Saint Death

32

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 corner 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 and 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 stove 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.”

“Alright, 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 call the cops.”

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

“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 and 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,” she said.

“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.

33

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, 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 Insurgents. Avenue de los Insurgents. 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.

34

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 alright.”

“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 extra-marital 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 muck-raking but, if you were good enough — and she most certainly was good enough — there were simple enough ways to hide your footsteps.

There was another reason for her amusement: she was right at the heart of government, now.

That was good. It was confirmation that they knew nothing about her at all.

Control turned to the second man. “And this is Captain Pope.”

He was tall and grizzled. Slab-like forehead. A nose that had been broken too many times. Cauliflower ears. Anna recognised the type: unmistakeably a soldier.

“Captain Pope is one of our agents,” Control explained. “Like Captain Milton was.” He cleared his throat. “As you know, the Foreign Secretary has asked for a briefing from you about your findings.”

“Fine. Here.”

She handed them each a folder labelled JOHN MILTON, CAPTAIN. The name was followed by his government record number, neatly typed on the cover. It was a much slimmer volume than the reports she typically provided, but since her predecessor had found nothing at all, she felt that her smirk of pride was justified.

“You wanted everything I could find about him. I’ve written up his early history, plus sections on his time in the army and the SAS, his friendships — that’s a short section — relationships with the opposite sex — even shorter — where he lives, his bank accounts, medical records, the cars he’s driven, and so on and so forth. Everything I could get my hands on. I’ve found a decent amount. There are 300 pages.”

Coad looked at the report with a dismissiveness that Anna found maddening. “The potted version will be fine for now, please.”

She mastered the annoyance that threatened to flash in her eyes, nodded with polite servility and, when she began to speak, her voice was clipped and businesslike.

“Milton is a very private man but, even so, I was able to build up a picture of his life in the years before he disappeared. He’s forty years old, as you know. Single. He married a Danish national in 1999. Martha Olsen. A librarian. There were no children and the marriage didn’t last; they were divorced two years later. Olsen has remarried and has two children and save a couple of emails and texts between them they don’t appear to have kept in touch. There have been affairs with other women: a businesswoman in Chelsea; a Swiss lawyer in Basel; a tourist in Mauritius. Nothing serious, though.”

“Milton’s not marriage material,” Pope said.

“My main task was to find Mr. Milton’s current location. That was not a simple assignment. He is evidently an expert in going off the grid and it would appear that he has an unusual dedication to doing that — this is not the sort of man who makes silly mistakes. The task was made considerably more complicated by the fact that all the information after he started to work for you” — she nodded at Control — “remained classified. That was like having one hand tied behind my back.”

She didn’t try and hide the note of reproach. Control glared at her and then turned to the Foreign Secretary. “Some things about Milton must remain private.”

“Quite. Get on with it, Miss Thackeray.”

“I ran all of the usual searches but none of them paid off. I wasn’t able to find anything on him at all. No obvious sources of income—”

“Then how is he affording to live?”

“Frugally. There was a withdrawal of £300 in Liverpool before you lost him but nothing since. He has £34,534 left in the account. It’s been untouched for six months. He’s not stupid — he knows that’s the first place a decent analyst would look. There is another savings account with another £20,000, also untouched. No pension.”

Pope laughed. “He wouldn’t have anticipated retirement. Not that sort of job.”

“My guess would be that he has been picking up work on the way. Bar work? Bouncing? Something that attracts migrants. Cash-in-hand, no questions asked. I don’t think we’ll be able to find anything substantial. How detailed shall I be?”

“Whatever you think is relevant.”

“There’s been no correspondence with any of the few contacts I was able to find,” she continued, casting a reproachful look at Control. “He has no family and there have been no emails, calls or texts to the friends he does have. He dropped off the face of the earth.”

“And yet you found him.”

“Mostly down to a stroke of luck. He was fingerprinted in Mexico. Ciudad Juárez. The Mexican police upload all their data to a central database in Mexico City and we picked it up en route. Pictures, too.”

She flicked to the page with the picture of Milton in the police station.

“And there he is,” Pope said.

“This was taken on Monday night. Standard procedure. The passport he gave to the local police is a fake.”

“He’ll have several,” Pope observed.

“I’m sure he does.”

“What else?”

“Knowing which passport he has been using made it much easier to get more on him — like where he’s been for the last six months, for example.” She flipped forwards to a double-page map of South America. “The red line marks the route that he’s taken. Passport data is collected at most borders these days and that data is very easy to find. Once I knew the number of the passport that he was using it was quick to find out where he’s been. He landed in Santos in Brazil in August. He came ashore from the MSC Donata, a cargo ship registered in Panama. It sailed from Liverpool two weeks earlier. From there, he started west. He crossed into Paraguay at Pedro Juan Caballero, then into Bolivia and Peru. Since then, he’s always headed north — Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Guatemala then Mexico. Most of the time he was photographed at the border, and I have those pictures, too.”

She flicked through to a series of photographs. The tall cranes of Santos appeared in one picture and the barren deserts of the Brazilian interior in another. Milton was looking into the camera for some of them, bored and impatient. Others had been taken without him noticing.

She scratched her head. The Foreign Secretary examined her with searching eyes. “So he’s been in South America since you lost track of him,” she said. “No idea what he’s been doing in between his border crossings. But we do know where he is now. He came across the Mexican border at Tapachula four weeks ago, travelling by bus. He’s been heading north and it looks like he got to Juárez earlier this week. We’ve got the police pictures and the prints and so I tried to find something else. I ran face recognition on everything I could think of and picked up this. They’re from CCTV from a restaurant in the city.”

She turned to the series of stills she had grabbed. Milton was approaching the camera across a broad parking lot. He had a rucksack slung over his shoulder. Black glasses obscured his eyes. He was tanned and heavily bearded.

“How did you find that?” Coad asked.

“The software’s pretty good if you can narrow the search for it a little. There was a disturbance at this restaurant the same day this was taken. A shooting. Seven people were killed. Footage from all of the cameras in the area was uploaded by the police. I was already deep into their data. Made it a lot easier to find.”

Control scowled at the pictures. “Was he involved?”

“Don’t know.”

“Was he arrested?”

“Don’t think so.”

Coad held up his hand. He paused for a moment, drumming the fingers of his right hand on the armrest of his chair before turning to her again.

“Do you know where he is?”

“No,” she admitted.

“You’ve checked hotels?”

