in the gloom, and woke Konko with a jab of his foot.
His cellmate groaned. ‘What is it?’ he said sleepily.
‘Listen.’
Konko listened. ‘Gunfire,’ he said. ‘So what?’
‘So nothing. I thought you’d enjoy some excitement.’
‘I was having plenty in my sleep. There’s this girl I used to know in my village. I’d forgotten all about her…’
He rambled on, making Diba think of Anja, and of what she was doubtless doing. The woman could not say no. Unfortunately, he could not say no for her, not while he was locked up in this cell.
Another burst of gunfire sounded, this time closer. So what? Diba’s thoughts echoed his cellmate’s. Whatever was happening out there was unlikely to help him in here.
Simon McGrath, awoken in his room on the fourth floor of the Carlton Hotel, thought for a moment he was back on the Jebel Dhofar in Oman, listening to the firqats firing off their rifles in jubilation at the successful capture of Sudh. The illusion was brief-lived. He had never had a bed in Oman, not even one as uncomfortable as the Carlton’s. And it had been more than ten years since the men he had helped to train had taken Sudh and started rolling back the tide of the Dhofari rebels.
This was Banjul, The Gambia, and he was no longer in the SAS. Still, he thought, swinging his legs to the floor and striding across to the window, the gunfire he was listening to was coming out of Kalashnikov barrels, and they were not standard issue with the Gambian Field Force. Out there on the capital’s mean streets something not quite kosher seemed to be taking place.
The view from his window, which faced south across the shanty compounds towards the Great Mosque, was uninstructive. Nothing was lit, nothing moving. He tried the light switch, but as usual at this time of night, the hotel’s electricity was off.
McGrath dressed in the dark, wondering what would be the prudent thing to do. Stay in bed, probably.
To hell with that.
He delved into his bag and extracted the holster and semi-automatic 9mm Browning High Power handgun which he had brought with him from England. Since McGrath was in The Gambia in a civilian capacity, seconded from the Royal Engineers to head a technical assistance team engaged in bridge-building and pipe-laying, his possession of the Browning was strictly illicit, but that hardly concerned him. The Third World, as he was fond of telling people who lived in more comfortable places, was like an overpopulated Wild West, and he had no intention of ending up with an arrow through his head. A little string-pulling among old contacts at Heathrow had eased the gun’s passage onto the plane, and at Yundum no one had dreamed of checking his baggage.
He threaded the cross-draw holster to his belt, slipped on the lightweight jacket to hide the gun, and left his room. At first it seemed as if the rest of the hotel remained blissfully unaware of whatever it was that was happening outside, but as he went down the corridor he caught the murmur of whispered conversations.
He was about to start down the stairs when the benefits of a visit to the roof occurred to him. He walked up the two flights to the fifth floor, then one more to the flat roof. With the city showing its usual lack of illumination and the moon hiding behind clouds, it was little lighter outside than in, and for almost a minute McGrath waited in the open doorway, searching the shadows for anyone who had chosen to spend the night in the open air. Once satisfied the roof was empty, he threaded his way through the washing lines to the side overlooking Independence Drive.
As he reached this vantage point a lorry full of men swept past, heading down towards the centre of town. Several men were standing on the pavement opposite the hotel, outside the building housing the Legislative Assembly. A yellow glow came from inside the latter, as if from gas lamps or candles.
It looked like a coup, McGrath thought, and at that moment a fresh volley of shots resounded away to his right, from the direction of the Palace. There was a hint of lights through the trees – headlights, perhaps – but he could see nothing for certain, either in that direction or any other. Banjul might be surrounded on its three sides by river, sea and swamp, but at four in the morning they all looked like so many pieces of gloom.
The Royal Victoria Hospital, whose main entrance was little more than a hundred yards from the Palace gates, showed no more lights than anywhere else. McGrath wondered if Sibou was sleeping there that night, as she often did, or whether she had gone home for some of that rest she always seemed to need and never seemed to get.
He would go and have a look, he decided, one part of his mind commending him for his thoughtfulness, the other thanking his lucky stars that he had come up with a good excuse to go out in search of adventure.
It was almost six-thirty before Colonel Taal felt confident enough of the outcome of the fighting around the Presidential Palace to delegate its direction, and to head back down Buckle Street to the radio station for the prearranged meeting. Mamadou Jabang and his deputy, Sharif Sallah, had arrived in their commandeered taxi more than half an hour earlier, and the subsequent wait had done little to soothe their nerves.
‘What is happening?’ Jabang asked, when Taal was only halfway through the door. He and Sallah were sitting at either end of a table in the station’s hospitality room. ‘Has anything gone wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘The Palace is taken?’ Sallah asked.
‘The Palace is cordoned off,’ Taal answered. ‘Some of the guards have escaped, either down the beach or into the town, but that was expected.’ He sat down and looked at the two of them: the wiry Jabang with his hooded eyes and heavy brow, Sallah with the face that always seemed to be smiling, even when it was not. Both men were sweating heavily, which perhaps owed something to the humidity, but was mostly nerves. Jabang in particular seemed exhausted by the combination of stress and tiredness, which did not exactly bode well for the new government’s decision-making process. Nothing perverted the exercise of judgement like lack of sleep, and somehow or other all three of them would have to make sure they got enough in the days to come.
‘It will be light in half an hour,’ Jabang said.
‘And the country will wake to a better government,’ Sallah said, almost smugly.
Taal supposed he meant it. For some reason he could never quite put his finger on, he had always doubted Sallah’s sincerity. Whereas Jabang was transparently honest and idealistic almost to a fault, Sallah’s words and deeds invariably seemed to carry a taint of opportunism.
Maybe he was wrong, Taal thought. He hoped he was. Jabang trusted the man and there had to be easier ways to glory than taking part in the mounting of a coup like this one. Everyone knew their chances of lasting success were no better than even, and in the sanctum of his own thoughts Taal thought the odds considerably longer. Seizing control was one thing, holding on to it something else entirely.
McGrath had decided that even in the dark a stroll along Independence Drive might not prove wise, and had opted for the long way round, making use of Marina Parade. On this road there was less likely to be traffic or headlights, and the overarching trees made the darkness even more impenetrable. He worked his way along the southern side, ears alert for the sound of unwelcome company, and was almost level with the Atlantic Hotel when two headlights sprang to life some two hundred yards ahead of him, and rapidly started closing the distance. There was no time to run for better cover, and McGrath flattened himself against the wall, hoping to fall outside the vehicle’s cone of illumination.
