by Andy McNab
‘No.’
‘OK. Boys?’
‘No.’
‘Drugs? Good bars? I got cocaine, I got heroin. I can get—’
‘No.’
‘OK, cool. Tickets for the water park? Bungee jump? You want city tour?’
I kept walking until I reached the cool of the hacienda-style, terracotta-tiled and ceiling-fanned reception area. What I really wanted from the local guys – a weapon – a white boy couldn’t ask for. It would raise awareness, and that was the last thing I needed. The only friendly force on this job was Dino.
I got hold of him on the mobile. ‘Mate, I’m here. Give me a couple of hours to re-SIM and sort my shit out, and I’ll call back.’
‘Affirmative.’
Dino hadn’t been one for pleasantries these last few days, but now there was an extra edge of urgency to his voice.
He’d sounded like he was running the Space Shuttle control room ever since I’d landed in Phoenix. That could have been down to me helping him get what he wanted out of this shit, but I reckoned there was a bit more to it than that. Despite all he’d been through, he was loving life back in the saddle. I knew that feeling well.
‘Never forget why it’s called Narcopulco, Nick. Too close to the US and too far from God …’
‘I won’t make that mistake, mate. Talk soon.’
He’d been saying it since Phoenix, but I still had no idea what he was talking about. It didn’t much matter: he’d be sure to bore me to death with it one day.
3
My first-floor room was pretty much an extension of the lobby, with the same terracotta floor tiles, and air-conditioning that worked – thank fuck. The hotel was designed as a quadrangle, with all the rooms overlooking a blob-shaped swimming-pool surrounded by clumps of grass and bushes. The window on the other side gave me a view of the Walmart up the road.
I switched on the old box-like TV and left the screen to de-fuzz while I took a shower.
I took my life-support pouch from around my neck and hooked it onto the towel rail. I thought about having a shave but, fuck it, I was going to be in shit state again soon enough. In any case, the Fistful of Dollars look wouldn’t do me any harm where I was going.
I felt a bit more awake as I got dressed, even though I was climbing back into the clothes I’d just taken off. I was keeping the new set folded so I’d look freshly laundered and unsuspicious on the journey home.
The TV news treated me to a parade of recent killings: corpses hanging from bridges, shot to bits in cars or just lying in the street. The picture still wasn’t crisp enough for me to be able to tell if they’d been the two I’d seen on the way in. From the tone of the anchor’s voice, it was just business as usual. No wonder my hotel was as empty as the one in The Shining.
I counted out my pesos. Taking commissions and the shit tourist exchange rate into account, it worked out at about twelve to the dollar. I still had plenty of the things in my neck pouch.
It always felt good, this part of the process – getting my shit sorted before an operation. It was like a runner going to the start line and putting his toes in the blocks. I tipped the Sky Harbor bag upside-down and my Phoenix purchases fell onto the bed.
First out was a dark-brown CamelBak hydration pack, a three-litre plastic bladder with a suction tube fitted inside a day sack with extra storage pockets. I’d dumped its fancy packaging at the airport, along with the almost impregnable fused plastic blister-pack that protected the x12 telephoto lens that clipped onto my iPhone.
I’d also bought a set of ear-bud headphones with a mic, twenty-four AA batteries and two emergency charger cases to keep my mobile topped up. If I needed more power than that, I’d have been on the ground far too long and fucked up.
I sorted the gear into the pouches on the CamelBak’s padded waist belt and laid out my washing kit in the bathroom as a normal guest would – if there was any such thing as ‘normal’ in Narcopulco.
On my way out I discovered a Mexican family setting up shop around the pool. Maybe they hadn’t read the same travel warnings. Dad was busy puffing up his daughter’s massive yellow water-wings as Mum nagged him to go más rápido. Their little boy already had his in place and was about to launch himself off the side like an over-inflated miniature zeppelin. None of them had held back on the tortillas.
