Red Centre

by Chris Ryan

  The man reached a dusty blue 4x4 and unlocked it. Paulo stood watching him, a million questions buzzing in his head. How could Sancho Pirroni be here? He was doing several life sentences in a maximum security prison in the United States. Could he be sure it was him? The Mediterranean features were hardly characteristic of Australian natives, so he certainly wasn’t local. The build looked about the same as Sancho Pirroni, allowing for a little weight gain over the years. And then there was that distinctive limp.

  The man was loading shopping bags onto the back seat of the car. Then he opened the driver’s door. He was going to drive off. Somehow, before he did, Paulo needed get a close look at his face . . .

  Amber appeared in the doorway of the shop, flexing her new boots one at a time. Paulo took her arm and whispered in her ear, ‘Amber, can you make that man get out of his jeep and walk about a bit?’

  Amber picked up at once on the urgency in Paulo’s voice. Alpha Force were used to kidding around with each other but they also knew when a situation was deadly serious. She went into action immediately; she could ask questions later. She strolled up to the man, who was in the driver’s seat, about to shut the door.

  ‘Excuse me,’ called Amber. She said it with a twang, drawing out her American accent to make it sound like she was from the deep South. A good friend of Amber’s – a sophisticated young lady with wealthy parents who ran a genotech company lived in Mississippi, and was constantly saying how people who didn’t know her tended to assume because of her accent that she was some kind of simple hillbilly. Right now it suited Amber’s purposes to sound uncomplicated and homespun. She silently apologized to her friend and called to the man a second time.

  The man looked up and saw the slim, attractive black girl running lightly towards him. Paulo, watching from the front of the store, saw the man’s eyes narrow. But that could mean nothing – it was be the natural reaction of anyone accosted by a stranger.

  ‘So sorry to bother you,’ said Amber with a drawl, ‘but I wonder – could you help me? I think my tyre might be a bit flat. Could y’all come and tell me if it’s OK?’ She knew she could pass for a few years older than her actual age.

  The man frowned, as though weighing Amber up for a moment, then removed his keys from the ignition and stepped out of the car. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, and smiled at her. It was a charming smile and he spoke with an Australian accent, but there was a flavour of something else that made him sound foreign.

  Amber thought quickly. A red Toyota parked on the opposite side of the yard looked a good candidate. It wasn’t visible from the shop and it had only recently arrived, which meant the owners weren’t likely to come out again for a few minutes. And she needed to pass Paulo to get there.

  Paulo stood back in the shadows of the porch so that the direction of his gaze couldn’t be seen as they went past. He watched the man intently, noting facial features as well as the uneven walk and committing them to memory. Using Hex’s laptop, he could compare them with details of the real Sancho Pirroni. Just in case the man noticed him, Paulo gave Amber a soft wolf whistle as she walked by.

  ‘You have an admirer,’ the man said to Amber.

  ‘Not my type,’ she replied.

  ‘He was watching you as you came over.’

  Amber realized what was odd about the way the man spoke. There was a slight formality, as though English wasn’t his first language. It reminded her of Paulo, who would babble ten to the dozen in his native Spanish but, although fluent in English, always seemed to have trouble contracting everyday expressions. She made a mental note – details like this might be useful. There was something else she noticed too: a patch of skin on the man’s left forearm that showed up pink and wrinkled against his tan, like a scar from a burn.

  Amber led the man to the Toyota. She indicated the back wheel on the side facing away from the shop and poked the tyre with her finger. She was about to say, ‘Does this look all right to you?’ when, from inside the car, a furious wailing started. A toddler had been sitting quietly in a child seat and was now obviously upset to see two strangers looming outside the window.

  The man glanced at the child and then at Amber, noting the child’s light blond hair and fair skin and Amber’s ebony colouring. ‘Surely not your sister?’ he said.

  Amber’s mind raced. ‘Gee, no, I’m the au pair,’ she said, quick as a flash. ‘And pardon me, sir, but she’s a he,’ she added, noting the cut of the clothes. She made shushing noises at the child, hoping she sounded soothing. The child redoubled his efforts and screeched all the more loudly, his face pink with outrage.