“First thing I checked. Nothing obvious. He’ll be paying in cash.”

“So where do we look first?”

“Lieutenant Jesus Plato — the policeman who fingerprinted him. He’s the best place to start.”

“And if we should decide to send agents to Mexico to find him … what is your estimate of the odds that we would find him?”

“I can't answer that. I’d be speculating.”

“Then speculate,” Control said.

“If he’s as good as I think he is, he won’t stay in once place for more than a week or two and he’s been in Juárez since Monday. Plus there’s the danger that what happened at the restaurant might have spooked him. But if you’re quick? Like in the next couple of days? Decent odds, I’d say. He won’t know you’re coming. If he’s moved on, he won’t be far away. A decent analyst might be able to pick up a trail.”

Control looked across at Coad and, at the latter’s curt nod, he turned back to Anna. “We’ve been in contact with the Mexican government. They’ve given us approval to send a team into Mexico to bring him out. Captain Pope will be in charge. Six agents and you, Ms. Thackeray.”

“Oh.”

“Are you willing to go?”

“I’ll do what I’m told.”

Pope nodded at her. “Juárez is not a small place,” he said, “and, if you’ve done your research, you’ll know it’s not the easiest city in the world to find something. It’s overrun with the drug cartels. Normal society has broken down completely. We might need help tracking him down. And you know him as well as anybody.”

“Well?” Coad said.

“Of course,” she said.

Control nodded brusquely. “You’ll be flying from Northolt and landing at Fort Bliss in Texas. You’ll go over the border from there. Do you have any questions?”

“When?” she said.

“First thing tomorrow.”

Anna rode home, changed out of her leathers and went out for a walk. Pittville Park was nearby and she made her way straight for the Pump Room and the ornamental lakes. The building was a fine example of Regency architecture and the lakes were beautiful but Anna was not distracted by them. She slowed as she approached the usual bench. She sat and pretended to watch the dogs bounding across the grass. When she was satisfied that she was not observed, she reached down beneath the bench, probing for the metal bars that held the wooden slats in place. Her fingers brushed against the narrow plastic box with the magnetic strip that held it against the rusted metal. She retrieved the box, opened the end and slid the memory stick inside. It contained her full report on Milton, plus the regular updates that she provided on the operation and scope of GCHQ’s data-gathering activities. She didn’t know how long she would be out of the country, and she did not want to be late in filing. She paused again, checked left and right, waited, and then reached back and pressed the case back into its place. As she left for home, she swiped the piece of chalk that she held in her hand against the side of the metal bin next to the chair.

35

Captain Michael Pope took off his boots and his jacket and went through into his kitchen. It was late and his wife was asleep upstairs. He looked in the fridge but there was nothing that took his fancy. He took a microwave meal from its paper sleeve, pierced the film and put it in the oven to heat. While he was waiting, he reached the bottle of whisky down from the cupboard, poured himself a double measure, added ice and sipped it carefully to prolong it. He rested his hands on the work surface and allowed his head to hang down between his shoulders.

Did he know Milton?

He did. He knew him very well indeed.

They met twenty years ago. They had both been in the sandpit for the first Iraq War, young recruits who were too stupid to be scared. They were in the same Regiment, the Royal Green Jackets, but in different Battalions. Milton had been in the Second and Pope in the First. They hadn’t met in the desert but, once that was all over, Pope had transferred into the First Battalion. He was assigned to B Company.

That was the same company, and then the same rifle platoon, as Milton.

They were almost immediately sent to South Armagh.

B Company had been assigned to South Armagh. That was bandit country, and Crossmaglen, the town where they would be based, was as bad as it got. It was right on the border, which meant that the Provos could prepare in the south and then make the quick trip north to shoot at them or leave their bombs or do whatever it was that they had planned to do. The men had been billeted in the security forces base and their rifle company lived in ‘submarines,’ long corridors with beds built three high on one side. Milton had the top bunk and Pope was directly beneath him. It was the kind of random introduction that the army was good at but they quickly discovered that it was propitious; they had plenty in common. Both liked The Smiths and The Stone Roses and the films of Tarantino and de Palma. Both liked a drink. Both wore civilian duvet coats from C&A beneath the nylon flak jackets and both had taken to writing their blood groups on the jackets just like all the other blokes. Both had girlfriends back home but neither was particularly attached to them. Milton’s sense of humour was dry and Pope’s was smutty. They were both obsessed with getting fitter and stronger and both intended to attempt SAS selection when they had a little more experience. The chemistry just worked and they quickly became close.

One memory was clearer than all the others.

One night.

He remembered it almost as if it were yesterday.

It had been towards the end of their first posting. The battalion was due to go back to Andover the following week and they had one more patrol to do. They were picked up by helicopter and flown out into the countryside. It was a four-day cycle: four days out, four days on town patrol, four days in sangars. The helicopter was one of the Army Air Corps’ Lynx AH-9s and, as it powered up to take off again, there was a muffled bang from the direction of the tailboom and the engines died. The pilot tried everything he could think of to get it started but nothing worked. It was grounded.

The Lynx was a multi-million pound piece of equipment and not something they could just leave there overnight. The men were put on stag to guard it while they flew in an engineer. It was farmland. The farmhouse itself was five hundred feet away. Dark and isolated, lots of barns and outbuildings. It was cold and wet and there was an almost tangible sense of danger. The platoon were arranged in a defensive posture with an inner and an outer cordon, split up into groups of two and three. Their arcs overlapped each other, giving them three-hundred-and-sixty degrees cover around the stricken chopper.

Milton and Pope formed one of the two man teams. They lay face-down in the mud, their SLRs resting on bipods, both squinting down range into their nightsights. They were cold and soaking wet. Pope’s legs were frozen, the cold chilling all the way through to the marrow, his hands felt like blocks of ice and he couldn’t cover his ears because he had to listen for activity. They were both in a foul mood, cursing the pilot for breaking the chopper and the engineer for his inability to fix it.

Pope looked through the nightsight.

Movement? He checked and rechecked.

“Two men coming out of the barn towards us,” he reported.

“Bollocks.”

“And there’s a third. I’m serious, John.”

Milton looked through his nightsight. “Alright. Not bollocks.”

Pope watched them as they approached. They were moving carefully, keeping low. Two of them were carrying rifles and the other the unmistakeable shape — long, and with a bulbous onion-shaped end — of an RPG. Just their luck. They must have landed right in the middle of a PIRA hotspot. They were coming straight for them.

