The Girl Who Had No Fear

by Marnie Riches

  ‘When is he coming?’ the man asked, wiping the sweat from his top lip. ‘El cocodrilo. When are you expecting him? Because I need more time. Another couple of days, at least.’ Raising the bowl of coffee to his lips, he drank hungrily, carefully. Mustn’t spill a drop, even if it was bitter and lukewarm. After yet another night of tormented half-sleep in the foetid shack that he shared with the San Diego chemist, tossing and turning on the hard, thin mattress, as much as his leg shackles would allow, feeling the moths fluttering around his face, he needed all the caffeine he could get inside him.

  ‘You’re not in a position to make demands,’ the guard said.

  Jorge. A short, stocky man, originally from Cozumel. A bastard of the highest order. Jorge liked to jab that rifle of his into his neck, just beneath his ear, giving him tinnitus for a week. He had to keep Jorge sweet. Couldn’t face another day in solitary confinement, with blood pouring from his ear and that high-pitched buzzing.

  ‘If he wants me to demonstrate how it works, I’ll need longer.’ His shirt stuck to his back like a wrinkled and peeling second skin. He wasn’t as dark or hardy as these small, stocky descendants of the Maya who had evolved over generations to cope with the stifling heat. Had had to pull down the sleeves of his shirt, to avoid being baked alive by the hot branding irons of sun that seared through the leafy canopy from dawn until sundown. Trapped in the fires of hell, he knew his only hope was to appease the man they called the crocodile.

  ‘You’ve got two hours,’ Jorge said. ‘Better get back to work.’ He swigged from a bottle of cerveza that was frosty and pouring with condensation on the outside.

  A jab in the ribs from the guard’s rifle was all he needed to coerce him into grabbing his tools, starting the treacherous climb down into the vast cenote.

  The cave was, at least, cooler than the jungle above. Swinging from the balloon basket, as Jorge lowered him, using the thick fisherman’s rope, to the sparkling turquoise water, he reasoned that he had it a damn sight better than those poor bastards who laboured away in the lab, poisoning themselves slowly as they manufactured crystal meth for el cocodrilo and his murderous associates in the Coba cartel. The water was pure enough to drink. Not that he was allowed to fill his water bottle from it. That would be too much like indulgence, and these monsters didn’t do indulgence for anyone but their own kind. He did, at least, take gulps of it while he was diving.

  ‘Okay!’ he shouted up, shielding his eyes from the sun that streamed down through the cave’s almost perfectly circular entrance on the surface, some thirty or forty feet above him. His voice echoed. ‘I’m down. You can leave me to it.’

  Every day, he told the guard to go. Other than the experiments in the water, funded by the Coba cartel and el cocodrilo, this was a cave that had remained unchanged by human hand since its creation millions of years ago. No stairs carved into the rock. No ladder fixed to the opening. No way out, but for the rope and the balloon basket. Every day, the guard merely stood at the opening, holding his rifle and smoking a cigarette. A pointless scene in his own nightmarish Groundhog Day. All this time, being held in the middle of the Yucatan jungle – a setting that lent itself beautifully to disappearing into the thicket along with the buried ancient ruins and camouflaged wildlife. But never once had an opportunity to escape presented itself.

  ‘I’m cursed,’ he said as quietly as the natural echo chamber would allow. One shot to the top of his head would end him in an instant. It wouldn’t do to let Jorge overhear his complaint.

  Grunting, he climbed out of the basket and hauled his bag of tools with him. They clanked as he set them on the rocky cenote shore. Presently, as he laid out the things he needed for the test, and checked the efficacy of his diving mask, buoyancy control device, regulator and tank, all he could hear was the drip, drip of moisture from the curtain of green that hung in hair-like tracts from the mouth of the cenote. Lush foliage everywhere, covering the walls. The opposite of the scorched, dusty earth above that relied on the rainy season to fend off forest fires and drought. How could God be so cruel as to abandon him to a hellish life spent partly in this subterranean heaven?

  Above him, he heard Jorge speaking abruptly into a walkie-talkie, his voice gravelly from too many poor-quality cigarettes. ‘Hey! You’d better make it fast,’ he shouted down into the cenote. ‘El cocodrilo is a half-hour ahead of schedule. If you’re not ready when he arrives …’ Jorge mimed a shot to the temple with his index and middle fingers.