  The man looked down at the tyre. ‘The tyre is perfectly all right.’

  Amber gave him a dazzling smile. ‘Well, thank y’all so much for that – I just wanted to be sure. If you’ll excuse me, I’d better calm down li’l Tommy here.’

  The lame man seemed keen to get away. He nodded curtly and began to walk back to his 4x4. Amber stood by the car as though searching for her keys. Any moment now she expected the child’s parents to make an appearance to find out what was causing the ruckus, and she was relieved to see that the man was no longer looking in her direction. She noticed Alex coming around the front of the car park, heading for the shop, and slipped back inside as soon as she could.

  Alex passed close to the lame man. Something made them both look round at each other at the same moment. The fraction of a second when their eyes met was like a spark igniting. Alex didn’t know who the man was but he felt chilled, as though he had been searched by a piercing intelligence and unmasked.

  Amber and Paulo waited until the man’s jeep had left the car park before they let themselves be seen talking to one another.

  ‘So what’s all the mystery?’ she said.

  Paulo kept his voice low, his eyes following the dusty wake left by the jeep. ‘I think we have just met one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists,’ he said.

  4

  TRAIL OF BLOOD

  ‘Sancho Pirroni?’ repeated Hex. ‘Isn’t he in jail?’ His fingers were already flying over the keys of his state-of-the-art palmtop. The flat aerial in the lid of the tiny machine connected him with a network of communications satellites, and meant that he could surf the Net from anywhere in the world – even the depths of the rainforest.

  They were back at the camp, waiting for the lighting and camera technicians to arrive for a last technical rehearsal. Alex broke out a crate of water and silently handed round bottles. They found they were constantly thirsty in the sapping jungle heat, and so it was vital to keep up their intake of fluids.

  ‘Yes, here we are.’ Hex read from the screen: ‘“September nineteen ninety-six: the terrorist Sancho Pirroni was today sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Washington for the murder of a German secret agent. ‘Sancho the Piranha’, as he has become known, will spend the rest of his life behind bars in the maximum security wing of US Penitentiary Beaumont in Texas. The sentencing brings to an end a reign of terror that lasted for more than two decades and began with the kidnapping and murder of the UN diplomat Charles Bowler. Pirroni has masterminded bombings, assassinations and kidnap pings for innumerable terrorist and guerrilla groups. His employers include the Grey Wolves, who were behind the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul the Second, the Guatemalan Committee for Patriotic Unity, the Indian separatist group Harakat ul-Ansar, the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, the Italian Red Brigade and the Palestine Liberation Organization. He is also reported to have worked for Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro. Handing down the sentence, Judge Daniel Kramer said: ‘You are a cold, calculating killer with no regard for human life. You will never be set free.’”’

  ‘That’s one hell of a resume,’ said Li dryly.

  Paulo was frowning. ‘But I saw him today. He’s here.’

  Amber took a slug of water. ‘Hex, can you find a photo of him?’

  Hex’s fingers rattled the small keyboard. ‘Coming right up. Hold on, I’ll enhance it.’ He hit a key a
nd then handed the little machine to Amber.

  The picture was blurred, an enlargement from one of the few shots taken during the televised coverage of Sancho Pirroni’s trial. The angle wasn’t ideal either. Half the prisoner’s face was in shadow. He also looked slimmer than the man Amber had been talking to in the car park, but she tried to ignore that. She concentrated on the central features – the shape of the eyes, nose and mouth – and imagined them superimposed on the face she had seen that morning.

  Li was watching Amber intently. ‘You think it’s him, don’t you?’

  Amber shrugged and handed the palmtop back to Hex. ‘I can’t be sure.’

  ‘Maybe I can find something else . . .’ Micro-expressions flickered over Hex’s face as he checked other websites and rejected them. ‘No, that seems to be the same image . . . same again . . .’ He looked up. ‘All the photos seem to be variations of that one. Obviously very few were taken.’

  ‘I suppose if you were an international terrorist you wouldn’t have had your photo taken that often either,’ said Li.

