Days of the Dead

by David Monnery

  Instead she walked on through the trees, thinking that she would have to try to see Victoria again before she left. The aunt who had met the plane had seemed a kindly person, but Victoria had acted as if she was being abandoned, rather than passed into someone else’s care.

  Carmen reached the bottom of the garden and stared up at the distant hills, her heart weighed down with sadness, her stomach churning with fear.

  6

  Docherty sat on his haunches behind the white BMW, his back against the concrete wall. The car was one of only a dozen still awaiting collection in the cavernous car park, and that suited Docherty down to the ground – he didn’t want an audience when Toscono came to claim his.

  About fifty-five hours had passed since their first meeting, and by this time Toscono had probably forgotten he existed. Docherty had not been idle in the intervening period – he had spent most of the previous day searching out a suitable spot for a private tête-à-tête, and most of the evening shopping for the 9mm Walther PPK which was now stuffed inside his belt. He would have preferred one of the Browning High Powers he was used to, but the dealer he visited in Guadalupe said he hadn’t seen one of those for months. Besides, Docherty had gained some experience with the Walther PPK during his first tour of duty in Northern Ireland. The fact that the gun came with a silencer was a big bonus – convincing people that you were prepared to use a gun was so much easier if it looked like no one else would notice.

  Docherty tensed as the faint ping announced the opening of the lift doors, but the two men who emerged were not Toscono and his bodyguard. These two walked across his line of vision towards a dark Mercedes, their feet making a slapping sound on the concrete floor. The car’s engine burst into life, sounding preternaturally loud in the subterranean space. It purred across the floor, smoothly accelerated up the exit ramp and disappeared from view, just as the lift doors opened again.

  This time it was them. Toscono was carrying a briefcase on this occasion, which was all to the good – if he was armed it would slow down his reactions. Docherty’s only movement as the footfalls drew nearer was to pull the Walther from his belt. His breathing sounded louder than it should but he knew that was just his imagination.

  The slap of their footsteps turned from mono to stereo as the two men walked towards the doors on either side of the car, and the clunking sound told Docherty that Toscono had used his remote. He rose up from his crouch like a well-oiled jack-in-the-box, gun in hand. After a split second’s hesitation the bodyguard started for his own weapon, but a perceptible shift in Docherty’s aim and the sight of the silencer froze him in mid-motion.

  ‘Both of you – hands on the roof,’ the Scot snapped. ‘And let the briefcase drop,’ he told Toscono.

  ‘You must be mad,’ Toscono hissed, but both he and the bodyguard obeyed.

  Docherty walked round the car until he was a few feet away from the latter, all the time keeping an eye on the man’s boss. ‘I can just as easily leave you dead on the floor,’ he told the bodyguard. ‘And if you move a muscle, I will.’

  The man’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing.

  ‘On your knees,’ Docherty told him, and when the man didn’t move he pushed the snout of the silencer gently into his back. ‘Now or never,’ he added.

  The man still didn’t speak, but a whimper escaped his lips as he lowered himself to the ground. Taking his eyes off Toscono for no more than a second, Docherty crashed the butt of the Walther into the side of the bodyguard’s head.

  The man slumped forward, banging his forehead against the car door, and ended up curled in a foetal position half under the car. With his foot, Docherty dragged a stray leg out from under the wheel. ‘Get in the car,’ he told Toscono.

  ‘No,’ Toscono said shakily. His eyes were on the distant lift doors – no doubt he was praying they would suddenly disgorge a rescue force.

  ‘Is that your final answer?’ Docherty asked, aiming the PPK between the man’s eyes and flexing his finger on the trigger.

  Toscono got into the car.

  Docherty climbed in beside him.

  ‘There were thousands of prisoners at the Rosario base,’ Toscono said petulantly. ‘I can’t remember all the ones I had dealings with, let alone all the others.’

  ‘Shut up and drive,’ Docherty told him.

  Toscono looked at him.

  ‘Drive,’ he repeated.

  Toscono drove.

