Crisis (Luke Carlton 1) (10 page)

The major was waiting for him in the lobby, in a dazzling tropical sunset of a Hawaiian shirt tucked into contour-hugging white slacks and two-tone loafers. A gold medallion nestling in the man’s chest hair completed the picture.

‘Major Elerzon!’ he greeted him. ‘You’re dressed for
fiesta
!’

‘Please, we are friends now. You can call me Humberto. And you – my God – you are the perfect English gentleman. The ladies will love you tonight!’

‘Nice to know,’ said Luke, ‘but I’m already well spoken for.’

‘Ah, we all have someone special back home,’ said Elerzon, trying not to think of his embittered battleaxe of a wife up in Bogotá. ‘But tonight we forget the world and our troubles, you and me, yes?
Vamanos!
Let’s go!’

La Casa Miraflores was everything Luke had expected, and worse. The major’s police driver deposited them in the driveway of the ‘club’ and kept watch as they walked up to the entrance.
Moths danced around the bare light-bulb that dangled above the doorway while the purple neon sign that announced the club’s name in garish italics fizzed and sputtered with the intermittent power supply. A vast Afro-Colombian doorman was patting people down for weapons, but as soon as he saw the major and his guest he waved them through. ‘Don’t worry, he works for us,’ remarked the major.

It took Luke a moment or two to adjust to the semi-darkness and the rhythmic salsa beat that throbbed through the floorboards beneath his feet. Already his eyes stung with cigarette smoke – he was unused to it: it had been nearly ten years since the UK public smoking ban had come into effect. The major was exchanging jokes with the coat-check girl as Luke took in a trio of bored women in Lycra gyrating slowly on a stage. A man in a stained white shirt and limp bow tie steered them to a table. ‘The VIP spot,’ he announced. ‘Only the best for our esteemed police chief and his honoured guest.’

Luke stifled another yawn. He had managed to pack in a forty-five-minute power nap but his body clock was still all over the place. He had to stay focused, catch the major off his guard and get some insight into what was going on down here, into who killed Benton and what he had been following that was so important he was prepared to risk his life for it. The evening might turn out to be a total waste of time, but he would give it his best shot.

‘So, Major, how is the investigation proceeding? Any leads yet?’

‘Many, many leads! But first we celebrate!’ The irony of celebrating anything in a case that had seen one of his colleagues tortured to death did not escape Luke. But before he could answer, the major was clicking his fingers and summoning a stout, middle-aged woman. She bent over his shoulder as he spoke into her ear above the music, then disappeared through a door. Luke did not like the way the table was set up: he was sitting with his back to a doorway. He was about to stand up and move his chair when the woman returned, leading two girls to their table. The major pushed back his chair, motioned them to sit down and
ordered a bottle of sparkling wine from Argentina. ‘
Vida orgánica!
’ he demanded. ‘From Mendoza. Your best, if you please.’

Just play along, Luke told himself. Get him loosened up and talking. He was convinced that the major knew a lot more than he was saying. And then, soft as a butterfly, a hand landed on his inner thigh.

It was the older of the two girls and she was smiling meaningfully at him, a slight smear of misplaced lipstick at the corner of her mouth. Luke removed her hand. ‘I’m married,’ he told her.

‘But you have no wedding ring,’ she replied.

‘
Ladrones
,’ explained Luke, with a weary smile. ‘Robbers.’

‘
Ah, sí, ladrones
.’ She nodded in sympathy and moved herself to a respectful distance. They would laugh about this one day, he and Elise, though perhaps it wasn’t the smartest idea to tell her the sort of thing he got up to when he was away on an operation.

Across the table, Major Elerzon was clearly in his element, proposing toast after toast, one hand clasped round his glass, the other caressing the girl beside him. She was practically in his lap. When the girls excused themselves to go to the bathroom, he gave Luke a playful slap on his knee. ‘Good times, no? Señor Luke?’

‘The best,’ he lied. He could see that the major was already well on the way to getting drunk. His shirt had somehow magically undone itself by a couple of buttons, and beads of sweat on his chest reflected the flashing neon lights of the dance floor. For a second Luke wondered if this would be him in ten years’ time, lost in a loveless world, paying for his own pointless entertainment. Thank God he had Elise.

