Black Gold

by Chris Ryan

  'We haven't issued a statement. That's all I can say about it at the moment.'

  Now that sounded deliberately obstructive. What could he ask that they couldn't evade? Inspiration struck. 'Does that mean he's no longer in charge?'

  It was a daring move and he caught a glimpse of four pairs of astonished eyes.

  But his question seemed to have the desired response. 'He is in close contact with his advisers and other members of the board.'

  Alex pounced. 'Does that include the CEO Neil Hearst?'

  This was going well. From the bed, the others watched him. Alex's face had changed as he got into his role; it had become sharper, like a hardened newshound. Li suddenly got an urge to giggle. If the press officer knew he was talking to a teenager . . . She stuffed her knuckles in her mouth to stop herself from making any noise.

  Alex had the bit between his teeth. 'So Mr Hearst is in charge at the moment?' A pause, then, 'But you said Mr Bowman is well and unhurt. Now you're saying he's been removed. Are you worried there might be another attempt on his life?'

  Another pause. After a few moments Alex said, 'And his head of security is with him, is he?' Pause. 'Oh really? I see. Thanks very much for your time. Yes, it should be in the next edition. Bye.'

  A click as he hung up.

  Suddenly he was surrounded by hugging friends. Li and Paulo got him between them and squeezed him hard. 'Alex, you were fantastic,' grinned Paulo.

  'Listen,' said Alex, his face deadly serious. 'This is really important. They're saying he's unwell because of the stress of the incident, so he's having medical treatment. They've taken him to a secret location as a precaution. And – get this – the head of security has gone back to the UK.'

  'He's gone?' repeated Amber. 'At a time like this?'

  'That's what the press officer said,' replied Alex. 'There's something really wrong there. That guy had the same bodyguard training as my dad. There's no way he'd leave at a time like this.'

  'No way he'd leave – voluntarily,' pointed out Hex.

  Li caught his drift. 'Do you think he's been got out of the way?'

  Alex nodded. 'Definitely.'

  'Should we go to the police?'

  Hex's face was grave. 'We can't – we still haven't got anything we can use. And I bet they wouldn't be able to find Bowman if they went looking for him. Hearst's holding all the cards. He's in control of the company and Bowman's bodyguard is out of the way. He must be keeping Bowman alive for some reason – though I can't imagine why if he wanted him dead. But if we blow the whistle now Bowman may disappear for good and no one would ever know what really happened. There would be an investigation into the assassination attempt and with no other suspects Mara might spend months trying to prove she had nothing to do with it.'

  'We need more actual evidence, somehow,' said Paulo.

  There was a long silence. Finally Li spoke. 'Well, I'm out of ideas. Anyone feel inspired?'

  Her four friends shook their heads silently. They felt as baffled as she did.

  14

  DOMESTIC CRISIS

  From far off came a roar. 'Legs together!' Then a splash.

  'Carl again, if I'm not mistaken,' said Li.

  'Back to his old habits, by the sound of it,' added Amber.

  Alpha Force were on their way to the library. They'd decided to do some more revision on dive tables. Perhaps if they stopped racking their brains about the current problems and thought about something else for a while, someone might come up with an idea. Already they felt better, now that they had a sense of purpose.

  They could see all the way through the bar and out to the bay. Danny was on his perch by Stormy Point, drilling his pupil. Lynn was on the veranda, sitting at a table under a sun umbrella, surrounded by a mass of papers. She saw them pause to watch Carl and waved. 'Don't you guys go trying anything like that,' she called out. She held up a jug of iced coffee. 'Want some?'

  A cold, refreshing drink to take to the study – the offer was greeted with enthusiasm.

  Amber took charge. 'Five iced coffees it is.' She took hold of Hex's black T-shirt and pulled him along with her. 'Come on, Hex, you can help me bring them.'

  Hex grabbed some glasses from behind the bar and when he caught Amber up, she was already chatting to Lynn. 'Did you hear about Mara?'

