Rat-Catcher (11 page)

Amber was the last to come round. She leaned over and vomited into the snow, then looked over at the other three, blinking the tears from her eyes. They were glaring up at three men, who stood over them, smiling. Two of them were the adoption men from Quito. The third was a thin, hawk-faced man. Alex recognized him from the truck stop on the border road. He was one of General Manteca's men.

'Amber,' said Alex tightly, 'can you talk to them? Pretend we don't know anything. Tell them we are only climbers who got lost. Tell them we just stumbled onto the huts looking for help--'

'Do not bother,' said the thin-faced man in strongly accented English. 'We know who you are.'

'What have you done with Paulo?' yelled Li.

'Ah,' said the thin-faced man, pretending to be sad. 'He was so brave. I hurt him a lot, but he would not tell us anything. Then the general suggested I should start making little Eliza very uncomfortable - and suddenly, we could not shut Paulo up. He told us all about you.' The man sighed. 'Poor Paulo.'

Li began to cry softly.

'Don't worry,' said the man kindly. 'It will all be over soon. There is an explosive charge on the side of this gas tank, set to go off in ten minutes. You have caused us a lot of trouble, but the trail ends here. You and the factory will . . . disappear, and we will start up a new factory somewhere else. Do you see how you have wasted your last few days on this earth?'

The man turned on his heel and headed for the plane, shouting something in Spanish to the other two. They dived into the hut to get their luggage and the last of the cocaine.

'What are we going to do?' cried Amber, struggling against the handcuffs.

Alex shook his head grimly. He could see the device, stuck to the side of the tank, just above his head. There was enough explosive there to leave nothing but a smoking hole in the mountainside.

The thin-faced man had nearly reached the plane when his cellphone rang. The seconds ticked by as he listened, then he flicked the cellphone shut and walked back to them, pulling out a pistol.

'Change of plan,' he said, aiming the pistol at Amber's head as the other two men piled out of the hut behind him. The two adoption men came closer, grinning and eager to watch. Suddenly the thin-faced man twisted round, holding the gun at eye level. There were two blasts in quick succession. The adoption men staggered backwards with surprised expressions on their faces and round, red holes in the middle of their foreheads. They fell onto the snow and lay still. Their blood seeped into the snow around them in a spreading circle.

Li screamed and screwed her eyes shut as the man turned back to them. He laughed as he unlocked the padlock holding the chain to the tank. 'I told you,' he said as he yanked them to their feet by the chain. 'Change of plan. The general wants to see you - all of you. He has discovered a certain . . . lack of funds. He would like to know where his money has gone.'

They staggered and stumbled over the snow towards the plane, horribly aware of the explosive device ticking away behind them. The thin-faced man pushed them roughly into the passenger compartment of the plane and padlocked the chain linking their handcuffs to a metal strut in the framework, then he climbed into the pilot's seat and started the engine.

The little plane trundled down the glacier slope, picking up speed all the way. The man pulled back on the joystick and the plane left the ground. He yanked it round in a tight turn, making the engines roar, then pointed it straight at the mountainside ahead. Gradually, the little plane climbed, all the while rushing towards the rock face. When it seemed as though they would crash, he pulled the plane into a banking turn which took them towards a narrow gap between the jagged peaks.

A bright orange flower of fire blossomed on the glacier below, followed by a dull crump as the sound of the explosion reached them. The little plane shuddered, buffeted by the turbulence from the explosion. Then they were through the gap between the peaks and flying up into the clear blue morning sky.

S
IXTEEN

The general's house was huge and grand - a white, Spanish colonial-style mansion set in grounds that covered many thousands of acres. Cultivated fields and gardens surrounded the house while, further out, the land was covered with forest and lakes. The estate was situated in a remote part of the Central Valley, southwest of Quito. As the plane had circled overhead, preparing to land on the estate's private landing strip, Alex had spotted only one road, stretching away like a long, thin ribbon to the east, where he thought it must eventually join the Pan-American Highway.

