Crisis (Luke Carlton 1) (20 page)

‘
Oye, Inglés!
’ Beer Bottle had wandered off but now he was back, hovering over Luke. ‘Would you like to see more?’ he asked. The men were loving this, giggling like children and giving him
whoops of encouragement. Beer Bottle threw something else on top of Luke, something so long and heavy it knocked the wind out of his lungs, leaving him gasping for air. It was a leg, black and scarred and missing a foot. The victim had suffered two amputations on the same leg. Luke said nothing, but Beer Bottle had not finished. Back and forth he went to the corner of the warehouse until a small pyramid of limbs was piled up on Luke’s chest. Unable to move, he was starting to find it hard to breathe. And now the flies were descending in earnest, following the scent of death, oblivious to whether they settled on a severed limb or Luke’s lips and eyes. His ears filled with their constant droning as they crawled about and tried to get inside his nostrils.

He fought to stay calm. You are truly in the shit here, he told himself, but you’ve got to start working on a plan, any plan, to get out of this place.

Beer Bottle had recovered his drink and was taking another swig but he still had lots to say. ‘What do you think it feels like,’ he said, ‘to have your arms and legs cut off, one by one? Huh? You see, I don’t know because I still have all of mine!’ He did a little drunken dance and waved both arms in the air. ‘And today,’ he said, frowning and concentrating on getting his words out, ‘you still have all of yours . . . but tomorrow . . .’ His face lit up in a grin as he turned to the men with the submachine-guns for approval. ‘Tomorrow you are going to find out. Maybe we make it nice and slow. Take our time. Do you want to see what we will use? You do? Here . . .’ He bent down and picked something up from the floor. It was a vicious-looking machete, the blade stained brown with dried blood, a small chunk of decaying flesh stuck to its surface and a thin leather strap dangling from the handle. ‘Why don’t we let you have a good look at it?’ he said. ‘Let you sleep with it, really get to know it, because tomorrow, my friend, you will know each other very well. This baby . . .’ he tossed the machete onto the severed limbs piled up on Luke’s chest ‘. . . this baby is going to be the instrument of your death. You should learn to love it.’

NO ONE TOOK
much notice when one more rusting cargo ship joined the flotilla of vessels lining up to enter the Panama Canal from the south. It was just past eight in the morning and the air above the port of Balboa was thick with flocks of marauding frigatebirds, wheeling and diving, searching for any scraps of food tossed overboard. Each year fourteen thousand vessels made the day-long crossing from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean and on to the Atlantic beyond, saving themselves a 12,800-kilometre detour round the storm-tossed waters of Cape Horn. The
Maria Esposito
had submitted her notification of arrival with the Panama Canal Authority two days earlier, using the EDCS electronic collection system. Registered in Manila, and with her last stated port of embarkation listed as Batangas in the Philippines, her details attracted little attention when they flashed up on the computer in the harbourmaster’s office. Her arrival was logged and the ship’s captain informed that prior to transit an inspection would take place in two days’ time. The
Maria Esposito
was instructed to drop anchor and wait.

On the bridge, Captain Hector Jiménez passed a damp flannel over his forehead, wiping away the beads of sweat that had formed in the muggy heat of the morning. The air-conditioning on the bridge had stopped working a week ago. Two days’ delay . . .
Mierda.
He had never had to wait that long before and
he had not taken this into account. He needed to let them know back home. But at least it gave his crew time to make the final checks, to make sure everything onboard appeared completely ‘normal’. The
Maria Esposito
was certainly no beauty, with her stained hull, her filthy superstructure and her ageing cranes, which looked as if they might topple over the moment they were put to use. Her manifest declared she was carrying agricultural equipment destined for the port of Antwerp. Quite what use the good farmers of Flanders would make of antiquated North Korean-manufactured tractors and ploughs was a question that might well be asked when she reached her destination. But in Panama there was a rule book for crossing the Canal and the
Maria Esposito
was treated no differently from any of the other ships that made the transit.

