She was nowhere to be seen. Nathan kept running. He came to an exit. He ran down the outside pavement to the front of the station, then went back in, criss-crossing the shopping area. He glanced up. CCTV cameras were everywhere.
He stepped out onto Euston Road. Sirens screamed. Flashing police cars frayed their way towards Nathan and Amonite’s abandoned cars. A young man was speaking to a policeman. He pointed at St Pancras.
It was time to disappear. Nathan hunched his shoulders and blended into the crowd of pedestrians walking towards King’s Cross. He snaked his way through the train station and out through a side exit. He walked past the glass office buildings of York Way towards his apartment. The sirens faded.
He didn’t have long. The cops would track his number plate, maybe even check the CCTVs. They’d come knocking on his door soon enough. Soca couldn’t vouch for him anymore.
He barged through the door to his apartment, frustration and anger mixing with grief and shock. He felt like tearing down the shelves in the hallway, smashing all the plates in the kitchen, shooting bullets through the windows. He’d failed his sister, let Amonite kill her in a horrific way. He didn’t deserve to live here.
He picked up Caitlin’s corpse from the bath, averting his gaze. He lay her on her bed. He closed her eyes and folded her hands on her tummy. He sat next to her, his hands trembling, his mind a jumbled mass of thoughts and feelings. Random memories from their childhood appeared from nowhere. How he used to help her with her homework. How she used to hook him up with girlfriends at school. The times of sorrow when Mum died in a car crash when they were teenagers. The times of laughter when Dad took them on holiday to Barcelona every year. Dad’s slow death from cancer. Caitlin’s battle with depression. Nathan remembered the other night, when they hit the town. He wished he’d spent more time with her.
But now she was dead. Ritually murdered by a Colombian drug cartel. And it was his fault.
Nathan had no idea how long he sat there. A police car wailed past, jolting him back to reality. He went to his bedroom, the anger giving way to a chilled fury. His clothes were drenched and covered in blood. He changed into black combats, a black long sleeved t-shirt and a black sweater. He opened the cupboard and pushed away the piles of files in the bottom, revealing a small safe. He flipped the code. Inside were his false passport, the credit card to an untraceable offshore bank account, ten thousand dollars in cash, a lock picking kit and a Glock 17. He reached under the bed for the three clips of ammo he kept hidden there.
Caitlin’s last words to him ricocheted through his mind.
Why don’t they send someone else?
He stuffed everything into his rucksack, along with his spare clothes. He checked the apartment, but found nothing. Amonite was too professional to leave any clues.
You’re such a pain at times.
Something was missing. The black cube. It wasn’t on his desk, nor in his rucksack.
Amonite must have taken it.
He kissed Caitlin on the forehead. He covered her body with a blanket. Then he left the apartment, closing the door quietly behind him. He stumbled down the stairs, ignoring the questioning look of his young neighbours with their screaming children coming the other way. He delved back to the deepest recesses of his mind, to his past training. He’d sometimes used his military skills for Soca, but never to their full extent.
But now, Soca couldn’t help. He had to rely on himself. He had to avenge Caitlin’s death. Amonite had made a big mistake attacking him so personally.
This time, she would suffer.
Chapter 26
Baranquilla, Colombia
11 April, 2011
‘Boss, what happened?’
Elijah bolted upright. Where the hell was he?
‘Boss?’
Elijah rubbed his eyes. He was sitting on the bottom mattress of a bunkbed. A babyish face was bent over him, shifting in and out of focus. It had round eyes, a blunt nose and tufts of black hair surrounded by an aura of white light.
‘Jesus,’ Elijah mumbled.
‘Not Jesus.’ The baby face chuckled. ‘Patrice. You okay?’
‘Where am I?’
‘On the boat, boss. What happened?’
‘Can’t remember,’ Elijah muttered, wiping the sweat from his cheeks and leaning his back against the wall. The room was spinning.
Patrice gestured around him. ‘This place looks like a bomb just hit it.’
Saucepans, smashed plates, cups, cans of food, shirts, socks and various other items littered the floor. The bedsheets were ripped and hung off the bunkbed in ragged strips. One of the wooden chairs next to the table was tipped over and cracked.
‘I heard shouting.’ Patrice straightened up. ‘Then lots of banging.’
‘Give me a break.’ Elijah pushed Patrice away. ‘It was nothing.’
‘Cut down on the powder, boss.’
Elijah shrugged him off. Patrice could be so annoying. He clambered onto the deck, which was gleaming in the relentless afternoon sun. In the far distance were the high rises of Baranquilla, the largest industrial city and port on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Elijah let out a deep sigh, reclined in a deck chair and gazed across the sea to the tropical forest sliding past. This was his luxury, ocean-faring yacht, bought with the proceeds of previous drug deals as the perfect drug smuggling vessel. He was king here. He could do what the hell he wanted on board. Something disturbing had happened in the cabin just beforehand, but he couldn’t remember, and he didn’t give a damn anyway.
