by David Gilman
He pulled out the wallet that held the half-dozen dog-eared pictures of his mother. Her hair was tied back, her tanned face smiling. Max pored over every inch of her. She wore a jungle fatigue shirt, its sleeves rolled halfway up her arms, and an army-style floppy hat. She looked so beautiful. Each picture was in a different location in the rain forest. A waterfall, a ruin—which Max now felt certain was a Mayan site—some huts and a cloud-shrouded mountain. The plume of cloud looked like a smoldering volcano.
A volcano was exactly what it was. That was what Dr. Miller had translated from the khipu. He kissed his mother. Now he felt stronger. The message was accurate. Jungle and volcano. It was as if his mother’s memory were calling him. Come to me. Find out the truth. I’m waiting, Max.
“I will, Mum, promise,” he whispered.
He tucked the photos back into the wallet and buttoned it into his shirt pocket. He wanted her close to his heart.
Knowing he had evaded those who pursued him enabled him to control his fears and uncertainties and allowed his thoughts to settle. He closed his eyes, set his mental alarm clock, which always worked, and drifted into sleep. His final thought was that he was safe.
For now.
Fergus Jackson ran down the corridor. The few boys on their way to various activities scattered. When Mr. Jackson ran, his arms flailed like a drowning man, but he could put a fair pace on that uncoordinated body.
“Yes?” he gasped down the phone that he’d been summoned to.
“Fergus. It’s Bob Ridgeway.”
“You’ve found Max?” Jackson said hopefully, praying the boy was safe.
“Can you check something first before I go into details?”
Mr. Jackson listened, did as he was asked and within ten minutes, having run down and then back up the 133 steps, confirmed Ridgeway’s question.
“Yes. Josh Lewis’s passport is missing from the vault. The boy’s at home in Herefordshire with his family. How did you know Max had stolen it?”
“Our friends in the FBI and Homeland Security run biometric fingerprint checks on all visitors to the States.”
“Max is in America?”
“Miami.”
“What on earth is he doing there? Have they caught him? Is he all right? How did you know he was there?” The questions tumbled out of Jackson’s concerned thoughts.
“They responded to our request to keep an eye open for Max’s prints.”
“But how did you get his fingerprints?” Jackson demanded, since he had denied them access to Max’s room for the very reason he did not wish Max’s personal data to be entered into a police computer system.
Ridgeway hesitated, then said, “We got a print off his laptop and circulated it. Thankfully, the FBI dislike the CIA as much as we tolerate MI-Six, so they kept it to themselves. The bureau likes to help their English counterparts whenever the occasion arises.”
Fergus Jackson berated Ridgeway even though the means might, in this case, have justified the end. “Max will be a criminal by entering America under a false name using stolen documents. This could irreparably harm the boy’s future, Bob.”
“He knew what he was doing.”
This was no time to argue with the security official. “What happens now? Can you find him? Can you bring him home?”
“We’re the Security Service, not MI-Six. We have no authority beyond these shores. Anyway, I thought you would like to know we’ve tracked him. I’ll pull whatever strings I can, I promise you. We’ll have people pick him up at Miami airport when he checks in again. Your boy has booked a flight onward to Belize.”
“Belize.”
“What’s the connection with Central America?”
Jackson quickly explained what he knew about the Gordon family background. “This is all about his mother,” he said. Another, more worrying thought occurred to him. “What about the mercenary?”
Ridgeway did not have an answer. Riga had dipped below their radar. “I don’t know where he is,” he admitted.
“Then Max is on his own without any protection from us.”
“Yes. I suppose he is,” Ridgeway said, ending the call.
From his office window, the MI5 officer gazed across Lambeth Bridge and the River Thames. The rise and fall of the tide was a certainty, unlike intelligence gathering. But there were times, as in the river at low tide, when muddy secrets might be revealed.
He turned to face Charlie Morgan. “If we know Max Gordon is over there, then so might the people chasing him. How do you feel about a spot of leave in a warmer climate?” he asked.
