by Tom Riggs
“I’ve been talking to her over the last few days, and I think her story checks out. Although you should talk to her too. For a start, Richard Lipakos wasn’t her boyfriend. He was just a guy she was travelling around with. It’s what the kids do these days Charles.” Rudd ignored the crack and motioned him to go on.
“As an aside,” continued Munro, “she thinks that Lipakos was gay.”
“Really?” said Rudd raising his eyebrows. “Interesting.”
“I’m not sure how interesting or relevant it is, but it’s information. Secondly, she thinks that he was involved in something. Something dodgy.” Munro proceeded to explain to Rudd about Richard’s furtive phone calls, missing laptop and mention of ‘Japer’.
“Jap-ora?” said Rudd, carefully pronouncing the strange word. “Any idea what it means?”
“None, I haven’t had access to any databases on the road. But I suggest we start looking tomorrow, see what turns up.”
“I agree,” said Rudd. “It could be important, but then again it could be nothing. Strange words and questions about his sexuality are all very good, but the only concrete information she’s actually given us is the facial composite. And now we have a name. Señor Ortega.”
“Hector,” said Munro. “Are we sure it’s him?”
“Sure. She gave us a pretty good description. The scars aren’t that common. It’s almost definitely him.”
“And he’s as bad as his file says?”
“He’s worse,” said Rudd. “After his boss, El Cazon Salazar, he’s one of the most wanted men in Mexico. Looking at his file, the guy is pure evil. He kills for pleasure, and he’s good at it.”
“That would explain why the cop in the clearing was so reluctant to give me his name.”
“I don’t doubt it. I dread to think what they do to informants here. All we have to work out now is why Hector Ortega would want to kill young Richard Lipakos… But enough about Hector, we have all day tomorrow to look into that. I do have one piece of good news.”
“What’s that?”
“The Mexican authorities haven’t contacted Interpol yet. It would normally be standard practice when a European commits a serious crime abroad. It means that you would be on Interpol’s watch list and would get detained at any European airport, and possibly extradited back to Mexico. But my man at Interpol says there’s nothing. I was very discreet in my enquiries of course.”
“Of course, thanks Charles. I really am sorry to have dragged you into this mess as well.”
“Don’t be silly Jack. We’re partners, that’s what partners do. Although I should have known that sending you to Venezuela on your own was asking for trouble.”
He patted Munro on the back as they went inside.
“I will take the floor if you don’t mind,” said Munro.
Rudd smiled to himself and said “I thought you would, I’ve set aside a nice corner of the room for you.”
32
Munro woke early the next morning, the hour before dawn. He made himself some coffee and went out onto the balcony of their little apartment to drink it. The sun was rising behind the Sierra Madre and most of Acapulco had not yet woken up. Rudd had been right. In the light it was quite spectacular. He could see why Elizabeth Taylor et al had come here in the 1960s. Before the concrete and the tower blocks, it had probably been worth a visit. Even with all the cement, at that time in the morning, before anyone had woken up, the bay was beautiful. Huge and sweeping, it must have run for at least seven miles. Flanked end to end by spectacular cliffs. He took a deep breath of the fresh Pacific morning air. All along the beach, twenty storeys below him, were tiny piles of sun loungers. Neat stacks of white plastic, ready to be unpacked and laid out once the sun had worked its way over the mountains. A man was sweeping the sand directly below Munro’s balcony, raking it into elegant swirls. An old lady followed him, picking up any detritus that the raking had produced. Making their little part of the beach perfect in preparation for the forthcoming paying guests, currently still asleep.
“Up early as usual Jack.”
Munro turned to see his partner, standing there in a dressing gown.
“As always Charles, you know me. Bit early for you though isn’t it?”
“Jet lag,” said Rudd by way of explanation, “you want some more coffee?”
“No thanks, I am going to go for a run on that beach. I’ve been in a car for two days, I need to get my blood moving properly again.”
“Very wise Jack, very wise. I am going to set up the computer, ready for a morning of database searching.”
“I can’t wait,” said Munro smiling.
“I thought you’d be excited. I will of course wait until you get back so we can share the fun.”
“Thanks Charles, in the meantime, why don’t you put on some proper clothes? We do have a lady staying.”
Rudd looked down at himself, his dressing gown was hanging open to reveal a vest and boxer shorts below.
“Good point,” he said. “I forgot we had company.”
An hour later, having run the length of the beach twice, Munro came back into the apartment feeling energised. He walked through the door and was immediately hit by the smell of bacon. He smiled to see Rudd at the hob, simultaneously working a frying pan and stirring a saucepan of what looked like scrambled eggs.
“Good timing Jack,” he said, “you’re just in time for breakfast.”
“Wow Charles,” said Munro, “I didn’t know you were such a domestic goddess. Soup last night, eggs and bacon this morning. Your talents were wasted at Five. You should have run a bed and breakfast.”
“What can I say Jack? Mrs Rudd has me well trained. Plus her idea of a good breakfast is a plate of berries and granola.”
Munro took a seat at the small table and picked up a green file that was on it. It was marked ‘confidential’.
“What’s this?”
