Hunting for Caracas

by Anthony Fox

  ‘The next few days weren’t any better. I was attacked twice on my first full day and I just cried and cried and cried. I was too scared to fight back, so I learned to survive the only way I could. At first clumsily, like a child curling up in the corner of a room, but just when it all got too much, something took over me. It wasn’t sudden, it was a gradual thing; hour by hour, day by day, like I was being controlled by something deep down inside me I never knew was there. I guess it was some sort of survival instinct. I was able to make it through. It sounds unbelievable, I know, but if I hadn’t adapted so drastically there’s no doubt I wouldn’t have made it. And I slowly developed an understanding of people – not by their words, but by their movements and behaviour.’

  Grandad nodded along, but didn’t look convinced.

  ‘You can’t know what it’s like when you don’t understand a word anyone is saying. I didn’t know when someone approached me if it was because they wanted to try and sell me a pack of cigarettes or throw me off the fourth-floor staircase, so I learned to read people instead. Then again, words lie all the time and someone could have been saying nice things whilst still wanting to hurt me, so I guess not being able to understand anyone just meant I was able to cut out all the bullshit. Words come easy, but the body and the eyes never lie.’

  ‘So can you read anyone’s body language?’

  Assia lowered the fork into her salad and gave him a look. ‘Don’t be a douchebag, of course I can’t. I’m not like some kind of human lie detector or body language expert, or any kind of crap like that. It’s not a conscious thought, more just a feeling I get, a sense. Sometimes I can tell when people are trying to hide something in their behaviour, or when the mood in someone darkens. Like those guys watching the apartment – they weren’t doing anything wrong, they were behaving normally, but I got something from them that just didn’t seem right. A seriousness from them, like a built-up energy they were about to let go. Only on the outside they weren’t; they were just standing around acting casual. Do you see?’

  ‘No.’

  Assia sighed, exasperated. ‘OK. This is how I explained it to Brendan, and this is my last try. Think of a coiled spring, one being pressed down by a hand. Now we know as soon as you take the hand off the spring it’s going to jump up and leap out and explode into action. Sometimes people are like coiled springs, but imagine you can’t see the hand pushing the spring down and you don’t understand how the spring works. Then it just looks like a still object: motionless, uninteresting. I learned in prison that the sort of feeling I get usually spells big trouble.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is, before you were in prison you saw people with bad intentions as motionless objects.’

  ‘Just the same as most people do.’

  ‘But now you can see the hand holding the spring down, ready to let go, and you understand the spring.’

  Assia shrugged. ‘I guess. Something like that.’

  Grandad nodded. ‘I like that. I can get that. It’s all very cool.’

  ‘Why would you say that? Of course it wasn’t cool. Do you have any idea what I went through?’

  ‘Well, no. But it impressed Matthews. That’s, y’know, very cool.’

  Grandad smiled, and Assia stabbed him with her fork.

  ***

  From information in Luque’s file Matthews knew Jean-Papin Blanc was in Iraq in 1996. Grandad used a number of Rudy’s old contacts to obtain a section of Blanc’s file. It turned out not to be that difficult, considering the file was on a criminal people no longer cared about who’d died many years ago.

  Matthews sat alone and read the report.

  The year of 1996 was quite a significant one, not for Luque but for Blanc himself.

  It signified the end of a longstanding rivalry between Blanc and a fellow warlord, a rivalry that had lasted a number of years, before Blanc’s competitor was suddenly murdered one hot day in October. The shock of this sudden murder was down to the fact Blanc’s competitor was winning the duel and it was thought Blanc would soon be crushed. During this time both men travelled everywhere with a personal guard, and Blanc’s rival was reported to be so heavily guarded he was considered untouchable, the very suggestion of an attempt on his life dismissed out of hand.

  Then all of a sudden, poof, he was dead.

  An assassination.

  Matthews skipped straight to the section detailing the murder of Blanc’s rival.

