Agent 21 (17 page)

‘Who cut all the trees down?’ he asked.

Calaca didn’t reply.

The car slowed down and up ahead Zak saw a wall. It was easily six metres high, was topped by rolls of barbed wire and, at intervals of approximately thirty metres, there were observation posts, each with two armed men keeping guard. They reminded Zak of pictures he’d seen in history books of prisoner-of-war camps. He realized that the lack of trees meant the lookout guards were able to see the surrounding area clearly. If anybody approached, they’d know about it.

The Range Rover stopped in front of a pair of massive metal gates. Calaca pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled a number. ‘It’s me,’ he said. Seconds later the gates opened outwards, very slowly.
The vehicle moved inside and the gates made a booming, metallic bang as they closed behind them.

Calaca turned to Zak. ‘Get out,’ he said.

The second he was outside the vehicle, Zak looked around to get his bearings. He blinked a few times to check he wasn’t seeing things. The area inside the perimeter wall could not have been more different to the featureless former-forest outside. Here, everything was green. Zak was standing on a well-surfaced road that extended about a hundred metres ahead. On either side of the road were enormous expanses of perfectly mown grass, kept lush by the ten or twelve sprinklers that were filling the air with sparkling, silver water. At the end of the road was an enormous house. It was extravagant – gaudy, almost – built in a classical style with columns along the façade, like a smaller version of Buckingham Palace.

Calaca said, ‘Walk.’

It was unbelievably hot as Zak approached the house. Light spray from the lawn sprinklers landed on him as he walked, but it evaporated almost immediately so by the time he was ten metres from the front of the house, the only moisture on him was the sweat from his skin. Calaca accompanied him all the way, but stayed a good five metres behind until they were almost at the house. Four guards with assault rifles stood at the entrance.

‘He’s expecting us?’ Calaca demanded.

‘Yes, Señor Ramirez,’ one of the guards replied. ‘He knows you are here.’

Calaca turned to Zak. ‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘And only speak when you’re spoken to.’

‘Thanks for the advice.’

‘It’s not advice. It’s an instruction.’

The thin man walked into the house. Zak followed.

The interior was as grand as the outside. Calaca led him into an atrium the size of a tennis court. It had cool marble flooring and an internal water fountain easily as big as the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling and against the far wall was a lavish staircase which wound up to the left, leading to an open hallway – more of a mezzanine – overlooking the atrium with a low wall at the front. On either side of the stairs were enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, in front of which stood two guards with assault rifles. Along the left-hand wall of the atrium, just under the mezzanine wall, there was a cage, about three metres deep, two metres high and five metres wide, filled with a remarkable array of brightly coloured songbirds. They chirruped brightly. And standing in front of the cage, with their backs to Zak and Calaca, were three men, each identically dressed in loose-fitting white linen clothes.

‘Wait here,’ Calaca said under his breath.

The thin man stepped towards the birdcage and approached the middle of the three figures. He stood behind him and, from a distance, Zak could hear the low murmur of his voice.

Calaca stepped back. ‘Come here,’ he called to Zak.

Zak walked forwards nervously. When he was only a few metres from the birdcage, he stopped.

The three figures turned round.

Zak blinked.

The were identical. Not just similar.
Identical
, down to the shape of the nose and the line of the jaw. Each man had wrinkle-free dark skin, brown eyes and black hair greased back over his scalp. Each man was entirely unsmiling. Each man looked exactly like the picture of Cesar Martinez Toledo that Zak had seen.

The birds twittered in their cage.

It was the middle of the three men, the one to whom Calaca had been talking, who stepped forward. He stared at Zak with a flinty gaze.

‘You are Harry Gold?’ He spoke in Spanish.

‘Yes, señor.’

‘It is you who shot the man outside the school this morning?’

Zak nodded. He was aware of Calaca standing to one side, fixing him with an unpleasant leer.

‘Why? Why would you risk your life and your freedom for someone you do not know?’

Zak felt his mouth going dry. All eyes were on him, waiting for his response.

‘I kind of did it without thinking,’ he lied. ‘The man looked like he was going to open fire on everyone. And on me . . .’

‘And yet you killed him.’

‘I didn’t mean to . . .’

‘You shot him in the chest and you didn’t mean to kill him?’

Zak shook his head vigorously. ‘I’m not . . . I didn’t . . . I swear . . .’

A pause.

And then the man to whom Zak had been talking stepped back, and the identical figure to the left took his place.

He stared at Zak.

His eyes narrowed.

Then he put his hands on Zak’s shoulders, looked him in the eye and then embraced him in a rough bear hug. ‘You,’ he said, ‘you saved my son’s life. The friendship of Cesar Martinez Toledo is now yours. Anything you want, you only have to ask.’ He released Zak from the hug but kept his hands on his shoulders.

‘Anything, Harry Gold,’ Martinez continued. ‘You understand that?
Anything
.’

‘I’m scared of the police,’ Zak said in his best Spanish. ‘I thought they would see that I fired in self-defence, but they put me in prison and . . .’

Martinez – Zak could only assume that the man who had just hugged him was the real one – was taken aback. He looked at Calaca, then round at the two body doubles, and finally back at Zak.

And then he laughed, as if Zak had just told him a very good joke. A deep belly-laugh that echoed round the marble-floored atrium. ‘Do you know where you are, Harry?’ he asked.

Zak shook his head.

‘Come with me.’ With one hand on Zak’s back, Martinez walked him towards the main entrance of the house. They stopped on the veranda, and Martinez pointed towards the observation towers on the perimeter wall. ‘You see those, my young friend?’ he said. ‘There are two marksmen at each post
twenty-four hours a day. Nobody can enter without my permission. You are safer here than El Presidente himself – with whom, I should say, I am well acquainted. Ramirez – you know, with the one eye: everyone calls him “
Calaca
” behind his back, but if you want my advice don’t say that word to his face – has done some research on you, Harry Gold. I know you have only recently arrived in Mexico, so you probably don’t know that I have influence in these parts.’

