by Matthew Hall
He swiped his card through a reader at the side of a door that led from the lobby to the accommodation. It was faced with wood-effect plastic but as it clicked open it revealed itself to be constructed of three-inch-thick steel plate.
‘Joachim told me they put this in after the fifth kidnap,’ Riley said.
‘Reassuring.’
They went through into a small windowless tiled area. An out-of-service lift was sealed shut with hazard tape.
‘The good news is we’re only on the second floor,’ Riley said, starting up the stairs.
‘I feel at home already.’
‘Wait till you see your room.’
They walked up the four flights to the second floor. The air in the stairwell was damp and stale. Flies circled lazily beneath the dim fluorescent lights. The building was strangely silent. Not even the hum of an air conditioner.
‘Are we the only ones staying here?’ Black asked.
‘I’ve a feeling it’s the sort of place that might liven up a bit as the night wears on.’
‘Great.’
They had two rooms on opposite sides of a tiled corridor. Riley and Fallon were on the right, Black on the left.
‘We scraped some rations together,’ Riley said. ‘See you in ten?’
‘Sure.’
Black slotted his card into the lock and entered a darkened room. He switched on the light, sending several large cockroaches skittering beneath the rickety furniture. The room’s only saving grace was its plainness. A bed with greying sheets, a desk, chair and an open-fronted wardrobe. All decades old, scuffed and scarred, but functional. There was no carpet, no curtains. The room was lit by a solitary unshaded bulb. Black tugged on the cord of a ceiling fan positioned above the bed. It started to turn and chop through the air.
He nudged open the door to the en suite. A limp towel of a similar colour to the bedsheets hung from a chrome rail. A mirror, cracked across one corner, was screwed to the wall above the basin. Black had stayed in worse. In Gambia he had once been confronted with an entire bathroom wall crawling with colourful insects, some the size of his palm.
He stripped naked, fetched his wash kit from his rucksack and stepped into the shower. His face was scratchy from a day’s growth of beard but he resisted shaving, both in the interests of disguising his appearance and of hygiene. Where he was going, even the smallest shaving nick could quickly become an infected and debilitating wound that could make the difference between life and death. The water was hot, at least, and plentiful. He stood underneath the powerful stream, letting it massage the muscles in his back and shoulders.
He felt good. Loose, supple and focused. Better than he had in years. It was the effect of mind and body combining for a single purpose. To those who had never had to risk their lives in action it was an almost indescribable sensation. There was no drug that could emulate it. It wasn’t a high – there was no euphoria – nor was there any sense of separation from reality. He could only describe it as a state of attunement. Mental peace married with raw physicality. The elemental condition. And there was a purity to it that left no room for misgivings or self-doubt, which was why, Black presumed, he felt no guilt.
He was glad to be in Caracas.
Showered and refreshed, Black made his way across the corridor to Riley and Fallon’s room. It was virtually identical to his except more cramped due to the presence of an extra bed. They dragged the desk into the centre of the room and used it as a table. Needing to hold back their rations for the jungle, dinner comprised the few items they had been able to pick up in the local store – canned beans, hunks of rough bread and strips of dried meat washed down with cans of the local Zulia brand beer. Better than starving, but not by much.
While they ate Riley explained that after dropping Black off at the market, they had driven towards the centre of town and parked in an underground car park beneath an apartment building. It had an armed guard at the entrance and remotely controlled bollards that rose out of the ground. There were BMWs, Mercedes and Cadillacs down there gathering dust, their owners too frightened to drive them for fear of kidnap or a bullet in the head. The fee was twenty dollars per night but they had tipped the guard an extra fifty as an insurance policy. They were as sure as they could be that the vehicle would be there if they needed it.
After checking into the Ávila they had scoured the neighbourhood and found a hole-in-the-wall kiosk where they had picked up a couple of burner phones. They had passed several police in the street but hadn’t been stopped. The cops had seemed edgy, as if they had more important things on their minds than bothering a couple of foreigners. Chatting with Joachim on their return, Riley had learned that police were among the most common murder victims in the city. The better armed criminal gangs would shoot them, steal their weapons and disappear into the lawless warren of barrios that lined the hillsides.
