The Watchman (6 page)

Parillas nodded and drove on in silence.

We reached the border on the I5 and joined a queue at the highway inspection gate. It was hot and dusty and full of noise and the acrid smell of car fumes hanging over us like a thick fog. Some of the vehicles heading south were beyond the low end of road-worthy, packed with families and pumping out carbon monoxide in clouds. The border agents kept us moving, although it was slow enough to make it uncomfortable. Parillas seemed edgier the closer we got, but he probably knew the risks involved more than I did. Eventually we cleared the border control and were on our way.

‘After we pick up the stuff,' he said, swerving to avoid a beat-up and overloaded truck wallowing in the nearside lane, ‘I'll drop you off before we get downtown. You head for the hotel and call me when you're close. I want to know exactly where you are.'

‘What will you be doing?'

‘Checking out the area, watching for Achevar, what do you think?'

I shook my head. He was departing from the plan. ‘No. Checking the perimeter is my job. I'm the escort, you're running the meet. I'll scope the area and call you to confirm if it's safe to go in.'

He was ready for that one. ‘No way, man. I know this place better than you. You're meant to be in the background, so stay there.' It was odd, but the more uptight he got, the more a trace of an accent came out, accompanied by a faintly nasal tone.

‘You know the place? How well?'

‘Enough. Believe me.' He clamped his jaws shut.

‘What if there's someone there who knows
you
?'

‘There isn't. Trust me. It's been too long.' He refused to look at me and was gripping the wheel like he didn't want to let go. The temperature in the car had gone up noticeably in the last few seconds and Parillas was sweating heavily.

Something wasn't right here. ‘Like how long? Like a lifetime? A couple of vacation trips?' Then I had it. ‘You used to
live
here.'

‘No. Yes – when I was a kid. So what? It's been years.' He was angry and defensive.

‘Can you guarantee there are no old school friends who never moved on? Neighbours who remember the kid even though he grew up?'

He said nothing and I got the feeling he was wishing he hadn't started this.

‘You can't,' I said calmly. ‘Which means the quicker you get in and out, the less likely you are to be made by a random passer-by, and the sooner we'll get back on the other side with the information we've come for.'

He shook his head, unwilling to give way. ‘I don't know.'

‘I do.' I stared hard at him. ‘I've done this before – a lot. So how about you trust
me
?'

He looked resentful, but he must have known it made sense. Random was the biggest enemy of planning; a chance encounter, a face from the past – anything like that could put a bomb under the most carefully thought-out scenarios. I wondered if he simply didn't like handing over control, in which case he should have come in by himself. It made me wonder whether Beckwith knew what he was doing.

We followed the highway into Tijuana and Parillas took a turning off which dropped us into a residential and commercial district. He pulled into the car park of a mid-size motel and sat waiting, checking out the few cars around us.

‘Our contact will be here soon,' he said, and checked his watch. He still wasn't happy.

Moments later, a pickup with tinted windows slid up alongside us and the driver climbed out. He was fat and friendly looking, with a heavy beard, a man in his fifties. He didn't look at us, but went to the back of the pickup and lifted out a polished wooden box. He placed it on the ground by the back of the truck.

I
t took Vale's researchers less than twenty-four hours to come up with something concrete. Challenor was a cover name, used and discarded after the trip to Bogotá. Vale wasn't surprised. But luck had been with them. They had picked him up on CCTV going through the airport and tracked him to a New York flight, then got him coming off the other end where he'd stopped at an ATM machine. By then his name had become Marc Portman.

This name had yielded three addresses to which he was connected, one each in New York, London, and Paris. Mr Portman seemed to have international connections.

While Vale was waiting for local assets to run visual checks on the three addresses and find out more about the man, he used every channel he could think of to put a block on Moresby's plans for the meeting.

