Crisis (Luke Carlton 1) (15 page)

‘El Pobrecito,’ replied Luke, cutting straight to the chase. ‘I was hoping you could give me what you’ve got on him.’

‘You mean García, right? Nelson García?’ Ramirez looked at Luke for a moment, then squinted towards the shack beside the pool. An attendant in a white baseball cap with a whistle round his neck was arranging fresh towels in a stack, waiting for customers. ‘Well, he’s one nasty SOB. Does a lot of bad things to bad people to stay at the top of his game. He runs a fair bit of the trade that leaves this part of the country, mostly by sea. You Brits have been hurting his business plenty, though, and I guess we’ve been doing our share too.’

Luke looked at the CIA man as he spoke, pausing between sentences to drag on his cigarette. From the way he was talking it
didn’t sound to Luke as if Benton had shared with anyone his fears about the cartel buying in a weapon. Which was odd, given the Five Eyes mutual intelligence-sharing agreement between the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Maybe Benton had been keeping his cards close to his chest until he could be sure of what was really going on.

‘So where would I find him?’ said Luke.

‘Whoa there, fella! Let’s take this down a notch. You asked for this meeting at short notice and I’m more than happy to oblige. Jerry Benton was a good friend of mine. But see here . . .’ the American took a deep breath as if trying to explain something very simple to someone very stupid, ‘there are things in play right now that you may not be aware of, things that . . . Well, let’s just say there are things you might not want to go upsetting.’

Luke looked at him questioningly. Was there more? No, Ramirez had finished. So was this patronizing spiel all the help he could expect from the CIA, Britain’s closest intelligence partner in the world? ‘Let me get this straight,’ he said evenly. ‘You guys know where to find him but you’d rather not share it just yet?’

Ramirez chuckled. ‘Something like that,’ he replied. ‘We can give you NSA phone intercepts and testimonies from some of his people we’ve caught over the years. Just, you know, don’t go stirring up the hornets’ nest. Like I said, there’s a lot of things in play here.’

The conversation was not going the way Luke had hoped, or expected. It was time to come out with the question that had been bothering him. ‘Can I ask if you guys have someone on the inside? Someone on El Pobrecito’s team?’

‘Phone intercepts and witness testimonies,’ replied Ramirez, getting up to go. ‘I’ll have them brought round to your base by this evening. Pleasure meeting you, Carlton.’

SEVENTEEN MISSED CALLS.
No surprises there, Luke had known his last message to Vauxhall Cross would set the cat among the pigeons.

‘What the hell do you mean, “Possible weapon headed from Colombia to UK by sea”?’ shouted Khan, as soon as Luke called him back. ‘What weapon? And do you have any idea how many people have been trying to get hold of you in the past hour? I had to share this with the Chief and tell him you’d switched your phone off. How do you think that makes us both look?’

Luke didn’t care how it looked, to Sid Khan or to anyone else. He just wished he had a bit more hard intelligence to offer up. And now, just when he was getting going, he felt the window was about to close.

‘I want you back in London by the weekend,’ announced Khan. ‘We’re sending a full team out to take over.’ He sounded calmer now, his naturally analytical brain resuming control after his brief emotional outburst.

‘With respect,’ said Luke, ‘I’m just starting to get somewhere. I need more time. Wouldn’t it make more sense for me at least to work with them down here, this new team?’

‘Decision’s already been taken,’ said Khan. ‘You’re being recalled. Plenty for you to do here when you get back. That’s all there is to it.’

Luke knew it was pointless to try to enlist help from Angela, or even John Friend in Bogotá. Even if they agreed with him, which they probably wouldn’t, they would end up deferring to Khan. And, besides, office politics were not his thing. He was back on the Jungla police commando base, sitting on his sagging bed with the mosquito net flipped up and the ceiling fan turning in the midday heat. It was quiet, everyone at lunch in the canteen. His phone buzzed with an incoming email. Elise? It had been a while since he’d heard from her. No, it was from Jorge.

Hola, Lucas!
That’s what Jorge always called him.
Got some intel attached here on your player García. He moves around a lot but looks like he’s at Ituango right now. Happy to assist if you need.