But he needed to make his move if he was going to get anything out of this character. ‘I meant to ask . . .’

‘Anything!’ The major threw an arm round Luke’s shoulders. ‘Anything for my English
compadre
!’

‘Major, is there anything you would like to tell me about this investigation, any clue, any evidence, just anything that is not in the report?’

‘
Ah, tan serioso!
Can you not relax for one night, my friend?
Very well . . . there is one thing.’ The major was about to continue when the two girls hove back into view, fresh lipstick in place, and he broke off abruptly. Oh, for Christ’s sake, thought Luke. He held up his hand, stopping them in their tracks some distance away.

‘You were saying, Major?’

‘Ah, yes. I have something for you. It is probably nothing but maybe it can help you.’ With his thumb and forefinger, the police chief extracted a small black notebook from the breast pocket of his Hawaiian shirt and handed it to Luke. ‘It was found,’ continued the major, ‘on the body of your
compadre
from the embassy. We, er, forgot to give it to the investigators from Bogotá.’

Luke turned the notebook over in his hand. It was damp and the corners of the pages were splayed and frayed. On the back cover there was a brown smear that might have been mud, blood or possibly something more unpleasant. He sniffed it and recoiled. Excrement. What sort of person, he wondered, carries a shit-stained notebook in their breast pocket?

He opened it. The first page was blank, just a dead mosquito squashed flat against the paper. He flicked through the next few pages and found notes and coordinates in Spanish. Benton’s handwriting? For a moment he felt almost reverential, handling a relic from a dead man’s life. One day, maybe, they would let his widow have it but that might well be thirty years away.

‘Is useful?’ asked the major.

Luke sensed that the man was eager for him to put away the notebook and get on with some serious drinking but he nodded and turned over. And there it was, staring up at him on a whole page of its own. A single word inscribed in neat Oriental characters he didn’t recognize. Was it Japanese? Korean? Chinese? Luke couldn’t tell but the analysts back home would have it pinned down in an instant. It confirmed there was an international connection. That must have been what Benton was on to.

And yet it didn’t make sense. If this had been found on Benton’s body, why hadn’t the cartel removed it? Perhaps their people had been careless that night, over-confident even, after beating
the crap out of the poor man. And why was the major giving him the notebook? Luke’s naturally analytical brain was turning over the possibilities even as he flicked through the remaining pages. Was the major looking for money, a reward perhaps? Or a favour in return? In which case, what was it likely to be? There was something about the man he definitely didn’t trust. And what if this was a red herring, deliberately planted on Benton’s body to throw investigators off the scent? Well, that would be for a reports officer in London to decide. Right now, though, in the sweaty, sleazy Colombian nightclub, his instinct told him he had something valuable in his hand. Luke slipped the notebook into the pocket of his chinos. ‘You did a good thing, Major, I really appreciate this,’ he told him. ‘Now we should have a toast.’

‘Es nada, es nada.
It’s nothing, really.’

As far as Luke was concerned, the evening’s objective had been accomplished and he was counting the minutes before he could leave. First thing in the morning he would photograph every page and send it to VX for analysis. Now he felt a tingling sensation on the outside of his thigh. He turned to his left in irritation, expecting to see Smeared Lipstick coming round for another pass – but it was his mobile phone, quietly vibrating in his pocket.

‘Elise!’ He could barely hear her. And what time must it be in London? Four thirty in the morning. This was not good.

‘Babes,’ she said, ‘I can’t sleep.’

‘Hang on, let me find somewhere quieter.’ Luke stood up, mobile clamped to his ear, and brushed past the major as he headed for the door.

‘Where are you?’ said Elise. ‘Oh, sorry, I’m not supposed to ask, am I? Well, it sounds like quite a party you’re having in there. What’s her name?’

‘Very funny. You should see this place – it’s a crap-hole.’

‘Anyhow,’ she continued, ‘seeing as you’re not going to be back in time for the exhibition opening, Hugo’s offered to help and maybe take me to dinner afterwards.’

The words were delivered breezily, off the cuff, yet they stung
Luke. ‘Hugo Squires? That smoothie from Goldman Sachs? I thought you said you couldn’t stand him.’

‘Oh, he’s not so bad – and you should see his place in the country.’

‘What? Elise – hello? Hello?’ The connection was lost.

