Rat-Catcher (6 page)

T
EN

Paulo woke with a start as someone kicked the sole of his boot. His eyes snapped open but he shut them again almost immediately. A blinding light was shining straight into his face. 'Who's there?' he demanded.

Eliza woke and sat up, instantly alert, like a cat.

'I said I'd see you later,' said a soft, sinister voice behind the light. 'Well, it's later now.'

'Leo,' whispered Eliza.

'And a few friends,' said Leo.

Paulo did not wait to be attacked. He lunged to his feet and ran full tilt straight into Leo. The torch went flying onto the concrete floor and shattered, plunging the back of the church into darkness. Leo crashed to the ground and Paulo scrambled to his feet, desperately trying to see something beyond the bright red ring burned into his retinas by the torch.

'Get him!' yelled Leo, from the ground.

Paulo thought he could see four dark shapes coming towards him. He stuck his arm out to the side, feeling for Eliza, and she slipped her small hand into his. Paulo took a deep breath and ran, dragging Eliza along behind him. He felt hands grabbing at his clothes but he kept on going, running blind. He had nearly reached the corner when Eliza's hand was suddenly snatched away.

'Paulo!' she screamed.

Paulo groaned and turned back to face their attackers. His vision was beginning to clear now. He could see one boy holding a struggling Eliza against the wall of church. He took a step towards her but three more boys jumped him from behind. One grabbed his hair, a second bent his arm up behind his back until he thought the bone would crack and the third pressed the point of a knife into the small of his back. Paulo froze in place.

A few metres away Leo was clambering to his feet. He straightened and looked at Paulo with hatred.
Snick.
The sharp blade of the flick knife appeared as Leo walked towards Paulo. 'Time for some carving,' he snarled.

Finally Paulo remembered the covert radio around his neck. He knew it was his only chance. He filled his lungs and yelled for help at the top of his voice.

In the van Amber had dozed off in her seat with the headphones still clamped to her head. She jolted awake, with Paulo's shout ringing in her ears.
'Socorro!'
That meant 'help'.

Amber ripped the headphones off and dived towards the front of the van. Frantically she grabbed the sleeping John Middleton by the shoulder and shook him hard. 'Paulo's in trouble!' she screamed.

The other three in the back of the van woke up as Amber grabbed the headphones again. A look of horror crossed her face as she listened. 'It's Leo,' she whispered. 'Leo's got him.'

John Middleton grabbed the ignition key and started the engine. The van had been left in gear, so it instantly lurched forward and stalled. With a curse, he tried again. The engine coughed but would not start.

'Socorro!'
yelled Paulo again, his voice filtering faintly into the van through the headphones.

'We'll run,' said Li, jumping for the side door of the van.

'Hang on!' called John Middleton as the engine finally started. The van shot forward, accelerating all the time. It took the first corner on two wheels, righted itself and careered along the street that ran down the side of the church. They were heading for the road that led to the back of the church, but John Middleton slowed the van as he spotted a pair of red tail-lights between the buildings. Another car had already beaten them to it.

'What the hell is going on?' demanded Li.

Amber clamped the earphones to her head, listening intently. 'I can hear Eliza,' she said. 'She's shouting something about being saved. Something about-- Oh no! She says it's the adoption men.'

Paulo let out a sigh of relief as the headlights finally appeared behind him. Leo had been getting ready to slice the knife into his cheek. The boy holding Eliza let her go and ran off. One by one the three boys holding Paulo lost their nerve and followed the first boy, but Leo was not giving up that easily. As Paulo backed slowly towards the headlights, Leo followed him, step by step, throwing his knife from hand to hand.

Eliza peered into the headlights, then her face lit up. 'Paulo! We are saved!'

'Not yet,' muttered Paulo, watching Leo's knife.

'It's the adoption men!' cried Eliza.

'What?' Paulo twisted round and stared into the headlights. An old Chevrolet was parked at the end of the street, not the white van he was expecting. Two men clambered from the car and Eliza ran towards them.

'Take me,' she cried. 'Me and my brother Paulo. Please?'

One of the men shrugged. They had been about to check out the covered walkway and take their pick of the street kids sleeping there, but these two were as good as any other pair. Besides, the boss liked brothers and sisters. The bond made them easier to control. He nodded towards the car and Eliza ran for the open back door.

