Agent 21 (22 page)

‘No, señor.’

‘I am very pleased to hear it.
Tonight
, Adan. I want our traitor
tonight
. Otherwise I might start wondering if you are as loyal to me as you say.’

Calaca felt himself frowning. ‘Yes, señor.’

‘Cruz! Harry!’ Calaca looked round to see the two boys entering the atrium. Martinez put one arm round each of their shoulders. All of a sudden it was as if Calaca wasn’t even in the room. ‘The helicopter is waiting!’

‘Where are we going, Father?’ asked Cruz.

‘Just you wait and see. Somewhere you’ll find interesting I think, hey, Harry?’

‘Yeah,’ said Harry Gold. ‘Very interesting.’

It was only momentary, but Calaca thought that as the boy spoke, he gave him a guilty, sidelong glance.

The chopper’s doors were open, its blades spinning. Two guards stood five metres from the aircraft, their hair blowing in the downdraught; they were carrying M16 assault rifles. Martinez ran with Cruz and Zak towards the chopper and was the first to climb inside. Cruz went next. Before Zak got on, he looked over his shoulder.

He saw Raul running towards them. ‘Wait! Where are we going?’

‘I don’t think you’re invited.’

Raul gave Zak an evil stare, but appeared lost for words.

Zak winked at him. ‘See you later,’ he said, and he jumped up into the chopper.

Martinez’s helicopter was much more comfortable than the one Zak had taken to and from St Peter’s Crag. The seats were made of leather and each one had a personal TV screen; and when the door was shut, the noise of the rotary blades grew much quieter, as if the cabin was soundproofed. Once the two guards had climbed in and taken their positions by the doors, the chopper rose into the air. Within seconds the Martinez compound appeared small and faraway. Zak anxiously put his hand in his pocket to check his
phone was there. He wondered if his location was being monitored. He sure hoped so. What he was about to try was dangerous. If he got caught, Raf and Gabs would have to pull him out sooner than they thought. Provided he was still alive, that is.

‘You still haven’t told me where we’re going,’ Cruz said.

‘There’s something I want you to see,’ Martinez replied, and he smiled at Zak.

Their flight time was one and a half hours. Cruz had brought a book with him and he sat reading it while Zak looked out of the window. He saw the land underneath change. At first they passed over cities and smaller
pueblos
, but as they headed further south, the terrain became greener and more dense. To the east, Zak could see a mountain range – ‘The
Sierra Madre del Tur
,’ Martinez told him. ‘Very beautiful.’ When they finally started to lose height, Zak saw that they were flying over intensely thick jungle, with blue lagoons dotted among it. The chopper zoomed just five metres over the top of the trees, its tail raised slightly, until it stopped and hovered above a clearing, just large enough for it to land. The pilot carefully lowered the aircraft to the ground.

The guards got out first, carefully scoping the area around the chopper to ensure there were no unexpected surprises.

‘Is this safe?’ Cruz asked. He couldn’t hide the nerves in his voice.

Martinez’s face was serious. ‘We are in the Lacandon Jungle,’ he said. ‘It is very large. The authorities cannot locate our activities here. Satellite imagery is no good because of the canopy, nor are spy planes or helicopters. And this clearing – it is like a pinprick on a map. Harry, you look worried.’

Zak shook his head and tried to look unconcerned by what Martinez had just said. ‘No.’

‘Good. Let’s go.’

The three of them disembarked. It was unbelievably hot and humid outside, and Zak’s skin was moist within seconds. Four swarthy men emerged from the edge of the clearing. They carried AK-47s and had bandoliers of ammo strapped round their bodies.

One of the men approached. He wore body armour and a green military helmet, and he eyed the three of them warily. ‘Señor Martinez,’ he said. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’

Zak couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t look all
that
pleased.

‘My name is Andreas. Señor Ramirez called an hour ago and asked me to look after you.’

‘You have a family, Andreas?’ Martinez spoke slowly. Slyly. All the friendliness he had shown to Zak had disappeared.

A proud look crossed Andreas’s face. ‘Yes, señor. My wife has just given birth to twins.’