Despite the short tour in Iraq, Milton and Pope were still green. Chasing outclassed Republican Guardsmen on the road back to Baghdad was one thing; the Provos, with years of experience and full of hatred for the army, were something else entirely. Pope started to panic. What were they going to do? They couldn’t contact an officer or NCO for advice since they were too young to warrant a radio. Protocol said that they should issue a challenge since these could be three of their own men but if they weren’t friendlies then that would mean that they would either be in a firefight or chasing the players as they went to ground, and this was not the sort of country where you wanted to get lost and cut off from your mates.

Milton did not panic. He was calm and assured. He knew the correct routine for this situation and he followed it to the letter.

He pulled back the bolt to cock his rifle, identified himself as army and called out for them to stop.

They ran for it.

Milton fired. Pope fired.

The farm descended into pure chaos. The inner cordon saw the two tracer rounds from the tops of their magazines and thought that they were under attack. They started to fire on Milton and Pope. They both rolled into a slurry-filled ditch and covered their heads, screaming out that they were friendly. One of the lads with a light-machine-gun joined in the fun, sending a fusillade of fire down onto them. They were safe enough in the ditch and Pope remembered very well the look he had seen on Milton’s face as he risked a glance across at him. He grinned at him and then, in the middle of the firestorm, in bandit country with a broken-down Lynx and twenty men throwing fire down upon them, he gave him a big, unmistakeable wink.

The search for the three Provos had been both immediate and thorough. And utterly thrilling. It had been, Pope recalled, the best night of his life and the one when he had decided that the army was definitely what he wanted to do. It seemed as if the whole company had descended on the farm. The brass sent a Gazelle to join in the search, circling overhead as it shone down its powerful Night Sun searchlight. A Saracen armoured car turned up with a soldier manning the big turret-mounted machine-gun. Roadblocks were thrown up and dogs and their handlers spilled out of cars. The rifle company was out all night but it looked as if their quarry had got away.

But then, two days later, a man admitted himself at a hospital in the south with a 7.62mm wound in his buttocks. Pope and Milton knew it was one of the Provos that they had chased into the fields and that one of them had shot him. They argued about who should claim the credit for months.

Pope wasn’t one for mementoes but he had kept a couple of photographs from that part of his career. He took down an album and flicked through it, finding the photograph that he wanted: seven men arranged around a Saracen. In those days, the vehicles were fitted with two gallon containers at the rear. They called them Norwegians. The drivers filled them with tea before they left the sangar each morning and although the tea grew lukewarm and soupy before too long, it was a life-saver during cold winter patrols. The photograph was taken in a field somewhere in Armagh. Three of them were kneeling, the other four leaning against the body of the truck, each of them saluting the camera with a plastic cup. Milton was at the back, his cup held beneath the Norwegian’s tap, smiling broadly. Pope was kneeling in front of him. Milton was confident and relaxed. Pope remembered how he had felt back then: it had been difficult not to look up to him a little. That respect was something that remained constant, ever since, throughout their time together in the Regiment and then the Group.

The microwave beeped. He knocked back the rest of the whisky, collected the meal and took it into the lounge.

He sat down with the album on his lap.

Memories.

He didn’t question his orders but they were troubling. Control had said that Milton had suffered from some sort of breakdown. That didn’t seem very likely to Pope. Milton had always been a quiet man, solid and dependable. Extremely good at his job. Impossible to fluster, even under the most extreme pressure. The idea that he might snap like this was very difficult to square. But, there again, there was all the evidence to suggest that something had happened to him: the trouble he had caused in East London, shooting Callan, and then, after six months when no-one knew where he was, turning up again in Mexico like this.

Something had happened.

He had his orders, and he would obey them as far as he could.

He would go and bring him back. But he wouldn’t retire him unless there was nothing else for it. He would do everything he could to bring him back alive.

36

Beau Baxter didn’t even see him come in. He was hungry, busy with his plate of quesadillas, slicing them into neat triangles and then mopping the plate with them before slotting them into his mouth. It was a public place, popular and full of customers. He had let his guard down just for a moment and that was all it took. Adolfo González just slid onto the bench seat opposite him, a little smile on his face. It might have been mistaken for a friendly smile, one that an old friend gives to another, except for the fact that his right hand stayed beneath the table and held, Beau knew, a revolver that was pointed right at his balls.

“Good morning, Señor Baxter.”

“Señor González. I suppose you think I’m pretty stupid.”

“Negligent, perhaps. I’m surprised. Your reputation is excellent.”

“And yours,” Beau said, with a bitter laugh.

“You know not to make any sudden moves, yes?” Adolfo’s English was heavily accented, slightly lispy.

“No need to remind me.”

“Nevertheless—”

“There’s no need for this to end badly.”

“It won’t, Señor Baxter, at least not for me.”

Beau tried to maintain his composure. He laid the knife and fork on the plate, nudging them so that they rested neatly alongside each other. “Let me go back to New Jersey. I’ll tell them to lay off.”

“I could let you do that.”

“They’ll listen to me. I’ll explain.”

“But they won’t, Beau — do you mind if I call you Beau? You know they won’t. I killed your employer’s brother. I removed his head with a machete. I killed five more of their men. They want that debt repaid. I’d be the same if the roles were reversed, although I would do the business myself rather than hide behind a panocha’s skirts.”

“I’ve got money in the car. Twenty-five grand. I’ll give it to you.”

“That’s the price they put on me?”

“Half. You’re worth fifty.”

“Fifty.” He laughed gently. “Really? Beau, I’m disappointed in you. You think I need money?”

He realised how stupid that sounded. “I suppose not.”

He indicated the half-finished quesadilla. “How is the food here?”

“It’s alright.”

“Do you mind?” González picked up Beau’s knife, used it to slice off a triangle, then stabbed it and put it in his mouth. He chewed reflectively. “Mmmm,” he said after a long moment. “That is good. You like Oaxaca?”

“I like it alright.”

“It is a little too Mexican for most Americanos.”

“I’m a little too Mexican for most Americans.”

González took a napkin from the dispenser, folded it and carefully applied it to the corners of his mouth. Beau watched Adolfo all the time. He looked straight back at him. Beau assessed, but there was nothing that he could do. The table was pressed up against his legs, preventing him from moving easily, and, besides, he did not doubt that Adolfo had him covered. A revolver under the table, it didn’t matter what calibre it was, he couldn’t possibly miss. No, he thought. Nothing he could do except bide his time and hope he made a mistake.

