by David Gilman
Max had to make a choice—either get out of the water and clamber among the mangrove roots, which were as thick as a man’s arm and would take him a long time to negotiate as he picked up the boat’s flotsam, or stay in the water and risk the chance of not seeing the telltale ripples of an approaching croc. Being crazy was one thing; being stupid was another. He hauled himself out of the water, grateful for the slimy branches. Gagging at the stench, he clambered from root to root, seeking out anything usable from the wreckage.
Tattered remnants of cotton covers were snagged, caught up in the mangrove branches. A length of wood with a riveted piece of steel attached at its end, probably a part of the boat’s fittings, lay wedged in the entanglement. There was little else, except for a bobbing green plastic bottle. Fresh water. Max immediately remembered Alejandro scoffing at his concern when one of the drug dealer’s men had thrown plastic overboard. Ecological issues aside, at this moment Max was very grateful for plastic bottles.
Like a beachcomber, he gathered the bits and pieces. The length of wood with the steel fragment on it felt heavy. Perhaps it was from some part of the engine housing, but it would serve equally well as a boat hook or a spear. Either way, he felt more confident that he had something he could use to defend himself. He scooped up the rope while balancing precariously on the slimy branches with his face turned away from the foul stench, desperate to be back on the beach, with the clean sea breezes sweeping over him.
He snagged a couple of pieces of torn cotton cloth, rolled them up and tucked them into the four meters or so of coiled rope he had looped over his shoulder. The water bottle was more awkward to reach, but it was a temptation impossible to resist. He straddled the slippery branch, hooked a leg over it like a commando pulling himself across a rope and reached down. He was balancing precariously on this unstable perch, one arm stretched out in front of him, the other using the length of wood to bring the bottle closer. He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, and he turned to see Xavier waving the palm branch. He was making a fuss, shouting something, but the wind and the waves breaking on the reef muted his voice. Max figured he’d probably seen him succeed in getting the bits and pieces together. Somehow he was going to have to get Xavier to pull his weight, because Max knew that he couldn’t get them out of this mess on his own. He turned his attention back to the bottle, his taste buds already anticipating fresh water. If he could just stretch a little farther.
* * *
Xavier shielded his eyes against the glare from the strip of sand and the glistening water. Max had made good progress, stumbling occasionally but soon getting himself back on his feet and moving toward the mangroves.
He screamed and waved, jumping up and down like a lunatic. Max could not see the approaching crocodile from where he lay across the branch. A horrifying memory flashed into Xavier’s mind. Once, when they had moored a go-fast boat in an estuary like this, he had seen a troop of howler monkeys moving downriver in the mangrove’s low branches. In a terrifying show of strength and speed, a crocodile had powered itself upward, using its tail to propel almost the whole length of its body out of the water. It had snatched an unsuspecting monkey from the tree and taken its screaming victim into the foul, dark depths.
Now there was a crocodile heading right toward where Max lay on a branch, barely three meters above the water. Xavier yelled at the top of his lungs, but Max showed no sign of hearing the warning.
Max stretched down, intent on reaching the water bottle, concentration totally focused.
A little farther.
Careful.
And then the water exploded.
Max yelled in fear.
The crocodile’s jaws clamped shut and tore flesh.
Sayid twisted and turned through the labyrinth that lay before him. He had written new code and created new trapdoors for anyone following him. Anyone, that is, who had realized that he had hacked into their system.
He had had no word from Max, but Mr. Jackson had relayed the information to him that Max had not been heading for South America after all but had made his way to Miami. Sayid knew all this, of course, but stayed silent under Mr. Jackson’s inquiring gaze. What bothered him was that no one had mentioned Max going on to Central America, as had been his plan. Sayid did not know that Mr. Jackson had kept the bad news from him: that Max’s belongings had been found in the downtown room but that there was no sign of Max.
Sayid’s mother had moaned at him for staying in his room and absorbing himself with whatever he was doing on his computer.
Helping Max was what he was doing. His friend had asked him to find out as much as possible about Danny Maguire’s final hours, and the best place to start was in the Underground station where he had died. For the better part of twenty-four hours, he had concentrated on finding the visual evidence of Danny jumping onto the tracks.
It was easy enough to get the ball rolling. By typing in an inurl code on his browser, Sayid accessed hundreds of CCTV cameras. After hours of changing the search threads, he found the cameras he wanted. He scanned the platforms, determining which camera angle would give him the best view. He could alter these angles on-screen, and he watched, like a fly on the wall, as people scrambled in and out of the Underground carriages. This was real time. What Sayid needed was the past. He had to find out if the images of Danny Maguire on that day had been stored. The police would have viewed the tapes, but they would have already been examined and archived. Where?
Just as Max would wipe out his tracks if he did not want to be caught on one of his outdoor adventure tests, Sayid also had to cover his digital footprints as he weaved his way through the government security network. With everyone on permanent alert because of potential terrorist threats, he knew that the systems were far more sophisticated than they had been. Sayid had sent out word to those who knew of his skills in the hacking community, but he had learned to exercise caution. He had once been drawn into a Black Hat group, who were commonly known as “crackers.” Their intent was often the destruction, manipulation and sometimes blackmail of their victims as they clawed into people’s websites and security networks. Thankfully, there were experienced senior members in Sayid’s own international computer community, White Hat hackers, who helped him out of the mess.
