by Bill Vidal
It was just two minutes’ drive, open twenty-four hours. He could not risk picking up the family car from Kensington Square.
Tony Salazar looked at the time. Eighty miles, no problem.
‘Where’s your country house?’ he asked her.
Caroline hesitated and winced as he was about to strike her. Then Salazar rumbled through her papers but nothing there gave any clues. He hit her on the ribs again and she cried in pain.
‘You stubborn bitch!’ he fumed. ‘Gimme the fucking address or I’ll break your fingers one by one!’
‘I’ll not help you kill my husband,’ she sobbed.
Salazar cursed and dialled Clayton’s mobile once again. Tom was standing at the Hertz counter waiting for the keys when he answered. Recognizing Salazar’s voice, he moved slightly to one side.
‘Bitch won’t give me the address. Talk to her, asshole!’ shrieked Salazar, pressing the phone upon her once again.
‘Tom?’ she said as normally as she could.
‘Is he the only one with you?’ asked Tom icily.
‘Yes.’
‘Cut the crap!’ yelled Salazar, who could not hear what Tom was saying.
‘Tell him how to get to Corston Park. Then do your best. He won’t come back.’
‘I love you,’ she said as Salazar took away the phone and turned it off.
Caroline gave him the address and directions.
Tony Salazar’s next problem was that he could not kill her just yet. He had to get his money first. If the stolen money was still in Switzerland, it would take time to get it. A day or two, maybe. Meanwhile that bastard Clayton would want to talk to her again. So the motel was safe for the moment, but he had to keep her quiet for the night.
He tore off two more strips of towel and stuffed one piece into her mouth, then tied it in place with the other. He dragged her into the bathroom and left her on the floor, then turned on the shower.
‘One sound from you, you are dead.’
Leaving the bathroom door ajar to keep an eye on her, he dialled room service and ordered a beer. The boy who brought it along five minutes later looked about right. Young and hungry. Salazar told him he could not sleep, needed some Valium, and asked if there was a drugstore nearby.
‘Plenty up in Hounslow,’ the boy said.
Salazar peeled off a fifty-pound note and asked him to go and get him some. The boy said he thought he would need a prescription, but Tony explained he was a foreigner, did not have a doctor in England, would not even know where to get one.
‘I’m sure this’ll do it,’ he said with a wink and handed over another fifty. Money talked alike in every language, he mused, as the boy dashed off on his errand. He was back within thirty minutes with a pot of 10-milligram tablets. He didn’t proffer any change, of course, and Salazar grinned. Little bastard even had the gall to leave him the pharmacist’s receipt for £6.20!
Salazar shut off the shower and brought Caroline back to the bed. He removed the gag, gave her the first pill, and pushed a glass of water to her mouth. ‘Swallow,’ he ordered before repeating the process twice again, each time probing her mouth with his index finger to make sure she had not hidden the Valium under her tongue.
Within the hour she seemed fast asleep. He took her shoes off and put her under the bed cover. To be certain she was not feigning, he opened her blouse and cupped his hand firmly inside her bra. She did not move. Nor would she, he was sure, for at least the next eight hours.
As he locked the door and hung up the Do Not Disturb sign, Tony Salazar could not help feeling horny. Great tits, he thought. Might even give her one before he topped her.
Tom put his foot down hard. He wanted to get there well ahead of Salazar. Then he considered how cruel the irony would be if he got stopped by the police, and slowed down to a cautious seventy-five. He pulled up briefly at the Malmesbury service area and spent ten frantic minutes looking round the shop. Corston Manor was bare of almost everything and Tom was determined not to arrive there empty-handed. When he resumed his journey he was equipped with a crowbar, a torch, two kitchen knives, a can of petrol, two bottles of Coke and two mugs.
