Crisis (Luke Carlton 1) (26 page)

AS THE CORNISH
weather closed in around the Royal Naval Air Station at Culdrose and Luke went off to sort out his accommodation, his nemesis was standing before a full-size copy of his favourite painting, thousands of kilometres away on the other side of the world. Nelson García admired the work of Francisco Goya. He liked his dark, sinister colours and particularly the picture of the god Saturn devouring his son. But that wasn’t his favourite. The prize went to Goya’s early-nineteenth-century depiction of Spanish patriots being executed by a Napoleonic firing squad. It was a deeply unsettling picture to look at, which was exactly why García had ordered several copies to be hung in his various safe houses around Colombia. The anguished young faces of the Spanish patriots stared out, pleading for their lives as the muskets were levelled at their chests. For García, its message was explicit: there was to be no mercy for anyone who betrayed him.

‘So,’ he began, turning away from the Goya on the wall to address Vicente Morales, the cartel’s head of information technology, ‘you asked to see me in person?’

A maid, dressed in the old-fashioned Spanish style, poured them cups of
café tinto
, bowed deferentially and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her with a soft click. It was just the three of them now, García, security chief Suarez and Morales.
They sat in deep leather chairs draped with crimson embroidered shawls.

Morales met his boss’s cold, cruel eyes and tried not to imagine what it would be like to disappoint this man. He shuddered to contemplate what had happened to the idiots in Buenaventura who had let the British spy escape from under their noses. A lifetime’s fascination with computer coding, a half-completed degree at an obscure US university, then a fruitful career in the criminal underworld had led him to the cartel’s top table. Morales cleared his throat.

‘A zero-day bug, Patrón,’ he said quietly, letting the words fall on uncomprehending ears.

‘A what?’

‘A zero-day bug. It is a computer virus that can reveal all your secrets. You count down from the first day it starts to work and everything from that moment on is compromised.’

García’s thick, dark eyebrows knitted together in a frown and his face formed into an angry snarl. ‘You come here today,’ he shouted, ‘to tell me you have let this bug into our systems?’

‘No! Absolutely not, Patrón. It is the other way round! We have succeeded in planting it into our enemies’ systems.’

It was as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud. The cartel boss’s face melted into a leer of satisfaction. ‘Go on.’

‘You are familiar,’ said Morales, ‘with a USB stick? A memory stick? Some people prefer to call it a flash drive.’

Suarez had been watching the exchange in silence but now he chose to speak. ‘The
patrón
has many responsibilities. He cannot be expected to get involved in petty details. Please, hurry up and get to the point.’

Morales proceeded to pick his words carefully, as if tiptoeing through a minefield, anxious to explain without appearing to patronize his boss. That would be unwise. ‘
Bueno . . .
We have succeeded in getting our own USB stick into the headquarters of Britain’s military operations. Using this, we have introduced a zero-day bug. Think of it . . .’ Morales hesitated, hunting for the
appropriate simile ‘. . . think of it like opening a door, yes? Now that it has let us in, we can see many things.’

El Pobrecito raised those heavy eyebrows, impressed. ‘And how was this possible?’

‘We have a woman on the payroll, a cleaner. Her company has the contract to clean the offices at night, at a base called Northwood. It is from there that they direct all their naval operations around the world.’

‘
Y entonces?
And then?’

‘Our people in London showed her how to insert one into their printer. It intercepts all the messages coming from the naval people’s computers. She put it in one night, the next day they come in to work, they boot up their machines and,
oyé
! All the information flows into this little device. That night she is back. She takes it out and passes it to our people.
Un trabajo bien hecho!
A job well done, I hope you would agree, Patrón?’

García shifted his weight in his leather chair, his belly flopping from one side to the other, straining against the confines of his white silk shirt. He stroked the side of his jaw, considering the IT man. Suarez stared at him too, saying nothing.

‘I see,’ said García at last. ‘And what did you learn that can be of use to us?’

Morales reached down to retrieve the attaché case he had brought with him. He took out a thin manila envelope and passed it to his boss. ‘In there, Patrón, are printouts of the latest positions of all Britain’s naval vessels in the Atlantic and the English Channel. We can see exactly where they are and where they are heading.’