Bingo. Out of the darkness of despair, a shining ray of light. Luke couldn’t have wished for better news. He opened the attachment and scrolled down. It was all there: profiles of García, his top team, their modus operandi, the estimated strength of their security units, even a detailed description of their weapon systems. There were photos of Ituango too, taken from the air on slow flypasts by the Colombian police air wing. They showed a villa surrounded by a wall, fortified but not impregnable. A plan began to form in Luke’s head. What did he have to lose? He was facing a forced recall to London with the job left undone and him no closer to learning what the ‘weapon’ was or where it was heading. What was the worst they could do to him at VX? Fire him for ignoring orders? He’d had worse days in Helmand Province.

It was 1400: time to catch Commander Rojas as he came back from lunch.

‘Commandante,’ he said, as the Colombian officer trotted up the metal steps to his office. ‘Can we talk?’

‘Of course. In fact I was expecting you to come by.’

‘How’s that?’ said Luke.

‘I just took a call.’ Commander Rojas, that smile playing once again around the corners of his mouth, his eyes sparkling, almost mischievously. ‘A call from London. From a certain Jorge Enriquez? At our embassy there. It seems I’m to give you every
cooperation and it’s to remain classified. Sounds like you have some useful friends, Señor Carlton!’

This time the Jungla commander didn’t trouble to ask if Luke wanted coffee. He went straight to the side and poured some for them both. It was going to be a long session.

‘Nelson García,’ Luke began, as they took their first sips of the rich, dark liquid from tiny white china cups. ‘The guy who calls himself El Pobrecito.’

‘That piece of shit,’ barked the commander. ‘His people killed three of my men last month in an ambush. I’ve got another in the infirmary who will never see his legs again. We have some scores to settle.’

‘Good. I think I can help you. He’s up at Ituango right now, in northern Antioquia province, just up from Medellín.’

‘I know where it is,’ said the commander. ‘Nice place, if it wasn’t for García. Hills, churches, farms . . . airstrips.’

‘I think we agree the world would be a better place with him out of the game. But he knows some things we need to find out fast. We need him alive.’

The commander was staring at Luke now, his eyebrows half raised. Luke could tell this was an officer who cared about his men, that he was not about to put them in harm’s way without a decent plan.

‘What I propose,’ said Luke, ‘is that I work up a plan with twelve of your operatives. We’ll need to go over aerials, floor plans, routes in and out – and we’ll need airlift by helo, medevac and an extraction plan. I’ll come back to you shortly with our CONOPS, our concept of operations. If you approve it, we’ll go for a start time of twenty hundred hours tomorrow.’

Commander Rojas got up and walked to the window, his hands clasped behind his back. A woman in a blue tunic was sweeping methodically at the side of the road, going through the motions rather than having any effect on the leaf litter that had gathered in piles along the gutter. ‘You don’t ask for much, do you?’ he said finally.

But Luke caught the twinkle in his eye. He knew enough about
him already to understand that he lived for exactly this kind of operation.

‘
Bueno
,’ said the commander, after only the briefest of pauses. ‘You can have Captain Martínez and his squad. They have considerable experience in this area.’

Luke held out his hand in thanks, but instead of shaking it, Commander Rojas gripped it and did not let go. ‘Just one other thing,’ he said. ‘I take it your office has approved this mission?’

Luke was surprised by how easily a lie could spill from his lips when needed. He didn’t hesitate, even looked the commander in the eye as he said it. ‘
Por supuesto.
Of course.’

At that exact moment, in another corner of Colombia, an unremarkable light aircraft was taxiing down the runway at a small military airfield. On board, a woman and her four children were experiencing their first ever flight. Frightened beyond their wits, they clung to each other as the aircraft lifted clear of the tarmac. They had nothing but the clothes they wore, and the youngest boy had already wet his trousers. But there was a silver lining. The family of Giraldo Fuentes was safe, flown out of South America to Miami, into the waiting arms of the FBI, and a new life under a new name. The family of Agent Synapse had been safely extracted.