  Lynn ran her hands through her blonde hair. 'Yeah. The world's gone mad and everyone's jumpy as hell. I've had my sister on the phone this morning. She runs a housekeeping company, providing staff for big houses. One of her clients has started hiring an armed guard, would you believe, and now the maids are scared stiff.'

  Amber picked up the jug and began to pour. 'Who is this client? A rock star?'

  'No. He's only a civil servant,' said Lynn. 'A rather rich one, but just a boring civil servant.'

  A well-paid civil servant who'd suddenly acquired armed protection? The frosted jug wobbled in Amber's hand, the cubes of ice tinkled into the glasses. Every nerve was tingling. She looked at Hex. His eyebrows had shot up to his hairline.

  Lynn put down her pen. 'What's the matter? Spit it out. I know that look when you sniff a breakthrough. I've worked with a lot of reporters, remember.'

  Hex thought like lightning. He was used to being careful about how much people knew. But would it do any harm to share their suspicions with Lynn? Of course not. And it could ultimately help Mara, her friend. 'We think that a civil servant is somehow mixed up with all this assassination business,' he said.

  'And this guy just got an armed guard,' Amber added. 'Rather suspicious.'

  Lynn nodded. 'I see where you're coming from.'

  'He's not called . . . Ter Haar, by any chance, is he?' Amber continued.

  Lynn started and then nodded.

  'He's the one we think might be involved,' Hex said softly, a smile of satisfaction crossing his lips at her confirmation. 'It would really help if we could get a look at the set-up there.' He didn't share his major suspicion – that Bowman was there. Lynn didn't need to know everything.

  'I can tell you where it is,' she said. 'When Sarah and I go out together she points out all her clients' houses. Terribly indiscreet, but that's my sister.' She smiled. 'Especially as she knows I'm a nosy photographer at heart. But I'll give you a bit of advice.'

  'Yes?' said Amber.

  'If you want to snoop around any of these big places, it's got to be you or Li. These guys like African, West Indian or Filipino maids. A white face among the servants would stick out like a sore thumb.'

  Amber nodded. 'Good tip. Thanks.'

  Lynn got up and went into the bar. 'I'll show you where the house is. It's an old place – one of those colonial mansions. It's marked on the map.'

  Amber picked up two glasses and followed her. Hex brought up the rear with the other three. Lynn took them through to the reception area, and pulled a map out from under the desk. She opened it out and traced her finger along one of the roads, looking for the house. 'Just one thing. I'll help you, you help me. Personally, I've always thought Simon Ter Haar was a bit of an odd fish. Now you think he's up to something. When you nab the bad boys, call me to take the photos. Deal?'

  'Deal,' grinned Amber.

  Lynn made a call to a friend and they hired five bicycles so they could approach the house quietly and inconspicuously. As they left the coast and pushed upwards, the landscape became scrubby and dusty. Cacti were everywhere – tall and straight like organ pipes, or slender and jointed. There were few trees – the trees that did grow there were thin and stunted, all blown to point south-west by the northeast trade wind that gave the island group one of their names – the Windward Islands. The houses were mostly single storey with red roofs, the straight cacti arranged around them to form solid spiny fences. Wild goats were everywhere, eating the cactus fences or charging into the little group and sending them swerving, and deer hopped away from them across the scrubby plain, white tails bobbing until they became dots.

  Occasionally lines of bright-coloured washing were st
rung from cactus to cactus – just like you'd use trees in your garden in England, thought Alex. In the far distance, like a roof on the island, was a forest of dark green.

  Amber, Paulo and Li were wearing their tracers – miniature transmitters contained in lockets and belt buckles. They were connected to a program on Hex's palmtop so he would be able to monitor where they were at all times. He and Alex were to stay in deep cover.

