Payback (31 page)

‘
I’m flying on the first BA flight to Miami in the morning to join James. He’s already on his way down. I’ll call you the whole time, and tell you everything. Promise. Try not to worry too much. You hear?’

The
car horn from way below made him cut the call short to rejoin Mitchell. The driver took his suitcase from him as he raced down. ‘All OK?’ Mitchell asked, looking closely at him.

Deciding
against telling him about calling Maddie, he just shrugged. ‘Just bills and junk mail.’

But
as they motored back to Whitehall, he felt Mitchell’s suspicious eyes watching him.

*

The giant ceiba worked its centuries’ old magic on Lydia. Banto had force-marched her mile after painstaking mile through the dense rain forest and, drained by the humidity, she was now close to complete physical exhaustion. But the sight of the living cathedral, the small cloister, the clearing its brooding presence had long since created, gave her a much-needed second wind. He did not need to tell her they had arrived at their destination. It was simply something she knew.

She
was about to collapse to the ground when suddenly she sensed Banto staring at her again. He came over and gripped her arm. What now? Had she been right the last time about his real intentions? Had he even
put
the damned tarantula in her top as she slept? Fighting him off with her kitten strength, she pushed hysterically as he grabbed her left leg with those sandpaper hands, pulling her roughly to the ground. He was pushing up her chinos...From somewhere she found the strength to scream, pummelling ineffective blows at his head, tearing at his hair. He snarled, and viciously slapped her face, nearly breaking her nose and dazing her. Despite this she knew what was happening, what was about to happen. He really was going to rape her after all. To avenge her cursed father’s crimes.
This
was to be his Payback. Rape and ritual murder!

Now
he had clumsily freed her belt and was pulling down her trousers. And then, satisfied, paused to look carefully at her legs. His opaque, liquid eyes were impossible to read as he unsheathed his fiercesome knife. Clenching her eyes tight, she tried once more to be somewhere else, to distance herself from what was about to happen to her body. He could rape and tear her flesh, but not
her
. This is not me, this is not me, this is not me! she kept repeating. Over and over, to make it true. His rough hands were now all over her legs, touching them, stroking them.

But
after an eternity, she began to realise that there was no pain. No rape. Just a feather-light brushing sensation...Opening her eyes, she steeled herself to look down.

Banto
was kneeling over her legs, frowning in concentration, and delicately shaving off leeches. As he finished one leg he moved to the other, repeating the exercise. Then, avoiding her eyes as ever, he moved up to her exposed arms and neck, his face inches from hers, until satisfied she was free of the things. Finally, he roughly pushed back up her trousers, and lifted her effortlessly in his arms before gently setting her down to recover in the protection of the ceiba’s buttress roots.

Then,
as if nothing had happened, he immediately set about remaking camp, fashioning a hammock for her by stripping
nari
nati
tree inner bark. It was mid-morning, and he knew he needed to make many more arrow-points and poison for what lay ahead. He had also decided that a sacrifice to the spirits of another pig creature would be necessary, to thank them for his success so far in capturing the
kepala’s
daughter, and to ask for their help in turning this prize into true Payback.

It
was three hours later when Lydia awoke with a start. A large beetle had run over her face, having failed to burrow into her ear. Shaking her head, she fought to clear her mind and get her bearings. The grim reality of where she was hit her like a blow, and she almost fell out of her hammock in trying to stand. The clearing was quiet, save the usual cacophony from the forest canopy. No sign of Banto, who was still out hunting and gathering. Easing herself down, she began gingerly to explore, nervous of the impenetrable, dark forest walls beyond the clearing, imagining bestial eyes watching, and fearing snakes and scorpions under her every step through the matted debris covering the ground.

