Fitzgerald ran up the hotel steps, past the liveried doorman and through the revolving doors. In the foyer, he headed straight for the bank of elevators opposite the check-in desk. He had to wait only a few moments before one of the four lifts returned to the ground floor. When the doors slid open he stepped inside and pressed the button marked ‘8’, and the ‘Close’ button immediately afterwards, giving no one a chance to join him. When the doors opened on the eighth floor, Fitzgerald walked down the thinly carpeted corridor to room 807. He pushed a plastic card into the slot and waited for the green light to glow before he turned the handle. As soon as the door opened, he placed the ‘Favor de no Molestar’ sign on the outside knob, closed the door and bolted it.
He checked his watch yet again: twenty-four minutes to two. By now he calculated that the police would have left the pawn shop, having concluded that it was a false alarm. They would phone Mr Escobar at his home in the country to inform him that everything appeared to be in order, and would suggest that when he returned to the city on Monday, he should let them know if anything was missing. But long before then, Fitzgerald would have replaced the battered leather case in the window. On Monday morning the only items that Escobar would report stolen would be the several small packets of uncut emeralds that had been removed by the policia on their way out. How long would it be before he discovered the only other thing that was missing? A day? A week? A month? Fitzgerald had already decided he would have to leave the odd clue to help speed up the process.
Fitzgerald took off his jacket, hung it over the nearest chair and picked up the remote control from a table by the side of the bed. He pressed the ‘On’ button and sat down on the sofa in front of the television. The face of Ricardo Guzman filled the screen.
Fitzgerald knew that Guzman would be fifty next April, but at six foot one, with a full head of black hair and no weight problem, he could have told the adoring crowd that he had not yet turned forty, and they would have believed him. After all, few Colombians expected their politicians to tell the truth about anything, especially their age.
Ricardo Guzman, the favourite in the upcoming presidential election, was the boss of the Cali cartel, which controlled 80 per cent of the New York cocaine trade, and made over a billion dollars a year. Fitzgerald had not come across this information in any of Colombia’s three national newspapers, perhaps because the supply of most of the country’s newsprint was controlled by Guzman.
‘The first action I shall take as your President will be to nationalise any company in which Americans are the majority shareholders.’
The small crowd that surrounded the steps of the Congress building on the Plaza de Bolivar screamed their approval. Ricardo Guzman’s advisors had told him again and again that it would be a waste of time making a speech on the day of the match, but he had ignored them, calculating that millions of television viewers would be flicking through the channels in search of the soccer, and would come across him on their screens, if only for a moment. The same people would then be surprised, only an hour later, to see him striding into the packed stadium. Football bored Guzman, but he knew that his entrance moments before the home team were due to take the field would divert the crowd’s attention away from Antonio Herrera, the Colombian Vice-President and his main rival in the election. Herrera would be seated in the VIP box, but Guzman would be in the midst of the crowd behind one of the goals. The image he wished to portray was of a man of the people.
Fitzgerald estimated that there was about six minutes of the speech left. He had already heard Guzman’s words at least a dozen times: in crowded halls, in half-empty bars, on street corners, even in a coach station while the candidate had addressed the local citizens from the back of a bus. He pulled the leather case off the bed and onto his lap.
‘...Antonio Herrera is not the Liberal candidate,’ hissed Guzman, ‘but the American candidate. He is nothing more than a ventriloquist’s dummy, whose every word is chosen for him by the man who sits in the Oval Office.’ The crowd cheered again.
Five minutes, Fitzgerald calculated. He opened the case and stared down at the Remington 700 that had been out of his sight for only a few hours.
‘How dare the Americans assume that we will always fall in line with whatever is convenient for them?’ Guzman barked. ‘And simply because of the power of the God-almighty dollar. To hell with the God-almighty dollar!’ The crowd cheered even more loudly as the candidate took a dollar bill from his wallet and tore George Washington into shreds.
‘I can assure you of one thing,’ continued Guzman, scattering the tiny pieces of green paper over the crowd like confetti.
‘God isn’t an American...’ mouthed Fitzgerald.
‘God isn’t an American!’ shouted Guzman.
Fitzgerald gently removed the McMillan fibreglass stock from the leather case.
‘In two weeks’ time, the citizens of Colombia will be given the opportunity to let their views be heard right across the world,’ Guzman shouted.
‘Four minutes,’ murmured Fitzgerald, as he glanced up at the screen and mimicked the smile of the candidate. He took the Hart stainless steel barrel from its resting place and screwed it firmly into the stock. It fitted like a glove.
‘Whenever summits are held around the world, Colombia will once again be sitting at the conference table, not reading about it in the press the following day. Within a year I will have the Americans treating us not as a Third World country, but as their equals.’
The crowd roared as Fitzgerald lifted the Leupold 10 Power sniper scope from its place and slid it into the two little grooves on the top of the barrel.
‘Within a hundred days you will see changes in our country that Herrera wouldn’t have believed possible in a hundred years. Because when I am your President...’
Fitzgerald slowly nestled the stock of the Remington 700 into his shoulder. It felt like an old friend. But then, it should have done: every part had been hand-crafted to his exact specifications.
He raised the telescopic sight to the image on the television screen, and lined up the little row of mil dots until they were centred an inch above the heart of the candidate.
‘...conquer inflation...’
Three minutes.
‘...conquer unemployment...’
Fitzgerald breathed out.
‘...and thereby conquer poverty.’
Fitzgerald counted three... two... one, then gently squeezed the trigger. He could barely hear the click above the noise of the crowd.
Fitzgerald lowered the rifle, rose from the sofa and put the empty leather case down. It would be another ninety seconds before Guzman reached his ritual condemnation of President Lawrence.
He removed one of the hollow-point bullets from its little leather slot inside the lid of the case. He broke the stock and slipped the bullet into its chamber, then snapped the barrel shut with a firm upward movement.
‘This will be a last chance for the citizens of Colombia to reverse the disastrous failures of the past,’ cried Guzman, his voice rising with every word. ‘So we must be sure of one thing...’
‘One minute,’ murmured Fitzgerald. He could repeat word for word the final sixty seconds of a Guzman speech. He turned his attention from the television and walked slowly across the room towards the french windows.
‘...that we do not waste this golden opportunity...’
Fitzgerald pulled back the lace curtain that obscured the view of the outside world, and stared across the Plaza de Bolivar to the north side of the square, where the presidential candidate was standing on the top step of the Congress building, looking down on the crowd. He was about to deliver his coup de grace.