‘Patrice!’ Elijah waved an imperious hand. ‘Get me a drink.’
‘You need to be in shape for the rendez-vous.’
‘I need a drink.’
‘Remember what happened last time.’
‘Get me a goddamn drink!’
Patrice returned with a tumbler of rum. Elijah grabbed his ass. It was firm and full, just as he liked it. He snaked his arm round Patrice’s waist and pulled him close. He felt Patrice tense.
‘Do you still love me?’ Elijah said.
Patrice handed the tumbler to Elijah.
‘I said do you still fucking love me?’
‘Yes, boss, I do.’ Patrice peeled away Elijah’s arm and went to the wheel.
Satisfied, Elijah lay back in his deck chair. He sipped the rum. They sped past a long stretch of beach. Rich Western tourists and their overweight children strolled around the sand, throwing frisbees, making sandcastles, and idling away their time.
Patrice pointed to their left. A white speed boat raced past in the distance, bumping over the waves.
‘Coast guard,’ he said.
‘Where the hell are these Colombians? Wasn’t the rendez-vous point around here?’
‘There they are.’ Patrice pointed to an inlet that led through to a lagoon, surrounded by palm trees and jungle vegetation.
Elijah strained his eyes. The drug was still playing tricks with his focus. He grabbed the binoculars hanging on the wall in front of him. A dark green go-fast boat with a row of high-speed motors was bobbing up and down a few hundred metres away. Two men were standing on it, looking in their direction.
Elijah nodded to Patrice, who killed the engine. Their boat slid through the lagoon before coming to a standstill, generating waves that upset the go-fast boat. The men struggled to retain their balance. Elijah smirked.
‘We’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ he yelled.
‘There was a delay,’ shouted the man closest to them. He had a short black beard and wavy hair. A large belly protruded from under his blue shirt. Behind him, the other man revealed an AK 47 he’d kept hidden behind his back. He looked mid-twenties, with short hair, a dark green t-shirt and brown combats. Both fixed Elijah with intense, vicious looks.
‘So?’ Elijah raised an eyebrow. ‘Are we going to stand around all day staring at each other like a bunch of school girls?’
The man with the beard nodded to the young one, who searched under a bench and pulled out a mask and a d
iving cylinder. He stripped to his underwear, revealing a hairless, muscular torso that set Elijah’s blood racing.
The young man jumped into the water and held out his hands. Beard reached under another bench and handed him a watertight plastic container, around one metre across, with snap-on clips. The young man dived under the water.
‘You sure this will hold?’ Elijah said.
Beard nodded as he reached for another container.
‘Why you not using your subs and planes?’ Elijah said.
‘The DEA captures them.’
The young man broke the surface. Beard handed him the second container.
‘Amonite says you’ve got 950 keys for us,’ Elijah said.
Beard grunted. He opened a hatch leading to a hidden compartment and pulled out a third container as the diver disappeared again below the water.
‘Open it up,’ Elijah said.
‘Huh?’
‘That box. I want to check it.’
Beard eyed Elijah dubiously. For a second, Elijah thought he was going to have to repeat his order. And he hated repeating himself. But then Beard pulled the lid open with a sharp yank. The container was brimming with small black cubes packed tightly together.
‘What the hell?’ Elijah’s frown turned into a smile as realisation dawned. ‘Hand one over.’
Beard plucked a cube and tossed it to Elijah. He fumbled with it, dropped it to the floor and bent down to pick it up, noticing how stiff his back felt.
‘Keep an eye on them,’ he said to Patrice as he undid the top button of his shirt collar. His neck felt as though someone had slung a rope round it and was tugging it tighter.
He went below deck, poured himself another rum and downed it with a swift flick of his wrist. He held the cube up against the light and studied it, enthralled by the depth of its blackness, by its promise of perpetual happiness and bliss. How could anything be so indescribably pleasurable?
He scraped the cube with a knife, extracting a thin layer of powder onto the mirror on the table. He sliced three rough lines of approximately equal length, feeling as excited and desperate as a young man about to have sex for the first time. He dug frantically around in his trouser pockets. Coins, condoms, stolen credit cards, and a fat wad of $100 notes. That would do the trick. He peeled out a note, rolled it up, knelt down, and snorted the lines in quick succession with a trembling jerk of his elbow.
Within seconds, his nose, the front of his face and the back of his throat lost all feeling. He took another generous shot of rum and unfolded his long body onto the bottom bunkbed. His back felt fine now. An enormous, magnificent, beautiful smile materialised on his face: a smile of copious love, of bountiful peace, of immense gratitude as the tingling turned into a rush that swept through his arms, chest, groin, legs, fingers and toes like a God-ordained wave of joy from the seventh heaven.
