Taking Chances (54 page)

There was no satellite or cable, so he had no idea what was happening in LA, but an earlier local bulletin had informed him of the successful police raid on the Galeano estate in the department of Tolima late last night. It was reported that General Javier Garcia Gómez and his élite force of British SAS-trained men, in a fleet of Huey choppers fully equipped with electric Gatling guns, multiple grenade launchers, bazookas and M60 machine-guns, laid siege to the fifty-acre estate around midnight, and by morning had secured more than twenty arrests, as well as the seizure of four private jets, a small arsenal of Russian, US and Israeli manufactured weapons, a fully equipped laboratory and some eighteen tonnes of cocaine. The arrests, the newscaster had reported, were rumoured to have included Gustavo and Julio Zapata, the nephews of Hernán Galeano, who had recently been named in connection with the killing of the American journalist, Rachel Carmedi, four years ago.

There had been no mention of guerilla assistance in the raid, nor, as yet, had there been any update on the whereabouts of General Gómez and three of his men. Gómez’s second-in-command had reported last seeing the general and the missing officers running towards a building only seconds before it exploded, but so far no bodies had been recovered.

For Chambers, next to Ellen’s death, this was the news he least wanted to hear. He’d sat up all night waiting for word from the general, knowing it wasn’t likely to come until much later in the day, but unable to sleep anyway. Then the news had reported his disappearance, and by mid-afternoon he’d already begun to detect a nervousness in the officers around him. They were clearly unsettled by the general’s failure to make contact, and the lack of any instruction on how to proceed with the protection of the general’s friend.

It was dusk now, though somewhere nearby a cockerel crowed incessantly, and a dog let up an occasional yowl. As he drifted in and out of sleep Chambers could hear the officers outside, the low mutter of their voices, and the flare of a match as they lit their
barillos
.

He wasn’t exactly sure when he began picking up on the increased level of their tension, or what it was about their change in mood that was now alerting him to how vulnerable they were – in the heart of a small valley, remote from the world, with only a few Berettas, M16s and MGLs to protect them. In any other country that would be way above requirements – in Colombia it wasn’t going to do it.

He went outside to get a better sense of the air. It was dark now, and the dozen officers guarding the
finca
were all squatting in shadows, rounds of ammunition laced through their guns, combat knives and grenades bulging from their belts. Seeing him one of them loped over, drawing him down against the wall of the house,
and
edging him to the cover of a mushrooming shrub.

‘Any news?’ Chambers asked.

‘No,’ the young man answered. His darkly handsome features were smeared in mud, the whites of his eyes gleamed like moons. ‘It is not usual for the general to go so long without contact,’ he said.

Chambers glanced at him, then dropped his eyes to the dirt. ‘Do you think he’s still alive?’ he said softly.

‘They have found no bodies,’ the man answered.

Chambers took heart from that, mainly because he needed to, rather than because he termed it conclusive. He looked up at the looming hillsides around them where the darkness hung in thick, impassive shadows, and the air was as warm as his breath. His ears were tuned for the slightest sound beyond the grate and screech of night creatures; in the distance an owl hooted, while hidden in the impenetrable forest the stealthy prowl of jaguars, ocelot, deer or armadillos made a soft crush on the scrub.

‘Who are you in contact with?’ Chambers asked.

‘Major Rodriguez,’ the man answered.

‘What are his orders?’

‘For us to sit tight. If there are any signs of an attack, we are to make it our priority to get you out of here.’

Chambers gave an ironic smile. ‘Cut and run,’ he murmured, knowing that would go down hard with these fighting men.

‘I have some whisky,’ the man offered, and digging into his belt he handed Chambers a flask.

Chambers sucked in a mouthful, and passed the flask back.

They sat quietly together, watching and feeling the night and listening to each other’s breath. From time to time Chambers saw a shadow move and tensed, though he knew it was another of the men shifting position. His heartbeat felt abnormally dense, and as the hours passed his skin began to prickle with the prescience of danger.

