Days of the Dead

by David Monnery

  ‘Hi, David,’ the DEA man said cheerfully enough. ‘And what can we do for the British Empire today?’

  ‘I need an address to go with a fax number,’ Shepreth told him, then read the number off the paper in front of him.

  ‘No problem,’ Sadler said. ‘It’ll probably take me a couple of hours. I’ll call you back.’

  ‘Great, thanks,’ Shepreth said, and hung up, thinking that anyone who believed the Americans no longer ran Panama was living in a dream. Their only real challenger had been Manuel Noriega – ‘Old Pineapple Face’ as the media had less than affectionately dubbed him – and the General had been rather too assiduous in promoting his country’s number-one industry – the import and export of drugs. Involvement in itself might not have condemned him, but he had compounded his crime by giving Uncle Sam the proverbial finger, and for that he was now languishing in a Florida jail.

  He was not exactly missed by his fellow-Panamanians. Like everyone else, the Americans occasionally did the right thing for all the wrong reasons.

  Shepreth stood by the window for a few moments, staring out at the square of blue Pacific which filled the space between the two high-rise buildings on the other side of the Via España. As usual a breeze was ruffling the palms which lined the wide avenue; Panama City was not the steamy hell of legend, though in just about every other respect it qualified as a major-league modern dump. The city’s business was business, and if Orson Welles had ever done a Central American version of The Third Man he could easily have substituted Panama for Switzerland in Harry Lime’s famous speech about what makes civilization tick.

  The second half had started in the room next door, and Shepreth walked through to join the others. England were not playing half as well as they had against the Dutch, and another Spanish near-miss had the Embassy officials chewing their lips in agitation. Even the two secretaries – both local girls – seemed caught up in the anxiety of the moment. Both of them had lovely legs, Shepreth thought, and wondered why he hadn’t noticed before.

  He supposed he didn’t come to Panama that often, or at least not lately. Large quantities of cocaine and heroin still passed through the country, but the focus of the drug trade had moved north in the past couple of years, and nowadays Shepreth spent most of his time in Mexico City.

  His real employer was MI6, that arm of British Intelligence which dealt with external threats to the security of the United Kingdom. Up until the end of the Cold War its principal occupation had been counter-espionage, but now that spies had either gone the way of the dodo or signed up with one of the corporations for non-political duties, MI6 had been forced into grabbing a share of the war against the unofficial corporations of international crime. These included the Sicilian, Russian, West African and Turkish Mafias, the Chinese Triads, Japanese Yakuza and Colombian drug cartels. With the exception of the Triads, most of these organizations had few soldiers on the ground in the UK itself, and sticking spokes in their collective wheels could only be done on foreign soil.

  The other EC intelligence services had a presence in Central America and the Caribbean, but for obvious reasons the principal sharers of Shepreth’s patch were the various overlapping American agencies – the US Customs Service, Coast Guard, Drug Enforcement Agency, Justice Department, FBI and CIA. Originally Shepreth’s relations with these American agencies had seemed better than those they had with each other, but over the past couple of years this situation had deteriorated somewhat. The Americans’ decision to adopt a ‘kingpin strategy’, whereby all their resources were committed to bringing down a selected few of the biggest drug barons, took little or no account of British and European interests. And when this most-wanted list was finally shared with America’s allies it was found to omit the one man the British most wanted included.

  It would of course be difficult to put Angel Bazua in prison – he was already in one. It had been specially constructed for him and his ‘business associates’ on the Colombian island of Providencia, and was said to contain all the comforts of home and a few others besides. Everything that Bazua needed to continue running his billion-dollar business had been thoughtfully provided by the Colombian authorities, from mobile phones and computers to an impressive boardroom table. It was even rumoured that a commodious shelter had been dug beneath the jail, as protection against a bombing raid by competitors.