“A bit of breakfast reading,” said Rudd. “Some more information on Hector Ortega and the various organisations that he’s linked with, mostly background but it might be helpful. I picked it up on the way to the airport from an old friend at Five.”
“You and your old friends,” said Munro opening the file, “what does it say?”
“Read it you lazy git,” said Rudd as he scooped the scrambled eggs onto two plates. “It’s interesting stuff. My friend at Five was as excited as the guy at Interpol that we might have a lead on him. Read that file and see. The Colombian outfit he works for has links to everyone from the Camorra in Naples to corrupt regimes in West Africa.”
Munro started to read the file as he ate his breakfast. Rudd was right, Hector and his associates were serious. As serious as you got. The paramilitary that he worked for in Colombia – the Black Eagles – were a nasty bunch. Originally founded by the Castano brothers as an organisation to protect the owners of large ranches from left wing paramilitaries, they had joined an anti-Escobar group in the 1990s. At that time Escobar’s men were assassinating judges, senior police officers, even presidential candidates. They started to set off bombs, killing scores of innocent people and spawning a new word – narco-terrorist. Escobar had made a lot of enemies along the way, and these enemies did not take having their relatives murdered lying down. By the time Escobar was finally killed, Vicente and Carlos Castano found themselves at the head of a powerful paramilitary force numbering hundreds of armed men, all answerable to them. It was then that they moved into the cocaine business for themselves. Their two main markets were Western Europe and America, and they made alliances with whoever they needed to get their product to the consumer. For America, this meant the Mexican cartels. As long as they could get their product into Mexico, the cartels would take it the rest of the way. For Europe, the Black Eagles seemed to favour the various Italian mafia groups. They did not seem to discriminate who they dealt with and were listed in the file as having links with the Sicilian Cosa Nostra as well as the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta and the Neapolitan Camorra. Getting product i
nto Europe was apparently not as easy as it was with the United States. Some they could ship straight from South America to Amsterdam or Lisbon, in bonded container cargos. But those were hard to come by, and Customs tended to be unduly suspicious of shipments from that part of the world. So they had to be more creative. Currently, they favoured sending cargo via West Africa. Countries like Guinea-Bissau and Liberia were among the poorest in the world. Poor meant easy to corrupt. The report said that Guinea-Bissau was so under the influence of Colombian drug cartels, it was virtually a narco-state. Once their product was in Africa, it could be shipped to Europe more subtly. The report listed cross-country truck routes to Kenya, human ‘mules’ on flights to the UK and camel trains across the Sahara as some of the myriad ways being employed to get the precious white powder onto the streets of Europe’s large cities.
Munro put down the report.
“Interesting stuff, but it still doesn’t answer our question, does it? What the hell did Hector Ortega have to do with Richard Lipakos?”
“No,” replied Rudd. “It doesn’t.” Rudd sat down and opened the laptop that was on the table next to his now empty plate.
Munro stood up and pulled over a chair.
“Where shall we start?” he asked, huddling close to the screen.
“Let’s start with this word Jap-ora, see what the databases say,” said Rudd. “The first question is how do we spell it?”
“Jap-ora,” repeated Munro, “I reckon J-A-P-P-O-R-A”.
“Two Ps?” said Rudd, “really? I think one. I’ll try with one and two. How many Rs?”
“Try with one P, two Ps, one R and two Rs.”
“So four variations, that sounds sensible. She first heard the word in Brazil you said, so let’s start with some of the Brazilian databases. I’ve got the country-wide company registry here, and the electoral roll for Amazonas state.”
“The electoral roll?” said Munro, “are you serious? How many people are on that thing?”
Rudd tapped a few keys and said “Three and a half million registered. Of course in a place like that there are probably far more people than that actually living there, but it’s a start.”
“Ok, well let’s start with the companies. It might be worth putting a call into a subcontractor in Brazil, see if the name means anything to them. I know an investigative journalist in Sao Paulo who might be able to help.”
“Ok,” said Rudd, “you make some calls, probably more your thing anyway. I’ll see what turns up on this.”
Munro got up from the table and went outside onto the balcony to make the call. It was mid-afternoon in Sao Paolo, but the journalist was not there. He left a message, telling her about Japora and asking her to call him.
“I left her a message,” he said to Rudd walking back in.
“Her?” said Rudd not taking his eyes off the screen, “I see…. There’s another laptop in my bag, why don’t you make yourself useful and do some local press searches on Japora, take in the whole of South America for those ones.”
“Sure thing boss,” said Munro.
An hour and a half later, and the sun had risen high into the sky, filling the little apartment with light but making it hot too. A ceiling fan turned slowly above the two men as they tapped away furiously. The doors to the balcony were wide open but the air in the room was close with frustration. They had found nothing.
“There has to be something,” said Rudd banging his keyboard. “Are you sure you checked all local newspaper reports in the whole of South America.”
“Three times now,” replied Munro pushing his laptop away from him, “and for each different spelling. I’ve checked newspaper reports for the entire frigging world. There is no mention of Japora, however you spell it.”
“I’ve checked the company registries of Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico and our own Companies House. No mention of a Japora in any of them, or at least none of any interest.”
“What is there?”