  Alex drained his water bottle and crushed it for the recycling bin. They were meticulously careful about rubbish – for two reasons. Not only were they eager to keep the rainforest free of litter, they knew that any food scraps or wrappers would attract unwanted guests such as rats. And once rats came into the camp, there would be snakes too. But Alpha Force were used to the discipline of making sure they left no trace in a camp – it could be vital on covert missions.

  ‘There’s usually an arrest photo,’ said Alex. ‘That must be up on a site somewhere. You know, the standard mug shot with the lines in the background that show how tall he is.’

  They heard the sound of footsteps in the undergrowth. Tracey, the production executive, appeared. ‘Has one of you guys got a mobile phone? Something’s interfering with our equipment.’ She sounded cross.

  ‘It’s my palmtop – sorry,’ said Hex.

  ‘Well will you turn it off, please?’

  ‘E-mail my uncle before you do,’ hissed Amber.

  ‘Just what I was thinking,’ replied Hex in a low voice, his fingers working like lightning. In a moment it was done. ‘All switched off now,’ he said brightly to Tracey.

  ‘It shouldn’t be here in the first place,’ said Tracey. She spoke into her radio microphone. ‘Pam, is that any better?’

  The reply came from a tiny speaker on a pendant, like the remote earpiece for a mobile phone: ‘We’re still getting fizz on some of the cameras.’

  Tracey sighed. ‘Can you tell which ones?’

  ‘It’s right where you are, Tracey.’

  ‘Well, it’s not me,’ she retorted. She looked around at the others. ‘Right, what else have you got?’

  Li, Hex, Amber, Paulo and Alex all looked at each other, mystified.

  ‘Nothing,’ protested Hex. ‘Oh, wait a moment.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Ah yes, it was me.’ He clicked a button on the watch. ‘Is that better?’

  ‘Gadget boy,’ said Amber, rolling her eyes. ‘Of course it would have to be you!’

  Tracey spoke into her microphone again. ‘How about now?’

  ‘Much better, Tracey, thanks.’

  Paulo was peering at Hex’s watch. ‘That’s new, isn’t it? What does it do?’

  ‘It continually checks by radio with the signal for the atomic clocks in Switzerland,’ said Hex. ‘That way I know it’s accurate.’

  ‘Surely it’s not likely to get out of sync that easily,’ said Li.

  ‘No, but I like to know it’s checking,’ rejoined Hex defensively. ‘What’s the point of having a watch if it isn’t a hundred per cent accurate?’

  ‘Yeah – goddamn, those milliseconds can slip away if you don’t keep an eye on them,’ said Amber sarcastically.

  ‘Right,’ said Tracey. ‘What we need to do now is check out the camera blind spots so that we know our contestants can’t hide from us. You’ve got thirty seconds to try to make yourselves invisible before we turn the cameras on. So scoot – off you go.’ Her expression was still annoyed and her manner brusque.

  ‘No peeking now,’ said Li, springing to her feet.

  ‘A camera’s blind spot depends on its arc of movement and the size of its lens,’ said Hex. ‘I can work them out for you and plot them on a map quicker than we can test them.’

  Amber clapped him on the back. ‘But that wouldn’t be any fun, would it? Get your lazy butt moving, Hex.’

  When the cameras powered up thirty seconds later, Alpha Force were nowhere in sight.

  The technical rehearsal took a couple of hours and continued after nightfall, with a pause for the animal chorus at dusk, so that the lighting could be checked and the infra-red cameras calibrated. Thanks to Alpha Force’s ingenuity, by the time the camera crew finished there wasn’t a nook or cranny that was not covered by at least one camera and microphone.

  Finally the crew finished for the day, the fire was lit and Li and Alex did a sweep of their camp, making sure there were no snakes in any of their equipment or in the cooking pots.

  As soon as the cameras were switched off for the night, Hex powered up his palmtop and connected to the Net – as he had been itching to do for the last few hours. They could also discuss the encounter with the man in the car park that morning.

  Li asked, ‘What makes his walk so special that you could recognize him by it?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just a cowboy thing, you know?’ replied Paulo. He sat back and tipped his bush hat forwards over his nose like a Wild West hero.

