimer. “Not interrupting your Sunday afternoon are we?” Sir Clive waved at them irritably; he was dressed in a dinner jacket and white bow tie.
“Well, I was rather hoping to catch the end of the matinee. It’s bloody difficult to get tickets for this performance of Tosca, but you did say it was urgent and I think you pay me enough to warrant me leaving the opera.”
“The heroine throws herself off a cliff.” Bob said, deadpan. Harvey raised his eyebrows; he knew Bob had a range of interests but he hadn’t ever pictured him tucking his long limbs into the stalls at the Met and settling in for a night of overweight caterwauling.
Sir Clive laughed, “and they say you chaps have no sense of irony.”
“How did it go with the boy, is he willing to play a part in this, let them take the tenth device?” Harvey asked.
“He’s on board. Taking to this like a duck to water. I spun him the line we agreed, nuclear bomb for the Internet, cyber terrorism, usual schtick. Same stuff I use on government ministers. If those cynical bastards fall for it then anyone will. If he comes through this I’m thinking of offering him a job. What about Monsieur Blanc, you heard any more from him?”
Harvey shifted in his seat. “Not yet, but he assures me he has matters in hand,” he replied.
“As well he bloody should, the amount of leaked information we’re spoon-feeding him.” Sir Clive replied indignantly. “He’s already made a balls-up of this twice. If he can’t get the devices to the buyer in the Congo then we’ll have no excuse to invade the bloody country, and you won’t get your precious coltan.” Harvey gritted his teeth, no one in his company ever spoke to him like that. Bob watched him warily, wondering if he would lash out. He breathed deeply, bringing himself under control. He needed the whinging Brit on side. Might as well let it go for now.
“Like I said, Monsieur Blanc assures me he has matters in hand. From where I’m sitting there isn’t a lot we can do. You sure your boy isn’t about to go all Kung Fu on the man and will let him take the device?”
“I am sure, yes.” Sir Clive replied confidently. “We’ve pumped him full of painkiller and made it clear we’ll step in if necessary.”
“And he believed you?” Bob asked incredulously.
“He did Bob, yes. Like I say, he’s cut from a different cloth to the average boy. Stroke of luck for us.”
Of course if he hadn’t woken up in the lab before the team got there we wouldn’t be in this mess, Harvey thought, but again he kept it to himself.
26
Clement Nbotou checked his watch. The shiny Rolex glinting against his dark skin. It was the one extravagance he allowed himself when out in the jungle, and the only reason it stayed attached to his wrist was because his troops assumed it was a fake. If they thought for one moment it was real he had no doubt they would take it from him with a machete. He might control the largest Islamist militia in the Eastern Congo but mercenaries were still mercenaries, and the temptation to steal such a prize would be hard to resist. Besides, they were a rag-tag bunch, poor as dirt and half of them barely as tall as the AK47s they slung over their shoulders. A professional army would demolish them on open ground. Here in the jungle, where their enemies were other child soldiers, civilians, and the occasional chancers who decided to open up their own mine and dig for coltan, they were cruelly effective.