Days of the Dead

by David Monnery

  For Carmen, the last couple of minutes had been endless. She had heard gunfire, explosions, a splash, breaking glass, and for all she knew her English allies had all been killed by Bazua’s men. Her mind told her this was unlikely and that she should stay where she was, but apparently neither her heart nor her feet agreed, because a couple of seconds later she found herself tentatively extending her head round the corner of the building.

  She gasped at the scene in front of her, the bodies littering the courtyard, another floating in the pool. But none of them, she realized with a leap of her heart, were dressed like the Englishmen. Two of these were walking along the far side of the pool, and as she turned her head Docherty and Shepreth emerged from a door further down the near side. They were alive…

  And then she saw the door open in the far corner, the figure in silhouette, head looking this way and that, gun in hand.

  ‘Atención,’ she screamed.

  Docherty spun round, saw her standing there and followed the direction of her outstretched arm. The door which they had assumed led only to the back-up generator was open, and there was a flicker of shadow on the inner wall as someone disappeared inside.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ Docherty yelled in Spanish, forgetting he was wearing a microphone and almost deafening the others. ‘You take the last room,’ he yelled over his shoulder at Shepreth, and didn’t bother to wait for the MI6 man’s agreement. Skirting the end of the swimming pool at a run, he almost skidded to a halt by the side of the open doorway. A quick glance inside revealed both the expected generator and a flight of steps leading down into the bowels of the earth.

  He started down the steps, forcing himself to take it slowly and carefully. At the bottom of the steps corridors ran off to both left and right, and he took the former, which led directly into a luxurious suite of rooms.

  Docherty took them one by one, rerunning the old ‘Killing House’ training like a mental video, refusing to let impatience and his strong intuition that the rooms were empty lead him into a fatal mistake. The largest room boasted a huge round bed and not much else. Another good-sized room contained two tan leather sofas, a TV and a sound system; a third served as a small office. There was a swish-looking bathroom and toilet. At the corridor’s end there was a room containing six bunk-beds.

  They were all empty.

  And then the sound of a distant shot echoed in the enclosed space.

  Moments after hearing their bombs go off in the Aguadulce military post three kilometres to the south, Stoneham and Blackie had slipped into the shallow water and started towards the dock. On the way they heard the Uzi bursts, and were not surprised to find that the guards had abandoned their position. ‘We’re on the path,’ Stoneham told Wynwood, just as another burst of automatic fire split the night.

  ‘One headed your way, Terry,’ Wynwood said in his ear.

  The two SAS men headed carefully up the dark path, counting on the PNGs to give them the edge.

  They had been walking only a few seconds when they heard the man coming towards them, and a few moments later they could see him. Both men stepped behind convenient trees, and Stoneham spent several valuable seconds trying but failing to remember the Spanish for ‘stop’.

  ‘Stop, you bastard,’ he screamed in English, but the Colombian’s only answer was to tighten his finger on the Uzi’s trigger and keep running, presumably in the hope that the spray of bullets would act like a shield. It didn’t. The two MP5s almost cut him in half at the chest, his mouth gushed blood, and he was dead before he hit the ground.

  ‘One down,’ Stoneham reported in.

  ‘Come on in,’ Wynwood told him. He and Bonnie had just checked the remaining room, which had turned out to be the prison armoury, containing, in Wynwood’s rough estimation, well over a million pounds’ worth of brand-new weapons and equipment.

  In the basement Docherty regained the bottom of the steps in time to greet the descending Shepreth and Carmen.

  ‘Look after her,’ Docherty told the MI6 man curtly, without pausing in his stride. The corridor ran straight ahead of him into the distance, and he guessed with a sinking heart that it had been designed as an escape route. Forty metres later he reached another flight of steps, and realized that he’d been right. As he started ascending, a car’s engine burst into life, and he knew that Bazua was gone.

