Taking Chances (52 page)

But he wasn’t losing any sleep over that, for he was well past the shock of his disappointment now, and, if he thought of it at all, was more intrigued by the discovery that he actually wanted to be a father. He could only feel glad that it wasn’t going to happen with Ellen, however, for God knew he’d caused enough anguish in Michael’s life without wanting to saddle the man with a thorn that could never be plucked. No, if he were ever going to have a child – and the chances of that were not looking good, considering where he was and the extreme likelihood he’d get blasted to kingdom come any second – he wanted it to be with a woman he loved, not one who loved somebody else.

Immediately Sandy came to his mind, not because he considered her to be that woman, but because he knew she did. However, he wasn’t going to get into that now, it was neither the time nor the place. He’d deal with it later, if there ever came a later, when events in Colombia were no longer overshadowing the anger he still felt at the way she hadn’t committed her vote to Michael; for her part in making him think Ellen’s baby was his, and then for her decision to reveal publicly the purpose of his Bogotá mission. In truth, he already recognized the unreasonableness of blaming her for problems that were entirely his, but right now he would go no further than hoping she was OK wherever she was hiding, and had the common sense to stay there until all this was over.

It was mid-afternoon by the time they finally drove in through the electronically controlled gates of La Picota. Despite recognizing Gómez, the green-uniformed police guards who patrolled the entrance went through the usual drill of making every one of his party step out of their vehicles and running them over with metal
detectors
– which couldn’t have been more absurd considering the small arsenal of hardware on full view inside the cars. Security cameras tracked their progress to the maximum security wing, where the bodyguards were told to wait outside while Chambers and Gómez were relieved of all visible weapons and escorted in.

Though Chambers had visited the prison before, so knew what to expect, this was going to be the first time he’d ever come face to face with Hernán Galeano. Already the proximity was stimulating his nerves and charging him up with more bitterness and vengeance than he’d felt in months. It was maybe just his imagination, but he was sure he could sense Rachel around him, moving along the corridors and stairwells with him, as though she were anxious, or maybe eager to be there when it came time to confront the man who had ordered her death.

Chambers’s hatred was growing: the urge to annihilate the man who had ruined his life was starting to bind him up, gripping him with a force that was so strong it was moving out of his control. Quick images of Rachel’s nightmare ordeal were flashing through his head, in a way he hadn’t allowed them to in months. Once again he could hear her cries, see her terror, feel her pain. He cringed at the tearing, brutal force of the rapists, the hands that beat her, imprisoned her, violated her and finally killed her. He was becoming affected by the rousing air of violence creeping from the walls around him, sending a surging morass of rage rolling through his veins. Nothing had felt this intense since she’d died, and he knew beyond doubt that he wouldn’t be leaving this place without laying hands on the son of a bitch who had ordered the abomination that had ended her life. Galeano wanted a deal, then he was going to get a deal, one he wasn’t going to forget for the rest of his worthless existence.

At the end of a glaringly lit upper-level corridor with
no
windows, nor visible signs of other human life, the blue-uniformed prison guard who was leading them told them to wait. He went in through a heavy iron door, leaving it to clang shut behind him. They could still hear the faint echo of his footsteps receding, and the muted sounds of prisoner activity that stained the bowels of this hell-hole.

Chambers knew Gómez was watching him – then he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. He didn’t respond.

A few minutes later the guard was back. ‘Come this way,’ he told them.

They followed, passing through the metal door into the grotesque belly of the wing where the noise was a Kafkaesque symphony and the smell was a choking stench of ammonia mixed with a sweet drug concoction. They were led to a small unoccupied cell with nudes all over the walls, a couple of meagre bunks and a latrine in one corner.

‘You will wait here,’ the guard said. ‘Señor Galeano will see you when he is ready.’

In a flash Chambers had him by the throat. ‘You tell that son of a bitch he’s going to see us right now,’ he spat.

The guard’s menacing eyes bored into his. His hand was reaching for his club. He was going to be real happy to smash this cocksucking
gringo
’s skull to pulp.

Gómez stepped in, putting a hand over the guard’s, blocking the club. There was a moment’s stand-off, then, with a grunt of disgust, Chambers shoved the man backwards and let go. Gómez held him steady.