  ‘Smile at the man,’ Docherty said as they approached the attendant’s booth, but there was no one in it. ‘Turn right on the street,’ he added.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Toscono asked as they emerged on to Balderas.

  ‘Head for the airport,’ Docherty told him.

  ‘The airport?’

  ‘Don’t worry – you won’t be needing your passport,’ he said, as the Argentinian slowed the car to join the long queue at the lights. The traffic might turn out to be a problem, Docherty realized – even with the tinted windows shut he didn’t fancy holding a gun on Toscono for hours on end in the middle of a grid-locked street.

  They crawled up Tacuba, but once past the Zócalo the crush thinned, Toscono was able to keep the car moving at a steady thirty and it seemed as if the worst was over. The Argentinian hadn’t said a word since the car park, and his face now seemed set in a mask of cold fury. He had just about recovered from the shock, Docherty guessed, and was now rummaging through his brain for a way out of his predicament.

  They turned left on to Puerto Aéreo Boulevard, and were soon passing under the thunderous flight path of an incoming American Airlines jet. ‘We’re not going into the airport,’ Docherty said. ‘Take the Texcoco road – it’s about a kilometre beyond the entrance.’

  Toscono said nothing, just gripped the wheel a bit tighter.

  ‘If you drive into the airport, I shall just leave you dead in the car park and take the next plane out,’ Docherty told him.

  Toscono’s shoulders seemed to sag. ‘So where are we going?’ he asked as the slip road went by.

  ‘The Texcoco road,’ Docherty repeated, and Toscono didn’t ask again. They were about a kilometre down that road, the outlying areas of the airport receding to their right, when the small side road came into view. ‘Turn off here,’ Docherty ordered, and saw the flash of fear in the other man’s eyes. ‘If I’d just wanted to kill you I could have done it in the car park,’ he said.

  Toscono pulled the car off the main road and on to a bumpy dirt track which wound through the scrub for about half a kilometre before ending on the rim of a recently excavated crater some two hundred metres square and about thirty metres deep. ‘It’s for rubbish,’ Docherty said drily.

  The Argentinian stared out at the vast hole. A plane was taking off a few hundred metres beyond it, but as far as the rest of the world was concerned they might have been on the moon. The highway they’d turned off was an invisible murmur somewhere beyond the thick scrub, the city just a few distant towers beneath the smog.

  ‘Guillermo Macías,’ Docherty said softly. ‘I want to know what happened.’

  Toscono looked at him. He remembered both the name and the boy. Macías had been almost too good-looking, with an angelic face, soft, wavy hair, a colt-like grace. In his mind’s eye Toscono could see the pale body on the table, arcing and bouncing under the electricity. It hadn’t been necessary – he had offered the boy a way out, only to receive a faceful of spittle for his trouble.

  He even remembered why he had been arrested. ‘Macías was picked up with several other students,’ he said out loud. ‘They were found in possession of gummed labels with revolutionary slogans…’

  ‘Labels?’ Docherty asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes. I was in command of the arrest squad. He was taken to the base for processing, and I don’t know what happened to him after that. If he wasn’t released I presume he ended up in either a grave or the River Plate.’

  Docherty knew Toscono was lying, at least in part – his eyes and mouth seemed to be
telling different stories. The gummed label part sounded sick enough to be true, and so did the choice of final resting-places, but Docherty was pretty sure the Argentinian knew more than he was saying about what had happened in between.

  Did it matter? Gustavo Macías would at least know why his son had been arrested, and what parents wanted to know the details of how their child had been tortured? He had got what he needed from Toscono.

  But not what he wanted. He wasn’t even sure what that was, and the reasons he wanted it were no clearer – they might have something to do with old-fashioned right and wrong, or maybe with the fact that Isabel had been tortured by men like this one. At that moment he didn’t care.

  ‘That’s not enough,’ he said softly, as if it was a decision he’d reached reluctantly. He raised the Walther, supporting the wrist of his gun hand on the other, and hoped that an hour under the gun hadn’t taken the edge off Toscono’s fear.

  ‘I can’t tell you any more,’ the Argentinian said. His voice was only slightly frayed at the edges, but the eyes were wide with terror.