“We’re alike, you and I,” he said.

González did not immediately answer. “Let me tell you something, Beau. I want to impart the gravity of your” — he fished for the correct word — “your predicament. Do you know what I did last night? I went out. Our business has a house in a nice neighbourhood. Lots of houses, actually, but this one has a big garden in back. Not far from here. We had two men staying there. Hijos de mil cojeros. They used to be colleagues but then they got greedy. They thought they could take my father’s money from him. Do you know what I did to them?”

“I can guess.”

“Indeed, and discussing the precise details would be barbaric, yes? I’m sure a man such as yourself must have an excellent imagination. We had some enjoyment but then, eventually, after several hours, I shot them both. And then, this morning, I visited the restaurant where a journalist and her friends were eating on Monday night. The owner and the cuero he was with, they didn’t give me the information that I wanted. So I shot them, too. Just like that.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Another question: do you know what a pozole is?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re fixing to tell me.”

He smiled, his small teeth showing white through his thin, red lips. “A pozole is a Mexican stew. Traditional. Hominy, pork, chillies. It’s important to keep stirring the soup while it is on the stove so that the flavours blend properly. One of my men has acquired a nickname: he is know as El Pozolera. The Stewmaker. It is because he is an expert in dissolving bodies. He fills a plastic drum with 200 litres of water, puts in two sacks of caustic soda, boils it over a fire and then adds the body. You boil them for eight hours until the only things left are teeth and nails, and then you take the remains — the soup — to an empty lot and burn it up with gasoline. It is disgusting for those without the constitution necessary to watch. A very particular smell.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, Beau, I need you to understand that, even though we might be in the same business, you are mistaken: we are not alike. You deliver your quarry alive. You even allow them to bargain with you. To negotiate, to offer you a better deal. Mine cannot. I do not make bargains and I do not negotiate. I’m not open to persuasion and I can’t be dissuaded with whatever you have in your car, by the money in your bank account or by any other favour you might offer me. Once I have decided a man must die, that is it — they will die. A final question before we leave. You have killed people. Not many people, I know, but some. Tell me: what does it feel like for you?”

“Feels like business.”

“Again, a point of difference. For me, it is everything. It is the sensation of having someone’s life in the palm of your hand and then making your hand into a fist, tightening it, squeezing tighter and tighter until the life is crushed. That is power, Beau. The power of life and death.”

“You’re crazy.”

“By your standards, perhaps, but it hardly matters, does it?” The man leaned back. He studied Beau. “I’ll be honest. You will die today. It will not be quick or painless and I will enjoy it. We will record it and send it to your employer as a warning: anyone else you send to Mexico will end up the same way. The only question is where, when and how. I will give you a measure of control over the first two of those. The how? — that you must leave to me.”

Beau looked out of the restaurant’s window. “I know where the girl is.”

“Good for you.”

“The Englishman — I know where he’s taken her.”

“Ah, yes, the Englishman. Caro de culo. An interesting character. I can find out nothing about him. What can you tell me?”

“I could give you him, too.”

“You’re not listening, Beau. I don’t barter. You’ll tell me everything I want in the end, anyway.”

“I could deliver him to you in five minutes.”

He smiled again, humouring him. “You said you know where the girl is?”

“Yeah.”

“You know, Beau. It still doesn’t matter.”

“And why is that?”

“Because there is nowhere in Juárez where the Englishman could hide her from me. This city is mine, Beau. Every hovel in every barrio. Every street corner, every alleyway. Every hotel, every mansion, every last square inch. How do you think I found you? All I have to do is wait. She will be delivered to me eventually. They always are.”

37

Milton watched the conversation through the windows of the diner. The place was on Avenue de los Insurgents in a strip mall with a large plastic sign in the shape of a lozenge that said Plaza Insurgents. Milton’s taxi had pulled over on the other side of the road, behind a 1968 Impala Caprice with ‘Viva La Raza’ written across the bonnet. The passenger side window was down, classic rock playing loudly.

He recognised the driver as the doctor from the hospital.

Milton stood quietly and watched.

The diner was busy. Beau Baxter was alone in a booth and González made his way straight to him, slipping down opposite and beginning to talk. Beau’s body language was stiff and stilted and his face was pale; this was not a meeting that he had requested. Curious, Milton crossed the street to get a little closer, watching through an angled window so that neither man could see him. He looked closer and saw that González had not moved his right hand above the table. He was armed, or he wanted Baxter to think that he was.

Milton moved away from the window and leant against a telephone kiosk. He looked up and down the street and across the strip mall but if González had other men here, they were good. Milton could see nothing that made him think that there was any sort of back up. González was on his own. He could feel the reassuring coldness of the Springfield’s barrel pressed against his spine. Thirteen shots in the clip, one in the chamber. He hoped they would be enough.

Beau and González got up.

Milton moved to the entrance. There was a bench next to the door, an advertisement for a law firm on the backrest. He sat down behind a newspaper he found on the floor, the Springfield hidden in his lap. Beau came out first, González behind him. Milton let them pass, folded the newspaper over the arm of the bench and took the gun. He followed. When they reached González’s car Milton pressed the barrel against González’s coccyx.

“Nice and easy,” he said.

González turned his head a little, looking back from the corner of his eyes.

“You again.”

“That’s right.”

“I still don’t know your name.”

“I know.”

“English, then. Why are you always involved in my business, English?”

Milton glanced at Baxter. “You alright?”

“Feel a bit stupid.”

“Get his gun.”

Baxter frisked him quickly, finding a gold-plated Colt .45 in a holster clipped to his belt. He unfastened the holster and removed it.

“Look at this. Gold? You might have money but you can’t buy class.”

González said nothing. He just smiled.

“Beau,” Milton said. “What are you driving?”

“The Jeep,” he said, nodding to the red Cherokee with tinted windows.

“Get it started.”

“You have already taken too long, English,” González said. “My family has eyes everywhere. They are our falcons — waiters, barmen, newspaper vendors, taxi drivers, even the cholos on the street corners. A hundred dollars a week so that we may know everything about the comings and goings of our city. My Padre will know what you are doing before he sits down to dinner. And then he will find you.”

“You’ll be halfway back to New Mexico by then, partner,” Beau said.

