Crisis (Luke Carlton 1) (18 page)

At seventeen he had made up his mind and broken the news to his uncle and aunt. He was never going to take over their farm because he had chosen a different path: he was going to join the Royal Marines and become a commando. And that was the path that had led him to this moment. Face down in a wet Colombian field, bound and gagged, his hands cuffed behind his back while some bearded and bandoliered thug held down his neck with a boot and every nerve in his body told him he was in deep, deep trouble. To think that he could have lived frugally but happily as a Northumberland landowner, playing the part of a country gent, probably with a brood of children by now . . .

Out of the corner of his eye Luke could see two things approaching. The first was a column of ants, surging through the wet grass that grew along the riverbank. As they grew closer he could just make out their dark red heads and black abdomens. South American fire ants. Nasty. He remembered some painful bites from them as a child, and having to be taken by his mother to the pharmacy on the corner of their street for some ointment. But the ants were the least of his problems. Now he could see a pair of patent-leather cowboy boots with angled Cuban heels coming into his line of sight and stopping centimetres from his face. ‘You screwed up, didn’t you, Inglés?’ said a voice above the boots. ‘This is Colombia, my friend. You should have taken more care.’ García’s voice carried all the menace of his trade.

He squatted down, bringing his broad, flat face close to Luke’s and shoving a fistful of crisp hundred-dollar bills under his nose. ‘
Plata, Señor Carlton.
Money. You have to know who to trust in this country and who can be bought. And your Major Elerzon here . . .’ García tilted his head towards the renegade police chief, standing there in his uniform ‘. . . he likes the
plata
too much. So he works for us. He is a rich man now.’ He broke unexpectedly into laughter. ‘You’d be surprised who we have on our payroll. D’you know my people even watched your helicopters take off from Tumaco two days ago? Hmm? We watched you land here in Ituango. You thought you were watching us, but we were watching you,
amigo
.’ García sighed theatrically, and straightened. ‘Sadly, these lessons come too late for you. And now it is time for
la fiesta
.’

The man they called El Pobrecito spoke rapidly to his bodyguards. Strong arms reached down and hauled Luke upright, his joints crying out in pain. A man behind him grabbed his hair to hold his head in place. Luke’s mind was racing now, running through his ever-dwindling courses of action. His wrists were tied behind his back but his legs were free. If this was execution time, he wasn’t going down without a fight. Probably end up with the same result but he was damned if he was going to submit like a lamb to the slaughter. He readied himself to back-kick the man behind him, hard enough to break one of his shins. He would then sprint for the edge of the forest a hundred metres away, ‘hard-targeting’ by zigzagging to avoid the inevitable fusillade of bullets that would follow him. Not the greatest odds of success, he had to admit, but it was better than the alternative. He steadied his breathing.

He was on the point of making his move when the scene around him suddenly changed. One by one, the members of his team started to appear, bound, gagged and stumbling towards him, tripping as they went, pushed on by García’s gunmen with the muzzles of their rifles. The captured commandos’ faces were already purpling with fresh bruises. This was his patrol, his team, betrayed by a corrupt police chief and whoever García had on the payroll on the inside. How had they been disarmed and
captured without a fight? And then he knew. Two of the team stood off to one side. They still had their weapons and were exchanging jokes with García’s bodyguards. The mission had been compromised on the inside from the first moment.

Luke felt physically sick. He wasn’t scared of death. God knows he had looked it straight in the eyes enough times in Afghanistan. But this had been his plan, his initiative, and now it was about to consign these good men to their deaths. They would nearly all have families, a young wife nursing a child in some distant village, unaware that she was minutes away from widowhood. And then there was Elise. He could picture it now: the quiet knock on the door from the Service welfare officer, the invitation to sit down and prepare herself for bad news, a cup of tea perhaps, such cold comfort for the hammer blow of bereavement, and then the limp offer of counselling at some future date. Nice one, Carlton. You brought this on yourself.

García’s men were making the prisoners kneel now, forcing them to the ground and standing behind them as they looked expectantly at their boss, awaiting his orders. Luke could barely recognize them as the same highly motivated police commandos he had got to know over the last few days. Stripped of their weapons, their body armour, their helmets and their dignity, they were pale reflections of the fighting men he had known. Perhaps this was this how he, Luke, looked to them.

