Scott Mariani - The Armada Legacy

The rest of the Indians lay scattered among the devastated remnants of their village a little way farther on. The bodies and the dark patches of blood soaked into the forest floor were already crawling with huge black hairy flies whose buzzing filled the air. What was left of the primitive village dwellings and store huts would soon be flattened into nothing by the massive machines when the deforestation operation moved in.

‘This surely can’t be all of them,’ Serrato said to the team leader, pointing at the corpses.

‘Twenty-seven,’ the team leader replied. ‘Out of an estimated population of fifty or sixty. Looks like they knew we were coming and got the women and children out just in time. Only the male warriors stayed behind to defend the place. But we’ll catch up with the rest pretty soon if we can find some tracks to follow. These fuckers move through the jungle like ghosts.’

‘Find them,’ Serrato said. ‘Before they can make contact with other tribes and word starts to spread. I want this situation contained and resolved as soon as possible.’

Away from the men he said sternly to Vargas, ‘This is more trouble than I should have to deal with.’ Before the politician could launch into an apologetic reply he demanded, ‘The land is mine, is it not?’

‘Yes, technically, but …’

‘Technically? I’ve presented all the necessary documentation. I’ve demonstrated sufficient proof of entitlement. The escrituras were transferred to my name as of yesterday.’

The property deeds Serrato was referring to normally took up to thirty-three days to register under the Peruvian legal system. He hadn’t been prepared to wait anything like that long and had spent a great deal of time on the phone whipping his lawyers to get the complex paperwork through the necessary channels as fast as possible. A five-hundred-year-old land title signed by Philip II of Spain might not have been a document that the clerks saw every day, but with land ownership laws in the state of confusion that they were and Vargas and his people greasing the wheels to ensure that Serrato’s claim was rubber-stamped, the deal had gone through as smoothly as he could have wished. Bribes had been paid to all the right people; all the right arms twisted; all the right veiled threats made.

It had mattered very little to anyone concerned that the land in question was a protected native community reserve. God bless Peru.

‘The land is mine,’ Serrato repeated emphatically. ‘I shouldn’t even have to go to the trouble of clearing out these Indians. They’re meant to be your department.’

‘It’s a delicate business, Señor Serrato,’ Vargas protested. ‘What am I supposed to do, with these interfering do-gooder bastards from MATSES and Fenamad breathing down my neck the whole time?’ He glanced nervously at the soldiers, who were wandering among the ruins of the Indian village out of earshot. ‘It is not just I who has to be careful. If certain people got wind that government officials were colluding with … with …’ from the look in Serrato’s eye Vargas knew he had to choose his words with extreme care, ‘with a private individual such as yourself, to clear half a million acres of protected virgin rainforest without the proper authorisation and set up the biggest unofficial oil drilling operation Peru has ever seen …’

‘The oil is there,’ Serrato said. ‘You have seen the test results.’

‘The tests conducted illegally …’

‘But conclusive nonetheless. And you also know how much you stand to gain if the wells yield even half of my consultants’ estimate.’

‘… not to mention this.’ Vargas waved a finger at the grisly corpses and wrecked dwellings, and shook his head.

‘We agreed on what would have to be done to vacate the land.’

‘I did not agree to such a slaughter,’ Vargas replied in a raspy whisper. It was the first time he’d ever seen so much blood and death, and the large breakfast he’d wolfed down before getting on the chopper was threatening to make a reappearance every time he looked at the bodies or caught a whiff of their smell. ‘There are limits, Señor Serrato. Even here in Peru there are limits. Things are not the way they used to be. This new president we have now may be an idiot, but he is an idealistic idiot who believes in progress and reform. You have no idea how things are at my end.’

Serrato gave a smile. ‘My dear Aníbal, you are beginning to sound somewhat less enthusiastic about our project than you were at the outset. Which I must say disappoints me, after so much planning, so many meetings and discussions. I believe I made it very clear to you from the start exactly how I intended to proceed once I had secured the necessary document.’ He took the poisoned arrow out from under his arm and waved its tip casually through the air as he spoke. ‘However, if you no longer wish to remain involved in the project, please say the word. It will be taken care of immediately.’

Vargas looked at the poisoned arrow and swallowed. If he said the word, he was a dead man. He’d be buried here in the rainforest with these poor bastard Indians. Then he thought about his share of the cash once the oil started pumping. Who cared if it wasn’t legal – what was? His days of skimming off the top, chasing after kickbacks, worrying about getting caught, would be over forever. He’d be able to afford more Italian suits, younger hotter mistresses, the black Porsche he coveted to go with his gold one, and that luxury beach house he’d had his eye on for a while. The shopping list stretched tantalisingly out in his imagination.

‘Please forgive me, Señor Serrato. You can rely on my complete support. There will be no problems from me, I guarantee it.’

Serrato was about to deliver a cuttingly sarcastic reply when his mobile phone started ringing. He plucked it from his suit pocket and saw that the call was from one of his subordinates in Bogotá. It was one he’d been expecting.

‘We got Morales,’ the voice on the other end told him.

Serrato had done this kind of thing too often to feel any pleasure or excitement from it. Ordering the kidnap and torture of a fellow Colombian, in this case an ex-cop in league with others standing in the way of his plans, was as routine to him as ordering a gallon of milk.

‘Did he talk?’ Serrato asked. If the answer to the question was no, it would mean that the men had managed to let Felipe Morales die before they’d got the information out of him. That, in turn, would mean further deaths as punishment for the error.

‘Oh, he talked all right, boss. He was a tough one, though. Had to show him the chainsaw before he cracked, and that was after we’d already taken off his fingers …’

Serrato wasn’t concerned with the trivial details. ‘Where’s Ramirez, where’s Cabeza?’

‘Spain. Place called Montefrio. We have people on the way there.’

‘Good. I want all trace of them erased.’ Serrato put away his phone. He glanced archly at the piles of dead Indians by the ruined huts. ‘This place stinks,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

It was coming on for five in the afternoon and the winter evening was drawing near by the time the battered Subaru rolled up outside the holiday rental cottage in the sleepy village of Montefrio near the Cordoba border, a sprawl of white houses and terracotta roofs surrounded by the hills and olive groves of Granada and dominated by an ancient fortress-like church perched high on a rock.

Ben could understand why Nico had chosen such an out-of-the-way spot to hide Cabeza, though it wasn’t a choice he personally agreed with. He’d always preferred safe houses in crowded cities, where a targeted individual could disappear far more easily. In cities, nobody gave a shit about anybody – whereas small communities were always conscious of strangers in their midst, and the presence of strangers tended to generate loose talk.