If she's here I don't want her to see the weapon. Maybe she already knows what's happened ... I put my mouth against a little gap between the boxes.
'Kelly, you there? It's me, Nick. Don't be scared, I'm going to crawl towards you. You'll see my head in a minute and I want to see a big smile ...'
I move boxes and squeeze through the gap, inching towards the back wall.
'I'm going to put my head around the corner now, Kelly.'
I take a deep breath and move my head around the back of the box, smiling away but ready for the worst as sweat pours down my face.
She is there, facing me, eyes wide with terror, sitting, curled up in a foetal position, rocking her body backwards and forwards, holding her hands over her ears, looking so vulnerable and helpless.
'Hello.'
She recognizes me, but just carries on rocking, staring at me with wide, wet, scared eyes.
'Mummy and Daddy can't come and get you just now, but you can come with me.
Daddy told me it would be OK. Are you going to come with me, Kelly? Are you?'
'Sir, sir?' I opened my eyes to see a very concerned flight attendant.
'You
OK, sir? Can I get you some water or something?'
My sweaty palms slid on the armrests as I pushed myself upright in my seat. She poured from a litre bottle into a plastic glass.
'Could I take the bottle, please?'
It was handed to me with an anxious smile and I thanked her, taking it in a shaking, wet hand before getting it rapidly down my neck. I wiped my sweaty face with my spare hand. It had been part of the same bad dream I'd had on the Tristar. Shit, I must be really knackered. I peeled the sweatshirt from my skin and sorted myself out.
We had just hit cruising altitude on the four-and-a-bit-hour flight from Miami to Panama City, scheduled to land at about 11.40 a.m. local, which was the same time zone as the US east coast and five hours behind the UK. My window seat was next to Central America's most antisocial citizen, a mid-thirties Latino woman with big hair and lots of stiff lacquer to keep it that way. I doubted her skull could even touch the headrest, the stuff was on so thick. She was dressed in PVC, leather-look, spray-on jeans and a denim-style jacket patterned with black and silver tiger stripes, and stared at me in disgust, sucking her teeth, as I sorted myself out and downed the last of the water.
It was her turn to get her head down now as I read the tourist-guide pages in the inflight magazine. I always found them invaluable for getting an idea of wherever I was going on fast-balls like this. Besides, it got me away from the other stuff in my head, and into thinking about the job, the mission, what I was here for. I'd tried to buy a proper guide book to Panama in Miami airport, but it seemed there wasn't much call for that sort of thing.
The magazine showed wonderful pictures of exotic birds and smiling Indian children in canoes, and stuff I already knew but wouldn't have
been able to put so eloquently.
'Panama is the most southern of the Central American countries, making the long, narrow country the umbilical cord joining South and Central America. It is in the shape of an S bordered on the west by Costa Rica, on the east by Colombia, and has roughly the same land mass as Ireland.'
It went on to say that most people, and that included myself until my days in Colombia, thought that Panama's land boundaries were north and south. That was wrong: the country runs west to east. Facts like that were important to me if I had to leave in a hurry. I wouldn't want to find myself heading for Colombia by mistake; out of the frying pan and into the fire. The only way to go was west, to Costa Rica, the land of cheap plastic surgery and diving holidays. I knew that, because I'd read it in the waiting room of the Moorings.
Tiger Lil had fallen asleep and was snoring big-time, twisting in her seat, and farting every minute or so. I unscrewed both the air-conditioning tubes above us and aimed them in her direction to try to divert the smell.
The three pages of bumf and pictures went on to tell me that Panama was best known internationally for its canal, joining the Caribbean and the Pacific, and its 'vibrant banking services'. Then just a few more pictures of colourful flowers, with captions reminding us what a wonderful place it was and how lucky we all were to be flying there today. Not surprisingly, they didn't say anything about Operation Just Cause the US invasion in '89 to oust General Noriega, or the drug trafficking that makes the banking system so vibrant.
All the wonderful places listed to visit were exclusively west of Panama City, which was called in here 'the interior'. There was no mention at all about what lay to the east, especially the Darien Gap, the jungle area bordering Colombia. I knew that Darien Province is like a low-intensity war zone. Narco traffickers and guerrillas usually one and the same thing move in big groups between the two countries, armed to the teeth. There are even a few DMPs as the locals try to cash in on the industry, and Panamanian border police buzz around the sky in helicopter gunships, locked in a conflict they will never win.
Some adventurous types travel down there to bird-watch or hunt for rare orchids, and become hostages or dead after stumbling across things the traffickers would have preferred they hadn't.
I also knew that the narcos, especially PARC, had been getting more adventurous now that the US had stood down from Panama. They were making incursions further west into the country, and with only about 150 miles between the Colombian border and Panama City, I bet everyone was flapping big-time.
After flicking though the rest of the mag and not finding anything of interest, just glossy ads, I used it to fan my face as Tiger Lil farted and grunted once more.
Looking down at the endless blue of the Caribbean sea, I thought about yesterday's call to Josh. He'd been right to fuck me off; it was maybe the eighth or ninth time I'd done it to him. Kelly did need stability and an as normal-as-possible upbringing. That was precisely why she was there with him, and the not-calling-when-I-should, calling-when-I-shouldn't thing wasn't helping her at all.
I should have been there today to sign over my guardianship of Kelly completely to him, to change the present arrangement of joint responsibility. In her father's will, Josh and I had both been named as guardians, but I was the one who'd landed up with her. I couldn't even remember how that had come about, it just sort of had.
Food was being served and I tried to extract my tray from the armrest. It was proving difficult as Tiger Lil had overflowed her own space. I shook her gently and she opened one blurry eye before turning over as if I was to blame.
My food turned up in its prepacked tray and made me think of Peter, getting all the doss-house boys rapping, 'Krishna, yo! Krishna, yo! Krishna, yo! Hari rama.'
I peeled back the foil to see a breakfast of pasta. Wielding a fork and moving my arms very carefully so as not to stir up my new friend, I decided to make a donation to those Krishna boys if ever I got back alive. The thought about Peter surprised me; it had popped up out of nowhere like a lot of other stuff lately. I wanted to get back in the comfort zone of work as quickly as possible, and cut away from that stuff before I found myself joining the Caravan Club.
As I threw pasta down my neck, I got thinking about the job and the little information Sundance had given me. The pass number for the meet with Aaron and Carrie Yanklewitz was thirteen. The system is easy and works well. Numbers are far better than confirmation statements because they're easier to remember. I once had a confirmation statement that went, The count is having kippers with your mother tonight and I was supposed to reply, 'The kippers are restless.' Who the fuck made that one up?
Pass numbers are also especially good for people who aren't trained in tradecraft or, like me, are crap at remembering confirmation statements. For all I knew these people could be either. I didn't know if they were experienced operators who knew how to conduct themselves on the ground, just contacts who were going to help me out with bed and breakfast, or big-timers who couldn't keep their mouths shut.
I didn't like anyone else being involved in anything I did, but this time I had no choice. I didn't know where the target lived or the target's routine, and I didn't have a whole lot of time to find out.
After eating I sat back and pushed myself against the seat to relax my sore stomach muscles. Pain shot across my ribcage to give me further reminders of the strength and endurance of Caterpillar boots.
Trying to relieve the pain in my chest as I moved, I faced slowly away from Tiger Lil and lowered the window blind. Below me green jungle now stretched as far as the horizon, looking from this altitude like the world's biggest broccoli patch.
