Martinez’s eyes narrowed. He grabbed one of the men who was re-entering the building. ‘The boy,’ he demanded. ‘Where did he go?’

  The man pointed away from the building, towards the edge of the encampment. ‘That way, señor.’

  Martinez turned to Cruz. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

  They found him almost immediately. Harry Gold had his back to the encampment and his head was bowed as though he was looking at something. Martinez walked up behind him and stopped when he was just two metres away.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked in a quiet, dangerous voice.

  The boy span round. His phone was in his hands and he had a guilty look on his face.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing, I promise.’

  ‘Give me the phone.’

  Harry’s eyes darted from left to right, but he handed it over.

  ‘Cruz, you understand these devices. Check what’s on it.’ Martinez handed the phone to his son, then licked the tip of his fingers and patted down his hair. He didn’t take his eyes off Harry.

  Thirty seconds of silence. An animal shrieked somewhere behind them.

  Cruz stepped forward. He had clearly brought something up on the screen and he handed it to his father.

  Martinez stared at the screen.

  He blinked.

  He was looking at a photograph of a brightly coloured bird. A parrot. Glancing over Harry’s shoulder, Martinez saw the exact same bird, perched on the branch of a tree.

  ‘There is nothing else on this phone?’

  ‘Nothing, Father.’

  ‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ Harry Gold stuttered. ‘I didn’t mean to go off. I just wanted a picture of the wildlife. I’ve never been to the jungle before.’

  Martinez paused, and then a fat, relieved smile crossed his lips. ‘Of course,’ he announced. ‘Of course! But Harry, we must go. The helicopter is waiting for us, and this isn’t a good place for us to stay too long.’ He handed the phone back and put one arm around Zak’s shoulders. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘You have done well, Harry. Cruz and I have much to discuss. We leave in five minutes.’

  21

  THE TRAITOR

  Calaca sat in his basement office, his skin sweaty and his one good eye red with tiredness. All day he had been examining the files of the security personnel in the Martinez compound, searching for something – anything – that might tell him who the traitor was. But he found nothing.

  And now, he knew, he had a choice to make.

  His boss was unstable. Jolly one moment, psychotic the next. He rewarded loyalty generously; but anyone suspected of treachery paid for it with their life. If Calaca told Martinez that he suspected one of the guards of being a traitor, he knew what would happen: the guard would be taken from the compound into the surrounding countryside and he wouldn’t come back. And then his family would be hung from a tree.

  But if he didn’t come back to Martinez with a name, what then? That morning his boss had said he would consider Calaca himself to be a traitor, which meant he’d be the one to get the noose round his neck.

  And he wasn’t about to let that happen.

  No. He needed a name. Any name would do. It didn’t matter if they were really a traitor. What mattered was that Martinez thought Calaca was on top of things.

  He started going through his files again until he pulled the details of a guard called Gonzalez. He was a young man of twenty, quite new to the compound. He had a wife, three children and two elderly parents to support. Seven close family members. Calaca nodded quietly to himself. He knew how Martinez’s mind worked. The more people he killed, the safer he thought he was. If he ordered Calaca to kill Gonzalez and his family – to hang them from the trees of their village – the one-eyed man’s loyalty would never be in doubt . . .

  He looked at his watch. 5 p.m. They would be back any minute. He stood up and loosened the weapon in its holster beneath his Mexico football shirt. By the time Martinez returned, he would have Gonzalez in custody.

  After that, his boss only had to say the word.

  The return flight seemed to take twice as long. Maybe it was Zak’s nerves. He’d only just managed to upload the video, delete it from his phone and take a picture of the parrot. If Martinez and Cruz had returned thirty seconds earlier, he’d have been toast.

  But somehow he wasn’t. Somehow he was even closer to Martinez and Cruz than he had been when they left that morning. The drug lord was beaming; his son was full of questions about the cocaine lab and how it worked. Every so often Martinez would glance at Zak with a grateful look on his face. I have you to thank for this, he seemed to be saying.

  It was a quarter past five when they touched down on the compound’s helipad. Zak was looking forward to rushing up to his room to get some much needed time alone. But his heart sank as they disembarked and he saw Calaca waiting for them just ten metres away, his green football shirt ruffling in the downdraught.

