Alpha Force: Blood Money

by Chris Ryan

  Trilok turned his phone off. He didn’t need to hear that all over again for yet another time. He took a deep breath and made his way towards the house. Might as well get on with it. He stepped onto the veranda. The pink silk wasn’t moving so much now, but he could hear the swish of the broom in another part of the room. He knocked on the wooden balustrade to announce his presence. The way he saw it, at the moment, everybody had lost out: Gopal; himself; but also Mootama, who needed money or she wouldn’t have come to him. All he was trying to do was put things right.

  When the man walked up to Mootama’s house and knocked, Bina looked horrified.

  Paulo put a hand on her arm. ‘Do you want us to come down with you to see what he wants?’

  She was about to answer when she saw Naresh striding in from the field. ‘It’s all right. Dad’s going to see.’ She put her head down and concentrated on counting out tiles.

  Paulo and the others got the message: she was worried but she didn’t want to talk. They went back to work, but they were all wondering the same thing. Why had the kidney man come back? While they worked, they kept a careful eye on Mootama’s house.

  After about thirty minutes the pink sari curtain was snatched aside. Mootama stormed out. She stood on the veranda, leaning on the balustrade and taking deep breaths. Then she put her face in her hands. Her shoulders began to shake.

  Amber, hammering nails into tiles, watched. Would someone else come out after Mootama, to offer comfort or to persuade her back inside? No one did. Clearly inside the house the conversation carried on with just Naresh.

  She looked over at the taxi, which was still waiting. The driver had dozed off, his arm hanging down outside the window like a thick dark rope and his head lolling on his shoulder.

  She looked back at Mootama. What had the kidney man said to upset her so much? And what was he saying now to Naresh? She bashed another nail in, hard.

  Between hammer blows, she heard shouts. At the other end of the roof, Pradesh was shouting to the others: ‘Rain. We must get down. It’s too dangerous to be up here.’ His next words were drowned by an immense clap of thunder, as if the sky was splitting.

  Amber finished the tile she was on and made her way to the scaffold. The rain began to pelt down. She looked again at the house with the pink sari.

  From their quarters, the five friends saw the portly figure of the kidney man rush out of the house, pull open the taxi door and climb in.

  ‘Why did he bother to come back?’ said Li.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Hex.

  Something in his voice made everyone turn and look at him: Paulo, scrubbing at his curls with a towel, paused; Amber stopped unlacing her boots; Li, undoing her plait, paused, her fingers twined in her hair.

  ‘I have a theory,’ said Hex, ‘but it’s not nice.’

  Paulo pulled the towel off his shoulders and hung it on the drying rail. ‘Spill the beans, Hex.’

  Hex sat down. ‘He wants her kidney, right?’

  ‘Yes, but he can’t be trying to get her to sell her other one,’ scoffed Amber. ‘She can’t live without any kidneys. Don’t be a dumb-ass.’

  ‘Not such a dumb-ass,’ said Hex. ‘Why has he come back? Why doesn’t he find a kidney somewhere else? He’s come back to persuade her to sell.’

  Outside, the sky was the colour of gunmetal. A thunderclap like a gunshot made them all jump.

  ‘Hex,’ said Li, ‘your imagination is running away with you.’

  ‘No,’ said Hex. ‘Think about it. He’d tell her it was for her daughters. A sacrifice so they had dowries and a safe future.’

  ‘But no-one would sell their only kidney,’ said Amber.

  Hex looked at her gravely. ‘You saw the messages on the website – people are desperate. His buyer might have told him to get that kidney or else.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Amber, ‘he went away empty-handed. We saw him leave. Mootama didn’t go with him.’

  Paulo said, very quietly, ‘That’s not necessarily the end of it. People have been murdered for less.’

  A squall of rain lashed the building like white noise.

  ‘I heard a story once,’ said Li. ‘A man goes abroad. He has a drink in a bar. Next thing he knows, he wakes up in the bath in his hotel room. He’s got a tube in his back, he’s surrounded by ice and he’s had a kidney removed.’

  ‘That’s just an urban myth,’ said Amber. ‘Everyone’s heard that one.’

