Hellfire (6 page)

‘Go ahead.’

‘
There was one other passenger in the car when the hostages were taken. Name of Samuel Ntoga.
’

‘Dead?’

‘
No. He’s just turned up in Port Harcourt.
’

‘What’s his story?’

‘
He says they were held up at a road block. Random gangsters. They let him go. As he was running away he heard two gunshots. Managed to hitch a lift into town, rocked up at the local government offices.
’

‘He’s lying,’ said Danny.

A pause.

‘
The witness is a government official. We can’t just accuse him of lying.
’

‘Too bad, because he is. There were three gunshot wounds. The security guy was shot in the stomach and in the head, the driver just in the stomach. He’s making up his story. We need to talk to this Ntoga guy. Can you get him to Lagos by the time we land?’

‘
We can try.
’

‘Try very hard,’ Danny said, ‘if you want to see your High Commissioner again.’

The line went dead. Danny pulled his cans from his head. Caitlin was staring at him intensely. ‘Nigerian officials are totally corrupt,’ she said. Her previous flirtatiousness had gone. ‘If someone got this guy on board, they’d have made it properly worth his while. He’s not going to talk.’

‘That depends on how persuasive we are.’

Caitlin shook her head. ‘You need the government’s support. Start torturing one of their guys, they’ll close ranks, I guarantee it.’

‘If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears.’

The unit fell into an uneasy silence.

21.32 hrs

Wheels down.

Lagos International Airport was noisy and hot. As the tailgate opened, a blast of sultry air hit Danny. Sauna-hot, but humid with it. He could smell the sea, but with a tinge of rotting debris – no doubt blown in from the slums that surrounded this overpopulated city. It was the smell of Africa. Slightly unpleasant, slightly exciting. Different to anywhere else in the world.

Dark outside. No moon. Thick cloud cover, which explained the suffocating humidity. Danny was already wet through. He could see an Emirates 747 landing on the far side of the airfield, maybe three hundred metres away, a slipstream haze in its wake. Beyond that, sheet lightning in the distance. Ground vehicles were hurrying across the tarmac: refuelling lorries, forklifts for luggage containers. All the trappings of a busy commercial airport. But this side of the airfield was reserved for them. Nobody approached.

The loadies started unsecuring the Range Rover, but there was already a black Mercedes waiting on the tarmac. Ten metres beyond that, an unmarked saloon car with a flashing blue light on the roof. A harassed-looking man with thinning hair, brown trousers and an open-neck shirt was waiting by the Mercedes, his face sickly in the blue strobe. The unit strode down the tailgate, straight up to him. The man seemed to automatically pick Danny out as the leader, and outstretched his hand. Danny shook it.

‘Chris Maloney, military attaché,’ he yelled over the noise of the C17’s engines, which were powering down but still loud. ‘We spoke?’

Danny nodded. ‘Where’s Ntoga?’ he shouted.

Maloney looked around the airfield, then angled his head towards the sky. ‘There,’ he said.

Danny followed his gaze. A hundred metres to the north-west he could see a helicopter coming in to land. It was having trouble staying stable in the choppy weather. Two open-topped trucks were heading towards it, clearly aiming for the chopper’s LZ.

Danny gave Maloney a dead-eyed look. ‘I need to speak to him.’

‘Listen,’ said Maloney. ‘Ntoga’s a cousin of the Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs. We have to go easy on him, or there’ll be hell to pay. We’ll get him to the Deputy High Commission, appeal to his better nature . . .’

‘Forget it. Piece of shit like that hasn’t got a better nature. I need to speak to him.’

Maloney shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. There’s a Nigerian government lawyer waiting for him at the commission. He’ll be in constant attendance. Look, we can still get you on a flight to Port Harcourt in the next fifteen minutes. Leave Ntoga to us. A bit of diplomacy can work wonders sometimes.’

Danny looked over to where the chopper was coming in to land. It was a tight call. Should they waste time precious time on Ntoga, especially when this suit was being so limp-wristed, or should they get their arses out to the Niger Delta?

He decided on Ntoga. Right now, they had nothing. They needed intel.

‘We’ll escort him to the High Commission,’ he said. ‘If he’s such an important guy, you want to make sure he has the best close protection, right?’