He wished now he had kept his grandfather’s gun. At home in London he had two shotguns, locked in his bedroom gun-cupboard and of no use at all right now. He considered calling by the Hornbys to borrow something from Jack’s veritable armoury, but his father-in-law would try to talk him out of it, make him go straight to the police. Hornby loved his daughter just as much as Tom did and he certainly was not afraid of a good fight. His stories about Dhofar and Goose Green, amongst many, testified to that. But he would not go along with Tom’s way of handling his daughter’s abduction and Tom was adamant that he would deal with Salazar his way.
One way or another he was going to kill the son of a bitch.
One thing Tom knew with certainty: Salazar could not afford to kill him straight away. Not if he wanted his money back. On that slender premise Tom based his moves that night.
He reached Corston Park by ten-thirty, unlocked the gates and parked the hire car outside the house. He turned the lights on in the front rooms and lit a fire in the drawing room. In the kitchen he played with the fusebox until the rest of the house was without electric light. Then he placed his meagre weapons in strategic spots. The crowbar and one knife he put at the back of the mantelpiece, which was high enough for the items to be hidden from anyone less than seven feet tall. In the dining room, adjoining the drawing room, he put the flashlight and the second knife. He would run in that direction if Salazar came in shooting. The two mugs he filled with petrol and placed on the floor against the wall to the left of the fireplace, between it and the dining room door. The rest of the fuel he took to the kitchen at the back. Finally he brought in the house’s only two chairs. One he positioned against the wall by his petrol mugs and the second a few yards in front, lying casually on its side. Not much of an arsenal, but his main advantage had to be that Salazar could not intend to kill him without first making certain Tom had surrendered the bank account – could he?
As Tom sat on the floor and waited, the anger rose higher in him with each moment that passed. He yearned to kill Salazar, but not at the expense of his primary mission – getting Caroline back alive.
With the vividness of a dream he remembered that day back in 1985. He had only been at Salomon’s for a year. After a heavy day’s trading he returned to his apartment in the Village. Raising his key to the lock he noticed the door was slightly ajar. As he pushed it slowly open he had come face to face with a small, Hispanic-looking man. For a second each was equally at a loss, then it all happened very fast. The intruder dropped the stolen hi-fi he was carrying and reached in his pocket for a gun. Tom dived for the coat rack by the door and pulled out his baseball bat. He swung it through a wide horizontal arc and struck the burglar full-strength, breaking his left humerus and two ribs. The man dropped to his knees in agony and Tom swung the bat again in a downward blow to the collarbone, sending the would-be thief sprawling to the floor. With a groan of frustrated rage Tom checked himself from delivering a final blow to the skull. He kicked the gun into a corner, pulled up a chair and sat down.
‘Well?’ he demanded, slowly swinging the bat, pendulum fashion.
The Cuban pleaded. In his simple way he expected Tom to understand he needed money. Tom looked at the mess around his apartment, open drawers, books scattered all around, and made the burglar go around tidying up, one-handed, as he grimaced from the broken arm and shoulder.
‘Empty your pockets,’ he had told the near-swooning man when he had finished.
With his foot Clayton sifted through the pile on the parquet floor. A pair of car keys, a driver’s licence, nine dollars and twenty-five cents. A cheap penknife and a Social Security coupons book. He kicked the keys towards his captive.
‘Yours?’ he asked, suddenly starting to enjoy the power.
The man nodded.
Tom told him to get the gun, a snub-nose revolver.
‘Pick it up by the barrel,’ he told him. ‘Open it, and let the bullets drop out.’
The thief did as he was told and three rounds rattled on the floor.
‘Now put it in your pocket,’ Tom ordered. ‘And next you are going to get into your car. Here,’ he said, throwing a twenty-dollar bill at him. ‘That’s for gas. Then you are going to get the hell out of Manhattan, and don’t come back. I know who you are.’ He pointed at the licence with his foot. ‘I’ll keep that in my office with a little note. Just in case. I ever see you again around this neighbourhood, I’ll kill you.’
He had never seen the Cuban again, nor had he ever told anyone about the incident. And because all he knew of his ancestry was his father, Tom was not aware of what it meant to be of Clayton blood.
