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asked.
    Grebo leaned forward and whispered through clenched teeth. ‘Two fucking months ago.’
    Berry knew better than to press Grebo on the details, but it was important to him, for his own sake that he knew why it had taken so long for the news to filter through.
    ‘Why did it take so long?’
    Grebo relaxed. ‘Diplomatic sources,’ he told Berry. It was a euphemism that Berry understood. He didn’t know who Grebo worked for directly, but he did know that Grebo was a small link in a very big chain, and it was these very senior people that Grebo was referring to as the diplomatic sources.
    ‘So what happens now?’
    Grebo took another pull at his beer. ‘They’re gonna try and smoke the raghead out. They’re gonna put a team in and they want you to do the drop.’
    Berry nodded thoughtfully, rolling the Budweiser in his hand and settled back in his chair. ‘What will be my cut?’
    Grebo shrugged. ‘The usual, but there’ll be no pick-up this time. That’s all I can tell you. But listen up; none of the team that go in knows of the connection between the raghead and the diplomats. By using you, we are keeping this in house. The drop has got to be right.’
    ‘What about getting them out?’ Berry asked, knowing that once the team had been parachuted in from the Hercules, they were no longer his responsibility.
    ‘Once the job is done, the team will be brought out by helicopter.’
    Berry understood the reasoning behind the decision to get him to fly the Hercules transport. He was due to begin another tour of duty in Afghanistan the following week at the American military base at Khost, and he was one of the very few men who were part of a highly secret cartel who owed little allegiance to their flag. There had been times before when he had flown a covert mission to extract a live cargo, but the live cargo had always been women and children and he had never flown them to any allied air force base but always to a remote strip somewhere near the Turkmenistan border, in the north west of Afghanistan. For that he had always been paid a handsome sum. And he had never questioned the morals or ethics of what he was doing.

    ***
    Marcus picked up the phone and dialled the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. There was very little delay when a charming, female voice told him that he had reached the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and how could she help him?
    ‘Could you put me through to Mister Cavendish, please?’
    ‘One moment, sir. Who may I say is calling?’
    ‘Marcus Blake.’
    ‘Thank you Mister Blake.’
    Marcus relaxed and gazed around the impoverished walls of his office, rattling the tips of his fingers on the desk top while the music played softly in his earpiece.
    The music stopped and the operator came back on the line.
    ‘Mister Blake, I’m sorry, but there is no-one of that name here at the Foreign Office.’
    Marcus sat upright. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked without thinking.
    ‘Yes sir; I have just checked the computer directory of employees here and there is no-one listed under the name of Cavendish.’
    ‘Oh.’ It was all he could think of saying at that moment. Then, ‘Oh well, thank you anyway.’
    ‘Thank you sir.’ The phone went dead.
    Marcus put the phone back in its cradle. He sat like that for a while, his hand still lying on it and began to think of those points he had written while doodling and listening to Susan Ellis.
    Cavendish. There had been something puzzling him about the man. When Susan Ellis told Marcus about her brief encounter with him, she had told him that she didn’t have Cavendish’s phone number and that she couldn’t call him back because his number had been withheld.
    It was also odd that he seemed to know her the moment she walked into Starbucks, although that in itself was not significant. But the nonsense about the diplomatic bag was stretching things a bit, Marcus thought. His father had worked for the diplomatic Corps all his life and Marcus wondered how