First
Caribbean International Bank
West Bay, Grand Cayman
The woman locked the door of the bank at twenty-three minutes to five, and began walking inland along Boggy Sand Road towards the main housing area for local inhabitants.
Oscar and Rosibel followed hand-in-hand on the opposite side of the road like tourists taking a peak at how the poor people lived.
He had lost count of the number of times he’d had to jump in the swimming pool during the day to cool down, and was glad now that Rosibel had finally put her clothes back on. Although, she wore a baggy sleeveless vest and no bra, and he could see the shape of her nipples through the thin white material. He was sure she was doing it on purpose to drive him crazy. All he wanted to do was take her in his arms, make love to her and tell her how much he had always loved her. But he knew it was never going to happen – loving Rosibel was a lost cause. His time would be better spent searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
‘You haven’t told me why we’re following this woman.’
‘When you need to know, I’ll tell you.’
‘I’m not going to approve, am I?’
‘What you approve or disapprove of is of no interest to me.’ He wasn’t being strictly honest. His loyalty was to Mr Garcia – the man who had provided him with the many opportunities to reach his present position in life – betrayal was unthinkable and, of course, deadly. He had been tasked to find the person who had stolen Mr Garcia’s money, and that’s exactly what he would do regardless of whether she disapproved of his actions or not.
Of course, there were conflicting emotions raging inside him. Rosibel was a self-inflicted dagger lodged in his heart. In one sense, he wished he’d never brought her with him – she was proving to be more troublesome than he could have possibly imagined – yet he had been driven by love and desire. In another sense, he had grown closer to her. Before, maybe he could have walked away and lived another life, but now . . . Even though she twisted the dagger at every opportunity, he loved her beyond all reason.
The woman knocked and entered a house on Gunters Lane. Shortly afterwards, she came out holding the hand of a young girl of about six years of age. In the bank, he had seen a picture behind the counter of the woman with her daughter, and knew that he could use the child to get the information he needed.
‘You pig,’ Rosibel spat at him.
He ignored her. At least he’d had today. If there was never anything else between them – thoughts of today would keep him warm during the long lonely nights ahead.
‘You’re going to use the girl, aren’t you?’
‘I’m going to get the information I need. How I do that is irrelevant. The woman will do as she is asked, and the child will be fine.’
‘What if the woman doesn’t get the information that you want?’
He shrugged. ‘She will get it. She can do nothing else.’
‘Perverso cerdo.’
Yes, he was an evil pig, but that’s what had kept him alive for so long. Nice guys didn’t live long on the streets of Colombia.
They followed the woman all the way down Gunters Lane, hung a left into Church Street and a right into Batabano Road. At their backs, the sun was gradually sinking into sea, the more adventurous swimmers were taking a last dive into the coral reef, the sunbathers were heading back to the hotels like roasted lobsters and the beach-front restaurants were preparing for the evening onslaught.
She turned into a one-storey house with a corrugated iron roof. It was surrounded by a white picket fence, had a wooden veranda at the front and a well-tended garden with bushes and different coloured flowers.
As soon as the woman went into the house he stepped off the pavement and began to walk across the road.
Rosibel grabbed his arm and yanked him back. ‘Please don’t,’ she pleaded.
He pulled her off the pavement and carried on across the road. ‘It is the only way. Would you rather I held a gun to her head in the bank like a gangster?’
‘What will you do with them afterwards?’
‘Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. Wait and see.’
He knocked on the clean white door.
As soon as the woman opened it he barged in. There was no need to pretend. He was here to get the information – that was the limit of his interest.
She opened her mouth to scream, or shout at them to get out, or any number of other possibilities.
He said, ‘If you scream, I will kill your little girl.’ Killing children wasn’t something he enjoyed doing, but he had done it before. In a war, sometimes the innocent died – that was the way of things.
She closed her mouth.
They moved through into the living room. He signalled her to sit down. ‘Where is the child?’
‘Doing homework in her bedroom.’
He nodded. ‘What is your name?’
‘Winnie . . . Winnie Flowers.’
‘My name is Oscar, Winnie. I am from Colombia, and I have come here for one tiny bit of information, which you are going to get for me. First of all, you should not be under any illusion that I will not kill your little girl . . . What is her name?’
‘Safa.’
‘It is a beautiful name, but I will kill her without a moment’s hesitation unless you do as I say.’
She nodded her understanding. ‘What do you want?’
