Agent 21 (23 page)

Martinez stepped forward, picked up the brick and turned to face Cruz. Zak positioned himself so that the camera’s eye was pointing directly at him.

‘Leave us,’ Martinez commanded everyone in the room. The assembled company didn’t need to be told twice. They swarmed towards the door as Zak stepped backwards, doing his best to keep Martinez in the frame for as long as possible.

‘Harry, you may stay.’

Only when all the others had left the building did Martinez speak again.

‘Cruz, do you know what this is?’

‘Cocaine, Father.’

Martinez shook his head. ‘No. It is much more than
that. It is wealth. It is power. It is what has stopped our family from being paupers. It was Harry’s idea that I should bring you here today, to show you that there are parts of our business that might interest you. My dearest wish is that we should control this empire together, you and me. I do not want Raul by my side. I want
you
.’

Martinez put the brick of cocaine back on the machine, then faced Cruz. They stared at each other without saying anything.

And then, a sob.

It came from Cruz, who stepped forward and allowed his father to embrace him.

‘Harry,’ said Martinez. ‘I think you should leave us for a minute.’ The drug lord was misty-eyed.

Zak left quickly. Outside the building, the former occupants had gathered in little groups. They looked up as Zak walked out, but lost interest in him immediately when they saw he wasn’t Martinez. Zak walked away from them as calmly as he could, past the labs and a few metres into the jungle. Checking over his shoulder to see that nobody was looking, he removed the phone from his breast pocket and tapped the screen to pause the video recording. He rewound through the footage, stopping a couple of minutes in to play it.

. . . Cocaine, Father
.

. . .No. It is much more than that. It is wealth. It is power
.

The image was grainy and juddery, but Martinez’s face was as clear as his words, and the footage showed the brick of cocaine. If this wasn’t sufficient evidence for Michael, nothing would be . . .

He tapped the screen again and waited for thirty nervous seconds while the phone attempted to locate Michael’s satellite network. When finally it did, he started to upload the video.

5% . . .

10% . . .

It was painfully slow. He heard activity back in the village.

‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘Come on,
come on
. . .’

15% . . .

20% . . .

And then a voice. Shouting.

‘
Harry? Harry, where are you?
’

It was Martinez.

Zak’s felt his heart in his throat. He
had
to get this file uploaded and wiped from his phone, and he had to do it
now
. . .

Martinez emerged from the building with his arm round his son. It had been an emotional moment, but he didn’t intend to let his staff see that. ‘Get back to
work,’ he instructed. He looked around. ‘
Harry?
’ he called. ‘
Harry, where are you?
’ And then to Cruz: ‘Where is Harry? It is time for us to leave.’

But Harry Gold was nowhere to be seen.

Martinez’s eyes narrowed. He grabbed one of the men who was re-entering the building. ‘The boy,’ he demanded. ‘Where did he go?’

The man pointed away from the building, towards the edge of the encampment. ‘That way, señor.’

Martinez turned to Cruz. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

They found him almost immediately. Harry Gold had his back to the encampment and his head was bowed as though he was looking at something. Martinez walked up behind him and stopped when he was just two metres away.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked in a quiet, dangerous voice.

The boy span round. His phone was in his hands and he had a guilty look on his face.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing, I promise.’

‘Give me the phone.’

Harry’s eyes darted from left to right, but he handed it over.

‘Cruz, you understand these devices. Check what’s on it.’ Martinez handed the phone to his son, then licked the tip of his fingers and patted down his hair. He didn’t take his eyes off Harry.

Thirty seconds of silence. An animal shrieked somewhere behind them.

Cruz stepped forward. He had clearly brought something up on the screen and he handed it to his father.

Martinez stared at the screen.

He blinked.

He was looking at a photograph of a brightly coloured bird. A parrot. Glancing over Harry’s shoulder, Martinez saw the exact same bird, perched on the branch of a tree.

‘There is nothing else on this phone?’

‘Nothing, Father.’

‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ Harry Gold stuttered. ‘I didn’t mean to go off. I just wanted a picture of the wildlife. I’ve never been to the jungle before.’

Martinez paused, and then a fat, relieved smile crossed his lips. ‘Of course,’ he announced. ‘Of
course
! But Harry, we must go. The helicopter is waiting for us, and this isn’t a good place for us to stay too long.’ He handed the phone back and put one arm around Zak’s shoulders. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘You have done well, Harry. Cruz and I have much to discuss. We leave in five minutes.’

Calaca sat in his basement office, his skin sweaty and his one good eye red with tiredness. All day he had been examining the files of the security personnel in the Martinez compound, searching for something – anything – that might tell him who the traitor was. But he found nothing.

And now, he knew, he had a choice to make.

His boss was unstable. Jolly one moment, psychotic the next. He rewarded loyalty generously; but anyone suspected of treachery paid for it with their life. If Calaca told Martinez that he suspected one of the guards of being a traitor, he knew what would happen: the guard would be taken from the compound into the surrounding countryside and he wouldn’t come back. And then his family would be hung from a tree.

But if he
didn’t
come back to Martinez with a name, what then? That morning his boss had said he would consider Calaca himself to be a traitor, which
meant
he’d
be the one to get the noose round his neck.

And he wasn’t about to let
that
happen.

No. He needed a name. Any name would do. It didn’t matter if they were
really
a traitor. What mattered was that Martinez thought Calaca was on top of things.