Despite the clatter and hydraulic hissing of the garbage collection in the early hours, Max slept soundly. Nor did he wake when a ship’s horn bellowed repeatedly into the night; distant police sirens barely penetrated his dead-to-the-world slumber. What snatched him from his sleep at four in the morning were the screams and gunshots.
They boomed. Terrifying blasts that reverberated throughout the building. Screams and shouts of alarm shattered the air like an exploding bomb. Feet pounded up the stairs. Someone was yelling, banging on doors along the corridor. A young voice. “¡Por favor! ¡Socorro! ¡Alguien! ¡Por favor!”
A cry for help. Max nudged the bed away a little, peered through the crack of the doorframe and saw a boy about his own age, maybe older. Hard to tell. He had an underfed, skinny look. His long, black hair caught across his face with sweat. He wore shorts, trainers and a T-shirt, and his hand clutched his side, stemming a flow of blood. He staggered, fell, got to his feet, leaving a blood smear along the wall. He was terrified. Max could hear someone pounding up the stairs after the wounded boy.
Max’s actions leapt ahead of any rational thought process. He heaved the bed aside and stepped into the corridor. The boy’s slight frame was easy to support. The look on his face said it all. A mixture of surprise and gratitude that someone had come to help him.
As Max dragged him to the door of his room, the gunman reached the top of the stairs. Latino twentysomething, bandanna on his head, bling jewelry round his neck and a big handgun in his fist. He snarled, screaming something in Spanish Max couldn’t understand. The shooter was in a blood rage and obviously after the wounded boy Max was now pulling into his room. Max was in the wrong place—again—at the wrong time—again.
A chunk of plaster exploded, followed by another terrifying boom from the handgun. Max threw the boy roughly to the floor of his room and wedged the bed back, ducking as part of the door splintered from another shot. Max’s hands shook with fear, but he hauled the wounded boy up, pushed open the window and lifted him out. He held him by his arm and dropped him onto the top of the Dumpster. No sooner had he let the boy fall than he jumped himself. His feet hit the curved lid. Legs together, he fell forward into space and tucked into a roll as he hit the tarmac.
The Latino kid was bleeding, but because he was so weak, his limp body had slithered from the top of the Dumpster and flopped onto the ground. Shock was getting to him now. Max quickly eased the boy’s hand away from the wound. It was a messy scrape of a flesh wound just above the hip bone, so there was nothing broken, and it looked worse than it was. Max clamped the boy’s hand back over the wound and took his weight. The boy pointed toward the darkened streets and alleyways, nodded enthusiastically, speaking rapidly, words Max didn’t understand. But there was no misunderstanding the danger. The gunman was at Max’s window, firing wildly at the garbage area.
Three shots quivered through the air in quick succession—zip, zip, zip—and the heavy bullets thudded into the Dumpsters. Something in Max’s mind clicked. The shooter was using a revolver. It must have six rounds. The gunman had already fired three inside the building. He was reloading.
Max pulled the boy to his feet, grabbed his arm over his shoulder and ran into the night. Fear powered his legs. His mind screamed at him. Idiot! You’ve left everything in the room! But survival was more important now. Max might have only minutes to live if that gunman had friends down here on the street. But now at leas
t he had covered ground and moved out of sight.
He heard the sound of a big-engined car approaching.
Then two more gunshots. Different from the gunman’s. Car tires squealed round the corner, full-beam headlights holding Max and the wounded boy like a searchlight. The driver was going to run them down.
Max had nowhere to hide.
He braced himself for the inevitable impact if he couldn’t jump aside with the injured boy at the last second.
Chances? Rubbish.
The big American SUV shuddered to a halt. Scorched rubber smoked the air. Two men piled out of the car. They were in their twenties. They wore jackets and jeans, and had automatics in their hands. The driver stayed put, engine revving. They looked Mexican or South American. It didn’t matter. Max was going to die. The nationality of the man who pulled the trigger was irrelevant.
A third man climbed out of the passenger side. His leather jacket, black T-shirt, gold necklace and cowboy boots seemed to proclaim him the leader. He eased a wicked-looking revolver from his waistband and pointed it at Max.
