‘Do you require anything more?’
‘Si … agua mineral, por favor.’
The waiter nodded and trundled back to the bar.
What the hell am I doing here? Donaldson demanded of himself.
He had jumped on a plane to Alicante on a whim. No particular plan in mind, more just a determination to get to grips with the informant, wring the guy’s neck and say, ‘What the fuck is going on? Why give me false information about the truck full of immigrants? How did someone else come to stop the truck and get away with the drugs? That cannot have been an accident.’ The questions tumbled through his mind.
In fact he had a million questions to ask, but wasn’t really sure whether turning up out of the blue on the guy’s doorstep would lead to any direct answers. All previous meetings had been in neutral territory — Holland, France — never in Spain itself and certainly never near Mendoza.
But desperation makes a man do foolish things.
The water came. It tasted good.
It was time to contact Mr Lopez.
Even before he knocked he could tell there was no one in. The flat was in darkness — only to be expected at this time of day — but there was something about the place which said to Lynch, Empty.
He put his shoulder to the front door, eased a bit of weight into it. It did not move. Standing back, he raised his foot and slammed it just under the Yale lock. The door moved. Twice more he flat-footed it and on the second blow the flimsy door broke and clattered open.
Lynch stepped into the darkened hallway, standing there, listening to the quiet.
Experience told him the place was devoid of life. His senses were not picking up the vibes emitted by human presence.
He went into the living room and switched on the light. He did not do this cautiously because he had nothing to fear.
The room was empty. As he looked round it, his mouth evolved into a sneer underneath his nose. Tatty second-hand furniture, a portable TV, fast-food wrappers tossed around, the stale reek of beer, cigarettes and chips. The room of a financially stretched middle-aged man who had made too many wrong decisions in life. Wrong wife. Wrong mortgage. Wrong everything. . but a man ripe for the picking. A desperate man who needed money, whatever the source.
It looked as though he had not been back from the hospital.
So, a man on the run, maybe. A man who had made another bad decision. A man deep in trouble.
A man who would definitely die.
‘This is dangerous. This is not how we make contact. This is out of order.’ Lopez hissed the words down the phone into Donaldson’s ear. ‘I cannot speak.’
‘I need to see you,’ the American insisted.
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘I cannot.’
‘Yes you can,’ Donaldson said. ‘You wouldn’t want Senor Mendoza to find out about our little relationship, would you?’
Heavy silence.
‘This is outrageous,’ Lopez said angrily.
‘You bet your ass,’ growled Donaldson.
‘Where are you?’
Donaldson told him.
‘Here? In Spain? You fool. Have you lost your head?’
‘Meet me in an hour,’ Donaldson said.
Lopez apologized profusely as he returned to the interior of the restaurant in Torrevieja. The business had closed for custom that night and now three people sat at a table in the centre of the room, picking at a range of tapas.
Mendoza was one of the three. He scowled at Lopez. ‘Who the hell was that?’
‘No one, no one,’ Lopez said, trying to display an air of nonchalance. He took the spare seat at the table, unable to maintain eye contact with Mendoza. His boss sniffed, annoyed, and turned his attention to the other two men seated with him.
One was an old Italian, white-haired, deeply lined face, his rugged, weather-beaten skin burned almost black by the Sicilian sunshine. He had hard, grit-grey eyes and a jaw set firm. He was not a big man, but his presence could be felt at all times. He exuded power and danger.
The other was a much younger man, his grandson. Maybe twenty-two years old, fresh-faced, but had obviously inherited the tough eyes of his older blood relative and just a little bit of his aura. That was something he would grow into, rather like an outsized sweater that would one day fit him perfectly.
The older man sat back and sipped the red wine, his face screwing up at the harsh taste. ‘How long have we been working together?’ he asked Mendoza.
‘A long time.’
‘We have done good business over the years.’
Mendoza nodded. ‘Very good.’ Lopez watched him closely, saw he was very nervous, as he should be. A visit from these men was a rare occurrence.
‘But lately things have not been good for you.’
Mendoza shrugged. ‘Nature of the business.’
The old man shook his head. ‘No, no, no. There is no such thing as the nature of the business, my friend, it is the nature of the man.’
Mendoza’s eyes hooded over defensively.
‘First there was the issue of the money owed to you by the man in England. He failed to pay his debt and because of that, you failed to pay your debt to us.’
‘But I dealt with him,’ Mendoza blurted. ‘And the debt has been transferred to his brother.’
The old man shook his head again. ‘A debt which now rests with a man who is in prison awaiting trial for murder. What are the chances of recovery?’ he asked cynically.
Mendoza reddened, squirmed on his seat, said nothing.
‘And then the issue of our operative, Mr Verner. . a man who was rather good at killing. He was on loan to you and he, too, is now dead.’
Mendoza started to say something. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly. His eyes looked as though he was being hunted.
‘Someone, somewhere, knew he was about to deal with an issue for us and, as I understand it, they were lying in wait for his appearance and they killed him.’
‘But not before he had carried out his task,’ Mendoza argued weakly.
The old man held out his hands, palms forward, a calming gesture. ‘The issue is, Carlos, that he was ambushed. That someone knew where he would be at a certain time and place. He was not killed by accident or coincidence. . do you see what I’m getting at? Do you visualize the picture I am attempting to paint?’
Suddenly Mendoza’s mouth dried up as a fear crept up on him, the like of which he had never experienced in his whole existence. Not even looking down the barrel of a gun in a back street in Madrid had invoked such terror. Not even being kidnapped and tortured by a rival gang. But looking and listening to this old man and his grandson was churning his insides, shredding his guts.
‘And now, somehow, you lose what, four million pounds worth of goods and twenty illegal immigrants. Fortunately those people paid up front,’ the old man said with a dismissive wave, ‘but we have financed the drugs and now — poof!’ His hands made an exploding gesture. ‘Someone has relieved you of them.’ He stopped speaking abruptly. His face became expressionless, but his eyes, which bored into Mendoza’s, were like tungsten. ‘We had faith in you, but something has gone seriously wrong. Maybe you’re too enmeshed in it to see what is happening? I don’t know, but your organization is, as I imagine your bowels are at this moment, loose.’
‘I already know that and I have taken action to plug the holes,’ he said, not realizing that his choice of words would have been comical in other circumstances.
‘Good.’ The old man’s eyes moved slowly to Lopez, who felt a shiver of apprehension slide down his spine. Then his attention returned to Mendoza. ‘Good, because we are losing faith with you and there will be no more business, no more loans, no more support, unless you make amends very quickly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Pay back your debt in full, otherwise this business relationship is terminated.’
‘You can’t do that!’ The palms of Mendoza’s hands slammed down on the table, the action jerking a reaction in the old man’s grandson. Throughout the conversation he had remained silent, did not appear to be taking much heed, but always there was a brooding, sunken-eyed presence. His face rose and his eyes locked into Mendoza’s, who saw the look and slowly withdrew his hands from the table. Chastened without a word being said, such was the young man’s power. ‘You know I cannot pay the whole debt.’