Exit wound

A moment later, a man with slicked-back hair, sun-gigs and a khaki windcheater stepped out into the sunshine. He paused, as if to smell the air, and looked about him. He seemed particularly pleased with himself. Then, escorted by one of the BG who’d been on the door, he walked slowly down the steps and slid into the Mercedes.

I had a possible.

57

I dropped onto one knee and made like I was tying a shoelace. I tried to get my Nikon up. Too late. The Mercedes pulled out of its parking slot and headed in the direction I’d just come from.

I doubled back as quick as I could against the flow of people.

It was an E-class, straight from the showroom. I scanned it quickly for a VDM (visual distinguishing mark). The plate meant nothing to me: it was in Farsi. I needed something to pull it from a sea of other vehicles. It had four doors, tinted windows and five-pointed, star-shaped aluminium wheel hubs; all bog-standard, which was how Altun would have liked it. The only thing that distinguished it from any other brand-new black E-class 350 was a mobile phone antenna mounted on the roof with its left-hand blade bent slightly upwards. A set of chintzy green curtains was drawn across the rear window to provide that extra little touch of anonymity.

Every now and again the driver encouraged pedestrians to move out of the way with a blast of the horn. As the crowd parted, the car surged forward ten metres or so. It reached the Zam Zam barrier. I kept on fighting my way through the crowd.

The barrier lifted and the Merc rolled forward. It manoeuvred its way around the petal-strewn tank and the fighter, still heading for the exit. Maybe if I ran through one of the exhibition halls I could get to the head of the taxi line and intercept the wagon as it drove off-site. It picked up speed as the crowd thinned. Fuck it, I was going to lose him. I fired off about six or seven shots of the rear of the Merc. I’d learn the plate script.

But Altun wasn’t leaving after all. The driver turned down an alley to the side of the conference hall, the entrance to which was blocked by an armed sentry.

The two BG stepped out of the car and did their job, covering their principal against a shoot from both ends of the alley.

He darted into the building.

I ran across the road and muscled my way to the front of the crowd surging through the large glass doors.

A cordon of men clutching AKs to their chests directed us towards a huge staircase that curved up to the first floor. As I climbed, I spotted some of the journalists who’d been in the press centre and slipped in behind them. A Brit and a French guy were speculating on trade-fair gossip. I overtook them at the entrance to the conference room. There was another logjam. A phalanx of flustered media-relations people, some Iranian, some Russian, staffed a table to the right of the door. A woman in a headscarf was signing journalists in. The lad with the badges on his hat argued the toss with her in German. I could just hear her above the din. We all had to hand in our cameras. ‘The Ministry of Information will provide the pictures.’ She took his and gave him a numbered ticket.

Fair one. The Afghan warlord, Ahmad Shah Masood, had been assassinated two days before 9/11 by Al-Qaeda posing as journalists. They’d detonated a bomb rigged inside their TV camera.

More journalists milled around us and had a good honk. I was too busy deleting the Merc’s registration-plate pictures. I had to. If they had any sense they would check the cameras while they had the chance, and half a dozen hits of a VIP number-plate wouldn’t be good for business.

An extended hand almost hit my face. ‘Aha, James Manley, ADTM. We meet at last!’ The Brit I’d passed on the stairs looked up from my badge and we shook. ‘I’ve been reading your stuff for years. Some of us thought you didn’t exist, dear boy.’

I managed my best smile as the pissed-off German disappeared inside without his big lens.

He kept on shaking. ‘Collier. Military Systems and Components Quarterly.’ In his other hand, he was clutching a pipe.

This wasn’t the time for pleasantries. ‘Collier,’ I said. ‘Fuck off.’

He stood there trying to work out if he’d heard me right.

The woman was asking me to open my day-sack. She removed the Nikon and gave me a ticket. ‘If you have a mobile phone, Mr Manley, you need to keep it switched off while you are in the conference room. If you do not, it will be taken from you. You can collect your camera from here when the conference is concluded.’ She gave me a badge and waved me on.

58

The conference hall was built like a theatre. There were banked seats – around two hundred of them – leading down to a stage. Whole blocks near the front were filled with Iranians, all with the same red badges. The front row itself had been reserved.