Desperate times made for desperate men.
Black kept his encounter with the thugs at the market to himself. His job was to remain in control, not to brag about his exploits. Instead, he told them about his meeting with Cordero and the two names he’d given him.
‘I propose that we try to make contact tonight. Any objections?’
It was important to include them all in essential decisions. It left no room for blame.
‘Not from me,’ Riley said.
‘I don’t believe anything will be straightforward in this country,’ Fallon said, ‘but yeah. No point waiting.’
Black used one of the new phones to call Colonel Emmanuel Silva’s number. There were four long continuous rings, then a fifth, before a male voice answered abruptly. ‘Dígame.’ Speak to me.
‘Colonel Silva? I was given your number by Mr Cordero,’ Black said in English. ‘I think you may be expecting my call.’
‘Yes, of course,’ the Colonel answered in a refined accent that suggested a Sandhurst education. ‘He informed me of your requirements several days ago and I am happy to be able to meet them. The fee is fifty thousand dollars, payable in advance of delivery.’
‘Wouldn’t fifty per cent in advance be more conventional?’
‘Not in Venezuela, Mr Black. Not in times such as these. Please write down these account details. When the money is transferred I will call you back.’
Black placed a hand over the receiver. ‘Get me a pen.’ He returned to the conversation. ‘We’re on a tight schedule, Colonel. When might that be?’
‘I was hoping tomorrow at dawn.’
‘That soon?’
‘I would prefer to be relieved of my burden as soon as possible. I’m sure you understand.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
Fallon retrieved a ballpoint from the pocket of his rucksack. Black grabbed a paper napkin and wrote down the details of an account he presumed was held a long way from Caracas.
‘The transfer will be from a London bank?’
‘Yes,’ Black confirmed.
‘Good. These days they are the best kind. I am afraid the Swiss have squandered their reputation for discretion. I hope to speak to you soon, Mr Black.’ He rang off.
‘So far, so good,’ Black reported.
He fetched out the phone he had brought with him from the UK and dialled Towers’ number.
He answered instantly. ‘Leo? What progress?’
‘I’ve made contact with Cordero’s man. He wants fifty thousand dollars up front for a delivery first thing tomorrow. I’ll message you his details. He’s expecting a transfer tonight.’
‘Can we trust him?’
‘We have no choice.’
‘What about a plane?’
‘That’s next on the agenda. I have a name and number.’
‘You haven’t fixed anything?’
‘I left Cordero less than two hours ago.’
‘Well, hurry up, man.’
Black was suspicious. ‘Is there a problem?’
He was met with ominous silence.
‘Freddy?’
‘Potentiall
y.’
‘Meaning?’
Another pause.
‘What is it?’
‘My contact in ’6 had word from the British Embassy in Caracas. They’ve had contact from the local intelligence service asking if they are aware of any British commercial interests carrying out unauthorized exploratory activities in the interior. The Embassy asked the reason for the enquiry and was told that three English citizens they suspect of being prospectors entered the country this morning. They had your names.’
‘We were tailed into Caracas. We must have been picked out at the airport. We lost them.’
‘If they’re on to you, they’re bound to be on to the airlines. All the small operators depend on government contracts. You might have to think about heading south by road.’
‘Road? Then what – travel the last three hundred miles by canoe?’
‘You’ll find some local pilot out in the sticks. They’ll be easier to bribe.’
‘Freddy, look at the map. It’s a big country but there’s precious little room to hide. There’s only one road in the direction we’re heading. I’d rather take my chances with a Russian pilot.’
‘Russian?’
‘Yes. Cordero gave me a Russian. Probably out of the same mould as some of those pirates we encountered in Africa. Old Soviets who decamped to the few countries with rules slack enough to let them land their ancient Ilyushins.’
‘Consider alternatives.’
‘Wire the money. We’ll be fine.’
Towers was silent.
‘Wire it. Goodbye.’