  ‘We need to talk!’ Calaca shouted over the noise of the rotary blades.

  Martinez nodded.

  ‘Alone, señor.’

  Martinez appeared to think about that. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘Things have changed. It is time for Cruz to be involved in our decisions. Harry, you come too.’

  Calaca looked like he was about to argue, but Martinez gave him a dangerous look and he kept quiet.

  The room in which they met was an ornate office just off the atrium. In some ways it reminded Zak of Michael’s office back on St Peter’s Crag, with its big wooden desk and large windows looking out onto the compound grounds. Martinez sat at the desk, on which there was a large, ornate vase full of yellow roses, only half open. He folded his hands in front of him. Calaca stood on the other side, while Cruz and Zak remained discreetly by the door.

  ‘So, Adan?’ Martinez asked. ‘You have news for me?’

  ‘There is a traitor, señor, and I know who he is.’

  Zak felt his heart in his mouth. Immediately he started scanning the room for his best exit. The main door would be no good because there was an armed guard outside; the only other way out was through the windows. It would mean breaking through them, but . . .

  ‘His name is Gonzalez,’ Calaca continued. ‘I have him in custody now.’

  Zak tried to control his breathing. He remembered the guard, of course, who had stealthily been looking at pictures of his family while Zak was conducting his midnight search of the house. He remembered how grateful he was. How scared.

  Martinez’s face was expressionless. ‘You are sure it is him?’

  ‘You want to see the evidence?’

  Martinez shook his head. ‘No, Adan,’ he said. ‘I trust your judgement.’ He turned to Cruz. ‘There are people who want to destroy our family, Cruz. They will do it, if we let them. We have learned that there is a traitor in the compound. For a moment, Adan even thought it was young Harry here.’

  Zak took a step back as he felt all eyes on him. Martinez seemed to find this funny; Calaca most certainly didn’t.

  ‘Relax, Harry,’ Martinez announced. ‘The spotlight of suspicion has moved to someone else.’ His smile changed instantly to a frown and he looked back at Cruz. ‘You understand, my son, that we must stamp on these threats the moment they appear?’

  Cruz nodded. ‘Yes, Father,’ he said.

  Martinez looked satisfied. ‘Good. Adan, what do we know about this Gonzalez? About his family.’

  ‘He is married, señor, with three young children – two girls and a baby boy. His parents live with them.’

  Martinez’s eyes were dead. ‘He denies everything, of course.’

  ‘Of course, señor.’

  A pause.

  Martinez stood up and slapped his hands together as though brushing crumbs away. ‘Tonight,’ he said to Zak and Cruz, ‘we eat together once again. I shall see you by the pool at seven o’clock. And now, gentlemen, Adan and I have things to discuss. You will excuse us, I hope.’

  Zak didn’t need any more encouragement to leave the room. His head was spinning, and he and Cruz were halfway across the atrium before either of them spoke.

  ‘What will happen to that guard?’ Zak asked.

  Cruz shrugged. ‘My father treats those who are disloyal to him severely. Do you have a problem with that?’

  Zak shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not my business.’ They reached the stairs. ‘I need to shower,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you later, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Up in his room, Zak paced like a madman. Gonzalez was a good man, even though he was one of Martinez’s guards. Zak could tell that easily enough. He kept thinking of what Calaca had said. Two girls and a baby boy. He had no doubt what lay in store for them. A bullet if they were lucky. The hangman’s noose if not. What should he do? he wondered. Sit back and let it happen, all in the name of preserving his cover? That would probably be Michael’s instruction.

  But Michael wasn’t here, and Zak couldn’t have the murder of an entire family on his hands. He wasn’t going to sit by and watch it happen. Not when there was something else he could do . . .