Milton prodded González in the back and propelled him towards the Jeep. When they reached the car the Mexican finally turned around to face him. “Every moment in your life is a choice, English. Every moment is a chance to go this way or that. You are making a choice now. You have picked an unwise course and you will have to face the consequences of your decision.”

Milton watched him carefully, a practiced assessment that was so automatic that he rarely realised that he was making it. He watched the dilation in his eyes and the pulse in the artery in his neck. He saw the rate of his breathing. The man was as relaxed as if they were old friends, meeting up by coincidence and engaging in banal small talk about their families. Milton had seen plenty of disconcerting people before but this man — Santa Muerta — this man was something else. A real piece of work.

“The way I’m coming at it,” Beau said, “you ain’t in a position to lecture anyone.”

González kept his eyes on Milton. “Not everyone is suited to this line of work, English. Having a gun pointed at someone can sometimes lead people to exaggerate their own abilities. They tell themselves that they are in control of events where perhaps they are not.”

“Don’t worry yourself on my account,” Milton said. “I’m as used to this as you are. Get in the car.”

Baxter opened the door and, smiling serenely and without another word, González got in.

38

El Patrón had a small mansion on the outskirts of Juárez. He had dozens, all around Mexico. This was in the best part of the city, St Mark’s Corner, a gated community approached through a series of arches and set around a pleasant green. It was a quiet retreat of mansions, each more garish than the next. Outside some were vehicles marked with the corporate logos of the owners of the maquiladoras. In other forecourts were SUVs with blacked-out windows and bullet-proof panels; those belonged to the drug barons. The community had a private security detail that Felipe bolstered whenever he was in residence. His men were posted at the gates now, in the grounds of the mansion and in the watchtower that he had constructed at the end of the drive. Twenty of his very best men, most related to him by blood or marriage, vigilant and disposed towards violence. His doctor had advised him that sleep was important for a man of his age and he made sure that he always slept well.

He had bought the place a year ago, persuading the prominent lawyer who had owned it that it was in his best interests to sell. He hadn’t stiffed him on the price — he felt no need to drive a hard bargain — and he had sent three bags with a million dollars in each as a mark of his gratitude. He had visited the house before the lawyer had owned it and he had always been fond of it. It was surrounded on all sides by tall brick walls. It had been built with a small cupola, an architectural shorthand for extravagance in Juárez. Inside, there were baroque tables mixed with minimalist leather couches, red velvet curtains and a disco ball, Oriental rugs and, on the wall above the fireplace, a knockoff of Picasso’s ‘Guernica.’ The décor was not systematic thanks to the fact that it had been purchased, at various times, by several of Felipe’s wives. There was a glass-enclosed pool. A room in the basement held a large pile of stacked banknotes — four feet cubed — a little over twenty million, all told. Another held his armoury, some of the guns plated in gold. There were just a few street-facing windows and, at his insistence, the best security system that money could buy.

Marilyn Monroe had owned the house at one time; the rumour was that the purchase was a drunken extravagance after a night in the Kentucky Bar following her divorce from that American writer. It reminded him of another time in Juárez, so different from how things were today that it was almost another place. Salaciousness and audacity, everything for sale, most of it carnal.

The fleshpot and the dope-den.

Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen.

Matadors and baseball heroes and movie stars.

The Fiesta Club, The Chinese Palace, The Kentucky.

Not an innocent time, because Juárez could never be innocent, but innocent compared to what had followed in the wake of the narco wars. He was old enough to remember all of it, the town’s history as evident to him as the rings on a split tree trunk.

The house was busy tonight. He was hosting a party for the gringos. Plenty of his lieutenants were present, together with a significant delegation from the city. The deputy mayor, representatives from the federales, senior officers from the army. They had erected a wrestling ring in the garden and a tag team of luchadores were putting on an athletic display; wiry, masked wrestlers who grappled and fought, climbing the turnbuckles to perform ever more impressive dives and twists. The best cueros from the brothels that Felipe owned had been brought to the house to provide their own kind of entertainment. Drink and drugs were unlimited.

He and Isaac were enjoying a bottle of very expensive wine. Isaac’s colleagues were partying with the women. They were gross Americanos. Both were drunk. No style or class. Que te den por el culo, he thought. He had no respect for them, none at all, but he put on a wide smile and played the generous host. Business was business, after all, and they stood to make him a lot of money.

“Are you happy, Isaac?” Felipe asked.

“Yes, El Patrón.”

“Our arrangement is satisfactory to you?”

“Are you kidding? It’s perfect.”

They had discussed the arrangement for a couple of hours. Felipe would deliver his product across the border in a number of different ways: by truck and car through Juárez, by ultralight into the fields of New Mexico and Texas, and through the tunnel that he was in the process of building. Isaac owned several commercial ranches across the south-west and had a fleet of trucks to deliver the slaughtered cows and sheep to market. The product would be hidden inside the carcasses of the animals and distributed to a network of dealers that the two would arrange together.

Yes, he thought. It was satisfactory. Business came first, but there would come a time when another means of distribution was available to him and, when that happened, he would not forget the way that Isaac had spoken to him in the desert. The impudence. The unspoken threat: we will return north without speaking to you if you do not give us the reassurances that we want. Felipe had a long memory and he bore a grudge. There would be an accounting.

“I’m looking forward to seeing your new facility,” Isaac said.

“Ah, yes. The lab. It is nearly finished.”

“When will it be ready?”

“By the end of the week. Twenty pounds of meth every day. Excellent quality, too. I will show you.”

“Who is your cook?”

“An American. He used to work for a pharmaceutical company. Blue chip.”

“How’d you find him?”

“I keep my eyes open, Isaac.”

The man grinned at him. “When can we go see it?”

“Tomorrow. We will fly.”

He was interrupted by Pablo. The man was scared. “El Patrón,” he said, his face bleached of colour. “Please — may I have a word with you?”

“What is it?” he said mildly.

The man looked agonised. “In private, El Patrón, por favor.”

“Excuse me,” he said with an easy smile even as his temper was bubbling. He moved to the side, out of earshot, and glared at Pablo. “What is it?”

“Your son. It is Adolfo. He has been abducted.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“There is a gringo bounty hunter in town.”

“Working for who?”

“The Lucianos. There is a price on your son’s head — the killings in the desert.”

“And this man — he has him?”

“Yes — him and another. Adolfo had surprised the bounty hunter. We were going to take him out into the desert and kill him but, as they left the place where they had met, he was stopped by a second man. We think he was the man at the restaurant on Monday night.”

