Black Coke (28 page)

‘For your treachery.’ Elijah’s fingers touched a piece of metal attached to the wall. He grabbed it and spun it round.

Patrice lunged.

Elijah yanked the trigger. The harpoon shot out with a whoosh, whizzing through the air and slicing straight into Patrice’s stomach, throwing him backwards and pinning him to the wooden wall of the cabin.

‘No…’ Patrice’s brown eyes, usually so sharp, widened with shock, a look of confused betrayal in them. His knife clattered to the floor. His slender fingers clutched the harpoon. He tugged at it, testingly, fearfully, then frenziedly, but it was too far embedded.

Elijah staggered forward. The harpoon gleamed in the afternoon sun. A seagull settled on the railing.

Elijah swayed, vaguely aware of the echo of his own laughter. Suddenly, he was struggling against Patrice’s unnaturally strong grip, which had grabbed his shirt and was yanking him forwards.

‘You evil bastard,’ Patrice said, blood gurgling out of his mouth. ‘Rot in hell.’

Elijah whacked Patrice in the face with the harpoon gun, sending his head lolling sideways.

‘Oh my God, Patrice.’ He stepped backwards as a wave of nausea came over him. ‘What have I done?’

Kill him.

‘No!’ Elijah bowed his head and shook it from side to side. ‘I won’t.’

He fucked Shaun behind your back.

Elijah looked up. Patrice’s mouth was hanging open, his eyes were bloodshot, his face pallid and pasty, just like Shaun’s had been before he set fire to him.

‘What else did Amonite tell you?’ Elijah said.

Patrice let out a low moan. His stare terrified Elijah. He’d heard that it could take hours for someone to die from a stomach wound.

He betrayed you to the Haitians.

Elijah dropped the harpoon gun and picked up the knife, feeling its weight in his hand.

‘How much did the Haitians pay you to betray me?’ Elijah stepped closer. ‘How much? Answer me, you butt-fucking faggot. What did they tell you about the Black Coke?’ He smacked Patrice across the face. ‘Did they think they can outwit me? Is that what they told you?’

Patrice spat in Elijah’s face.

With a cry of anger, Elijah plunged the knife into Patrice’s chest. Patrice groaned, then let out a scream of such terrifying intensity that Elijah snapped. He stabbed Patrice again and again and again, feeling the knife plunge into his torso, until it was just a mass of raw meat. Still he kept going, howling with fury, salivating with loathing, driven by a vicious desire to seek revenge on Patrice, Amonite, Shaun, his father, his mother, his congregation, Jesus, God and the whole world for betraying him, for abandoning him, for hating him.

The seagull squawked.

Elijah stumbled backwards, leaving the knife impaled in what was left of Patrice’s chest. Elijah slid to the floor. His hands and arms and cream suit were covered in blood. He lay his head back. He closed his eyes. His body was shaking uncontrollably.

What have you done?

Tears streamed down his face as he grieved for Patrice, the only person he’d ever loved. He prayed to God over and over again. As he prayed, his mind settled. The voice faded. His heartbeat slowed. He prayed louder, more boldly. Forgiveness touched at the edges of his soul, first tentatively, then more daringly, until it seeped through, turning into a wave that swept over him, promising absolution and release.

God understood why he’d done this. It had been for his survival, for the future of God’s church. Elijah glared at Patrice. It was all his fault, and he’d paid with his life. He was the one who was rotting in hell now, not Elijah.

He pulled himself to his feet. He shouted, arms raised in praise to God.

The seagull fluttered off.

With a brash laugh, he turned to the helm and set the direction north. A bitter determination ran through him. He’d sell the Black Coke, make a fortune, and build the largest drugs empire the world had ever seen.

Bogotá, Colombia
13 April 2011

A
nibble, a scratch.

Nathan scrunched his forehead.

Laura could be so annoying at times.

Scraping, squeaks.

‘Leave me alone,’ he mumbled. ‘I feel like shit.’

What was Laura doing here anyway? She’d left him months ago. Tired of his workaholism, she’d yelled. Of his inability to open up.

Nathan winced. His head felt like someone was whacking it repeatedly with a brick. Had he been out on the town again with Caitlin? Maybe to drown out the humiliation of Laura dropping him for that bohemian-type painter with the pointy ears from Hoxton Square?

The bed was hard and cold under his cheek, like a concrete slab. More scurrying, something brushing against his thighs, gnawing at his clothes. Another tiny squeak.

Rats.

Nathan kicked out with his legs, generating squeals of disapproval from the scattering rats. He tried to sit up, but fell back. His hands were handcuffed behind him. They were numb. He struggled to a sitting position against the wall. He took a deep breath. He opened his eyes.

Pitch black.

Terror and claustrophobia threatened to overcome him. He breathed long and hard. He closed his eyes and let his mind settle. Memories of the fight in El Tiempo came back. He was probably in a prison of some kind. He couldn’t remember any of the journey here. He could be anywhere in Colombia or even outside the country.

At least he was alive. He did a mental check of his body. His jaw ached from where the guard had hit him with the rifle. His body was bruised. But no bones were broken and there were no open wounds.

What about Lucia? Had they captured her too? If she’d got away, he hoped she’d met up with Manuel. He was powerful within the campesino movement and could use his contacts to track down Nathan.

Nathan shook his head. That was wishful thinking. He’d learnt long ago never to hope for the help of others. It was always better to rely on yourself.

He shuffled along the wall. He was in a cell, approximately four metres by two metres. The walls were stone. The floor was damp. In a corner was a bucket and a stool. The stench of urine made him gag. A solid metal door was on the opposite side. He inched up the wall, fumbled around for the door handle. It was cold, rusty metal.

