Crisis (Luke Carlton 1) Page 2

  He rose to his feet, gently shaking off Fuentes’ restraining hand. Reaching down, he removed the Browning from its holster, slid back the mechanism and chambered a round. There was a loud metallic click as the gun was cocked and Fuentes winced.

  Benton took tentative steps forward through the undergrowth, pausing every few yards. His heart was racing and his throat felt like sandpaper. He wished he had brought the bottle of water from the truck. He looked through the viewfinder and reckoned he was almost in range to get a good enough picture. He let the camera dangle round his neck and felt the comforting weight of the pistol. He took another step forward.

  Without warning, a sentry reared up behind him and struck him hard between the shoulder blades with the metal butt of an assault rifle. Benton’s pistol fell uselessly from his grasp. He groaned and slumped.

  ‘Oye! Venga!’ the sentry called out to the men in the hut, and suddenly there was pandemonium, shadowy figures spilling towards them. Fuentes, unseen, hugged the ground, watching in silent horror as they dragged Benton backwards by his armpits to the hut. Guards were fanning out with torches in all directions.

  Fuentes got up and ran, faster than he had ever run in his life, thrashing blindly through the lush foliage that tore at his face and shirt, stumbling like a drunk the last few yards to the truck. He jumped into the cab, dropping the keys at his feet. Scrabbling with his fingers amid the detritus he’d been meaning to clear out, he found them too late to start the engine. Crouched behind the dashboard, half hidden by the surrounding bushes, he could see figures silhouetted on the same dirt track they had driven down only an hour ago. They were calling to each other, their torchbeams probing the night. And then Fuentes heard something that nearly made his heart stop. The distant sound of a man screaming, in intense drawn-out terror and pain.

  Chapter 2

  ‘GOD, IT’S RAMMED in here tonight.’

  ‘Sorry, babes?’

  ‘It’s a bloody crush!’ shouted Luke, cupping his hand to her ear above the thumping music. ‘And stop calling me “babes”!’

  ‘But you know I only do it to wind you up!’ She slid her hand around his waist and pulled him closer. He caught her scent. Nearly a year together and still it did something for him. Slender and self-assured, Elise was nearly as tall as he was.

  They had met at the art gallery where she worked, on the opening night of an exhibition of brightly coloured gouache paintings. His immediate thought had been: This girl is out of my league.

  It was true that Elise had no shortage of admirers, but the man who had strolled in intrigued her. He had the loose, easy movements of someone capable of immense speed and power. His face was angular, lightly tanned, beneath short, sandy hair. Grey eyes. Was he a model? God, she hoped not – she wasn’t going to make that mistake again. No, the broken nose and weathered look told her otherwise. This was not a man who spent a lot of time in front of the mirror. There was something paradoxical about him: a blend of danger, adventure . . . and security. She felt safe in his presence.

  A week later, on their first date, he had nearly blown it. ‘Tell me about yourself,’ she had said, appraising him watchfully as she sipped her peach Bellini in a bar off Piccadilly.

  He’d wondered what he should say. Born in London, brought up in South America, orphaned at ten. Most of his adult life in the Royal Marines and Special Forces. On operations he had killed at least four people and didn’t lose any sleep over it. Too much information for a first date? Yes, probably.

  ‘Well,’ he had begun, with a half-raised eyebrow, ‘I suppose you could say I’m from everywhere.’ It was his International Man of Mystery line and had worked wonders on nights out in Plymouth and Poole. Elise had said nothing, just got up and walked away to the bar. You twat, Luke, he thought, you’ve lost her already.

  But Elise had waved him over to join her, a frosty mojito lined up for him on the bar. ‘Drink this,’ she’d ordered, with a smile. ‘It might improve your conversation.’ Things had moved quickly: six months on from that night they were sharing a flat. Now they were spending their Thursday evening on a small, sweaty dance floor in a members-only nightclub in Mayfair, waiting for friends who hadn’t shown up, surrounded by rich boys in blazers and tasselled loafers, their girlfriends in pearls. You could almost touch the money in the air here, thought Luke, but what on earth made all those people want to dress like their parents when they weren’t even out of their twenties? A boy in a canary-yellow cashmere cardigan was dancing backwards and collided with Luke, too busy mouthing the words to ‘Get Lucky’. Luke regarded him with pity: he was wearing Ray-Bans in a nightclub.

