Black Coke (15 page)

A thought struck him. One of the academic books he’d read a couple of years ago as part of the literature review of his PhD could be useful. He loaded his Endnotes bibliography software and scrolled through his list of references. The book was called ‘Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling’. It was qualitative research: interviews with drug smugglers under condition of anonymity to ask them about the latest techniques in international drug smuggling. Exactly the kind of thing that could help research his trip. It was available at the British Library, just down the road.

Nathan glanced at his clock. It was 1.12pm. He had a few hours to kill and he couldn’t go back to Soca after being suspended. The very thought made him furious. Better to spend some time at the British Library gathering as much information as possible ahead of his trip.

‘Back in a few hours,’ he shouted, picking up his rucksack. ‘Off to the British Library. Don’t let anybody in.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Caitlin yelled back over the sound of more running bathwater. ‘Whatever.’

Nathan hurried out of the apartment, locking the door behind him. He leapt down the stairs three by three. Caitlin could be so infuriating. Yet he had to be more patient with her. It wasn’t her fault she was still depressed.

A bleak drizzle was falling. Eerie reflections shimmered in the puddles forming on the pavement. Nathan yawned. A shower and a kip. That’s what he needed. The more he thought about it, the less he wanted to go to Colombia. Maybe Caitlin was right. This was Soca’s problem now, not his.

Then he thought of Amonite and George, of Putumayo and Mexico, of Manuel and Steve, and a cold, fierce determination ran through him again. He tucked his head into his shoulders, turned up his collar, and pressed on towards the British Library.

Central London, UK
11 April 2011

T
he British Library. Holding more than 150 million items in nearly all known languages, it occupies a group of red stone buildings on the north side of Euston Road, near St Pancras railway station. Nathan had spent too many Saturdays here over the past three years, researching the literature on the mapping of criminal drug networks for his PhD. He was back, in the social sciences reading room, at the same wooden desk. With a similar pile of books and journals.

He pulled out ‘Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling: Lessons from the Inside’. The authors were a criminologist and a social scientist who’d gone to top security prisons in the USA to speak to high level drug smugglers and understand the steps they took in order to reduce their risk of being caught, losing a shipment or being double crossed. The cover was a photo of what looked like a seized cargo of cocaine.

Nathan flicked through the pages until he reached the section on methods of transport. Many smugglers were using lobster or shrimp boats to move drugs, especially marijuana, into the USA. These boats were anonymous—unlike the go-fast boats with their rows of powerful engines—and often had hidden compartments built in that could contain up to four hundred kilos. Cocaine smugglers, however, seemed to prefer yachts and sailboats, which could travel longer distances and contain larger hidden compartments. Some smugglers thought that law enforcement officers were more reluctant to tear apart an expensive yacht than a cheap shrimp boat.

Most of the sea-based drug smuggling entered the USA at night through the Florida Keys or houses in South Florida. One smuggler used three boats: one with the drugs, one as a back-up in case the first one broke down, and one as a decoy. Others travelled in pairs in case one of the boats had a problem. Another smuggler preferred arriving at noon, when the coast guards were on their lunch breaks.

Nathan leant back in his chair. Just a couple of months ago, a gang of drug smugglers had been jailed for importing half a ton of cocaine into the UK hidden on an ocean-going yacht. They had no link to the Front, but it confirmed what the authors of the book on drug smuggling had found that yachts were one of the currently favoured methods of transport.

But how the hell could he identify and track down the yachts bringing Black Coke into the USA and the UK, especially without the support of Soca?

He scribbled some notes on a blank sheet of paper.

Source: Putumayo.

Product: Black Coke.

Likely mid-point: Jamaica.

Likely method of transport: ocean-going yacht.

Destinations: Florida (USA) and ? (UK).

A strategy began to crystallise in his mind. Cedric was right. He had to go to Colombia. Start at the source. That was always the best plan. He needed to go back to Putumayo and follow the smugglers down the distribution chain.

He pulled out the article in Nature by the murdered Cambridge professor and geneticist. It was full of scientific jargon about exon splicing, DNA sequencing, the need to accurately enhance hrRNA into mRNA for protein expression to occur effectively. He flicked through an academic textbook on the genetic modification of plants. It described the challenges involved in designing, growing and reproducing GM plants and went over the ethical debate about whether genetic modification was playing God.

All very interesting, technical and philosophical. But no particular leads.

He took out his laptop and went online. There was an article by Wired magazine in November 2004 investigating the possibility of GM coke. This was more like it. Scientists had identified CP4, a gene resistant to the glyphosate herbicide. The Wired journalist wondered whether the growth of Boliviana negra, a strain of coca resistant to the herbicide, was due to genetically inserting CP4. But tests failed to reveal the presence of the gene. The journalist concluded that Boliviana negra was probably the result of selective breeding rather than genetic engineering, although he spoke to scientists who hinted that it was only a matter of time before the drug cartels succeeded in genetically modifying coca crops.

Maybe that time had come.

Nathan had that prickly feeling on the back of his neck that told him someone was watching him. He glanced around. Students were head down, studying. The reading room was quiet apart from the tap-tap of computer keyboards.

He went to the bathroom, stopping on the way to see if anybody followed him out of the reading room. Nobody did. He was probably imagining things again. On the way back, he crossed a sign with the list of reading rooms and subjects. Bottom of the list was zoology.

Zoology?

Could there be anything in there about those black beetles that were devastating the Colombian forest?

