Silencer (35 page)

So – three million dollars a bag, give or take, multiplied by twelve. She had it all worked out: three bags per spare seat on the aircraft, at ninety kilos a throw and in manageable weights, quick to load. All very nice, but not much use to me right now. I’d been
hoping to find a weapon, not win the lottery. I moved back into the tunnel proper.

It took me ten minutes to reach the far end. I took a breath and repeated my listening drills. This time I put my ear to the door. I couldn’t hear anything, so gently pushed the bar. The lock mechanism whirred. I was immediately engulfed by cooking smells.

I craned my neck and found myself looking through a concrete archway into a kitchen that Claridge’s would have envied. Dino had told me there were two – a party kitchen, and an everyday set-up on the other side of the house. Everything I could see, from the worktops and cookers to the rows of utensils and hanging pots and pans, was shiny stainless steel.

In one of the rooms beyond it, Dino had lived with the dogs. But I was heading elsewhere.

The door clicked shut behind me and I went left, up the bare concrete service stairs that led to the banqueting suite and main reception room. The floors were marble, and the centrepiece of the
casa
was a
Scarface
staircase that curved left to Liseth’s chambers and right to Peregrino’s apartments, two floors above me.

A corridor the width of a four-lane highway led from the top landing to the guest suites at the back of the house. That was where I was hoping to find Katya.

I reached a door one flight up and went into stopping and listening mode. Silence. I turned the handle as slowly as I possibly could and pushed.

It didn’t give an inch.

I tried again.

Shit, I was going to have to take another route. I didn’t want to go through the admin rooms and risk sparking up the dogs, so I decided to retrace my steps into the belly of the
casa
and call Dino.

Before I had a chance to return to stainless-steel heaven, the lights came on.

I was fucked – I knew it instantly. I had nowhere to go, other than into the fists of four heavies who’d appeared through the kitchen archway.

The guy in front brought up a bright yellow Taser handgun. I saw the electronic initiation and heard the sigh of compressed nitrogen as the two barbs shot towards me, their wires trailing like kite tails.

One hit my shoulder and one hit my arm and I couldn’t do anything except take the pain. I was slammed against the wall with the G force of a Tornado and dropped like a sack of shit.

Apart from 50,000 volts, the only thing that went through my mind was the idea that I should try to curl up and protect my head as I tumbled down the stairs like a second-rate stuntman.

The current bounced around my body for far too long as the guy kept his finger on the trigger. I couldn’t do anything but try my best to ride out the muscle convulsions and get ready for what came next. Toecaps piled into my body, punctuated by angry shouts. I curled up and waited for them to drag me to wherever. They’d used the Taser instead of lethal rounds, so they didn’t want me dead straight away.

My heart thumped like a bass drum. It felt like every single one of my organs had been given a massive kicking. The pain sparked up again when they grabbed me by my arms and dragged my arse across the floor, my Timberlands scraping along behind me, my head back, the world upside-down.

They pulled me under the archway and into the kitchen, then ripped the Taser barbs from my body. One of them had buried itself in my skin; the other was firmly implanted in my shirt.

I needed to feel I still had a little control, even if I didn’t: I tried to make sure I knew where I was the whole time, where I was about to end up and who I was against. The two older guys sported thick moustaches and, as always seemed to be the case with Arab and Latin American lip hair, every word they spoke sounded like a command.

The five of us barrelled through a pair of large double doors to a chorus of dog barks bouncing off the bare concrete walls and ceiling. As we pushed through another set, the growls and snarls
got a whole lot louder. Then I could smell them, their animal scent blended, bizarrely, with the salon aroma of hairspray and shampoo. I was dragged past three long-haired German Shepherds in floor-to-ceiling cages, their slavering jaws pressed against the steel mesh. I wondered which had replaced the dog that had tried to hang onto Dino.

They swung me onto the floor of the first empty cage and one of the moustaches grunted an order. My Timberlands were wrenched off and stashed in a black bin-liner. A boot pressed down hard on my neck and my shirt, neck pouch, belt, jeans and boxers followed.

