The Watchman

One

I know the sound of a semi-automatic weapon being cocked. Some might mistake it for a briefcase lock mechanism or a workman slapping a power unit into a high-speed drill. It’s similar but not the same.

And I’d just heard it in the corridor outside my hotel room.

I stepped over to the door and listened, heard the brush of footsteps on the carpet, a hushed cough and heavy, nasal breathing. The movement stopped outside the next door along and I was guessing it wasn’t the room maid.

Wary of getting my eyeball blown out, I took a quick look through the peephole.

Three guys, heads in close like they were having a team talk. Their features were blown out of shape by the fish-eye lens, but I made out dark, unshaven faces and the standard Colombian attire of crumpled jackets and pants.

And guns.

Two of the men were holding semi-automatics with big macho can suppressors, while the third, who was gesturing a lot and therefore the leader, was holding a machine pistol. It looked like a Steyr TMP, a nasty weapon capable of spitting out 900 rounds a minute. Lucky you can’t get a magazine that big. The men looked jumpy, turning to watch both ends of the corridor, like they had no business being there.

Definitely not cops.

FARC, at a guess. That’s Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — the national guerrilla group with a brutal reputation for high-profile kidnappings and killings. If not them, it would be one of the drugs cartels in town looking for an easy ransom. Whoever they were, I was thinking the man next door had been selected as their next source of income.

It was none of my business.

I’d heard my neighbour in the bar the previous evening. He was an American mining engineer, middle-aged and well dressed, head of a minerals company. He’d been friendly and chatty and everyone within earshot knew he was in the country talking business with the government. Careless of him. What the two guys he’d hired as security clearly hadn’t told him was that here in Colombia, you don’t go round pushing that kind of detail about yourself. It’s asking for trouble.

Worse, he’d dismissed his two minders saying he’d got some shopping to do before heading home and could handle that all by himself.

I watched the man with the Steyr lean across and knock on the door. He called out in accented English, ‘Sir? Room service.’

Like I say, it was none of my business. I could wait right here and let it blow on by; let it be somebody else’s bad-hair day. No point inviting trouble.

I picked up my overnight bag, opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.

For a second nobody moved. The nearest gunman, short, heavy in the gut and sporting a large moustache, rolled his eyes at me in surprise. The other two were busy waiting for my neighbour’s door to open. None of them were expecting any interference from the hotel staff or guests.

Moustache was the first to move. He made an ‘O’ of his mouth and began to haul his gun round at me.

I threw my bag at the other two to distract them, then stepped forward and kicked Moustache into the opposite wall. He bounced back with an ooff and dropped his semi-automatic right into my hand. I smacked him across the head with it and turned to face the others.

The man with the Steyr was already looking up in surprise from the bag at his feet, and his colleague was only marginally slower. There was no time for niceties; if the Steyr began firing, I’d be mincemeat. I shot them both, Steyr first, then his friend, the suppressed shots sounding flat in the confines of the corridor, a round each to the head to reduce the chance of a reflex firing.

‘Hey! What the—?’ The engineer was standing in the doorway, a bag in one hand, briefcase in the other, white around the eyes as he saw the blood and bodies lying right where he usually picked up his Herald Tribune.

I reached forward and grabbed his collar, dragging him out into the corridor, then picked up my bag. ‘Express check out,’ I said, and hustled him towards the emergency stairs. We had to get out of here now.

Not that he came easily. ‘What the hell is this — who are you?’ he demanded, trying to break free. He was pretty strong and wasn’t making it easy to save his skin.

‘Those men were here to snatch you,’ I told him. I kneed the emergency door open and pushed him towards the stairs. ‘If you’d argued or fought back, they’d have cut their losses and killed you where you stood. They’ll have friends who still might. The choice is yours: you haul your ass and come with me and do exactly as I say … or you stay here and die.’

He complied but I had to nudge him all the way down the stairs and out through a narrow door close to the kitchens. I was hoping we didn’t bump into hotel security along the way. They’d just be doing their job, but I didn’t want to take a chance that they were in on the set-up and have to start taking them out.

I opened the door and we stepped outside into a blanket of warm, spicy air and the rasp and clatter of city traffic in downtown Bogotá.

And more trouble.