  ‘How much is myth?’ said Li. ‘That’s almost exactly what happened to Mootama.’

  ‘Right,’ said Hex. ‘And who’s going to notice when a woman from a little village goes missing?’

  ‘I agree,’ said Alex quietly. ‘I think Mootama is in danger. Someone may try to kidnap her. And sooner rather than later.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Paulo. ‘The kidney man came back very quickly. He’s under pressure. We should set up a watch tonight.’

  Alex placed a kerosene lamp on the floor. ‘We’ll make a plan of the area. This is Mootama’s house.’ He hooked one of his wet socks off the drying rack and laid it flat on the floor. ‘This is the road.’

  Li waved her hand in front of her face. ‘Phew, that’s a bit smelly! Can’t we use something else for the road?’ She laid down her towel to represent the paddy fields.

  They worked together, building up a detailed picture of the area with items to hand in the house. Every bush, every tree, even the standpipe by the main street, had been remembered and was represented on the plan. If the model was as detailed as possible, they would be better prepared.

  ‘OK,’ said Alex. ‘Are we missing any details?’ He sat back on his heels and looked at the village in miniature, spread out in front of him. ‘What’s over here?’ he said, indicating the area behind the row of houses in the main street.

  Li looked out of the window to check. The rain was easing, although it hadn’t stopped. The sky was a little brighter. ‘Just paddy fields,’ she said. ‘And they’re under water at the moment.’

  ‘So no one can get in from there,’ said Alex. ‘Or from here,’ he added, indicating the other field. ‘It would take too long and be too slippery.’

  ‘And you certainly couldn’t take anybody through it if you were kidnapping them,’ said Hex.

  ‘Thank heavens for the monsoon,’ said Amber. ‘It looks as though the only way in or out is the road.’

  Paulo put a couple of spice jars down on the model. ‘If we have two people at this end, where the houses peter out, and three people at the other, we’ve got the whole village covered.’

  ‘And we don’t have to get too close to Mootama and the girls,’ said Alex. ‘They’re probably scared enough already.’

  Hex was on the palmtop, consulting the weather satellites. ‘We’ll have a clear night,’ he said. ‘The next rains aren’t due until tomorrow.’

  Sure enough, outside the rain was stopping.

  ‘Here’s what we’ll do,’ said Alex. ‘We’ll go out now and finish the tiling, and have a look at our laying-up points while it’s still light. At dusk we’ll take up our positions.’

  8

  KIDNAP WATCH

  The night air was hot. The fuggy smell of swamp water from the paddy fields mingled with the fragrance of jasmine and mosquito repellent. Hex, Amber and Alex were at one end of the village; Paulo and Li were at the other.

  At each end the routine was the same. They settled into the shadow of a large, solid tree, and waited. They wore camouflage cream on their faces, hands and necks so that they couldn’t be spotted in vehicle headlights.

  But once they had settled, all they had to do was wait.

  Surveillance was a tedious, tiring business. They had to keep as silent and still as possible to blend in with the surroundings. They had to stay alert for hours on end, looking into the blackness, listening to the night sounds. At first there was plenty to do as they had to become accustomed to their environment. The wildlife seemed to be constantly on the move. A troupe of baboons passed, chitter
ing to each other, their paws pattering on the wet ground. A cow wandered past, its hooves heavy and slow. Further out in the dark, monkeys hooted, chickens squawked, antelopes and deer skittered away from wild dogs. Occasionally they heard a train or a lone vehicle in the distance.

  For a while it was fun to identify each noise, but once they had been there for an hour, they had heard all the night repertoire. Now, unless an intruder came, it would be the same for hour upon hour. They started a sleep rota. If something happened, the alert one would wake the other and they would tackle it together.

  Being on watch was tough. It was easy to succumb to boredom, to lose alertness, perhaps even fall asleep. This is where their discipline and training came in; it helped them to remain focused in spite of the tedium.

  Hex got out his mobile. Every half-hour the two different watches would send each other a text message. That way they could keep in contact and check that everything was still normal. His thumbs typed away. ‘IS IT A BIRD?’ he wrote to Paulo. ‘IS IT A PLANE?’