Black ended the call. Riley and Fallon were looking at him expectantly.
‘The local intelligence service is looking for us. They think we might be illegal prospectors.’
Fallon shrugged as if it were a minor inconvenient detail.
‘It rules out the SUV for picking up the weapons,’ Riley said. ‘We’ll need another vehicle. Can’t risk hiring one. We’ll have to help ourselves.’
‘No hold-ups. I don’t want witnesses.’
Riley and Fallon traded a smile.
‘We’ll be discreet,’ Fallon said.
Black nodded and picked up one of the burner phones. He dialled the Russian’s number.
Six rings. No answer. Black stayed on the line, waiting. Another six, then another. Then, finally, it connected. A low snarling voice uttered a few incoherent syllables.
‘Mr Buganov? My name is Black. I’m a friend of Mr Cordero. I understand you have an aircraft.’
There was a grunt followed by a long inhalation as if Buganov were drawing on a cigarette.
‘I would like to charter your plane. Tomorrow if possible.’
‘Where you want to go?’ His voice was thick and rasping.
‘To the south. Platanal. You know it?’
Another grunt. ‘Tomorrow not possible.’
‘I’ll pay your rate plus two thousand dollars, cash. And the same again on return.’
‘Day after tomorrow. Wednesday. Tomorrow I work on the plane. Maintenance.’
‘Can’t it wait?’
‘No. Wednesday.’
‘All right, Wednesday it is – as long as I have your guarantee there’ll be no change of plan.’
‘Three thousand dollars. Each way.’
‘Two and a half.’
‘Forget it.’
Black sighed. ‘All right, Mr Buganov. Three thousand dollars each way. You’ll have three passengers and two hundred kilos of cargo. Where and when are we to meet you?’
‘What cargo?’
‘Not the kind you can pass through security.’
‘This is a problem.’
‘And I’m paying you to solve it.’
Buganov murmured and grumbled under his breath.
‘Do we have a deal?’
There was a brief pause during which Black could sense the Russian’s resistance weaken and give way.
‘Wednesday morning. Ten o’clock.’ He gave an address in Charallave, a town fifty kilometres to the south of Caracas where, Black recalled, there was a small internal airport.
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
Black ended the call. ‘He sounds old, drunk and unreliable, but he’s all we’ve got. Unless anyone’s got a better idea?’
‘Old’s good,’ Fallon said, reaching for the last remaining piece of dried meat. ‘Pilots are like soldiers – the best ones live to tell the tale.’ He tossed the scrap into his mouth and chewed, his eyes bright and alive with the anticipation of adventure.
Black sensed that the comment was partially aimed at him – a compliment, perhaps, but it also carried a sting. He was more than aware that in Fallon and Riley’s eyes his age made him a potential liability. They needed to know that he still had what it took. They were entrusting their lives to a man with whom they had never stood side by side when bullets were flying. For the sake of morale he would have to prove himself at the first opportunity.
They drank the last of the beers and waited for Silva’s return call. It came twenty minutes later. The money had arrived. He gave details of a location on the eastern outskirts of the city where he promised he would be waiting at six a.m. He ended the brief exchange with words from which Black drew a crumb of comfort. ‘I think you will be very pleased with the inventory, Mr Black. Very pleased indeed.’
‘We’re in business,’ Black said. ‘We’ll leave at four thirty, find a vehicle and make our way to the rendezvous. Then we lie low until the following morning. I suggest we camp up somewhere in the hills between here and Charallave.’
His suggestion met with smiles and nods of agreement. They had a plan.
He swept up the few remaining breadcrumbs into an empty beer bottle to use as a cockroach trap and left his two companions to get their heads down.
Black lay awake in the near-darkness, listening to the dull thump-thump-thump from the prostitute’s bed in the room above and the sounds of the city leaking through the open window: the rumble of traffic combined with the excitable voices of late-night revellers, church bells that struck every quarter-hour, a crying baby in a nearby apartment, and the distant, sporadic pop-pop of gunshots that to the innocent ear would sound like firecrackers. It was a city that refused to sleep. A city of midwives, gravediggers and thieves.