It was an hour before dawn when they first heard the distant sound of an engine. All over the garden the thumbing-down of safeties and readying of machine guns made a short, muted resonance through the drooping trees and brush. The man with Chambers disappeared for a moment, and returned with another officer. They took position either side of him, then signalled for him to follow.

As he moved Chambers could feel the stiffness in his limbs, and the dewy dampness that had seeped into his clothes. In one hand he carried the Beretta, in the other he held the grenade he had been given during the night. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in a situation like this, it had happened many times before in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Sarajevo, the Lebanon, but the fear never got any easier to handle. If anything, it got worse, for there was only so much luck a man could count on before it finally ran out.

The rumbling of approaching vehicles was getting louder by the second. It was impossible to tell how many there were, though he heard someone guess six. By now he and his escorts were at the side of the house, edging backwards into one of the barns. More men were in front of them, retreating too as they swept the garden with eyes and guns.

They drew into the barn, the rank, stale smell of old molasses and camphor clogging on their chests. The first officer pointed Chambers to the armoured Jeep, nodding for him to get in. Chambers did as he was told. The barn door remained open. The roar of advancing engines trailed through the valley as the front line of his guard moved forward towards the rusted chain-link fence and thorny scrub.

His two escorts got into the Jeep with him, one in the back, the other in the driver’s seat. Their faces were taut and pale. Each was acutely aware that an attack was unlikely to come by road like this, alerting them well in
advance
with the blatant noise of engines. But six vehicles could hold twenty-four men and up – at least twice as many as at the
finca
. And with the constant betrayal, switching of allegiances and easy bribes in this nation, there was a very good chance that the detail of the
finca
’s set-up had been reported to Galeano’s men within minutes of being established.

From where they were sitting they could see the swell of a nearby hill, visible now in the greyish light before dawn. Their eyes were trained on the road that looped round it. The vehicles suddenly burst into view, one, two, three, four of them, headlights beaming, speeding around the bend like evenly-timed missiles. Then they were gone, descending fast down the track that led to the
finca
.

Chambers glanced at the man beside him. He was still clutching his gun, eyes rooted on the tangled sprawl of garden and open land beyond. They listened as the vehicles screeched to a halt, expecting gunfire, hearing none. There was the sound of men shouting, then running. The driver leapt out of the car and moved swiftly to the barn door. There was more shouting as someone called out, ‘Don’t shoot! Italo, César! Put down your guns!’ Two camouflaged figures appeared in the doorway. Behind them came half a dozen more.

Chambers dived for cover, then spun round, ready to shoot, as the door beside him was suddenly yanked open.

‘Señor Tom! Please, come with me.’

‘What is it? What’s happening?’ Chambers asked, jumping down from the car.

‘We have orders,’ the man told him. ‘Valerio has come from the general. He is here. He will tell you.’

Valerio, the man who had been one of his escorts for the past five days, was standing in the midst of the group, looking dishevelled and seriously hyped up.

‘Señor Tom,’ he grinned when he saw Chambers
coming
towards him. ‘The general will be relieved to know you are safe. But you must come with me now.’ He was already walking away.

‘Where are we going?’ Chambers asked, as they all started across the garden. ‘Where’s the general?’

‘He is safe,’ Valerio answered. ‘Please, get in the car, I will explain on the way.’

The four vehicles turned out to be more armoured cars, this time three Chevy Blazers and a Ford Explorer. All were black or dark grey. Valerio pulled open one of the front passenger doors and gestured for Chambers to get in. As he did so two armed men climbed in the back, and Valerio got behind the wheel.

Minutes later all four vehicles were speeding back towards the mountain road. The sun was half over the horizon by now, and a steamy mist was beginning to rise from the ground. For a while no-one spoke, and the further they got from the
finca
the more unnerved Chambers became. Twenty-four hours ago he’d been in no doubt that Valerio was the general’s man; now he remembered that it was only a fool who didn’t doubt.

‘It said on the news that the general was missing,’ he ventured.

Valerio glanced at him, then leaned over as he took a sharp bend fast. ‘They say many things on the news,’ he answered. ‘They know nothing.’

