Hunting for Caracas

by Anthony Fox

  When we finish this job, I’ll have to get me a suit like that.

  Tonight they were playing the part of businessmen on their way back from a late meeting with their accountant.

  Apart from being of a similar height, Paxman knew any physical resemblance they shared started and ended with the suit.

  He noted Phil Connelly’s broad shoulders and erect posture made him appear a good few inches taller. No doubt Connelly had worked all his adult life to build himself into the strong, handsome, successful and dangerous man he wanted everybody to see. Even Paxman glanced jealously at his chest and stomach from time to time.

  Bob Paxman conceded that his own milky skin was perhaps beginning to sag, showing a loss of the natural athleticism he’d carried ever since his college wrestling days, when he’d twice earned all-American wrestling honours. Since leaving the army, Paxman had allowed himself to become a little lazy, and too often gave in to his cravings for all the food his health magazines demanded he avoid.

  Preparations for the break-in had consumed Paxman’s mind since the previous evening. With the adrenaline now leaving, he allowed his mind to drift briefly. Like stretching out a muscle after intense exercise.

  ‘D’you think I’m outta shape?’ he asked.

  Connelly’s thoughts were elsewhere, and he replied after a pause. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Back there. You were askin’ if I’m injured.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re moving a little slow. Thought maybe you’d pulled a muscle in your—’

  ‘I’m not injured.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The two Americans were in the small town of Cabo Cevera, just outside Torrevieja. Although Paxman could not hear the sea, he knew a beautiful two-kilometre stretch of sandy beach lay just two blocks to their left. To their right and up a short hill the main strip of bars and restaurants would be packed with tourists and locals; they’d deliberately avoided it.

  ‘So you figure I’m unfit?’ Paxman looked up at Connelly as they walked on.

  ‘What’re you talking about?’

  ‘If you think I’m moving like I’ve an injury, you’re implying I seem awkward or cumbersome. But I’m not. Injured, that is. So that’d imply you think I’m unfit.’

  ‘Why does this suddenly remind me of talking with my ex-wife?’

  ‘I’m not sayin’ you meant it that way. In my days in the forces I was very fit,’ said Paxman, knowing this was stretching the truth. He just used to be able to get away with it more. A lot had changed since then.

  ‘Holy hell, it’s hot,’ said Connelly in an obvious attempt to change the subject. Connelly tugged at his collar and ran his hands through his hair. ‘Think even my teeth are sweating,’ he added. Paxman caught Connelly’s sideways glance, himself feeling like a scoop of melting ice cream.

  ‘I’m closing in on fifty now.’ Paxman’s thoughts weren’t diverted. ‘It’s a cliché, but things just don’t work like they used to.’

  ‘Speak for yourself.’

  There was a brief silence. Earlier that day the temperature reached thirty-eight degrees. Unusually hot even for summer. Although it was now dark, it still felt every bit as hot.

  ‘My hips are swelling.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ replied Connelly. ‘You actually turned into my ex-wife?’

  ‘They say it gets harder to lose weight coz your metabolic rate slows after forty.’

  ‘She blamed the stress,’ admitted Connelly. ‘In my opinion, way too much liposuction does strange things to the body. Eventually it...fights back.’

  Paxman listened to Connelly’s designer loafer’s clip-clop on the flagstone path as they finally reached the abandoned repair store.

  ‘Wait, I thought Kimberley was only thirty-six?’

  ‘No, no, Kimberley’s the new one,’ said Connelly. ‘She’s twenty-three. And awesome.’

  ‘You call your girlfriend “the new one”?’

  Connelly smiled at that. ‘Don’t worry, buddy. Fifty ain’t too old,’ he said, not quite managing to sound reassuring.

  Paxman scanned the street.

  ‘Nearly fifty,’ he corrected, automatically lowering his voice as they prepared to go inside. ‘Startin’ to feel it.’

  ‘Know one of the first signs you’re getting old?’ Connelly asked him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You get way too self-conscious, just like Cassandra did.’