They rode away together in the police car, Major Elerzon in the back, wedged happily between the girls from the club. The police chief had ‘bought them out’ for the night, but Luke sat up front, next to the driver. He was trying hard not to think about the polished investment banker eight thousand kilometres away trying to move in on his girlfriend while he was stuck here, serving Queen and country. Could he blame him? Probably not. Elise was a temptation for any man. Still, maybe they would have a ‘conversation’ when he got back, him and Hugo Squires. Nothing hard-core, just to get a few things straight. Like, Piss off and leave her alone or I’ll break your neck.

‘Thanks, just drop me here at the hotel,’ he said to the driver. He twisted round to say goodbye to the major but the man was fully occupied. It would take Luke some time to shake off the image of a girl’s head bobbing up and down on the lap of Tumaco’s chief of police.

‘
Que te diviertes!
Enjoy yourself,’ said Luke, although the words seemed superfluous given that Major Elerzon had his head tipped back and his eyes closed. He shut the car door and went into the hotel past the security guard, patting his pocket to check he still had the notebook. He paused outside the lawyer’s room and listened. The faint sound of snoring told him all was well.

Outside his own door, Luke knelt down and shone the torch on his smartphone at the crack between the edge of the door and its frame. Good. The hair he had stuck across the gap before he went out was still in place. It was never 100 per cent proof that no one had been in, but it gave him some reassurance.

Inside his room, he locked the door, then went to the cabinet beneath the bathroom sink. He reached in and felt along the inside roof of the cabinet until he found what he was looking for.
With one swift tug, the Sig Sauer came free from where he had taped it to the wooden surface. He popped out the magazine, counted the rounds, reinserted the magazine, cocked the weapon and flipped the safety catch. He went through his rucksack, piece by piece, checking nothing had been removed, then tucked the pistol under his pillow, took off his clothes and fell asleep.

LUKE WAS RUNNING,
pushing his body to the limit, and he ached everywhere. The green webbing straps cut into his shoulders, the SA80 rifle cradled in his hands felt absurdly heavy for such a small piece of kit, and his sopping-wet combat trousers chafed his thighs with every stride. Now he was balanced on a slippery plank ten metres above the ground, taking a running jump and punching his way through rope-mesh netting, then crawling along a single horizontal rope, one leg dangling, the other cocked at an angle and kicking him along, as they’d been shown. Someone was shouting at him, someone unpleasant who wouldn’t shut up, someone big and ugly in a tight white singlet with a pair of crossed red clubs and a crown on his chest. A PTI, a physical training instructor. His nemesis. Oh, God, he was back at Lympstone, at the Commando Training Centre on the Devon coast, going through the Tarzan course and the commando tests. Now he was hauling himself up a rope on the Wall of Pain, every muscle screaming. Someone was standing at the top, silhouetted, hands on hips. Another PTI—

Luke woke up. And realized someone was standing at the end of his bed.

There are moments when everything before you suddenly slows down. The cricket ball that hurtles inexorably towards the greenhouse, the drinks tray that slips from the waitress’s grasp
and takes an eternity to crash to the tiled restaurant floor, the oncoming car that skids and swerves but still hits you. This, for Luke, was one of those moments. How on earth, he wondered, did this person get into my room when I locked it?

‘Sssh.’ She was whispering to him. ‘
Relaxe te.’

Luke tensed, now wide awake and very far from relaxed. ‘Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?’ he said in Spanish, reaching for the bedside light. He clicked the switch but it didn’t work.

‘I saw you in the club tonight,’ she replied softly. ‘You are . . .
tanto guapo . . .
so cute. My friend on Reception let me in. Don’t you like me?’ She smiled, and even in the dim light that spilled in from the corridor he could see she had perfect white teeth. She was a far cry from the poor souls back in that fleapit of a club and he definitely couldn’t recall seeing her there. She was far too pretty to be working in the Casa Miraflores, her oval face framed by a mane of silky black hair.

Luke smelt a rat.

‘I’m Carla,’ she breathed – and, just like that, she was shedding her blouse, reaching behind her back and unclipping her bra, her breasts tumbling free as she moved towards him like a sinuous, predatory cat. ‘
Ah, que bueno, eres sin ropa
,’ she purred, sliding her body up his.