  ‘OK,’ he said to Elise, ‘let’s get out of here.’ She offered no resistance: it was not her kind of place either.

  Together they side-slipped through the crowd, emerging into the cool drizzle of the London night. Elise paused to light a cigarette, smiling coyly at him as he cupped his hands around hers to shield her lighter from the breeze, the gap left by his missing middle finger standing out next to her own perfect, shapely hands. Luke had never understood the smoking thing and vowed to have another go at her to stop. Maybe next year. They turned into Curzon Street, almost empty now at past one in the morning, then crossed the road near the palatial Saudi Embassy, nodding at the two armed and bored policemen guarding the gates, then walked up a dimly lit side-street to where they had left the car.

  ‘Excuse, please. You have light?’ The man stepped out of the shadow of a parked van.

  Seriously? thought Luke. That was such a cliché – it belonged in some dated vigilante film. A Charles Bronson classic, the ones his uncle used to watch. But Luke was instinctively on his guard. He didn’t like the look of the man, who had the air of organized crime about him. What was he? Albanian, perhaps. Hard to tell in this light. Elise had caught it too, but her manners got the better of her and she fished in her bag for a lighter.

  At that moment Luke felt a pair of huge arms lock tight around him from behind and immediately his training kicked in. As the first attacker made a lunge for Elise’s handbag, Luke dropped his weight to his knees and pitched himself forward, jack-knifing his assailant over his shoulders. The man landed with a smack on the wet pavement, knocking the wind from his lungs and cracking his head on the concrete. ‘You fugger!’ he wheezed, in pain and surprise.

  He was not the only one. What the hell d’you think you’re playing at? Luke asked himself, as he straightened up. You think this is a punch-up in Union Street in Plymouth on a Saturday night? Remember who you work for now. It’s supposed to be all about discretion, subtlety and hugging the shadows, not crash-banging across the city like Daniel Craig. Next time just give them the bloody money and walk on.

  But the action wasn’t over. Elise’s slim frame was deceptive: she had her own training, honed over long, painful hours in the dojo. As the second man lunged for her handbag she stepped back, putting her weight onto her right leg, bending it slightly, then pistoning out a side-thrust kick with her left leg towards the man’s jaw. It would have been a technically perfect move, if only the heel of her shoe hadn’t snapped. Elise lost her balance and fell sideways onto the pavement. In an instant the man was on top of her, grappling for her handbag. And then he was rising clear, as if pulled by some hidden hand. Luke’s fingers were clamped on the man’s oily hair as he lifted him up, then slammed him face down onto the ground, where he stayed.

  Elise winced, rose quickly to her feet, forgetting the broken heel, and lost her balance again. Luke caught her and, for a moment, they clung to each other, recovering their breath. One assailant lay face down but breathing, the other had already abandoned his friend, slinking off into the night. Before she had time to protest, Luke scooped her up and carried her to the car. Inside, doors locked, seatbelts on, she kissed him forcefully on the lips. ‘Thanks, babes,’ she whispered.

  ‘No drama,’ he replied. ‘Lucky only one of us was wearing heels.’

  Chapter 3

  IN THE DAMP, humid air of th
e tropical night, the torchbeam reached out like an accusing finger. ‘Turn him over,’ said the captain. ‘Do it now.’ Gingerly, with uncharacteristic delicacy, the Colombian police conscripts approached the motionless body. In their confusion they tried to turn it over in opposite directions, pulling against each other, then collapsing backwards into giggles, like over-excited schoolchildren.

  ‘Madre de Dios!’ The captain pushed them out of the way. ‘Must I do everything myself?’ He grabbed the body by the shoulder furthest from him and gave it a heave, jumping back just too late as it settled heavily on his polished black boots. ‘Ayee, mierda!’ he exclaimed in disgust. The man had soiled himself and a thick rivulet of dried blood had run down his neck from where his ear would have been. It was clear that he had not died peacefully. In their green jungle fatigues the policemen stood in a circle, craning their necks for a better view. ‘Search his pockets, find some ID,’ ordered the captain, reaching for his mobile phone.

