The John Milton Series: Books 1-3 (54 page)

“Why is he so interested?”

“You know better than to ask that.”

“Yes. But—?”

“I believe they have something planned for Mr. Milton.”

Anna’s iPhone bleeped.

Roman cocked an eyebrow.

She took it out of her pocket and checked it. She had set up the system to ping her if any of her selectors were tripped. The message said that that was precisely what had happened.

“What is it?”

“The spy. I might have found him.”

SHE GUNNED the Triumph on the way back to headquarters, touching seventy as she weaved through the slow-moving evening traffic. She didn’t wait to strip out of her leathers as she hurried through security for the second time.

The report that the system had emailed to her indicated that the selector that had been triggered was for fingerprints.

A fingerprint?

Seriously?

She jogged to her desk and sat down, and there it was: a scanned PDF of a row of fingerprints inked onto a strip of paper with instructions in Spanish printed along the side in green ink. The strip had, at some point, been scanned and dumped into a database. The NSA’s XKEYSCORE program had picked it up in transit.

“No fucking way.”

She sat down and fumbled for her mouse, scrolling through the metadata.

NAME: JOHN SMITH

ALIAS: None

DOB: Unspecified

SEX: M

RACE: White, Caucasian

HEIGHT: 182

WEIGHT: 80

EYE COLOUR: Blue

HAIR COLOUR: Black

SCARS/TATTOOS: Scar on face // Tattoo (angel wings) on back.

RESIDENCE: None

OCCUPATION: Cook

SOC. SEC. NO.: Unspecified

STATE ID NO.: Foreign

LOCATION: Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, MEX

ORGINATING AGENCY: Juá. Muncipal Police, District 12

OFFICIAL TAKING PRINTS: Lt. Jesus R Plato

“Fuck,” she said. The probability matrix was off the charts: the name, personal statistics, identifying features, the metadata all ringing back super-strong hits. But the prints themselves were the thing: the system had matched them with the positive set that she had taken from Milton’s SAS file, and they were unquestionably the same.

The loops and ridges, whorls and arches, delta points and type lines.

One set fitted snugly over the other when they were overlaid.

That kind of thing couldn’t be a mistake or a coincidence.

It was him. There was no doubt about it.

She moused over to the second data packet that had been marked for her and opened it.

She nearly fell off her chair.

Pictures, too?

There were two: front and profile. In the first, Milton stared out into the camera. His eyes were the iciest blue and his expression implacable. He had a full beard, and his hair was unkempt. The second offered a clear angle of the scar that curled down from his scalp. He was holding a chalkboard with his name and a reference number. Again, the board was written in Spanish. It was marked Ciudad Juárez.

“Hello, Milton,” she said. “I found you, you sneaky
ublyudok
. I
found
you.”

ADOLFO GONZÁLEZ slammed the door of the hotel behind him and stalked to his car. He had been furious, and the girls had borne the brunt of his temper. There were two of them this time, just the right age, plucked from outside the car park of the
maquiladora
that made the zips for the clothes that bargain retailers sold over the border and in Europe. His men had called him and told him that the two were waiting for him in the usual place. He had bought the hotel a year ago, just for this purpose, and it had earned back the hundred thousand dollars he had paid for it. Earned it back and then some.

Esmeralda and Ava.

They had struggled a little. More than usual, anyway. He preferred it like that.

He’d leave the cleanup to the others.

He took off his bloodied latex gloves and dropped them into the trash. He opened the door of his car and slipped into the front seat. His ride was a 1968 Impala Caprice,
“Viva La Raza”
written across the bonnet in flaming cursive, the interior featuring puffy cream-coloured cushions and a child’s doll on the dash, dressed in a skirt bearing the colours of the Mexican flag. The car seats were upholstered in patriotic green, white and red.