The cage door was locked and four pairs of eyes looked in at me. They weren’t glaring or laughing or taking the piss. It was much worse than that. They obviously pitied me.

The three dogs were still going berserk. The head of the nearest one smacked against the mesh and its saliva splashed onto my chest. I scrabbled towards a sheepskin-lined dog-bed in the furthest corner. Leaning against the back wall, I scanned the row of cages. We all had one.

The air-con down here was severe. I grabbed the sheepskin and pulled it round me for warmth. The four gave me one last glance before heading for the door, one of the younger ones clutching the bin-liner. They turned off the lights as they left.

The dogs started to lose interest in me. It wasn’t long before all I heard was the gentle padding of paws on concrete as they went back to their beds.

I felt my way slowly to the door of my cage and took in as much as I could of my immediate surroundings: a solid concrete wall along the rear; another to my right; to my left, three steel cages and three German Shepherds.

I felt around the key well and tested the fastening: a lever lock. The square steel mesh was wide enough for me to poke all four fingers through, stopping at the web, so the cage felt more like a police station drunk tank than a kennel. I climbed high enough to confirm that it was secured to the ceiling. Could I maybe bend it or prise it loose? Of course I couldn’t.

I guessed the dogs would only be bolted in, not locked, so
grabbed the fence between me and the first Shepherd and gave it a good shake, hoping I could somehow dislodge the bolt and wriggle through. He went ballistic and his mates joined in. I pulled and pushed against the mesh, but nothing gave.

I hunkered down in the bed and wondered if it was where Dino had spent thirteen months of his life. I listened to the whirr of the air-con and the dogs barking occasionally in the darkness for no better reason than that they were dogs. I hadn’t seen much of the room as I’d been dragged in, but the echoes told me it was probably as big as the kitchen.

The dogs eventually got bored. When they finally shut up I started to hear the drip of a tap. I sat with my legs crossed and the sheepskin wrapped more tightly around me. All I could do now was wait, and think about the slickness of the lift. There had been no panic, no shouts or screams, no rounds sprayed at an unexpected intruder.

They’d been waiting.

The fluorescent lights flickered on again an hour or so later and three women trooped in, dressed in the traditional flower-patterned pinnies. I stayed where I was, curled up but watching. They kept their eyes to the ground as they headed for the cages alongside mine. The dogs were very pleased to see them – up on all clawless fours, barking away, wagging their tails.

The whole of one cupboard was stacked with litre bottles of mineral water to replenish their heavy ceramic drinking bowls. I watched as the women filled three stainless-steel dishes with dried food, but not as eagerly as the German Shepherds did. They worked quickly, putting bowls and dishes in front of each of the cage doors and then throwing the bolts. Never once did they catch my eye.

The dogs didn’t either. They went for their dinner as if they hadn’t eaten for days – as dogs do.

I stood up, wrapped the sheepskin around me sarong style, and shuffled to the front of my pen. ‘
Agua? Agua, por favor?
’ I pointed at the shelves. If they didn’t help me, I didn’t know when I’d get fed or watered. ‘
Agua? Agua?
’ I rattled the mesh to catch their attention. ‘
Por favor?
’

It wasn’t only about getting liquid down me. The bottles weren’t going to fit through the mesh, so maybe they had a key. If that was the case, I’d follow Dino’s example and make the
quickest exit possible. I’d plunge back along the tunnel and take my chances at the other end.

The women still didn’t look at me, but at least they mumbled to each other and seemed to be nodding in my general direction. A decision was made. The youngest one selected a bottle. She unscrewed the top as she came over, waffling to me con spiratorially and raising a finger to her lips.

‘
No habla …
’

I nodded.

I forced a couple of fingers through on each side to help support the neck as she pushed it through the mesh and sucked in two or three serious mouthfuls as the other women came past, a dog each on a lead, and disappeared around the other side of the wall.

I carried on forcing as much water down my throat as I could. When I stopped to take a breath, what was left splashed around as the bottle was able to recover its original shape. She tilted it back as if to give me time to breathe, but then started to retreat, an anxious look on her face and the bottle only half empty.