  ‘That’s it.’ Paxman snapped his fingers. ‘Cassandra.’

  The ex-wife.

  He laughed. ‘Growing old’s a bitch.’ Paxman used a handkerchief to once again anxiously wipe the beads of sweat gathering on his forehead.

  He spied Connelly touching the outside of his trouser pocket, presumably feeling for the USB flash drive they’d used to remove the stolen information a few hours before. The device was no bigger than a box of matches, yet Paxman knew Connelly could feel its weight.

  Finding a link to Central Europe is the key.

  They’d missed Luque here, but they knew he was still somewhere in Central Europe.

  Unfortunately, that’s a big search area. It needs narrowing down.

  Years ago, when the owners of this repair store went bankrupt, they sold everything in the shop, from the carpet to the light bulbs. That’s how it was left. The only thing that remained was the handwritten sign on the door. It was here so long that when the team arrived at the safe house they agreed removing the sign could arouse suspicion. Paxman was glad. It was definitely his favourite thing about Spain so far.

  The sign read in Spanish:

  Repair shop: all welcome. We can fix absolutely anything.

  Underneath, with no hint of irony, it finished with:

  Please knock: the doorbell is broken.

  Once inside, Paxman stepped aside as Connelly locked the door using a key from a chain around his neck. Both men walked swiftly across the creaking floorboards to a door at the back of the shop. It was dark, and the door was difficult to see in the darkness. There was no keyhole for this door. No door handle. Unlike anything else in the shop, however, the door was relatively new, expensive and well made.

  Connelly knocked loudly three times while Paxman attempted to breathe in as little dust as possible. He wiped his forehead again. Then Paxman looked up into the corner of the room. Although he could barely see it, he knew there was a small camera up there, sending a clear image of the two Americans to a laptop inside. Both men patted their breast pocket with two fingers of their right hand. That was the signal. All was clear.

  After ten seconds they heard the lock turn. The door slowly swung inwards to reveal Nina Arrow, bathed in low, artificial light.

  ‘Good evening, boys,’ purred Nina. Her full lips creased into a mischievous smile. ‘Glad to have you both back in one piece. I hope it’s been a successful trip?’

  ‘Phil reckons I’m unfit,’ replied Paxman.

  ‘And getting old,’ added his companion. For a man with a strong face, Connelly had surprisingly sensual lips, and he gave a wry smile as Paxman shot him a hurt look.

  Nina turned from the doorway, her long auburn hair loose and swaying down her back. English with peachy skin and sharp, elvish features, tonight Nina Arrow wore a white blouse with the sleeves rolled up as far as they would go, and a plain black skirt. Her feet were bare. All the exposed skin glistened with sweat.

  She led them across the threshold. They closed the door behind them and waited to hear the automatic locks click in, then the men followed Nina down a long, narrow corridor and into a room at the far left of the building.

  The men took a seat at the dining table in the centre. Five chairs were around it. The only other piece of furniture was an old two-seater green sofa with a few tears in it, revealing the white stuffing inside. No one in the team ever sat on the sofa, but they couldn’t be bothered to move the thing either. On the other side of the room, opposite the door, was a bricked-up fireplace.

  Paxman threw the car key from the rented Megane on to the table as he watch
ed Nina take the last of the five seats around the table. Since Connelly – whose name conveyed a certain reputation – considered himself the unofficial leader of the team, he’d positioned himself at the head of the dining table.

  Paxman nodded to the other two seated people, Kemi and Matthews, positioned directly across from himself and Nina.

  Five mercenaries in total.

  Together, they made up the team running Operation Matterhorn.

  Paxman watched Connelly remove the flash drive from his trouser pocket and hand it to Kemi.

  ‘I figure this should be of use to you,’ Connelly said without trying to hide the triumph in his voice.

  Kemi took the flash drive from him. ‘Fantastic!’ she exclaimed as she pushed it into the USB port on her laptop.