'Wait, Eliza!' called Paulo, but Eliza was already climbing into the back of the car.

The man looked past Paulo to Leo, grimacing as he saw the glue-sniffer's rash around the boy's mouth. Quickly, Leo slipped the knife into his sleeve and arranged his face into a strange sneer. Paulo realized with a jolt of angry pity that Leo was trying to look appealing.

'Maybe next time,' the man said to Leo dismissively. 'Off you go, son.'

Leo glowered at Paulo, then limped away as the man turned to Paulo. 'Get in, then,' he said.

The man turned away, heading for the car. Paulo hesitated, trying to decide what to do. He was under strict instructions not to go with the adoption men, but he couldn't let Eliza go off with them on her own. Perhaps the best thing would be to go along with it, pretending he was as pleased as Eliza to be picked. After all, the men would not try to kill them before they had delivered the cocaine, so that gave him time to work out a way to escape.

'Come on, son!' called the man. 'We haven't got all night.'

Paulo nodded and started walking slowly towards the car. On the way, he hooked out his St Christopher medal and raised it to his lips. He whispered a few words into it and kissed the medal as though he had been saying nothing more than a quick prayer for a safe journey. Letting the medal drop back into his shirt, Paulo climbed into the back of the car.

John Middleton had brought the van to a halt by the side of the road.

'Don't stop!' cried Li frantically. 'We have to get to Paulo!'

Alex shook his head. 'It's not that simple. He's not in danger from Leo now, and if we barge in there, we might be putting everyone's lives at risk. Those men might have guns. We have to trust Paulo to tell us what to do.'

For a few agonized seconds they waited, staring at Amber. She pressed the headphones to her ear, willing Paulo to say something. Finally she heard his whispered words and turned to look at the others. 'Paulo says we have to stay back and follow the car.'

'The idiot!' fumed Li. 'Why is he going with them?'

'He said he has to protect Eliza,' said Amber.

'The idiot!' repeated Li fiercely, but her chin was trembling as she said it.

The old Chevrolet reversed out of the side road and headed off into the night. John Middleton sat at the wheel, watching as the car turned a corner further down the road. Only then did he start the van's engine and turn on the headlights.

'Come on then!' yelled Li. 'We're losing them!'

'No we're not,' said Hex, activating the tracking device. 'We've got this.'

The streets of the city were early-morning quiet so they kept well back. Hex watched the green blip on the screen and called directions to John Middleton. It was unnerving, following a car that they could not actually see, but the signal was clear and the bleep was strong.

Suddenly, Hex frowned down at the screen. 'Slow down,' he ordered.

'What is it, Hex?' asked Amber.

'They've stopped,' said Hex. 'The car's stopped.'

John Middleton killed the headlights and carefully eased the van to the edge of the junction. Quietly he brought the van to a halt and turned off the engine. The Chevrolet had stopped further along the road, outside a small, newly built block of flats.

'He looks OK,' whispered Alex as they watched Paulo clamber out of the car, then reach in to help Eliza. They saw him glance along the street, checking that the white van was there. The two adoption men climbed out of the car and, as they turned their faces his way, Alex frowned. Those two men looked vaguely familiar to him but he could not think why.

Paulo and Eliza followed the men to one of the ground-floor flats. One of the men unlocked the door and they all went in.

'What's happening?' asked Li, looking at Amber.

'Eliza's happy,' said Amber, listening to the headphones. 'She's bouncing on the bed, I think . . . There are new clothes for her . . . and, oh, she's found the bathroom. She's turning on the taps. She keeps saying, "Hot water . . . hot water . . ." as though she can't quite believe it. Hang on, Paulo's shooing her out of the bathroom. He's locking the door.'

Amber stopped and listened intently to Paulo's whispered instructions. Finally she pulled the headphones down around her neck. 'Paulo says everything is fine. He says they're in no danger as long as he pretends he's happy to be there. The men have told him that their boss will arrive in the morning, to take him and Eliza to the airport and put them on a plane to visit their new parents. Paulo is planning to go with the drugs baron to the airport, then report him to the airport police and get him arrested.'

Hex nodded. 'Good plan,' he said. 'He's not nearly as dumb as he looks.'

'So, what do we do?' asked Li, giving Hex a poisonous stare.

'We wait,' Alex replied.