Locked.

Nathan sat on the floor. The rats were chattering in a corner, probably scheming their next assault. Nathan prepared for a long wait. His heart beat in his temples. Even after what felt like enough time for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he could still see nothing.

How the hell was he going to escape from here? What kind of punishment did they have in store for him?

He needed to stay strong. His mind drifted to his escape and evasion training all those years ago. It’d been winter in the Brecon Beacons, the hills covered in snow. They’d been given a five hour head start, with no weapons, no survival kit, nothing. Just the aim to evade their pursuers for as long as possible. The SAS’s survival instructor had smiled grimly when he told them this was going to be one of the toughest periods of their lives so far.

He’d been right. Nathan had survived longer than the other recruits, for more than two days. But eventually the dogs caught his scent and pounced on him when he was crawling through the undergrowth. The punishment for being captured was an 18-hour interrogation. A hood over the face. Then beatings, humiliation, disorientation. Nathan had held on, retreating into himself, refusing to break. Even the survival instructor had been impressed.

The training had served him well in Mexico, when Amonite had captured and tortured him. But he hoped he wouldn’t have to rely on it again.

Nathan sat there for what felt like hours, thinking. After a while, he slid onto his side and fell asleep. He dreamt of Caitlin. They were walking down Caledonian Road towards Canal 125, their favourite bar with the small balcony overlooking the canal near the bridge. Caitlin was telling him something, but the words were coming out all muffled.

‘I didn’t get a word of that, Caitlin.’

She muttered something else.

‘Speak properly, Caitlin. You’re drunk. It’s not funny.’

Caitlin looked at him with her curved, coffee-coloured eyes. Her mouth sprung open. The bloody ruins of her tongue flapped around like strands of ripped cloth in a strong wind.

‘Oh my God.’ Nathan grabbed her forearm. ‘What have they done to you?’

Tears flowed down her cheeks, mixing with her make-up into streams of smudged black. A small red line appeared on her neck. It widened slowly, leisurely, even teasingly, until a torrent of blood erupted.

Her voice came through in a tortured whisper. ‘They’re going to do it to you, Nate.’ It turned into a wailing shriek. ‘Just like they did it to me.’

Nathan sat bolt upright, shaking, sweating, hyperventilating. A distant scream echoed through the silence. He gritted his teeth, took deep breaths, stretched his legs to let the circulation flow. Caitlin’s face hung there in front of him, glaring at him accusingly. As he took control of his breathing, the face dissipated in the darkness like pixels on a computer screen, until only the eyes remained, floating eerily before blinking into nothingness.

The scream happened again, louder, pleading. Nathan pushed himself into a corner of the cell. He huddled his knees to his chest. He waited.

There was no chance Soca would help, even if they found out about him. Cedric was too embroiled in internal politics and George was clearly involved with the Front.

Nathan cursed himself for having been so naive. He’d started at Soca full of ideals, believing that the war on drugs could be won. He’d seen many lives destroyed by drug abuse. Children in rags abandoned by their drug-crazed parents in spare rooms of crack houses. Young men resorting to horrific violence in order to steal cash for their daily doses of smack. Helpless bystanders caught in the cross-fire of a drive-by shooting in Brixton.

Cedric had once told him it was a war that could be won. But in Mexico, Nathan had started to grasp the futility of the drugs war. How the more you cracked down, the more violent the gangs retaliated. How repression led to higher prices for drugs, the higher profits encouraging more young people to become dealers. How law enforcement agencies, mired in bureaucracy and often deeply corrupted by the cartels, were incapable of stemming the steady flow of drugs into North America and Europe.

The door swung open, clanging against the wall. Nathan closed his eyes against the light that burst in.

‘Our sicario is awake,’ said a rough male voice in English with a heavy Colombian accent.

Nathan opened his eyes a crack, but the light was still too bright.

‘Who are you?’ Nathan mumbled.

‘You have a friend who wants to see you.’

‘Who?’

‘Hi Nathan,’ came a voice that he immediately recognised.

Bogotá, Colombia
13 April 2011

N
athan opened his eyes a slit. Amonite was dragging a white plastic chair into the cell. A strip of neon glared down. She plonked the chair in front of him and carefully lowered herself into it, as though scared of breaking it with her colossal frame. A guard slammed the cell door shut

‘What were you doing at El Tiempo?’ Amonite said.

A rat scurried from a small hole in the base of the wall to another one across the cell. Nathan fixed his gaze on the hole where it had disappeared.

‘What’s Lucia Carliso told you?’ Amonite said.

Nathan checked out the cell with his peripheral vision. Apart from the scribbles of graffiti etched into the concrete walls, it was as bare when lit up as it had felt when in darkness.

‘We’ve caught that little bitch too, you know,’ Amonite said. ‘That was her screaming.’

Nathan said nothing. He didn’t want to show any sign of weakness. Amonite studied him with the hungry eyes of a Rottweiler.

‘How long’s it been, Nathan? Just a year?’

The rat popped its head out of the hole and looked around with beady eyes.

‘Look at you now, Nathan. Was it all worth it?’

Nathan shifted his position to ease the pins and needles in his legs.

‘You know, Nathan, when I first heard of you, I underestimated you. A lowly piece of shit from Soca. No match for the Butcher of Juárez. But Don Camplones warned me about you. He was damn right.’

She scratched the stubble on her chin. ‘Remember that place in Juárez with all that fancy furniture and paintings and statues? Where you guys did your assault? Did you realise there was an underground bunker?’ She leaned forward. ‘I’m guessing that’s a no. Had you found it, none of this would have happened. Because that was a lab. That’s where we discovered Black Coke. Not that it’s there anymore.’