Patrice peered into the cabin. ‘All just about set, boss.’ He glanced at the mirror, cube and $100 note on the table. He grimaced, then turned back to Elijah. ‘We can leave in a few minutes.’
‘Don’t worry, about a thing,’ Elijah crooned. ‘Cos every little thing’s gonna be alright.’
‘Boss? I said they’re nearly done.’
‘Singin’ don’t worry—’
‘Hey, boss.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, where’s the diver?’
‘Still down there. Making sure all them packages are properly clipped on.’
Kill them.
Elijah blinked and looked around. Had he just imagined it?
‘Should I start the engine, boss?’
Kill them.
Elijah wiped his forehead. Was that voice God, or the devil?
‘Boss, are you listening?’
Kill them. Now!
Elijah waved his hand. ‘Finish them off.’
A questioning look crossed Patrice’s youthful face.
‘You heard what I said?’ Elijah snapped. ‘Kill them!’
‘But there’s two of them.’
‘Then get a move on.’
Elijah bounced to his feet and glided after Patrice. Beard was leaning over the side of his boat, surveying the water below. He glanced up.
‘All okay?’ Elijah said with a broad, friendly smile.
Beard nodded.
‘Then it’s time to say goodbye.’
Patrice whipped out a gun that was tucked in the back of his trousers. Beard lunged for his rifle, but Patrice shot him twice in the chest. Beard spun sideways, his arms flailing out to either side like a spinning top, then collapsed over one of the wooden benches with a raspy groan, face down, legs twitching spasmodically. Patrice took careful aim and fired two more shots into the back of Beard’s head.
‘Hey, use this for the other guy.’ Elijah pointed at the harpoon gun hanging on the hook on the wall next to the steering wheel. ‘It’s more fun.’
The diver broke the surface. His mouthpiece dropped out when he saw the harpoon pointed straight at him. He put his hands out to protect himself then tried to duck back down. The harpoon shot out with a whir, slicing through his left hand and embedding itself into his neck. He clutched it with his right hand, then sank back into the water amid a growing pool of blood and bubbles.
Patrice pulled out a knife and cut the harpoon’s rope as calmly as if he’d just shot a fish. He placed another harpoon into the gun and hung it back on the wall.
A grin swept Elijah’s face as he felt another rush.
The radio crackled. Amonite’s deep voice came through. ‘All okay?’
Elijah jumped. He stared at the radio as though it was a strange beast.
‘I repeat: all okay?’ Amonite said.
Patrice handed Elijah the microphone.
‘All done,’ Elijah said. ‘Just had a few things to deal with.’
‘Problems?’
‘No problems. Just solutions.’
Amonite didn’t reply. Elijah felt the blood pound in his temples. Was Amonite about to have one of her infamous bursts of anger? Elijah looked around him, suddenly fearful that an assassin would drop out of the sky and strike him down. All he saw was the jungle and the body of the dead Colombian in the go-fast boat drifting away.
Patrice was giving him an odd look.
‘Everything’s fine.’ Elijah took a deep breath. ‘All fine.’
‘Let me speak to the Colombians.’
‘They’ve just set off.’
‘Okay, never mind. Here are the GPS coordinates of the drop-off.’
Elijah nodded to Patrice, who grabbed a paper and pen and a map of the Caribbean from a ledge next to the steering wheel. ‘Yeah, sure. Fire away.’
Amonite rattled out a bunch of numbers. Patrice scribbled them down and made a cross on the map. Amonite’d assured them the radio link was secure. She’d better be right, or they’d have half the coast guard turning up as a welcome party. Elijah tried to study the map, but his eyes couldn’t focus.
‘Where is it?’ he asked Patrice.
‘Just there. Turks and Caicos Islands.’
‘That’s miles away.’
Patrice nodded.
Elijah rubbed his head. The Turks and Caicos Islands were a collection of 40 islands and cays north-east of Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti. Perfect for smugglers on their way to Florida, but surrounded by shark-infested waters and fierce tropical storms.
Patrice nudged Elijah. ‘Amonite just said something.’
Elijah lifted the mike. ‘Yeah?’
‘I said how’s the church going? Still making converts?’
‘Pretty good, pretty good. Thanks for asking. Hey, while you’re here. What happened in Brixton?’
‘Whoever mentioned Brixton?’
‘Any idea who the snitch was?’
‘What snitch?’
‘Wasn’t me, mon,’ Elijah said, switching into patois. ‘Them yardies. They fuck it up.’
‘Well they’re all dead now. And so will you if you screw this up.’
Amonite clicked off. E
lijah rubbed his temples hard. His head felt like it was being slowly cooked in a large pot of his late mother’s famous steamed cabbage.
Patrice was staring at him. ‘Why did you say that?’
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