Lucia pushed open the door to the bathroom. Young women in leggings and boots milled around, powdering themselves, chatting and giggling about their pimps and clients.
She planted herself in front of the washbasin and studied herself in the mirror. Her full lips were dark red with lipstick, her eyes sharpened with black eyeliner. She tried to remember what it was like when she was a young adolescent attempting to imitate her friends’ obsession with revealing clothes and makeup. She pulled up her black leather mini-skirt, adjusted her white tube top to draw attention to her cleavage.
‘This isn’t going to work,’ she muttered to herself, shoulders sagging.
A woman with breasts bursting from a tight black top emerged from a cubicle.
‘Sexy, sexy,’ she said as she cast an appreciative glance at Lucia and sniffed with her nose as though she’d just been snorting cocaine off the rim of the toilet seat.
Lucia stuffed the make-up into her leather hand-bag. She shoved past the woman and into the cubicle, slamming shut the door behind her. She locked the latch, flicked down the toilet lid and plonked herself on it.
‘Cabrona loca,’ came the woman’s voice.
‘What am I doing?’ Lucia put her head in her hands. ‘Maybe I have gone completely crazy?’
She took a deep breath, suddenly wishing this was all a bad dream, that she’d wake up in her warm, soft quilt in her blue bedroom in her parents’ mansion, that the past years of pain and anguish would vanish in a blink as she’d rub the sleep from her eyes, stretch her arms, and gaze at the posters of Che Guevara that plastered her teenage walls.
Her mind went back to the events at El Tiempo the previous day. She’d hidden behind a large van and watched, helpless, as the police arrived in their armoured trucks and dragged Nathan, unconscious, from the building. She’d wanted to intervene, to yank Nathan from their clutch, but knew they’d have captured her too. She had no idea where they’re taken him, yet she suspected that the Front was involved.
Which was why she was here, in the Front’s most stylish strip joint, trying to set up what she’d once heard an American call a ‘honey trap’. If she could get that fat man to fall for her, if he was a Front member, if she could get him to a quiet place, if she could overpower him, if she could extract information from him, then she might stand a chance of finding Nathan.
So many ifs…
‘Hey, wake up in there.’ There was banging on the door to the cubicle. ‘No drugs allowed.’
She flung the door open and glared at the woman in the black top. She shoved past her and went back into the bar area, pushing through the well-groomed bodies that writhed and danced in the subdued red, pink and yellow lighting. A topless dancer was gyrating round a pole to one side, drawing appreciative looks from a group of men at a table.
The fat man was deep in conversation with two men in jeans and white t-shirts. The back of his bald head gleamed like polished marble.
Lucia slid onto a tall stool at the bar. She ordered herself a tonic and sipped from the straw. She glanced at the fat man. He was gesticulating with his hands. The men in jeans were frowning. One of them looked up.
It was Scarface, the man she’d drenched in beer in that bar. He was scanning the room with his burning gaze. She twisted round, head down in her drink, hair hanging loosely to either side of her face, and took a long sip.
‘Another drink?’
She froze.
‘Would you like another drink?’
She gripped the glass, ready to spin round and throw it at Scarface.
‘Is it gin and tonic?’
The voice was Colombian and too gentle. She dared a peek. A man was leaning on the bar and pointing at her half-empty glass. He was mid-twenties, well-built, attractive, with a mop of perfectly styled hair, a meticulously ironed shirt and several days’ stubble.
‘No thanks,’ she said.
‘Do I recognise you from somewhere?’
‘I doubt it,’ Lucia said, realising that millions would have seen her on TV.
‘You just started here?’
‘Yes. I mean no. I mean, it’s not important.’
‘You okay?’
‘I’m expecting someone.’
‘I can speak to you in the meantime.’
‘I said no.’
‘How much for a dance?’
‘Just fuck off, will you?’
‘Okay, okay, okay.’ He raised his hands and scowled. ‘I get the message.’
She swizzled the straw around in her empty glass, not daring to turn round. Maybe she should change tactic. This was all proving too difficult. She was about to pay and leave the bar when she felt a presence next to her.
‘Can I get you a drink?’
This voice in her ear wasn’t gentle at all. She looked round. It was the fat man. He was standing too close, the tip of his belly touching her hips. The stubble on his chin was yellow and his breath was stale. Scarface and the other man in jeans were nowhere to be seen.
‘I’d love one.’ Lucia tried to flash a smile. ‘Gin and tonic.’
The fat man barked an order at the bartender, then turned back to Lucia. ‘You come here often?’
‘I live down the road.’
‘What d’you do?’
‘I’m a student.’
‘Ah, a poor student.’ The man blinked one eye in what must have been a wink. ‘What do you study?’
‘Literature.’
The bartender plonked the drinks next to them. The fat man downed his double whiskey and ordered another one. Lucia’s heart was beating so fast her hands were trembling.