  The steps emerged into the garage, and as he ran out through the open door headlights swept past the gates and on to the road. He heard the others coming up the stairs and turned, and it was then that he saw the woman’s body. She had on only a T-shirt, and her face had been all but destroyed by the bullet. She’d broken free of Bazua’s grasp, Docherty guessed, and the bastard had just shot her in the back of the head. ‘The fucker’s escaped,’ he said into the microphone, disgust in his voice.

  He looked up to see Carmen falter in her stride, the guilty relief in her eyes as she realized it wasn’t her sister.

  ‘It’s Irma,’ she said, as if she was talking to herself.

  Docherty looked at his watch. Six minutes had passed since the bombs had gone off in the Aguadulce military post, and they couldn’t count on many more before the local authorities put in an appearance.

  Carmen had other ideas. ‘We can go after him,’ she said, pointing to the other car standing there.

  ‘No we can’t,’ Docherty told her, and she looked as though she’d been slapped.

  ‘But…’

  ‘He’s heading for the airport,’ Docherty said, remembering which way the car had turned outside the gate. ‘Even if we could catch him there’s no way we could get off the island, not now. The locals are probably on their way already.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Shepreth agreed.

  The look on Carmen’s face clawed at Docherty’s heart. ‘We’ll get the bastard,’ he told her. ‘It just won’t be today.’ He didn’t add that Bazua might well dump the other two women the first chance he got.

  ‘You promise you’ll carry on?’ she asked fiercely, gazing from one face to the other as if determined to catch them in a lie.

  ‘Aye,’ Docherty said, looking her straight in the eye. ‘Now let’s get going.’

  They retraced their path down the tunnel and as Shepreth searched through the small office Carmen wandered round the room with the bunk-beds, staring at the various pieces of women’s clothing, the magazines, the cosmetics by the mirror. She looked about fifteen, Docherty thought.

  ‘Only two beds have been slept in,’ she said suddenly.

  She was right. He put an arm round her shoulder, meaning to pull her gently away, and at that moment his eyes caught sight of the painting on the wall in the main bedroom. A Spanish woman was sitting at an open stone window, and the space itself was filled by the moon.

  ‘That means there were only two women here,’ Carmen said, a hint of hysteria in her voice.

  ‘Maybe,’ Docherty agreed. ‘Or maybe one was with Bazua,’ he added gently.

  She gave him a look that was half hope, half heartbreak.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ Shepreth said behind them. ‘He must have taken the records with him.’

  ‘Then let’s go,’ Docherty said, propelling Carmen towards the corridor and steps.

  ‘Victoria told me he was like a worm that burrowed,’ she said, ‘but I just thought she was talking about sex. If I had…’

  ‘Forget about ifs,’ he told her. ‘They’re only there to keep us humble,’ he murmured.

  In the compound outside Bonnie was keeping watch while Wynwood placed the charges in the armoury. The body in the pool was floating happily on its back. Another day of the dead, Docherty thought.

  Wynwood emerged a few moments later, having lit the five-minute fuses. ‘There’s enough weapons to mount another Falklands invasion in there,’ he told Docherty. ‘But no luck with the records,’ he guessed, noticing that both Shepreth and the Scot were empty-handed. He shrugged. ‘Well, let’s get the fuck out of here. Terry and Blackie are planting the charges on the
boats.’

  It was twelve minutes past one.

  They headed up the path in single file, with Docherty bringing up the rear. He was just thinking that the five minutes must be up when he heard a tooting horn from the direction of the villa – the local military had arrived at the gates and were demanding entry. There was another toot, longer this time, and then, as if in response, a yellow flash lit the sky. It was instantly followed by the sharp rip of the first explosion. That was the communications room, Docherty guessed, and the fuller-throated roar of the next detonation proved him right.