First to board her was the inspector from the Admeasurers’ Office in Balboa. A rotund man with a moustache and wispy comb-over, he bustled about the bridge in his short-sleeved shirt and epaulettes, demanding to see certified records of the ship’s weights and measurements. He talked Captain Jiménez through the lockage arrangements for the coming transit, reminding him there were three locks in total to negotiate between the two oceans, then arranged for his subordinates to come aboard for the below-decks inspection.

It seemed to go badly. As the first inspector climbed down the metal ladder into the hold, he found it impossible to grip the last few rungs, almost as if someone had left them smeared with grease. In his panic he let go and fell the final two metres onto the steel floor, landing with a thump and a howl of pain. No bones were broken but it was enough to put off his companions. After peering down and holding a brief discussion they went to inspect the deck while the man got back to his feet, nursing his bruised ankle and muttering under his breath. He hobbled around the cargo hold, peering at the steel-grey farm equipment and patting the piles of stacked boxes. He could hardly wait to finish. Perhaps, if he had had more time and inclination, and a bit more curiosity, he might have noticed the signs of recent welding
on the bulkheads, or the application of fresh paint on a vessel that was otherwise in a shabby state. But he didn’t.

By midday, with the sun beating down directly overhead from a white, colourless sky, the
Maria Esposito
riding calmly at anchor, Captain Jiménez was shaking hands with the departing inspection team, the all-important Admeasurement Clearance form clasped in his hand. He instructed payment of the transit fees to be made to a nominated bank in Balboa. Within the hour confirmation came back and the
Maria Esposito
was placed on the transit list. Given the powerful new arc lights installed at the locks and along part of the transit route, Jiménez was hoping they would send him clearance to proceed that afternoon. But rules were rules, and they stated that a south-to-north transit across the isthmus must start first thing in the morning. It meant a further delay. Alone in his cabin that night, Jiménez chewed his fingernails in nervous distraction. They had got through the inspection, but a three-day delay? It would not go down well with his bosses.

In the morning he was up, dressed and had breakfasted by the time the Canal Authority pilots came alongside and onto the bridge. They had done this journey so many times, and with ships much larger than the
Maria Esposito
, that their relaxed manner was infectious. Captain Jiménez found himself starting to unwind in their company – they were fellow mariners, after all. Just eight hours after they had boarded, the haulage hausers were disconnected and the ship passed through Lake Gatún under its own steam and then through the last of the Canal. When they entered Limón Bay, the pilots waved farewell and lowered themselves over the side into the waiting harbour launch that would take them to shore at Cristóbal and a nice cold beer.

Captain Jiménez waited until they were well clear of the Colón Breakwater and out into the moonlit waters of the Caribbean before he instructed his radio operator to transmit a single-word message to those he knew would be listening: ‘
Benicio
.’ It would mean nothing to almost anyone who heard it, but it meant a great deal to a tight group of men waiting for news in Colombia.

LUKE WAS RUNNING
out of ways to hold the pain at bay. The straps that bound his limbs to the gurney were digging into his upper arms and threatening to cut off the blood supply. He could feel them going numb. His chest ached with the oppressive weight of all the severed limbs that Beer Bottle had piled on top of him, and his throat was parched, but worst of all was his foot. Every few seconds it sent lancing through his body a fiery pulse of pain so intense it threatened to block out everything else. He tried to focus on a distant corner of the shed, but whatever he looked at kept looming in and out of focus, coming towards him and then retreating. He recognized the signs and knew there was a serious risk he could black out here.

Would he ever walk again? He wouldn’t know until he put his weight on his foot but, right now, the more pressing question was whether he would still be alive in twenty-four hours. He had lost all track of time – they had taken his watch within the first few minutes of capture up in the hills at Ituango. But he could see it was late from the crack in the roof rafters that let in a faint, intermittent ray of moonlight, and guessed it must be some time after midnight. The flies, at least, had gone to sleep.

After dumping all those severed limbs on him, Beer Bottle had eventually got bored and wandered outside some hours ago, but the half-dozen men with machine-guns had stayed on for a while,
drinking and amusing themselves by walking up to Luke, making chopping noises then pretending to scream. They’re like children, thought Luke, but children with automatic weapons.