Max desperately looked around for any escape route. There wasn’t one. The wounded boy was on the street behind him. Max stood his ground, fists clenched, ready to fight for his life if given the chance. Shuddering fear and expended energy made him gasp for air. He did not want to die. Let me fight. Give me a chance! Don’t just kill me!
“We haven’t done anything!” Max yelled, exploding his own tension and wanting the man to think for a split second before pulling the trigger. “This boy. He’s hurt. Look! He needs help.” He scrambled for Spanish words. “Hospital. Ayuda. Help him. Call an ambulance. Un médico—una ambulancia.”
All of this happened in seconds. Then the boy on the ground opened his eyes and spoke rapidly. Max caught the word amigo. The man lowered his weapon, then barked orders. His two companions grabbed the wounded boy and put him onto the backseat. Police sirens wailed somewhere in the distance. Were they coming here or not? They faded. Max and the gunman faced each other. He raised his gun again. Max was a witness.
Then he hesitated and spoke in English with a heavy Latino accent.
“You saved my stupid brother. I owe you. Get in!”
The SUV swung away into the night. Within minutes they had crossed a causeway, leaving the city’s glistening tower blocks behind. The driver killed the headlights and drove fast through the semidarkness. Canyons of shipping containers loomed next to iron skeletons of cranes guarding the docksides.
Max hung on as the SUV swerved, evading anyone who might be giving chase. The two men in the back had a first-aid pack open. One spilled a clear liquid that stank of antiseptic onto the boy’s wound. The boy winced, gritted his teeth and seemed a lot tougher now he was in the men’s company. The other quickly mopped the wound dry with a wad of gauze, then sprinkled a white powder over the gunshot. Using butterfly clips, they pulled the gash together. Finally they taped a clean dressing across it.
Max could see they had done this before; gunshot wounds were evidently not uncommon in their business.
The boy grinned. He was OK now. He reached out his hand toward Max. The boy’s grip was strong enough. His blood was already smeared across Max’s clothes. They both looked as though they had been in a war zone. The boy spoke in broken English.
“You save me. We friends now, yes? I am Xavier Morera Escobodo Garcia. What is your name?”
“Max, just Max will do fine.”
The boat thundered across the flat, calm water with a roar like a jet engine. Max was strapped in, Xavier by his side. The breathtaking power kept Max from screaming with exhilaration. These men were not going to kill him; they were taking him on a heart-stopping journey into the unknown. There was no doubt they were on the wrong side of the law, but Xavier had promised Max that no harm would come to him. They were going home—somewhere in Central America—and Max was going with them. Their common destination offered some comfort, at least.
Dawn’s needles of cold light splintered the sea. They were in warm waters, but the air still chilled him. Especially at this speed. Max looked behind him. The land was out of sight; the surging power wave crested and fell.
“It’s called a go-fast boat,” Xavier had told him when they reached the tucked-away boatyard in the Miami dockland. “Is very fast.”
Max had recognized what he’d always thought of as a racing boat: deep V hull, narrow beam, huge thousand-horsepower engines and nearly twenty meters long.
This was not just fast; this was breathtaking. Xavier’s brother eased the power controls forward, the boat’s nose lifted slightly and the engines bit deeper into the water—doing a wheelie would never be the same again.
Max could see the GPS-based speed readout in front of Xavier’s brother. They were doing 180 kilometers per hour. Max had been in planes flying slower than this.
Xavier shouted above the engines’ roar and the wind. “We go fast now. The Americans”—he pulled a face—“they don’ like us. They try and catch us all the time.” He grinned. “But they have to get very lucky, yes? They don’ have boats like this.”
“Was it the Americans who shot you?” Max shouted, pushing his face next to Xavier’s ear.
The boy shook his head. “Another gang. We are taking business away from them. My brother, Alejandro, he is ambitious.”
Max did not want to ask the obvious question, but he needed to know for sure.
“Drugs?”
