by Mark Dawson
Josie’s evidence made it obvious that this was a simple case and that Smith’s culpability was clear. She had no doubt that the case would be brought against him and that he would be found guilty and sentenced to life behind bars before the end of the month.
Yet as she studied the photographs that had been emailed to her by the crime scene techs, she couldn’t dispel the doubts that had been nagging her ever since she had started investigating the events of the previous day.
The death of the bar owner.
The burglary at the guesthouse.
And the unexplained transfer of Smith from Quezon City to Bilibid.
Josie spread the photographs out on her desk. The evidence was strong. Smith had no answers to rebut the case against him. She knew, though, that he had been holding something back during their conversation. That was his choice, but it left her with no alternative but to make the case against him.
She collected the photographs, slid them into their plastic sheath and clipped them into the ring binder that she would send to the prosecutor’s office tomorrow.
Josie looked at her watch. It was eight. Damn. She had completely forgotten that she had promised her mother that she would be home in time to put Angelo to bed. She would need to call her so that she could tell her that she was going to be late again.
She took her phone out of her pocket and saw that she had voicemail. She remembered: the two calls that she had ignored on her way down to Bilibid.
The phone was very nearly out of juice. There was just one message. She played it.
“Hello. This is a message for Officer Hernandez. This is Mr. Santos from the guesthouse in Malate. I forgot—we have a Wi-Fi backup for all of our data. It’s in the other room. The murder, the burglary, it’s made such a mess of things it completely slipped my mind. My wife insisted on it… I feel foolish for not telling you. I checked it today and it’s all there. The footage you wanted. I think you need to see it. I’m no expert, but it looks like it’s important. So… I don’t know, call me back, please? I’ll call the station. Maybe you’re there. Goodbye.”
35
SHE SAW the plume of smoke from miles away.
At first she thought it must have been because of the celebrations. The sky was regularly lit up with colour as fireworks rocketed up from the park, detonating high above the city. But, as she drew nearer to it, she saw that it was something else. The smoke stretched up into the sky, a darkening pall against the dusk. She thought nothing of it until she drew closer to Malate and she realised, with a sense of growing unease, that it was coming from the direction of the hotel.
The traffic snarled up where Leveriza Street passed to the east of the Zoological and Botanical Gardens. Pedestrians milled around, spilling into the road as they made their way to bars and restaurants and to the municipal celebrations in the park. Josie had no option but to stare impatiently as the finger of smoke slowly faded into the darkness of night.
The traffic started to flow. She pulled off the street and into the parking lot and saw that the manager’s office was engulfed by flames.
Oh, shit.
A tender from the fire department was already on the scene. Firemen were arranged around the building, two of them attending to a hose that was directing a deluge of water over the flames. A crowd of men and women had gathered at the other end of the lot, kept away from the fire by the crew from the tender.
Josie parked her car at the fringe of the crowd and stepped out. The heat from the blaze was intense, even at that distance.
“What happened?” she called to one of the onlookers.
“I don’t know,” the man said, shouting to make himself heard above the angry crackle of the fire. “I’m staying over there.” The man pointed back at one of the rooms. “I saw smoke and then the flames. I called the fire department.”
“Where are the owners?”
“I haven’t seen anyone.”
Fireworks boomed as they exploded overhead. Trailers of bright light fired out in all directions and rockets whistled as they arched into the night sky. The smoke piled upwards, a column that reached for hundreds of feet. There was a call from one of the men aiming the hose and then a hand signal directed back to the tender; the water pressure weakened and then stopped.
Josie walked closer to the wrecked building. The fire looked like it was out, but the heat still radiated across the lot in thick, woozy waves. The windows had been shattered and the tiles on the roof had collapsed into the building, the blackened joists naked to the sky.
She caught the attention of one of the firemen. “You got it under control?”
The man’s face was covered in soot. He nodded. “It’s out.”
“I’m Officer Hernandez,” she said.
“Andrada,” the man replied, wiping the sweat and grime out of his eyes. “I’m the senior fire officer.”
“What station?”
“Malate volunteers.”
“What happened?”
“One of the guests called it in. By the time we got here, it was out of control.”
“Any idea what caused it?”
The man shook his head. “Not yet. We’ll have a look when the heat dies down.”
She took out her phone, ready to call it in, and noticed that she had ten missed calls.
They were all from her mother.
A huge rocket detonated, the echo of its explosion fading into the hiss and fizzle as it scattered red and blue sparkles over the city.
Josie felt a sudden weakness in her knees.
She tapped, trying to return the call, but nothing happened. She held it up again; the screen was black.
She had run out of battery.
She turned and ran back to her car.
