Crisis (Luke Carlton 1) (7 page)

They landed with a screech of wet tyres, taxiing past pools of water that had collected on the runway. It had just gone 0400, Luke noted, probably still another hour till sunrise, but he could imagine the low clouds clinging to the hillsides and the pink-walled tenement blocks crawling up the slopes, like an advancing army. When the aircraft door swung open he took a deep breath of the cool Andean air. It was the smell of his childhood. Just for a second he felt a pang of homesickness, a longing for the life he had known as a boy, in those impossibly distant years before his parents had been lost in that car crash.

‘Señor Carlton?’ They were almost inside the terminal when an officer in military uniform stepped into their path, a photo of Luke in one hand, a walkie-talkie in the other. He wore a khaki bush hat folded up on one side, like an Aussie soldier from the First World War. A shoulder flash on his uniform said ‘DIRAN’, the
acronym for the Dirección de Antinarcóticos, the police counter-narcotics division. ‘I am Lieutenant Lopez from the DIRAN. You are welcome in Colombia. Please,’ he gestured down the corridor, ‘this way.’

‘Well, that’s a bit of all right!’ exclaimed Friend, as the officer escorted them through the diplomatic channel, to some resentful stares from other passengers. Phone calls had been made, even as they were winging their way westwards through the night. Despite the fiasco of the undeclared MI6 operation that had ended with Benton’s murder, Colombia had graciously offered to give Luke and the lawyer every possible assistance. Luke searched his memory but couldn’t remember travelling before with someone who had so many pieces of hand luggage: Friend looked as if he had just emerged from the January sales. Yet Luke felt strangely protective towards him and now he relieved him of some of his load. He liked to travel light and had no bags to collect but Friend, unsurprisingly, had checked in a large suitcase, so now they stood, bleary-eyed, at the carousel as it coughed into life. As he waited, trying not to show his impatience, Luke discreetly observed the other passengers and the local Colombian airport staff. Was anyone showing an interest in them? No.

‘Luke! Luke Carlton? Is that you?’

Oh, Christ, this was all he needed.

‘It
is
you! Oh, my God, I don’t believe it. It’s Steve! Stevie Monk! Bella, I was at uni with this guy. He was in my politics class.’

Luke cursed himself for not seeing the pair earlier and taking evasive action. Steve Monk was a total arse. He had come up to Luke at the Freshers’ Fair in their first week at Edinburgh and said, ‘Hey, guess what? I’m already dating someone here and she’s the runner-up to Miss England. Beat that!’ Luke, nearly a head and shoulders taller, had looked down at him, said, ‘Good for you,’ and walked on. They had never been friends.

Now Luke forced a smile and reluctantly held out his hand. Monk approached, grinning from ear to ear, a Union Jack T-shirt beneath his fleece. His companion, Bella, was in a pair of
uncomfortably tight white jeans above purple-and-mauve striped socks.

‘They are with you?’ asked the Colombian police officer, looking questioningly from Luke to the backpackers.

‘No!’ replied Luke, a little too emphatically. ‘Absolutely not.’ But in the instant that his head was turned towards the policeman Monk had whipped out his phone and snapped a photo. ‘Cheers! One for the album when we get back. We’re taking a sabbatical,’ he gushed. ‘Bella’s resigned from her job in PR and I’m taking a year out from accountancy. We’re going zip-wiring near Cali! But, hey, what about you? Didn’t you join the SAS or something? And what brings you to Colombia?’ The pair looked expectantly from Luke to the policeman, standing silently in his jungle-green uniform. ‘You’re not under arrest already, are you? Been indulging in a bit of the old Bolivian marching powder already, have we?’ Monk laughed at his own crass joke.

Luke sensed the lawyer watching him, interested to see how he would extract himself from this awkward situation. ‘I’m doing a thesis for a think-tank,’ he lied. ‘Human rights and democracy in Latin America, that sort of thing. Getting some good access here.’ He gestured towards his police escort.
Now go away
. He wasn’t happy at being ID’d before he was even out of the airport.

Outside the terminal it was getting light. A grey, dank Andean dawn, drained of colour and heavy with the promise of more rain. The bags loaded into the police 4x4, the doors locked, the shaded windows up, Luke relaxed a little. Friend was in the back, fussing with his seatbelt and asking casual questions about the couple they had just encountered. The police lieutenant got behind the wheel and Luke checked the messages on his phone. There was one from Elise, just a simple
x
. Nice. He hit reply and sent her one back. But now his secure phone was flashing with an incoming message from VX. It was from Comms Monitoring, and he didn’t like it one little bit.