He took off his dirty shirt, took a replacement from the pile on the rear seat, tore off its plastic wrapping, and put it on. He opened the glove compartment, took a packet of baby wipes, and cleaned his face. His movements were neat and precise: the shallow crevices on either side of his nose, the depressions at the edge of his lips, the hollows in the corners of his eyes. He pulled a fresh wipe to mop the moisture from his brow, tossed the shirt and the wipes into the trash, took a bottle of cologne and sprayed it on each side of his throat, then quickly worked a toothpick around his teeth. Better. Once he was finished, he enjoyed his “breakfast”—a generous blast up each nostril from the cocaine-filled bullet that he carried in the right-hand hip pocket of his jeans. The cocaine was unadulterated, fresh from the plane that had brought it up from Colombia. It was excellent, and he had another couple of blasts. He hadn’t slept for two straight nights. He needed something to keep him alert. That should do the trick.

Adolfo was always angry, but last night had been unusually intense. His father had been the cause of it. The old man had castigated him as they drove back to Juárez yesterday evening. The gringo
bastardos
had angered him, so he had taken out that anger on his son. He had told him—ordered him—to find the journalist and the cook. They were to be found and killed without delay.

Fine.

With pleasure.

He started the car and crossed town, the traffic slowing him up, cars jamming behind the big busses that took the women to and from the factories. The busses stirred up layers of grey dust that drifted into the sky and rendered the sun hazy, settling back down again on the lanes and the labyrinth of illicit electricity cabling that supplied the
colonia
shacks. When he pulled into the vast car park that surrounded La Case del Mole, he was hot and irritated. He shut off the engine and did another couple of blasts of coke. He got out. He took a pistol from the trunk, slotted home a fresh magazine, pushed it into his waistband, pulled his shirt over it, and walked across the asphalt. There was blood there: a pool of blood so thick that it was still sticky underfoot two days later, the still-congealing red glistening in the sunlight.

He climbed the steps and knocked on the glass door. Nothing. He turned to look out at the city: the belching smokestacks, the traffic spilling by on the freeway on the other side of the border, the heat haze. He turned again and tried the handle. It was locked. He took a step back and kicked the glass; it took another kick to crack it and a third to stave it all the way through. He reached through the broken glass, unlocked the door from the inside, and stepped into the lobby.

He paused, listening. He sniffed the air. He heard someone in the other room, hurrying in his direction.

“What the fuck you doing?”

He was a fat man, his belly straining against a dirty T-shirt.

“You in charge here?”

“What the fuck you doing, man, breaking the fucking door like that?”

“Are you in charge?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Better just answer the question, friend.”

“All right, yeah, sure—as far as you’re concerned, I am in charge. And unless you tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing, busting the door like that, I’m going to call the cops.”

Adolfo pulled back his jacket to show a holstered Glock. “Wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to cause offence.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry if I did. I’ve had a hell of a couple of days.”

Adolfo fingered one of the lobster pots that had been fixed to the wall. “What’s the point of this? We’re nowhere near the sea.”

“Just a bit of decoration.”

“It’s plastic. It’s not even real.”

“It’s just for atmosphere.”

Adolfo let the lobster pot fall back again. “What’s your name?”

“Gomez.”

“Well, then, Gomez. I’m looking for one of your cooks.”

Gomez looked at him anxiously. “I don’t ever get to know them that good. We get a high turnover here—in and out, all the time. There’s always someone new practically every day.”

“But you know the one I want to find.”

“The Englishman.”

“English?”

“Sounded like it. The accent—”

“What else?”

“That’s all I got.”

“What does he look like?”

Gomez thought. “Six foot tall. Muscular, but not too much. Black hair. Scruffy. Had a beard. And cold eyes—no light in them.”

“What else?”

“He just started Monday. He was pretty good on a fryer, but you know, I—”

Adolfo let his jacket swing open again. “Come on, Gomez,” he said. “This is poor. Really—very, very poor.”

The man turned away and scrubbed his fist against his head. “Oh, shit, wait—there is something. He asked if I could recommend a place to stay, so I told him about that place on Calle Venezuela. Shitty place, bums and drunks—just a flophouse, really—I could give you the address if you want.”

“I know where it is.”

Gomez spread his flabby arms. “That’s it—I ain’t got no more.”

“That’s it?”

“I don’t know what else I can tell you.”

A toilet flushed somewhere.

“Who’s that?”

“Maria. Front of house.”

“Tell her to come through.”