'I agree,' said John Middleton. 'But not here. This is a busy junction. Once the morning traffic gets going we won't be able to stay here.'

'But we can't park outside the flats,' said Amber. 'They might get suspicious of a van pulling up at this time of night.'

'We could park in the next road down,' said Hex. 'It's only a couple of minutes away - and we've got the radio receiver and the tracking device to keep tabs on Paulo.' He looked enquiringly at the others and one by one they nodded their agreement. John Middleton started the engine and the white van drove off to park in the next road. It seemed like a sensible plan, but Alpha Force had just made a very big mistake.

E
LEVEN

Paulo was as reuse as stretched wire. They had spent the remains of the night at the flat and now the morning was ticking by and still the boss had not arrived. Eliza was happy. She was wearing a new dress, her hair was freshly washed and her belly was full of breakfast. She was standing at the bedroom window, waiting impatiently for the boss to turn up and take them to the airport.

Paulo sat down on the bed and stared at the bag of festively wrapped 'presents' he and Eliza were supposed to hand over to their prospective new parents. If each of those presents held blocks of cocaine, then he was looking at a bag that was worth millions of dollars. When they handed over the bag of presents, their 'parents' would give them a wrapped Christmas parcel in exchange, which Paulo was under strict instructions to bring back unopened. He guessed that the parcel would be full of high-denomination bills.

Paulo shook his head as he eased the scratchy collar of the cheap new shirt away from his neck. He had to admit, it was a brilliant drug-smuggling technique. The airport staff and the flight assistants on the plane would never suspect-two happy kids with an armful of presents. The fact that the kids did not know what they were carrying onto the plane only made the deception more convincing. And the street kids would be on their best behaviour because they wanted their prospective new parents to like them. Once they arrived back in Quito with the money, they were killed. It was as simple as that. There would be no evidence, no tell-tale trail leading back to the drugs baron. Street kids were disappearing all the time. Nobody would miss a few more.

As Paulo stared at the brightly wrapped presents, he realized that it was the weekend before Christmas. Back home in Argentina, his family would be preparing the ranch for the big party they always held. Paulo had a sudden fierce desire to be with his family instead of stuck in a poky bedroom in Quito, waiting to meet the most dangerous drugs baron in Ecuador.

Suddenly, Eliza started jumping up and down at the window. A car had just pulled up outside the flat. 'He's here! He's here!' she squeaked, turning to Paulo in excitement as the man climbed out of the car.

Paulo stood up and straightened his shoulders. It was show-time. He looked out of the window and felt a jolt of shock run through him as he saw the face of the man walking up the path. Paulo recognized him. He had watched this man drive a military jeep past the restaurant terrace where Alpha Force had been sitting only the day before. The man was in civilian clothes now, but there was no doubt in Paulo's mind.

He was looking at General Luis Manteca.

Eliza saw the expression on Paulo's face and turned back to the window to see what had shocked him so much. She gave a frightened whimper as she too saw the face of the man walking up the path. Her eyes grew wide and she began to shake all over. She did not know this man as General Manteca. She only had one name for him. The Rat-catcher. He was the Rat-catcher who had murdered her brother. Eliza began to scream.

'Can't we get some fresh air in here?' grumbled Amber, as a drop of sweat fell from the end of her nose. The inside of the white van was becoming hotter by the minute as the sun rose higher in the sky

'Good idea, Amber,' said Hex. 'Why don't we just fling the side door open and let everyone see us all sitting in here with our surveillance equipment?'

'Shut up, would you?' sighed Amber, pulling the headphones from her ears and slamming them down onto the radio receiver.

'Keep them on, Amber!' snapped Li.

'You keep them on!' retorted Amber.

'Amber, you're the only one who understands Spanish,' said Alex tiredly.

'All right! All right, Mr Logical!'

Amber slouched back in her seat and lifted her hair away from her sweaty neck. 'Just give me a minute,' she muttered. 'I need a break from listening to Little Orphan Annie prattling on about how wonderful her new parents are going to be.'

Li stood up and pushed her head up into the open skylight window, trying to find some cooler air. She cocked her head and listened. 'Can you hear that?' she asked.

'It's him,' said Amber, pointing at her uncle, who was sprawled out on the front seat of the van, snoring gently.

'No, not the snoring,' said Li. 'Listen.'