Sayid turned to them for the intricate code that would allow him to view the stored images of Danny Maguire. Finally, he had written a program using open-source software, which lessened the chance of being traced, and Perl, software optimized for scanning and extracting information. The one thing a good hacker should always do is write in clear, concise, correctly spelled English. Sayid was always grateful for what at times seemed a grueling regime in Mr. Dolby’s English class.
He scanned the video images of the platforms on that fateful day. The picture quality was poor, and he strained to see the faces in the crowds. But then, as a train departed and the platform emptied, a figure came into view. He was running; his long hair was pulled back, revealing his face. Sayid froze the image and tried to enhance it. He felt sure this was Danny Maguire, and when he hit the Resume button, he could see that the young man running flat out did not hesitate as he jumped off the platform and ran into the tunnel. Minutes later, two men appeared to be in pursuit, but within those minutes, other passengers had moved onto the platform, and Sayid could see that if they had been chasing Danny Maguire, they would not have been able to follow him. There were too many witnesses. Another train arrived, a lot more people got off and the two men became mixed up, almost unidentifiably, in the crush. Sayid concentrated and isolated their images. They were the two men from the Range Rover that had almost run him down on the moor.
Sayid was convinced that Danny Maguire had been chased to his death like a hunted animal. He pressed the Fast-Forward button and watched as police arrived, the platform was cleared and one of the men pointed down the tunnel into which Danny had run. The firefighters and paramedics squeezed onto the end of the platform, but then something more frightening came on-
screen. The police ushered through two new arrivals. Like lumbering astronauts, they were dressed in cumbersome protective clothing. They looked like bomb-disposal experts. Clambering down onto the track, they disappeared into the tunnel carrying a stretcher between them. This was no bomb-disposal team, Sayid realized—these people were wearing biohazard suits.
He felt the pulse of nervous excitement. There was something down that tunnel that clearly frightened everybody.
The crocodile ripped and tore at the carcass. Max was almost in the water. The slimy branch slipped through his fingers, but he jammed his knee into a twisted bough as the water churned and pieces of flesh bobbed to the surface. A carcass had been wedged under the mangrove root, and the low tide had exposed the decomposing body. It was this that the crocodile had smelled. For a horrifying moment, Max thought it might have been one of the bodies from the boat, but he saw the hind leg and hoof of a deer, which must have fallen into the river and been carried away and drowned. No wonder there was such a stink by the tree. As the crocodile thrashed in the water, Max hung on for dear life; if he fell now, he would be down there in that horrifying turmoil.
With a huge splash of its tail, the crocodile pulled the carcass below the surface. Within moments, the muddy water was still again. Max gripped the branch with such force it felt as though the bones in his hands were going to break. He had to steady his nerves and control his breathing. His heart was banging so loudly he felt sure the submerged crocodile would hear it vibrating down the tree into the water.
There had been a swirl of ripples, like a small eddy, as the beast had dived and swum away with its prey. The last thing Max wanted to do was to jump back in and swim to the beach. He took a little comfort from the fact that only one crocodile had attacked the carcass. Had there been more about, there would have been an even greater feeding frenzy.
He studied the water. It was time to go. He pushed the white leather seat down onto the surface, where it bobbed for a moment and then began to drift slowly away. Don’t think about it. Keep your eyes open. Ease down, find your footing. It’ll be only chest-deep. You’ll be OK. There’s nothing down there; nothing’s going to hurt you. Feet onto the bottom and you’ll be back on the beach in no time at all. That’s all you’ve got to do. Into the water. Find your footing. Get back to the beach. Do it.
Which was worse? Slowly but surely lowering yourself into that squelchy, smelly water, or just dropping down and going for it? If he was lucky, he wouldn’t make a splash, and if he was really lucky, that crocodile had taken the carcass to its underwater lair. Enough was enough: he was torturing himself. Left to its own devices, his mind would freeze him in terror. He had to get past his fear. Sliding off the branch, he let himself fall into the chest-deep water. He stretched out his legs and pulled his hands above his head, gripping the metal-tipped shaft of wood as tightly as he could, wanting to be as slender as a knife blade when he entered the water. He clamped his mouth shut. That water was laden with bacteria, and he did not want to swallow a drop.
His feet touched the bottom. Glancing rapidly, he looked left and right, then pushed himself forward, reaching out to grab the floating leather seat. River boulders twisted his ankles. His knees took the strain, and he used the seat at his side, leaning on it almost like a crutch to help keep him stable.
He was still trembling from the crocodile attack. It was an unreal scenario: wading back across a fast-flowing river, ferocious attacks by man and beast, with jungle and mangroves behind and to his front, while a drug runner was relying on him to get them through. When Max had left London, he had been in control, as much as he could be, and now he was alone and vulnerable. The odds against survival seemed stacked too high. But he had got this far. He focused on getting back to Xavier, who stood on the small strip of sand, waving as if greeting a long-lost friend arriving on the Queen Mary 2, pride of the seas. Here comes Max Gordon, half swimming, half stumbling, clutching his own pride of the sea—a seat cushion.
