machine-gun jutted from the one covering the large double gates. A big sign with a military motif declared this was the police station.
Four enormous trucks were parked up on the other side of the station with equally massive trailers filled with stripped tree trunks. Aaron's voice was now thick with anger.
'Just look at that first they cut down every tree they can get their hands on. Then, before they float the logs downstream for these guys to pick up, they saturate them in chemicals. It kills the aquatic life. There's no subsistence farming, no fishing, nothing, just cattle.'
We left the depression of Chepo behind us and drove through rough grassland cratered with pools of rusty- coloured water. My clothes were still damp in places, quite wet in others where my body heat wasn't doing a good enough job.
My leg had started to feel OK until I stretched it out and broke the delicate scabbing. At least Aaron getting sparked up about what was happening in Chepo had diverted his mind from Diego.
The road got progressively worse, until finally we turned off it and hit a rutted track that worked its way to some high ground about three or four kilometres away. No wonder the Mazda was in a shit state.
Aaron pointed ahead as the wagon bucked and yawed and the suspension groaned.
'We're just over that hill.'
All I wanted to do was get to the house and sort myself out -though from the way Aaron had rattled on in his eco-warrior Billy Graham voice, I half expected them to live in a wigwam.
EIGHTEEN
The Mazda rolled from side to side, the suspension creaking like an old brigantine as the engine revs rose and fell. To my surprise, Aaron was actually driving the thing with considerable skill. It seemed we had at least another hour and a half of this still to go so much for 'just over that hill'.
We ploughed on through the mist, finally cresting the steep, rugged hill. The scene confronting us was a total contrast to the rough grassland we'd been travelling through. A valley lay below us, with high, rolling hills left and right, and as far as the eye could see the landscape was strewn with felled, decaying wood. The trunks nearest us were almost grey with age. It was as if somebody had tipped an enormous box of matchsticks all over a desert of rust coloured mud. The low mist within the valley made it eerier still. Then, at the far end of the valley, where the ground flattened out, maybe five or six Ks away, was lush green jungle. I couldn't work it out.
We started our descent and Aaron must have sensed my confusion.
'They just got fed up with this side of the hills!' he shouted above the wagon's creaks and groans.
'There wasn't enough hardwood to take, and it wasn't macho enough for the hombres to take these little things away. But hey, at least there are no farmers, they can't clear all this on their own. Besides, there's not enough water down here not that they could drink it if there was.'
We reached the valley floor, following the track through the downed trees. It looked as if a tornado had torn through the valley then left it for dead. The morning sun was, trying its hardest to penetrate a thin layer of cloud. Somehow it seemed much worse than if the sun had been properly out; at least then it would have come from one direction. As it was, the sun's rays had hit the clouds and scattered. It was definitely time for the Jackie O look again. Aaron followed my lead and threw his on too.
We carried on through the tree graveyard until we were rescued by the lush canopy at the far end of the valley.
'Won't be long now,' Aaron declared.
'Maybe forty-five, fifty minutes.'
Twenty would have been better; I didn't think the wagon could take much more, and neither could my head. I thought it was going to explode.
We were back in secondary jungle. The trees were engulfed in vines reaching up into the canopy. All sorts of stuff was growing between them and above the track. It felt like we were driving through a long grey tunnel. I took off my Jackie Os and everything became a dazzling green.
Baby-G told me it was 7.37, which meant we'd been on the road for over four hours. My eyes were stinging and my head still pounding, but there wouldn't be any time for relaxing just yet. I could do all that on Sunday maybe, or whenever it was that I finally got to the safety of Maryland. First, I needed to concentrate on how I was going to carry out the hit. I needed to grip myself and get on with the job. But try as I might to think about what I'd seen during the CTR, I just couldn't concentrate.
Aaron had been spot on. Forty-five minutes later we emerged into a large clearing, most of it lying behind a building that was side on and directly in front of us, maybe two hundred metres away. It looked like the house that Jack built.
The clouds had evaporated, to reveal sun and blue sky.
'This is us.' Aaron didn't sound too enthusiastic. He put his glasses back on, but there was no way I was wearing the Jackie Os again not if I was about to see their owner.
To my left, and facing the front of the house, was a hill with a steep gradient covered with more fallen trees and rotten stumps, with tufty grass growing between them. The rest of the clearing was rough, but fairly flat.
We followed the track towards the large building, which was more or less on one level. The main section was a one-storey, terra cotta-roofed villa, with dirty green plastered walls. There was a covered veranda out front, facing the high ground. Behind the main building, and attached to it, was a corrugated-iron extension maybe twice as big as the house itself and with a much higher roof.
On my right were row upon row of white plastic five-gallon tubs, hundreds of them, about two feet high and the same in diameter. Their lids were sealed, but sprays of different coloured plants of all shapes and sizes shot from a circular hole cut out of the middle of each. It looked like Aaron and Carrie were running the area's first garden-centre mega store I'd stepped on to the set of The Good Life, Panama-style.
Dotted around us were corrugated-iron outhouses, with piles of wooden barrels and boxes, and the occasional rotting wooden wheelbarrow. To my right, past the tubs, was a generator under a corrugated-iron roof with no side walls, and at least ten forty-five-gallon oil drums.
As we got closer I could make out down pipes leading from the gutters into green plastic water butts that ran at intervals the length of the building. Above the roof, supported on scaffolding, was a large blue plastic water tank; beneath it was an old metallic one, with all sorts of pipes coming out of it. A pair of satellite dishes were mounted nearby, one pointing west, one east. Maybe they liked to watch both Colombian and Panamanian TV. Despite the technology, this was definitely Planet Tree-hug; all I needed to complete the picture was a couple of milking cows named Yin and Yang.
Now that we were nearer the house, I could see the other pickup truck, parked the far side of the veranda. Aaron hit the Mazda's horn a few times, and looked worried as Carrie emerged from the veranda, putting on her wraparounds. She was dressed the same as when I'd met her, but had gelled her hair.
'Please, Nick not a word.'
The wagon stopped and he jumped out as she stepped down from the veranda.
'Hi.'
I got out, ready to greet, squinting to fight both the glare and my headache.
I took a few steps towards them, then stopped to give them some space. But there weren't any greetings, kisses or touches, just a strained exchange.
Not thinking much, just feeling hot and bothered, I moved towards them.
I put on my nice-and-cheery-to-the-host voice.
'Hello.'
It wasn't gel that was holding back her hair; she'd just had a shower.
She noticed my hobble and ripped jeans.
'What happened? You OK?'
I didn't look at Aaron. Eyes give so much away.
'I walked into some sort of animal trap or something. I'm-' 'You'd better come and get cleaned up. I've some porridge fixed.'
That sounds wonderful.' It sounded shit.
She turned to walk back to the house, but Aaron had other ideas.
'You know what?
I'm going to clean the truck out there's been a fuel spillage in the back and, well, you know, I'd better clean it
