‘You should have stuck a knife in his back there and then.’
‘We would have been lynched.’
‘What in hell’s he doing here?’
‘He’s got to be trying to set up some big drugs deal. Or buying weapons. Or both. Both probably.’
‘You don’t think it’s something to do with the fact that our guys are out here?’
‘Can’t be. There’s no way he could know about us.’
‘Well, what do we do?’
‘Black said he’d come round here to make a plan.’
Black never came. Tony and I had arrived back in the hotel at 9.30, and by ten I was getting worried — the embassy was only five minutes’ drive away. By 10.30 I knew something had gone seriously wrong.
The hotel had no phones in the bedrooms; the only thing to do was to call from the one in the foyer. Luckily, by then, there was nobody about.
I put 100 pesos in the slot and dialled. Again there was a long wait, and at last a Spanish voice. I handed the receiver to Tony. He listened, then said, ‘Momento,’ and put his hand over the mouthpiece.
‘They all went down to the restaurant.’
‘Who?’
‘The DA, Black and the woman.’
‘All together?’
‘Apparently.’
‘What time?’
‘Immediately after you’d called.’
‘Jesus! What the hell were they doing?’
Tony shook his head. ‘Maybe they wanted to check Farrell out.’
‘They must have been crazy. You know what? I believe they’ve been lifted.’
Tony took his hand off the phone and said, ‘Momento, por favor.’
‘We need to call Hereford,’ I said. ‘Immediately. We can’t do it from here. We need the secure comms in the embassy. Ask if we can go in and use them.’
Tony began to parley, but the guy on the other end — the night caretaker — said he couldn’t admit us without permission from the duty officer. Eventually, after a lot of haggling, Tony got the name of the second secretary, and his home number.
I took back the receiver and dialled again. By then it was after eleven. Probably the guy had gone to bed. But no — the call was answered immediately.
‘Egerton,’ said a crisp, youngish voice.
I apologized for disturbing him, then launched into an explanation, keeping everything as short as possible. Instead of asking stupid questions or prevaricating, he said, ‘I’ll meet you in the foyer of the embassy tower in ten minutes.’
‘Thank God,’ I said to Tony. ‘Somebody’s on the ball.’
Egerton. The name seemed vaguely familiar. I’d heard it before, but for the moment I couldn’t place it.
Again I didn’t fancy walking. I felt as if the black spirit of Ulster had followed me five thousand miles across the ocean and now infested the streets of the Colombian capital. So I got the night porter to call up a taxi, and asked Tony to stay where he was, in case the missing party turned up after all.
‘Sure,’ he agreed. ‘But know what? First I’ll take a cab back to the restaurant, just to make sure they didn’t go in and have a meal.’
‘If Farrell’s still there, he’ll see you.’
‘I’ll pretend I lost something, OK? I lost a book. My guide book to Bogotá. May be I left it there?’
‘Take it easy, then, and call me at the embassy.’
Bill Egerton was tall, thin, bespectacled, and in his early thirties, a scholarly-looking fellow with a long, pale indoor face, but wonderfully quick to grasp the point.
‘Yes,’ he agreed immediately. ‘You’d better call Hereford. England’s five hours ahead of us, so it’s 4.15 a.m. over there. Is that all right?’
‘It’ll have to be.’
I was carrying the camp emergency number in my wallet, and I knew the orderly officer would be on duty in the guardroom. The call had hardly gone through before it was answered. Reception was perfect, and by a stroke of luck I recognized the voice.
‘Chalky? It’s Geordie Sharp.’
‘Fucking hell! I wasn’t expecting you just now.’
‘Well, listen. We’re in the shit. Who’s the duty officer?’
‘It’s Bob Keeling.’
‘OK. I need to speak to him.’
‘Now? It’s half past four in the morning.’
‘I know. This is urgent.’
‘OK. I’ll wake him up.’
I waited a minute. In the pause I saw the guardroom, with all the lists pinned on the notice board and the bunches of keys on their hooks. Then, close at hand, I heard another phone ring. Egerton picked it up, said a few words and put it down. ‘Your American colleague’s checked the restaurant. They aren’t there. The other party’s gone as well.’
‘Thanks.’
The secure circuit came alive again.
‘Yes?’ Bob Keeling sounded sleepy and slow.
‘Geordie Sharp in Bogotá. There’s been a lift. Two British diplomats and our own Rupert, Peter Black.’
‘Say that again.’
I repeated it.
‘Christ!’ exclaimed Keeling, coming fully alert. ‘When did this happen?’
‘About half an hour ago.’
‘I’ll get the ops officer in right away.’
‘Fine. You’ve got my number.’
‘He’ll call you back.’
I rang off and saw Egerton staring at me. ‘Were you at the party?’ I asked.
‘Yes — but because I was on duty, I was only drinking orange juice.’
‘I don’t want to be offensive, but the DA sounded pissed.’
Egerton twitched. ‘Yes. He overdoes it a bit.’
I sat thinking for a minute. Then I said, ‘If this is drug-related, what will they do with them?’
‘If they were only narcos, they’d demand a ransom. That happens all the time. But if the IRA’s involved — I don’t know. I’ve no experience of that organization.’
‘Where are they likely to take them?’
‘Out of town somewhere. Probably into the jungle.’
‘How do we track them down, then?’
‘Ah!’ Egerton gave a very slight smile. ‘Our sources of information are quite good. Unofficially, we’re in touch with people known as sapos.’
‘Toads,’ I said.
‘You’ve heard of them. For quite a small consideration from the slush fund — say 25,000 pesos — they produce very useful intelligence.’ Then he added, ‘Of course, it’s nothing to what can be got from high-tech equipment.’
‘Such as?’
‘You know how they found the laboratories at Tranquilandia?’
He saw that I wasn’t with him, and explained: ‘The biggest cocaine factory there’s ever been. It had a dozen laboratories turning out over three tons of the stuff every month. The narcos practically built a town there for their workers — houses, roads, a landing strip, everything, in the middle of the jungle. That was back a bit, in the eighties, when the Medellin cartel was at its height.
‘The United States Drug Enforcement Agency found the place by putting tracking devices into a couple of drums of ether, which is one of the agents used in the manufacture of cocaine. Satellites tracked the drums right down into the Amazon basin.’
‘You know a lot about this.’
‘Well, I got interested.’
‘Is it true that DAS really run the country?’
‘You could say that. They’re extremely powerful. Most people live in fear of them.’
‘And you have contact with them?’
‘Very much so. The Commander-in-Chief’s a personal friend. Why?’
‘I was thinking we may need their help.’
‘You could get help from the DEA, I’m sure. They’ve got people here all the time. Also there’s the Colombian Police’s own anti-narcotics unit.’