‘ALERT. PLEASE READ. Forwarding from Social Media,’ it read. ‘Posted on Twitter at 0931GMT.’

And there, blurred but recognizable, was his picture. Fuck. What a knob, thought Luke. I should have taken his phone off him and chucked it into the crowd. A quick check of Monk’s Twitter profile revealed he had a reassuringly low number of followers. Less than a hundred, in fact. Maybe he was new to Twitter, but still. There was no Instagram account, as far as he could see; he did find a LinkedIn profile in Monk’s name but he hadn’t refreshed it in some time. Nevertheless he had to report it to Angela.

They moved off from the airport terminal, inching through the early-morning traffic and swerving round potholes. Luke rang his line manager. ‘Don’t worry, it’s sorted,’ she told him. ‘We’ve shaded his Twitter account.’

‘Sorry, you’ve what?’

‘It’s just a little trick the tech people can do. It means Monk can use his Twitter account to his heart’s content but nobody else can see what he’s posting. He won’t know that, of course. His account is effectively frozen for as long as you’re in-country.’

‘Nice one, thanks.’

‘You’re welcome. And, Luke? We can’t let this happen again. First thing you’re doing when you get back is attending the Stay Secret on the Internet course.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

So that was a relief but, still, operational security had been put at risk. Nothing more he could do about it now, but Luke was uneasy. He swivelled round in his seat to check on Friend, who was staring intently out of the window.

‘Rather a lot of yellow taxis here,’ remarked the lawyer.

‘No take taxi!’ interjected the police lieutenant at the wheel.

‘He’s right,’ said Luke. ‘It’s a gamble over here.’

‘I’m not sure I follow you,’ said Friend. The policeman shrugged, concentrating on the traffic ahead, so Luke explained.

‘Some of the drivers are honest, some are not. There’ve been cases of passengers getting locked in, driven to a cash machine and mugged at knifepoint. And then there’s burundanga. Ever heard of it?’

‘I can’t say I have,’ replied Friend, now eyeing every yellow taxi with suspicion.

‘It’s a drug they make from a plant here. They call it devil’s breath. Makes you do things you don’t want to, like handing over all your valuables. Or one of your kidneys.’

‘Strewth!’ exclaimed Friend, backing away from the window.

‘There are even stories of people having it blown in their faces as a powder, then waking up half naked on a park bench two days later, unable to remember a thing.’ Luke turned back to glance ahead. ‘It looks like we’ve arrived.’

A guard was saluting them as a white-painted barrier lifted to let them pass. ‘
República de Colombia
,’ read a green sign in front of a nondescript barracks building. ‘
Policia Nacional
,’ it said
.
‘
Dios y Patria
.’

‘God and country.’ Luke translated the last bit for Friend’s benefit. ‘This is the headquarters of the DIRAN, the counter-narcotics division. They have their own air wing so they’ll be flying us down to the coast in the morning.’

‘Hang on,’ protested Friend. ‘I thought we were staying at the Hilton?’

‘No such luck, John. This is our billet for tonight.’

The police lieutenant parked the vehicle, then ushered them through a glass door and down a hallway. A sign on the wall said: ‘
No a las drogas, no a la violencia, sí a la vida
.’ No to drugs, no to violence, yes to life.

The policeman showed them into a waiting room, then went off to sort out their accommodation. The room was lined with chairs where just one man sat alone. Now he sprang to his feet, looked as if he were going to salute them, then thought better of it. To Luke, he did not look remotely South American. Ill-fitting jeans, stained white trainers and a limp beige jacket? He had to be British.

‘Mr Carlton, sir? Staff Sergeant Coles. From the embassy. I work with the DA – the Defence Attaché. Good flight, I hope? Anyway, all the kit you ordered is stowed in the day sack over here.’ He indicated a canvas rucksack at his feet. ‘I’m going to need you to sign for it, I’m afraid,’ he added.

How quaint, thought Luke. He could fly eight thousand kilometres, cross several time zones, arrive on a different continent yet still, in the timeless tradition of British bureaucracy, there was paperwork to be signed. Friend was standing just behind them, listening to the introductions and grunting with approval, but now he excused himself. ‘I’m just going to try to find a Gents,’ he said. ‘Not feeling too chipper after that flight.’

