Payback (16 page)

Bolitho
had guessed that the native would head for safety in the nearest rain forest, and his hunch had been pretty much confirmed. His men had been sent out first thing to ask around, and they had soon found people who had seen Banto mid-evening, running down Burns Avenue, and minutes later past the Shell station alongside the market by the Hawkesworth suspension bridge. He had crossed the river, heading east to Santa Elena. Then a final sighting had him jogging south towards Cristo Rey, the 800 square kilometres of Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve and possibly as far as the Chiquibul rain forest.

‘
How well do you know the area?’ Bolitho asked the pilot over the headset.

‘
Pretty well.’

‘
You RAF?’

‘
Was. Now I fly for money. Tourists, archaeologists, wildlife ecologists...’

‘
I’m a ’Nam vet. And miss it like hell. You?’

The
pilot smiled to himself. Did he miss RAF life out there? He thought back to the five-mile runs, wearing boots. The gins in the mess, followed by the horror B-film shows. Friday night ‘Bad Taste Parties’ at Airport Camp, with the water-pistol shoot-outs and punch served in a lavatory pot. The free condoms for Saturday night specials, when the camp bus was sent to the city to bring back local girls. And the Sundays spent scuba diving at the Cays. But there was the serious side that haunted all the schoolboy fun. The fear of the Guats actually doing it. Actually invading. And the Royal Artillery Chestnut Troop’s big guns at Holdfast, Rideau and Salamanca being fired in anger. There was always the violent weather, changeable in minutes from clear blue skies to ferocious tropical storms which could toss a Gazelle around like a child’s toy: torrential rain lashing the craft, lightning suddenly illuminating the cockpit before the rib-shaking thunder signalled a plunge back into disorientating, smothering blackness. The nightmare landing sites, some just thirty feet square with 1,500 feet sheer drops on three sides. And the fatalities...the terrible night-time loss of the Puma in 1975, after which routine night flying was stopped. ‘Sure. I miss - some of it,’ he said at last.

Bolitho
sensed the other man’s mixed emotions about the military, and respected them. They flew in silence for a while as the farming landscape around the town gave way to pine forests, the River Macal now a silver thread pointing them south. The journey to the ruins of Caracol was one the pilot made regularly, especially in the wet season when 4WDs could not get through. His main income was from archaeologists working on the vast eighty-eight-square-kilometre Mayan site. By road, even when passable, it meant an overnight trip. And the Daimler Benz Unimog could take ten hours. ‘How far do you think he may have got by now?’ Bolitho asked after a few minutes.

‘
He’s had how long? As much as sixteen hours? These natives have incredible stamina. He’ll be able to grind out maybe six miles an hour all day, maybe more - on very little rest. He’s over a hundred miles from San Ignacio by now. And he may even have got a lift from someone. We just don’t know. If he really was heading for rain forest, as
you
think, then he’s over halfway there. Why are you after him, anyway?’

Bolitho
was ready for this one. ‘We’ve been helping cure him of a rare cancer. Using a new treatment. We have to get him back. For his own sake.’

The
pilot seemed satisfied with this gibberish. ‘Rather you than me, going in there,’ he said, nodding to the thick blanket of rain-forest cover in the distance. The plan was that Bolitho would be dropped to track and capture Banto, before radioing the pilot to fly back out for them. ‘Have you used a TI before?’

The
thermal imager laptop control was in front of Bolitho. Under the aircraft’s nose was a two-foot-diameter dual sensor pod, comprising both a daylight video camera and a TI. It was one of the early Forward Looking Infra-Reds, known as FLIRS, and served as the other earner for the pilot. It helped wildlife professionals and eco-tourists search out the endangered big cats down there. The ecologists to trace, tranquillise and radio-collar the jaguars and pumas, and the tourists to snatch photographs and movie footage of them.

‘
Sure. No problem.’ Bolitho had used far more sophisticated kit than this with the Kopassus special forces in Indonesia, including remote infra-red sensing technology employed in small pilotless drones. All crude stuff alongside the spy satellites he had been able to use hunting Free Papua Movement rebel tribesmen around Irian Jaya. ‘And you. Have you used it before to track a man?’

‘
More times than you’d think. Barely a year goes past without some young tourists getting themselves lost in there. But of course, we can’t penetrate deep forest with this. In the lighter cover and clearings though we should be able to pick him out.’

‘
So we should be able to locate him OK? It’s not a needle in a haystack?’

‘
If he’s already made the rain forest, then the canopy will protect him. If not, as I expect, it depends how smart he is. Most people I look for
want
to be found. But if your man’s clever...If he hears the chopper and hides in a cave, or in a river...’

Bolitho
snorted. ‘Smart? He’s a dumb native! Can’t even figure out how to take a shower.’ The thought of the diminutive primitive getting the better of him was laughable. ‘Better yet. He’ll probably climb a tree and start
worshipping
you. I mean it! The PNG tribes made up a religion after seeing war planes drop cargo. You heard of that? The Cargo Cult. Figured if they mocked up little air-strips, then the God of Cargo would drop down steel axes and stuff. Like from heaven, and no need to work for a damn thing!’

The
pilot had worked with South American natives off and on for the past fifteen years. They might think differently, but stupid and lazy they were not. He could see that the American was making a big mistake by patronising and underestimating the warrior. Just as he doubtless had in Vietnam all those years ago. ‘We’re in the kind of range now for us to start sweeping. I’ll take her down to 800 feet and forty knots and go into slow orbit. Get ready.’