They all concentrated.

'It's music,' said Li.

'Somebody's playing Christmas carols,' said Alex. 'Very badly,' added Hex.

'Where's it coming from?' asked Li.

Amber tipped her seat back and craned her neck to look out of the front windscreen of the van. She nearly fell out of her chair when a high scream exploded from the headphones on top of the receiver. Lunging forward, she grabbed the headphones and slammed them back onto her head. She listened for a few seconds and her eyes grew wide with shock.

'The drugs baron has arrived at the flat. Eliza is screaming. She says the drugs baron is the Rat-catcher -- and Paulo says it's . . . he says it's General Manteca! They're in trouble!' she yelled. 'We have to get over there. Now!'

Eliza's screams filled the tiny bedroom of the flat. Paulo grabbed her and tried to cover her mouth but she tore his hand away. 'It's the Rat-catcher!' she screamed hysterically. 'The Rat-catcher!'

Paulo ran to the bedroom door and yanked it open just as the general burst into the flat. The two adoption men ran from the kitchen, their faces slack with shock. For an instant, everyone was still. Then Eliza screamed again from the bedroom behind Paulo.

'It's him. The Rat-catcher!' she sobbed. 'He killed my brother! I saw him!'

Paulo froze in the doorway as the general turned to look at him with the coldest pair of eyes he had ever seen.

'Shut them up,' the general ordered his men. 'Now!'

The two men sprang down the corridor towards Paulo. He jumped back into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. He looked frantically around the little room, then grabbed a nearby chair and wedged it under the door handle.

'The drugs baron is here!' he shouted into the medal around his neck as he ran for the window. 'It's the general! Do you understand? The drugs baron is General Luis Manteca!'

Paulo reached the window as the door handle started rattling. He yanked the blind away from the frame and grabbed the lever to open the window. It was locked. Behind him, the door handle stopped rattling. A second later there was a huge thud as someone threw themselves against the other side of the door. Eliza screamed again and squeezed herself into the furthest corner of the room like a frightened animal.

'We need help, now!' yelled Paulo as he picked up a flimsy bedside table and started pounding it against the window. 'The general. The drugs baron. The Rat-catcher. They're all the same man! Do you hear me? They're all the same man - and he's breaking down the door right now!'

The little table splintered into pieces in Paulo's hands. The window was not even cracked. Paulo threw the remains of the table to the floor, then changed his mind and picked up the splintered leg. He turned, holding the frail stick of wood in his fist, as the bedroom door was smashed open.

The general walked calmly into the room, with his two men behind him. Paulo looked into his smiling, cruel face and felt a cold chill run down his back. There was no mercy in the general's eyes, only a deep, disturbing madness.

As the white van lurched away from the kerb and screeched down the road, Amber disconnected the headphones and flicked a switch on the radio receiver so that everyone could hear what was happening to Paulo and Eliza.

'The general is the Rat-catcher?' gasped Alex, grabbing onto a shelf as the van slewed round a bend. 'And the drugs baron, too? Are you sure you've got that right, Amber?'

Amber nodded. 'Pretty sure. He's a busy man.'

Alex shook his head in disbelief. 'It can't be the general. Hang on, though, maybe he's come to rescue them!'

Alex looked at the others with a hopeful expression. Just then they all heard the general shout an order over Eliza's high screams.

'He's telling his men to hold the boy,' said Amber. 'He's--' Amber stopped. There was no need to explain what was happening. They could all hear Paulo's grunts of pain echoing from the receiver. Li flinched as a sharp slap made Paulo cry out. She looked out of the front windscreen of the van. They were heading for the junction which would take them the short distance to the flats. The traffic lights were on red but there was no sign of any traffic crossing the junction ahead.

'Jump the lights,' ordered Li. 'We have to get to Paulo.'

John Middleton nodded, and put his foot down on the accelerator. The van slewed out of the junction, then screeched to a halt in the middle of the empty road.

'This can't be happening,' whispered Li, as she stared at the road ahead. No wonder there had been no traffic crossing the junction. A marching band was heading down the road towards them, followed by a huge crowd of people, all dressed in traditional costume. The band was playing Christmas carols and, at the head of the crowd, a line of men were carrying a group of life-sized Nativity figures on their shoulders. Behind them, the crowd stretched back along the road as far as Li could see.