  How do you get to a target that’s impossible to get to?

  The assassination took place in a hotel. The hotel was in fact not in Iraq but in the neighbouring country of Kuwait. The name of the hotel was Le Meridian.

  Matthews, Grandad and Assia were looking for a link to D, I, A, N 96.

  As in Le Meri-dian 1996, perhaps.

  The report was detailed enough and by the time Matthews finished reading he had the answer to his question.

  At once, it all came together.

  He knew what their plan was. He knew exactly what they were going to do, and he felt asinine for having to wait until the answer was written down in front of him.

  Rudy would have pieced this together a day after reading the evidence from the barn. I’ve never been anything but a follower.

  He went back and moved slowly through the report twice more, not trusting his tired mind. His eyes ached, but he wanted to be sure he hadn’t missed any small detail.

  Do I have the strength left for one last act?

  72

  Girona, Spain.

  ‘Nada. There has been no word from Mr Proud, primo. His present location is unknown,’ answered Luque. ‘But nor have we found the body of an older man or a young woman. So perhaps the hunt is still on.’

  ‘Perhaps. Right now we have more pressing matters. Everything is in place, and Jenkins’ replacement will soon be in positon,’ Caracas said in his low, cutting voice. His blood-red fedora swayed softly in the breeze.

  There was the screech of car tyres from the street behind, then shouts from the edge of the park. Luque’s head momentarily twisted a fraction and his eyes made a quick dart for anything out of the ordinary. Then he fixed his head back in front of his primo de la muerte opposite. Caracas hadn’t moved a millimetre. Luque knew there was no safer place in the world for his cousin than this park.

  To one side of the park was a large town hall. On the opposite side a one-way street, each car on it watched by the locals – as was everything else. Everyone’s job there was to hide Caracas and keep him safe. In return Caracas offered his circulo interno protection, shelter, and a freedom in their old age they’d never dreamed possible in their youth.

  ‘Then it is time to leave,’ said Luque.

  ‘Si,’ replied Caracas. ‘Our client wants us to get to France and hit the doctor before he makes his report. But first you have something else to do.’

  Luque nodded.

  ‘It is your wish for me to go to America before France?’

  ‘We have the exact location now,’ said Caracas. Then he removed the fedora from his head.

  It was a graceful movement and done with care. Once the movement was complete Luque looked across at the plain brown eye and the bright green one that came from the same face. He looked at the long, dark, feminine eyelashes that most women would kill for. He looked at the gentle crook in the nose; a result of more than one break. He looked at the smooth, high cheek bones with the black mole on one cheek. He looked at the cauliflower ears that hadn’t changed since their days of street violence and fight training in Venezuela.

  It was a face Luque knew even better than his own. Luque rarely bothered to look in a mirror, but he’d been looking at his primo’s unique, haunting features for most of his life. It was the face of his dreams. And his nightmares.

  ***

  Caracas was born in Venezuela with the name Cassio Oliviera. An unwanted child, living in a squat, surrounded by drug addicts, thieves and worse. Any could have been Cassio’s parents. As a baby Cassio witnessed fighting, torture a
nd even murder, from birth.

  His mismatched eyes led to the people of the squat either worshipping or fearing the bewitched child. One such worshipper took Cassio to a new home and claimed to be the child’s uncle.

  As Cassio grew, his cruelty grew too. By the time he murdered his uncle as a teenager, he could kill without feeling any emotion.

  Cassio ran away and joined the French Foreign Legion. Here was the first time he’d been praised for his talents. He was given training and purpose. Then one day he was attacked by his own men, accused of mutiny, and left for dead in the wasteland of the Algerian mountains. Somehow he survived long enough to be captured and imprisoned by a lawless mountain tribe.