  ‘Who could?’ Docherty asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Give me a name. Who was in command of the camp?’

  Toscono thought quickly. Giving this mad Englishman Angel Bazua’s name would be safe enough – there was no way anyone could get to him. ‘Colonel Bazua was in command of the base,’ he said.

  That at least was the truth, Docherty thought.

  ‘He’s in prison in Colombia,’ Toscono volunteered.

  ‘I know where he is,’ Docherty said coldly. ‘What makes you think his memory is any better than yours?’

  ‘It doesn’t need…’ Toscono began, then fell silent.

  ‘This is the last question you’ll have to answer,’ Docherty told him. ‘If I think you’re telling the truth you can go and play in that big sandpit out there. If I think you’re lying you’ll need another couple of kneecaps. Understand?’

  Toscono gave him a look of mingled fear and loathing. ‘I understand.’

  ‘So why doesn’t Colonel Bazua need a memory?’

  ‘Because he has the files,’ Toscono said.

  ‘The files?’

  ‘The records of all the prisoners. Not just in Rosario – all the prisoners of the Army.’

  Docherty believed him. He looked at his watch. ‘It’s been lovely talking to you, but I’m going to be late for my plane. So you can go now.’ Once Toscono had climbed out he shifted over into the driving seat, put the BMW into reverse and accelerated back up the dirt road in the direction of the highway. By the rim of the crater Toscono had sunk to his knees and seemed to be praying to whatever God would listen.

  Shepreth paid his money and paused just inside the doors of the Luz de la Luna, letting his eyes get used to the smoky gloom. A local band was doing a passable job on an old Clifford Brown tune and the jazz club’s patrons were listening respectfully, toes and fingers tapping, heads nodding. As he’d expected, Theodore Vaughan was there, sitting alone at a table on the far side of the room, eyes closed in a smiling face. Jazz was the love of the DEA man’s life, and this was far and away the best club in Mexico City.

  During the two years they’d known each other Ted Vaughan had often brought Shepreth here, and for his part the Englishman had taken the Afro-American to visit some of the lesser-known archaeological gems within easy driving distance of the capital. Both had enjoyed the cross-cultural fertilization, and these days Vaughan could tell his Aztecs from his Toltecs, Shepreth his Mingus from his Monk.

  As the pianist went into a solo, Shepreth wended his way through the tables to where his friend was sitting.

  Vaughan opened his eyes. ‘You’re back,’ he said, and closed them again.

  ‘I got in last night,’ Shepreth told him once the piece was over.

  ‘How was Merry Old England?’

  ‘In mourning. We lost a football match to the Germans,’ he explained, seeing the look of incomprehension on Vaughan’s face. ‘I need something to eat,’ he added, looking round for a waiter. The Luz de la Luna might not have had the world’s greatest jazz, but the food was excellent. ‘And then I need to talk to you,’ he told Vaughan.

  ‘Business?’

  ‘Yeah. Off-the-record business, if there is such a thing.’

  Vaughan smiled at that. ‘After the set?’

  ‘Sure.’

  An hour or so later the two men emerged from the club and into the cool air. It was only just past ten o’clock, and the suburb of San Angel was far from sleeping. One group of teenage boys were honing their skateboarding skills in the parking lot next door, a mixed group of youngsters were talking and laughing outside the cinema just up the road, and in the distance they could hear the strains of the funfair wafting down from the Plaza San Jacinto.

  ‘Have you got your car?’ Shepreth asked.

  ‘Yeah, it’s over there.’

  ‘Why don’t we drive up to the plaza?’

  ‘OK.’

  They drove up the hill to find that many of the craft and artwork stalls in the square itself, and most of the fairground rides and freak shows in the adjoining streets, were still open for business. Vaughan found a spot to park the car, paid the local urchins a king’s ransom to guard it, and the two of them walked slowly round the square, finally settling on a just-vacated bench close to the fountain. On the seat opposite a young couple were holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes.