  ‘You can recognize anybody by their walk,’ said Alex. ‘My dad says you can change almost anything about your appearance, but the way you walk is the hardest thing to disguise.’

  Li leaped to her feet. ‘You’re right, Alex. In fact, let me show you. You see, you’ve got these long gangly arms and legs, so your walk’s a little bit of a swagger and a little bit of a stumble. Like a pirate crossed with a gorilla . . .’

  She began to stride to and fro, taking slow steps and hunching her shoulders to exaggerate the swing of her arms. Amber clutched her sides, laughing, and Paulo lifted the hat off his face to look.

  ‘That’s not how I walk,’ protested Alex.

  Paulo got to his feet. ‘This is how Amber walks,’ he said. Setting his hat at a jaunty angle on the side of his head, he minced slowly across the camp, swaying his hips languidly. ‘It’s a little bit rich, a little bit gorgeous— Ow!’ His performance was brought to an abrupt end as Amber threw her remaining old boot at him.

  ‘Knew that would come in handy,’ she said, dusting down her hands.

  ‘Hey, guys,’ called Hex, ‘we’ve got mail!’

  Paulo put his hat back on properly and peered over Hex’s shoulder. ‘Maybe it’s from your uncle, Amber.’

  ‘He’s going to tell you off for dissing me,’ rejoined Amber. ‘He has eyes and ears everywhere.’

  ‘Er, no,’ said Hex, addressing them all. ‘Actually it’s for Alex.’ He handed the palmtop to Alex. ‘Sorry, I was in such a hurry I opened it by mistake.’

  Something in Hex’s tone brought a frown to Alex’s face. He took the palmtop and read the message on its tiny screen.

  It was from his father.

  The army replied today. Sorry, son, it’s bad news. They won’t be asking you to join. Don’t be too disappointed. Enjoy your holiday and we’ll worry about the future later. There are plenty of other places where your ugly mug will fit just fine.

  ‘Everything OK, Alex?’ said Amber.

  Stunned, Alex handed her the palmtop. Amber read it, puzzled, and her mouth fell open in surprise. She handed the palmtop on to Paulo. Each read the e-mail in turn. They didn’t know what to say. They all knew that Alex had had his hopes pinned on getting into the army, following in his father’s footsteps. All of them had assumed he would.

  Hex sat down next to Alex and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I thought you were dead certain to get in.’

  ‘They must be absolutely crazy,’ sai
d Amber.

  ‘It has got to be some kind of mistake . . .’ ventured Paulo.

  Alex gradually tuned back into the moment. The palmtop was back in Hex’s hands, the message still on the screen. Alex looked at it. Those few words had turned all his plans upside down and erased his dreams. For years he had seen his future so clearly. Now he couldn’t see it at all. He felt disorientated, unreal. ‘It’s no mistake,’ he said. He reached over and pressed the delete key.

  The palmtop pinged as another e-mail arrived, this time from Amber’s uncle. Hex read it out, figuring that business as usual was the best cure for the sombre mood: ‘“Thanks for the message, guys, but I believe it’s a case of mistaken identity. I called my contacts and Sancho Pirroni is still safely behind bars. No need for heroics. Goodnight, don’t let the creepy crawlies bite – and stay out of trouble! John Middleton.”’

  ‘I suppose it’s highly unlikely we saw him if he’s in a maximum security jail,’ said Hex.

  ‘I’m a bit disappointed, actually,’ said Li. ‘Hex, can’t you program that machine of yours to receive only good news?’ She winked at Alex but he didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Disappointed?’ echoed Amber. Her tone was incredulous. ‘Surely it’s a good thing that a man like that is safely behind bars!’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Li quietly. She had made the remark in an attempt to cheer Alex up, but it had come out wrong.

  Paulo was shaking his head. ‘I am still sure of what I saw,’ he said. ‘Seeing that man today was like a picture from the past.’

  Alex spoke up. ‘Well, I’m with Paulo.’ He turned to the Argentinian. ‘You’re not the kind of guy who would say something if you weren’t certain of it. Whoever is in that prison in the US, it isn’t Sancho Pirroni.’