Luc: A Spy Thriller (12 page)

‘I’ve been dangling seven floors up. My little tippy-toes struggling to get back onto the roof, having no idea whether this one’s grip would hold. So, yes, I’m a little shook up.’

‘No, we haven’t got anything stronger,’ Aranda said. ‘And I’d imagine my grip’s better than yours.’

I looked at Ramos. Reluctantly took the coffee.

‘Someone have a Chinese takeaway in here?’ I asked.

‘Night shift,’ Aranda said. ‘We keep telling them, but they don’t listen. And can you ever find an air freshener when you want it?’

‘Call your dogs off,’ Ramos said to me.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ll have watchers on Giuttieri. Call them off. We don’t want to be tripping over each other. Bad enough with the GSU.’ Gang Suppression Unit.

‘You wouldn’t see us.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You couldn’t spot our watchers in an empty room.’

‘Call them off.’

I shrugged. ‘All right.’

‘He’s serious,’ Aranda said.

‘And I said all right.’

Ramos came closer. He had a thin black moustache and a tiny triangle of hair under his bottom lip. He pointed a finger at my face. ‘If Giuttieri is behind this bomb, and he’s planning something else, we don’t want your lot getting in the way.’

‘Are you sure it was the night shift who had the Chinese?’ I asked.

Ramos smiled thinly.

‘I still say we should work together,’ I said. ‘We can help each other. Let’s be cordial about this.’

‘Do you fancy another trip to the roof?’ he said.

‘You caught me unawares last time. My fault, but it’s not going to happen again.’ I looked over at the woman. ‘It was oil, wasn’t it? The stain on the ground.’

She shrugged. ‘Who knows,’ she said, and took a swig of her coffee.

The door swung open and a man stuck his head in.

‘Switch the television on,’ he said. ‘Channel 5.’

There was a small TV secured to the wall in the corner. Ramos walked across the room and switched it on. He pressed the button until he got to five.

On the screen three people were kneeling on the floor in front of a white sheet. A woman and two men. The men were unshaven and the woman’s hair looked unwashed. All three were perspiring and had wide, staring eyes.

The newsreader said: ‘It has been confirmed that these unfortunate people are three of the hostages who were kidnapped at Xunantunichone. One of the hostages read out a statement.’ The picture then cut to a close-up of the woman reading words clearly given to her.

‘We are being held by the Guatemalan Territories Brigade. We are being treated well,’ the hostage said. ‘Our captors do not wish to do us harm. They merely want to get their message across. That Belize has been stolen from them.’ There was a lot of incensed murmurings in our room. ‘When will the world wake up and take notice? Guatemala is a proud country. This cannot be allowed to drift. Action must be taken. Now.’

‘Nonsense,’ Ramos said.

The newsreader resumed as the picture cut to a map of the Guatemala and Belize border. ‘Experts have said that it’s most likely that the hostages have been taken over the border, and are being held somewhere in Guatemala along the Sarstoon River.’

Aranda chewed the inside of her mouth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The smell of the food reached us before it did.

‘Eat up, you’ll love these,’ the waitress said, handing out our hot plates.

‘Thank you.’

Special Branch had finished with Lucia and me for the time being and I had taken a shaken Lucia to Audrey’s blue-fronted cafe. I felt she could do with some decent food inside of her. I don’t think she’d eaten much since the shooting.

I’d ordered the shrimp and conch ceviche. The aromas of the seafood dish were tantalisingly good. Lucia had gone for beans and rice with pigtail. That’s beans and rice. Not rice and beans. Apparently there’s a difference. I had much still to learn, and finding out what Ernesto Giuttieri was truly up to was only the half of it.

‘It was terrible,’ Lucia said as she picked at her food. ‘So many questions. And I know what you’re going to say, I shouldn’t have gone back to the boat. It was my fault.’

‘Well, let’s not look back.’

‘It is my boat, my grandfather’s boat. I have a right to go there.’

‘Yes.’

‘So why am I taken in by the police? As if
I’m
the criminal.’ Lucia’s blonde hair was tied in a scrunchie at the back. She wore a white lacy top and pink shorts.

‘It was Special Branch who brought you in,’ I said. ‘They would’ve been investigating the bomb. The bodies near the boat. Yes, they’re going to bring in anybody who goes back to that boat.’

‘
I’m
not responsible.
I’m
not the criminal.’

‘I know.
They
know.’

‘Question after question.’

I nodded. ‘Did they, um, take you to the roof?’

Lucia frowned hard. ‘Take me to the roof? We weren’t sightseeing, Luc. They were
grilling
me. Like I was a terrorist or something.’

‘They don’t think you’re a terrorist.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure. I suppose you blame me for them taking you in too?’

‘No.’

‘You said to phone that number if I was in trouble.’

‘Lucia, you did the right thing.’

She sighed.

A large, imposing woman in a very colourful dress had appeared behind the bar and was talking to the barman. I imagined this must be Audrey. When she’d finished the chat she looked around the room, her empire. It was fairly full and the noise was boisterous.

‘Do you think those Special Branch people will want to speak to us again?’ Lucia asked.

‘Well, they might do. But they’ll be more pleasant next time. Now that they know we’re not involved in the bomb.’

‘What more can we tell them? They should be out looking for the people responsible for killing my grandfather.’

‘I’m sure they are, Lucia.’

My phone vibrated. It was Charlie.

‘Luc. Are you out of the clutches of the Special Branch?’

‘We are. Good to be back on terra firma.’

‘Right. Not quite sure what that means, but we did lend some weight, hope it worked.’

‘Thank you. It seems to have done.’