  They reached the dock just as Stoneham and Blackie returned from fixing their charges, and with all seven of them on board Wynwood headed the boat north at its maximum speed of about fifteen knots. If the commandant of the military post in Aguadulce had instantly asked his superiors on San Andrés for help a helicopter could be arriving at any minute, but Wynwood wasn’t expecting any such quickness of thought or independence of action. The commandant wouldn’t have wanted to involve outsiders without clearing it with his real boss, but he would only now be discovering that Bazua had flown the coop, and it would take him a few minutes to realize that he had been left in an impossible position. At that point he might cut his losses and ring either San Andrés or the mainland.

  If he did, Wynwood reckoned, they had about fifteen minutes in which to lose themselves on the open sea before a search got underway.

  They had travelled about a kilometre when the first charge went off behind them. Wynwood looked back to see the second jagged flash erupt against the dark background of the coastline, and then a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. Stoneham and Blackie had done a thorough job on Bazua’s navy.

  He looked round at the others. There were grins of relief on the two younger men’s faces, but on Stoneham’s and Docherty’s he saw a reflection of his own sombre realization that their mission had been a partial failure. Then he told himself that meant it had also been a partial success. They had destroyed the bastard’s boats and his weapons stash, they had driven him out of his safe haven, at least for the moment, and all without suffering a single casualty, which had to be worth something. Bazua would find it hard to replace what he’d lost. Acquiring new and sophisticated military equipment was never simple, even when money was no object, and governments willing to let drug barons run their organizations from prison were, mercifully, thin on the ground. No doubt the man had friends in Mexico, but they wouldn’t be as powerful as the ones he’d made in Colombia. And next time he might not be so lucky.

  But it wouldn’t be the SAS who got the bastard. And Wynwood couldn’t help finding that hugely disappointing.

  A few metres behind him, sitting in the boat’s stern, Docherty’s thoughts had been moving in much the same direction. His script, though, had a different ending – even without the promise to Carmen he would probably still have considered Bazua unfinished business, and with it there was no room for doubt.

  He looked round for her, and saw that her head was cradled in Shepreth’s shoulder.

  ‘Boss,’ Blackie said suddenly, and everyone turned to follow the direction in which he was pointing, certain that the Colombian military was in hot pursuit.

  They had forgotten the Caravelle, which was climbing into the sky above the diminishing hump of Providencia. It seemed to pass directly over their heads before veering away in the general direction of Mexico.

  ‘Where’s a terrorist bomb when you need one?’ Bonnie asked no one in particular, as the Caravelle vanished among the stars.

  Shepreth walked forward to talk to Wynwood. ‘I need to let some people know about that plane,’ he said.

  ‘People where?’ the Welshman asked him. ‘We’ve only got Grand Cayman listening in.’

  ‘They can pass the message.’

  ‘OK. Terry, take the helm, will you.’

  Stoneham obliged, and Wynwood set up the PRC 319 on the cabin roof, typing in the message as Shepreth dictated.

  By the time he’d finished they were more than halfway out of Colombian waters, and as the remaining kilometres slipped by the eyes of the team were more or less permanently focused on the southern horizon. Even though an attack from the air seemed unlikely, a fast patrol boat could still try to take them into custody.

  But neither aircraft nor boat loomed in the south, and Stoneham had no sooner announced that they were in international waters than a moving speck appeared in the northern sky. As this swiftly grew into the expected Mk 3 Sea King they made ready to leave the boat. The pilot hovered overhead as the rope ladder was lowered, and one by one they clambered up it, leaving the empty craft bobbing happily on the swell below. As the pilot turned the helicopter back towards the north another member of the crew poured mugs of tea from a giant Thermos.

  13

  The day had dawned a dull grey in London, and it had been raining on and off ever since. The perfect weather for his mood, Sir Christopher Hanson thought, as he threaded his way through the maze behind Whitehall in the direction of the Prime Minister’s back door. He had been up all night anxiously waiting for news from the Caribbean, and still hadn’t shaken the feeling of disappointment which had eventually accompanied it.