‘
Gracias, Señora. Gracias
…’ For all I knew I might be seeing her on a daily basis, so I wanted to stay in her good books.

‘
De nada
.’ She didn’t look back.

She put the bottle down to one side, ducked into the cage furthest away from me and escorted the third dog to join the rest.

I could hear water spraying round the corner, and the odd canine murmur of approval. A sweet citrus smell wafted my way. It sounded like the dogs were being treated to a shampoo and some loving. The women were obviously devoted to their work: there was no more waffling.

I sat back on my bed as the dogs were blow-dried.

It must have been at least an hour before they returned, clawless paws making hardly a sound on the floor. They now looked twice the size, their glossy coats fluffed up, like early eighties porn stars’ hair.

They went back into the cages, the bolts slid into place and bowls and dishes were removed once more. Buckets and mops swung into action and the whole place soon reeked of
disinfectant. They worked in silence, still avoiding even the slightest eye contact; it was as if I simply didn’t exist. They left as soon as they’d finished and turned off the lights. The dogs skulked back to their beds.

I still had no idea of what time it was.

There was nothing I could do but try to sleep, which wasn’t too hard. I was fucked, and in any case, I’d always grabbed some kip if I got the chance, no matter what was going on. ‘Whenever there’s a lull in battle, get your head down. You never know when you’ll be given another chance.’ It had been drummed into me as a sixteen-year-old soldier, and I’d stuck with it ever since.

Fuck knows how long I’d been lying there before the dogs started whining and mumbling again. Seconds later, all three sprang up and went berserk.

The door burst open, and above the racket I began to make out the sound of a woman singing.

The fluorescent lights flickered on.

I stayed curled up, one eye half-open.

I recognized the singer at once, even after all these years.

The body in front of her was blindfolded with a red silk scarf; she had a guiding hand on either side of him. If this was Peregrino, he was well on his way to emulating his dad’s waistline.

She didn’t acknowledge me: she was too busy congratulating herself on his early birthday surprise. They were both in riding boots, light-brown jodhpurs and matching brown-and-white-striped polo shirts – collars up, of course. The dog walker who’d given me the drink followed behind them, struggling to carry the kind of gilded chair that Louis XV would have been pleased to give some arse time.

Still serenading him and ignoring me, Liseth guided Peregrino all the way to my cage. Whatever the song was, the dogs seemed to like it. They had calmed right down and gazed at her adoringly as she treated each of them in turn to some quality eye contact.

Peregrino liked it too. His smile widened beneath the silk. It
was a surreal moment: I felt like I’d been invited to one of those makeover shows where the good-looking presenter is about to reveal to the minging home-owner how they’ve just redecorated his living room.

Liseth hadn’t aged a bit since I’d last seen her. Her hair was still jet black and centre-parted, and now reached past her shoulders. Jesús Junior was a lot taller, and needed to hold back on the
fritadas
if he wanted to look remotely presidential.

Liseth still didn’t acknowledge me; it was like my cage was empty. The dog woman positioned the chair to the right of them, put a crisp white envelope carefully on the seat and left as quickly as she could. Whatever was about to happen, she wanted out of here.

I thought I heard a couple of ‘Peregrinos’ in the tune.

The dogs gave a little yelp as Liseth came to the end of her song; she wagged a finger at them and gently admonished them in Spanish. Then she turned and raised her hands to the knot in the blindfold. She whispered something in Peregrino’s ear, then whisked away the silk with a theatrical flourish and a beaming smile, proudly presenting him with the curled-up mess at the back of the cage.

He might have been twenty years older, but I was always going to remember those eyes and the way they had stared at me, unblinking, like stone. He recognized me too: from the contortion of his face it was clear I’d featured in his three a.m. nightmares.

His eyes burned into mine with a mixture of anger and hatred. ‘
Papa … Costa Rica … matado …
’ The words came out in a low growl as he moved towards my cage.

I watched him every step of the way and got myself into gear for when he stepped inside to kill me.