Now, as the off-road vehicle ferrying them from the landing strip rolled to a halt on the gravelled circle in front of the mansion, General Manteca hurried down the steps to meet them, like a host coming out to welcome his weekend house-guests.

'Alex!' cried the general as Alex stumbled from the car, followed by Amber, Hex and Li. 'How good to see you again!'

Alex glared at the general, then looked around him. There were two gardeners weeding the driveway and a housemaid moved around on the sunny veranda at the top of the steps, setting a table for breakfast.

'Help us!' yelled Alex. 'Help!'

The gardeners carried on weeding. The housemaid dropped a spoon and hurriedly picked it up again. None of them lifted their heads to look at him.

'They work for me, Alex,' said the general. 'They know when to be deaf and blind. Come. Sit with me on the veranda.'

The general turned away and strolled up the steps. Alex, Li, Amber and Hex looked at one another, wondering whether to make a run for it, but the thin-faced man was getting out of the car behind them and they were still chained together with their arms cuffed behind their backs. Silently, they stumbled up the steps after the general. He waved them to a long, cushioned sofa, which swung gently in its frame as they sat down on it. A gentle breeze from the ceiling fan cooled the air, dappled sunlight made the veranda boards glow and the smell of fresh coffee and bacon filled the air. It was so strange to be sitting in the middle of this peaceful scene, sweating in their layers of mountain gear, with their faces streaked with dirt and their wrists bleeding from the rub of the handcuffs.

The general sat down at the table and the thin-faced man stood a discreet distance away at the top of the steps, with his back to them, as though he was a butler in a stately home rather than a ruthless gunman.

'So,' said the general, helping himself to bacon and eggs. 'Paulo told me all about how angry you were when your father cancelled your holiday, Alex. He told me how you hated being packed off like a little boy, so you called up all your friends here, to help you prove to your father how grown up you are. You thought you could teach him a lesson by beating him at his own game. Am I right?'

Alex nodded, keeping his head down. He dared not meet the general's gaze until he understood exactly what sort of a tale Paulo had spun. It seemed that he had managed to leave Alpha Force out of the story. The general seemed to think it had all been done in a fit of childish temper.

'I understand, Alex,' said General Manteca, 'and I must say, you chose your friends well for your little game. Resourceful -- and wealthy too, I imagine. Tracker devices are expensive toys and the one you used must have been state of the art.'

Amber stiffened with hope beside Alex. The general did not know about the satellite images, which suggested that he did not know about her uncle! A second later she slumped again, as she realized that her uncle would not be expecting a call from her for another five hours. Even then, he would have no idea where they were.

'You have done well,' said the general. 'But this was a dangerous game you chose to play, not a bit of harmless fun! And now, look at the position you find yourselves in. You have all lied to your parents, telling them you are staying at one another's houses, so nobody knows where you are.'

General Manteca leaned forward and fixed them with his dark brown eyes. He was trying to look unconcerned, but his hands were gripping his knife and fork so hard, his knuckles were white. 'I will make a deal with you,' he said casually. 'You tell me where my money is and how to get it back. Then I will arrange to have you set free.'

'I can tell you where it is, no problem,' said Hex. 'Yesterday you made a large, anonymous donation to Sister Catherine's House. It's all sitting in the charity's bank account right now. As for getting it back, well, that's a different story. You can't. Get it back, I mean. Still, it must be good to know the Rat-catcher's money will be helping all those street kids.'

The general's breakfast plate flew across the veranda and smashed against the white wall, leaving a yellow and red smear of egg and tomato. A maid scurried out from the house to clear it up.

'Street kids!' roared Luis Manteca, his face red and twisted with anger. 'Street
rats,
you mean! Lice-ridden, diseased vermin!' He shook his head like an angry bull, then took a deep breath. 'If you think this set-back will stop me, you are very wrong. I can start a new factory tomorrow. And my business is growing all the time. I can replace those funds in less than a year!'

'What have you done with Paulo?' asked Li. 'Have you . . .? Is he . . .?'