  Paxman recalled that although Kemi Zango was born in Manchester, England, she considered herself Nigerian, due to her parents’ origin. Both professors, Kemi’s parents moved to the north-west of England from Nigeria to take up positions at Manchester university. Kemi’s soft skin was as black as obsidian and her tightly curled hair like steel wool. She was five feet two. Short, with a real roundness to her body. It would probably make other people look overweight, but on Kemi it seemed just right.

  Paxman heard no hint of a Manchester accent when Kemi spoke. Only one that sounded like a product of private education. In his view, Kemi was definitely a good egg. A bundle of positive energy all too rare in this profession.

  ‘Any trouble?’ This came from Matthews, the man in the chair next to Kemi. His voice was quiet.

  ‘No,’ answered Paxman. ‘There was the usual security and a few people hanging about the place, but a couple o’ pros like us’ – he gave an exaggerated wink and shot two thumbs at his own chest – ‘easily avoided them. The computer was heavily protected but Kemi’s program worked exactly as she said it would. That’ – Paxman pointed to the flash drive – ‘should be a back-up of his entire computer system. Seems we were right: he’s just a regular accountant doing a bit of dirty on the side. I doubt if he even knows, or cares, where Luque gets all his cash from.’

  Paxman had travelled with the rest of the team all the way to the Costa Blanca in the hope of discovering Luque himself.

  The team were thrown together three months early by a mysterious person known only as the White Wolf. It started after Paxman reached out through the usual channels for any well-paid work. One day he’d received a letter.

  The details of the job were fine. Run a private operation as part of a small team with one ultimate objective; find and capture El Patron and former Venezuelan arms dealer, Luque.

  Luque had disappeared off the radar, it seemed. No longer a high priority for most governments. It was assumed he was retired and in hiding.

  The details were fine. The anonymity didn’t sit well with Paxman. The letter was signed ‘White Wolf’. Any further digging on his part came up empty. Paxman didn’t even know why Luque was this person’s target. But the money was just too good for a mercenary to turn down. And half upfront, plus the promise of a bonus. Paxman guessed the others felt the same. So Operation Matterhorn, here they were. Highly capable strangers united by an obscene pay check.

  Truth was he didn’t fully trust a single one of them. But he’d do his job and collect his cash.

  They were able to make a running start to the operation, thanks to the White Wolf providing a wealth of background information on Luque, along with detailed reports of his most recent sightings.

  After beginning in Switzerland they quickly moved the operation to Monaco, convinced they’d found the Venezuelan arms dealer immediately.

  When the trail in Monaco went cold they hung around too long, Paxman reflected with hindsight. After more than a month the team moved to Madrid. They chased hunches and false leads north-east through to France before information first found in Madrid brought them to the Costa Blanca. Here they discovered nothing more than a rumour they’d just missed Luque again.

  However, the trip was not a total waste. They quickly uncovered Luque’s accountant, a man called Patrick McAuley, who’d moved to Torrevieja after fleeing Belfast. The accountant’s relocation to the Spanish coast coincided with the Belfast Telegraph raising serious questions regarding the credibility of McAuley’s previous firm, with the final article before he left mentioning potential clients linked with drugs, money laundering, and arms dealing.

  These days McAuley no longer limited himself to accounting for criminals. He also facilitated travel and temporary housing through his company.

  The team did not know why their target, Luque, was in Central Europe, or for how long, only that he was here, recently in Torrevieja. Had he met McAuley to make travel or housing arrangements? If so, they hoped to find pertinent information from Patrick McAuley’s computer hard drive.

  Kemi’s fingers danced across the keyboard. After telling the team that the information from McAuley’s computer was security-protected, she’d been silent for the last few minutes. The others began to quiz Connelly and Paxman on their break-in. After this, they sat making small talk whilst trying to ignore the unbearable heat, every now and then glancing at Kemi to check her progress.

  ‘For the love o’ God, surely it’s too hot for a human being to survive in this place,’ said Paxman, sure his face was beginning to turn a dangerous shade of red. The humidity in the room only seemed to be intensifying.

  ‘Well, complaining about it won’t cool us down,’ said Nina in a tired voice.