Back out on the main drag, the blanket of exhaust fumes was so thick and the air temperature so fierce I could hardly breathe. Black-clad technicals with their black-clad crews patrolled back and forth along the Costera. The rear gunners exchanged crisp salutes whenever they passed each other, to give the few remaining tourists the impression all was good. I hoped their shooting was as sharp if I got caught up in the middle of one of their gangfucks while moving about the town.
I turned left along a road lined with such a haphazard array of buildings I wondered whether the Moscow planning regulators had done a bit of Latin American moonlighting.
I tapped Dino’s number into my iPhone.
‘You set, Nick?’
‘Yep. You sure that’s still the best way in?’
He took a deep breath because we’d already gone through this ten times.
‘Nick, are you stuck on stupid? A white boy in a car going where you’re going? Come on, man. Do like the DEA. Get the bus. It isn’t far. If anyone hassles you, play the dumb-gringo card – you should find that easy enough. But you know what? There’ll be no hassle, man. Call me when you get there.’
‘The Autopista bus, yeah?’
‘You got it. Not the Autopista del Sol bus. That takes the freeway. You fuck up, man, next stop is Mexico City.’
‘Got it.’
‘And for fuck’s sake, remember the buses are privatized. They paint them any shit colour they want. Look for the sign on the front.’
‘Got it.’
‘OK.’ He didn’t sound convinced. ‘You call when you get there.’
‘Got it.’
‘You still got the access code in that stupid gringo head of yours?’
I felt myself break into a grin. ‘Got it.’ I wasn’t going to rattle off the numbers to confirm it. He might be the only ally I had right now, but a little suffering would do him good.
I deleted the call log and closed down on my way into Walmart. It was going to be a long night, and fuck knew how long a day tomorrow would turn out to be.
The plan to get on target was very simple: to catch the Autopista bus from General Juan N. Álvarez International. The Autopista was the old road to Mexico City, taking in places like Cuernavaca and Chilpancingo en route. The Autopista del Sol was the ten-year-old Federal Highway that cut the journey to the capital to about four hours and had turned the old Autopista into a back alley. I was going to jump off about eighteen Ks out of town, at what Dino called the shit-kickers’ dump. He should know, he said. He’d been born in one. I told him he hadn’t seen Bermondsey.
I’d know if I’d overshot at El Veintiuno if I saw signs for Kilómetro Treinta, which was twenty-eight Ks out of town. That would mean I’d have even more tabbing to do to get where I needed to be.
I returned to the hotel with a freezer bag full of mineral water, a four-pack of Monster and enough SIM cards to last Mr Average a lifetime.
Telmex seemed to be Walmart SIM card of choice. No wonder its owner, Carlos Slim, was the richest man in the world. Last time I looked he had $74 billion in his hip pocket – and that didn’t include his share of my fistful of pesos. He and Bill Gates battled to top the Forbes list each year, and 2011 was Carlos’s turn; Bill only had $60 billion to his name right now.
The only reason I knew this was because the Moscow press were obsessed with it. They didn’t like a Russian not being in the game. Putin was pissed off about it, and I mean personally. Maybe he was thinking of throwing his hat into the ring.
4
I took a V-Bug back to the airport. The entire bus queue – even three old women in their nineties – had to go through metal detectors and have their bags X
-rayed. I wondered what the security guys would make of the fact that I was carrying enough batteries to power a small town and SIM cards to replace after every call. It was a strange collection of gear, but none of them batted an eyelid. They were only going through the motions. We finally boarded the bus at 18.20.
I peeled back the ring-pull on my first Monster as we rolled back through Acapulco, heading north-east out of the city. It wouldn’t be long till last light. I safety-pinned the iPhone and changed the SIM, broke the old one in two, and swallowed the bits with a couple of slugs of whatever that stuff was made of. It tasted strong enough to dissolve everything in its path before my gastric juices had had a chance to kick in.
As the caffeine surged around my system, I sat back in air-conditioned comfort and pretended to doze. My head rocked rhythmically against the window, and it wasn’t long before I’d left a nice greasy forehead stain on the glass.
