‘I will not forget this, Chris,’ he said quietly.
‘Nor will I. I look after my people.’
The glasses chimed in the room. The liquor burned down. Outside the windows, something happened to the light as afternoon shifted smoothly towards evening.
CHAPTER THIRTY
‘I still don’t see why you want me there.’ Carla checked her make-up again in the drop-down roof mirror as Chris rolled the Saab down into the Hilton’s parking deck. ‘It’s not like I know anything about the NAME.’
‘That’s exactly the point.’ Chris scanned the crowded deck, found nothing to his liking and steered down the ramp to the next level. ‘You can get him to tell you about it. I don’t want this guy to feel he’s surrounded by suited experts. I want him to relax. To feel in control for a while. It’s textbook client handling.’
He felt her eyes on him.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
The lower level was all but empty. Chris parked a good half dozen spaces away from the nearest vehicle. Since the proximity alarm had failed on him, he’d taken to parking out in the open where the security cameras could see him. It was irrational, he knew – no one short of a full covert ops squad was going to breach the perimeter defences of the Hilton or the Shorn block in the first place, let alone have the time and skill to get through the Saab’s security locks before they were noticed. But the proximity alarm had failed. How exactly was still up for grabs, but in the meantime he didn’t intend it to happen again.
‘I’ll go up and get him,’ he said, killing the engine. ‘The restaurant’s on the mezzanine level. El Meson Andino. Mike said he’d meet us there.’
‘You don’t want me to come up with you?’
‘There’s really no need.’
He didn’t tell her that he wanted to check in on the security squad on the way, and that in some undefined way he felt ashamed of the two blunt middle-aged men and their assemblage of little screens and mikes.
‘Suit yourself.’ She dug out a cigarette and put it to her lips. She seemed to draw into herself as she lit it.
‘I’ll see you there, then.’
‘Yes.’
The security men had nothing to report. On the screen, Barranco prowled back and forth like a prisoner in a cell. He had dressed in a black dinner suit a decade out of fashion. Chris went up to collect him.
‘I don’t know much about Peruvian food,’ he said as they rode down in the lift together.
‘Nor do I,’ said Barranco shortly. ‘I’m from Colombia.’
The food turned out to be excellent, though how Peruvian it was became a matter for dispute a few glasses of wine into the meal. It broke the ice with a resounding crack. Barranco argued that a couple of dishes were pure Colombian, and Chris, casting his mind back to his time in the NAME, had to agree with him. Mike, on good social form, reasoned with great persuasiveness and almost no evidence, that the cuisine of the different regions must have inter-penetrated over time. Carla suggested rather acidly that this probably had more to do with marketing than regional mobility. Peruvian was a consumer label here, not a national identity. Barranco nodded sober approval. He was obviously quite taken with Carla, whether because of her blonde good looks or her unorthodox political attitudes, Chris didn’t know or much care. He stowed an unexpected twist of jealousy and resisted the temptation to shift his chair closer to his wife’s. Relief at the way the evening was going closed it out.
Business leaked into the conversation in low-intensity bursts, mostly from Barranco’s side and nurtured by the warmth of Carla’s genuine interest. Chris and Mike let it run, sonar-tuned for the dangers of political reefs and set to steer rapidly away where necessary.
‘Of course, solar farms are a beautiful idea, but it is the old instability argument. The infrastructure is too costly and too easy to sabotage.’
‘Doesn’t that go for nuclear power too? I thought the regime was going to build two of those new Pollok reactors.’
‘Yes.’ Barranco smiled grimly. ‘Francisco Echevarria is a close personal friend of Donald Cordell, who is CEO of the Horton Power Group. And the stations will be built a long way from Bogotá.’
Carla flushed. ‘That’s disgusting.’
‘Yes.’
Mike shot Chris a warning glance and picked up the bottle.
‘Señor Barranco. More wine?’
‘I had a question about Bogotá,’ said Chris, feigning memory failure. ‘Oh, yeah. Last time I was there, I saw this really beautiful church in the centre of town. I was wondering…’
And so on. If Barranco resented the steerage, it didn’t show. He let the tides of the conversation carry him, and stayed polite throughout. Chris knew from the look on Carla’s face that she saw what was going on, but she said nothing.
Only once, when Mike Bryant retired to the toilets for the second time, did the veneer crack. Barranco nodded after him.
‘That kind of thing’s not a problem where you work?’
‘What kind of thing?’
Carla sniffed delicately. Chris looked in the direction of the toilets. He’d honestly not thought anything of it.
‘Well,’ said Barranco. ‘I wouldn’t say your colleague has a problem. But nor is he particularly subtle about it. In the Bogotá Hilton, in a restaurant full of people, things would be a little different. Even our ruling families have to watch their drug stance in public these days.’
‘Must be why Francisco Echevarria spends so much time in Miami.’ It hit Chris, just too late, that he’d drunk a little too much.
Barranco’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes, I imagine it is. Meanwhile, his father uses the helicopter gunships you buy him to firebomb coca farmers into oblivion. Ironic, isn’t it.’
The silence opened up. Carla made a small noise into it, a mixture of amusement and disgust that told Chris he’d get no help from that quarter.
‘I, uh, that isn’t,’ he stumbled. ‘Shorn policy as such doesn’t outlaw coca production. In fact, we’ve done feasibility studies on bringing the crop into the legitimate commodities market. Shorn’s Financial Instruments division actually commissioned work along that line.’
Barranco shrugged. ‘You expect me to be impressed? Legitimisation will only send coca the way of coffee. Rich men in New York and London will grow richer, and the farmers will starve. Is that part of the package you plan to sell me here, Chris Faulkner?’
That stung. More so, with the fierce satisfaction he saw rising on Carla’s face. Mike had not reappeared. Feeling suddenly very alone, he scrambled to salvage the evaporating good humour around the table.
‘You do me an injustice, Señor Barranco. I merely mention the study to demonstrate that at Shorn we are not blinded by moralistic prejudice.’
‘Yes. I find that easy to believe.’
A small, colourless smile from Carla. Chris plunged on doggedly. ‘In fact, I was going to say, the study found legitimisation on the commodities market would be too problematic to consider seriously. For one thing, there’s a very real fear that it would drain immediate finance out of practically every other investment sector. And clearly we can’t have that.’
It was meant to be funny, but no one laughed. Barranco leaned across the table towards him. His blue eyes were bright and marbled wet with anger.
‘I give you fair warning, Chris Faulkner. I have little compassion to spare for the spoilt stupid children of the western world and their expensive drug problems. I look through the lens that your free marketeers have sold us, and I see a profitable trade. So.’ A short, hard gesture, one upward-jutting calloused palm, halfway between a karate blow and an offer to shake hands. ‘Sell us your weapons, and we will sell you our cocaine. This will not change when the Popular Revolutionary Brigade takes power in Colombia, because I will not sacrifice the wealth it can bring my people. If your governments are so concerned about the flow of product, let them buy up the supply on the open market like anybody else. Then they can burn it or put it up their noses as they see fit.’