  ‘Damn, thanks Nina, for that amazing insight into futile gestures. I guess now I can redirect all my energy into prayin’ for world peace.’

  Nina responded by pulling a childish face at him. He returned the favour. Then they smiled. Some might think Paxman’s goofing around to be unprofessional. In truth he used it to disarm people, a way to unbalance them. His mind rarely strayed from the objective.

  After ten minutes, the mood in the room suddenly changed as Kemi spoke two words.

  ‘I’m in.’

  3

  Zurich, Switzerland.

  Assia Young entered the hostel reception and walked up to the front desk. The young man behind it was busy talking to a group and pointing to a door labelled ‘Cafe and Bar’, apparently informing them of the opening times.

  The walls in the reception area were painted white and virtually every inch was decorated with marker pen: previous travellers had written notes or drawn pictures there, or passed on some of their worldly wisdom. One piece that caught Assia’s eye was a quote credited to J.R.R. Tolkien that said: ‘Not all those who wander are lost’. Below it, written in very different handwriting, was: ‘The Sydney Boyz wer’ ’ere. Suck my balls, 2014’.

  Assia dropped her small rucksack on the floor and plucked a leaflet from one of the many piles on top of the reception desk. The leaflet was for a bar she’d seen in the building across the street. It held the usual information, in English, as well as a voucher for free entry and a free shot with your first drink.

  ‘If you like bars, that’s one of the best in town.’ The young man behind the desk was finished with the group and came over without Assia noticing him.

  ‘Who doesn’t like bars?’ Assia asked genuinely. Looking up, she saw the receptionist was not as tall as she’d first thought. Somewhere around twenty with floppy hair, a disarming, pretty face and a skinny frame, he looked like perfect boyband material.

  His eyes gave Assia the once-over.

  ‘Just sayin’ it’s a good one. Not as rowdy and full-on as the other two backpacker bars over on the Bahnhofstrasse.’ He looked Assia in the eye and smiled a winning smile. ‘Just good, clean fun.’

  ‘Really?’ replied Assia, looking back. ‘That sounds dull.’ She put the leaflet back. His smile faltered.

  ‘I have a reservation,’ she announced, beating him to the question he was just about to ask.

  The receptionist didn’t move, but instead asked if she was travelling alone.

  ‘Sorry, I should
say we have a reservation.’

  Assia handed over a printout of the details, and the receptionist found them on the computer. He gave Assia a key. She thanked him and turned as Charlie entered, just managing to squeeze through the door. He was carrying a hundred-litre backpack bursting at the seams that gave him the appearance of a snail dragging a huge shell. Charlie dropped his ‘shell’ on the floor and let out a long sigh of relief.

  ‘What took you so long?’ Assia asked, collecting her small rucksack and heading over to Charlie. He didn’t answer her immediately, instead seemed to be suffering sensory overload from the graffiti on the ceiling and the walls.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ Charlie said when he’d caught his breath.

  ‘With that thing? I’m only little.’

  ‘Don’t forget, you can’t play that card with me, Assia. I know how tough you are.’

  He looked at her. ‘Although at the moment you certainly don’t look it.’

  Assia smiled, knowing what he meant but not prepared to let him off the hook that easily. ‘Oh? And what’s wrong with the way I look?’ she teased.

  ‘I didn’t mean… you know what I mean. For all the years I knew you before you dressed…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Normally. And since you came back you dress….’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Eh, abnormally?’

  Assia laughed. Once comments like this would have upset her, she conceded. But since leaving Thailand six months ago Assia’s skin was much thicker these days. That trip had been worse than her darkest nightmares, and surviving such an event always left its marks. ‘What you mean is I used to wear what everybody else wanted me to wear. Now I wear whatever I want.’

  Assia looked up and did see a few people linger their gaze on her as they passed by the entrance. But she understood when you wear a dusty white ball gown that looks like something out of a black-and-white movie, people will notice. The ball gown had black trim and a thick black ribbon tied around the waist, and finished at her ankles, just above a pair of brown leather walking boots.