García was standing not far from them, his hands on his hips, his paunch protruding over his belt, only partially hidden by the flaps of his unbuttoned hunting jacket. Luke watched in horror as, slowly and deliberately, García’s men trained the muzzles of their rifles on the backs of their captives’ heads from a few centimetres away. García gave a brief, curt nod, then turned away, as if bored and quite uninterested in what was to follow.

The shots rang out, not quite in unison, and even though Luke was braced for it, he still caught his breath, his heart racing. He was being forced to witness an extrajudicial execution by firing squad, a synchronized mass murder carried out by worthless
narco
traficantes,
criminal lowlifes in the pay of a ruthless drug lord.
When it was over, there was just a line of bodies slumped on the wet grass. For a few seconds nobody moved. But it was not over. The narcos still had one more prisoner and they brought him over now. They had kept their tenth victim, Captain Martínez, until last. They took their time, making him wait for the bullet he knew was coming. Luke looked across at him and saw a man devoid of fear, his scarred, tanned face defiant, his jaw held high. When the narcos tried to push him to his knees he was having none of it and remained standing. Luke caught his eye and, incredibly, Martínez winked. Massive respect there. He was giving them nothing. Then the metal butt of a Galil rifle slammed into Martínez’s ribs and he buckled, letting out a muffled groan through the gag around his mouth. But still he remained on his feet. A frown passed over García’s face and he called out to his men, ‘
Terminarlo!
Finish it.’

Luke closed his eyes, flinching at the roar of the single gunshot that rang out just metres away, echoing across the valley. Then there was just the sound of the babbling stream. Luke could not bring himself to look at Martínez’s corpse. He stiffened himself for what was to come – surely he was next. He should make his move before it was too late. But now García was almost in front of him, a fat Melia Cohiba cigar clamped between his fleshy lips.

‘Such a waste,’ scolded García, his face contorted in a hideous parody of pity for the people he had just had murdered. ‘Such brave young men. And they all had to die because of you, Inglés. You feel good about that? Because you had the chance to leave, did you not? We gave you warnings, so many warnings. But, no, you had to be a
burro
, a stubborn mule, and outstay your welcome.’

Luke’s eyes held his. He hoped García could see the contempt in them but he doubted it would bother him. What was the death of one more agent to this man? Probably nothing, given his long, bloodstained track record.

‘Shall I give you an easy end, like them?’ said García. He waved a fleshy hand towards the line of dead police commandos. ‘Something nice and quick, huh? A hero’s death, you’d probably call it.’ He exhaled, the acrid smoke of his cigar briefly coiling around
the air between them. ‘No, I think not. Because, you see, you British have been getting in the way of my business. Spoiling it. In return, we are sending you
uno regalito
, a little present. Your people will learn about it soon enough. And what about you, you must be asking? What does the future hold for Señor Carlton? Hmm?’

García came another step towards him, placing his great flat face so close to Luke’s he could have kissed him. Suddenly he reached up with his hand and grabbed Luke’s jaw. ‘Look at me, Inglés,’ he whispered, his breath a toxic blend of stale cigar and cooked garlic. ‘Because I am the instrument of your death. Soon now, very soon, you will be calling out my name and begging me to finish you.’ He turned abruptly and shouted, ‘Marquez! Take Señor Carlton to Buenaventura and check him into the Chop House.’

A man approached with a strip of black cloth and moved to wrap it around Luke’s head in a blindfold. In the second before it went on the last thing Luke glimpsed was Major Elerzon, lounging against a 4x4, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a cigarette. He was looking straight at Luke, shaking his head and laughing.

ELISE TOOK A
sip of her chilled Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, picked up her napkin and dabbed discreetly at the corner of her mouth. ‘This,’ she said slowly, ‘has got to be the most amazing crab I’ve ever tasted. I’m loving the sauce. How did you know about this place? I never even knew it existed!’