  Swallowing hard, he donned his dive gear and plopped into the cool water. Visibility was crystal-clear beneath the surface, ripples above him, radiating out like shimmering titanium. The rocky bed of the cenote was blanketed by a green fuzzy tangle of aquatic plants, suffused with darting, small fish – slivers of quicksilver that flashed in the sunlight; the long tree roots from above, dipping their tips into the pristine water for a drink. It was only testing his invention in this tranquil and secret place that had kept him from going insane.

  Touching every inch of the semi-submersible with experienced, probing fingers, he checked that the Kevlar hull was strong enough to withstand the pressures of the open sea, particularly should the crew need to dive. Felt carefully along the exhaust venting pipes to reassure himself that everything was properly constructed. Examined the welding around the sizeable propellers to check no detail had been missed. His thudding heartbeat was at odds with the minimal peaceful lapping of the water against the top of the vessel, filtering down as a muffled slap, slap, slap through the body of water to his vantage point beneath the bulk of the sub.

  El cocodrilo was coming. Judgement Day was upon him.

  Clambering out, he stripped off his diving gear and lowered himself through the open hatch into the fibreglass helm. Immediately, he felt the temperature rise and the air quality decline. Turning the key to kick the diesel engine into action, he suddenly had light and ventilation. There had been no water ingress overnight. Good. But the quarters were cramped. He had had no option but to make the vessel slimline, so that there would be minimum wake in the open sea if it surfaced. Grunting as he bent almost double, he walked the length of the craft, inspecting every nook. It still needed toilet facilities. But el cocodrilo had told him to shut his trap and just build the damned thing with room for a bucket. Animal.

  The propellers started to whir in the water. The sat nav was working, displaying the narco-sub’s position in relation to the nearby coast clearly.

  He smiled, though he felt instantly guilty for doing so. He had built this ocean-going craft, piecemeal, from composite parts that he had fashioned by hand in the jungle. And it worked. It was twelve metres of fully functioning semi-submersible. It was the only reason he was still alive.

  ‘Hey! Mecánico!’ came a gruff voice from above. Jorge, of course. ‘Out of the sub. El cocodrilo is here!’

  His pulse quickening and his breath coming short, he heaved himself through the hatch. Feeling light-headed as he swapped the still, warm funk inside the vessel for the fresh, cool air of the cenote. The blistering midday sun was streaming through the yawning chasm in the roof, rendering the water a dazzling azure blue. But the light was suddenly blocked as the balloon basket started to lower. Casting enough shadow for him to see five men, standing at the mouth of the cavern, with their guns pointed at his head. Inside the basket was el cocodrilo. Recognisable in an instant with his distinctly un-Latin fair hair and pink skin, dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt; he wore Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, like a bad caricature of a 1980s Miami gangster. Standing at his side, peering directly down at him, was the odious, squat figure of his henchman, Miguel. The fat little prick who threw dissenters to the crocodiles at his boss’ behest. It was unclear who was the worst out of the two.

  ‘Ah, here he is!’ el cocodrilo shouted. ‘Our resident genius.’

  He forced a smile, knowing that his life depended on maintaining a cordial relationship with the man who effectively owned him. ‘Hola, jefe,’ he said. ‘I explained to Jorge that I cou
ld have done with another couple of days to work on the vessel. You don’t want to have spent all that money on development without having put it through rigorous testing first.’

  El cocodrilo dismounted the basket, brushing down his white linen trousers carefully. He removed his sunglasses, perching them on his head. Those blue eyes with their oversized black pupils were glistening with excitement and perhaps too much of his own product. Who knew?

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ el cocodrilo said, his European origins still audible in the accent of his otherwise fluent Spanish. ‘It’s my two million dollars that’s been spent on this narco-sub. If I say it’s ready, it’s ready.’ He stalked down the rocky shoreline of the cenote in those ridiculous Italian leather loafers that he wore. Planted a threatening, faux-friendly hand on his shoulder. A beatified smile on his face, as he regarded the twelve metres of nautical innovation in Kevlar and fibreglass. ‘The engines are running. The lights are on. All it needs is to be winched to the open sea, loaded with product and away you go.’