‘We don’t wait for scum like Galeano,’ Chambers snarled. ‘So you tell that murdering bastard he either sees me
right
now, or he can go straight to fucking hell with whatever
deal
he’s got cooked up in that corrupt fucking trash can he calls a head.’

The guard’s eyes narrowed again. He wanted to waste this
cabrón
real bad.

Gómez spoke. ‘Do as the man says,’ he told the guard.

Very slowly the guard tore his eyes from Chambers and glared at Gómez.

Gómez nodded and smiled. ‘You heard what he said. Go tell Galeano we know he’s a big enchilada around you arse-licking scumbags, but to us he’s got less worth than a used-up toilet roll. So we talk right now, or we’re out of here.’

Venom blazed from the guard’s eyes. He looked at Chambers again, then spat on the floor. He waited for Chambers to respond. Chambers merely looked at him. The guard’s mouth twisted with contempt as, muttering obscenities, he started out of the cell.

A minute later Chambers and Gómez were being escorted by two more guards across an open landing. The inmates were tracking their progress, some silently, some whistling and jeering, others making lewd or violent gestures. Chambers and Gómez kept on going, heading for a plush leather door at the far end of the landing.

What they found the other side came as no surprise to Chambers, for he’d been in similar quarters right here in this prison, maybe had even been in these before. If he had, they had changed somewhat with their new owner, for he recalled none of the costly antiques or paintings that were placed gracefully around the freshly decorated walls, though he did recognize the huge picture window with its fancy bars and splendid view of the hills. There were computers, telephones, faxes, TV screens, a state-of-the-art CD player, Persian carpets on the floor, a matching set of three luxury sofas and a handsomely equipped open-plan kitchen where a clumsy-looking inmate was currently whipping up some delectable concoction. As they entered the cook glanced up, and Chambers was sure he detected a moment’s recognition between the apron-clad thug and the ever-impassive Gómez.

‘I will tell Señor Galeano you are here,’ another toadying inmate said, looking and sounding like the finest of manservants. ‘You can sit down.’

Chambers looked at Gómez, who appeared no more inclined to make himself cosy than he was. The manservant performed an obsequious bow, and turned towards the kitchen. Just past it, he knocked discreetly on a plain white door, then stood back abruptly as it opened and Hernán Galeano walked out.

Chambers’s eyes were like flint as he looked the man over. He wasn’t as tall as Chambers had expected, nor did he look particularly close to his fifty-nine years, but with his large, square-shaped head, hanging jowls and pencil-thin moustache, he was every bit as ugly as his pictures foretold. He was dressed in an expensive navy sweat suit, tennis socks and no shoes, and flashed more gold than a whore’s secret stash.

He grinned. His teeth were big and false and ludicrously white. ‘General Gómez, Señor Chambers,’ he said, holding out his arms, ‘welcome to my humble dwelling.’

As he came towards them Chambers could feel himself tensing. This was the slimeball son of a bitch who’d torn his entire life to shreds; who’d made billions of dollars exporting cocaine and heroin that ended up ruining the lives of so many innocent American kids; who’d ordered the hit on seven defenceless minors and paid the goddamned police to do it; who’d sent in his hit men to shoot and kill a pregnant woman and her bodyguard. And he sat here in this vamped-up jail cell, like some untouchable despot, with more privileges at his fingertips than a dozen fucked-up junkies had hours left to live.

‘It was so good of you to come,’ he said, holding a hand out to Chambers.

Chambers looked at the hand, then returning his eyes to the glassy blue orbs in Galeano’s face, he pulled back
his
arm and before Galeano had time to blink he was doubled over in agony.

Chambers flexed his hand as the bodyguards rushed in, knives and iron bars coming out of thin air. Galeano crumpled to his knees.

Gómez looked at Chambers. ‘Not clever,’ he remarked.

Galeano was gasping for air, choking and trying to talk. ‘Get back, get back,’ he wheezed, waving for the bodyguards to back off. ‘Just help me up.’

Gómez and Chambers watched and waited as the old man was set back on his feet, given a crisp linen handkerchief to dab his mouth and a glass of sparkling water. ‘Bring my guests some drinks,’ he managed after a while.

‘Keep your drinks,’ Chambers barked, stalling the rush to obey. ‘What’s your deal?’

Galeano grinned, then coughed. ‘You’re going to pay for what you just did,’ he said breathlessly.

‘The deal, Galeano,’ Gómez pressed.