The military attaché looked deeply unsure. He glanced over his shoulder, as if he thought someone might be watching, then looked back at Danny. ‘No marks,’ he said quietly. ‘And we’ll have to drive in convoy. At this time of night, it’s a twenty-minute drive to the commission, provided we’re lucky with the God-awful traffic in this bloody city. If you’re any longer than that, his lawyers will start to ask questions.’

Danny sniffed. ‘It’ll be quick,’ he said.

Their Range Rover was reversing down the tailgate. Danny turned his back on the military attaché and addressed his team.

‘We’re escorting Ntoga,’ he announced. ‘We’ve got twenty minutes to find out what he knows. After that, he’ll be lawyered up. Ripley, you and me in the back with Ntoga. Tony, front passenger. Caitlin, you take the wheel, you know Lagos.’ Caitlin’s face darkened: she clearly didn’t appreciate being given the role of chauffeur. But she said nothing.

Danny looked over at the chopper. The rotors were still spinning, but three people were emerging from the aircraft, bowing in the downdraught. ‘Let’s go,’ Danny instructed, ‘before the Nigerians can scoop him up.’

The unit ran to their vehicle. Seconds later, they were screeching across the tarmac towards the chopper. Caitlin handled the vehicle well, pulling a ninety-degree handbrake turn just as the vehicle approached the Nigerian trio. Danny opened his door and jumped out, aware that Ripley was doing the same on the other side of the car. They were only fifteen metres from the chopper, and the roar of the rotors was deafening. ‘Mr Ntoga?’ Danny shouted at the three men.

One of them stepped forward. He wore a business suit, but it was scuffed and grubby. The man himself was chubby, with tightly cropped hair and beads of sweat on his forehead. He smiled, and his teeth looked improbably white against his black skin, with the exception of one gold filling. Danny didn’t like that smile. It didn’t suit the mood. But he didn’t let that show on his face. ‘British intelligence!’ he shouted. ‘We’re here to escort you safely to the Deputy High Commission. Follow me, please.’

There was a moment of hesitation. Ntoga’s two companions clearly didn’t want him to leave, but Ntoga himself shrugged them off with a sharp word in an African language Danny didn’t understand. Danny took Ntoga lightly by the elbow and guided him politely into the back of the car. The Nigerian clambered in without any resistance. Danny and Ripley took their places on either side of him and slammed their doors shut. Danny thought he caught a whiff of stale alcohol. Smelled like Ntoga had been decompressing with a bottle of booze.

Caitlin reversed in a sharp turning circle, then headed back towards the military attaché’s Mercedes. They pulled up behind it. The attaché himself was standing next to his car. He walked up to the Range Rover and peered in through Danny’s window to satisfy himself that Ntoga was there. He gave Danny himself a look full of meaning, then marched back to his own vehicle.

The convoy of three vehicles slipped away from the C17, led by the unmarked saloon car. They moved across the airfield, skirting round the runway and heading to the side of the main terminal building. Border control regulations were for other people, not for them. At a heavily armed barrier, a Nigerian soldier waved them through.

Ntoga hadn’t lost his grin. He seemed unaware that his four guards were staring straight ahead, expressionless. ‘This is more like it!’ he announced in a marked Nigerian accent. ‘I should be kidnapped more often!’

Danny turned to look at him. ‘Thing is, Mr Ntoga,’ he said, ‘I know that you
weren’t
kidnapped.’

The smile fell immediately from Ntoga’s face. ‘Don’t you talk to me like that!’ he said. ‘You!’ He leaned forward and rapped Tony on the shoulder. ‘Open your window.’

Tony gave him a contemptuous look, then turned to face straight ahead again.

Ntoga clenched his fist. ‘Do you know who I am?’

Caitlin was accelerating up a ramp onto a raised highway. Beneath the road, a sea of tin roofs. Danny glanced at the speedometer. They were doing about fifty mph. Ntoga wouldn’t try to escape the vehicle at that speed. Tony leaned forward and pressed a button on the dashboard. The central locking clicked shut.

A frown crossed Ntoga’s face. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘Who are you? Don’t you know who I am?’

‘Yeah,’ Danny said. He removed his Sig from its holster, cocked it, then placed the barrel against Ntoga’s crotch. ‘You’re the guy I’m going to shoot in the bollocks if you don’t tell me what the hell’s going on.’