‘Just ask for
el baño
,’ Luke called after him.

‘Right you are.’ Friend quickened his pace down the corridor.

‘Nasty business that, in Tumaco,’ said the sergeant. ‘Best watch your back down there, sir. Haven’t had the pleasure of visiting that part of the coast myself but I hear it’s a bit tasty. Mind you, from what I’ve heard, that should suit you fine, sir.’

‘No need for “sir”. “Luke” will do fine.’

‘Righto, sir. Ready to get down to business?’ In one swift movement Coles hefted the bag from the floor onto a bare wooden table. ‘I’m assuming you’ll want to start with the personal weapon. It’s right there on the top, beneath the flap.’

Luke had selected the model he wanted for this mission the previous day. It was the last thing he’d done before driving out of Vauxhall Cross. He had opted for a Swiss-made Sig Sauer P229 with built-in infrared, visible laser sight and screw-on suppressor. One mag inserted into the weapon and two spare, all pre-loaded. He stripped it down now, inspected the working parts, ran his finger along the slide and sniffed it, savouring the familiar smell of gun oil, then reassembled it, cocked it, sighted it on an old Dakota transport plane parked outside on the tarmac, then squeezed the trigger with an empty magazine. Now he turned his attention to the rest of the rucksack’s contents. Carefully, he went through the small grab-bag of medical essentials: a standard first field dressing, a phial of quick-clot blood coagulant and a lightweight combat
application tourniquet. Then he unpacked a neatly folded black parcel: one of the new gel-based body armour vests. Under normal conditions the gel wobbled and rippled as it moved, but when hit with sudden force, such as a 9mm bullet fired at point-blank range, it hardened in a fraction of a second, making it difficult to penetrate.

Luke reached further into the rucksack and pulled out a Garmin GPS, some detailed maps of Tumaco and the border area, a prismatic compass, HF radio comms equipment, a coded log book, nylon hammock, mosquito net, hunting knife, torch, Puritabs, some basic survival kit and enough emergency rations to last him forty-eight hours in the jungle. All a bit
Boy’s Own
for an MI6 intelligence officer, he had to admit, but he hadn’t forgotten the old military saying: ‘Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.’ Otherwise known as P7.

‘It’s all there, sir?’ asked Coles.

‘It’s all there,’ replied Luke, hefting the rucksack onto his shoulders, testing the weight. ‘Thanks, mate. This lot’ll do nicely. Now I’d better go and find that lawyer, make sure he hasn’t fallen down the loo.’

Staff Sergeant Coles watched him walk out of the door, carrying the heavy rucksack as if it was filled with feathers. In the short time they had spent together he had got the distinct impression that wherever Luke was heading, it smelt of trouble.

DR GANG KUK
Mun felt sick. He knew exactly what he was about to witness. And he knew that he could betray not the slightest hint of emotion. Any glimmer of sympathy for the victims would bring about his own death sentence or, worse, see him trade places with the family being led into the chamber below. Shackled, cowed, terrified and emaciated after months of near-starvation rations, the man, his wife and their two children were being taken into the hermetically sealed laboratory beneath him, condemned as traitors and enemies of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea. The hermit state had a well-documented history of conducting human experiments on its own people. As the last truly practising Communist regime on the planet, the ruling Supreme People’s Assembly had a deeply entrenched paranoia. Someone close to the top had reportedly been executed before an assembled audience out in the field, obliterated at short range with an anti-aircraft gun. Dissidents, doctors, smugglers and party apparatchiks who had fallen from grace could be found among the half-starved prison population crammed into the gulag of remote labour camps. The luckier ones emerged as broken men and women, looking twice the age they had been when they’d gone in. Many died there, unnoticed and unannounced. But some, mostly the political dissidents, those suspected of directly threatening the regime and the Dear Leader, were selected for a special fate.

Gang Kuk Mun, or Comrade Dr Mun, as his fellow scientists called him, was a loyal citizen, or so he had always thought. He had studied hard, joined the Workers’ Party at seventeen and, after excelling at chemistry, had secured a junior position in Pyongyang’s prestigious Faculty for Scientific Research and Development. Chemical reactions intrigued him and he was good at his job. As he rose up through the ranks of the faculty he was proud that his skills were of service to the glorious People’s Republic. When he was chosen to work in the secretive ‘Defensive Toxicology Division’ his family glowed with pride. None of them, not even Mun, had any idea what he would one day be required to do.