Suddenly a crunching sound came from the receiver, followed by a whine of feedback. Then the radio fell silent. Amber grabbed the receiver and began to twist the dials, trying to find Paulo again, but it was useless.

'We've lost contact,' said Amber.

'That's it!' hissed Li. 'I'm not sitting here a second longer!'

The four of them left John Middleton in the van and ran as fast as they could towards the flats. Within seconds they were in the thick of the happy crowd and fighting their way through the dancing, twirling figures. Amber collided with a small, wheeled sweets stall, picked herself up and stumbled on, trailing streamers of pink candyfloss from her hair. As they ran and dodged, Alex could not stop the same shocked thought running through his head. General Manteca! It was General Manteca all along!

After endless minutes of barging and pushing, they broke out of the tail-end of the parade. The street junction leading to the flats was only metres ahead of them. Li put on a spurt even though her lungs were burning. She turned the corner and pelted towards the flats but her heart was sinking inside her. She could see that the front door of the flat was swinging open and there was no sign of the old Chevrolet.

'Wait!' panted Alex, grabbing Li by the shoulder as she was about to burst through the open front door into the flat. Li struggled briefly, then came to her senses. They waited for Hex and Amber to catch up, then edged into the dim passageway. Alex saw three doors leading from the passageway, all open. He gestured silently, indicating that Amber should stay at the front door.

The first door opened into a kitchen. Alex could see a fridge and the corner of a kitchen table. He gestured to Hex, who nodded and padded silently up to the door. He eased his head round, then turned to Alex with an all-clear signal. They moved on down the corridor. The bathroom was empty too. That left only one door. Alex took a deep breath and slipped through the open doorway. It was a small bedroom and it was empty.

Alex stepped further into the room and a cold chill settled in his stomach as he saw the destruction there. The remains of a small table littered the floor, a chair lay on its side and the blinds had been ripped from the window. There were smears of blood over the cover of the nearest bed and blood was also spattered across the floor. As Alex stared at the blood, he caught sight of something shiny under the bed. He leaned closer and picked it up. Wordlessly he held it up for the others to see. Swinging from a broken chain were the smashed remains of Paulo's covert radio.

'Oh, no,' moaned Li.

A blaring horn shattered the quiet. They ran out into the street. The white van was outside, with its engine revving.

'Come on!' called John Middleton through the van window. 'I've got a signal!'

They tracked the signal through the city for nearly twenty minutes, jumping red lights all the way. 'It's the airport,' said Alex finally, spotting a sign up ahead. 'We're heading towards the airport. That's where they're taking him!'

'They're not taking him,' said Hex, staring at the green blip on the tracker screen. 'They've already arrived. The signal has stopped moving.'

The van speeded on, following Hex's directions, and the beep from the tracker grew louder and stronger by the second. Finally the airport complex came into view.

'OK,' said Alex. 'When we get to the terminal, we split up and quarter the building. We'll keep in touch via our cellphones.'

'And I'll stay here and monitor the tracker,' said John Middleton, slewing the van round the corner to the front of the terminal building.

'I think we're too late,' said Hex quietly.

'What do you mean?' demanded Li.

Hex turned the screen so that they could all see it. The green blip showed that Paulo was on the move again.

'He's already on a plane,' said Hex.

'What!' shrieked Li. 'How do you know?'

Hex nodded at the blip on the screen. 'No car could go at that speed.'

'But - there are planes taking off all the time! How do we know which one Paulo's on? How do we know?'

'We don't,' said Alex flatly.

The tracker only had a five-kilometre range. They sat in the van and watched in horror as the little green blip faded and disappeared.

'This wasn't supposed to happen!' yelled Amber. 'What are we going to do? We have to find him!'

'Satellite tracking,' said Hex suddenly. He turned to John Middleton. 'A satellite could track that signal for us, couldn't it?'

John Middleton nodded, his face lighting up with a wary hope. He wrestled his cellphone from his pocket and began to dial a number.

'What are you doing?' asked Hex.

'I have a friend who works for NASA--' he replied.

'And he owes you a favour,' finished Amber.

Ten minutes later the white van was heading back into Quito centre. John Middleton had made arrangements for his friend to fax the satellite pictures to him at the hotel as soon as they were ready, but it was going to take a couple of hours.