'Dead?' The general subsided into his chair again with a cruel smile. 'Not yet. But he soon will be. As will all of you.' He sighed and turned to the thin-faced man. 'I'm growing tired of this,' he said. 'Take them over to the compound.'

'What about my father?' said Alex. 'I left him a message about you, you know.'

'No , Alex, you didn't.' The general pulled a cellphone from his shirt pocket. 'This is his phone. I took the only call you made to him. There are no text messages either. At least, not from you. He did get one this morning, from your mother, in Paris. She was at the top of the Eiffel Tower and she sent a text to say that she was missing you both and wished you were there with her. Wasn't that sweet?'

Alex clenched his jaw and swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat at the unexpected message from his mother.

'Nobody has left any messages at the base either,' continued the general. 'Or at the hotel you and your father stayed in. Your father suspects nothing. When he returns from his wild goose chase around Guayaquil, grieving for his missing son, I, his good friend, will be there to support him. And when your heart-broken father shoots himself in the head a few weeks from now -- I already have it marked in my diary - I will cry at his graveside. After that, I can get on with my business undisturbed. Now, if you would like to follow me to the car--'

'Wait! Tell me something first,' said Alex, desperately stalling for time. 'There's something I don't understand. Why use street kids?'

'What do you mean, Alex?'

'Why use street kids to carry drugs for you? You have so much power, you could simply fly the drugs over the border by the planeload, or drive them out in convoys of trucks. Why use kids as mules? They couldn't carry much.'

'What do you think, Alex? Do you have a theory?'

'I'm not sure,' said Alex. 'But I think it has something to do with the Rat-catcher. He hasn't been hunting recently, has he?'

The general nodded. 'You are a bright boy, Alex. I enjoyed hunting as the Rat-catcher for a time, but then I grew bored. The street rats were so plentiful and so easy to find. And there was no sense of danger. The people of Quito did not seem to care about the Rat-catcher. Some of them secretly admired him, I think. None of them tried to stop him. So I retired the Rat-catcher six months ago, and instead I found a way to bring the street rats running to me.'

'The adoption men?' said Amber.

'That's right! And, Alex, once again, you are correct. I did not need to use the street kids as mules. I used them because it amused me to have them take special parcels to my most valued clients - just as it has amused me to play this game with you. And I always gave the little rats exactly what I promised them. They all ended up on a big estate with a grand house and lots of land.'

'You mean here?' guessed Li.

'Exactly,' smiled Luis Manteca.

'What happened to them then?' whispered Amber.

'That is what I want to show you!' said the general, jumping to his feet with boyish enthusiasm. 'I have discovered a much more enjoyable way of hunting rats!'

Paulo came awake in the darkness. His head was swimming with the after-effects of the sleeping drug that had been put in the food. He had no idea where he was or how long he had been asleep. Eliza lay beside him, quiet and still. He reached out and touched her hand. It was icy cold. A thrill of fear ran through him as he felt his way up to her face. What if the drug had been too strong for her? What if she had died in her sleep? He held his hand above her mouth and sagged with relief when he felt the feathery touch of her breath on his palm.

Paulo lay still for a moment, trying to figure out where they were. The floor beneath them was covered in a thick layer of sawdust. Were they in a stable of some sort? He listened, but there were no swishing tails or friendly whinnies, only a cold, echoing emptiness. Paulo clambered to his feet, groaning at the flaring pains all over his beaten body. He put his arms out in front of him and stumbled forward until he came into contact with a wall. He ran his hands over the wall. It was hard and smooth. It felt like some sort of glass.

Paulo almost screamed as a set of powerful arc lights suddenly clicked on overhead. He fell backwards, away from the wall, shielding his one good eye against the blinding light with his arm. Eliza moaned beside him, then came awake, whimpering as a muffled banging started on the other side of the glass wall.