As an experienced former field controller, and given his oversight role in SIS, he was granted the courtesy of hearings most other officers would not have had. Hearings where he could voice his misgivings, doubts and concerns about the dangers to the personnel involved. The people he spoke to were senior managers, each capable of stopping an operation in its tracks on the grounds of safety, necessity or national security, and each with considerable experience in seeing officers go out into hostile territories where casualties were not unknown.

They listened, nodded at each point he raised and considered the implications, even his carefully worded suggestions that not only had Moresby frozen him out of the announcement of the plans, but that the officer selected for the operation lacked the required experience. But each had politely and firmly knocked him back. Moresby, they advised him, had presented carefully considered plans with full risk analyses and outcomes, and the dice had fallen squarely in his favour.

With his final meeting over, Vale retreated to his office and shut the door. He felt humiliated. He was in the middle of the world's most effective intelligence gathering organization and he was powerless to use any of it.

He checked a slim file in his drawer, and scanned the brief report on the man who had saved Nate's life.

Marc Stuart Portman resides in Paris, London and New York. All address titles are held and dealt with by Belnex, an offshore administration company based in Gibraltar, as are various hotel group account cards. Described variously by neighbours as friendly, aloof, a businessman or job unknown, the subject's passport details list him as holding joint American and British nationalities, aged 38, with no next-of-kin and no outstanding physical characteristics. He is slim to compact with dark hair cut short and lightly tanned skin. Enquiries at fitness suites near to his homes reveal use on an ad hoc basis under the above name. Suite instructor in London describes him as fit and strong, focussed but not obsessive in his training regime. Instructor in New York (ex-US Marine Corps) believes him to be former military but says he doesn't talk much and doesn't answer questions. Each reported no obvious tattoos or other military-related body markings.

No records found of education, military service or employment. Search ongoing.

A copy of a passport photo was attached. It showed a man with neat, dark hair, dark eyes and prominent cheekbones. Unremarkable looking and of Caucasian, possibly Mediterranean appearance, he was everyman, save for the directness of his gaze. Vale recognized that type. There were at least a dozen men fitting that description in this very building, some of them specialists in the Basement. They all had the same look. And like them, Portman probably had the ability to merge in a crowd, unmemorable and grey.

Also like them, he could undoubtedly handle a weapon on first contact with deadly effect and come out unscathed.

He picked up his phone and dialled Scheider's direct number. Portman was primarily a US citizen and spent most of his time there. It was logical, therefore, to take up Scheider's offer and see what the Meat Grinder could turn up about him.

‘Leave it with me,' the American said. ‘We'll get right on him.'

P
arillas made a big show of climbing out of the car and looking down at the box, then lifting his chin as if asking what it was. The fat man said something and Parillas bent to lift the lid up and down as if testing the hinges. For good measure he gave one side a gentle kick before nodding and asking another question.

The fat man went through the motions of haggling, which I didn't think would fool anybody for a second. But maybe it was the way they do things down here. It was their show and probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for strangers meeting in a car park in the middle of the day and making an exchange of some kind.

Parillas handed over some notes and lugged the box on to the back seat of the Land Cruiser, while the fat man waddled back to his pickup and took off.

‘We just bought a piece of furniture,' Parillas said, in a weak attempt at humour. ‘There are guns and cell phones in the box – all throw-aways. Were the jackets and hats your idea?'

I nodded. Disposable clothing is useful for changing one's profile in tight situations. Followers of a target automatically lock on to colours, clothes and the physical characteristics of the person they're tailing. Switching any of these creates confusion and maybe a chance of getting clear. Changing physical points isn't so easy, but putting on a jacket, taking off a hat, picking up or discarding a bag, are often sufficient to throw off a tail.

We set off again, this time for a kilometre or so, before Parillas stopped to drop me off. It put me five minutes' walk from the hotel where the meeting was to take place. I stretched into the back and opened the wooden box, and took out a 9mm semi-automatic and a spare magazine, a pale linen jacket roomy enough to throw on over my own jacket, and an anonymous baseball cap. A cell phone completed my kit and I was ready to go.