  He took his phone from his pocket. Rummaging in one of his bedside drawers he found a propelling pencil. He clicked the lead out several notches and inserted it into the small hole at the top of the handset. The SIM card holder clicked out. It was longer than most, and held two cards – the actual SIM card, and the self-powered GPS chip the guardian angels were using to track him. He secreted the GPS chip in the sock of his right foot and replaced the SIM card holder into the phone. If he could find Gonzalez and give him the GPS chip, he could alert the guardian angels. They could swoop in and rescue the guard. Zak would be left in the compound – without his tracking device, it was true, but with a bit of fast talking he might be able to stop the mission from being compromised . . .

  For a moment he considered leaving via the ceiling to stop himself being viewed on the security camera. But there was no time for that. He needed to find this Gonzalez quickly, before they took him away. Instead, he grabbed a pair of swimming trunks and a towel from the wardrobe full of clothes in his room. If anyone saw him, he’d say he was going for a swim.

  He took a deep breath and left the room.

  Zak walked slowly along the corridor towards the landing which overlooked the atrium. The chirruping of the songbirds in their cage grew louder and soon he was walking down the staircase. Once he was in the atrium itself, he scoped the place out.

  A guard walked through and frowned at him. Zak smiled, held up his swimming gear and headed towards the pool. But as soon as the guard had disappeared to the front of the house, he double-backed on himself.

  He didn’t know for sure where Gonzalez was being held, but he had a pretty good idea. Zak crossed the atrium towards the basement stairs down which he had hidden the previous night.

  It was still dark and gloomy down there. Zak hurried down the stairs, his skin prickling as he went. And sure enough, in the cell along the left-hand side of the basement corridor, he saw a man.

  He was huddled in the far corner of the cell, clutching his knees, and he looked pretty bad. His dark eyes were wild with terror and he had a great purple bruise on one side of his face. He’d clearly taken a beating. He looked at Zak.

  ‘Kill me,’ he said in a hoarse, painful voice. ‘Do whatever you want to me. But leave my family, I beg of you.’ There were tears in his voice.

  Zak looked over his shoulder, then approached the bars. ‘Listen carefully,’ he hissed. ‘I’m not killing anyone. I know you’re not a traitor to Martinez. I’m here to help you.’

  Gonzalez stared at him, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter who I am,’ whispered Zak. ‘They’re going to kill you and your family. If you want any chance of getting out of this alive, you have to do exactly as I say. OK?’

  Gonzalez stood up. He wasn’t much taller than Zak himself, but he was stocky and strong. He approached the bars. ‘You would really risk this?’ he asked, his eyes slightly wide.

  ‘Yes. But we have to hurry.’

  Gonzalez was right by the bars now. He held out his hand. ‘My brother,’ he said, his face shining with gratitude.

  ‘Yeah, whatever.’ Zak impatiently took Gonzalez’s hand. But the moment they touched, he knew he’d made a terrible mistake.

  Gonzalez clutched Zak’s hand, squeezing it hard and pulling his arm through the bars. He grabbed hold with his other hand and his eyes lit up with triumph as he started to shout at the top of his voice.

  ‘GET DOWN HERE,’ he yelled. ‘GET DOWN HERE NOW. I HAVE FOUND YOUR TRAITOR. HE IS WITH ME. I HAVE HIM! GET DOWN HERE, NOW!’

  22

  THE DEVIL’S CHOICE

  Panic surged through Zak. He struggled to get away, but Gonzalez kept a firm grip on him, pinning him to the bars of the cell. And in less than a minute he was surrounded by three more guards, all armed, all pointing their weapons in his direction. Only then did Gonzalez let go.

  ‘He tried to help me escape,’ the prisoner said in an urgent voice. ‘Tell Calaca. Tell him what he did!’

  ‘He’s lying,’ Zak protested. ‘He’s trying to save himself . . .’

  But the guards didn’t want to listen. They hustled him away from the cell and up the stairs. Calaca, who had clearly heard the commotion, was striding across the atrium. One of Zak’s guards approached and they spoke quietly.

  Calaca’s face was expressionless as he listened. When the guard had finished, he paused for a moment, fixed Zak with his single eye and wiped some sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Then he spoke.

  ‘Bring him with me.’

  Calaca moved purposefully, across the atrium towards the door of Martinez’s office. He didn’t bother to knock – he just burst straight in, and Zak was thrown in behind him.

