Outside the day had greyed over, and the wind was rustling the waters of the harbour. It was going to rain, Marker decided. Maybe he wouldn’t go into Bournemouth that evening. Maybe he’d stay at home, cook himself something nice, and watch TV. Sooner or later he had to get used to her not being there.
A couple of buildings down from the projection room, Rob Cafell was sitting at a drawing board, pencil between his teeth, studying the sketches he had made over the last half hour. He was alone in the room, and about the only thing in it which looked even vaguely military. Any unwitting outsider who stumbled in through the door would be forgiven for assuming he was in an art college.
Strictly speaking, Rob Cafell had no right to be there. The room was the preserve of the Marines’ Illustrators Branch, whose remit included the supply of maps and plans from aerial photographs, and any three-dimensional models of terrain, installations and vehicles which the Corps might meet in the course of fulfilling its military duties. Few solo activities pleased Rob Cafell more than drawing maps or making models, but unfortunately officers were barred from the Illustrators – supposedly too busy learning how to command – and the time he spent there could only be his own. He had helped out the regulars often enough on urgent projects for no one to mind his using either the premises or the modelling supplies.
That afternoon he had begun planning a model of the sister freighters recently converted for the shipment of high-grade plutonium from British and French reprocessing plants to Japan. The two vessels had originally been American, but a Belfast shipyard had converted them for their new role, strengthening the hatches and removing cranes, converting a high proportion of previous cargo space into extra fuel capacity, creating more accommodation for armed guards, and upgrading all the ships’ electronics. The problem for the modeller, as was usual where asymmetrical craft were concerned, lay in providing a clear enough picture of the ships’ innards without destroying all sense of what they looked like from the outside.
There was a very good reason for this particular job – if one of these ships was ever hijacked by terrorists the model’s availability for planning purposes would save a considerable amount of time. But Cafell didn’t really need the excuse. He loved the whole process, from the research through the planning to the manufacture and the painting – all of it. He had always been good with his hands – it saved him using his brain, his mother had always said – and he had been making models of ships as long as he could remember. Both his parents’ house in Plymouth and his own flat in Poole were filled with them. His innocent invitation to ‘come up and see my Dreadnought’ had long since passed into local legend. And still made him blush whenever he thought about it.
That had been a long time ago, he told himself. Almost ten years. He was over thirty now, and these days felt almost as comfortable with women as he did with men. He had always felt comfortable with his date for the evening, but then Ellen had always been a friend before. It was probably going to be a bit strange for both of them.
He looked up at the clock, and realized he should be on his way. But the sketches caught his eye again, and he started thinking about the problems an assault group would have in surprising terrorists on one of these ships. If the terrorists had any sense at all, it would be bloody difficult. There was every chance the plutonium would end up in the ocean.
Maybe his mum was right, Cafell thought. They should just ditch nuclear power altogether. His dad, who until recently had captained one of the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines, had other ideas.
It was time to go. He packed the sketches away in the drawer he always used, and opened the door just as a young Marine was raising a hand to knock.
‘Lieutenant Cafell, sir,’ the young man said. ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Colhoun wants to see you.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, boss.’
Cafell and Marker reached Colhoun’s door at almost the same moment.
‘Any idea what this is about?’ Cafell asked.
Marker shook his head and rapped on the door.
‘Yes,’ Colhoun said.
Inside they found the CO poring over a map of the Turks and Caicos. Underneath it was a larger scale map of the seas to the south and south-east of the continental United States. It looked promising, Marker thought.
‘I’ve sent for tea,’ Colhoun said, sitting back down in his famously tattered leather chair. At that moment an orderly arrived with three mugs of steaming tea and a plate full of Kit-Kats.
‘If only the enlisted men could see this,’ Marker said wryly.
Colhoun smiled at him. ‘I’ve got a job for you two,’ he said. ‘In the sunshine.’
‘Sounds ominous,’ Marker said, but the sudden sense of inner excitement belied his tone of voice.