  Immediately he got an answering bleep: ‘IS THAT BEST U CAN DO AFTER HALF AN HR? NO PLANES HERE. BIRDS AND BABOONS.’

  Hex put his mobile away. Everything was normal, then. He shifted position and sighed. Amber and Alex were asleep beside him. They dozed sitting up, their backs to the tree.

  Then Hex heard a noise in the bushes. He stiffened, listening. He tuned out the rhythmic breathing of his companions. No, it wasn’t one of the usual noises.

  He leaned over to Amber and Alex and tapped them on the shoulder. They awoke instantly and without a sound. They were trained to become alert straight away, without making any noises that would betray them.

  They all listened, holding their breath.

  Amber heard it first. ‘Something coming this way.’

  ‘It’ll be a wild dog or something,’ said Alex. They had already had several alarms. Small animals seemed to be in the habit of detouring through the bushes in the ditch by the road.

  Hex relaxed. ‘It’s in those bushes again.’ Maybe it was a dog.

  They heard the noise again.

  ‘This sounds big,’ said Amber.

  ‘I’ll go closer,’ said Hex. ‘You stay here.’

  He picked up a long stick and moved away from the road, prodding the path in front of him and pausing with each step. It would be easy to step on a snake.

  There was definitely something rustling in the bushes. Something large. A cow? Then it moved again and he saw a faint outline.

  It was human.

  ‘Contact!’ yelled Hex. He gave chase. ‘Stop!’ he called, pulling out his torch and switching it on. A figure was crashing through the bushes, fast, but he couldn’t see anything distinct. It was shadow on shadow.

  Alex caught up and stopped him. ‘It’s all right, they’re going away,’ he panted. ‘Let them go. The main thing is that we scared them off.’

  Hex breathed hard, flashing the torch after the intruder – whoever it was, the figure was too far away to be distinct. His heart was hammering, adrenaline surging through his veins, demanding action. ‘Do you think that was him? We should have chased him.’

  ‘No we shouldn’t,’ said Alex. ‘What would you do with him if you caught him?’

  Hex realized what was in his mind. ‘Give him a good beating.’

  ‘Exactly. And we’re not here to do that, even though he might deserve it. We’re just here to keep him away.’

  They walked back to Amber. She had stayed at the checkpoint in case an intruder decided to slip in while Alex and Hex were diverted.

  She had her mobile out, her thumbs typing a message. ‘I’ll tell the others we’ve seen someone.’

  9

  GONE

  Li was dozing with her head on Paulo’s shoulder when a screech drilled into her head. She woke, startled, and her eyes settled on Paulo. ‘Was that you?’

  Paulo’s head was bent over his phone as he texted the others. ‘It was you,’ he said. ‘You were having a nightmare.’

  For just a microsecond she believed him. Then she saw three chickens clucking away down the road, heads up, fleshy combs wobbling. One of them squawked again. There was the real source of the noise. The dawn chorus was starting. She cuffed Paulo lightly around the ear.

  The sky was growing pale. Peacocks shrieked from their night-time roosts. Monkeys hooted in reply. The sun was nearly up, already bringing its scorching heat to the day.

  Paulo sent a message: ‘VISIBILITY GOOD. STOP PATROL?’

  He got his answer in a few moments. ‘YES. RACE U 2 BREAKFAST.’

  He jumped to his feet and grabbed Li. ‘Come on,’ he said, and took off at a run.

  Even though Li hadn’t seen the message and didn’t know why he was running, she wasn’t going to be left behind. She was on her feet before she even realized. Although she was much shorter than the big South American, she was very fast and she quickly caught up with him.

  She and Paulo ran side by side down the main street, past a clutch of tiny houses set aside for the untouchables, past children pattering onto verandas and women in colourful saris setting off with brass containers for the standpipe.

  Alex had already reached the house. Amber and Hex splashed in just as Li and Paulo appeared from the other direction. They all lunged for the veranda and touched the balustrade, as if touching a base at the end of a race, and fell against it laughing.