“And who is he?”

“We don’t know, El Patrón.”

His temper flared. “Do we know anything?”

“He’s been protecting the journalist from the restaurant. Adolfo visited her this morning to finish her off and this man was there. He is English. There is some connection between them.”

“Then if we cannot find him, we must find her and then we will find him.” He put down his glass of wine. Isaac was looking at him quizzically; he replaced the angry mask that had fallen across his face with a warm and reassuring smile. “Call the police,” he said quietly to Pablo. “They are to put roadblocks on every road out of Juárez. No-one leaves without the car being checked. And put the word out: a million dollars to whoever can bring me her. A million dollars if anyone can bring me him. Tell all our falcons. I want them found.”

39

Anna had been picked up from her two-bedroom flat in Cheltenham High Street at four in the morning. The car was a black BMW with tinted windows and a uniformed driver. She wasn’t used to being chauffeured and she felt a little out of place, her grubby Doc Martins against the spotless cream carpet inside the car. The man said very little as they headed west, following the A40 until it became the M40. That suited her well. She slept for the first half hour and then, roused as the sun rose into a sky of wispy low clouds, she took out her laptop and reviewed — for the hundredth time — the report she had made on John Milton.

She was excited. It wasn’t unheard of for an analyst to be sent out into the field, but it was the first time that it had happened to her. The rationale was obvious and made sense: if Milton slipped beneath the surface again, it was best to have an expert in situ to help track him down again.

And they were right: she knew him as well as anyone.

The trip also promised to furnish her with a much better idea of how Group 15 worked. They had always been unable to find out much about them, save the rumour and gossip that occasionally reached the ears of the Federal Security Service; they had certainly never been on actual operations with them. That, she knew, would stand her in excellent stead with Colonel Shcherbakov.

The driver turned into Ickenham and then, after a further few minutes, turned and slowed to a stop outside the armed guards stationed at the entrance of RAF Northolt. He showed his credentials and drove onto the base, following a route that brought him straight onto the main runway. A Gulfstream G280 was being readied for flight. It was painted gleaming white, the sunlight sparking off the fuselage. The driver took her luggage from the boot and added it to the pile of gear that two technicians were loading into the hold. Anna got out and stared at them. A large black fabric bag was open, the contents being checked. Anna saw automatic rifles, the metal glinting black and icy in the early light.

She paused at the steps to the cabin.

The pilot, performing a final external check, smiled at her. “Miss Thackeray?”

“Yes.”

“Good morning, ma’am. Up you go. They’re waiting inside.”

Anna climbed the steps and entered the jet. The cabin was plush. Decadent. Eight handcrafted leather seats, a workstation and a three-person sofa. Large porthole windows. Proper cutlery on the tables. Pewter crockery. Crystal glasses. One of the portholes faced the door and she glimpsed her reflection: the boots, the ripped jeans and the faded and frayed t-shirt looked completely out of place. She swallowed, daunted, her usual confidence knocked just a little. She almost wished that she had worn something more — well, something more appropriate.

Five men and a woman were arranging themselves around the cabin.

She felt self-conscious. “Hello,” she said.

Captain Pope turned to her. “Good morning, Miss Thackeray.”

“Morning.”

He looked at her and frowned. It was quizzical — perhaps even amused — and not disapproving. “Get yourself settled. We’ll be taking off soon.”

“Introductions first?”

He smiled patiently. “You know who I am. Lance-Corporal Hammond’s over there with the headphones. That’s Lance-Corporal Callan. Corporal Spenser and Corporal Blake are playing cards. And Sergeant Underwood is sleeping.”

Anna looked the others over.

The woman, Hammond, looked to be in her early thirties. Five eight, black hair, cut severely. Compact and powerful. Callan was tall and slender. Strikingly handsome. Hair in tight curls, so blond as to almost be white. Skin was white, too, like alabaster. A cruelty to his thin lips and unfeeling eyes that Anna found unsettling. Alien. Spenser was shorter, bald and heavily muscled. Blake was darker skinned. Something about him was a little exotic. Foreign, perhaps. Underwood had a sleeping mask over his face, obscuring his features.

They looked up at her but no-one spoke.

Pope smiled at her. “Take your seat,” he said. “Wheels up in five minutes.”

40

There was a sign on the wall of the room that said that the motel had wifi. Caterina booted up her laptop, located the network, and joined it. She had installed police scanner software and it was then, listening to those disinterested voices, bracketed by static, that she heard about the body of the missing girl who had been found.

The police said that the girl had been identified as Guillermina Marquez.

The body had turned up on scrubland near to the Estadio Olimpico Benito Juárez. The Indios played there, Leon had taken her to see them once. It was close to the motel. A twenty minute walk, maximum. Fifteen if she ran. She thrust her camera and her notepad into her rucksack, scribbled a quick note to Milton explaining where she was going, locked the door behind her and set off towards the river.

It was growing late and the light was leaving the city. Caterina crested a shallow hill and looked out across the border to El Paso, the lights twinkling against the spectrum of greys across the desert and the mountains beyond. She wondered what it was like over the border. She had never been. She had an idea, of course, on a superficial level — she was in contact with journalists on the other side of the line, there was television and the movies — but it was more than the superficial things that she wondered about. She wondered what it would be like to live in a city that was safe. Where you were not woken with yet another report of dead bodies dropped on your doorstep. Where the army and the police were not as bad as the criminals. Where children were not abducted, were not tortured, mutilated, bruised, fractured or strangled or violated.

The stadium was across a bleak expanse of scrub. Other girls had been found here: she thought of the map in her room, with the pins that studded this part of town, a bristling little forest of murders. She remembered two of them, left in the dust with their arms arranged so that they formed crucifixes; she remembered those two particularly well.

She walked faster.

Dusk was turning into night. Two police cruisers were parked on the scrub next to a thicket of trees and creosote bushes. Blue and white crime scene tape had been strung around the trunks of three of the trees, fluttering and snapping in the breeze, forming a broad triangular enclosure. Uniformed officers were inside, gathered around a shapeless thing on the floor. Caterina ducked down, pulled the tape over her head and went forwards. She could see the body covered with a blanket, the naked feet visible where the blanket was too short. She took out her camera, shoved in the flash, and started taking pictures.

One of the policemen turned. “Excuse me.”

She moved away from him, circling the body, continuing to take pictures.

“Excuse me, Señorita. No pictures, please.”