‘Either of you two remember Nick Russell?’ Colhoun asked. ‘He left us in ’86.’
‘Only by reputation,’ Cafell said. ‘Before my time.’
‘I knew him by sight,’ Marker said. ‘Curly-headed guy with an innocent-looking face, like Rob here.’
‘That’s Russell,’ Colhoun agreed. He reached under the maps and extracted two copies of the minutes of the meeting he had attended that morning, which Hilary Smith had faxed through to him an hour or so earlier.
The two SBS officers started reading, and Colhoun watched their curiosity deepen as the pages turned. The two of them looked so dissimilar, the CO thought, and not just in the obvious sense. Certainly Marker was dark, wiry and brown-eyed, Cafell big, blond and blue-eyed, but that only touched the surface. It was all in the facial expression, Colhoun decided. Next to Cafell’s open, trusting face Marker’s looked almost haunted. They were almost like Lenny and George from Of Mice and Men, he thought, only in their case the differences were those of temperament rather than mental acumen. Both these men were supremely competent.
‘Comments?’ he asked, once they were both finished.
‘Just the two of us?’ Marker asked.
‘For the moment.’
‘So basically, we have to check out this Arcilla’s boat, submarine and chopper? If he’s running drugs he has to be using one or more of them.’
‘Right.’
‘But none of them are on the island at the moment.’
‘That’s true. And it may not be drugs. He could be laundering drug money. He could be hunting for treasure.’
‘We might find the Santa Lucia,’ Cafell suggested.
‘The what?’
‘It’s one of the most famous of the Spanish galleons which have never been found. It was carrying more than ten million in gold when it went down south of the Keys.’
‘I might have known you’d be up on this stuff,’ Marker murmured. ‘We’ll be needing a boat of our own, not to mention a submarine and access to either a chopper or a light plane.’
‘There’s a frigate permanently on patrol in the Caribbean,’ Colhoun said, ‘and the base in Belize has Kleppers and submersibles. I’ll get on to the Admiralty tomorrow, and try and persuade them to do a little chauffeuring for us. If that’s not on, then we’ll have to fly them out from here somehow. As for a boat, you can hire one on Provo according to this’ – he indicated the guide book – ‘and hiring one will look less suspicious. It’s not going to be easy slipping you a submersible and a couple of canoes without getting the whole island talking.’
‘With any luck we won’t need them,’ Cafell said. ‘Look at the range we’ve got here. It’s over five hundred miles to the nearest US coast – they can’t be running a small submarine there from the islands.’
‘And they sure won’t be canoeing that sort of distance,’ Marker added thoughtfully. ‘What about weaponry?’ he asked Colhoun.
‘No firearms are allowed on the island. And since you’re going in as tourists . . .’
‘We’ll have to be extremely cunning,’ Marker completed the thought.
‘We’ll get you handguns at least.’
‘We’ll need a couple of MP5s, a couple of harpoon guns,’ Ma
rker insisted. ‘And some stun grenades might come in handy. Arcilla and his chums don’t sound like nice people.’
Colhoun smiled. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he promised.
‘What about the Yanks?’ Cafell asked.
‘If the trail leads into their territory – and the way they see it their territory includes just about anything within two hundred miles of their coastline – then we’ll have to come to some sort of arrangement with the US Navy, Coast Guard and Customs Service. Shouldn’t be a problem – they’re the ones who want us to do something about Arcilla.’
‘So when do we leave?’ Marker asked.
‘I don’t know yet. There’s no great urgency – if Russell’s still alive he’s not likely to be in imminent danger. But there’s no point in hanging around, either. So as soon as everything’s in place . . .’
‘One thing, boss,’ Marker said. ‘There’s nothing in these minutes about rescuing Nick Russell.’
‘I know. If he’s still alive, then Russell may have struck it lucky. Because there’s no way Whitehall would have agreed to send out a rescue mission just for him. As it is . . .’