  ‘Nice,’ Vaughan said, lighting a cigarette. No matter how big an Hispanic population the US ended up with, Mexico would still feel a long way from home. He took a drag on the cigarette. ‘So how can I help Her Majesty’s Secret Service?’ he asked playfully.

  Shepreth had no desire to beat about the bush. ‘You can tell us why your people are so reluctant to go after Angel Bazua.’

  Vaughan grimaced. ‘Ah, shit,’ he murmured. ‘Ask me something I know the answer to.’

  Shepreth was silent for a moment. ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘We’ve got a pretty good idea of how big Bazua’s European operation is. What’s his volume of trade with the US like?’

  ‘Big and getting bigger. Top twenty with a bullet. And we think he’s recently done a distribution deal with Ignacio Payán in Ciudad Juárez, which would give him a seat at the big boys’ table.’

  ‘Which just seems to beg the question,’ Shepreth said. ‘Why the kid gloves?’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t know.’ Vaughan hesitated for a moment. ‘Off the record, right? I’ve asked my people in Washington, and they tell me he’s in prison, the prison’s in Colombia, there are easier fish to fry. All of which may be true, but it still doesn’t feel right to me. Most of his organization’s here and in Panama, and I can’t see any harm in keeping tabs – if we don’t, the bastard could have Mexico sewn up without even having to leave his goddam cell.’

  Shepreth smiled. ‘Do I detect some creative reading of your instructions from Washington? Are you keeping tabs anyway?’

  ‘We’re keeping a watch on Payán’s people here, and of course that means investigating the people they’re in regular contact with.’

  ‘Like Bazua’s people?’

  Vaughan smiled. ‘And I have a question of my own,’ he said. ‘Does the name James Docherty mean anything to you?’

  ‘No,’ Shepreth said without hesitation. ‘Should it?’

  ‘He’s a fellow-countryman of yours. Ex-SAS, retired to Chile a couple of years ago. Two days ago he met with Bazua’s top man here…’

  ‘Lazaro Toscono?’

  ‘The same. Docherty paid him a visit. We don’t know why, but we do know that later that day some of Toscono’s buddies in the police arrested Docherty, accused him of threatening Toscono and warned him to be a good boy in future.’

  Shepreth pondered this information. Why would an ex-SAS man be threatening a drug baron?

  ‘So he’s not one of yours?’ Vaughan asked.

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ Shepreth told him. ‘Is he
still in Mexico City?’

  ‘He was this morning. He checked out of his hotel, took a cab to the post office and never came out again. At least, our guy didn’t see him come out. It might have been just carelessness, but he hasn’t left the country by plane and he hasn’t checked into a new hotel under his own name.’

  ‘You’re still looking?’ Shepreth asked, amazed as usual by how good the American coverage of the city was. One or other of their agencies must have someone on the payroll in just about every political, legal and military office in the capital, not to mention the various transport and communication agencies.

  ‘Yeah,’ Vaughan admitted. ‘I’m curious,’ he added by way of explanation.

  So was Shepreth. It was almost midnight by the time Vaughan dropped him off at the Embassy-owned apartment, and in another couple of hours head office in London would be open for business. His body still seemed to be on English time in any case, and he felt more awake than he had earlier that evening. He made himself some coffee and liberally dosed it with brandy, then turned on the TV. A dubbed version of an old Paul Newman Western was showing – the one in which he played a white man who’d grown up with the Apaches. When it ended soon after one Shepreth flicked through the channels. One of them was showing a rerun of the England-Germany game.

  He switched off the TV, took a shower, then encoded and faxed off his request for information on one James Docherty, ex-SAS. With any luck there would be an answer waiting for him when he woke up.

  After ditching the BMW outside a Metro station in the Zona Rosa, Docherty had taken a taxi back to the Old City, collected his bag from the café owner who’d agreed to look after it, and checked into a far from salubrious hotel a couple of streets north of the Zócalo. He registered under the name Kenneth Dalglish, telling the receptionist his passport had been stolen that day. The man looked wounded by this news, but soon cheered up when offered compensation in the form of a ten-dollar bill.