Bolitho
looked over and gave a thumbs up sign. He was still laughing to himself at the very idea of Stone-Age man out-smarting the most sophisticated technology available. Of out-thinking
him
...If the image intensifier worked efficiently, he had no doubt whatever that he would have the native back in his cell again by the next nightfall. No doubt whatever.

*

‘James. Sir Barton. What’s happening?’

Barton
immediately recognised the voice of the Mexican, Dino, who always addressed him incorrectly. The most mercurial and least committed of the Aruba Mutual Alliance. Barton was on his guard, and hit the switch which would record the call. ‘Everything’s fine, Dino. And you? Business still good?’

‘
Getting a lot of heat from the two other local cartels because I got some of their people to come over. They’re madder than hell!’

‘
Competitive world. At least my Stabiliser deal must be helping,’ Barton remarked, referring to a mutual aid scheme he had got the Alliance to support. Through it, Alliance members, the most powerful in their respective markets, agreed only to deal with other Alliance members—effectively creating a closed shop, and at a stroke reducing the threat of local coups and the internecine fighting that traditionally plagued their lives.

‘
Yeh. That’s working real good. But the money I earn, I sweat for. You know?’

‘
I
do
know, Dino. And your money’s not just safe now, it’s also sweating for
you
. Earning you even more money.’ He knew then why the man was calling. He trusted nobody, and had been bullied into the Alliance by his Colombian cocaine suppliers. ‘Do you want to know how much is in your account?’ He stretched out his arm to reach the keyboard of his PC, calling up Dino’s reference.

‘
Sure. Why not?’

The
powerful machine, linked up real time to London, quickly threw up the astronomical figures. ‘You’ve been depositing on average $100 million a week. Net of outflows, $70 million. For thirty weeks that gives you $2.1 billion. Plus interest of $140 million. All in a secure offshore account no one can touch. And all hedged against bad currency movements, and avoiding South American inflation. Pretty good, don’t you agree?’

Dino
did not reply immediately. ‘I guess,’ he finally said, uncertainly.

‘
Anything else you need from me?’

‘
I just want you—to
know
.’

This
was a man who had trusted nobody all his life. Who was only alive because of his acute suspicion of everyone and their motives. For him now to be entrusting most of his fortune to this alien Englishman, and pooling it with cartels even bigger than his own, was extraordinary. He had agreed to it only to stop them going to one of the other two big competitor Mexican cartels and cutting him out. But now, like an animal, he needed to keep physically touching base.

‘
Don’t worry. I do know. Believe me I know.’ That he was dead if there was ever even a suspicion of double-dealing.

‘
Good.’ There was no manic laughter this time. The line went dead.

Sweating
heavily, shaken as ever by the unpredictable Mexican, Barton reached for his notebook and dialled Tom Bates’s home number. But the answerphone reminded him that he was already
en
route
, flying out via Miami to Belize with the analyst. The call had worried him. In fact, things generally were suddenly not going his way. Banto, his meal ticket, was free. He slammed the phone into the cradle so hard that the handset cracked. Somebody would suffer for all this.

But
the spectacular assault he was preparing would see to that. It would be talked about for decades, maybe centuries to come. He was going to leave his mark on history. Big time.

*

The lab seemed much larger than it had on the plans. Lydia was exploring the building alone, Thrower remaining by the door, now relocked, and deciding how best to handle the officious, diligent old guard. Chrissie and Joan were in the shadows outside, keeping Thrower briefed on what the man was doing.

‘
He’s coming over to your door,’ Joan hissed.

‘
Well make sure you’re hidden behind something. He’ll trigger the security lights out there any time now!’ he warned. Seconds after he said this, the windows flooded with light. Lydia looked up in horror as the standard photographic Chairman’s portrait of her father over the reception desk was suddenly lit up. Then, half a minute later, the door handle was being tried, the old man’s laboured breathing clearly audible to Thrower on the other side.

‘
There
is
nowhere! Just grass banking along the side of here,’ Joan cried, just stopping herself from dropping out of a whisper and into normal speech. ‘And the whole area’s now lit like a film set.’

‘
There! Behind the bins,’ Chrissie cut across. ‘That’s all we have. Come on!’

A
bang like a pistol shot echoed inside and out the building, freezing them all. The guard had slammed the flat of his hand hard on the door before moving to the window to the right of the door and shining his powerful lamp inside. Thrower was pressed hard against the outer wall, shaking. If he had to go out and hit the man, he would. It was something he had faced before. A guard’s cracked skull was a small price to pay for the cause. He would do it if he had to...even though face-to-face violence, unlike impersonal bombings, did not come easily to him.

From
the erratic flashes of the lamp, Thrower realised that the guard was now walking round to the western side of the building, presumably to check the other door. This would take him straight past the women, cowering by some kind of refuse area. There was no way he could miss them. And when he raised the alarm, the police would be on their way in a matter of minutes. They needed help. He simply had to go out there after all...

Taking
out the small cosh he carried for exactly this purpose, Thrower silently slipped the lock on the latch and went out, blinking into the lights. It took him a frightening few seconds to adjust his eyes, and was relieved to find no sight of the guard when at last he focused properly. Keeping to the wall, he edged to the corner and looked round. The uniformed figure was gingerly walking along the grassy surrounds towards the small tarmacked refuse area where the women were hiding. He was already shining his lamp at the nearest wheely-bins and overspill black-bagged rubbish, and making towards them to check the area out before continuing on to the other door.

He
was only about twenty-five yards away, and Thrower figured he could comfortably cover that distance and set upon him before the old man could get any coherent message out to his control room. The guard was just feet away now from the nearest row of bins; it was time to launch into the dash and beat him unconscious. Taking a deep breath, Thrower began to sprint...