Ntoga looked down at the weapon. His face was a picture of surprise and outrage. He looked Danny in the eye, then back down at his crotch again.

Then he burst into laughter.

‘You a funny guy!’ he said, spitting the words out insultingly. ‘You think you can take me – me! – into the British High Commission with my
hausa
hanging of
f
? You a very funny guy!’

Danny suddenly burned with anger. With his free hand he grabbed hold of Ntoga’s podgy neck, and squeezed hard. He could feel the jugular pulsing fast and hard. ‘Listen to me, you piece of shit,’ he hissed. ‘You’re going to be lucky even to make it as far as the fucking building. I’ll drive you to one of the slums, put a bullet in your guts and leave you for dogs. Start talking now, or I’ll . . .’

Ntoga never got to hear what Danny had in mind, because suddenly Caitlin had made a last-minute right-hand turn that jolted everyone in the car. The Nigerian official was lucky not to have taken a loose round in the bollocks. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Danny barked.

‘Put the gun away,’ Caitlin said. ‘Ntoga’s right. We can’t touch him.’

They sped down a slip road that turned a sharp semicircle.

‘Bullshit. I can . . .’

‘You asked me on the plane if I had a better idea,’ Caitlin interrupted. ‘I do.’

Danny looked out of the window. The other two cars in the convoy were already out of sight. Up ahead, Danny saw a sea of traffic, and he could smell the stench of exhaust fumes. Caitlin floored the accelerator, took a sharp left and sped down a dark side street.

‘Where the fuck are we going?’ Tony demanded. He sounded as tense as Danny felt. The last thing they needed was a wild card behind the wheel.

Caitlin didn’t reply. Danny and Ripley exchanged an anxious look. They’d only been in-country ten minutes and already they were heading for an almighty fuck-up. But whatever Caitlin was up to, it had an effect on Ntoga. He wasn’t laughing any more. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting, and he was clearly worried. Danny decided to let the situation play out.

Caitlin negotiated the back streets of Lagos like a native. She didn’t stop for pedestrians, and she cut up more vehicles than Danny could count. After a couple of minutes, she yanked the steering wheel sharp right into a busy, broad, tree-lined street. The vehicle screeched to a halt, half up on a pavement. A couple of angry-looking men in floral shirts shouted abuse at her. But then they glanced to their left and, as if they’d forgotten where they were, hurried on. Cars honked aggressively at each other all around them, and swarms of pedestrians wandered across the road as freely as if it was a pavement. From somewhere outside, Danny could hear the loud pulse of Afrobeat music. On the opposite side of the street he could see a rickety old shack selling fruit and bottled water, almost as if it was the middle of the day. And alongside them was a large, utilitarian, concrete building – four storeys high and at least a hundred metres in length. Many lights burned brightly inside. Danny had the impression that people were hurrying past it.

‘You know where we are, Ntoga?’ Caitlin said, without looking back.

Ntoga nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Where?’

He didn’t reply until Danny jabbed his handgun sharply into his ribs. ‘Police headquarters,’ said the Nigerian.

‘Very good. Did you know that the guy who got kidnapped has a teenage daughter?’

Ntoga blinked heavily, but said nothing.

‘So does the Inspector General of Police. The two girls are the same age. They’re very good friends.’

Danny allowed himself a grim smile. He could see where this was going. He caught Tony’s glance in the mirror. He looked reluctantly impressed. Any worries they’d shared about Caitlin’s abilities were beginning to dissolve.

The atmosphere in the car had changed. Caitlin turned to look back at Ntoga. Her face looked very severe in the light of the passing headlamps.

‘I knew a guy once,’ Caitlin continued. ‘Important guy. More important than you. Refused to pay a bribe to a pretty minor police official. He ended up in here. Next time I saw him, he couldn’t walk.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Everyone in Lagos knows what’s in the basement of this building, Ntoga. Those who get to see it are lucky to come out again. You and I both know that the only people in Nigeria more corrupt than the government are the police. So you’ve got two options. You can tell us who the hell paid you for information on the High Commissioner’s whereabouts, and walk away with your money, untouched, tonight. Or we can hand you over to the Inspector General, slip him a couple of thousand naira for his trouble, and watch him get medieval on you. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be more than happy to shoot your dick off myself, but why should I bother when there’s a whole basement full of experts to do the job for me?’