36
JOSIE DROVE south as fast as she could. Her mother lived on Summitville, in a three-storey building that had been converted into six compact apartments. It was not an expensive area of town. The street was home to a number of vendors who hawked food and drink from carts that they parked on the sidewalk, and there were always groups of customers—usually male—who gathered around them to eat and talk. The buildings were rickety, often in need of restoration, and the bright paints that had been used to decorate them had been bleached by the sun. Electricity cables buzzed and fizzed, and lines weighted down by wet washing crossed overhead.
She parked and ran to the front door. She unlocked it and climbed the stairs. She unlocked the door to the apartment and tried to push it open. She couldn’t. The security chain had been fastened.
“Mama,” she called, “it’s me.”
She heard her mother’s footsteps as she shuffled down the hall. The chain was disengaged and the door opened.
“What’s the matter, Mama?”
Her mother looked frantic. She reached for her and drew her into an embrace. Josie looked over her shoulder and saw that one of the knives from the kitchen had been left on the table next to the telephone and the mail.
“Mama?”
“Where have you been?” she said as she released her.
“Where is Angelo?”
“Asleep.”
“Where have you been? I left messages for you.”
“I’m sorry,” Josie replied. “I’ve been at work and then my phone died. What’s the matter?”
Her mother went into the living room. Josie followed her to the coffee table. There was a plain envelope there. She handed it to Josie. The envelope had been opened, and, as she upended it, a single bullet dropped into the palm of her hand. There was something else in the envelope, too. She slid her fingers inside and pulled out a photograph. She recognised the building in the shot: it was Angelo’s school. There was a group of children coming out of the gates and, her stomach plummeting, she saw her son staring across the road and into the lens.
“Angelo?” she said, hurrying for the bedroom door.
“He is fine—”
Josie didn’t stop. She carefully opened the door, pushing it open enough to
look inside. Her son was in his bed, hugging his favourite teddy to his chest, the glow of his night light falling onto his upturned face.
Josie exhaled; she felt a wave of relief so sudden and dizzying that she had to put out a hand to steady herself against the frame of the door.
“He is fine,” her mother repeated, drawing her back and pulling the door closed once more.
Josie held up the envelope. “Where did you find this?”
“Underneath the door,” her mother said. “Two hours ago.”
“Did you see who it was?”
“No.”
Josie went to the door, locked it and then attached the security chain.
“There’s something else,” the old woman said, taking her daughter’s elbow and taking her to the window. The blinds were drawn. “Outside,” she said. “The car across the street.”
Josie parted the slats and looked out. It was dark, the illumination provided by the lights in the windows of the opposite building. There was a stall selling banana lumpias on the other side of the road, a line of empty tuk-tuk style tricycles parked alongside it with their drivers waiting to be served or bunched in groups together to talk.
“You see it? There, there!”
Josie followed her mother’s pointing finger and looked farther up the street. There were seven tricycles. Behind the last one, parked up tight against it, was a black BMW with tinted windows. It was close enough to their building for whoever was inside to keep it under easy observation.
“It’s been there for two hours,” her mother said. “There’s a man inside it. I saw him go and get food from Gregorio.”
“Did you see what he looked like?”
“It’s too far.”
“Anything, Mama?”
“Dark hair, I think. He was wearing a white jacket.”
“Stay here,” Josie said, heading for the door.
“What are you doing?”
“Stay here. Keep the door locked.”
She slid the security bolt, unlocked the door and opened it. She was aware that her mother was at the door, but she ignored her and started down the stairs to the entrance. She undid the retaining clip of her holster and rested the heel of her right hand on the butt of her Glock. She stepped into the damp muggy warmth of the night. The smell of the deep-fried banana and jackfruit was pungent, and the rowdy chatter of the tricycle drivers merged with the sound of the traffic on the busy road beyond the street to make a steady hum of noise. Gregorio looked up from his cart as Josie passed, but she did not stop.
A fresh volley of fireworks erupted from the direction of San Guillermo Street down by the bay. Josie closed her hand around the butt of the Glock and pulled, starting to free it from the holster.
The BMW was ten metres away. The tinted windows together with the glare of the overhead streetlamp that reflected off the glass meant that she couldn’t see inside. She was five metres away when she heard the engine growl into life. The headlamps sparked on and she blinked into the sudden illumination. She took out the Glock with her right hand and held up her left, calling out for the driver to stop the car. The BMW did not stop; instead, it pulled out into the street and sped in her direction, passing her with the squeal of rubber and the roar of high revs.
Josie turned and watched as the car slowed for the junction, the taillights glowing for a moment before the driver released the brakes and stepped on the gas once more. The engine hummed and the car turned sharply to the right, quickly passing out of sight behind the corner.
She glanced up and saw her mother’s face looking down from the window of the apartment. She gripped the Glock a little tighter. Her palm was slick against the polymer butt, and she could feel the perspiration running down her back. She wasn’t sweating because of the heat. It was a cold sweat.