‘Are you a businessman?’ Zak asked, trying to sound as innocent as possible. ‘Like my dad was.’

Martinez laughed again. ‘Yes!’ he said, rubbing his eyes. ‘Yes, a businessman! A very successful businessman. I can put a good word in for you. You don’t need to worry about the police. But it would be better if you stayed here for a little while. Until everything has settled down. While you are under my protection they will not come near you. My people will explain to the school that you and Cruz will not be joining them for a few days.’

Zak swallowed hard. The plan had been to get close to Cruz and Martinez, but he’d never expected to get
this
close
this
quickly. A guest in the compound.

‘My uncle will be worried,’ he said.

‘Then you must call him,’ Martinez said. ‘Now. You have a telephone?’ He folded his arms and waited for Zak to get his phone out. ‘Just one thing, Harry. It
would be better if your uncle did not know where you are.’

‘Why not?’

Martinez gave him a bland smile. ‘It would be better,’ was all he said. He nodded at Zak to indicate that he should make the phone call now.

Zak dialled Frank’s number. His uncle answered immediately. ‘Harry, old boy, what on earth’s happened? I’ve heard terrible things. I went to the police station and you weren’t—’

‘Everything’s all right, Uncle Frank.’

‘But where
are
you?’

‘I’m, um . . . I’m just safe, OK?’ Zak felt Martinez’s eyes on him.

‘Harry, you’ve got to tell me what’s—’

‘I’ve got to go now, Uncle Frank. I’ll call you again.’

He hung up. Martinez appeared satisfied with the conversation but as Zak glanced at the heavily guarded main entrance to the compound, he couldn’t help feeling trapped.

‘Come with me,’ Martinez instructed. They walked back into the atrium of the house. Calaca had gone, and so had the two body doubles; but the guards were still there. ‘Find Cruz,’ Martinez said, and one of them slipped away.

A silence. ‘You realize, Harry, that those men were after my son?’

‘I don’t understand why. Is it because you are rich?’

‘In a way, Harry. In a way. You see, it is impossible to become wealthy in this life without making enemies,’ Martinez said. ‘My enemies know that I love Cruz more than all the money in the world. That is why they target him. Most probably it was a kidnapping attempt.’

‘Do you know who it was?’

Martinez licked the tips of his fingers and used them to smooth down his hair. ‘I will find out. And when I do, the people behind it will wish they had never crossed Cesar Martinez Toledo.’ His eyes lit up as he looked across the atrium. ‘Here is Cruz! Come here, my boy. Harry, Cruz told us about you even before today’s unfortunate events.’

Cruz walked across the atrium. His long arms and lanky legs were ungainly and he avoided Zak’s gaze as he approached. He avoided his father’s gaze too, for that matter, and looked firmly at the marble floor.

‘Cruz! Shake Harry’s hand. You have a great deal to thank him for.’

Cruz’s handshake was unenthusiastic and limp. He glanced up at him. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

Before Zak could reply, Martinez interrupted. ‘Harry will be staying here for a while. Show him around, Cruz. Give him a bedroom. Tonight, we will
share a meal together. Harry, my home is yours.’ He nodded at them and left the atrium.

It was an awkward moment. The two boys just stood there, with Cruz staring at the floor.

‘Why did you do it?’ Cruz asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Zak. ‘It just . . . I wasn’t really thinking, I guess. Your dad said he could keep the police off my back.’

Cruz frowned. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He can do that. I suppose you want to see round the compound.’

‘Sure,’ Zak replied.

The tour took an hour. Cruz showed Zak the gym and the sauna just off the atrium; a shooting range outside. The first floor consisted of a long corridor surrounding the central atrium and consisted mostly of bedrooms, but one of the doors opened into a TV room that was more like a small cinema. None of it seemed to impress Martinez’s son. He appeared slightly bored by it all. At the back of the house there was a helipad and a swimming pool, but it was not the inviting, clear water that attracted Zak’s attention. It was the two brightly painted stone statues at the far end. They were about three metres high and took the form of women dressed in highly decorated robes of gold and purple. Each woman carried a bunch of yellow flowers and wore an elegant, multicoloured headdress. Both faces, however, were nothing but a
skull, fixed in a gruesome, exaggerated grin. The sight made Zak shiver.

‘Not exactly Michelangelo,’ he said.

Cruz glanced at the statues as if they were the most natural thing in the world. ‘
La Catrina
.’

‘Who?’

‘It’s a Mexican thing. You see it mostly on the Day of the Dead in November, when we remember friends and family who have died.
La Catrina
is supposed to remind us that even the rich and beautiful will die one day.’

Zak wondered who wanted to be reminded of
that
when they were lounging by the pool.

He changed the subject by pointing at the pool itself. ‘Do you use it much?’

Cruz shook his head. ‘Not really.’ ‘That’s right,’ a voice said from behind them. ‘Cruz doesn’t like taking his top off. He’s afraid we might laugh at how thin his arms are.’

Zak saw Cruz’s face darken. He turned round to see a boy a little older than them, and he instantly started mentally recording details of his appearance. He wore fashionable sunglasses and the top few buttons of his shirt were open to reveal a small, golden medallion hung around his neck. The smell of Brylcreem lingered around him and his tight, curly black hair glistened. This was a teenager doing everything he
could to appear like a grown man. It wasn’t a great look.

‘Who are
you
?’ the boy demanded.

Zak was wondering the same thing. He’d been fully briefed on Cruz, Martinez and Calaca. This was someone Michael obviously didn’t know about – an unnerving reminder that the intelligence could never have been complete.