‘And you are?’ she said.
‘Alberto. I’m a contractor for a big company.’
‘A contractor?’
‘Government business.’ He winked again, lighting a cigarette. ‘Top secret.’
Lucia smiled stupidly. She twisted round to face him, clasping her hands. ‘Tonight’s your night off?’
‘Sure is.’ Alberto downed another whiskey and snapped his fingers for a third one.
‘Oh good.’
Alberto clasped her knee with his sweaty hand, just below the hem of her skirt. She tried not to recoil.
‘Then I’m sure we can have some fun together,’ Alberto said, leering at her cleavage through the swirling haze of cigarette smoke.
Chapter 53
Bogotá, Colombia
14 April 2011
The whispering swelled into a rumbling, like a waterfall or rapids hurling themselves off a cliff in the distance. The water surged past Nathan’s knees, pulling at him, first gently, then insistently, then violently.
Nathan waded to the side of the tunnel. He fumbled around for something to grasp. His fingers dug into cracks in the slimy wall, but couldn’t find a hold. The current dragged him forwards as the water rose rapidly to his waist, roaring through the narrow tunnel like a steam engine.
Nathan took a deep breath, nearly gagging on the acrid stench. The water was up to his ribcage. His feet slipped, touched the floor, then slipped again, until he could no longer feel the ground. He wanted to scream for help, but knew it was useless.
The sewer became a river, tugging him forwards, threatening to yank him under and drown him like one of the rats. He lashed out with his hands again, but only clasped emptiness. His head dipped below. He surfaced, gasping for breath. He paddled with his hands to stay afloat. His head smashed against the ceiling. Pin-points of white light twinkled before his eyes.
The current snatched him under again. He sealed his eyes and mouth. His heart pounded in his temples. He kicked with his feet.
He surfaced. Another big gulp of air. Debris struck him in the cheek, dazing him. He shoved it away. His fingers brushed a metal bar. He clasped it with both hands. It was fixed to the wall. More debris whacked him, but he clung to the bar, arms tired, legs weak, chest heaving, frantically trying to get his breath back and overcome the terror surging through him.
He pulled himself closer to the wall. T
he sewer gushed past. He braced himself as more blocks of debris bashed into him, threatening to dislodge him. He waited for what felt like ages. The flood showed no sign of abating. An animal crawled over his hands and up his arms. It gnawed at his ear. Nathan tried to shrug it off. It dug its claws deep into his clothes. Nathan grabbed it and flung it into the darkness.
Just then, something hard struck him in the back. His grip slipped. He was pulled back into the flow. He flailed around, but the current was too strong. He scraped his head against the ceiling. The air space was vanishing. He turned to face forwards. He stretched his hands in front. The noise of the water was deafening.
He banged into a wall again. The sewer was making another turn. Something dug into his side. He clutched it. It was another metal handlebar. He hung on as more bits crashed into him. He reached up, trying to gauge where the ceiling was. His hand found another bar. It was cold and slippery. He pulled himself up, and reached up again. A third bar. He kept on going, hauling himself up what must have been the rungs of a ladder embedded into the wall.
He reached a ledge. He felt around with his hands. It was a couple of metres wide. He knelt down, forehead on the cold stone floor, hands covering his head, his chest wracked with fits of coughing. He spat out small chunks of waste that had lodged themselves in his mouth.
The roaring subsided, until all that remained was the trickling of water over stone. Nathan sat up and leaned against the wall. He patted his body. Apart from some more bruising, he was still okay.
He had no idea how long he lay there. Maybe minutes, an hour. Small, disorganised fractal-like patterns shifted before his eyes, like a translucent overlay on the darkness around. Nathan shook his head to stay awake.
His thoughts wandered back to Lucia. Was Amonite telling the truth that they’d captured her or was she bluffing? He pushed away the image of Caitlin’s dead body that kept creeping back into his mind. No, he couldn’t let something like that happen again.
He shivered, and realised he was cold. His clothes were drenched and filthy. He wrapped his arms around his chest to make himself warmer. He went over his options. He’d been following the flow of the sewer, which meant it would eventually reach a river or a waste facility. That was one avenue of escape. Or he could go back the way he’d come from, against the flow, and try to find an exit that way. But that involved going back past the ASI’s secret prison again.
Better to continue the same way.
He was gathering his strength to get going again when a speck of yellow-orange light appeared to his left. At first, he thought it was another of these fatigue-induced hallucinations. It had the same dreamy quality to it, generating thin trails of light that danced and pulsed in the darkness. But it grew steadily, bobbing left and right like a firefly, its glow intensifying.
Then it stopped.
Flickered.
Once. Twice.
And burst into blue flame.
Chapter 54
Bogotá, Colombia
14 April 2011
‘What the hell you waiting for?’ Amonite said as she stormed into the room. A crowd of Colombian secret police was peering into a manhole like tourists who’ve dropped a penny down a wishing well.