MUD BROWN, ALWAYS
mud brown. Did the Thames ever look any other colour? Elise watched the eddies and whirls drift past the window of the river bus. She loved sitting in her usual seat, takeaway latte in her hand. Such a great way to commute, she told her friends, just a hop across the river from Battersea, then a short tube ride up to Piccadilly Circus and she could be at her desk in the Stratford Gallery within forty minutes. More for something to do than for any other reason, she fished out her phone and scrolled through the news headlines and the online papers. Since she had started going out with Luke, she had been taking a keen interest in global affairs. In turn, he had been doing his best to learn a bit about the art world. So far, she was making rather more progress than he was.

As the boat slowed to dock at Embankment she was about to put away her phone when she clamped her hand to her mouth, muffling a cry of dismay. From the tiny screen in her hand the headline stared out at her and Elise’s world went cold.

He had never told her that was where he was heading, but Elise was not stupid. She knew Luke had had a childhood in Colombia and she knew he had been back more than once. Although he
never spelled it out she got the impression it was his time in the SBS that had taken him there. And now, of course, he was on contract to SIS. That much he had confided in her, nothing more.

It’s Luke, oh, God, I know it is.
She called his number at once but it went straight to voicemail. Suddenly she felt profoundly and inexplicably guilty about how she had spent the previous weekend. Hugo Squires’s house party in the country had been rather more fun than she had expected. The invitation had been for them both, of course, but as Luke was away she had gone on her own, driving down to Dorset with her favourite MP3 playlist plugged into the car stereo.

Hugo had been the perfect host, lavishing just enough attention on her. There had been croquet on the lawn with the other guests, a tour round the walled herb garden, drinks on the veranda, then a glittering candlelit dinner beside a roaring log fire. It had not escaped her notice that everyone was in a couple, apart from her and Hugo. At one a.m. he had politely escorted her to the door of her room, and there they had kissed, drunkenly, his hands around her hips, gently pulling her close to him. He was certainly keen. Elise had let it go no further, eventually breaking off and placing an elegant finger on Hugo’s parted lips, then firmly closing her door, but she felt incredibly guilty. And now this. She read on.

Name him, just name him.
The other commuters were pushing past her now, queuing to get off at Embankment.

Elise closed her eyes and breathed out. Scarborough. So not Luke then. She hardly needed to read any more.

Less than a kilometre from Elise, in the sandstone-and-green palace of Vauxhall Cross, a crisis meeting was under way. In the boardroom the directors had gathered, with Sid Khan seated at the head of a long table of anxious faces. ‘Two items on the menu today,’ he began. ‘First, the so-called “weapon” that our man Carlton has alerted us to, down in Colombia.’ Everyone in the room noted that today Khan had swapped his customary pink- and plum-coloured polo shirts for a sombre suit and tie. ‘We need to know what it is, where it is, where it’s heading and what we’re doing about it.’

Khan held up a copy of the
Guardian
. ‘Second, my friends, there’s this.’ They had all seen the headlines in that morning’s paper, but the words ‘MI6 Spy Murdered in Colombia’ still had a chilling effect.

‘The news is out, we can’t change that,’ said Khan, looking around the group. ‘So this, clearly, is about damage limitation. Do we know how it leaked out?’

‘We do,’ said a voice behind him, causing Khan to swivel awkwardly in his chair. It was Vikram Sharma, the head of Corporate Communications, his bald head gleaming in the tungsten spotlights embedded in the ceiling. ‘Sorry I’m late – just off the phone to the Foreign Secretary’s office. C wants an agreed party line on this one.’ Sharma reported directly to the Chief of MI6, sitting in an outer office and responsible for handling the press and media. News of Benton’s murder had got out on his watch and now it was his job to pick up the pieces.

‘It seems the local Colombian media got hold of it first,’ said Sharma, pulling back a chair and sitting down. ‘It appeared in yesterday’s edition of
La Prensa.
Someone down at the police station in Tumaco blabbed to the press – I’m afraid it was bound to happen eventually – and the
Guardian
had a stringer in Bogotá with good government contacts. He managed to get the whole story. Well, at least the stuff about Jerry Benton’s body being found in the jungle. But we’ve moved quickly and the DA notice people in Whitehall have asked editors to exercise caution.’