‘We consider him an SBS priority,’ Marker said.
Colhoun nodded. ‘Any more questions, gentlemen?’
There were none.
‘Well, start clearing your personal decks then. Callum, I’d like a word with you.’
Marker looked surprised but sank back into his seat.
Cafell paused in the doorway. ‘Nine o’clock tomorrow morning in the mess?’ he asked Marker.
‘Fine.’
Cafell shut the door behind him.
Colhoun sighed and looked out of the window. Thanks to the grey sky it was almost dark already. ‘I don’t want to butt in on your personal business,’ he began.
‘But you’re going to anyway.’ Marker smiled. ‘That’s OK. I’ve got no secrets from myself.’
‘I imagine you’re going through a rough time.’
Marker shrugged. ‘Sounds about right. Beats being in Rwanda though.’
Colhoun persisted. ‘A job like this might be a good way of drawing a line under the past. Or it might be you’re not ready to do that, and the past might get in the way of the job.’
Marker raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you rehearse that, boss?’ he asked.
Colhoun smiled in spite of himself. ‘I just want you to think about it for twenty-four hours.’
‘OK, but there’s no need. I miss my wife, no doubt about that. But it won’t get in the way. And I don’t think I believe in drawing lines under anything. You can hide the past away, but you can’t get rid of it. And if you do hide it away, it just makes it easier to repeat your mistakes.’
Colhoun simply nodded.
Marker smiled at him, got to his feet, and took his leave.
The CO leaned back in his chair, going over his earlier thoughts on his pairing of the two men. With any luck they were not only different, but almost complementary. Two sides of a single coin – probably the best currency he had.
6
The sound of the approaching helicopter jerked Russell out of his doze. He lay there with his eyes closed, trying to bring back the dream. Emelisse Alabri had been walking along the street, looking back over her shoulder as if she thought she was being followed. He supposed it had been himself doing the following. Strangest of all had been the location: the local shopping street in Twickenham, where he had grown up.
The helicopter was landing now, on the area of cleared ground which was otherwise used as a baseball diamond. It was the fifth such arrival in the ten days Russell had been on Tortuga, but he had no idea of who or what was being brought in or taken out. He supposed it might be a good idea to find out, but he seemed unable to shake off the mental lassitude which had afflicted him ever since the chloroforming. The causes of this might well be in part physical, but, even if so, Russell had no doubt they were also partly psychological. The more he found out about his new home, the more despairing he felt.
As yet he had not been obliged to do anything more than familiarize himself with the medical procedures. Emelisse had escorted him around the camp, showing him the dormitories where the orphans slept and the dusty space beneath the coconut palms where they went to school. She had not bothered to point out the security features, but then there had been no need to. The walls were real enough, and so were the Kalashnikov AK47s carried by the T-shirt-wearing guards. The atmosphere was not oppressive – two Kalashnikovs had provided the goalposts for an ongoing game of football – and in a way this made things seem even more depressing. The dreadful normality of the whole place made Russell almost want to cry.
After the camp, the hospital had been a revelation. Here everything – technical equipment, instruments, clothing, furnishings – was spotless and new. Nearly all of it was American-manufactured, and as far as Russell could tell no expense had been spared in procuring the best. Even the small outpatient clinic, where Emelisse did her best to function as a normal doctor, was well equipped, presumably as part of the bargain she had made with Joutard’s devil.
The guided tour had taken place during his third day in the camp, and he had not seen much of her since. One day she had come by with some books in French, and pointed out sections which she said he should familiarize himself with. The books had all been printed in Paris, and one bore the inscription ‘for Emelisse, with love from Jean-Pierre, August 17, 1983.’ Russell had asked her if she had ever been to France; she had told him that was where she had studied medicine. He had wanted to ask her more, but the look in her eyes had not been encouraging.
He tried to remember what she had been wearing in his dream. He had only ever seen her in the white coat, and he didn’t think it had been that.