  From somewhere behind them in the village a dog barked, and over on the horizon, towards the lights of Tumaco, a solitary firework arced into the night sky then puttered out, drifting silently to the ground. In this part of Colombia, corpses turned up in all sorts of places. Hell, thought the captain. This was the sixth that month. He turned away, dialling the number for the duty sergeant at the fortified hotel they used as their base in town.

  ‘Capitán!’ a conscript called, sounding excited. ‘This muchacho is not from here. He is a gringo! His name is—’

  The captain snatched the maroon booklet out of the man’s hands. Slowly he read aloud, straining to make out the italic script in the torchlight, ‘Her Bree-tannic Ma-jess-ty . . . Sec-re-tary of State . . . requests and requires . . .’ One of the younger policemen coughed and turned the first page of the passport for his captain. There was the dead man’s face staring up at him above a suit and tie, both ears still attached. Benton, Jeremy Maynard. British citizen. Date of birth: 14 January 1969. Sex: M. Place of birth: Scarborough, UK. ‘Mierda!’ The captain swore again. This was going to be complicated.

  Just over eight kilometres away in a secluded whitewashed bungalow with peeling paint and a purple neon light above the door, Major Humberto Elerzon was starting to enjoy himself. La Casa de Dreams was one of the few consolations he had found in this godforsaken dump of a town. He hated Tumaco and its lousy climate, its ravenous mosquitoes, and its casual capacity for violence nurtured by its close association with the drugs trade. He hated it and always had done, since the first day of his posting – a punishment posting, no question. Tipped for promotion to colonel, he had been a rising star in the corridors of power at Police Headquarters in Bogotá, until that one stupid mistake. It was National Day, fiesta time and maybe he had drunk a little too much, but how could he resist her? When they’d thought no one was looking they had left the party together, raced down the steps to his car and checked into a nearby hotel. The receptionist had recognized her and made the call once they were up in the ‘matrimonial suite’. The major shuddered at the memory. The humiliation, the shame, the embarrassment. All those junior cops standing there, grinning in the doorway, the cameras going off and him in his underpants. How was he supposed to know she was the president’s niece, for Christ’s sake?

  So here he was, past forty, his career torpedoed, sentenced to eke out his posting in this far-flung corner of the country, running a provincial police station in one of the most dangerous parts of Colombia. His wife had long since lost all respect for him. In truth, they had never been close, and when he had told her of his posting to this coastal backwater she had flatly refused to leave the cool comfort of Bogotá. He suspected another man was involved but, frankly, he was past caring. He paid her a portion of his monthly salary and sought what comfort he could in the dingy bars and brothels of Tumaco. There was money to be made here, no question about that. He had known people in Customs to retire to Miami on what they had made in this part of Colombia, simply from looking the other way at the right moment. But the men from Internal Affairs would be keeping close tabs on him – they had told him as much, practically spelled out that even his own subordinates would be watching him. He was trapped. Which was why he was thinking of making alternative arrangements.

  Major Elerzon did not like to be disturbed when he was being entertained in La Casa de Dreams so when his mobile rang from his jacket on the chair by the window he chose to ignore it. Of far more interest was the magenta bra of the woman in his arms. Rosalita was not her real name but she had been his favourite since his first, exploratory visit. True, they had had a brief falling-out last year when she’d given him an unwelcome dose of crabs, but they had kissed and made up, and now he was turning his attention to the clasp at her back. Bloody mobile! Why wouldn’t it stop ringing? Probably some imbecile checking up on him. With a groan he heaved himself off the bed, catching his reflection in the mirror and reminding himself to get down to the police gym. He snatched up the phone. ‘Sí?’

  By the time he had put down the phone Major Elerzon’s libido had wilted. What the hell was an Englishman doing dead on his patch? This was no place for tourists. Must be a narco.

  Twenty minutes later he was back at the police base in the fortified hotel, just in time to watch the patrol bring in the body. This was a disaster. If he didn’t move quickly the press would be all over it before he could file his report, and those cabrones in Bogotá would hang him out to dry. He retreated to his office to think, retrieving a half-empty bottle of tequila from beneath a crumpled copy of yesterday’s newspaper. Before long there was a knock on the door. The coroner, of whom he had seen far too much in the past year.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Es complicado,’ replied the coroner.