The
clearing covered a radius of some fifty feet around the ceiba, and teemed with insects. There was no sign of anything that could be useful to her, however. No sign to her untrained eyes of previous habitation. Even the remains of the fire had already been absorbed by the living carpet of vegetation. There was one thing that seemed slightly different, however. Perhaps. Was that a louder than usual drone of insect noise, a few yards into the forest proper? Picking out a stout stick, she pushed her way towards it, filling the air with a dense cloud of insects. Afraid that she had disturbed a wasps’ nest, she froze until they began to settle, seeing now they were only mothy flies. Continuing, her foot stubbed painfully against something solid. Something, somehow, unforest-like. Curious, she prodded at it with the stick. Sure enough, it felt hollow. Not a rock. Steeling herself, she thrust her hand into the vegetative slime and pulled the object out.

The
radio had until a few days earlier been held in a leather carry-case. That had already rotted away. But the thing had faintly buzzed. She was sure of it. Wiping it on her trousers, she examined it carefully, marvelling how it could possibly have got there. It had to be Banto’s, and this clearing obviously his lair. But there, at the side of the Tacbe unit, she had now revealed the on-off button. Her hand shook. It has buzzed, but surely the radio would not send or receive. But...she had to try.

When
it suddenly crackled into life, she almost dropped it as if it had given her an electric shock. ‘Hello?’ she called, collecting herself. But nothing. And the volume of the initial static was already fading. Fast. The rotting batteries, having been briefly shocked back to life, were about to die completely. ‘Please! Hello. Anybody!’

Then,
there it was! The faintest of metallic replies. Just a couple of seconds. She was
sure
she had not imagined it. She had heard it. She
had
...‘Hello! Hello!’ she cried, but already knew it was too late. The forest had finally done for the batteries, absorbed the life from them to feed itself. The sophisticated radio was now no more useful than a hunk of rock.

Pushing
on, emboldened by her find, she whipped up another mist of flies as her stick struck something dull, and then on a second blow, metallic. Definitely metallic. Excitedly she thrust her hands once more into the mucoid slime, pulling hard and upwards at the object she had found.

Bolitho
’s hand hit her in the face as the decomposing arm suddenly belched free from the mud. Banto had only cooked part of the body. The Rolex rattled down the now mostly skeletal limb, and as the remaining pus-ridden flesh came away in her fingers, she dropped it and let out a full-blooded scream. Barely able to believe what she had fleetingly seen, she ran back to the comfort of the tree, cowering in its buttresses.

But
the nightmare was not over. Her own scream was as nothing to that she now heard, just yards behind her in the forest. An animal scream of terror and fury...The canopy of startled birdlife and howling monkeys exploded above her in their own noisy panic. Crouching in a foetal position, cowed and shaking, Lydia was by now close to a complete breakdown. Wide-open eyes, open-mouthed, waiting...

*

Barton arrived at the ranch in a foul mood, barking orders at everyone.

The
defence work was behind schedule, with just two days to go before the Alliance started to arrive. And their
mañana
, he knew from bitter experience, did not mean ‘tomorrow’, simply ‘not today’. Also, he was still waiting for a whole stack of figures and account statements from Tom’s treasury management team. But most of all, Lydia was still missing.

Penny
was waiting in the study to bring him up to date. ‘We found the Jeep quickly. Abandoned at the approach to the Chiquibul forests, on the Caracol track. That’s also where Bolitho went in. Looking for the native.’

Barton
sighed heavily. ‘So it looks as though your theory was right. He has taken her. What else is happening?’

‘
We’ve had air searches sweeping the area using thermal imaging. But nothing. If they are in there, they’ve either reached the deep forest, or maybe holed up earlier in one of the many caves. Parts of Mountain Pine are limestone and it’s riddled with them. Large and small.’ Barton nodded. He had himself visited some at Río Frío. ‘The police have taken the Jeep and got the man’s prints. But they don’t match any on record. They’ve got two search parties out with locals—trackers who really know those forests. Plus, I’ve sent out three of the security men you hired. I spoke to the guy in charge, and he said he had people with jungle experience. I hope I did the right thing.’ Penny looked unsure of himself. He knew how important the Alliance meeting was to Barton, and that the last thing he might have wanted was police involvement and some of his security mercenaries redeployed.