As he waited now in Corston Manor he felt the pressure mount again. Only this time it was not spontaneous. The violation of his apartment had felt like an intolerable affront. Salazar’s taking of Caroline was to Tom Clayton the desecration of his very soul.
Antonio Salazar, third-generation private banker from New York, could not even begin to guess what he was in for.
14
JULIO ROBLES OPENED his eyes but all he saw was darkness. At first he could not remember where he was, let alone how he got there. His body ached and he could barely breathe. Then, slowly, as he tried to identify his surroundings in the darkness of a moonless night, he recalled his predicament.
He had driven his own car to the estate, with the Indian sitting silently in the back. Up the drive past inquisitive guards, then to the front of the palatial house where they had stopped. Another Indian addressed his captor. Tupac, he called him.
‘Don Carlos is busy now,’ Amaya had said in Spanish. Then they talked in a language that Julio did not understand. He was fifty metres away from the druglord’s mansion and, on the terrace, he could see two men in a garden bench swing. He recognized them straight away: Morales and Speer.
The Indians ordered Robles out of his car and marched him to a jeep. They handcuffed his wrists behind his back and wrapped a makeshift blindfold round his head. One drove, with Robles sitting next to him in front, the other quietly behind to discourage silly ideas. They travelled for half an hour and Robles could tell they were not on a public road – the jeep kept shuddering and shaking, even at a manifestly slow pace. He got a distinct feeling they were going up a hill – as the air got cooler and the breeze carried the unmistakable smell of the jungle.
When they reached their destination Robles could hear other voices. Several unseen hands pulled him off his seat and threw him on the cool, moist ground. Next came excruciating pain as a boot struck his kidneys. Then another, and another, until consciousness deserted him. His next memory was of water splashing on his face, and the sound of mocking voices.
Someone grabbed him by his feet. Maybe two men, judging by the speed at which they dragged him. Julio heard a door open and he winced in agony as he was pulled over a sharp-edged threshold. Then they worked on him again and once more he passed out.
When he eventually woke up, the blindfold had come loose. All was quiet save for the sound of tropical insects rejoicing in the forest’s night. His hands were still chained behind his back and a second set of cuffs now fettered his ankles. He strained to look at his feet from his prone position but was prevented by a choking pull on his neck. Soon he realized that a rope had been wound round it and was tightly secured to a thick wooden post, so that any movement prevented him from breathing. After a few attempts he relaxed and gratefully accepted the rich air into his lungs.
Is this it? he thought. Was this how it all ended? Where had he gone wrong?
Romualdes had not expected him that night. From the Mayor’s reaction, Robles could have sworn he still thought him out of the country, yet the Indian had been waiting in the car. He must have been there as he and Romualdes talked. How could this be? What mistake had Julio made that enabled them to break through his carefully constructed cover? There was no answer he could think of. In the morning, he was certain, the door would open and Morales would walk in. He hoped it would be done quickly, but somehow doubted it. Beneath the elegant veneer, the Colombian was as hard and vicious as any man who ever ran a drug cartel.
At home in Medellín, Miguel Romualdes could not sleep, and not just on account of his throbbing hand. Palmiro had dressed the burns and given him two injections, but insisted the hand should be seen in hospital as a matter of some urgency. Romualdes had explained that this was not possible. He had a mass of work scheduled for Friday, and so would consider hospital on Friday night. ‘Duty,’ he declared, letting his voice echo through the house, came before personal discomfort.
‘Perhaps,’ he suggested to the doctor, ‘I should go to Bogotá. A good plastic surgeon in Bogotá? That would be best!’
The doctor had nodded and said, ‘Very well.’ He could arrange that if Miguel so wished.