  Elements of the Colombian military and civil administrations were obviously armpit-deep in the necessary corruption, but Bazua himself was not a Colombian – he was an Argentinian. And herein lay the other compelling reason for MI6’s interest in him. Bazua had been one of the leading protagonists of the Argentinian Army’s ‘Dirty War’ against its own people, and one of the prime movers behind the attempted liberation of the Malvinas. His son had been killed at Goose Green, further deepening his lifelong hatred of the English, and after the military’s reluctant abdication of power he had gone into exile rather than face a potential investigation into his activities during the Dirty War.

  By this time the fortune he had accumulated – most of it stolen in one way or another from his hundreds of victims – was considerable, and with the help of old Colombian contacts from his years at the US-sponsored anti-subversion school in Panama, he had bought himself a slice of the Cali drug cartel’s international action. In the late 80s, as the star of the Medellín cartel had fallen, his had risen with that of his Cali partners, and even the inconvenience of a prison term had done nothing to slow his enrichment. Most of the returning dollars went into Colombian banks to earn legitimate interest, but Bazua had not forgotten his own country or his hatred, and it was his deepest wish that the two new boats riding at anchor off his Providencia prison would soon be ferrying another invasion force to the Malvinas. Once such a force was ashore the liberal government in Buenos Aires would have no choice but to support the invasion, particularly since it would soon become apparent that this time the British were incapable of transporting a force large enough to dislodge it.

  This was not a welcome prospect in London, but British efforts to interest the Americans in action against Bazua had proved ineffective. Washington wouldn’t even countenance ganging up on the discredited Samper regime in Bogotá, much less direct action against the centre of operations on Providencia. Bazua was not one of their targeted kingpins, the British were told. There was no real evidence against him. And in any case, there could be no sanctioning of military action on the sovereign territory of Colombia.

  This of course was pure bullshit – Grenada and Panama should have been so lucky – but there was no shaking Washington’s resolve, even when their own DEA people in the field supported the British. Increasingly, Shepreth and his superiors in London had been left with the feeling that as far as Bazua was concerned the Americans had a hidden agenda.

  This idea received further confirmation when Neil Sadler rang back, seconds after the final whistle. The cheerfulness in his voice was gone – now there was an uneasy mixture of resentment and embarrassment.

  ‘No luck, I’m afraid,’ the American told him. ‘Are you sure this is the right number?’ He repeated the one which Shepreth had told him.

  ‘Yes,’ the Englishman said, slightly amused by the pantomime.

  ‘Well, it’s not listed. Sorry.’

  ‘OK. Thanks for trying,’ Shepreth said coolly.

  ‘Any time.’

  Shepreth put the phone down. He’d have to check it out in person, which shouldn’t be too difficult – the fax machine in question was almost certainly in the office on Calle 35, the one to which he had trailed the freighter captain earlier that month.

  He would pay it a visit later, once the Panamanian evening got into its undeniable swing. Then Whitehall would get its t’s crossed, and there would be more proof for the Americans to ignore.

  In the other room the celebration of a penalty shoot-out win had already begun, and while HM’s Consul waxed eloquent about Sheringham’s intelligence – ‘He thinks before he kicks the ball,’ he gush
ed, slurping his G&T – his number two seemed to be contemplating another goal altogether, his eyes locked on, like heat-seeking missiles, to the valley between the younger secretary’s ample breasts.

  Victoria looked healthier than Carmen had expected, and very obviously pregnant. If it weren’t for the eyes, which seemed to be watching from a great distance, she would have found it hard to believe that the young woman in front of her had gone through a succession of terrible experiences.

  The institution in which she was housed seemed more true to type; situated in one of Miami’s less salubrious inner suburbs, it felt more like a prison than the hospital it supposedly was. Closed-circuit cameras had watched Carmen all the way to this fourth-floor room, and the nurses all seemed cold-faced and unsmiling. Detective Peña, who had driven her out here in his lunch hour, had warned her it wasn’t exactly a rest home, and he’d been right. Victoria’s room contained a bed, a basin and a single chair. The door was locked from the outside at all times.