‘Something else, before you go. Mike Haskins sent us a mobile phone with a lock code. The one you took from Hector Fernandez in the Jeep.’

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Did you manage to break it?’

‘We did. The pass code was 71729. And on the Contacts list one phone number keeps appearing.’

‘Go on.’

‘It belongs to a man named Dondero,’ she said. ‘Local guy. Lives on the outskirts of Belize City. I’ll email you his details.’

‘Excellent. Good work, Charlie.’

The large woman waddled heavily over to our table, as I placed the phone back on the tablecloth next to my drink.

I looked up. ‘Hello. You must be Audrey,’ I said.

‘
Aff-ternoon
. You are his girl?’ Audrey asked Lucia.

‘No,’ I said. ‘This is - .’

‘I not speak to you.’

‘Right. But - .’

‘This your man?’

‘No,’ Lucia said.

‘I think this is Audrey,’ I said to Lucia. ‘She owns this place.’

‘Okay.’

‘You like the food?’ Audrey asked.

‘The food’s great,’ I said.

‘You two should eat up, build reserves energy - then go do naughty things. By naughty I mean nice.’

‘Blimey,’ I said.

‘He not make a pass?’

‘Seriously…?’ I said.

‘English are all the same.’

‘I’m partly French too.’

‘
Choh
. Which part? Your feet? French know about love. Romance. They don’t ignore beautiful woman sitting in front of them.’

‘I wasn’t ignoring - .’

‘English all the same.’

‘You know a lot of English people?’ I asked.

‘I married English person,’ Audrey said. I raised my eyebrows. ‘He had round glasses and small beard. I thought he was poet. He said he was poet.’ She shook her head. ‘He had soul of a stone.’

‘Well…’

‘What about bomb, huh?’

I nodded. ‘I know. Terrible.’

‘They say it’s slightly improved roads round there.’

‘Audrey…’

‘I joke. Can’t I joke? It’s how we survive.’

‘The men responsible for the bomb,’ Lucia said, looking up at Audrey, ‘also killed my grandfather.’

‘Guatemalan Territory,’ she said dismissively. ‘Now they kidnap hostages.’ She tutted. ‘Shoot them.’

‘The hostages?’ I said.

She looked at me blankly. Then turned to Lucia.

‘Sorry about your granddad.’

Lucia nodded.

‘I have other customers to see.’ Audrey looked back at me. ‘You, make pass at this woman.’ She turned to Lucia. ‘You, accept pass. I go now. Bub-bye.’

She waddled off across the room and went to speak to a group of three by the door.

I looked at Lucia and tried a smile.

‘So, that was Audrey.’

‘Yes.’

I leaned forward and clasped my hands together.

‘I’m going to take you back to the safe house.’

‘Are you making a pass?’

‘No, Lucia,’ I said. ‘I want to get you back to a safe place.’

‘And you? What are you going to do?’

Charlie’s email had come through and I flicked it open to get the details.

‘I’m going to see a man named Jimmy Dondero.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

We stepped out into the street and the sun burned down on us once more. We crossed under the tangled lattice of telephone wires that stretched out across the road and headed north. The Toyota was parked two streets away.

‘I’ve been thinking about those poor people,’ Lucia said. She looked sexy in her suede pixie boots. ‘Those hostages. The people behind that are the same people who carried out the bombing?’ she asked.

A street vendor tried to interest us in some gloriously colourful fruit, but having just eaten we smiled and shook our heads.

‘Yes,’ I said to Lucia. ‘We’re starting to get evidence that a man named Ernesto Giuttieri may be behind this Guatemalan Territories Brigade. So yes, he’s responsible for the bomb, the hostages, the murder of my people and your granddad.’

‘He had my granddad murdered because he thinks Belize belongs to Guatemala?’

‘I’m not convinced he cares one way or another about Belize’s sovereignty,’ I said. ‘He’s certainly not one to take sides with Guatemala.’

‘So why all this brutality?’

‘I don’t know.’

We could hear some noise, some shouting, and when we turned right into Hazel Leaf Street we saw a crowd of about fifteen people massing about halfway up.

Hazel Leaf Street was a straight narrow road with houses and shops on both sides. Two or three cars were parked along both kerbs.

At first I thought there had been an accident or something. As we continued up the street I began to sense the anger of the crowd and I thought there may be some sort of punch-up going on. Then somebody threw something and Lucia flinched as we heard glass smashing and there were cheers and angry shouts. I took Lucia’s hand. I wondered whether to go back and take the long way round.

‘What’s going on?’ Lucia asked, her left arm hugging her stomach.

We crossed to the other side of the street and kept walking. There was more things being thrown now, bricks, stones, more glass shattering. The shouting was getting more voluble. More people seemed to be massing.

‘It’s a Guatemalan food shop,’ Lucia said as we got nearer.

I could hear what some of the chants were now. ‘Down with Guatemala’ was one, and was fairly representative.

‘They’ve got the wrong people.’ I said.

‘It’s certainly not the owners of this food shop,’ Lucia said.

‘It’s not Guatemala. It’s Giuttieri. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this is exactly what he wants.’

We could hear sirens in the distance. More people were arriving all the time. The street was now filling up with protesters. This was a volatile situation and I needed to get Lucia out.

Police vans screamed to a halt at the end of the street and officers with shields filed out. A senior officer looked down the street at the mob. He turned and directed his men to take up position in two lines.

The seething mob now split in two with one part turning their attention to the arriving police. They began chanting and pointing at the two lines. Seemingly from nowhere I could see some protesters lighting up Molotov cocktails. Three or four were thrown at the police, who had to raise their shields and brace themselves as the bottles smashed against the armour, sending a ball of fire spurting out across the lines.