  It was midday and the sun was high in the sky. They all wore hats to keep the worst of the sun off, and stopped frequently for water breaks. Cycling in this terrain was hard work. They were fit, but still they paced themselves carefully. Once they reached their destination, they had to be fully alert.

  Now they were into the plantations. Tall stems of sugar cane towered two metres over them, the slender green leaves at the top waving like palm fronds. The cane closed in like a forest, with only a strip of sky visible, making them feel as though they had been miniaturized and were cycling on a path between two fields of long grass. Now and again they got glimpses back into the bay. There were two skimmer boats out there now, collecting the spilled oil; the slick was like a shadow on the sparkling blue.

  They'd made a plan and decided Amber should go in first, with Li as back-up. As they only had two possible personnel they could use, they would keep Li back unless there was an emergency, or Amber found Bowman in the house. If she didn't find Bowman, Li might need to do the same thing in another location. Amber would text progress reports, following standard Alpha Force operating procedures. Meanwhile, while Hex and Alex monitored the tracers from deep cover, Li and Paulo would make a laying-up point nearby in case back-up was needed.

  Alex stopped and consulted the map. 'Hey, guys,' he called. 'Here's where we stop. The house is just round the corner.'

  A small path led into the plantation. They pulled the bikes off the road and stowed them among the tall stems. Amber strode off into the plantation, her rucksack swinging over her shoulder. 'Just gotta change. See you in a moment, guys.'

  Hex powered up his palmtop and checked the tracers. He picked up the three tracers and zoomed in: two stayed together and one was a little way away. 'There's Amber stripping off,' said Paulo, pointing to the lone one. 'Are you sure you haven't got video contact?'

  'I'm working on it,' said Hex.

  Amber came back out. The sleek, sassy young woman had become a poor-looking young girl in cast-offs. Her lycra cycling shorts and tight T-shirt had been replaced by ill-fitting cut-off jeans that belonged to Hex, a shapeless bright blue T-shirt that belonged to Paulo and her oldest pair of trainers. Around her neck was a leather thong with a couple of shells – the locket was hidden.

  'Good costume, Amber,' said Alex. 'You don't look like yourself at all.'

  Paulo checked the contents of his backpack and slipped it onto his broad shoulders. He nodded to Li. 'Ready?'

  Li nodded. 'Ready.'

  Amber nodded. 'Ready.'

  'Good luck,' said Alex.

  They set off round the corner and were gone.

  Hex and Alex concealed three of the bikes and then settled down by the road with their two and some bottles of water. That way, if anyone came past, they would see two cyclists having a rest after a hard ride.

  The hill sloped away dramatically in front of Li, Paulo and Amber. An eighteenth-century house lay below, looking out towards the sea, surrounded by sugar-cane plantations like a small ranch. Its red-tiled roof stretched out in front of them. They stopped and silently took in the layout. The ground in front of it was asphalted to make a drive, then instead of a garden there was a terrace composed of square ponds that proceeded like giant mirrored steps down the hill. The water was strange colours – fuchsia, violet, rusty pink.

  'What are those?' Li whispered in case the wind carried her voice.

  'Disused salt pans,' replied Amber. 'Salt used to be a major export of these islands. They'd leave brine to evaporate in the sun and then get slaves to scrape the salt out.'

  'Makes a change from sugar,' murmured Paulo. 'Why are they that colour?'

  'Must be algae,' whispered Li. 'Aren't they amazing?' Then she gripped Paulo's arm and nodded at the house.

  Down in the drive a figure was walking up from a parked Toyota 4x4. Over his shoulder on a sling was a rifle. He walked into the house.

  'Well, there's a guy with hardware,' said Amber. 'I wonder if he's the only one?'

  Paulo looked around. 'We've got good visibility. We'll lay up here while you go in, Amber. Text every fifteen minutes, OK?'

  Amber nodded. 'Every fifteen minutes.'