His watch said it was almost five o’clock – another hour and he could go in search of food. He got up and removed the Rachmaninov tape from the cassette recorder, and looked through his deceased predecessor’s collection once more. Brahms, he decided. If he stayed chez Joutard long enough he might even grow to like the stuff.
It was time he gave some serious thought to getting out of the bloody place. He couldn’t believe escape from the camp itself would pose any serious problems, but getting himself beyond Joutard’s reach probably would. The first thing he needed was a precise fix on where he was, and work out a few options for . . .
The rap on the outside door was swiftly followed by the appearance of Emelisse in the living-room doorway. ‘Time to go,’ she said.
‘Where?’
She was already halfway out of the door. ‘To work,’ she said over her shoulder.
He hurried after her. This was the moment he had been dreading. Even if everything went right, and he found he could do what was needed, there was still the overwhelming sense of wrongness. As they walked briskly across the camp towards the hospital he told himself once more that a single kidney operating at fifty per cent of its full capacity could perform all the blood-cleaning operations necessary to a normal healthy adult.
It might be true, but it begged more questions than he had answers for.
He followed Emelisse in through the hospital doors, feeling like he was stepping out of one world and into another. These rooms, with their shiny machines and sterile furnishings and efficient air-conditioning, belonged to the rich man’s world. It was only a freak of geography that had placed them here. That and the warped logic of global supply and demand.
Two young Haitian women were already scrubbing up in the washroom, chattering to each other in a language Russell didn’t understand. They couldn’t be much older than fourteen, he decided, and the pale-blue smocks they were wearing made them look like boarding-school girls getting ready for bed.
One of the other two doctors – the only other European in the camp, an overweight Frenchman named Bodin – was examining himself in the mirror. Seeing Emelisse appear behind him he muttered something sarcastic under his breath. She ignored him, and he turned to leave, casting red-rimmed eyes in Russ
ell’s direction as he did so. The Englishman could smell brandy on the man’s breath.
He and Emelisse scrubbed their hands with the iodized soap, tied each other’s smocks, and went through into the room set up for surgery. The line of four parallel operating tables made it look like an updated set for the TV series MASH. On three of them naked bodies were laid out on sheets. On the far table the last doctor, a bald, middle-aged Hispanic man with a small thin moustache, was already at work.
‘Forty minutes,’ he told Emelisse. She nodded. ‘We’ll start in ten,’ she told the others.
‘Why not now?’ Russell asked.
‘So that we all finish at roughly the same time,’ she said.
That made sense. Russell looked across the room, and suddenly realized that though the two unattended patients were hooked up to tubes, needles and various monitoring sensors the one on the far end was not.
‘What’s Calderón doing?’ Russell asked Emelisse.
‘Harvesting,’ she said coldly. ‘The boy died a couple of hours ago. The helicopter brought in the body.’
‘Harvesting what?’ Russell asked.
‘Kidneys, corneas and as much bone tissue as he can manage in the time.’
‘Why not the heart and the liver?’ Russell asked, though he thought he already knew the answer. Somehow it felt better talking than simply watching.
‘The time factor, I assume.’ She seemed nervous too. ‘They wouldn’t survive the journey.’
‘How long does a heart last?’
‘I don’t know exactly. Six hours? Something like that.’
‘And kidneys?’
‘More like thirty-six.’
That made sense, Russell thought. Unless they were flying them into the US, which would surely be too risky. Of course, for all he knew the organs were being supplied to some private clinic on another island.
‘Why bone . . .’ he started to ask, but his voice dried up. Across the room the Puerto Rican doctor had just lifted the kidneys from the dead boy, still with the main vessels attached, and was carrying them across to the table nearby, where a pan of cold solution was waiting to wash off the blood. He then placed the kidneys in a clear plastic box about ten inches square, one of four in a row which sat on a slightly larger box surrounded in blue casing. These were perfusion machines, whose task was to pump cool preservative through the detached organs until they were transplanted into another patient.
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