Martinez nodded. ‘You have my congratulations. This is my son Cruz and his friend Harry from London.’ He licked his fingers and used them to smooth his hair. ‘If anything happens to them today, your twins will pay for it with their lives.’

Zak tried not to look shocked as the muscles in Andreas’s face tensed up. ‘Yes, señor,’ said the man.

‘I wish to show my son one of the processing laboratories. How far is the nearest one?’

Andreas looked nervous. ‘Señor, I do not think it is a good idea for you to . . .’

He stumbled over his words as Martinez gave him a withering glare. ‘I didn’t ask for your opinion,’ he whispered.

‘No, señor.’

‘How far is the nearest lab?’

‘From here, señor, two kilometres. But the helicopter has put you down in a safe zone. There are no roads in from here. We must make the journey by foot.’

Martinez nodded. ‘Lead the way.’

They walked in convoy: two guards at the front, then Martinez, Cruz and Zak, and two guards taking up the rear. The moment they stepped out of the clearing and into the jungle, Zak felt like he was in a
different world. It was much darker, the only light coming from thin sunbeams that splintered through the canopy overhead. The humidity doubled and after only a minute Zak found that he had to wipe the moisture out of his eyes. Strange squawkings and slitherings curled through the jungle – it was impossible to say what made them, or how near or far they were. The ground underfoot was sometimes mossy and soft, at other times hard and knotted with tree roots. Occasionally, Zak would catch flashes of colour in the green thickets around and above him – an orchid-like flower, or a bright, beautiful parrot on a branch.

Despite the heat, he felt a chill. Everything had happened so quickly, but somehow he’d managed to lure Martinez towards the heart of his drug-processing operation – a place Michael had said he was never normally to be found. This was Zak’s chance – a chance to get incriminating footage of the drug lord, but how was he to do it? It wasn’t like he could ask Martinez to stand by a pile of cocaine and say ‘cheese’ . . .

They walked in silence. Occasionally they stopped and one of the guards would run ahead to recce the path. It was slow going and took about an hour.

Eventually, however, they reached another clearing. Unlike the area where the helicopter had landed, this
one was not entirely devoid of trees – there were enough to provide cover and to keep the place hidden from the air, but they were more thinly distributed. The convoy stopped and Zak peered into the clearing.

It was like a small encampment, made of cheap buildings that could be easily abandoned if necessary. There were five huts with pitched metal roofs. A track ran through the middle of them and, at right angles to it, there was a fast-moving stream with wooden planks crossing it as a makeshift bridge. Between the bridge and the huts, off to one side, there was a huge electricity generator, the size of a large caravan. It gave off a grinding hum and the smell of burning diesel. There were seven or eight more armed guards positioned at intervals around the clearing, but there were other people too, some of them with clipboards. One of them, a man easily in his sixties, approached them. He wore a white lab coat and square glasses; he avoided looking Martinez in the eye.

‘It is an honour to have you here, señor,’ he said.

Martinez nodded. ‘Dr Sanchez. This is my son, Cruz. I would like you to show him what you do here.’

‘Of course, señor.’ He smiled rather nervously at Cruz. ‘Please, come this way.’

Cruz looked up at his father, who nodded. He followed Dr Sanchez into the little encampment. Zak
and Martinez went too, and a moment later they found themselves inside one of the huts.

The huts were shabby on the outside, but inside they were surprisingly modern. The floor and walls were made of burnished steel, and bright halogen lamps hung from the ceiling. In the middle of the room, on a series of sturdy tables, sat several large ceramic containers, each the size of a bath. Dr Sanchez cleared his throat. ‘This is the cocaine base lab,’ he said, as though talking to a class of students. ‘The coca leaf is harvested in Colombia, where it is processed by the addition of cement powder.’

‘Cement powder?’ asked Zak. ‘Why?’

Dr Sanchez opened his mouth to speak, but it was Cruz who answered him. ‘Because it’s alkaline,’ he explained. ‘The alkali in the cement powder enables the alkaloid in the leaves to be extracted . . .’

Zak glanced at Martinez. The drug lord’s eyes were suddenly shining with pride.