  As Amber walked off towards the house, Paulo shrugged off his backpack and pulled out a couple of pieces of a lightweight camouflage net he had made earlier from a T-shirt, giving one piece to Li. They put them over their heads like veils. It wasn't convincing up close, but it would break up their outline so that they couldn't be seen from down below against the sugar cane. Paulo also had a brightly coloured T-shirt and some baggy denims of Alex's in his pack for Li to put on if she had to go and join Amber. He put the rucksack back on under the netting and they picked their way further along the bank until they were deep in the plantation. The sugar cane was tall, towering above them as though they were mice in long grass. They settled down, huddling together to distort their outline further.

  They had a good view all around the house. Amber had now reached the drive that went around the back of the house. In her too-big clothes she looked very young and vulnerable.

  15

  TER HAAR

  Amber stopped to get her bearings. In front of her was a white-painted veranda with a couple of pillars to frame the front door. She was about to stride in when she caught herself. Servants wouldn't go in through the front door. She followed the drive round to the back of the house, stooping her shoulders and slowing her walk, trying to erase her natural confidence. By the standards she was used to in America, the house was like a cottage, but to someone who had to earn her living doing domestic chores it would be an awesome sight.

  She came to a big garage. It was open and she could see a pair of legs sticking out from under a cream-coloured Mercedes. Next to the garage was a terracotta red door, which she pushed open. The kitchen. The walls were also painted red, but the paintwork was peeling and scuffed and long overdue for another coat. It was also spotted with small white circles and Amber realized she was looking at a genuine piece of Dutch colonial history – the circles would have been painted by slaves, either so that they would look like eyes to scare ghosts away, or to make flies dizzy. Amber felt like she had stepped back in time.

  In the middle of the kitchen was a long wooden table, bleached by years of scrubbing. On it lay a tray with a silver coffee pot, a cream jug and two bone china cups.

  A man came into the kitchen – the same man they had seen outside. He still carried the gun over his shoulder as casually as a bag. He wore expensive jeans and a T-shirt that showed a well-muscled torso – the kind produced by a lot of weight training. His hair was greying at the temples and his face was deeply lined, but he looked dangerous and strong – and as if he was well paid for whatever he did. Was this the assassin?

  He looked at Amber and his eyes asked: What are you doing here? Not in a threatening way; he wasn't aggressive if he didn't need to be, unlike an amateur. He was a professional.

  Amber kept her voice in a whisper. If her accent sounded too different from the local one, this would disguise it. 'I'm looking for the housekeeper.'

  The man lifted the lid on an earthenware bread bin and pulled out a roll. He tore off a bite and spoke through the mouthfuls. 'In there,' he said, gesturing with his head towards the door. Then he raised his voice. 'Mary?' He sounded as though he was shouting through cotton wool. Amber looked at the gun while she had the chance; it looked like a sniper rifle, only without the usual telescopic sight.

  Mary came through the door. A plump middle-aged woman wearing a uniform of black dress and white lacy pinafore apron, she looked like a mai
d in a film.

  'Thank goodness, at last. Did Sarah send you?'

  Sarah; Lynn's sister. Amber nodded. The less she talked, the better.

  'It's all right, he'll leave you alone,' said Mary, indicating the gunman.

  That was good, thought Amber. Mary thought she was shocked and that's why she wasn't talking much.

  'Come and get changed. Then you can take some coffee through to the lounge.'

  Mary gave Amber a uniform like hers and Amber changed in a sort of wash house, where state-of-the-art Dyson washing machines stood against peeling spotted walls, and baskets of clean laundry lay folded beside an ironing board. She tucked the tracer locket inside her sports bra, tying the leather thong securely to a ring in the strap, then put her mobile in the top pocket of the black dress and bent down to check her reflection in the porthole of the washing machine. She frowned. Straightening up, she grabbed a freshly laundered pair of black Calvin Klein underpants from the pile of ironing, wrapped her mobile in them, then put it back in her pocket. That was better; now it didn't show. She rolled up her clothes and left them in a bundle.