  Of course the night hadn’t been a dead loss – there had been achievements too, and it was these which he planned on stressing in his report to the PM. Hanson thought about opening with ‘Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news – which would you like first?’, but he knew that all he’d get from his audience would be a stony look. It was hard to believe these days, but the man had possessed a sense of humour when he came into office.

  It was only seven a.m. but the PM was already at work in his private den. He gestured Hanson to a chair and pushed aside whatever he was working on with ill-concealed irritation. The MI6 chief found himself wondering whether a Labour government really would make his life more difficult, as all his subordinates expected.

  ‘They’re back on Grand Cayman,’ he said, sitting down. ‘No casualties.’

  The PM looked confused for a moment, then comprehension dawned. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘And the Argentinian?’

  ‘He escaped,’ Hanson said flatly. ‘Probably to Mexico.’

  The PM grimaced.

  ‘But they destroyed his base, his ships and his armoury,’ Hanson went on, exaggerating only slightly. ‘It’ll take him a long time to recover.’

  The PM didn’t look mollified. ‘How did he get away?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. There’ll be a full debriefing as soon as the men arrive back here. I thought it would be wise to get them away from the…’

  ‘The scene of the crime,’ the PM suggested drily. ‘Yes, you’re probably right.’

  ‘I do know that an illegal flight landed on the island in the middle of their operation, which was something that no one could have foreseen.’

  The PM scratched his forehead. ‘I don’t suppose they got their hands on the military records?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not. He must have taken them with him.’

  ‘If they exist. So we’ve got nothing to show the Americans?’

  ‘No,’ Hanson admitted. ‘But I’m told the team didn’t leave any fingerprints behind them, so we could at least try feigning ignorance. Just play dumb, as the Americans would say.’

  The PM made a scornful-sounding noise. ‘They may not have left any fingerprints but I’ll bet the sky was lit up for miles around. And what are the chances the Americans didn’t track the helicopter back to the Caymans?’

  ‘Smugglers use the Caymans. And we may have been lucky – the Yanks aren’t omniscient. Maybe just this once their operator didn’t notice the blip on the screen.’

  ‘You’re grabbing at straws, Christopher,’ the PM said. ‘I think I’d rather go with your earlier suggestion than simply deny all knowledge. Washington won’t believe a word of it, but they might buy the idea that the attack was mounted by a renegade ex-SAS man.’

  ‘There’s still the flight to Grand Cay
man,’ Hanson said.

  ‘This man – I’ve forgotten his name…’

  ‘Docherty.’

  ‘He could have got hold of a helicopter on the black market, couldn’t he?’

  ‘Probably, but…’ Hanson paused. He had spent the last couple of hours thinking about how to pursue Bazua, and had come to the conclusion that in Mexico the only real help he could offer Shepreth was Jamie Docherty. Neither the Americans nor the local authorities could be used for obvious reasons, and the chances of getting the PM to sanction another SAS operation on the North American mainland were non-existent. ‘If the worst comes to the worst,’ he said, ‘then we can throw him to the Americans, but I’m sure you’ll agree that the optimal outcome for everybody – remains the elimination of Bazua and the seizure of his records. And I think Docherty can still be useful in that regard. He knows Mexico.’

  The PM shook his head, but there was a thin smile on his face. ‘And what do we tell the Americans in the meantime?’

  ‘Tell them you don’t know what happened but that you’re determined to get to the bottom of it. Imply that some of our people may have taken matters into their own hands. He should understand that – his own people are doing it all the time.’

  The rap on the door woke Docherty, and there was a moment of disorientation before he remembered where he was. They had landed in a secluded corner of the empty airport soon after five, and a minibus had driven them not much more than a kilometre to the hotel, where he had just about managed to set Isabel’s mind at rest, and bless the fact that he was no longer in command of anyone, before collapsing on to the soft bed. Wynwood and Shepreth had no doubt been up for hours, reporting back to their superiors in the UK.

  It was Wynwood at the door, and by the look of his red-ringed eyes he hadn’t had any sleep.