Hugo Squires gave her a knowing look. ‘One of the best-kept secrets in Chelsea,’ he replied. He had chosen tonight’s venue with care. Absolutely not a date, he had reassured her, yet the ‘friends’ who were supposed to join them had mysteriously never materialized. A quiet word with the maître d’ when they arrived and Elise was handing over her coat, and the table for four had been neatly switched for a cosy corner setting for two. Candles were lit with a click and a flourish, and the menus arrived in padded crimson leather binders. A sommelier had appeared from nowhere to enquire discreetly: ‘Would Mademoiselle care to choose from the wine list?’ She had opted, as she usually did, for a New Zealand white.

Hugo had worked out his strategy in advance. As long as Elise was with Luke he knew he didn’t stand a chance, but he was falling for her, and he knew he had one weapon in his armoury that Luke lacked. He was dependable, always there when she wanted a chaperone, because Luke was on his travels somewhere he couldn’t even tell her.

Tonight, as they tucked into their main course of Dover sole on the bone with a shared dish of spinach on the side, Hugo knew what would be playing in the back of her mind. Were they going to broach the subject of that kiss, the one they had had at his house party in Dorset? He wondered, not without some trepidation, if she had mentioned it to Luke.

‘So . . .’ he began, twirling his wine glass to tease out the bouquet and looking meaningfully at Elise as he did so. ‘How’s Luke’s trip going? I expect he’s been keeping in touch.’

Elise blushed. Hugo wondered why. ‘Oh, you know,’ she replied, non-committal. ‘He’s pretty tied up with work right now. He calls me whenever he can.’

‘That must be hard for you,’ said Hugo, his thick black eyebrows arched in sympathy, and gave her hand a friendly, comforting squeeze. ‘He’s quite the globetrotter, isn’t he? So where is he now? Timbuktu? Vladivostok?’

‘Overseas somewhere,’ replied Elise, her eyes wandering elsewhere in the room. It was a clear signal that she would say no more about Luke’s whereabouts, so Hugo swiftly changed topics.

‘Any plans for skiing this year?’ he asked. It was a loaded question. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he went on, ‘a bunch of us from Goldman’s are taking a chalet in Verbier first week of February. Always room for one more if you’re interested. There’s no pressure!’ He mimicked a line from an old
Blackadder
TV episode and laughed at his own joke as Elise smiled politely.

‘That’s sweet of you,’ she replied, ‘but Luke and I were thinking of going Nordic skiing in Sweden this winter.’

‘Seriously? That sounds a bit hard-core. Where’s the fun in that?’

They talked on about skiing, the merits of off-piste versus prepared slopes, chalets versus apartments, and whether it was worth trekking all the way out to the Rockies to catch the fine dry powder the US resorts seemed to have in abundance.

It was during the warm, fuzzy stage of the evening, when they were cradling glasses of golden dessert wine, that Elise’s mobile
rang in her handbag. She flinched and apologized at once. This was not the sort of place where ringtones were welcomed, and hers was a particularly striking BeeGees song. She scrabbled to locate her phone, got up and hurried out of the restaurant to disapproving stares. Outside, in the chill evening air of autumn she saw that the number calling was Luke’s and her heart leaped with excitement.

‘Babes!’ she cried. ‘Come home immediately! I miss you!’

But instead of Luke’s voice she heard something else, a high-pitched whine that sounded like . . . Like what? An electric drill?

‘Luke?’ she said, anxiety creeping into her voice. ‘Come on, don’t play games. Where are you? When are you coming home?’

It was then that she heard a scream. A human scream, one of sheer animal agony.

‘Luke!’ she cried, clamping her hand to her mouth. But the voice that answered was not his. It was nasal and coarse, and sounded as if it came from far away. ‘
Buenas noches, Señorita Elise
,’ said someone, and laughed. In the background someone groaned and gasped. Luke? The line went dead.

HUGO DROVE HER
home. Elise sat beside him in the passenger seat, as stiff as a corpse, staring rigidly ahead, focusing on the traffic, her make-up smudged with tears, her hands clenching and unclenching, fingernails digging into her palms. Their candlelit dinner had screeched to a halt after that phone call, Hugo’s romantic plans replaced by something else, something tender and protective. He hated to see her like that but he felt helpless. Whatever kind of fix Luke had got himself into did not sound like something he could resolve. He was an investment banker, not an international security consultant. But the least he could do was to take care of Elise.