  ‘Alex,’ gasped Amber, ‘you had a head start.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ retorted Hex, getting his breath. ‘You were just too busy fixing your hair.’

  Amber was about to answer when they heard a shout: ‘Bina?’ Something about it made them all take notice.

  Mootama was standing outside her house, looking up and down the street. She called out again, more loudly, ‘Bina! Where are you?’

  Alex walked over to her. ‘Mootama, what’s the matter?’

  Mootama’s face showed she feared the worst. ‘Bina is not inside. She is not out here fetching water. I have looked everywhere. She is gone.’

  Alex pulled the others into the house for a conference. ‘No one came in last night,’ he said quietly but emphatically.

  ‘What about that intruder you scared off?’ said Paulo.

  ‘He never got in,’ said Hex.

  ‘What if someone reached the house?’ said Li.

  ‘Impossible,’ said Alex. ‘They couldn’t walk through the fields. And nobody could get into the house without waking everyone up.’

  ‘We’ll search for her,’ said Alex. ‘Maybe she’s gone for a walk.’ But somehow he doubted it.

  ‘I think a good place to look would be where you had the contact,’ said Paulo. ‘There are bound to be some tracks.’

  ‘Tracking is your domain, Alex,’ said Li. ‘Why don’t I take Amber and Hex to where Paulo and I were positioned and we’ll work our way back from there looking for clues.’

  Alex squatted on the ground in the ditch. He had been shown by an aboriginal in Australia how to spot tracks, and how to tell what – or who – had made them. But the ditch wasn’t telling any stories. It was thick with branches and twigs. Some had been squashed into the mud where they had been trodden on, but there were no prints visible.

  He straightened up and looked along the gulley. Whoever it was went that way, he thought.

  Paulo was a little further up the road. ‘How about this?’ He waved a prickly branch at Alex. On it was a scrap of dark blue cloth.

  ‘It looks like it’s from one of those shawls the women wear,’ said Alex. ‘Probably a villager.’ He peered more closely.

  Paulo looked at it. ‘Walking in the ditch?’ Then it came to him. ‘You know your contact? You thought you’d stopped someone coming into the village – but what if they weren’t coming in but going out?’

  Alex thought. ‘But it was only one person; he didn’t have Bina with him.’

  ‘What if it was Bina? On her own?’

  Alex shook his head slowly as he digested Paulo’s words. In hi
s mind’s eye he saw the turquoise creature picking her way through the paddy field, the mirrors on her sari catching the light. ‘No, that’s not Bina’s. Her saris have got all those twinkly bits.’

  Paulo gave him a look. ‘If you were trying to get away in the middle of the night, would you wear twinkly bits?’

  ‘I wouldn’t wear them anyway, mate,’ said Alex, ‘but you please yourself.’ He became serious as Paulo’s words struck home. ‘But you mean . . .’

  ‘I mean, it was Bina you saw. She went along the ditch so she wouldn’t be seen, with her sari covered up. She went out to meet the kidney man.’

  Alex nodded slowly. Of course. He turned and began to stride down the road alongside the ditch. His thoughts were churning. It had to be Bina they saw; it made sense. If he’d let Hex catch her . . .

  But there was no time to be angry with himself. They were bound to come to tracks soon and if he didn’t concentrate he might miss them. The mistake had been made; if he spent too much time punishing himself he might make another and that would help no one. He pushed the recriminations to the back of his mind.

  Soon Alex’s vigilance paid off. A set of footprints appeared on the road. He turned to Paulo. ‘Here she is.’

  They squatted down to look more closely. ‘There are some others here too,’ said Paulo. ‘These were made about the same time.’

  ‘A man in sandals,’ said Alex. ‘The footprints face hers as though she stopped and talked to him.’ He walked a little further, bent double, looking at the ground intently. ‘Paulo!’ he called.

  He pointed at the ground. The footprints had gone haywire, scuffling and skidding. They were crossed by a line of tyre tracks. ‘What does this look like to you?’

  Paulo looked at the prints. ‘I’d say there’s been a struggle. While they were getting her into the car. She didn’t want to go.’