It was a guilty relief not to have to contact Anna now that Dino had taken over my ops room. We’d talked while I was waiting in the Sky Harbor, and agreed on radio silence until this shit was over. I had to focus. Besides, the baby was out of the danger zone; he’d even put on a little more weight. The break would give her some time to think about how she really felt, so maybe we could sort out our bad stuff when I got back. No drama.
My ticket had cost me just over a hundred pesos, which seemed like money well spent. The wagon was like an American school bus, except that it was a sickly blue instead of yellow, and much more comfortable. Blue LED lighting tubes beneath its skirting gave the impression that it just glided on its way. From what I could see, the thing was packed with recently arrived international travellers or old women laden with onions and carrots.
Three minutes away from the main and we’d left the tourist hotspots behind. It was blindingly clear that there were two Acapulcos: the police-patrolled area straddling the Costera, and everywhere else. Sandbagged positions now stood at intersections, maybe for los vigilantes, but none was manned. The only whiff of authority came from the endless banners and billboards bigging up Jesús de la Paz. There were no posters of the man himself: it was too early for that. They wouldn’t spark up the election campaign until he looked a bit older and more statesman like. For now, he had to remain a supernatural presence.
We hit the old main drag out of the city, which paralleled the newer, elevated Federal Highway, and were soon in the boondocks. Scores of flat, wiggly-tin roofs and dust-covered vehicles clustered either side of us. Rabid-looking dogs charged out from between them and chased after us.
We passed a few more sandbagged fortifications, thick-set men sitting outside shops and cafés with shotguns, old carbine rifles and the odd automatic assault rifle across their knees. Like the police, their identities were hidden behind woollen balaclavas or KKK-style hoods. These boys felt as enthusiastic as I did about having their pictures taken, but I’d have been disappointed if there wasn’t the odd Zapata moustache hiding in there somewhere.
I checked my iPhone. At this speed we’d be out of town and hitting the shit-kickers’ dump in less than twenty minutes. It didn’t look like los vigilantes were going to stop and search the bus. As long as you stayed on the main and didn’t invade their turf, I guessed it was all right with them.
Now that I’d finished the Monster I took a warm swig of Walmart’s finest spring water, before my teeth dissolved. Then I settled back into my seat again and studied the tin roofs and graffiti-coated concrete blocks. As darkness fell, pinpricks of light flickered in the high ground on the other side of the city.
The tarmac soon became as worn-out and potholed as the encroaching scrubland on either side of it. The Autopista del Sol glowed white and red in the distance, but there wasn’t even a streetlight on the old road out here.
The locals had obviously done a bit of DIY on the main power lines running down to the coast: cables dangled from it at intervals, like spaghetti, allowing stalls and shacks every few hundred metres or so to keep trying to sell watermelons, apples and very old T-shirts that were still desperate for us to Go Loco In Acapulco.
It must have been tough enough for these poor fuckers to scrape a living when this was the main drag, but now life itself seemed to be slipping out of reach.
5
The driver shouted something, and a passenger near me muttered, ‘Veintiuno.’ The bus carried on lurching left and right to avoid the craters but that didn’t stop the three old girls in pinafore dresses leaping out of their seats to sort out their bags in the overhead racks.
We careered to a halt with a hiss of air brakes and I peered out. I was expecting a village, but it didn’t look like El Veintiuno was anything more than a few pools of light gathered a bit closer together than the ones along the track.
The old girls said their goodbyes to just about everybody on board as a couple of equally ancient guys tap-danced up the steps, swerved past them and took their place. It made the security checks at the start of the journey a bit of a farce, but there was probably a piece of paper in a government office somewhere that hadn’t really been thought through.
I hung back, checking both sides of the road. A couple of cigarette ends glowed in the semi-darkness and the bus headlights swept across dozens of Jesús de la Paz posters that had been slapped onto a breeze-block wall. These ones showed a group of smiling children with nice white teeth. I guessed the message was: Sign up with Jesus and share the magic of His dental plan. Maybe it was the local HQ.