  For her part, Victoria eyed this new visitor with more trepidation than warmth. She might look vaguely familiar, but she would probably want to ask questions, like the police detective who had been to see her several times. He’d been quite nice, but she knew he hadn’t believed that she couldn’t remember anything. And of course he was a man. At least this one was a woman. And maybe she wouldn’t stay long – it was so wonderful being alone.

  ‘Victoria, do you remember me?’ Carmen asked her, and could tell from the look of alarm that she didn’t. ‘I’m Carmen, Marysa’s sister.’

  Tears formed in Victoria’s eyes and started rolling down her cheek. She was beginning to think she would dehydrate herself.

  ‘How are you?’ Carmen asked. ‘How do you feel? Are the people here good to you?’

  ‘Oh yes. They’re good to me. They leave me alone.’

  Carmen ignored the reproachful look which went with the last statement, and sat down on the bed beside the other woman. ‘Do you remember Cartagena?’ she asked gently, half expecting the flow of tears to increase. ‘The college?’

  Victoria gave her a strange look. ‘What does it look like?’ she asked.

  ‘The college?’ Carmen asked, surprised. ‘It’s a park full of white buildings, with a hill behind it. There…’

  ‘Can you see the sea from it?’ Victoria asked.

  ‘Yes, you remember…’

  Victoria shook her head. ‘No, but I have dreamt about this place.’

  Carmen waited for her to continue but she didn’t. ‘Do you remember the dream?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘What happens?’

  Victoria tilted her head to one side, and Carmen could see what Detective Peña had meant about a six-year-old. ‘Nothing happens really,’ she said. ‘I am eating and walking and reading a book and looking at the sea – things like that.’

  ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘No, I have friends. Marysa is there,’ she said, and smiled at Carmen, as if she had finally realized who her visitor was.

  Carmen took a chance. ‘Do you ever dream of going on a picnic?’

  Victoria’s eyes first widened with surprise and then darkened. ‘That’s a bad dream. How did you know about it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me about it? Then maybe it won’t seem so bad.’ Victoria looked at her – almost hopefully, Carmen thought. ‘Tell me what happens,’ she said again.

  ‘It’s a bad dream,’ Victoria repeated. ‘We’re having a lovely time, swimming and sunbathing and talking. We have some wine and Placida is pouring it into the paper cups and the men come out of the trees and they have guns. We have to go with them in their cars and then the car turns into a plane and we’re in the sky above this island, looking down. And the plane comes down to land and the wheels hit the runway and there’s a big jolt which wakes me up. It always wake me up, and then I feel better, knowing it’s just a dream.’

  As if in contradiction of the words, the tears were flowing once more.

  Carmen wanted to take the other woman in her arms, but she pressed on relentlessly. ‘The island in your dream – is it big?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not small. There’s a mountain in the middle and little towns by the sea. It’s shaped like an egg. And there’s another island – much smaller – at one end, with a bridge between them.’

  It was a good description, Carmen thought triumphantly. There couldn’t be many islands in the Caribbean which fitted it. Victoria was looking at her expectantly, but Carmen had no idea what she was expecting. ‘Do you remember any other dreams?’ she asked.

  Victoria seemed to retract her limbs, to pull her body closer together. ‘Yes, but they are evil dreams.’

  ‘Evil…You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

  Her voice apart, Victoria seemed turned to stone. ‘I am with men. They are doing things to me.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘They’re his men.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  She looked straight at Carmen. ‘He told me he was the Angel of Death, but he laughed when he said it.’

  ‘Is he the father of your child?’

  It was the wrong question. Victoria shook her head violently, and started crying again. Carmen took her in her arms, held her close, and slowly felt the tension in the younger woman’s body begin to lessen.

  ‘Is Marysa in these evil dreams?’ Carmen asked after a while.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Victoria admitted. ‘But I don’t want to talk about my dreams any more,’ she added.

  ‘All right,’ Carmen agreed. She’d thought she was ready to hear the worst, but she’d been wrong. ‘So what shall we talk about?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ the other woman said. ‘Let’s just be quiet together.’