“What was her name,” she asked, the camera still pressed to her face.

“I recognise you,” the policeman said.

She lowered the camera. “Do I know you?”

“I’m Capitán Alameda. You don’t remember?”

“No, I—”

“It’s Caterina, isn’t it?”

“Yes — how do you know my name?”

“I was at the restaurant on Monday night. I was with you in the hospital.”

“Oh.”

He put a hand on Caterina’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Who was she?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“When was she found?”

“A couple of hours ago.” He guided her back and away from the covered body. “Come on. It’s not safe. I thought you were going over the border.”

“Soon. Tomorrow, I think.”

“You need to keep off the street until then. If they find out where you are — look, where are you staying?”

She paused.

“Don’t worry — I know the cook is looking after you. My colleague — Teniente Plato — he’s been speaking with him. I’ll take you back there. We can talk about what happened here in the car. I’ll answer all your questions.”

She paused.

“Caterina — I’m the captain of the police. Come on. You can trust me.”

She relented.

41

Felipe excused himself from the party. It would continue in the grounds of the mansion but, out of sight, the garages were busy with activity. He had called in his best men. His best sicarios. Their cars were parked in the wide bay before the triple garage and they were milling there, waiting for his instructions. Pablo had opened the arms cache and was in the process of distributing the heavy artillery. The way Felipe was thinking, if Adolfo wasn’t returned to him soon, he would have to do something to focus the attention of the authorities. Firing a few AR-15s in the marketplace, tossing in a few grenades, that ought to do the trick. They knew, but perhaps they needed to be reminded: there were some things that could not be allowed to stand.

An unmarked police car rolled up the slope that curved around the mansion and parked next to the garages. Two of the men broke away from the rest, their hands reaching for their pistols. Felipe watched as the door opened and a man he recognised stepped out.

The municipal cop. Capitán Alameda.

The two men recognised him, too, and stepped aside.

“El Patrón.”

“Not now, Capitán. I’m busy.”

“I know about Adolfo.”

“Then you’ll understand why this is not a good time.”

“No — I know who has him. And how you can get him back.”

Felipe turned to Pablo. “You go in five minutes,” he called.

“Yes, El Patrón.”

“Be quick, Alameda. And don’t waste my time.”

“The girl from the restaurant. The one you didn’t get. The Englishman is trying to keep her safe.”

“And?”

“I have her. There was a body in the park next to the stadium. She was there. Taking pictures.”

“Where is she?”

He nodded in the direction of his car. “In back.”

“Get her.”

Alameda went back to the car and brought the girl out. She was cuffed, her wrists fastened behind her back.

“Do you know who I am?” Felipe asked.

She spat at his feet.

“She’s feisty,” Alameda suggested. “Took a good swing at me before I got the bracelets on.”

“Where is the Englishman?”

“Come mierda y muerte.”

“If you help me get my son back I’ll let you go. You have my word.”

“Your word’s no good.”

Felipe shifted his weight. “Look around — you’re on your own. The Englishman can’t help you now. You don’t have any other choice.”

42

Beau pulled the Jeep into the motel parking lot. Milton opened the rear door, stepped outside and pulled Adolfo out with him. Beau followed close behind, the barrel of his pistol pushed tight into the small of the Mexican’s back. Milton unlocked the door and opened it.

The room was empty.

“Caterina?”

The bathroom door was open. Milton checked. It was empty, too.

“Where is she?” Beau said anxiously.

“I don’t know.”

Her laptop was on. Milton checked it: a police scanner application was open, the crackle of static interrupted by occasional comments from the dispatcher. A scrap of paper was on the desk next to the computer. A note had been written down.

“There’s been another murder. She’s gone to cover it.”

“We don’t wanna be hanging around, partner. The sooner we get them both over the border, the better.”

“Not without her.”

“I know, but we’re not on home turf here.”

“It’s not open to debate. You can go whenever you want, but he stays until I have her back.”

Milton’s phone started to ring.

He looked at the display: an unknown number.

“Hola.”

He didn’t recognise the voice. “I think you have the wrong number,” he replied in Spanish.

The caller spoke in accented English. “No, I have the right number.”

“Who is this?”

“I am Felipe.”

A pause.

“You know me now?”

“I’ve heard of you. Where’s the girl?”

“In a minute. I don’t know your name. What shall I call you?”

“John.”

“Hello, John. You are the Englishman from the restaurant?”

“That’s right.”

“You have caused me some — awkwardness.”

“I’m just getting started. Where’s the girl?”

“She’s here. Safe and sound. Where is my son?”

“With me.”

“He is —?”

“He’s fine.”

“We seem to be at an impasse.”

“Seems so. What do you want to do about that?”

Felipe paused. Milton knew he was trying to sweat him. Pointless. “I’m waiting,” he said. There was not even the faintest trace of emotion in his voice.

Felipe was brusque. “We each have something the other wants. I don’t know why you have involved yourself in my business, but I am going to propose a short truce. An exchange: the girl for my son.”

“Where?”

“There is a village south of Juárez. Samalayuca. Turn right off the 45 and drive into the desert. We can meet there. Tomorrow morning. Nine.”

“You wouldn’t be thinking about trying to ambush me, would you, Felipe?”

“A truce is a truce.”

“I know you don’t know who I am.”

“So why not tell me, John?”

“All you need to know is that you don’t want to know me. Don’t do anything stupid. You might think you’re a frightening man, and people around here would say that you are, but you don’t frighten me. There’s nothing here I haven’t seen before. If you try anything, if the girl is hurt — if anything happens at all that I don’t like — I give you my word that I will find you and I will kill you. Do you understand me?”

When he replied, the man’s voice was tight, with fury behind it. Milton knew why: he was not used to being threatened. “I believe I do,” he said. “Let’s make this exchange. After that — well then, John — after that, well, you know how this is going to turn out, don’t you?”

“No. Do you?”

“Yes, I do. And so do you.”

The line went dead.

“They have her?” Beau said.

Milton nodded.

“Ignorant dogs!” Adolfo gloated. “You—”

Milton did not even look at him; he just backhanded him with a sudden, brutal clip that snapped his head around and sent him toppling backwards onto the bed. When Adolfo sat back up his lip was dripping with blood.

Milton wiped the blood from his knuckles. “Put him in the bath. If he tries to come out, shoot him.”

Beau did as he was told. Milton took his phone and found the number he had been given at the police station three days earlier. He entered the number and pressed CALL.

