David Monnery - Days of the Dead

It was a pity he had no local contacts – he’d made friends in Mexico, but none in the capital. It suddenly occurred to Docherty that he might be able to pick up some intelligence from the Embassy if he used his contacts in Hereford, but then he remembered that Barney Davies had finally stepped down as SAS CO, and been replaced by someone whom he barely knew.

In any case, he thought, that would be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Or a general to run a country, as they said in Chile.

The plane was losing altitude now, and he spent the next fifteen minutes yawning to unblock his ears, watching as the yellow-browns and greens of the central plateau grew more distinct. Then they were flying down through either thin clouds or dense smog, re-emerging less than a kilometre above an overcrowded multi-lane highway that was snaking its way through shanty-covered hills.

The airport seemed three times as big as he remembered it, but he had no trouble getting through Immigration or Customs. Noticing the Hertz sign, he thought about hiring a car, but decided against it – there was no point in leaving such an obvious trail for an enemy. Instead he fought his way on to the modern Metro, remembering as he did so a recent traveller’s comment that its off-peak crowds would pass for a rush hour anywhere else. Two changes and several buffetings later, he emerged from the Zócalo station, no more than a stone’s throw away from the great square at the heart of the old city.

This seemed unchanged from nearly twenty years before, and he realized with a grin that he had arrived just in time to witness the six o’clock flag-changing ceremony – one of the world’s longest-running farces. The troop of a dozen soldiers was already halfway from the Palacio Nacional to the flagpole in the centre of the square, and by the time Docherty had joined the circle of spectators the drums were echoing, the national colours on their way down. A kind of baroque minuet followed, whereby the huge flag was folded to the size of a small tablecloth and then carried, with stunning reverence, back into the palace.

The crowd was now filtering away, the sun almost gone, its rays touching only the highest reaches of the cathedral on the square’s northern side. The sound of more drumming – rhythmic, distinctly unmilitary drumming – was coming from the corner to the right, and he walked across to find a circle of dancers whirling around a single drummer. They looked like Indians, and their speed and agility were amazing.

This was Mexico, Docherty thought. Mayan feet on Spanish stone, the past entwined with the present, drunkenness and death, farce and tragedy. After Chrissie’s death everything had seemed grey, but this country kept hitting you in the face with the whole damn palette.

He smiled to himself and resumed walking, heading up Cinco de Mayo towards the hotel he had stayed in nineteen years before. It was still there, but either his standards had risen or the hotel’s had dropped, and a cursory look at one room was enough to send him back on to the street. A few yards further on he found one of the places the guidebook recommended. The room he was shown seemed clean and the hotel itself seemed suitably anonymous. He checked in, left his bag in the room and continued on up Cinco de Mayo in search of something to eat.

The old city seemed seedier than he remembered, and not so lively; he supposed a lot of the night-life must have moved to the Zona Rosa a couple of miles to the east, where the streets would doubtless look much like modern streets did everywhere else. No matter, he told himself – he’d get the business with Toscono out of the way and then spend a few days in the real Mexico. He’d take the overnight train to Oaxaca, drink mescal sours in the main square, and see the world spread out beneath his feet on Monte Alban.

Sir Christopher Hanson was only a few minutes late arriving at his club for lunch, but his guest was already there, skimming through one of the hunting magazines with an amused expression on his face.

‘These’ll be like porn soon,’ Manny Salewicz said as he got up, flourishing the magazine.

‘What?’ Hanson asked, taken aback.

‘The way we hear it,’ the American said, ‘banning blood sports will be the only thing a new Labour government can give its activists which doesn’t cost anything. And then the nobility will have to hide magazines like this under their four-posters.’

The MI6 chief smiled despite himself. Since their first meeting a couple of years earlier Salewicz’s observations had often had that effect – the CIA man had a refreshing, and sometimes alarming, habit of cutting gleefully through the crap. The last time they’d had lunch together Hanson had been requesting American help for an SBS mission to Azerbaijan, and Salewicz had taken great pleasure in pointing out all the potential pitfalls before agreeing to provide it.

Now, as then, they spent the actual lunch in small talk. Salewicz was fascinated by Euro 96, mainly because the game itself left him completely cold. ‘What’s so great about a sport where you can’t use your hands?’ he demanded of Hanson, who could only shrug sympathetically. They then talked about President Clinton’s problems with Whitewater, the Queen’s with her children, and the Russian election. ‘You know what they say about globalization?’ Salewicz asked between mouthfuls of roast lamb and mint sauce. ‘The only thing worse than its failure would be its success.’

It was only when they were nursing large glasses of port in the members’ lounge that Hanson brought up business. ‘I want to talk to you about Angel Bazua,’ he told the American.

Salewicz raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘In the last week we’ve connected him to a large heroin shipment,’ Hanson went on. He told the American about the timber yard, the hollowed-out logs packed with the stuff, the arrests of the local wholesalers and their Turkish distribution ring. ‘We traced the list of buyers back to a fax machine in a Panama City office, and in that office one of our people intercepted an incoming fax from Providencia. There’s no room for doubt here,’ Hanson said, pulling a file from his briefcase and handing it to the CIA man, ‘the trail leads right to Bazua’s door. His prison door,’ he added with evident disgust.

Salewicz was rifling through the file, playing for time. He’d suspected that Bazua would come up, but his bosses in Washington hadn’t given him many cards to play. ‘There’s no copy of a fax from Providencia here,’ he said, looking up.

‘It was taken from him.’

The CIA man gave Hanson a hurt look. ‘No proof?’ he asked.

‘He saw it. He’ll tell the President he saw it if you like.’

Salewicz shook his head. ‘If you want us to get heavy with the Colombians we need real proof, cast-iron, irrefutable, on-paper proof.’

Hanson took a deep breath. ‘In there,’ he said, indicating the file, ‘you’ll find documented evidence that Bazua is stockpiling weapons. In a prison! He already has two boats, both of which could transport a couple of hundred men. In Argentina his people are openly advertising for “patriotic soldiers of the motherland”.’

‘We know. But two boats? Give me a break.’

‘When Castro and Guevara set out from Mexico in 1957 they only had eighty men in one boat, and by the time they reached the mountains there were only twelve of them. Who’s ruling Cuba now?’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘No, but it’s not that different either. We can’t afford to leave our garrison on the Falklands for ever, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a Labour government doesn’t bring it home sooner rather than later. A force of highly motivated mercenaries would be hard to dislodge with what’s there now, and who knows? – if Bazua picks his moment the government in Buenos Aires may find it easier to back him up than wash their hands of him. The man has to be stopped.’