lucky to have any passengers.’
She smiled. ‘I suppose you’re right. We’ll be landing in an hour or so. You’ll be glad to stretch your legs, I bet. It’s a long trip, Cairo to London.’
‘Actually, I started in Peshawar yesterday. Stopped off in Cairo on business, then joined you.’
‘Pakistan! I hear it’s bad on the North-West Frontier these days. Are you in the army, Major?’
‘Not any more. Twenty-odd years was enough. Grenadier Guards. I did a certain amount in Northern Ireland, both Gulf wars, Bosnia and Kosovo, then two tours in Afghanistan. I was lucky to get out of that in one piece. When I was shot in the right shoulder,’ he smiled, ‘I decided that was it and took my papers.’
He didn’t mention the Military Cross he’d earned in Afghanistan, and the years with the SAS and the Army Air Corps. The young woman nodded seriously. ‘You’ve done your bit, if you ask me. What do you do now?’
‘I work for the family firm, Talbot International. We sell trucks to the Pakistan Army, Jeeps, second-hand armoured cars and helicopters.’ He smiled. ‘Have I disappointed you?’
She shook her head. ‘The other side of war.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you miss it? The dark side, I mean?’
‘Let’s say there’s nothing quite like it. There’s no drug that could possibly match the force, the energy, of the killing time in which you’re immersing yourself. War itself is the ultimate drug.’
She looked a bit shocked. ‘Well… business must be booming, with the war spilling over from Afghanistan. Can I get you a drink?’
‘Large vodka would be good, with iced tonic water and a twist of lemon.’
She was back in three minutes and handed it to him. ‘Enjoy.’
He drank half of the drink straightaway and sat there, suddenly yawning. Since Lahore yesterday morning, he’d only had four hours’ sleep. He finished the drink, put the glass down, tilted his seat back. A hell of a trip, and Afghanistan had been particularly rough, but bloody marvellous. The buzz of action never failed to thrill him. It was what he’d missed when he left the army.
You could make millions out of the sale of second-hand military equipment in Northern Pakistan—but there was a lot more money to be made from dealing in illegal arms. Even respectable firms were at it, and nobody was more respectable than Talbot International. Its Chairman, General Sir Hedley Chase, presented the face of integrity itself at the small but elegant office in Curzon Street. The real business took place in Islamabad, where dozens of firms jostled one another for advantage.
It had been only a step from selling illegal arms to providing training in their use. He’d enjoyed every moment of that in the mountains over the border in Afghanistan, and then it had been only logical to take the next step—from training the Taliban to leading them in battle. He’d immediately been seized by the old thrill, and he felt no guilt at all.
The surprise had been when Al Qaeda had discovered what he was up to, and not only approved, but insisted he continue. The strange thing was that there had been a thrill to that, too. It wasn’t as if he needed the money. It was all part of a wonderful, lunatic madness. Anyway, right now he needed rest and recreation. It would be nice to see his mother again. He hadn’t kept in touch much this time. It was better to use mobile and satellite phones sparingly these days, unless they were totally encrypted and encoded. Too many people failed to realize that every conversation you made was out there somewhere and capable of being retrieved.
He wondered if his mother had made one of her rare visits to the family estate, Talbot Place, in County Down. Her own mother, Mary Ellen, had died the previous year, but his grandfather, ‘Colonel Henry’ to the servants, was still alive at ninety-five.
Soldier, lawyer, politician, Member of Parliament at Stormont, and a Grand Master in the Orange Lodge, Colonel Henry was a resolute defender of the Protestant cause who had loathed Roman Catholics—Fenians, as he called them—all his life. Now in his dotage, he was surrounded by workers and house servants who were mainly Catholic, thanks to Mary Ellen, a Protestant herself, who had employed them for years. Justin Talbot’s mother despised the man.
Talbot yawned again and decided that if his mother had gone to Ulster, he would fly across himself, possibly in one of the firm’s planes. He could use a break. He