‘But the raid. It did happen?’

Valerio grinned. ‘Sure, it happened,’ he confirmed. ‘We took the Zapata boys. They are in custody now. By tonight we will have their confession that they killed your girlfriend.’

If he was telling the truth about the arrests, then Chambers had no problem believing him about the confession. He knew more than he wanted to about their methods of extraction. ‘And Molina?’ he asked.

Again Valerio grinned, and this time threw him a look. ‘I am taking you there now,’ he responded.

‘He’s in custody?’

Valerio shook his head. ‘No, but we know where he is.’

Chambers waited and Valerio started to laugh.

‘At ten o’clock this morning,’ he said, ‘our friend Molina has an appointment with a man who makes bulletproof jackets. The man, he is a good man, has a fine reputation, and he doesn’t like to provide jackets for guerillas or
traficantes
or lowlife scum like Molina. So when he gets someone like that approach him, he always tells them no, then he informs us so that we can protect him from the offences these men take. In Molina’s case, because the general has asked him, Señor Gavira has agreed to make an appointment. But he won’t be there. It will be just us. Already we have our people in place, at the sewing-machines and in the offices, looking like Señor Gavira’s staff. When you arrive Salvador Molina will be all yours.’

Chambers turned to look out the window. The Beretta was back in his belt, and he could feel his palm itching to hold it. Just thinking of Molina incited the urge to kill. But not only to kill, to hurt and mutilate, terrorize and humiliate too. Four years had done nothing to deaden the need for revenge, nor to lessen the loss that between them Galeano and Molina had inflicted. How many nights had he lain awake longing for the woman they had taken; torturing himself with images of the way things might have been, of the way things were when they had loved and laughed, shared dreams and passions, known anger and outrage and such a depth to their love that few ever got to experience. She was the only woman he had ever loved, was probably the only woman he ever would love. He wanted no closeness with others; he wanted only her and the life she had been so brutally deprived of.

But that could never be, and because of it he knew what he wanted to do to Molina – had known since the
day
he’d discovered that it was Molina who had sent him the photographs of her rape and torture, that it was Molina who had killed her. The only emotion that surpassed his hatred for this man was the love he still felt for Rachel. He was so torn apart by the force of both that he sometimes despaired of ever knowing peace again. In his heart he knew she wouldn’t want him to take this revenge, that she would fear the damage it would ultimately cause him, but this knowledge couldn’t prevail, for she wasn’t having to live with the daily guilt of the fact that he had taken a gamble with her life and lost. For more than three years he had lived with the blame for her death, truly believing that had he done as he was told she would have been allowed to live. But then he had learned the truth, that Molina was the one who had abducted her, so no matter what he had done, what ransom he’d offered, or deal he’d struck, Molina would have taken it all and killed her anyway. So he owed Molina, he owed him not only for the trickery, the deceit, the rape, the murder – but for the dreams of a future that could now never, ever come true.

It was a quarter to ten when the three escorting vehicles broke from the convoy and left them to continue on alone to the jacket-maker’s on Carrera twenty-six. By now they were well inside the city limits of Bogotá, driving through an area Chambers didn’t know, but one like so many others on the outskirts of town, crumbling, uncleansed and as dangerous as hell. Every window and doorway was barred, every store had a spyhole to vet clients before allowing them in. Few walked the streets, several lay hunched up against walls, flattened cardboard boxes acting as blankets. It was as run-down as any place Chambers had seen anywhere in the world, so much poverty, tragedy, abuse and addiction that it seemed to be eating the streets like a cancer.

Soon they passed on to a neighbourhood that had
more
people on foot, fewer in doorways, some freshly painted storefronts and garbage dumped in piles rather than strewn about the sidewalks. Still there were bars on everything. They came to a stop behind a dark blue Toyota that was parked outside a tall, purple-fronted building with green-painted bars that protected a bulletproof door.

Valerio got out first and went to ring the bell. Chambers watched him speak through the intercom, then turn to gesture them out of the car.