Paulo forced himself to open his good eye. He squinted through his fingers at the glass wall. Then his mouth dropped open with shock as he saw Li on the other side of the glass, shouting soundlessly and kicking the wall with her boots. Alex was there too, and Amber and Hex. Paulo's face lit up with pleasure for an instant. Then his face fell as he noticed that all four of them were chained together like a bunch of convicts. Behind them stood the general and the thin-faced man who had been such an expert at causing him pain.

'It will not break,' said the general calmly, as Li continued to kick at the glass wall. 'It is strengthened glass, built to withstand . . . Well, you will see what it was built to withstand in just a moment.'

'Paulo!' sobbed Li, watching as he tried to clamber to his feet in the sawdust circle on the other side of the glass. His face was purpled with bruises and one eye was just a swollen, bleeding lump.

'He cannot hear you,' explained the general. 'It is soundproofed.'

'What are you going to do to him?' demanded Hex.

'Watch,' said the general as a door opened on the other side of the room.

In the sawdust circle, Paulo and Eliza turned to face the door as it opened. A man walked in. He was a Quechua Indian and, just for an instant, Eliza thought her father had come back to help her. Her face lit up, then she saw that this man was much older than her father. His brown, high-cheekboned face was lined with age and his dark eyes watched her without emotion.

The man was holding the chains of two of the biggest dogs Paulo had ever seen. They stood as tall as Eliza on their huge, spreading paws. Their shoulders were powerful and muscled and their heads were twice the size of a man's. They were covered in short, honey-coloured hair, apart from a black muzzle and black, floppy triangular ears. The skin drooped above and beneath their dark eyes, giving them a sad expression, and the folds of their muzzles flapped loosely as they trotted over to investigate Paulo and Eliza.

Paulo stumbled back against the glass wall as the huge dogs came towards them. He pushed Eliza behind his back, trying to shield her, but the dogs merely shouldered him out of the way. One reared up and planted its front paws on his shoulders. He staggered under the enormous weight of the animal and would have fallen if it had not been for the glass wall at his back. The dog opened its mouth, showing a set of curved white teeth. Then its pink tongue flopped out and licked his face. It felt like being washed with a very large, very soft flannel.

Eliza was being washed too, but the other dog did not have to rear up to reach her face. She giggled with relief that the huge animal was friendly. The Quechua Indian stood impassively until the general flicked a switch on an intercom on the other side of the glass.

'Proceed,' he said, his voice ringing out over the loudspeakers. The Quechua nodded, then he pulled the two dogs over to the other side of the room and secured their chains to two of a row of steel rings embedded in the concrete wall.

'These are two of my pets,' explained the general. 'I have ten of them in total. They are bull mastiffs the heaviest dog breed on the planet. They weigh more than a fully-grown man, ninety kilos on average. The Romans trained them as warrior dogs and they were used to hunt down bears in the Middle Ages. They can outrun a man and snap a thigh bone in their mouths as easily as we might snap a matchstick. Their jaws can exert a pressure of two hundred kilos per square inch.'

In the sawdust circle, the Quechua Indian finished securing the dogs and walked over to Paulo as the general was talking. He took a thick, hinged steel bracelet from his pocket and clipped it around Paulo's wrist. Paulo stared at it, trying to understand what it was. It fitted far too snugly for him to slip it off over his hand, and there seemed to be no catch to release it, only a slot where a key might fit.

It was heavy and well-made and the hinge was virtually invisible when it was closed. The key slot was set into a thicker section of the bracelet, which also had a dark glass bubble embedded in it.

Paulo looked over to Eliza. The Quechua was busy testing a bracelet on her skinny wrist, but he soon realized that it would simply slip off over her hand, so he squatted to attach it to her ankle instead.

'What are these for?' demanded Paulo, turning to face the general.

'You will find out soon,' said the general, pulling a small metal box from his pocket and extending the aerial. He switched to Spanish for the next part of his speech, so that both Paulo and Eliza could understand what he was saying. Behind the screen, Alex, Li and Hex looked to Amber for a translation, but she shook her head in confusion as she struggled to keep up with what the general was saying.