Suddenly the water seemed to boil next to him. Bubbles broke the surface. Max froze. The crocodile! In a belching, smelly bubble, the water bottle popped to the surface. Max laughed, releasing his pent-up emotion.
Xavier ran into the shallows and grabbed the bulky seat from Max as he sank to his knees in the sand. “I tried to warn you,” he said.
Max upended the water bottle and guzzled greedily. To the victor the spoils. Xavier waited, desperately watching the water spill over Max’s chin, but Max left more than half and handed him the bottle.
Max flopped over onto his back. The wet sand smelled of salt, and the sea breeze cooled him under the burning sun. He cackled exhaustedly. “I thought you were dancing,” he said.
Xavier guzzled, gasped for breath and belched with satisfaction. “Yeah? That’s not how I dance.”
He suddenly started moving like an electrified snake. He clapped his hands and shuffled his feet, accompanying himself with a raucous salsa tune. Max laughed, got onto his knees and watched the crazy kid cavort.
“You alive, man! You alive!” Xavier shouted.
He reached out and took Max’s hands, making him stand up. Xavier jigged him around until Max also sang aloud. It was gibberish, but it was fun. Finally they collapsed, laughing. Xavier put his hands on Max’s shoulders. “You some kinda strange fella. You got angels on your shoulders. Me? I’m with you. You say, I do.”
Max nodded. Held out his hand. “It’s a deal.”
Xavier spat into the palm of his hand and clasped Max’s. “It’s a deal, gringo!” And he laughed again.
Max knew he had to grasp every positive thing that happened in circumstances like this, so he allowed a sigh of satisfaction. He had managed to get to the other side of the river and back, avoided a horrific death and gathered a few bits and pieces that would help them escape from this place. So the day hadn’t been all bad. Max was determined never to lose hope. And he’d never have to spike his hair with gel again—he’d been so scared it would probably stand on end permanently.
Riga had an energy that frightened people. It was not that he flaunted it; it was something that anyone close to him could sense. Nor did he use his physical strength and endurance simply to impress anyone. He had supreme confidence in his ability to survive and preferred, at every turn of his life, to be alone.
From a young age, he had been trained as a destroyer of life and property and had been taught to get close to his enemy so he might understand him better. He held a deep sense of pride in his skills. It was his profession, just as a doctor was attracted to medicine or an attorney to law. It was a calling. He had no sympathy for his victims and was a confirmed sociopath by the age of fourteen. A perfect killer.
Chasing down Danny Maguire had been part of a bigger picture, so Riga’s status had not been diminished because his target was young. Cazamind and the people he worked for dealt only with issues at an international level, so when Maguire ran into the tunnel and fell onto the high-voltage rail, it ended one part of Riga’s brief. The follow-up, checking on Max Gordon, was like a full stop at the end of a sentence. It was all supposed to end there. Find out if Gordon had received anything from Maguire. He hadn’t, as far as Riga knew. End of story.
Not quite.
Cazamind had sounded worried—even, Riga suspected, scared. There were enormous implications for Cazamind’s “people.” Tendrils of corruption squirmed through the corridors of power in America and the UK, and national interests were at stake. All because a fifteen-year-old boy had outwitted them all. It seemed obvious Max Gordon had learned something.
Extreme caution had to be employed. A swift and low-key operation to remove the problem had been sanctioned, and the job had to be done by one man. The money was already in Riga’s Swiss bank account. It was more than generous, and he was to have anything he needed—weapons, transport and information.
A private Learjet with long-range tanks was a more luxurious way to travel across the Atlantic, and unlike Charlie Morgan, who had sat cramped in the
back of an overcrowded commercial flight, Riga had unlimited resources at his disposal. He was already in Central America in a place of Cazamind’s choosing. From his vantage point deep in the rain forest–clad mountains, Riga could strike at Max should he ever reach this inhospitable area.
Riga was not waiting in luxury, however. The palm-leaf roof of the long hut kept the scorching sun off him, but the stifling jungle humidity enveloped everyone like a blanket soaked in hot water.
A decrepit air conditioner whirred noisily, the tatty piece of ribbon tied to the front grille fluttering pathetically, showing that the ancient cooler should have been replaced years ago. But the killer had learned to ignore any personal discomfort. This apparently abandoned airfield cut out of the limestone hillside deep in the forest was used years ago by the CIA for arms shipments to insurgents in Cuba and Central America. Those days were long gone, but secret airfields were still used by the people Riga worked for, as well as by the drug cartels, who needed to move shipments across vast areas of jungle.
Riga’s satellite phone beeped. It was Cazamind.
“The boat has been dealt with. They recovered two bodies; the others would have disintegrated when it exploded.”
“Was Gordon’s body found?”
“No. Two men.”
“Then we can’t be sure.”
“No one would have survived.”
