He’d looked, of course, he’d looked everywhere, and just now all he could feel was a cold sweat breaking out at the mere thought that he’d be discovered at any moment. He had to get back home and make sure that the thing wasn’t just lying there.
God, but any moment he could be called to be asked what the fuck his gun was doing in the hands of some drugged up shite who’d been holding a hostage or…
“Andy? Stop that. We’ve got a shout on. Some wanker with bombs or something. Get tooled up again.”
He had to stop thinking of his real name. Now he was Ramón, not Jean-Jacques. Ramón Escobar. The lightness in his belly was unbearable as he peered down through the window at Britain.
It was surprisingly green. He wasn’t used to that. In Bogotà the city lay almost dead on the equator, although at that height it was hard to believe sometimes. The weather was not too hot. Not like Africa. The temperature in Colombia remained constant, and there was little in the way of seasonal variation. No summer and winter, just a slight change, a little cooler or a little warmer.
Like this, it was very green. You took off from Bogotà airport, and all you could see for miles around was greenhouses. The hothouses spread all over the plain, and even when the plane lifted and the ground fell away from that high plateau up in the mountains, the glass reflected the light all about the area. They said that Colombia’s biggest legal export was cut flowers to America, and… Ramón could believe it. Easily.
Here, though, the plane was slowly descending through wisps of pale cloud, and beneath the greenness was… darker. Not so rich and blooming as the plant life of Bogotà. It looked harsher, as though the trees and shrubs were struggling more to survive, and it was easy to see why as the aircraft drew nearer to the ground. Here the greyness of concrete and tarmac was all about, but without the bright colours of jacaranda and bougainvillea to ease the sight. No, here, all was unrelenting, grey, miserable, and he felt the tears welling again to think that this place was his refuge.
His sanctuary in his exile. His new motherland.
The system was well worked out, and they swung into action as soon as the papers had been digested.
Paul walked casually away from the main hall as soon as he had checked the details in the print out and glanced up at the arrivals display. The plane was close, but not here yet. He had time.
Jeannie had seen the discussion, and now was play-acting as only she could. She looked up at the boards, and frowned at her watch, looking about her with a discontented expression, before wandering off in the direction of the women’s toilets. Paul made his own way through a security barrier with a palmed card shown discreetly to the man at the gate, and into the Special Branch section. She was waiting for him.
“What’s going on?”
He passed her the papers. “Terrorist, they reckon. Bloke from Colombia. He’s used this ID before – it was noted when the IRA three were over there. It’s fake. Why the hell he didn’t get something new before taking off…”
“Perhaps no time?” She frowned as she absorbed the description of the man.
“He was with FARC, the terrorists who control the country out towards Venezuela,” Paul said. He shivered. This was the kind of incident he had feared. “They were trained by the IRA in new bombs and mortars. This Escobar was a cousin of one of the cartel leaders from Medellìn, and he escaped the crack down when his cousin was killed. He made it to Panama originally, then turned up back in Colombia with FARC. Now he’s coming here.”
“Why?”
“Jesus! I don’t know, all right?” he snapped. “All we have to do is find him and watch, just like we always do. And when we see him, we go live on radio in case we have to call in the shooters.”
Jeannie nodded, and he saw a small smile of satisfaction on her face – she liked to needle him. There was a reasonably fresh brew of coffee in the jug. She poured, added a good slug of milk, and sipped it easily, walking from the room out to the main hall again, leaving him alone with his fears.
He should have been honest about his education, but when he was interviewed, he assumed that they’d never want him for active duties. He’d said he was good with languages, because that was what his mate said they wanted, but it never occurred to him that he’d be needed. God – the nearest he’d got to languages was a smattering of Bantu and Ndebelele when he took a gap year to study anthropology in Botswana.
Anyway, when he wrote out his CV, no one had seemed remotely interested. There’d been no time for checks. Perhaps someone would spot his lying later, when they went back through the CVs they’d collected in the last years since 9/11. Probably not, though. Human Resources had been reduced as they increased the Watchers – if you spend in one area you have to cut a budget elsewhere – and now there weren’t the HR people to check all the new staff, let alone trawl through existing ones.
At his interview they were more keen on his post as a prefect at school. Responsible character, they’d said. No one had guessed he’d lied about that as well.
His eyes were drawn back to the sheet of paper, to the words that were highlighted: Paul Jeffries to keep close. Spanish essential.
Shit!
The H &K was soon made ready again. The mag slammed into the gun and smacked with the palm of his hand to seat it. He pulled the cocking lever back and let it drive forward, stripping the first round from the magazine and leaving the gun cocked and ready. He switched on the safety, keeping his finger well away from the trigger. In the last few years more police officers had been wounded because of negligent discharges than by criminals. He had enough on his plate without that, sod it.
Jack was waiting at the door. “Shit of a day to leave the Glock behind, eh?”
“Fuck it!” Andy hissed. They both walked out together, their guns across their chests, fingers clear, and they turned their radios on as they entered the thronging main hall.
The man who called himself Ramón knew a fair amount about Bogotà, but only from reading. Not many people went to the city unless they had to. The bombs, the bullets, the murdering, the kidnapping and ransoming all dissuaded tourists, not only foreign ones. Locals were as unlikely to travel there. Anyone could be stopped and kidnapped, and a man like him, with a price on his head, would be best served keeping off the roads. Travel was very dangerous. Just like home. Except here the terrorists and guerillas were better armed than the police, whereas back home only the police and army had guns. And the President’s friends.
Bogotà was beautiful. Ringed by the high, dark peaks, the place had an atmosphere all of its own. He had thought that, sitting in the Parc de Periodistas, waiting for the man to arrive with the new passport. There was a smell of thick smog in the air, and he could see the coal smoke rising from several chimneys in the tower blocks nearby. A sulphurous odour that caught in his throat, and yet the buildings were typical Spanish colonial in so many areas of the city, especially the older parts where the emeralds were sold for so little. Spanish, American, there were so many influences. It was a lovely country.
His contact was a scrawny man, with a sallow, pock-marked complexion and a thatch of filthy brown hair. He spoke English only haltingly, and that suited Ramón. Neither wanted to know much about the other, and Ramón had been assured he was safe. He’d paid well for the advice.