We synchronized watches and cell phone numbers, then I shrugged on the jacket and left Parillas to disappear somewhere quiet until it was time to arrive at the hotel for the meet. I had more than an hour to scope the area, and figured that should be enough to spot trouble if it was waiting. If there were any bogies around and I hadn't spotted them by then, we were in deep water.

As it turned out, I didn't have long to wait. As I approached the hotel, which was in a busy section of town, I saw two black SUVs nosing at walking pace through the traffic. Alone, they might have gone unnoticed in such a crowded street. But keeping pace alongside them were several men on foot, scouring the faces of pedestrians.

I felt alarm bells ringing. This wasn't good. They might have been local dealers for all I knew, putting on a show of strength to win over some turf. Or a local law enforcement team on an exercise. But if so, why here, right now?

I took out the disposable cell phone and hit speed dial to warn Parillas. If they were the cartel, we had no choice – we would have to abort. The meeting must have been compromised, although whether Achevar had already gotten scooped up was an unknown quantity.

The phone rang for a full thirty seconds. I cut the connection and tried again, checking to make sure I hadn't fed in the wrong number.

No answer.

I
t was too much of a coincidence. From Parillas' dismay at finding I was an outsider, to his general air of edginess when he let slip that he'd once lived here, and then his insistence on keeping me away from Achevar – all of that. Now he'd dropped off the net.

It didn't feel good.

I ducked into a doorway and ripped off the linen jacket, dumping it behind a trash can. I stuck the baseball cap in my pocket, as that might come in useful. Then I checked the semi-automatic to make sure it was in full working order. Finding out later that it was a useless piece of junk would be fatal to my chances of getting out of here alive. But it was clean and well used, ready to go.

I figured I had two options: one was to bug out and head for the border, calling up Beckwith on the way to warn him we were blown and I was in need of a fast passage through the control posts. How he got me out was up to him; if he didn't, I'd just have to walk across the border and hope I didn't get stopped. The other option was to stay and find out what had happened. What if Parillas was simply in a bad signal area somewhere, or was ill and couldn't respond? He was hardly my best buddy, but if he was in a jam I couldn't just leave him. I'd made that mistake once before and didn't want to repeat it.

I left the shelter of the doorway and made a circular tour of the block housing the hotel, shuffling along with my shoulders hunched, another wage slave going about his business. The area was packed with small shops, a riot of colour and music and smells, some familiar, others I couldn't place. As I walked I checked the street and the surrounding rooftops. If the area was being blanket-covered by the opposition, who I figured had to be the Cartel, they would have watchers at ground level and high up, strategically placed to follow Parillas' – and my – progress to the meeting point. That way they could lift us both off the street while keeping a bird's eye view of any law enforcement in the area.

I saw two possible spotters fairly quickly. Both with the cold expression of gang members, they were standing on a corner, scanning the crowds and holding cell phones ready to use. I couldn't see any tattoos or other insignia, but that didn't mean much; if they were under orders to be discreet, they would hardly be advertising their presence openly. I walked by them without a flicker and checked out the cars parked in the street, another customary blind spot for placing backup muscle.

By the time I got back near the front of the hotel, I'd seen four more men. The two SUVs I'd seen earlier were now stationary two blocks down from the hotel, their engines off. The men with them were clustered on the sidewalk outside a small coffee bar, evidently waiting for orders.

On my way round, I'd formulated a plan based entirely on surprise and impulse. It wasn't great and my chances of success were limited, but it depended on getting to Achevar and persuading him to follow me. Otherwise I'd have to leave him.

I slipped down a side street alongside the hotel and found a narrow door reinforced with steel plate. A pile of crates holding empty beer bottles stood nearby, ready for collection. I hefted one of the crates on my shoulder and walked inside. I was in the rear of the building, the air thick with cooking smells. A young woman in kitchen whites stepped out of a door ahead of me, spotted the crate and nodded towards a room on the far side, where I could see more crates stacked by the door.