Tom Knox: The Babylon rite

But then again, maybe no one had betrayed them: perhaps Catrina had simply followed the logic and traced them. Quite possibly Catrina had been watching the whole show, waiting for their moment.

But why had they been kidnapped? Did Catrina hope they had information? Would they try to torture it out of them? But they had no information to give, they had nothing to offer, even if they were allowed to bargain. Which wouldn’t happen. Catrina were known to be even crueller than the Zetas.

Nina reached out and held his hand. He squeezed it tight. The air was turbulent as they headed for the mountains. Maybe they would crash. Maybe they wouldn’t. Did it matter? He squeezed her hand again and said nothing. No words were needed.

A man came down the aisle of the buffeted plane, armed and blank-faced. He opened up his palm, revealing a dozen green capsules.

Adam recognized the pills from his days in Sydney, with Alicia. These were Roofies. Rohypnol; the date-rape drug. Two of these would knock out a grown man for ten hours.

The Catrina man grunted. ‘Four. Each.’

They obeyed — with a certain bleak eagerness. Oblivion seemed welcome, certainly preferable to thinking about what lay ahead, because nothing lay ahead but more suffering and pain. Adam swallowed his pills with water. Then he watched as Jessica took her pills, too, across the aisle.

She turned and looked him and shook her head, as if to say, It is Over. And of course it was. Everything was over.

Jessica swallowed. Adam turned. She looked at him, and smiled a strange smile; and then she swallowed. Gute nacht, meine kindern.

He gazed instead at Nina. She seemed almost happy as she put her head back. Happy?

Confusion surged through him, but there was nothing he could do about it. The Rohypnol hit him like a hammer thirty-seven minutes later.

When he woke they were on a different plane. A jet. Flying in the darkness. He groped to remember a vague dream about airports, hoods, or blindfolds, half-dream/half-reality. Everyone else was asleep on the plane, even some of the Catrina men. Nina and Jessica were sitting together. Strapped tightly in, and handcuffed.

Adam looked down: a handcuff jangled on his wrist. He motioned to the man guarding them. Jerking his head to the back of the plane. ‘Toilet?’

The man nodded. He unlocked the shackle and Adam stepped unsteadily down the aisle. He stared in the mirror of the tiny washroom as he zipped up. His face was dirty with river mud, and a patch of red rust. Red rust? Of course, from where he had pressed his cheek to the rusting steel of the barge, to listen to the Zetas.

A vague groping of an idea entered his head. Los Zetas. The bitter rivals.

Back in his seat he was given a sandwich and some water. He ate and drank, trying not to think. Then he was reshackled and the cartelista opened his palm. ‘Four. Each.’

Soon, the blackness of Rohypnol enveloped him again.

The second time he woke he was being unloaded from a vehicle. He was hooded; but he could hear sounds. The distinct sounds of a very busy city, Hispanic music, people, but echoey, and distanced, as if they were down a side street.

This was his chance. He yelled, desperately, into the blackness of his hood. ‘Zetas! This is Catrina! Help us! Catrina have got us, police, anyone, policia! ’

The thud of a rifle butt or a pistol butt on the side of his head felt like a hammer blow. He slumped to his knees. But he yelled again, more weakly. ‘Catrina, the Catrina cartel have got us! Policia! Los Zet-’

Someone lifted the hood for a moment and shoved something in his mouth, a rubber ball maybe; he almost choked. Another vicious blow to his head sent him semi-conscious. They were being moved into the back of another vehicle, and forced to lie down. Adam gagged on the rubber ball. Would his desperate plan work? He had little hope, but it was their only hope. The two gangs were fighting over the drug, neither of them had enough of it, they were still trying to find the source. They were at war. And that war was the only leverage he and Nina and Jessica had.

Yet it seemed a ludicrous hope as he lay here on the floor of a van, bound and gagged and pathetic. Adam could sense Nina and Jessica, hear their desperate panting.

For a few kilometres, the traffic noise was intense. This was a big big city. Lima? Rio? Bogota? Mexico City? Adam’s eyes burned to see but all he could see was blackness. Then the van stopped. The hood was whipped away. They were in a courtyard: a large, pleasant, green and marble Spanish colonial patio. Tall armed men stood between palm trees. The noise of the city was still audible; but large and closed steel gates muffled the drone. Adam’s hands were shackled behind him. He gazed around for Nina and Jessica.

He saw them being led in through a door. A gun in the back nudged Adam inside after them.

The house was big and airy, with majolica tiles and modern art in delicate juxtaposition. It was elegant and unboastful. A very rich man lived here, quietly and discreetly. Adam could guess who.

Carlos Chicomeca Monroy. El Santo.

And here he was: standing in the middle of a large room painted a pale straw yellow. His lean face was older than his years but still handsome. Thirty-three maybe, but toughened by ambition or ruthlessness. He wore a pale suit. Everything about him was slightly pale. To Adam, he looked like a silvery saint in a dark Spanish Baroque painting. A saint preparing to ascend to heaven, to evanesce. To float on water, to beckon the birds to his hands. Even his dark hair was pale. His eyes were pale. His smile was pale, but gleaming.

Ulluchu.

The ulluchu smile. He was on the drug. He was going to torture them to death. Adam looked forlornly around the room, seeking an escape route, knowing it was pointless. There was no escaping this.

On the opposite wall he saw what looked like a Rothko, a real Rothko painting. They were told to sit down. Adam recognized the design: Barcelona chairs, exquisitely moderniste; ten thousand dollars each, screwed to the floor. They were shackled to the iconic steel chairs.

Carlos Monroy smiled at them. A gesture to the guards and some of them walked out, leaving two alert, and silent, sentries. He spoke: ‘The beating of our hearts is the only sound…’

He walked up to Nina, who was staring, rapt, at the drug lord, from her chair. Staring down at her white, mud-smeared face he said, ‘Your father was quite a man, quite a man. The only man to outwit me in many years.’

His accent was pure East Coast going on British. Quite flawless. His pale and austere eyes were very slightly bloodshot. The tiny fleck of foam at the corner of his mouth again spoke of ulluchu.

‘You’ve taken the drug,’ said Nina. ‘We can tell.’

‘The dose can be carefully calibrated so you achieve the exquisite high of sadism, but not the horror of suicide. You are not unintelligent. You have worked out a lot, Jessica has told me.’

Jessica?

‘But what you haven’t worked out is what the drug ultimately does.’ Monroy reached behind him, to a fine marble mantelpiece. He took down a small silver box. And showed it to Nina, then Adam. The small elegant box glittered in the sunlight through tall French windows that gave on to a balcony overlooking the patio. Adam wondered if he would survive a jump from that balcony.

Monroy turned the box in one hand. ‘Made by Francis Harrache, in London. Joyous, isn’t it? 1750. Solid silver. For tobacco, of course. Just one of the many drugs you Europeans took from the New World. And still you take our drugs…’ He snapped open the lid. ‘But we have less time to talk than I had hoped.’ His shining eyes regarded Adam. ‘Your outburst on the street was a sensible move. It is what I would have done in such reduced circumstances. And now the Zetas are indeed alerted: the street is a network of gossip and treachery. Just like the closest friendships. So. Here. This is ulluchu. This is what Archibald McLintock found. Look-’