‘As I said, my name is Oscar. I am high up in a drug cartel in Colombia. The leader of that drug cartel has had some money stolen from him by an unscrupulous person. I want to know who that person is – it is that simple.’ He passed her the piece of paper with Mr Garcia’s bank account number on it. ‘You will go back to the bank, put that number in the computer, find the transaction that transferred money from Mr Garcia’s account to another numbered account, and write down the details of the person who has that account. I want to know their name and where they live. Do you understand?’
She nodded.
‘I will stay here with your child. The lady will go with you. If you do as I ask, then you and your child will be safe.’
‘But I’ve seen your faces.’
‘It does not matter. If you ever tell anybody what you did, or who we are . . .’ He pulled a face. ‘There are many people in the cartel. You and your child will die. Get me the information. We will leave the island. That will be the end of it, I promise.’
‘How do I know you won’t kill us anyway once I get you the information?’
‘I am a man of my word.’ He pointed to Rosibel. ‘The lady is not part of the cartel. She is here because I threatened to kill her whole family unless she helped me. She will tell you I am a man who speaks the truth.’
She glanced at Rosibel who nodded.
‘Now, enough questions. Leave now. Get the information and return. Then we will leave you alone.’
‘Safa will want her dinner.’
‘I will feed the child. Go.’
Winnie and Rosibel left.
He stood at a window and watched them walk down the road until they were out of sight. Yes, it wasn’t the best plan in the world, but it was a plan that would work. Once he had the information, he would go back to the hotel, pack and get a taxi to the airport.
‘Who are you?’ Safa asked him.
He turned. ‘I am Oscar the chef. Your mother has forgotten something at the bank, and has had to go back there. She will return soon, and has asked me to cook your dinner.’
‘Are you a good cook, Oscar?’
‘Oscar’s lemon pancakes are renowned the whole world over. Would you like to try them.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You will not be disappointed, madam. Have you finished your homework?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Learning is very important.’
They went into the kitchen. Safa sat at the table, and he gave her a glass of lemonade from the fridge.
‘When I was a little older than you,’ he said as he collected up the ingredients: flour, eggs, salt, milk, butter, castor sugar and lemons. ‘I lived in a small village called Puente de Calamate, which is in another country. My mother’s mother taught me how to make the lemon pancakes . . .’
‘Watch closely, little Oscar.’
He tried to scrape a dollop of batter from the inside of the bowl with his finger, but she brought the whisk down on his knuckles.
‘It is all in the wrist, little Oscar. Are you watching?’
‘Yes, Abuela.’
‘Here, you try,’ she said, passing him the whisk. ‘And try not to get it all over the house, otherwise nobody will be getting lemon pancakes tonight.’
***
Cookie made her way along the corridor. The red light on the CCTV camera that were attached high up on the wall flickered as she walked. She was looking down at the blank piece of paper on the clipboard in her left hand to prevent the camera capturing a full frontal of her face. Her right hand was wrapped around the handle of the Smith & Wesson in her coat pocket.
She hadn’t noticed before, but there were coloured lines on the floor and a legend on the wall. The yellow line would lead her to the exit – follow the yellow-brick road – she smiled.
The trouble was, the yellow line didn’t take her very far. She reached a lift, and the yellow line disappeared under the left-hand door. If you wanted to travel in the lift you needed an access card – she didn’t have a fucking access card. Didn’t life suck? Just when she thought she was moving in the right direction they had to go and make the line disappear. She turned right – wherever right was going to take her. She was beginning to think that she’d never get out of this subterranean labyrinth.
There was a sign for the stairs, but she needed an access card to open the door. She thought she might shoot the lock off, but that would probably bring a bucket load of fire and brimstone down on her head. As she passed the door though, she noticed that it was slightly ajar. It had a self-closing mechanism, but it was wedged open with a piece of old chewing gum. She opened the door, and slipped through the gap. After scraping the chewing gum off the floor with a fingernail, she popped it into her mouth and pulled the door closed. The chewing gum tasted of lemon – among other things. It was good to feel something else in her mouth other than her tongue.
More CCTV, but the lighting was poor. There was a hollow echoing sound as she climbed the stairs and hung onto the metal rail. She looked up and saw that there were probably a million steps. There must be pit-stops at different levels, places where a weary traveller could get a drink, a three-course meal, a massage, book in for the night at a motel, or get some plasters for your blisters . . .
At the top she’d probably need an access card to get out, and wondered what she was going to do when she got there. Where did the stairs lead? What was at the top? Would she end up where she started – at French Ordinary Court – spat out like an unwanted piece of garbage, but missing two friends and all her stuff?
There was no one else in the stairwell. At intervals, when she felt faint and her legs had turned to jelly, she sat down on a step and rested. As she climbed she noticed that there were no other doors leading out of the stairwell onto other floors.