“Sí. Plenty. Big business. From Central America to Miami. Very nice money.”
They could not talk for long—the buffeting slipstream was too powerful. The far horizon, the open sea and the speeding bullet of a boat created an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Max was alone and defenseless in this vast ocean, ricocheting across the marble-hard water. Always be careful what you wish for, a voice said in his head. You might not want it when you get it. He had wished hard and long to get to Central America, but he had not figured on becoming embroiled in a gunfight, saving a drug runner’s brother and being at his mercy. Not only had he stolen a passport and entered America illegally, but he was also now part of a vicious gang—and had no proof of identity or a plane ticket. He did not know which would be the worst fate: being taken to the drug runner’s home base or being intercepted and arrested by the authorities. He was no better off than a refugee or a fugitive. But at least he was heading the right way.
Max concentrated on the trouble he was in. He was in no immediate danger. What would his dad have done? He allowed his father’s image to settle in his mind, pushing away the stab of anger he felt. Rule one—don’t panic. Rule two—be patient: watch and listen. Rule three—be ready, and when the time comes, pick your moment.
And then?
Escape.
Like the plowed water behind the boat, Max was leaving his own turbulent wake.
Charlie Morgan sat in Miami airport’s security room with two FBI agents. Security cameras scanned the passengers coming and going, but there was no sign of Max Gordon masquerading as Josh Lewis on any of the screens. Nothing was flagged showing he had checked in at the departure gates. The Belize flight had already left without Max on board. The airline staff had been briefed and would press a control button to alert the agents, but no such alarm had been raised.
Did Max have yet another false identity?
“Where is he?” she asked no one in particular.
The FBI were doing Bob Ridgeway a favor by stopping Max from leaving America, but they could not extend their time beyond this act of professional courtesy.
“We can check every reservation and every young man who’s checked in already,” one of them said, “but if this kid is as smart as you say he is, then maybe the Belize thing is a red herring.”
“Maybe,” Charlie said, “but he doesn’t have unlimited resources. He moved fast. He needed to smoke screen us long enough to get out of the UK—that was all. We know he’s here in Miami, and he has to get to Central America somehow.”
T
he men ran through the options Max could have taken. He might have caught a bus and traveled to another state airport and taken the Belize flight from there. He could have gone way across Florida and Texas and slipped through Mexico.
“Let’s check all the airline bookings and the bus station. Can we do that?” Morgan asked.
The men shook their heads. “That’s a lot of legwork,” one of them said.
“And the kid’s got at least twelve hours’ start on us. I dunno, Charlie. That’s a big ask,” the other added.
It was time to charm the two young men, using the smile that made her look vulnerable enough to ask for the guys’ help—like she used to do when she was a schoolgirl. “Just the main bus terminal, then. Maybe if there’s time, we run the computer checks. What do you say?”
They nodded. They’d do as she asked.
Men always did.
An hour later, Charlie Morgan watched the television monitor at the bus station. “A suspected drug shooting last night involved a British boy. Police found the body of a known drug dealer in a Dumpster beneath the room rented by the boy. Two passports and personal effects were discovered. It is thought the British boy was using false identities and is involved in a drug-smuggling gang.”
Charlie and the FBI had found Max Gordon thanks to a ravenous-for-news TV station on a quiet day. A visit to the Miami police headquarters, barely five miles from the airport where they had waited so patiently, confirmed the facts.
The questions Charlie Morgan could find no answers to were: where had Max been taken, who had taken him, and why would gunmen snatch him? She was convinced he’d been taken because someone as smart and quick on his feet as Max would never leave his passports and backpack behind if the shootings had not involved him. More questions: Had the man found dead in the rubbish bins been after Max? Who was the second boy? There were no answers, but these FBI men were officially involved now. Kidnapping—especially of a minor—was a major offense, and that was their jurisdiction. And now they needed her because she was the link to Max Gordon. She wasn’t asking for their help anymore; they would be asking for hers. She felt good. Back in control. She just knew in her bones she was going to find Max—but whether he would be dead or alive was another matter.