It connected. “Plato.”

“It’s John Smith.”

“John — what can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to you. It’s the girl.”

“What about her?”

“She’s been taken.”

An audible sigh. “When?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

“You said you were going to the hotel.”

“I’m here now. I went out and she’s gone.

“You left her?”

“Temporarily. She left on her own.”

“You know that for sure?”

“She left a note.”

“How do you know she—”

“I just had a call from Adolfo’s father.”

“Cojer!” Plato cursed.

“I’m guessing he’s in charge around here?”

“Felipe González. El Patrón. He is La Frontera. What did he say?”

“I’d rather not talk on the phone. Can we meet?”

Milton heard the long sigh. “You better come over here. Do you have a pen and paper?”

“Yes.”

Milton took down the address that Plato dictated.

43

Jesus Plato slid underneath the hull of the boat, hooked the pot with his hand and dragged it toward him. He dipped his brush into the paint and started to apply it. He had been looking forward to this part of the project for weeks. There were few things that made an old boat look better than repainting it. The Emelia had a tatty, ancient gel coat finish and Plato was going to replace it with two new coats of urethane paint. The paint wasn’t cheap but he figured it’d be worth it for the difference it would make. It was calming work, too — meditative — and something where the gratification from the job would be quick.

A taxi turned into the road. He looked up as it slowed to a halt. Milton got out, paid the driver and walked up the driveway. Plato slid out from beneath the boat and then stood, pouring a handful of white spirit into his palms and wiping away the stained paint. “In here,” he said, leading the way through the open garage door. He hadn’t told Emelia that Milton would be coming over and he didn’t want her to worry.

The boat’s gas engine was in pieces on his work desk. He had a small beer fridge in the corner and he opened it, taking out a couple of cans.

“Thanks — but I don’t drink.”

“Suit yourself.” Plato put one back, tugged the ring pull on the other and drank off the first quarter. It was a hot day and he had been working hard; the beer tasted especially good. “You better tell me what’s happened.”

“I met a man at the hospital. He’s a bounty hunter. He’s here for Adolfo González.”

“Good luck with that.”

“He says he can help get the girl over the border and set up on the other side.”

“He’s doing that out of the goodness of his heart?”

“Of course not. I said I’d help him find González.”

Plato sighed.

“I was going to meet him to talk about it. A restaurant. González was there. We’ve got him.”

Plato watched him carefully over the rim of his can. “You’ve got him?”

“Baxter does. The bounty hunter.”

“Beau Baxter?”

“You know him?”

“I’ve heard of him. He used to work on the line before he got into what he does now. Border Patrol.”

“And?”

“Back then he was old school. A hard man. But I don’t know about now. You don’t normally get much integrity out of men in his line of business. You saying he’s got Adolfo now?”

Milton nodded.

“And you don’t think he’ll just up and leave? Get him over the border and get paid?”

His icy blue eyes burned with cold. “I saved his life. And he’s not that stupid.”

“Alright.”

Milton clenched and unclenched his fists. “When I got back to the hotel the girl was gone. It didn’t happen there. No sign of a struggle. Nothing disturbed. I looked through her stuff. She’d written this down.”

Milton handed him a piece of paper. Plato recognised the address. The note said that she had gone to investigate a murder.

“There was a body found here earlier,” Milton said. “Another of the dead girls.”

“That’s right. It was on the radio. She must have gone to cover it.”

“I’ll ask around. Maybe whoever was there might’ve seen her.”

“Thank you.”

“This phone call you had with Felipe — what did he say?”

“He’s knows we’ve got his son. He wants to exchange. Her for him.”

“You do know you can’t trust anything he says?”

“Of course. I’ve dealt with men like him before, Plato.”

“I doubt it,” he said, shaking his head. “Not like him. Where does he want to meet?”

“A village south of Juárez. Samalayuca.”

“I know it. It’s off the 45. Not a good place for you.”

“Why?”

“Open ground. No-one else around for miles. And he’ll know it well. I’ve been out there more than a few times over the years. One of their favourite places for dumping bodies.”

“That’s one of the reasons I’m here. I’m going to need some help.”

Plato shook his head.

“There’s me and Baxter but I don’t think that’s going to be enough.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I need someone who’s good with a rifle.”

“No, Smith, I’m sorry — I just can’t.”

“Don’t think about me, Lieutenant. Don’t think about Baxter. It’s the girl. You know if we don’t do something they’ll kill her.”

“I know that and it’s awful but she knew the risks and it doesn’t make any difference. I still can’t. Look — let me tell you a story. I’ve been dealing with the cartel about as long as they’ve been around, least in the form they’re in at the moment. Before El Patrón, there was another boss. They called him El Señor de Los Cielos. Lord of the Skies, on account of the jumbo jets they said he had, packed full of cocaine up from Colombia. He was Mr Juárez for years. And then La Frontera came over from Sinaloa, trying to muscle in on his turf. There was a war, a proper one, a shooting war.”

He took another long pull on his beer.

“Bad things happened. Over the years, I got to see some pretty awful shit. The line of work I think you’re in, I’m guessing you’ve seen those things, too. And I’ve met bad men. But recently, things have gotten worse. The men have gotten worse — younger, and the old rules don’t apply. The one I remember more than all the others, he was just a kid. Fourteen years old from out of the barrio. This kid had been given a gun and told to shoot two dealers for the Juárez cartel. They were trying to sell on a corner that La Frontera was claiming for itself. And he did it. Point blank, one shot each in the back of the head and then another while they were on the ground. We picked him up. He didn’t try to run. I interviewed him. Looked like he wanted to talk about it. Like he was proud. He told me that he’d been wanting to kill someone since he was a little boy. Said that if he got out, he’d do it again, and I believed him. There are others like him. Dozens of them. What does that say for the future, John? What chance have we got?”

Milton looked at him. Had his face softened a little?

“Look around, man — I’ve got a family. Wife and kids. And look at me. I’m fifty-five years old. I retire on Friday. I’m going fix up this boat, drink beer and go fishing. There’s no place for a man like me in a world like that. You always had to go to work knowing that there’s a good chance you might get shot today. I could live with that. But now it’s worse — now, they’ll go after your family, too, and I won’t do that. I’ve done my time. I’m out. You understand?”

Milton did not answer.

There was no disapproval, just a quick recalibration of circumstances.

“I understand. This place — Samalayuca. Can you give me directions?”