“There is an IT company, registered address Bogota called Japorana Internet Soliciones.”
“They don’t sound promising.”
“No, they don’t, and they aren’t. I’ve checked their directors and shareholders. Nothing even remotely connecting them to Richard Lipakos, Hector Ortega or any of his associates.”
“What now then?” said Munro picking up a pen. He held it as if to write with it, but instead, he flicked the pen around the knuckle of his thumb, using the tip of his thumb and index finger for propulsion. The pen spun around and landed perfectly back between his thumb and forefinger. He then did it again. And again. Rudd stared at him whilst he repeated the spin.
“Can you stop doing that? It’s very annoying.”
“You’re just jealous because you can’t do it,” replied Munro putting the pen down. “Where shall we look next Charles?”
Rudd sighed. “I’ll start with the Amazonas electoral roll, I suppose. You call everyone you’ve ever met in Brazil and South America. Maybe speak to a couple of academics who cover Latin America. What about that guy who did some translating for us last year?”
“Carl, I thought he was Portuguese?”
“He was, but you know what I mean. Someone might recognise the name.”
“Hi guys,” came a voice from behind them.
They both turned to see Anna standing there, in shorts and a vest. Munro did not let himself look at her for too long. He realised that until then she had been only wearing baggy clothes, hiding herself. Part of him wished she still was. He concentrated on the large towel she had wrapped around her head. Look where it’s safe to look. Neither Rudd nor Munro said anything. She was glowing with health.
“So?” she said after a while, “what are you guys up to? Sounded like you’re arguing from my room.”
Rudd shook himself and regained his composure.
“Not at all my dear, we’re just doing a bit of work on this case of ours. Trying to find a lead on that strange word you heard poor Richard Lipakos say.”
“Japora,” said Anna. “It is an odd word isn’t it? What have you found?” She walked over to the kitchen area and opened the fridge.
“Nothing unfortunately,” replied Rudd, raising his voice slightly so that Anna could hear on the other side of the room, “absolutely didley squat. Can you think of anything else he might have said? Anything at all?”
Anna poured herself a tall glass of orange juice and came over to where they were sitting. She pulled up a stool from the island separating the kitchen and living room.
“I am sorry Charlie, I can’t. Jack has already given me the third degree. Japora is the only word I can remember him saying. But he did say it a lot, I remember that. Sorry I can’t be more help.”
“That’s all right,” said Rudd. “You’ve been a huge help already. We just need to keep checking our databases and calling our sources. Something will turn up eventually.”
“What databases are you using?” asked Anna, leaning over from her stool to get a better look at Munro’s screen.
“Complicated, restricted-access ones,” said Munro turning his screen away from her.
“Wise guy,” muttered Anna under her breath, the slightest hint of a smile showing at the corner of her mouth. She then turned to Rudd and said, “Have you checked Google? Nothing on there?”
Rudd went to answer her but Munro cut him off, “We’re a bit beyond Google, Anna.”
Anna ignored him and continued talking directly to Rudd.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Whenever I’m looking for anything on my psychology thesis, I always start with Google. You would be amazed what it turns up. It might not give you the answer but half the time it at least tells you where to start looking.”
“I suppose it’s worth a go,” said Rudd, “our expensive subscription databases haven’t revealed anything.” He then proceeded to tap away at his keyboard. Anna leaned back on her stool and drank the rest of her orange juice in one long gulp. Just as she got up to put her glass in the ki
tchen, Rudd shouted.
“Bingo! Jack, come and look at this. Anna my dear you’re a genius.”
Munro walked around to the other side of the table so that he could see Rudd’s screen. Rudd put his screen back to the original search screen. He typed in ‘Japora’ and clicked on search. Milliseconds later, the results came up. The first few results did not look promising. But above all the results, was typed ‘did you mean Japura?’
“Maybe we did mean ‘Japura’” said Rudd to himself as he clicked on the ‘Japura’ link for the second time. “And hey presto, Japura!” he cried again. Anna also came over and asked.
“So, what is it?”
“Japura river,” said Munro reading from a Wikipedia page that Rudd had clicked through to, “a small river in North Western Brazil, tributary to the Amazon.”
“That’s got to be it,” said Rudd.
“Definitely,” said Munro. “Now we just have to work out what it all means.”
Anna laughed. “So much for your ‘restricted access’ databases. Now if you guys don’t mind, I am going to leave you to the detective work, I need to go buy a few things.”
“No way,” said Munro, “you stay in this flat until you get on the plane.”
“Sorry dear, but he’s right,” said Rudd. “It’s crawling with police and dodgy looking characters down there. I know it’s a bore, but you’d better stay up here.”
“And it’s also crawling with Western tourists down there,” replied Anna, “just look out of your window. No-one will notice one more.” Rudd walked over to the balcony and looked out.
“She’s right you know Jack, it’s President’s day this week in the States. The whole of Acapulco is packed with American tourists.”
“And besides, I really need to get some stuff. Ladies stuff if you know what I mean.”
“Fine,” said Munro, “but take Rudd with you. You two can perfect your father daughter act for the flight tomorrow. Charles, you better take this,” Munro pulled out his pistol.
