Union regs or punishing overtime rates meant that the place wasn’t exactly crowded. I spotted a bit of movement on the decks of three or four of the boats, and not much on the machinery above them.

There was no sign of Minerva on the quays closest to the harbour mouth. Diana was safely parked on the fourth one I came to, pointy end out towards the water. When I got nearer, I could see Vesta immediately in front of it. They were both piled high with cargo. Two containers had been lifted straight on to flatbed artics. A third was in the process of being lowered into position.

I couldn’t stand by the gangplank this time round, waving at random crew members and pretending I was there to meet a mate before first light. I stayed out of sight, in the shadow of a gantry.

As the leading artic pulled away from me towards the port entrance, the darkness beyond the overhead conveyor was suddenly ripped apart by blue flashing lights and sirens. The truck driver put his foot down. I didn’t hang about either. I legged it away from the metalwork, aiming to keep the moving container between me and the approaching carabinieri as I crossed the open ground.

When I was still thirty away from the railway line, the driver spun his wheel into opposite lock. The cab veered back towards me, headlamps blazing. I kept on running. I didn’t have a choice. And I already had a feeling that the driver was about to lose control.

The forward momentum of his load and the tightness of his turn forced all three sets of left-hand tyres at the back end of the trailer off the road surface. The front end started to lift as well. He tried to correct, brakes shrieking, but it wasn’t going to happen. The vehicle whipped across the tarmac, like a cut snake. Then it began to roll on to its side.

There was a thunderous crash and the scream of tortured metal. A shower of sparks five metres high and twenty long. Now the fucking thing was coming at me, wheels spinning, looking to churn me up. And the main beams were showing me my escape route.

I swerved left, away from it. Legged it past a stack of sleepers and across the railway track. I was a couple of metres up the bank and zigzagging through the bushes when the blue flashing lights reached the crippled artic. I didn’t stop to watch. I wanted to make maximum use of the diversion, and of the denser foliage ahead of me. I could work my way behind it and slip out at the end of the fence, as long as there wasn’t another police detachment aiming to pen me in from the road.

I turned and scanned the disaster area as soon as I was in cover.

The wagons were Iveco VM 90s. And the lads in blue were GIS. The Gruppo di Intervento Speciale were close mates with the Regiment, and they didn’t fuck about. They weren’t there to hand out speeding tickets.

They hadn’t seen me.

And it soon became obvious that seeing me wasn’t why they were there.

Four of them, in goggles and helmets, leapt out of the lead vehicle as it crunched to a halt. Two stood back, weapons in the aim. Two piled in to try to crank open the doors of the container. Fuck knew what they thought was in there.

The other five VMs hurtled straight past, then peeled off in sequence towards the place I’d just been. They stopped ten short of the arse end of Diana, boxing in whoever might have been thinking of doing a runner from the two RIBs I could now see bouncing in from the sea.

More lads in goggles and helmets debussed, weapons at the ready, and converged on the artics that hadn’t yet left the quay. Both drivers climbed down and made it clear that they weren’t looking for trouble. The third container was still hanging from its crane. The doors of the second, sitting on the flatbed, were thrown open.

They were facing away from me, so it was a while before I saw what was inside. First out were a whole lot of packing cases. The GIS lined up and passed them down the chain. When the guys at the end of it had built a fair-sized stack, I heard a shout.

Up came the weapons again. Ten minutes later, about twenty hunched figures had spilt out and were clustered beside them, wondering what the fuck had just happened, and who had betrayed them. These lads weren’t going to be staying in the park.

I glanced back at the artic on its side. The driver had managed to kick his way out through the smashed windscreen and was being told to lie flat on the ground in front of it, hands behind his neck. The uniforms at the back were still trying to lever open the container. There was a lot of shouting and waving of hands and weapons, and then a fucking great bang did the job for them.

Whatever had triggered it, the back and the side blew out and its contents sprayed across the hard standing like shrapnel. I couldn’t see how many of the GIS team survived the blast, and I wasn’t going to stick around and count.

The road was still clear as I made my way back to the Seat, but by the time I turned the key in the ignition, three vehicles had stopped beside the fence to enjoy the drama. I pulled away, heading south. I needed to put some distance between myself and the action on the quay.

I also wanted to check out the coastline for somewhere a container boat might park up without too much fuss. Because the more I thought about the shit that had just happened behind me, the more it felt like a diversion.

If something doesn’t feel right, it normally isn’t.

I put myself in my enemy’s shoes.

They were planning to bring something in under the radar. They couldn’t afford to be compromised.

Palermo and Naples were People-trafficking Central, so the main terminals in the south-west quadrant were bound to be the first port of call for anyone on their trail.

Brindisi was quieter, but still dealt in huge-volume cargo. It was less than two days by sea from Istanbul, and only 130 Ks from Albania. Anyone within reach of a Google button knew that.

So what would I have done in Dijani’s position?

I pressed the replay button for the screen inside my head, and watched the first artic doing its thing all over again.

The driver might have been a loose cannon, or a lad with a very guilty conscience, but he hadn’t needed to take off like a rocket, snaking right, then left. He must have known he’d roll it.

And then the explosion.

No ruptured fuel tank, ignited by a rogue spark. A perfectly choreographed performance, guaranteed to create maximum impact.

Hesco had pretty much confirmed that they’d been feeding int about me and Stefan to the GIGN and TIGRIS, to take the heat off them and make my life more difficult. So supplying the GIS with a rumour of a load of illegals hitting town at dark o’clock fitted the pattern.

Parking two boats somewhere visible, each with a big manifest, then putting on a bit of a show for them, ending with a fireworks display, would guarantee their attention.

You didn’t do that just for the fun of it. You did it so the emergency services would have their hands full for the next twenty-four hours – and boat number three could slip in somewhere quiet and unnoticed, and do whatever it needed to do.

And you couldn’t time a detonation with such precision without eyes on the target.

So I hadn’t been the only infiltrator.

Some other fucker had been there, binos raised, thumb on the detonator button. Rexho Uran had been sighted in Brindisi. Now I knew why.

9

I turned off the main as soon as I could and joined the coast road in the direction of Otranto. I found myself a coffee and drank it in the wagon as I did the usual with the first Nokia out of the day sack.

While I waited for Luca to pick up, I ran a finger down the map. There seemed to be three or four locations with either inlets or harbours, but since I was working on 1:200,000 scale I wouldn’t know for sure until I had eyes on every nip and tuck.