Mendoza?
He had black hair and he wore a linen jacket.
Josie was frightened.
She took the stairs two at a time and went back into the apartment.
Her mother was waiting. She stared down at the Glock in Josie’s hand.
“Pack a case,” Josie said.
“Why? What is it? What’s the matter?”
“We have to leave.”
37
MILTON LAY down and closed his eyes, but sleep did not come.
His mind was restless, a flashing of emotions through the static of pain.
There was relief. He had wondered whether he might have killed Jessica. At least he knew that he had not.
And there was fear.
Fitzroy de Lacey.
He remembered.
MILTON HAD been given a file on de Lacey while he was serving in Group Fifteen. He didn’t remember exactly when it was, but it had been during the start of his descent into alcoholism. Those months and years had congealed into a vague mess, and it was difficult to peel them apart. He remembered receiving the file and being briefed by Control. De Lacey had come to the attention of the spymasters in the River House, and Milton was to be the agent responsible for bringing him down.
The intelligence had been excellent and the report was voluminous. There had been a man—a member of de Lacey’s inner circle—who had fled after his son had been murdered by another colleague. MI6 had been able to flip the man, promising him retribution for his son’s death in exchange for his returning to the fold and providing his new paymasters with the information that they needed to bring de Lacey to justice.
There had been a detailed portrait. De Lacey was around the same age as Milton, but the similarities ended there. He had enjoyed a privileged upbringing, the scion of an ancient family. He had been educated at Bryanston and then read law at Cambridge. He became Earl of Montgomery following the death of his father, Percy de Lacey, the nineteenth Earl of Montgomery.
De Lacey began in the aviation industry in the mid-1990s. He had moved to the United Arab Emirates to pursue his legal career and was seconded to the local offices of an air freight company that operated out of Dubai’s international airport. He saw how much money the company was making despite the fact that the management—which he despised—had no obvious business acumen. He quit his job and, leveraging some of the connections that he had made while working at the airport, he recruited a pilot and rented a Russian cargo plane.
Tactical Aviation was an immediate success and, within six months, he had been able to recruit additional pilots and crew and had put together a small rented fleet of planes. He did business all around the world, with a focus on Africa. He transported agricultural equipment, domestic appliances, textiles and furniture from his base in Dubai to Benin, Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal and the Congo. He developed contacts in Afghanistan, initially transporting Afghani textiles from Kabul but quickly increasing the variety of goods that would ship.
It was reported that he became close to elements within the government in Kabul. The Taliban was making advances from its redoubt in the south of the country, and the government was interested in resupplying its army with new weapons. De Lacey was approached by a source close to the Afghani president and asked whether he would be able to source and deliver a large amount of weapons. The profile had marked him down as a gambler and someone who was adept at thinking on the spot. He had no way to fulfil such an order, but he told the Afghanis that he could.
He then set about finding a source who could provide the goods. He had previously done business with a businessman in Latvia. The man—Mariss Gulbis—was comfortable operating in the grey area between legal and illegal trade. De Lacey flew to Riga to present him with a proposal: if Gulbis could source the weapons, de Lacey would transport them. They would share the profit equally.
The Latvian black market was swamped with weapons from the former Soviet Union, and Gulbis put together a cargo that matched the Afghan request. The continued rise of the Taliban meant that the initial contract was renewed and then renewed again. The quantities doubled and then tripled. De Lacey stopped his business in legitimate freight and moved exclusively into
running guns and other weapons.
After six months, with business continuing to grow, Mariss Gulbis was shot in the street outside his apartment in Riga. Local police had no leads and, after a cursory investigation, the case was closed. It was never proven, but off-the-record sources said that de Lacey had paid a corrupt police inspector to murder his associate and then shut down the investigation.
Tactical ran into regulatory problems with the authorities in Dubai, and de Lacey transferred his business to South Africa. He found an airstrip that was suitable for his large Ilyushin IL-76 cargo planes in Polokwane, a city two hundred miles to the northeast of Johannesburg. He set up an array of companies all around the world, many of them fronts through which he could funnel his burgeoning profits so as to minimise taxes and the ability of the authorities to investigate his activities.
He had contracts with the Rwandan government to supply arms during the genocide. At the same time, another contract transported UN peacekeepers into the country. The soldiers who had travelled on his planes were attacked with the weapons that he had sold.
He did deals with the corrupt regime in Liberia.
He sold surface-to-air missiles to Hezbollah.
He sold tank rounds to the Libyan regime.
He supplied machine guns to the rebels in the Sierra Leone civil war.
The Igla missiles he supplied to rebels in Kenya were used to attack an Israeli airliner as it took off from Nairobi in 2002.