He pushed through the large wooden doors to the science reading room and browsed through the biological sciences shelves. He found a standard zoology textbook and flicked through it, marvelling at the colour photos. A glorious transparent butterfly found only in Colombia’s rainforest. A moth caterpillar proudly displaying its neon green but poisonous spines. A dragonfly with alternating green and black abdominal segments.

Wasn’t nature amazing? He’d been top of the class at school, had contemplated a career as a scientist, but Dad had pushed him towards the army, the elite forces, the real school of life. Dad had never understood the value of scientific research. As for Caitlin…

Nathan looked through some of the other textbooks. There were all kinds of beetles, but none that seemed particularly like the ones he’d seen in Colombia. He headed back for his seat in the social sciences reading room. He turned on his laptop and flicked through the photos he’d downloaded from his camera. He’d seen many insects in Colombia, but none as big as the black beetle and with such an array of antennae and pincers.

Could Plan Colombia’s fumigation programme have created such a monster? Had the herbicide somehow modified the insect’s DNA?

He Googled ‘beetles ecological crisis Colombia fumigation’. There was an article on Alternet about the herbicide poisoning waters, creeks, lakes and rivers, killing fish and insects and making peasants ill. There were the usual denials from the Colombian, American and British governments.

But nothing about it causing mutations in insects.

Nathan kept on clicking through web pages. A news story caught his attention on the BBC website.

Killer bug devours Colombia’s crops.

 

It was from yesterday.

A large black beetle is devastating Colombia’s agriculture, according to Colombia’s environmental agency, the Institute for Development of Renewable Natural Resources and the Environment. Peasant farmers are complaining that the insects have destroyed their year’s crop in many regions in the south.

 

No by-line, no way of tracking down the journalist. Nathan kept searching, but couldn’t find anything else. He toyed with giving up and going home. Yet he knew that careful research was the secret to a successful mission. He scrolled through his contact list on his mobile. Maybe his PhD supervisor, Prof Henry Catarfy, head of the crime science programme at University College London, could provide some introductions. UCL had strong genetics and zoology departments.

‘I’m terribly sorry, sir,’ someone whispered in his ear.

Nathan spun round, left arm raised in a block, right hand swinging round in a hook.

‘I say!’ The librarian lurched backwards. Nathan stopped himself just in time.

‘Sorry,’ Nathan mumbled.

The librarian was a skinny man in a grey three-piece suit. He had a thin moustache that twirled into two bursts of curls like a modern artist’s signature. His mouth hung open.

‘No mobile phones!’

‘Sure. Really sorry.’

Nathan tucked his laptop away. He slung the rucksack on his shoulder and headed for the lobby. He scrolled through his mobile again, then stopped. Someone was watching him. He could sense it. He walked off, turned a corner, walked up some steps, scanned the entranceway. Students milled past him without a care in the world.

He went back to his desk.

The books had gone.

Nathan looked under the desk. Then at the other desks. They were empty.

He marched up to the librarian, who was chatting to a young female student in tight jeans. The student drifted off, followed by the librarian’s lingering gaze.

‘My stuff,’ Nathan said. ‘Where’s it gone?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘My books. Where are they?’

The librarian put out his lip. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘They were on my desk.’

‘Shouldn’t leave them lying around.’

‘Did you see anybody take them?’

‘Can’t trust students nowadays.’ The librarian turned to the books he was stacking onto a shelf.

Nathan clenched his fist. He went back to his desk. He was about to sit down again when he noticed a sheet of paper on his chair. He glanced round. None of the students scattered around the desks paid him any attention. There was nobody hurrying off. The librarian was still stacking books.

He picked up the paper, flipped it over.

It was a photo of Caitlin.

North London, UK
11 April 2011

C
aitlin wasn’t answering the phone.

Nathan raced up the pavement to his apartment block. He reached the second floor. His front door was ajar. He clasped the gun in his jacket pocket, but kept it there, out of sight. He glided closer. All fatigue had gone. He flattened himself against the wall, next to the door, and waited, listening. He pushed the door gently open. He spun round and entered the hallway, crouching, gun ready. The lights were on. He stepped towards the living room. The door was open. He peered in.

A desk lamp was on the floor, smashed. The TV screen was shattered.

The sofa was empty.

Nathan’s heart beat like a drill. He ran down the corridor to Caitlin’s bedroom. Clothes, magazines and sheets were everywhere. Various sized bottles of her employer’s new bath lotion were scattered on the carpet. He went to the bathroom. The door was shut. He kicked it down, tearing it off its hinges, sending it crashing against the wall.

For a split second, he thought the bath was full of red bath lotion.

But he knew that was wrong.

There, lying in the bath as though asleep, was Caitlin, one arm draped over the side. Her skin had turned a pasty white, the colour drained from her ordinarily so rosy cheeks. Her crystal blue eyes were wide open, glazed and distant. They gazed at the ceiling through the mop of wet tangled hair that clung to the sides of her face and forehead like seaweed. Her head hung right back, limp and bruised, her lower lip protruding as if she was pouting.

Nathan’s legs began to shake. He clutched the shower curtain. It tore, slowly, listlessly, as he crumpled to the wet floor tiles. It wrapped around his shoulders, as though trying to comfort him. All the while, his gaze remained fixed on Caitlin. A deep gash carved her throat from ear to ear, a messy line of red from which blood still trickled out. The water around her had turned dark red, creating tendrils that seeped further into the bath like tentacles. Her breasts had been sliced off, leaving two deep round marks in her chest pouring with blood.