  And for the next twenty minutes they sat next to each other on the bed, with Victoria’s head cradled on Carmen’s shoulder. At the end of that time the younger woman made no attempt to deter Carmen from leaving, but she did seem at least slightly pleased by the prospect of another visit the following day.

  Carmen had intended to talk to the doctor in charge about Victoria’s prospects, but decided to leave that until her next visit – she felt too distressed herself to fight for her sister’s friend. Instead she just stumbled out on to the street and started walking, and it was only after a couple of cruising drivers had slowed to offer her remuneration for services to be rendered that she realized what sort of neighbourhood she was in. Luckily a crowded bus stop soon presented itself, and half an hour later she was back downtown. There she walked into the first bar she came to, stonewalled the hopeful greetings of the male clientele and ordered a large tequila.

  In a dimly lit booth she thought about what Victoria had told her.

  An island. A recognizable island.

  Her drink finished, she asked the barman directions to the nearest bookshop. He looked at her blankly, as if the idea of buying a book had not occurred to him before, and she had to be rescued by one of the men she had ignored. He gave her directions to a shop two blocks distant.

  She walked down the palm-lined street and found it. An assistant showed her the atlases and hovered beside her until another customer pulled him away. She found the right page, and pushed her finger northwards across the blue Caribbean from the Colombian coast. The first island it reached was San Andrés, the second Providencia – both of them Colombian. The former was long and thin, the latter could have been egg-shaped. She needed a bigger map, and found it in a guidebook to her native country. Providencia was egg-shaped, with a mountain at its heart. And, she noticed triumphantly, there was a small adjoining island at its northern end. A bridge ran between them.

  At around a quarter to nine the taxi deposited Shepreth by the sea-front monument to Balboa, and after a few minutes’ contemplation of the dark ocean he crossed the busy main road and headed inland up Calle 35. The building he wanted was a couple of hundred metres up on the left – a nondescript modern constructi
on, six storeys of steel and glass. Through the glass doors he could see a liveried guard reading something at his otherwise bare desk.

  It was a porn comic – Shepreth had a fleeting glimpse of the usual giantess straddling the usual giant before the guard innocently slipped it under the desk.

  ‘I’ve got an appointment with someone at Azul Travel,’ Shepreth told him. ‘My name’s Bates,’ he added.

  The guard picked up his phone to confirm it, and after a few words with someone nodded Shepreth in the direction of the lift. ‘Fifth floor,’ he said grudgingly, reaching for his comic.

  It seemed unlikely that he’d be watching the lighted floor numbers above the lift, but Shepreth went all the way to five just in case. On his way to the stairs he passed the door of the travel agency, with whom he had earlier arranged the necessary appointment. He hoped they would wait at least ten minutes before phoning down to find out what had happened to him.

  The office he was interested in was on the third floor. There was no writing on the glass door, and he didn’t expect to find a happy bunch of workers inside. Certainly, whoever was renting the space hadn’t taken much trouble to protect any contents – the door yielded to Shepreth’s lock-picking expertise with almost insulting ease.

  The room proved even emptier than he had expected. The fluorescent light revealed no desk, no chairs, no filing cabinets – just a fax machine and a shredder floating on an ocean of burgundy-coloured carpet. ‘Snap,’ Shepreth murmured as he read the fax’s number.

  Now all they needed was evidence linking this office with the prison on Providencia. Which wouldn’t be easy. Presumably each missive from the island was consigned to the shredder the moment it had been read. He would have to try to set up an intercept of some sort, Americans or no…

  As if in answer to a prayer the fax clicked into life. Shepreth stood over it, hoping it wouldn’t be someone trying to sell Bazua double glazing for his prison.

  It wasn’t. The fax, emanating from a number which Shepreth recognized as including the prefix for Colombia’s two Caribbean islands, contained the usual list of buyers, together with amounts, beeper numbers and instructions for onward transmission to the organization’s cell head in northern Mexico. The Americans wouldn’t be able to ignore this, Shepreth thought. They would either have to add Bazua to their precious list of kingpins or come up with an honest reason for refusing.