The bells struck midnight and Black continued to stew in his own sweat. Then he heard them – one, two, three, four – the roaches climbed the paper gangplank and dropped into the empty bottle. For a short while they scrabbled frantically against the glass, then, as if suddenly exhausted, fell still.
Something seemed to settle inside him. He sank into a dreamless sleep.
43
Black woke abruptly to the alarm on his wristwatch. The illuminated display read three thirty a.m. He swung out of bed and felt the welcome cool of the tiles on his bare soles. Only once he was upright did he remember the purpose for getting up in the middle of the night. He was going to steal a car, alone. Unseen. He couldn’t afford for the three of them to be seen together. Not by anyone.
He stood under a cold shower and stepped out feeling sharp and alert. He dressed in hiking shorts, desert boots and T-shirt and fetched a small LCD torch and his Leatherman multi-tool from the pocket of his rucksack. Using the tool’s wire-cutting jaws, he snipped the hook from the solitary coat hanger in the wardrobe, wound the remaining length small enough to fit in his hip pocket and silently exited the room.
He descended the stairs and opened the door to the lobby, prepared to make small talk with Joachim and play the dumb tourist who couldn’t sleep. He needn’t have worried. The TV was off, the lights were dimmed and Joachim was slumped in a chair behind the desk snoring like a sow. Black padded across the floor, turned the handle on the inside of the door, secured the latch so that he could let himself back in and stepped outside. He glanced back through the glass to see Joachim still dead to the world.
The hotel stood on a wide street that would once have been a prosperous commercial area on the edg
e of the central business district. The traffic had thinned to no more than the odd car and delivery truck. Save for several sleeping bodies in nearby doorways there was no one to be seen. Sticking to the shadows, Black walked a block to the east, then turned north into narrower streets lined with apartment buildings.
In the still of the pre-dawn the city seemed almost content. The only clue to its troubled soul was the odd daub of graffiti and the state of the cars. The crashed economy and cheap fuel had made Caracas into a museum of large and ancient American models that reminded him of old movies. In among the battered compacts and pick-ups were Fords, Lincolns, Chevrolets and Pontiacs, with bonnets that stretched six feet in front of their windshields and with boots to match.
He pressed on for three more blocks and spotted the car he wanted on the far side of the street: a mid-brown Pontiac Parisienne. An ’85 or thereabouts. Dented, scratched and with missing hubcaps, it was suitably anonymous and big enough to carry three men and their kit. The windows in the surrounding five-storey buildings were unlit. The coast was clear. He stepped out of the shadows and crossed the road.
Arriving at the driver’s window, he reached the coil of wire from his pocket, bent the end into a small hook and forced it between the rubber seal and the glass. He worked it up and down, fishing for the lever mechanism that would spring the locks. It was trickier than he remembered. Precious seconds ticked by without any joy. He tried to remain patient. Slowly, the vibrations transferring to his fingertips began to form a picture of what lay inside the door. He isolated the horizontal rod he was aiming for and twisted the hook inwards to catch it underneath. It snagged, then with another twist, flicked into place. He pulled sharply upwards and was rewarded with a satisfying click. He tugged the wire free and let himself in.
Now the difficult part. He fetched out the Leatherman and unfolded the cross-head screwdriver. He ran his fingers over the plastic trim beneath the steering column and found the four screws that held it in place. Working in the dark beneath the dash, he removed each of the screws in turn and pulled the trim free, exposing the steering column and the multi-coloured clusters of cables leading from the ignition and headlight and wiper controls. He switched on his torch and examined the ignition barrel. There were six wires leading to it. One green, one black, two red and two brown. Using the Leatherman’s wire strippers, he snipped and stripped the two reds – the live circuit – then, using the tips of the pliers, twisted them together. The lights lit up on the dash. Next, he did the same to the two browns – the starter circuit – and touched them one against the other, causing a spark. The engine coughed and turned over. Black pumped the gas pedal. It sputtered, then roared into life, the sound of its barely muffled engine resounding down the sleeping street.