‘Get in there,’ she yelled. ‘Catch the fucker.’
General Zathanaís, short, balding, dog-faced in his black suit, glared at her.
‘My men don’t crawl around in sewers like rats.’
‘You’re gonna have to make one big exception this time, buddy. This guy is a lot more than your average Joe terrorist.’ She jabbed a finger at the other men, who were puffing on cigarettes and joking with each other. ‘Come on, boys, kit up. You’re going down.’
Zathanaís planted himself in front of her. ‘There’s no way my men are going down there.’
‘Oh yeah? How long’s he been gone?’
‘Nearly an hour,’ said one of the secret police, a broad man with muscles rippling down his neck like huge boulders down the side of a mountain. ‘Anyway, we’ve drowned him.’
‘You’ve what?’
‘We called up Empresa de Acueducto de Bogotá. They manage the water and sewer services.’
Amonite looked down the manhole. A river of sewerage rushed past.
‘Do we know the exits?’ she said.
‘Some,’ the man said. ‘Not all.’
‘Block ‘em off.’
‘But the sewer’s huge,’ Zathanaís said. ‘Anyway, he’s dead.’
‘Wait for the water to go down.’ Amonite turned to Zathanaís. ‘Whoever finds him will get a fat wad of cash.’
‘How much?’
‘That’s not up for negotiation right now.’
Zathanaís’s eyes lit up. He turned to his men and barked some orders. They scurried off down the corridor, chattering, cackling and chuckling like a troop of monkeys.
‘Hey, where you going?’ Amonite shouted.
‘To get our equipment,’ Zathanaís yelled back. ‘Back in five minutes.’
Amonite sighed. Colombians could be so difficult to work with. Disorganised, unmotivated, corrupt. She punched Dex’s number on her phone.
‘Yeah, what’s up?’
‘He’s disappeared into the sewer,’ Amonite said.
‘Oh, shit.’
‘Very funny.’
‘No pun intended. Whaddya want me to do?’
‘Hook up with your boys and get over here asap. These ASI chimps are dumb as a box of rocks.’
‘Okay, boss, on my way.’
That was more like it. Dex wasn’t the most competent man around, yet he was way more reliable and efficient that Zathanaís’s bunch.
Amonite stared into the manhole at the sewerage gushing past below, wondering how anyone could survive in that underground hell. Then Don Camplones’s words came back to her: don’t ever underestimate this guy.
‘It’s God’s way of doing social cleansing.’
Amonite spun round. Zathanaís was standing next to her, a sinister grin on his ugly face.
‘Street kids,’ Zathanaís said above the sound of rushing water below. ‘They steal from good people. We flood them, then send squads to cleanse the survivors.’
‘So you do go down there.’
‘Sometimes.’
Boots stomped on the stone floor. The ASI troops were trudging back to the manhole, kitted up with black plastic boots, black boilersuits, M-16s, flareguns, grenades, torches, knives and ammo belts. One of them was holding a jerry can.
‘That’s more like it.’ Amonite flicked open her phone again. ‘Dex? You on your way?’
‘ETA in half an hour. Got twenty-two guys, night goggles, dogs.’
‘Change of plan. Don’t come here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Hold on a sec.’ Amonite beckoned to Zathanaís, who strolled over. ‘What’s the name of those guys who run the sewers?’
‘Empresa de Acueducto de Bogotá.’
Amonite turned away. ‘Did you catch that, Dex?’
‘Yep.’
‘Get a map from them. Round-up more troops. Block all exits within five clicks. Some of these ASI guys will join you. Kill anyone who even shows the tip of their nose.’
‘Will do.’
‘Ring me if you get him.’
‘Sure, boss, but what you doing?’
‘I’m gonna hunt him down.’
Chapter 55
Bogotá, Colombia
14 April 2011
Nathan crouched low, tired eyes strained, aching muscles tense. The blue light was a dozen or so metres away. It burnt dancing, roving patterns into his retina.
It was the flame of a butane gas lighter. Someone was holding it. A dark silhouette with a hood. Shadows flickered like thieves across sunken, grimy cheeks, a crooked nose, a man’s forehead etched with a sea of wrinkles. And his eyes. As black as tar. Unblinking. Burning as intensely as the flame. Focused on the half-crushed can of Coke with the empty tube of a ballpoint pen sticking out, a homemade crack pipe lace
d together with elastic bands, that he was holding up to his thin, cracked lips.
Smoke billowed out. The man coughed, bent over, stumbled, leaned against the wall with his shoulder, his body wracked by coughing and wheezing, still clutching the can and the lighter. It lit up the area around it, revealing a corridor lined with crumbling brick and cement walls covered in patches of moss. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, oozing greasy liquid onto an uneven floor strewn with stones and garbage.
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