  He didn’t speak the local dialect of his captors, and when they asked him a question, he tried to tell them he wasn’t Algerian, but from Venezuela. They didn’t seem to understand the word, so he tried to explain, telling them that Caracas was the capital of Venezuela, his capital. He pointed at his chest. They seemed to be happy with that. They’d been asking for his name. They called him Caracas for the rest of his imprisonment, and as Cassio Oliviera was murdered by his own men, Caracas was born by these. He was pitted against other prisoners for sport. Once they realised his talent for violence and death, the tribesmen sent him to kill their enemies instead. And it was in the mountains where he learned to do his work quietly, to use the wind and the shadows to hide, and to leave without a trace.

  When Caracas escaped the tribe, he left with a forgotten past and no future.

  As he began to hunt for food and shelter, then for money, his past found him. His once-obedient, hulking cousin, Luque, was now a notorious criminal. When Caracas joined them back in 1996, Luque’s mentor, Jean-Papin Blanc, was in serious trouble. It was the kind of trouble Cassio Oliviera was born for, that Caracas had been designed for, and each man saw an advantage. Jean-Papin Blanc saw Caracas as a loyal asset that could in no way be traced back to him. Luque saw a deadly weapon that could remove their enemies, but the first one that had a closer connection to Luque than to Jean-Papin Blanc.

  And Caracas? He saw all they saw. He saw himself as the mindless weapon they wanted him to be, but he also saw in himself cunning and ambition. Born with nothing, he’d known starvation and utter helplessness – and had learned that, in this world, money was the only thing that could truly set you free.

  ‘I understand you think you should be with me in France,’ said Caracas now. ‘You will have time to meet with me afterwards. Then, once the doctor is gone, our contract is fulfilled.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Luque replied obediently. He hesitated before asking, ‘What are our chances of success?’

  ‘It certainly would have been better to use Jenkins. The replacement is not ideal, but I am still confident.’

  Caracas sat forward and looked Luque straight in the eyes. ‘It’s time to leave. There’s no turning back now.’

  73

  Edinburgh, Scotland.

  On the top floor of the Edinburgh fortress, the White Wolf looked out through the large bay windows at the Princes Street gardens below. That is to say, he looked out at where he knew the gardens lay. Night had fallen, the Scottish air as black as a widow’s silk dress, but Pincer looked out all the same. It seemed to him that outside all was quiet and tranquil.

  Inside, all was not.

  Pincer held his antique office phone in one hand, the receiver in the other. The cord that connected the two hung by his thighs. The phone line that ran from the phone snaked in wide loops across the thick carpet back to his desk like a line on a map, marking out his restless journey back and forth across the office floor. The White Wolf was angry.

  He’d just finished a phone call with Andre. As young men Pincer, Rudy and Andre were as close as brothers. Three idealists ready to change the world. They gained power and influence. Early on they came to the realisation that power no longer rested with governments. It wasn’t with presidents, chancellors or prime ministers, the so-called world leaders. The private sector was where all future power would be held. Money, and the freedom to operate.

  As the years ticked by, Pincer and Andre in particular disagreed heavily on how things should be done.

  Rudy was prepared simply to help and protect those believed capable of bringing nations closer together. Pincer only had to look to Rudy’s pet project for the last thirty years, Israel and Palestine, the Jews and the Arabs, to know those methods simply weren’t effective enough.

  Andre seemed to get involved as and when he felt like it, and he believed Alan T. Pincer was too aggressive with his methods.

  Pincer always lived by the motto that if you wanted to enjoy the steak, you must be willing to shoot the cow.

  So the two hadn’t spoken since Rudy’s death, and not for two years before that. Pincer wasn’t bothered about the silence – maybe he’d welcomed it, but once the three of them had lived as closely as triplets sharing a womb. Defying the odds, they’d survived this dangerous world to grow into old men. The fact that Alan and Andre hadn’t spoken since Rudy’s passing didn’t sit right. So eventually it was Alan T. Pincer who picked up the phone.