Romualdes said it had been acid: a flask spilt in his garage as he tried to get something from a shelf. But when asked what kind of acid, the Mayor just shrugged as though it did not matter. The suggestion that he should go to the capital for medical attention had great appeal. He would see De la Cruz in the morning, have him deal with all the creditors, and repeat Morales’ promise: one more week. Then he would call the police meeting – for which now he had another valid reason. The Mayor was seriously injured and had to travel to the capital for specialist attention, but not even profound pain could distract him from the discharge of his duties! There was bound to be unrest and rioting, he would tell them; men without wages turned unruly. He would ask the police to explain what they would do: how they would prevent looting, violence and chaos. The entire construction industry in the city of Medellín was in crisis, he would say. Romualdes could easily keep them talking for two hours. Then he would go straight to the airport and on to the finest private clinic in Colombia. The city would have to pay for that.
In the morning he took twice the prescribed dosage of painkillers, dressed in his finest linen suit and called at Palmiro’s surgery. The dressings were changed, another two injections given and a room confirmed at the San José Hospital in Bogotá. Later that morning he summoned De la Cruz to his office and, though the lawyer did not welcome the suggestion that he alone should face the creditors, it was difficult to argue against the medical evidence that stared him in the face. The thought did cross his mind that there might be nothing but a healthy arm under those bandages. De la Cruz would call Dr Palmiro on some pretext, just in case.
Then Romualdes faced the most difficult task: prevailing over the Commander of Police. He was not a Medellín man and he disliked the Mayor intensely. He did not agree that the rising pressure on account of non-payments would result in widespread riots. The Mayor insisted that as the city’s elected leader, he had the right to address the security forces. If the commander interfered with that right, the Mayor would not just go to hospital in the capital, he would personally call on the Minister of the Interior.
Throughout the day he played on the gravity of his injuries until the commander could envision a situation where, if even one person was killed or injured in the Mayor’s absence, accusations of deliberately impeding the preservation of public order would pour out of City Hall.
So he reluctantly agreed to the meeting: six o’clock. He would let the fat slob say his piece and then gratefully see him catch the plane to Bogotá. With the Mayor gone, the policeman would do as he pleased.
By midday it was set up. Romualdes returned home, ‘To rest and suffer the pain in private,’ he announced as he was leaving, but on the way he smiled proudly at his resourcefulness. Out of a hopeless situation that would have defeated most men, he had set the board up for a game he could not lose.
If Robles and his gringo assassins did their job, Morales would be dead by the tim
e Romualdes left for the airport. Then no one could blame the Mayor for the collapse of the grandiose scheme. He would be free to denounce Morales the drug-dealer and defy any man to state openly that he wished the man had lived. On the other hand, if Don Carlos survived and managed to kill Robles – if the gringos failed – well, so much the better. In a week, the Foundation would have the money, and the heroism of the leader – who put his duties before personal pain – would be a matter of common knowledge. He would make sure of that.
In the meantime he had fifty thousand dollars in Miami and another fifty yet to come. With Morales gone, the Americans would have to be good for more than that – surely they would appreciate powerful friends in a city as crucial as Medellín. Whatever happened, he decided, he would stay away for one whole week. The moment he got home he called his office. ‘Make that two seats on tonight’s flight,’ he told his assistant. He could think of no reason why Alicia should remain behind.
* * *
The previous night, in London, Archer and Harper had not remained in Kensington Square for long. Fifteen minutes came and went and still there was no sign of Thomas Clayton. The two men sat silently for another fifteen minutes and felt the tension rising. When a further ten minutes had passed they accepted that Clayton was not coming and made up their minds accordingly. Archer arranged for a patrol car to be parked outside the house, and a policewoman, authorized to carry firearms, was quickly borrowed from the Diplomatic Protection Unit. She was ordered to remain inside the Clayton residence with Paula and the children. Then the two law officers drove to West End Central police station in Savile Row.
They were shown to the large cell on the ground floor where Richard Sweeney was being held. The arresting officer told them the American had ignored requests to make a statement. He demanded that his own lawyer be present and meanwhile refused to say another word.