Galeano coughed again. ‘I heard the movie was stopped,’ he said. ‘Is it true?’

‘It’s true,’ Gómez confirmed.

‘I want proof.’

‘What the fuck!’ Chambers spat incredulously.

‘You heard the news,’ Gómez told him.

‘How do I know that’s true? You guys, you can say anything on the TV. How do we know it’s true?’

‘You’ve got your people in the US,’ Chambers seethed. ‘The
sicarios
you send after pregnant women, you fucked-up son of a bitch. You can be extradited for that, and I’m going to make fucking sure it happens.’

Galeano chuckled. ‘But I’m already in prison, thanks to you,’ he said.

‘He knows the papers are signed,’ Gómez told him. ‘So he knows you’re going to be walking out of here any time now.’ He started to grin. ‘And do you know what’s
going
to happen then?’ he said, obviously relishing the news he was about to break. ‘The DAS are going to arrest you, Hernán, and hand you right over to agents from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. And the Feds, they’re going to be taking you on a nice, all-expenses-paid journey to the Golden State of opportunity – and capital death. And do you know how they can do that? They can do it because, like my friend here just told you, when you ordered the hit on the woman who was producing the movie, you crossed American borders, Hernán, like you crossed the street and walked right into a Federal jail. Boy, they’re going to be happy punks the day you get out of here, because they can kill you legally, Hernán. That’s right, legally, because that’s what happens to scum like you in the United States of America.’

Galeano wasn’t fazed. ‘Gómez, you don’t know shit,’ he told him mildly.

Gómez continued to smile.

Galeano moved his eyes to Chambers. For a while he merely looked him over, then taking another sip of water he said, ‘I owe you, Tom Chambers. I owe you big time for what you did to me and my people. All that bullshit evidence you spread over the papers; all the lies the cheating, double-crossing sons of bitches you got into bed with gave you. You came after me, Chambers, and let me tell you, boy, I been lying awake here at night dreaming about how I’m going to come after you. I’ve got a thousand different ways of making you pay, and my boys, they all know every one of them.’

‘You hit the jackpot the day you killed Rachel,’ Chambers told him.

Galeano’s eyebrows rose. ‘You think that was me?’ he said.

‘I know it was you.’

Galeano nodded. ‘They sure made it look like it was me,’ he said. ‘And how difficult was that? I was the guy
you
were focusing on, so it made sense I’d want you to back off. So Molina took your girl and let you think he was acting under my instructions.’

Chambers merely stared at him.

‘He had some issues with her, right?’ Galeano continued. ‘She wrote about him, told the world what a corrupt, perverted little toerag he is. She hurt his package-tour business real bad with that report, so I’m told. You know, the packages he runs from Europe, setting up all those shitfuck paedophiles with as many kids as they can bang in a fortnight. So he wanted to get even, and he reckoned putting you and me in the frame together was a clever way of doing it. Thought he’d get away with it, and he might’ve if I hadn’t paid someone to go find out the truth.’

Chambers looked at Gómez.

Gómez looked at Chambers.

‘And that’s what you’ve managed to come up with, after four years behind bars?’ Chambers sneered. ‘You reckon you can slither your way out of this by dumping it all on the creep
you
paid to kidnap, torture and kill the woman he already had issue with? You’re a piece of shit, Galeano. A stinking, lying, useless piece of shit. Your nephews were there when she was killed. They were the ones who raped her along with Molina. They tied her up and did things to her that no decent man would even know how to do. They’re like you, Galeano. They’re not fit to tread the same earth as normal human beings.’

Galeano’s gruesome teeth were showing in a smile. ‘You’re not helping yourself here, son,’ he warned. ‘You’re not helping yourself one bit.’

‘The way I see it, you’re the one needs help,’ Chambers told him. ‘’Cos you’re the one who’s top of the Feds’ dance card.’

Galeano found that amusing. ‘You just don’t get who I am, do you?’ he said. ‘And that’s surprising when you got yourself more information on me than my own
mother
– God rest her soul – ever had. You did a good job with your investigation, I’ll hand you that, but despite what you learned about me back then you still don’t seem to be connecting with who I really am. But that’s OK, because you will. You’re going to find out just how much your FBI boys scare me.’ He looked at the men around him and they all started to laugh. ‘You Americans have got no power here, my friend. I know you like to think you have, but you’re oh, so wrong about that.’