The man called out.

“Jesus, Gomez, it’s dark in here.” A woman stood in the doorway. Her hand drifted slowly away from the switch as she saw him. “I knew this wasn’t done with.”

“He wants to know about the cook. The Englishman. Did you speak to him?”

“Only when he came in. Not really.”

Adolfo pulled the pistol from the holster and shot both of them once each through the head, one after the other, and put the gun back in the holster. The woman had just enough time to open her mouth in surprise as she fell. Adolfo walked back out to his car. He got in, started it, and backed around and drove out onto the busy road and back towards the middle of town.

HE WOUND THE window down as he drove through the city, an old Guns and Roses CD playing loud, his arm out of the window, drumming the beat with his fingers. “Welcome to the Jungle.” That was just about right. Welcome to the fucking jungle. He turned off the road and onto the forecourt of the hostel and reverse parked. He took out the bullet and did another couple of blasts of cocaine. He went through to the office.

The office was hot. No AC. A television tuned to Telemundo was on in the back, a football match on. The heat made it all woozy. A dazed fly was on its back on the desk, legs twitching. The man behind the desk was dripping with sweat.

“
Hola
, Señor,” he said. “Can I help you?”

“You have an Englishman staying here?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Yes or no, friend?”

“I can’t tell you anything about our guests, Señor.”

Adolfo smiled, pulled his shirt aside, and took out the pistol. “Yes or no?”

The man’s eyes bulged. “Yes. He ain’t here.”

“How long has he been staying?”

“Got in the day before yesterday.”

“Say much?”

“Just that he wanted a bed.”

“That it?”

“Quiet type. Hardly ever here.”

“What time do you expect him back?”

“I don’t know, Señor. He left pretty early yesterday; don’t think he’s been back.”

“He leave any things?”

“Couple of bags.”

“Show me.”

The dormitory was empty. Ten beds pushed up close together. Curtains drawn. Sweltering hot. A strong smell of sweat, dirty clothes, and unwashed bodies. The man pointed to a bed in the middle of the room. It had been neatly made, the sheets tucked in snugly. All the others were unmade and messy. Adolfo told the man to leave, and he did. He stood before the bed and sniffed the air. He took the pistol and slid the end inside the tightly folded sheets, prising them up an inch or two. He yanked the sheets all the way off and looked inside them. He prodded the pillows. He looked beneath the bed. There was a bag. He took it and opened it, tipping the contents out onto the bed.

A pair of jeans.

Two T-shirts.

A pair of running shorts.

A pair of running shoes.

Underwear.

Books. English.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being
.

Great Expectations
.

No money. No passport. No visas.

Adolfo’s cellphone vibrated in his pocket. He fished it out and pressed it to his ear.

“Yes?”

“It’s Pablo.”

“What do you want?”

“You know Beau Baxter?”

“Works for our friends?”

“He’s in town. Spotted him an hour ago.”

“Where?”

“Plaza Insurgentes. Avenida de los Insurgentes. Driving a red Jeep Cherokee.”

Adolfo ended the call and went back to the office. The television was still on, but the man wasn’t there. He went outside, got into his car, and left.

ANNA STRAIGHTENED the hem of her skirt and knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

There were two men with Control.

“Anna,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”

“That’s all right.”

“Do you know the Foreign Secretary?”

“Only from the newspapers,” she said. She took the man’s outstretched hand.

“Hello, Anna. I’m Gideon Coad.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

Anna noticed Control was fidgeting with his pen, and as she glanced at him, she heard him sigh. He was uncomfortable introducing her to the politician; that much was obvious. She turned to the older man and gave him a polite smile. She was not nervous at all. She felt comfortable, not least because she had done a little illicit research before leaving the office last night. There had been rumours of Coad’s extramarital affair with a male researcher, and true enough, it had been easy enough to find the evidence to demonstrate that those rumours were true. Emails, bank statements, text messages, hotel receipts. Anna would have been fired on the spot for an unauthorised and frivolous deployment of GCHQ’s resources for the purposes of muckraking, but if you were good enough—and she most certainly was good enough—there were simple enough ways to hide your footsteps.