Black Coke (45 page)

‘Why not?’

‘Who did you say you are?’

‘Annetta,’ she lied. ‘A good friend of Carlo’s. We go to golf together on Wednesday afternoons.’

‘Look, Annetta, I’m from the police. I’ve some bad news. Carlo’s dead.’

Lucia felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.

‘Annetta?’ said the policeman. ‘Could you come to the police station? We’re taking statements from friends and family.’

‘What happened?’

‘Come here and we can speak more.’

Lucia hung up. Her hands were trembling. She reached into her bag and pulled out Cedric’s number. She dialled it. The phone rang and rang. She dialled again. It kept on ringing. On the fifth time, a man answered. She recognised his voice immediately.

‘Nathan, it’s me,’ she said, her voice a thread. ‘It’s Lucia.’

Bogotá airport, Colombia
16 April 2011

N
athan put the phone away and walked up to Manuel, who was deep in conversation with the police.

‘We need to get going,’ he murmured into Manuel’s ear.

‘What were you doing in the car park?’ one of the cops said.

‘Waiting for a friend,’ Manuel said.

‘This man?’ The cop jabbed a thumb towards Cedric’s body and the medics crowding around it.

‘We don’t know him.’

‘Why were you next to him?’

‘Can we come to an arrangement?’ Manuel said, lowering his voice. ‘Maybe a small donation?’

The cop shook his head. Sweat rolled down Manuel’s brow. It was time to get out of here quick. Nathan pulled his wallet from his back pocket and flicked it open.

‘I’m from the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency.’ He flashed his Soca badge at the cop. He gestured to Manuel. ‘This man here’s my Colombian contact. Let us go before I call the British embassy.’

Another cop, with a big moustache and a frown, grabbed Nathan’s badge. He scratched it and twisted it in all directions. Then he handed it back.

‘You can go,’ he said, before turning to the other policemen and speaking heatedly in Spanish.

Nathan picked up Cedric’s briefcase as though it was his own. He grabbed Manuel’s arm and pulled him away.

‘Lucia just rang up on Cedric’s phone,’ he said when they were out of earshot. ‘We need to go get her.’

They jumped into the pick-up truck and sped into town. Nathan’s heart was beating fast. He stared at the road ahead, trying to contain the sinking feeling growing inside him.

Manuel was saying something.

‘What was that?’ Nathan said.

‘We’ll get them.’ Manuel put his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. ‘I promise.’

Nathan nodded grimly. Images flicked through his mind. The large man with the guitar case—probably Amonite. The glint on the window—a sniper rifle. Cedric’s destroyed head, lying in a pool of blood on the tarmac. He’d been their only hope of getting official support against the Front. Now they were back on the run, and Amonite had the upper hand, again.

They stopped a couple of streets away from Lucia’s hotel. Nathan walked round the block one way. Manuel round the other. They met just outside the entrance.

‘Stick around here,’ Nathan said. ‘I’ll see you in a minute.’

He walked past reception and leapt up the stairs three at a time until he reached the fifth floor. He made his way to room 512, the number Lucia had indicated on the phone, and knocked.

There was a pause, then a light in the eyehole. The door flung open and Lucia jumped into his arms. He pushed them both into the hotel room and closed the door with his foot. They kissed. Waves of relief flooded over him. He wanted to hold her, clutch her tight, never let her out of his sight again.

He tore away. ‘We need to get out of here.’

She grabbed her bag and flung it over her shoulder. They hurried down the steps. They met Manuel outside and followed him to the pick-up truck. Nathan dumped Cedric’s phone in a waste bin, then climbed into the passenger side, next to Lucia.

They headed out of town.

‘Alkaptonuria-ochronosis,’ Nathan read out loud from one of the files he’d found in Cedric’s briefcase, which was on his lap in the front seat of the car.

‘A new terrorist group?’ Manuel asked, gaze firmly on the road as the car tore through the light traffic.

‘Alkaptonuria is a rare disease caused by a missing enzyme, leading to the accumulation of a substance called homogentisic acid at 2,000 times the normal rate. This acid binds to cartilage and bone, turning it black and brittle in a process called ochronosis, which is like an extreme form of osteoarthritis.’

‘Sounds nasty,’ Lucia said.

‘Urine goes red then black as the acid oxidises with air. Other symptoms include black spots in the eyes, calcification of the heart valves, kidney stones, prostate problems, blue-black colouring of the ear cartilage, and sweat staining clothes black. There is no cure.’ Nathan looked up. ‘Explains the symptoms on those junkies.’

‘Let’s see.’ Lucia reached over for the report.

‘Wait a sec. I haven’t finished. Patients with Alkaptonuria-ochronosis generally develop health problems during the third or fourth decades of life. Animals genetically modified to have the disease also take a long time to develop symptoms. Our rats, however, developed it within days of being administered the Black Coke. We believe the drug acted as a mutagen. It somehow modified the rats’ genes, which mutated rapidly to spark a fast-onset, virulent form of ochronosis.’

‘This can’t be what the Front intended,’ Manuel said.

‘Maybe they don’t realise it,’ Lucia said. ‘Maybe they’re happily producing this thing, thinking it’s all fine, just some new designer drug or whatever.’

‘Findings of a post-mortem of a drug addict,’ Nathan said, pulling out another file from the briefcase and reading the title page. ‘Must be the stiff I found in the basement of that crack house in Hackney.’

Lucia leaned over. ‘What does it say?’

‘Levels of Black Coke detected in the blood: four grammes. Subject died of heart failure due to overdose. Autopsy revealed severe osteoarthritis and widespread black pigment deposition in the articular cartilage of the synovial joints, costal cartilages and intervertebral discs.’