  He didn’t like el cocodrilo’s use of, ‘away you go’ but shoved the verbal anomaly to the back of his mind, dismissing it as paranoia from exhaustion and malnourishment.

  ‘Talk me through your progress, mecánico. Take me on the grand tour.’

  At his back, Miguel stood, revolver in hand. Pointed at him, of course. As if he would ever pick a fight with one of the most dangerous traffickers in the world in full view and within easy firing range of his gun-toting foot soldiers! He was anything but stupid.

  Feeling that hand slap his shoulder, he tried to regulate his ragged breathing and started the climb back down to the hatch. Allowed the dealer to lower himself inside first. Followed him back into the stifling hull, where they stooped side by side.

  ‘Come on, then! Impress me. What am I getting for all that cash and keeping your pathetic arse out of the ground?’

  Swallowing hard, he began to explain the vessel’s functions. Pointing to the glowing digital display. ‘It’s fully kitted out with sat nav. Runs on a two hundred and fifty kw diesel engine, with plenty of space for extra fuel in the cargo hold. I’ve designed it so you can have a crew of four in here, though really, jefe, they need a toilet.’

  ‘And I need as much product as possible moving to the US and the Caribbean. My desire to make money is greater than your shitting needs, I’m afraid. Like I said last time. Bucket. It was good enough for the pirates. It’s good enough for you. Continue.’

  There is was again. The use of ‘you’. He laughed nervously. Didn’t intend to but couldn’t stifle the impulse. ‘I’ve used zinc bars as sacrificial anodes to reduce the corrosion of any metal parts, like the propellers, to the seawater, so this vessel should be good for multiple trips, saving you money.’ He bared his teeth in a semblance of a smile. Praying that he was pleasing the nearest thing he had left to a god.

  ‘That sounds clever. Is it clever?’ El cocodrilo turned around to scrutinise his face. Grinning. Every bit as toothsome and dangerous as the crocodiles he was named after.

  ‘Yes, jefe.’

  ‘Have the Colombians got these anodes on their subs?’

  ‘Yes, jefe. One or two.’

  The smile fell from the dealer’s face, replacing his boyish, breezy air with the haggard grimace of a seasoned killer. ‘Then it’s not that fucking clever, is it?’

  Keen to placate him, he moved on to the ventilation system. ‘I’ve had to make it quite a flat structure to sit low in the water, with plenty of ballast tanks, so that it can avoid detection by radar and sonar. It’s going to be painted blue, too, so it will be very difficult to spot from the air, producing minimal wake if it’s sailing just beneath or on the surface.’ He slapped the fibreglass roof, hanging oppressively low. ‘That means it’s going to get very hot in here. So I devised a system where the hot air is run through pipes along the belly of the sub, to cool it down before it’s expelled. That way, you avoid infra-red detection too.’

  The reptilian grin was back again. Greedy. Almost lascivious. This was a beast of a man who feasted on triumphs and the failure of his competitors. Cold-blooded. Devoid of conscience. ‘Now that’s the sort of thing I like to hear!’ He rubbed his pale hands together. Took a cigar from his top pocket.

  ‘Please, jefe. It’s unwise to smoke in here. As I said, I haven’t quite finished testing all the systems and I can’t guarantee the safety if you—’

  But the crocodile was already flipping his lighter into life and dragging hard on the evil-smelling cigar.

  ‘How many tonnes of gear did you say you could fit in here?’ he asked.

  Shaking his head slowly, he raised an eyebrow. Working out the maximum safe capacity. ‘Maybe six or seven tonnes.’

  ‘Stack it with ten.’

  ‘No, jefe. Sorry. You’d need a vessel a good five or six metres longer for that.’ He spread his arms wide, hoping to convince him. Imagined the crew losing their lives some twenty metres down, as the overloaded sub took on water or simply broke apart. How long did death by drowning take? Maybe a minute or two? But even one minute was a minute of blind panic and pain too long. ‘The only place I could have assembled this baby, out of sight of the Federales, was in this cenote. It’s perfect. A God-given workshop with a nice flat, dry shore and a deep pool for testing. But we were limited by the cave’s natural proportions. If the sub was any bigger, you’d never winch it out of the hole in one piece when it’s finished. It simply wouldn’t have fit.’