He
need not have worried. ‘You did
exactly
the right thing. I’d have sent even more of the mercenaries out. And there’s nothing else? No contact? Ransom demand? Nothing from Bolitho?’

Penny
was in two minds whether to mention it, for fear of falsely raising Barton’s hopes. But deep down, he realised he simply had to tell the man all he knew. ‘In my opinion, Bolitho’s not coming back,’ he said. ‘He was chronically ill, you know. Should never have gone out there.’ Barton looked uncomfortable at this. ‘Either he’s died of his illnesses—that fits with his last message to the pilot. Or the native killed him. But then something real strange happened earlier today. The pilot we use, the English helicopter guy? He picked up a snatch of something—he thinks from Bolitho’s radio. No more than a squawk. Then nothing.’

‘
And? What does it mean? That Bolitho’s not dead?’

‘
I don’t think so. He had flares. The guy was well equipped and experienced. If he was alive and wanted to be found, we’d have heard from him. I don’t
know
what it means. But I got the pilot to drop our search team off at exactly the place he put down Bolitho. That last contact was something over a day out. So we can assume he either died, was killed or himself captured within no more than two days’ march of there. These security men are supposed to be the best. Ex US Marines. If Banto and Lydia are in there, they’ll find them.’

Barton
looked pensive. ‘We’ve got radio contact with them, I assume. I want to talk to the team leader. Now.’

Penny
led him to the room commandeered as an operations centre for both this and the rest of the Aruba security planning. When they had got radio acknowledgement from the jungle team, Barton told Penny to clear the room of everyone—himself included. Once alone, Barton asked the team leader his name.

‘
Pitcher, sir. Mike Pitcher.’

‘
Well, Pitcher. You know who I am and why I need you to succeed out there. Anything to report yet?’

‘
It’s going well, sir. We’ve made real good time, heading for the last TI sighting by the pilot.’

‘
Have you picked up any kind of trail yet?’

Pitcher
laughed. ‘No need. He’s sending us smoke signals!’

‘
What do you mean?’ Barton snapped.

‘
We’ve picked up smoke, sir. Probably a day’s march away.’

‘
Great! And listen to this, Pitcher. You get my daughter back safely, and there’s a half-million dollars for you and your men. You hear that?’

‘
I
copy!
’ Pitcher replied, delighted.

‘
But one thing. The native doesn’t make it. Whatever happens, the native does not come back alive. Do you also copy that?’

There
was no hesitation. ‘I read.’

‘
Good luck, soldier. Keep me posted. Out.’

*

Tom Bates sipped the ice-cold champagne the BA stewardess had just served. It was too early in the morning really, but after the long night of relentless questioning, he needed something to refresh him.

The
two operations teams had been all that Mitchell had warned. And more. Persistent, pedantic, slipping in control questions the whole time to see how he answered the same point expressed a different way...But he had explained, described and drawn the layout of both targets patiently time and time again, until at gone three in the morning they had finally let him grab some sleep on a camp bed. Then at five, the SAS ops man and Mitchell had woken him, to explain what they needed from him two days later in Belize. He was becoming an integral part of what they had called CTR—their close target operation.

His
job was to communicate with the SAS leader throughout the day, using a messager-sized radio they gave him, to confirm numbers of guards, their deployment and weaponry. Then, as the night-time firework display was scheduled to begin, he was to find some way to get Barton back into the ranch, and keep him there. His own return outside would be the signal for the attack to commence. The rationale for this was obvious enough. When the highly organised confusion began, the SAS did not want anyone from the other side taking control and co-ordinating an effective response. Only Barton, they calculated, would be able to attempt that. The rest—seven mistrustful factions, each looking out for only themselves and unsure even who was attacking them—would fragment shambolically. As for Barton’s mercenaries, with American help they had now identified their leader—a disgraced ex-Green Beret commando. He would be ‘disfunctionalised’ in the opening seconds of the attack. Not quite the ‘hard arrest’, no ‘wets’ policy Mitchell had laid down, but the commander on the ground had decided it was vital to protect his men.