A couple of lads sat outside it with shotguns on their laps, swigging from beer bottles and generally keeping an eye on things. Every time a car passed, they craned their necks to see inside. As far as I could make out, all they were protecting was a few tin huts selling apples and watermelons and a jumble of power lines looped between them.
As the last of the old girls exited, I got up. Bathed in the LED glow, they skirted the front bumper on their way to a rusty pickup that looked like it belonged in a transport museum.
Keeping the bus between us, I cut away from the vigilantes camped out beside the main and melted into the darkness. The scrub was two or three metres high in places and I was soon in cover. The air felt warm, and I hoped it wasn’t just because I’d stepped out of an air-conditioned cocoon. It was going to be a long night, and the temperature could plummet on the hillside.
I waited until I was a good thirty metres away before I powered up my phone. I got down on my knees and leaned forward to hide the glow.
‘You took your fucking time, man.’ Dino was still in fighting form.
‘I’m at the shit-kickers’ dump. Just checking – in about a K, there’s a road that cuts in from the main, then continues towards the high ground, yeah?’
‘Sure. And that strip of tarmac is in better condition than the I-fucking-95 up here. Follow it for about ten Ks and you’ll hit the casa. They’ve got cameras every five hundred metres or so, and it’s crawling with patrol vehicles. The main gate is manned as well.’
‘I’ll call you when I get there. Or when I’m in the shit. Whichever comes first.’
It took a couple of seconds to sink in.
‘Remember, the east side of the casa – the higher ground, man – the hangar and the tunnel.’
‘Got it.’
‘And the code.’
‘Got it.’
I switched the phone to silent and closed down. I knew he would be flapping now, and it made me smile.
6
It was easy enough at first to stay parallel to the road, just by keeping away from the patches of light that punctured the darkness. I could picture the people inside those shacks, huddling around tired TV sets, wishing they were drug lords so they could buy all the shit they saw in the ads.
I kept as close to the road as I could, even when the odd car trundled by, picking my feet up and putting them down with extra care so I didn’t kick any of the empty beer bottles, cans or plastic bags hurled from their windows – or not-so-empty ones thrown from trucks.
; It didn’t take long to hit the newer stretch of tarmac heading away to my right, into the deeper shadow of the mountains – or, rather, the two-metre-high steel mesh fence protecting it. As I turned and moved back towards the junction with the old highway I began to hear waffle and laughter. The thick scrub blocked my view but not the sound. They weren’t leaving me or coming towards me: they were static. I’d found the gatehouse.
I checked nothing was going to fall from the CamelBak at a critical moment; that my neck pouch was nice and secure; and moved forward on hands and knees. I went four or five metres, one ear cocked towards the sound source, then stopped and listened. There was a lot of hilarity going on the other side of the scrub.
On the next bound I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. Still on my belly, I lifted myself up on the tips of my Timberlands and my elbows. Inched forward, stopped and listened again. My hand touched a plastic carrier bag. I moved it slowly and deliberately aside before moving on.
I could make out a pole on each side of the gates supporting a huge, curved, ranch-style sign. I guessed it announced the presence of the Casa Esperanza to passers-by, but didn’t promise a warm welcome.
I crawled forward another couple of metres. Now I had clear line of sight of the gatehouse window. I could make out four heads and two glowing cigarettes. There might be others, but if there were, I couldn’t see or hear them.
The place might have been mistaken for the lodge to a secluded and ultra-private stately home, had it not been for the black technical parked alongside with a belt-fed machine-gun on the back. The HK MG4 was so well balanced that even a ten-year-old could have fired 200 rounds of link from the hip in one burst, and this one would be equally lethal at night. Its roof-mounted power beam would pump several million candlepower into the scrub when called upon.
I’d seen all that I needed to, but stayed absolutely still for a couple of minutes longer. Movement, even the slightest scuff or clink, was what compromised you. It was human nature to move away from something faster than you’d arrived – and that was when you fucked up.