  He could’ve contacted someone else for the information, perhaps one of Andre’s officers, or maybe even his good-for-nothing useless son, but for some reason he’d dialled Andre’s direct line.

  The conversation began awkwardly, all business, Pincer getting most of the information he needed, then they’d tentatively dipped into the matter hanging between them.

  ‘He always was the best of us,’ Andre said to him.

  Pincer didn’t comment. There was nothing to say to that. Rudy. He always was the best of us. They could agree on that much at least.

  Eventually the conversation turned sour as old arguments resurfaced. Neither man willing to back down, both as stubborn as an old ox. The shouting finished with Pincer slamming the phone down as he seemed to do a lot these days, or had it always been that way? And he stared out at the night sky.

  He stood and stared out the window a good while longer. The hour was late. He craved another cigar, but couldn’t be bothered to light one.

  The world was breaking. Pincer knew it.

  The three of them had spent most of their adult lives doing this. Once reaching power at the top of the private sector, they’d been in need of a goal, a path to follow.

  It came to them almost immediately.

  The world was too small now. Protecting your neighbour, your own country, your own patch of freedom, was no longer enough.

  We want our country back! – people shout at elections and rallies and protests around the world. You go back far enough in history, we all came from somewhere else.

  Yet every person in the world came from the same place.

  Earth.

  And we all relied on nature to survive.

  Every single one of us, from year one right on through.

  If climate change turned out to be real, that doesn’t affect one country, or even one continent. It affects all people, from the smallest island to the biggest city.

  The problem isn’t linked to the number of people. The problem’s the gargantuan amount of shit each person consumes and produces.

  Real or not, things had to change.

  To fight global issues, you needed a global leadership.

  A global leadership was the end game.

  With it, there was a chance, a real chance, to survive.

  However, not everyone felt the same. Very powerful people were happy with things exactly the way they were going.

  Division creates fear and uncertainty. Which creates profit margins.

  The greatest curse God gave people was free will.

  Perhaps it was inevitable.

  Pincer walked back to his enormous antique desk, put the phone down and pressed the intercom. ‘I’m calling it a night,’ he said into the empty office.

  ‘Yes, sir. What time will you be up?’

  Pincer checked his watch. ‘Whoever’s on your desk in the
morning, have them bring me coffee at five.’ He sighed heavily at the thought. ‘I feel it’s going to be another long day.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the intercom.

  Pincer padded across the thick office carpet to his dressing room. There he undressed down to vest and boxer shorts, putting the day’s clothes into a basket. The watch went on top of a narrow chest of drawers, along with a plain, solid gold ring. Then the White Wolf turned to the corner of the dressing room to where a single mattress lay on the floor. He climbed atop and collapsed on his back.

  Four short hours. He closed his aching eyelids. Then we do it all again.

  74

  Zevio, Italy.

  Assia needed fresh air. They decided to take a quick walk around the block, letting Matthews know before they left; he seemed completely preoccupied with reading his file.

  ‘So how did you end up with Matthews?’ Assia asked while there was no one around to overhear them.

  ‘Remember I told you about the orphanage I grew up in? Where I got the name Grandad?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, eventually I was getting too old to stay there. The place doesn’t have a lot of money, and they struggle to feed and clothe the children as it is. Most of us lived on the edge of starvation.’

  Grandad stopped talking as a pair of men walked in front. When the two men turned a corner and headed in a different direction, he checked to see it was clear. ‘At the end I got the feeling they were getting ready to kick me out. They must’ve made a last-ditch call to try and have me taken in because the next day Rudy came to see me. He was tall and well spoken and had Matthews at his side. They sat with me for about ten minutes. Rudy asked me a few questions and I answered as best I could. Matthews just sat in silence the whole time and I barely noticed him. After Rudy thanked me, he and Matthews went to another room to see my master. Rudy was so polite and kind during our talk I felt excited he might take me, so I sneaked over to the room where he was talking to the orphanage’s master and I listened in.’