  Martinez was at his desk, smoking a cigar and reading through some papers. The yellow roses on his desk that Zak had noticed the previous day were fully open now. Martinez looked up in irritation. ‘What is it, Adan? I don’t wish to be disturbed right now . . .’

  ‘Harry Gold was caught trying to help Gonzalez escape. He was found outside the cell. He is your traitor. He is Agent 21.’

  A horrible silence filled the room. Martinez calmly laid his papers on the desk in front of him. When he spoke, it was in little more than a whisper. ‘Is this true, Harry?’

  ‘No, señor.’

  ‘Then what were you doing outside the cell?’ Martinez appeared perfectly calm.

  ‘I . . . I was just being nosy, señor. I was on my way to the pool and I wondered what was down those stairs. I got talking to Gonzalez and he grabbed me and started shouting for the guards.’

  Martinez nodded. ‘A reasonable explanation, wouldn’t you say, Adan? This Gonzalez would try to pin the blame on anyone. We have seen people do worse things to try and save their skin, after all.’

  Calaca looked like he was going to spit. ‘Señor,’ he said. ‘You are not seeing things as they are . . .’

  Another silence. Martinez looked from Zak to Calaca, then back again. He looked like he was deciding which one to believe.

  ‘Bring Gonzalez here,’ he said finally.

  Calaca barked an instruction and two of the guards disappeared. Zak felt sweat trickling down his back. Nobody spoke and it was impossible to read the expression on the drug lord’s face.

  Two minutes later, the guards reappeared. They had Gonzalez with them, his hands tied behind his back. They pushed him further into the room so that he was standing a couple of metres away from Zak, just in front of Martinez’s desk.

  The drug lord examined them both.

  ‘It seems,’ he said, ‘that I have to choose between you.’

  He stood up, walked around the desk and behind the two prisoners. ‘Gonzalez, Adan tells me you are a traitor. That there is no doubt about it.’

  ‘No, señor . . . I swear . . . I would not dare . . .’

  ‘Silence.’

  He continued to pace behind them.

  ‘And you, Harry. Yesterday you saved my son, today you saved my family by bringing us closer. I have much to thank you for.’

  Zak kept his head held high. He didn’t trust himself to answer.

  ‘And yet . . . and yet . . .’ Martinez mused. ‘Perhaps Adan is right. Perhaps I would be foolish to ignore these warning signs.’

  He walked back to his desk, gently touched one of the yellow roses and bent down slightly to smell its fragrance. ‘Do you know, Harry, what the yellow rose represents in Mexico?’

  Zak shook his head.

  ‘It represents death.’ He pulled one of the long stems out of the vase then returned to his seat and continued to smell the rose for a little while longer, his eyes closed.

  ‘Adan,’ he said finally. ‘Give me your gun.’

  Calaca approached and removed his handgun from underneath his green football shirt. He placed it on the desk in front of his boss and took a step backwards. Martinez laid one hand almost tenderly on the handgun. He picked it up and pointed it at Gonzalez. The handcuffed prisoner started to shake. ‘No, señor . . .’ he breathed.

  Martinez ignored him. He moved his aim towards Zak, who just jutted his chin out a bit further.

  ‘Maybe,’ Martinez whispered, ‘I should just kill you both, to be on the safe side.’

  He waved the gun at Gonzalez, then at Zak again.

  And then he laid it once more on the table.

  Zak felt like a mouse being played with by a cat. Half of him considered taking his phone out there and then and dialling the distress number. But that would just give him away and the chances were that Martinez would shoot him immediately.

  No. He had to brave this out. He had to keep up the pretence.

  ‘Harry,’ Martinez said. ‘I am a fair man. I shall give you the benefit of the doubt.’

  Gonzalez’s legs buckled. ‘Please, señor . . . my little ones . . .’

  ‘Silence!’ shouted Martinez. He took a deep breath to calm himself, then looked back at Zak. ‘As I was saying,’ he continued, ‘I will give you the benefit of the doubt. I shall give you the chance to prove that you are not a traitor or a mole. That you are loyal to me and nobody else.’ Martinez’s face twitched. ‘Take the gun,’ he said.