‘Quite,’ said Dr Sanchez. He looked rather impressed. ‘
Quite
. Once the alkaloids are extracted, the leaves are turned into coca paste. This is easier to transport than the leaves themselves, so it is in that form that we receive it here.’ He walked over to one of the ceramic baths. ‘The coca paste is mixed with hydrochloric acid . . .’

‘The acid acts as a solvent?’ asked Cruz.

Dr Sanchez looked at him over his glasses. ‘Indeed it does, young man. We then add a solution of potassium permanganate. This is necessary to extract any remaining alkaloids, otherwise the crystallization of the finished product would be most difficult.’

Zak took a step backwards. Two armed guards were at the door to the lab and they looked alert. Zak wanted to get his phone out and take some photographs of Martinez in this compromising location; but it was just impossible.

Dr Sanchez was still talking. ‘We allow the mixture to stand for several hours, then filter it. We discard the precipitate – you understand what the precipitate is, do you, Cruz?’

Cruz nodded.

‘He is a very sharp young man, Señor Martinez,’ Sanchez observed. ‘To the solution we add ammonia and another precipitate is formed. We dry this under heating lamps.’ He looked up at Martinez. ‘I can show him, if you would like.’

Sanchez led them out of this hut into another. This second lab was equipped with four lines of tables that had long, narrow heat lamps suspended above them. On the tables were trays full of a white powder. ‘This is cocaine base,’ Sanchez explained. ‘It vaporizes at a low temperature, so is suitable for inhalation. But most cocaine is snorted – inhaled up through a tube,
like a rolled-up banknote. So we must convert it to a form that is water soluble and can pass through the mucus membrane of the nose. Therefore we have a final stage to convert the cocaine base to cocaine hydrochloride.’

He led them into a third lab. It was different from the others, because one wall was entirely covered with approximately thirty microwave ovens. The floor space was taken up with more ceramic vessels on tables. ‘We dissolve the cocaine base in acetone,’ explained Sanchez, ‘then we add more hydrochloric acid. This causes the cocaine to crystallize as a salt. The resulting HCl is dried in these microwave ovens. It is a very skilled job, because if the HCl is overcooked, its properties are destroyed and it has no value. Three men have already been—’

He looked at Martinez and stopped himself just in time, leaving Zak to wonder just what
had
happened to these three men. ‘Is there anything else you would like me to show you, Señor Martinez?’

Martinez looked at his son. ‘Would you like to see more, Cruz?’ he asked.

Cruz nodded. For the first time since Zak had seen him, he looked enthusiastic about something. Dr Sanchez led them out of the third lab and they walked for a couple of minutes through this strange jungle encampment. Zak could feel people watching them,
but everybody kept away. They clearly knew who their visitor was, and they knew of his reputation. Zak kept his hand in his pocket, his fingers round his phone.

They came to a much larger building – not high, but wide and deep. There were about fifteen people inside and in the middle there was a large machine, about two metres high and one metre wide. In one corner, to the right as they walked in, were five big oil drums. And on the far side of the room was a blue wooden pallet, piled high with what looked like pale bricks.

Martinez put his arm around Cruz’s shoulder and walked with him towards the machine. Zak loitered by the door for a moment. Everyone’s eyes were firmly on the drug lord and his son. Nobody was paying any attention to Zak. He looked up to check for security cameras. Nothing, so he wandered idly over to where the oil drums were standing and stood behind them.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and activated the video camera.

Zak’s hands were shaking and he took a deep breath to steady himself before he slipped the phone into the breast pocket of his shirt, with the eye of the camera pointing outwards and just peeking out of the pocket. He stepped casually out from behind the oil drums, towards Martinez and Cruz.

‘This,’ Martinez announced, ‘is where we press the
cocaine hydrochloride.’ He turned to one of the men standing by the machine. ‘Show him.’

The man nodded vigorously and clicked his fingers. Another worker scurried up and handed him a plastic container the size of an ice-cream tub. The machine operator poured this into an open-topped box in the middle of the machine before pulling a lever on its side. There was a grinding sound as a hydraulic compression plate eased down onto the powdered cocaine. A dial on the face of the machine started turning: just as it moved into the red, the operator lifted the lever and the compression plate raised, to reveal a neat brick of pressed cocaine.