  ‘Ten tonnes,’ el cocodrilo said, taking a seat in the captain’s chair and swivelling around like a kid on a roundabout. Blowing his smoke dramatically in the air. ‘Cut the crew down to two and you’ll have space. More room in the bucket for shitting, too!’ He threw his head back and laughed. ‘I’m very excited about this!’ Abruptly serious. ‘But what happens if the coast guard or police spot it from the air or sea? I can’t have a hundred million dollars of product getting seized.’

  ‘This thing can dive to thirty metres inside a minute,’ he said. He snapped his fingers, but no sound came, slippery as they were with sweat. ‘In theory it will become immediately invisible. But that’s why I need a couple more days for testing. The cenote is only five metres deep. If you want to be sure of the crew’s safety and the craft’s seaworthiness, the only place you can put it through its paces realistically is—’

  ‘Miguel!’ el cocodrilo shouted. He stood, stooping at precisely the right moment to avoid banging his head on the low ceiling. A man who was used to taking calculated risks and always coming up smelling of finest Cuban cigars and the folding stuff. Hastened to the hatch and hoisted himself out onto the flat surface of the semi-submersible, clasping the cigar between his teeth.

  He followed, wondering what crazy physics-defying indulgence the monster would demand of him now.

  ‘Miguel! Get the men to bring the sub up. I’m going to call her “Ella”. Get it painted on her ass.’

  Their eyes met. Mischief and menace in those dangerous blue and black wormholes that led to what might pass as this reptile’s soul. He didn’t understand how he could possibly have known, but he realised then that the name choice had been deliberate. Ella. It was suddenly clear exactly what was at stake. And it was far worse than he had anticipated.

  El cocodrilo turned to him. Blew foul smoke into his face at close range. Winked. ‘Jorge!’ he shouted up to the opening. ‘Load this lady up. And when you’re done, she sets sail for the Dominican Republic. There’s a cargo ship leaves the container port in Santo Domingo in eight days’ time, bound for Rotterdam in the Netherlands. They’re expecting my gear to be on it. Make sure that happens or I’ll cut your ears off and feed them to my hungry girls.’

  ‘But even if it’s watertight and ready to sail, you won’t be able to get ten tonnes on board, because you definitely will need four crew members, jefe,’ he said, realising that if something went wrong on the voyage and there was a loss of life or destruction of the meth, his would be the neck on the line.
Literally. ‘It’s physics. You can’t fit both. It will sink.’

  El cocodrilo approached him. Put his arm around him. So close, he could smell the tobacco in his hair and something distinctly more chemical on his breath. ‘I’ll say it one more time. Okay? Two men. That’s my crew. And mecánico, my friend … because you’re the expert and I trust you, one of them will be you.’

  CHAPTER 21

  Amsterdam, Ijselbuurt, then Keizersgracht, later, 21 May

  The sound of his phone ringing woke Elvis with a jolt. Shrill and on maximum volume, he fumbled with the device, trying to silence it as quickly as possible. Dropped it between the bed and the bedside cabinet. Realised it was neither his bed nor his bedside cabinet.

  ‘Dirk speaking,’ he said, retrieving it just in time. His sluggish brain registered retrospectively that Marie’s name had flashed up. ‘Oh, hi, Marie.’ No opportunity to ditch the call. As he spoke, only 25 per cent of his brain was dealing with speech. The rest was grappling with crippling embarrassment, some shame, a great deal of surprise and guilt at what had come to pass in the small hours.

  ‘You sound like you’ve just woken up,’ she said. It sounded like an accusation. Was it? Or was he just being paranoid?

  ‘I’m working undercover, remember?’ he said, pulling the duvet up to hide his nakedness from the waist down. Recognising the bitter irony but unable to enjoy the humour in it. He had crossed a line.

  ‘Well, you’d better get your head on straight because a body has just been found by the Keizersgracht. I’m there now. Van den Bergen’s on the flight back from Prague but won’t be in until this afternoon. He told me to call you.’ Her tone was castigatory. But then nowadays, Marie often sounded slightly like a disapproving teacher in a strict Catholic school.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, glancing over to his bedfellow, who still slept soundly.

  His phone buzzed. A text coming through. Buzzed again. Silently, he prayed it was nothing to do with his mother. Perhaps just some inane sales communication from the network provider.