He started going through his files again until he pulled the details of a guard called Gonzalez. He was a young man of twenty, quite new to the compound. He had a wife, three children and two elderly parents to support. Seven close family members. Calaca nodded quietly to himself. He knew how Martinez’s mind worked. The more people he killed, the safer he thought he was. If he ordered Calaca to kill Gonzalez and his family – to hang them from the trees of their village – the one-eyed man’s loyalty would never be in doubt . . .

He looked at his watch. 5 p.m. They would be back any minute. He stood up and loosened the weapon in its holster beneath his Mexico football shirt. By the time Martinez returned, he would have Gonzalez in custody.

After that, his boss only had to say the word.

The return flight seemed to take twice as long. Maybe it was Zak’s nerves. He’d only just managed to upload the video, delete it from his phone and take a picture
of the parrot. If Martinez and Cruz had returned thirty seconds earlier, he’d have been toast.

But somehow he wasn’t. Somehow he was even closer to Martinez and Cruz than he had been when they left that morning. The drug lord was beaming; his son was full of questions about the cocaine lab and how it worked. Every so often Martinez would glance at Zak with a grateful look on his face.
I have you to thank for this
, he seemed to be saying.

It was a quarter past five when they touched down on the compound’s helipad. Zak was looking forward to rushing up to his room to get some much needed time alone. But his heart sank as they disembarked and he saw Calaca waiting for them just ten metres away, his green football shirt ruffling in the downdraught.

‘We need to talk!’ Calaca shouted over the noise of the rotary blades.

Martinez nodded.

‘Alone, señor.’

Martinez appeared to think about that. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘Things have changed. It is time for Cruz to be involved in our decisions. Harry, you come too.’

Calaca looked like he was about to argue, but Martinez gave him a dangerous look and he kept quiet.

The room in which they met was an ornate office
just off the atrium. In some ways it reminded Zak of Michael’s office back on St Peter’s Crag, with its big wooden desk and large windows looking out onto the compound grounds. Martinez sat at the desk, on which there was a large, ornate vase full of yellow roses, only half open. He folded his hands in front of him. Calaca stood on the other side, while Cruz and Zak remained discreetly by the door.

‘So, Adan?’ Martinez asked. ‘You have news for me?’

‘There is a traitor, señor, and I know who he is.’

Zak felt his heart in his mouth. Immediately he started scanning the room for his best exit. The main door would be no good because there was an armed guard outside; the only other way out was through the windows. It would mean breaking through them, but . . .

‘His name is Gonzalez,’ Calaca continued. ‘I have him in custody now.’

Zak tried to control his breathing. He remembered the guard, of course, who had stealthily been looking at pictures of his family while Zak was conducting his midnight search of the house. He remembered how grateful he was. How scared.

Martinez’s face was expressionless. ‘You are sure it is him?’

‘You want to see the evidence?’

Martinez shook his head. ‘No, Adan,’ he said. ‘I
trust your judgement.’ He turned to Cruz. ‘There are people who want to destroy our family, Cruz. They will do it, if we let them. We have learned that there is a traitor in the compound. For a moment, Adan even thought it was young Harry here.’

Zak took a step back as he felt all eyes on him. Martinez seemed to find this funny; Calaca most certainly didn’t.

‘Relax, Harry,’ Martinez announced. ‘The spotlight of suspicion has moved to someone else.’ His smile changed instantly to a frown and he looked back at Cruz. ‘You understand, my son, that we must stamp on these threats the moment they appear?’

Cruz nodded. ‘Yes, Father,’ he said.

Martinez looked satisfied. ‘Good. Adan, what do we know about this Gonzalez? About his family.’

‘He is married, señor, with three young children – two girls and a baby boy. His parents live with them.’

Martinez’s eyes were dead. ‘He denies everything, of course.’

‘Of course, señor.’

A pause.

Martinez stood up and slapped his hands together as though brushing crumbs away. ‘Tonight,’ he said to Zak and Cruz, ‘we eat together once again. I shall see you by the pool at seven o’clock. And now, gentlemen, Adan and I have things to discuss. You will excuse us, I hope.’

Zak didn’t need any more encouragement to leave the room. His head was spinning, and he and Cruz were halfway across the atrium before either of them spoke.

‘What will happen to that guard?’ Zak asked.

Cruz shrugged. ‘My father treats those who are disloyal to him severely. Do you have a problem with that?’

Zak shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not my business.’ They reached the stairs. ‘I need to shower,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you later, OK?’

‘OK.’

Up in his room, Zak paced like a madman. Gonzalez was a good man, even though he was one of Martinez’s guards. Zak could tell that easily enough. He kept thinking of what Calaca had said.
Two girls and a baby boy
. He had no doubt what lay in store for them. A bullet if they were lucky. The hangman’s noose if not. What should he do? he wondered. Sit back and let it happen, all in the name of preserving his cover? That would probably be Michael’s instruction.

But Michael wasn’t here, and Zak couldn’t have the murder of an entire family on his hands. He wasn’t going to sit by and watch it happen. Not when there was something else he could do . . .

He took his phone from his pocket. Rummaging in one of his bedside drawers he found a propelling
pencil. He clicked the lead out several notches and inserted it into the small hole at the top of the handset. The SIM card holder clicked out. It was longer than most, and held two cards – the actual SIM card, and the self-powered GPS chip the guardian angels were using to track him. He secreted the GPS chip in the sock of his right foot and replaced the SIM card holder into the phone. If he could find Gonzalez and give him the GPS chip, he could alert the guardian angels. They could swoop in and rescue the guard. Zak would be left in the compound – without his tracking device, it was true, but with a bit of fast talking he might be able to stop the mission from being compromised . . .