Eventually, they, too, had grown bored. One had come over to check the straps that held him in place and then spat casually into his face. He had nodded to the others and they had all left together, their weapons dangling menacingly by their sides. So now Luke was alone in the warehouse, tied to a gurney and half buried beneath decomposing body parts. This was surely about as bad as it could get. Dawn could not be more than a few hours away and when the narco thugs woke up he could look forward to an excruciating death. What a bloody waste of a life, all that education and training, just to end up dying a squalid death in a Colombian waterside shed, murdered by men he didn’t know and who probably wouldn’t outlive him by much more than a year, if they were lucky. It was that bastard police chief, Major Elerzon, he had to thank for this, for betraying his operation and selling him out, not just him but so many of his countrymen. But Luke knew there was no point going over dead ground: he needed to focus one hundred per cent now on an escape plan.

And that was when he saw it. Out of his one unbattered eye, peering through the gloom of the darkened warehouse, he spotted the machete. In his half-drunken stupor, Beer Bottle had left it out of Luke’s reach amid the pile of severed limbs that covered his body. But now it was tantalizingly close to his right hand, dislodged by the thug who had checked his bindings. Luke shifted a fraction, which was all that the straps would allow him, and extended his arm as far down his body as he could. His fingertips clawed towards the handle of the machete, fighting their way up the damp expanse of dead flesh. No. It was still beyond his reach. He tried again, straining every muscle in his aching body, and this time his fingertips made contact with something. The leather strap that hung from the handle. His fingers closed tight around it. If he could only pull it to him, then get a purchase on the handle . . .

He heard the door to the warehouse open and he froze. It was
Beer Bottle, still swaying, still drunk. The man tottered over to the gurney and stood next to Luke’s face. In the semi-darkness Luke could see him fumbling with something: he was unbuttoning the fly on his shorts and taking out his penis. The next instant a hot jet of urine hit Luke’s face, spraying him up and down, stinging his one open eye with the acrid tang of ammonia. Beer Bottle was laughing, rocking back on his heels as he relieved himself all over his prisoner, then he did up his flies, croaked, ‘
Dulces sueños
, sweet dreams,’ and lurched out of the door.

Luke waited a full minute, ignoring the stench of the urine that was dripping off him. He had kept his hands perfectly still throughout, not daring to lose his grip on the machete strap. But now he was alone again he got to work, fast. He extended the fingers of his right hand so that they gathered in the slack on the strap, pulling the handle closer, then felt the crude wooden shaft and his hand closed around it. Now he needed to shake some of the limbs off him, but softly, without bringing any of the thugs running into the room. It wasn’t easy. They had tied him so tightly to the gurney he had almost no room for manoeuvre. But by clenching and unclenching his muscles he was able to shift his position ever so slightly. Luke set up a rocking motion, tilting his supine body from left to right and back again until at last something fell off the pile on his chest. A severed leg. He kept going until, one by one, he had shaken off around half of the dozen or so limbs Beer Bottle had placed on him. Breathing more easily, he filled his chest with a whole lungful of air, then wished he hadn’t. The smell was rotten, fetid.

As a small boy, Luke remembered, he had been double-jointed: he used to show off to the other boys in his class how he could bend his hands right back at the wrists so that the tips of his fingers were touching the back of his arms. He didn’t have quite the same flexibility now but, still, it was about to serve him well. Gripping the machete with his right hand and using his wrist as a pivot, he was able to sweep the blade back and forth so that it knocked the remaining limbs to the floor. But now came the hard part: cutting through the coarse ship’s ropes they had used to
bind him. Lying flat on his back, with only his hand able to move, he had almost no purchase, no means to bring his weight and power to bear on slicing through the two-centimetre-thick coil. He decided to start with the one closest to the blade binding his legs. He flicked the machete down onto the rope and immediately it bounced off, nearly causing him to drop it. He was about to try again when a beam of light burst into the room and there was the sound of salsa from beyond the door. Again he froze, knowing that this time they were bound to spot what he was up to. This could be the showdown. But no one came in. The door banged shut and he was alone. Luke resolved to work even faster – he might have only minutes to save himself.