Why was it called Basement 7? Were there other basements somewhere? Where were they? What happened in them? Why did the government need them? No doubt, if she made it out of this hellhole, she’d find a lot of the answers contained within the files and emails she’d copied into her online vault. The bastards were in for a shock.
Eventually, after what seemed like ten years or more, she reached a door. Yes, she was right, she needed an access card. She knocked softly like a dormouse with mittens on.
No one would hear that.
She knocked again. Loudly this time, like someone in a hurry, someone who was impatient with life, someone who . . .
The door opened.
‘Yes?’
Standing there was a big unshaven man with heavy features wearing olive-green creased trousers, a tight t-shirt to emphasise his muscles, and a strap around his neck which was attached to a Uzi machine gun. He looked like a mercenary in the Bolivian jungle.
He grabbed her coat lapel and dragged her through the door. ‘Well, look who it ain’t. Hey Stig, you’re never gonna believe this.’ He pushed her into a room that stunk of body odour, beer and cigarette smoke. There were four men lounging about on battered old sofas and chairs, a coffee table overflowing with dirty magazines, beer cans and a full ashtray. On one wall was a dartboard with half a dozen darts protruding from it; on another a bank of television screens showing CCTV images of the car park; French Ordinary Court and empty corridors; and on another wall an open cupboard with an assortment of weapons and ammunition inside.
Stig stood up. He had rotting teeth, piggy eyes and a broken nose. ‘Yeah, you’re right, Don. I don’t believe it.’ He squeezed her face with a large stinking hand, squeezed a breast and walked round her like a lion guarding its dinner. ‘Don’t tell me, you liked it so much the first time, you thought you’d come back for seconds?’
‘I said I was going to kill you. Well, here I am.’
He laughed.
The others joined in.
She pulled the trigger of the Smith & Wesson. The noise was louder than she expected in the confined space and made her jump.
The look of disbelief on his face as he collapsed to the floor holding his stomach was her revenge wrapped up in fancy paper with a pretty little bow on top.
As if in slow motion, she shot all four men. After Stig, she turned and shot Don before he could turn his machine gun on her. Then, she shot the other two as they were scrambling for their weapons.
The room was full of smoke. Her ears were ringing, her head was throbbing, and Stig was bleeding and groaning on the floor.
‘You fucking bitch,’ he gasped, as he slithered along the floor like a snake trying to reach a machine gun, and leaving a slimy trail of blood in his wake.
She trod on his ankle and said, ‘I don’t think so.’
He rolled on his back and stared at her with a smirk on his face.
She shot him in the groin.
His eyes nearly popped out of his head. The smirk disappeared.
She pointed the gun at his face and pulled the trigger again.
There, it was done.
She put the gun down on the coffee table, sat down on the arm of a sofa and waited for them to come and arrest her.
The ringing in her ears stopped.
The smoke dissipated.
Her heart-rate returned to normal.
She waited.
Nobody came to arrest her.
After another ten minutes she realised that nobody was going to come for her. She stood up and got her bearings. She left the room and walked along a corridor. After passing the lift, she found herself in another corridor, and then at the door that led to French Ordinary Court.
It wasn’t time to leave yet.
She went back and searched the room. She found her own rucksack behind the sofa. It still had everything inside – including her laptop.
Stig had lied to her. All the men were there for was to stop unwanted guests getting into the facility. The people inside weren’t interested in what the men did with those who were caught, just as long as they didn’t live to tell the tale. Well, their luck had just run out – Cookie was still alive.
She opened the ruckside wide and filled it with a Glock 21, three boxes of ammunition, a silencer, and the wallets of all four men.
As she searched, she discovered a three-quarter-full jerry can of petrol and a box of six grenades and had an idea. First, she poured petrol over the dead men and the sofas and chairs and along the corridor past the lift. Next, she opened the door to the stairs, propped the door open with the jerry can by turning it on its side and letting the petrol slop out and run down the stairs.
When the jerry can was empty, she took out the pins from five of the grenades one at a time and tossed them into the stairwell, then she kicked the jerry can down the stairs and closed the door.
She could hear muffled explosions as she put her rucksack on, pulled the pin on the last grenade and tossed it into the room before closing the door and running up the corridor towards the exit into French Ordinary Court.
Instead of going to the car park, she made her way to Fenchurch Street station and used money from one of the wallets to buy a ticket back to Wanstead.
While she was sitting on the platform waiting for the train, she cried. She didn’t know whether the tears were for Harley and Romeo, the ordeal she’d been through, or the fact that she’d escaped when she never thought she would. Now, she was going to make the fucking dirty bastards pay.