García flipped through the dossier and passed it to Suarez. The world of IT might largely have passed him by – he was essentially a street thug who had bullied and butchered his way to the top with a combination of animal cunning and extreme violence – but he knew the questions that mattered.

‘This is all very impressive, Vicente.’ The IT man relaxed visibly at these words. To be addressed by your first name by El Pobrecito was an honour afforded to only a very few. ‘But is this
information not already out of date?’ asked García. ‘Because I see a date stamp on it from yesterday. What use is this to us?’

‘Ah, but that is exactly why I asked to see you, Patrón. We have a problem. We have studied the Royal Navy’s movements and we think they may have identified the
Maria Esposito
. Some of their ships have altered course towards her. They are getting close to where she is heading. Dangerously close.’

García held up his hand and inclined his head towards Suarez, raising a single eyebrow. His chief of security shrugged. ‘We had anticipated this,’ he said quietly, ‘and we have allowed for it. With your permission, Patrón, we will have to launch early.’

García was already rising to his feet. ‘Do it,’ he said. As he walked out of the room, passing between the two men, he patted Morales affectionately on the shoulder. ‘
Un trabajo bien hecho
,’ he murmured, with a smile. ‘A job well done.’

IN HIS CRAMPED
cabin on the
Maria Esposito
, Captain Hector Jiménez turned the signal over in this hand and frowned. This was undeniably bad news. So near to their destination and now this. He threw an anxious glance towards the porthole. Just as he’d thought: still lashing rain and heavy seas. Typical. A smooth passage nearly all the way across the Atlantic only to run into this storm at the last minute. But the signal from Colombia was unequivocal. It was short and to the point: ‘Your position identified. Interception imminent.’

Mierda
, he thought. When you’re running a suspect cargo into another country it was always a fine judgement whether or not to switch off the ship’s automatic identification system, which shows up its name, port of origin and disposition. Keep it on, hide in plain sight, act the innocent and hope that nobody spots what you’re up to. Switch it off and you’re anonymous, but you’re not invisible and, of course, it shows you have something to hide. The North Koreans, he remembered, had switched off their AIS on that run from Cuba to Panama in 2013 and they’d still got pinged by the Americans with a load of useless old Soviet-era aircraft parts, hidden beneath sacks of sugar. In the view of Captain Jiménez, it was usually safest not to know what you were carrying. He was aware that somewhere down in the false hold of his ship, inside the mini-sub they had taken in off the Panamanian coast,
there was probably something highly illicit. He just preferred not to know what it was.

‘Señor Capitán.’ The radio operator was still standing in the doorway, waiting for orders.

Captain Jiménez sighed. ‘Send up the two pilots and tell the crew to prepare to launch.’

‘
En serio?
They want us to launch in this weather?’

The captain was silent, thinking. This was a hell of a gamble. If they tried to launch the mini-sub now, in these heavy seas, it could easily end in disaster. They could lose the sub, and the precious cargo he was being paid so handsomely to deliver intact. Besides, in these conditions, he could not be 100 per cent certain if the covert hatch in the hull would function properly without letting in half the Atlantic. Maybe he should alter course, give the Navy the slip and wait for calmer seas before delivering their cargo. On the other hand, was he prepared to risk having a load of commandos swarming all over his ship and spending the next ten years in a British prison? It was a tough call.

‘Cancel that,’ he told the signals operator. ‘I need more time to think about it.’

A little over fifty kilometres away, Luke was in the sauna, his body slick with sweat, his shoulder muscles aching: he had pushed himself through twenty lengths of the twenty-five-metre indoor pool. Two days he had been stuck on this naval air station, cooling his heels, waiting for the mission. He was bored with watching the operators from his former unit clean and re-clean their weapons, jog circuits round the base perimeter with thirty-kilo packs on their backs, lift weights in the gym or join in the daily boxercise weight-management classes. He had to hand it to RNAS Culdrose, there were worse places to be stuck. HMS
Seahawk
, as it also called itself, seemed to have every facility going and Luke had decided he might as well use it for a continuation of his rehab after Colombia. Twice a day he had been checking in with VX for updates, offering advice where he
could, passing on the occasional snippet of info to Buster Loames so he could fine-tune his plans for taking down the ship when the call came. But time had hung heavy and they were all getting restless.