‘What does that mean?’ Lucia said.

‘Search of the scientific literature shows these symptoms to be similar in severity to those of ochronotic patients well into their seventies and eighties. Look at this. That’s a photo of an elbow joint.’ Nathan held up the report so Lucia could see it. ‘And that’s a hip joint.’

‘They’re jet black.’

‘This one’s the spine,’ Nathan said, pointing at another photo. ‘Can you see here? It’s fused together where the discs caved in.’

Nathan handed the files to Lucia and picked up the third file from the briefcase. It was about the Jamaican drug lord called Rev Elijah Evans and his links to yardie gangs in Brixton and Miami. Soca agents working with Miami police had tracked him down and found out he’d imported the Black Coke. They’d caught him just as he was dropping off the last part of his shipment at a large mansion in the Florida Keys. They blackmailed him into setting up a trap for Amonite.

Nathan guessed Cedric had come here to meet Elijah. Which meant that Elijah was most likely in Bogotá. With Cedric now dead, Elijah would be looking for a way back into the drugs trade, unless Amonite had found out about his betrayal and killed him.

There was a fourth and final folder with Nathan’s name on it. It had the Interpol logo: a sword through a world globe. Inside was just one sheet of paper, with Nathan’s photo, a short description, the Interpol logo in red, and the words ‘Wanted’ in large. It was a red notice: Interpol’s official alert for seeking the arrest and extradition of internationally wanted people. Nathan had seen hundreds of red notices in the past for drug traffickers and other criminals, but had never expected to see one for himself. Had Cedric come here to arrest him?

‘There it is.’ Manuel pointed. They were rushing through the hills north of Bogotá. A small airstrip was up ahead, surrounded by barbed wire fencing. The sun was setting, casting a pinkish glow.

‘You’re absolutely positive the guy’s reliable?’ Nathan said.

‘We’ve had this conversation before,’ Manuel said as they pulled up to the guards at the front entrance. ‘He’s as good a pilot as they get.’

Nathan turned to Lucia, who was looking at him with wide eyes.

‘You sure you want to go ahead with your plans too?’ he said. ‘You could wait at the hotel for us to get back.’

‘I’m not going to sit around on my hands.’

‘You’ve got the details? Location, everything?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Lucia said. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘You’re convinced he’ll listen?’

‘Nathan, please!’

‘Alright. Let’s go for it.’

Putumayo, Colombia
16 April 2011

D
arkness everywhere. Just the whir of the single engine of the Cessna. The pilot was flying by instruments. No lights on the plane. No sign of the jungle below. The city had been left behind hours ago.

Nathan inhaled deeply, trying to relax his body. He slung the AK 47 over his shoulder and checked for the fifth time that everything was in place: the rucksack on his front, the parachute on his back, the ammo in his pockets. He checked the laces on his boots and the buttons on his shirt. He glanced at Manuel, who was cleaning his teeth with a twig he’d picked up at the airstrip.

Nathan leaned forwards towards the pilot. ‘How long?’

‘Five minutes.’

He went through their plan for the fifteenth time. It was simple. Find the underground complex. Break in. Blow the whole thing up. If Amonite was there, all the better. If she wasn’t there, he’d track her down, even if it meant devoting the rest of his life to the task.

‘Two minutes,’ shouted the pilot.

Nathan peered into the blackness below. For all he knew, he could be jumping into the middle of nowhere. He checked his GPS system. The coordinates were correct.

‘One minute.’ The pilot glanced round and did a thumbs up. ‘Good luck.’

Nathan opened the doorway to the plane. Wind gushed in, filling the cabin, rushing past them, roaring. Nathan clutched the side of the doorway and looked down. He’d have about 20 seconds of freefall before having to open the parachute.

The pilot was shouting. ‘Five, four, three, two, one. Jump.’

Nathan launched himself into the emptiness and began counting to twenty. He relaxed his body, feeling the wind stream past him, through his fingers and hair and round his arms and legs. He’d always loved freefall. The sense of freedom was inebriating.

Nineteen, twenty.

He opened the parachute. It jolted his shoulders. He strained his eyes to see if he could make out the jungle below. There was no moon, but enough stars to provide some visibility. Then he saw it: the wide expanse of trees rushing towards him. He hurtled into the top of the canopy. The parachute got tangled in branches. He felt something brush his legs, but no pain, fortunately. He’d seen too many friends end up with broken legs on night-time parachute missions.

Seconds later, he was hanging there, swaying from side to side. He pulled his flashlight from his pocket and shone it down. The ground was three to four metres away and covered in underbrush. He put the flashlight away and grabbed the hunting knife from his belt. He sliced the ropes of the parachute and tumbled to the ground, rolling sideways with the impact.

He lay there, listening. He was on his side, clutching his rucksack. The familiar chatter of the jungle continued, unperturbed by his arrival. He did a mental check-up of his body. Everything was still in one piece. He got to his feet and went through his rucksack, checking the equipment was okay. He reached for the GPS system and switched it on.

Nothing happened.

He shone his flashlight on it. The screen was smashed. He put it back in his rucksack and pulled out a map and compass. Once he was sure which way he was going, he put on his night vision goggles. Everything turned into shades of green. He trudged through the jungle, heading for the rendez-vous point to meet Manuel.

An hour later, he arrived close to it.

He ducked into the undergrowth.

There was flickering light ahead. The chatter of voices. Movement.

What was going on?

Bogotá, Colombia
16 April 2011

‘I
can’t let you in,’ the security guard said, blocking Lucia.

‘Please.’ She flashed a smile. ‘I’m telling you I lost my ticket at home.’

‘Move to the side. You’re in the way.’