  ‘You mean you don’t know what he died of?’ snapped the major, lighting a cigarette without offering one to his guest. He had never liked the coroner, a respected local family man who seemed to lead a squeaky-clean life.

  ‘Not yet, no. You see, someone really wanted him dead. I mean, really, really wanted him dead.’

  ‘Go on.’ The major breathed smoke up to the ceiling in a thin coil and watched it curl around the motionless blades of the fan. It still wasn’t fixed.

  ‘It’s as if he was killed several times over. He was stabbed in the ribs. I expect you saw that in the patrol commander’s report.’ The major looked down at his desk. ‘There’s the ear, of course, but he didn’t die from that, and then there’s a needle mark in his neck. He may have been injected with something. I’m sending blood samples up to the toxicology lab on the next flight.’

  ‘Any narcotics on him?’

  ‘Nothing. But they did find this.’ The coroner reached into his tunic and handed across a plastic evidence bag.

  Reluctantly, the major put down his cigarette, opened the bag, took out a small notebook and flipped through the pages. There were scribblings in some foreign script. Japanese? Chinese? He didn’t know. Either way, it probably wasn’t important but he decided he should look after it himself.

  Chapter 4

  THE CALL CAME through on the secure line to Vauxhall Cross at just after 0600. It was the duty officer who took it, bleary with tiredness and nearing the end of his shift. From more than eight thousand kilometres away, the voice spoke, distorted by clicks and pauses on the line from inside the SIS Colombia station, tucked away in a nondescript farmhouse in the wooded hills just north of Bogotá. The DO stifled a yawn and began to jot notes – then nearly broke his pen. This was unbelievable. The CIA were always carving stars into that wall of theirs at Langley, one for every officer killed in the line of duty, but over here, in the Service? Unheard of. He peered across the desk at the emergency numbers taped to the wall, took a deep breath and dialled.

  At 0630 Luke Carlton was in the gym in Battersea when his phone lit up beside him. He liked being up early: after twelve years in the forces it was a hard habit to shake, even if it sometimes infuriated his girlfriend. Although he was out now, a civilian, he still put
himself through a punishing hour of CrossFit most mornings, the exhausting, all-round fitness programme of choice for those who had served in Special Forces. Two minutes’ intensive strength and endurance exercise, pause, then repeat for fifty minutes. The memory of the attempted mugging in Mayfair was still fresh and he would do his damnedest to keep up his fitness.

  Now his phone was flashing insistently. Before answering, his eyes flicked to the TV monitor on the wall. Had something big happened? Some horror committed by Boko Haram in Nigeria? A hostage crisis in Yemen? ‘Breaking news’ read the subtitled caption. ‘House prices surge in London suburbs.’ No clues there then. But a phone call at this time of day could mean just one thing: the office. Wiping the sweat out of his eyes with his forearm, he glanced at the number on the small screen and recognized it immediately. The voice at the other end asked how quickly he could get over to Vauxhall Cross. In the few months since he’d started working for MI6, he had fitted in surprisingly quickly. If he chose to stay, and many didn’t, he had been told he could go far.

  ‘How soon can I be in?’ Luke checked his watch. ‘Depends how smartly you need me dressed. I’m in the gym.’

  ‘I don’t care what you’re wearing,’ said his line manager, Angela Scott. ‘Come dressed as an astronaut, for all I care. Just get in here now.’

  He knew better than to ask what was going on. In any case, he’d be briefed soon enough. ‘Roger that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry. I haven’t quite shaken off the military jargon yet. I’m on my way.’

  She hung up.

  In sweat pants and trainers, Luke took the lift down from the gym to the underground garage. Elise and he lived in one of those modern steel-and-glass apartment blocks that had sprung up on the south bank of the Thames. Mussels Wharf, it was called – they’d had a few laughs about that. Renting for now, but maybe they’d look to buy something next year – if they were still together, of course. He got a few funny looks as he pulled out into the traffic, but he always did, driving a scratched Land Rover Defender out of a flash Thameside apartment block. His London friends liked to claim that it stank of manure but Luke didn’t give a monkey’s. This was his way of staying in touch with his country roots. Besides, there was something pleasingly familiar about its blunt, functional lines and its quasi-military practicality.