And that was when he’d got the call. It came in just before 1900 hours on his third day in Cornwall. Luke apologized to the other two people in the sauna and took it outside the door, feeling the sweat dry rapidly on his torso.

It was Sid Khan, and he sounded dead tired. ‘I’m giving you the heads-up, Carlton. Just thought you ought to know.’ His tone was matter-of-fact, not unfriendly, but Luke detected a definite coolness in his voice. They had yet to meet face-to-face since the bloodbath in South America. There was clearly some unfinished business still to go over, but now was not the time. Khan cut straight to the point.

‘You’re on,’ he said. ‘TGHQ will be alerting the assault commander about now. We’ve identified the inbound vessel. It’s the MV
Maria Esposito
.’ He spoke the words slowly, almost phonetically. ‘Last port of call was Colón, Panama. She’s got her AIS beacon switched off, the only ship for miles around to do that, a bit of a giveaway. Don’t know what nasties she’s got aboard her yet, but you’re about to find out.’ Before Luke had time to cover the phone there was a loud whoop from behind him, followed by a double splash, as two off-duty seamen dived into the pool a few metres away, their voices echoing around the indoor hall.

‘What was that? Where are you?’ demanded Khan.

‘Still on the base,’ he replied. That much was true. ‘The lads are getting some final training in.’

‘I see.’ Khan sounded unconvinced. ‘So, listen. We’re throwing everything in the toolbox at this, so let’s bloody well hope it’s the right ship.’ It was the first time Luke had ever heard him swear. ‘Bogotá station has come up with some background on the ship’s captain. You should be getting it shortly. He’s a known player, a career cartel guy. You’re going to need to get him alone in a room, lay out his options and make him spill the beans. Use your powers of persuasion – within the law, obviously. Time is against
us, because once the Met and the CPS get their hands on him it could take weeks, months, and we haven’t got that luxury. The PM is following this one personally. You’re my eyes and ears down there, Luke, and no heroics this time. Let the SBS do the sharp stuff. It’s what they’re paid to do.’

Luke ended the call, snatched up his towel and was moving rapidly towards the changing rooms when a young marine caught up with him. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr Carlton, sir,’ said the lad, ‘but the boss asked me to come and find you urgent, like. There’s a briefing in the main hangar at nineteen thirty hours. Says you need to be there.’

Luke glanced down at his wrist. It was not his own watch that stared back up at him – García’s henchmen still had that. This was a borrowed standard military G10 Pulsar stainless-steel job on a nylon strap. It told the time, nothing more. And he could see he had precisely sixteen minutes to get dry, get dressed, and get himself over to the briefing. He was used to that.

There was an almost palpable sense of expectation in the hangar as Luke joined the forty or so men gathered under its roof. After two days of squalling winds a metal sheet up there had worked itself loose and was now rattling and banging like a demented carpenter. ‘Somebody fix that fuckin’ roof,’ murmured the man next to Luke. ‘It’s doin’ my head in.’

The men fell silent as Major Loames strode in, accompanied by Chris Shaw, who towered over him. Loames was not vain – other men might have stood on an upturned crate to make up for their lack of height. Instead he jacked up his voice several notches and boomed out what he had to say. ‘Right, gents, I’ve just taken a call from TGHQ.’

Word had already got round. Everyone in that hangar knew the mission was on.

‘We’ve had a suspect sighting fifty kilometres out, just south of the Scilly Isles, so this is an emergency response. We’re going for a takedown at sea. The J2 int cell have sent us images of the vessel and also of Bravo One, the main player. That’s the skipper, Hector
Jiménez. The helo pilots are being given the coordinates now. H hour is fifteen minutes from now. I say again, H hour is in one five minutes. Take-off is at twenty hundred hours. Guys, we’ve trained for this a hundred times. You’re going to have to think dynamically on your feet. Make it a good one. See you on the ship.’