convenient.
This had provided surprising dividends for Malky. A little reading between the lines had made it clear to him that Hardenbrooke was supplying information not only to Max Draeger but also to Los Muertos, in what appeared to be a complex double-cross.
Hardenbrooke understood that Malky realized this, and in turn Malky understood that Hardenbrooke understood this, both of them in a kind of Mexican stand-off where each party simultaneously had everything and nothing to lose.
Malky sighed and leaned back. 'All right, then. What did you have in mind?'
'My Stateside friends' – Malky grimaced; as if he didn't already know exactly to whom Hardenbrooke was referring – 'want Gallmon before Draeger gets his hands on him. Smeby has already met Gallmon in person.'
Small beads of sweat appeared on Malky's forehead. 'Jesus. You mean they grabbed him?'
'No, I mean Smeby invited Gallmon to a meeting, and Gallmon went along.'
'But why? I mean, what's so special about Kendrick?'
'Who gives a damn about the reason? All I know is, Draeger is wise to us-'
'Fuck off,' Malky snapped. 'Wise to you, you mean. I never volunteered for all this shit.'
'Either way, we have to move quick or it's both our necks. Okay?'
'Fine. Kidnap it is, then.' Malky let out a long breath. 'One more level to add to my rich and colourful criminal career.'
Hardenbrooke glared at him. 'Listen to me, you're going to help me with this or-'
'Yes, I know,' Malky muttered in a tired voice. 'Or I'm dead meat. But I'm not going to pretend I like it. Kendrick is a friend of mine.' He shook his head. 'It still doesn't make sense. What in God's name do these people want with him?'
'Either way, it's your skin or his, Vasilevich.' Hardenbrooke gave a nasty smile, made all the more unpleasant by the way the scar tissue rucked up around one side of his face. 'If we don't give them exactly what they want, I can't predict what they might do. But I can guarantee it wouldn't be very pleasant for either of us.'
30 June 2088 Maze Internment Camp, Venezuela
Six months had passed since Kendrick had watched Marco die in that detention centre, and during that time he'd come to wonder if perhaps he hadn't died too and been reborn into Hell.
He woke on his hard bunk to the sound of boots marching through the mud outside. A hand snaked out of the darkness and touched his shoulder. He jumped as a face loomed out of the murk; it was Buddy. A pilot in the military a few years before, Buddy had been caught, along with another man named Roy Whitman, smuggling alleged dissidents south into Mexico and beyond.
'You hear that?' Buddy whispered. Kendrick nodded mutely as loud voices approached from somewhere outside. They listened, hoping that whoever it was they were heading to some other hut.
Just then the door slammed open, warm air rushing into the moist atmosphere of the wooden building. Outside, crickets chirped loudly, the night filled with the sounds of tropical life. Several figures, reduced to silhouettes by the bright arc lights of the camp outside, stepped in among them, bulky in their camouflage gear, rifles slung over their shoulders. The soldiers seemed like phantoms from some other age – an age of hot water, clean blankets and edible food.
'McCowan, Juarez, Gallmon,' one of the soldiers bellowed. 'Stand.'
A hushed silence fell across the hut, where perhaps thirty men were crammed into a tiny space, sleeping on their rough bunks in the unbearable heat. Kendrick thought enviously of all the others in the camp who must have heard the soldiers stamping their way across the scrubby soil, and their relief as it became clear that they weren't coming for them.
Kendrick lifted himself from his bunk and stood up uneasily, hunger and lack of sleep nearly making him stumble. McCowan and Buddy stood up simultaneously. Although thoughts of resistance and escape were always present, Kendrick had witnessed what happened to those refusing to cooperate. Their blood still stained the rough soil outside.
They were led out into the warm night air, the stars sparkling far above them, the jungle visible merely as a vague black mass beyond the arc lights. A thin beard clung to McCowan's hollow cheeks under eyes that were rheumy and sunken. Kendrick hadn't had much of a chance to get to know him yet, since he was only a recent arrival, although he'd brought with him some precious news of happenings in the outside world. He was apparently a Scotsman with 'business connections' in the Middle East – in the eyes of the Wilber administration, a good enough reason for immediate arrest.
Like Kendrick himself, he'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Every time a new prisoner arrived, more snippets of information were disseminated through the camp. Since Kendrick's own arrival, just after the LA Nuke, thousands more had been processed through the impromptu detention centres set up across the United States. Then they'd been incarcerated in this hell-hole.
The three prisoners were taken outside and made to stand in a ragged line. As Kendrick glanced down at Buddy Juarez's feet, he realized that the other man must have been lying in his bunk with his boots on.
Buddy caught his eye. 'Always prepared,' he whispered.
Sweat prickled on Kendrick's brow; for all the fragmented news about mass arrests still continuing back home, none of them had any idea where they were actually being held. The jungle and its temperatures suggested that they were somewhere in South America. Since there were no signs of civilization beyond the arc lights and the surrounding vegetation the nearest town might be miles away, maybe hundreds.
Something hard and metallic was poked harshly into the small of Kendrick's back so that he stumbled forward at the same time as the other two. They were then led away from the huts and through the wire fence that separated them from the rest of what seemed to be a military base hacked straight out of the raw jungle.
'Welcome to the Maze,' said Stenzer.
There was food on a tray, fresh coffee in a pot brewing on a hotplate. Kendrick eyed a plate of doughnuts with sugar glazing. Small plastic pots of cream stood near the brewing coffee. The familiar smell of it all brought Kendrick to the edge of delirium. He was starving, had been starved for months.
'Where did you say?'
A smile flickered at the corner of Stenzer's mouth. A thin residue of hair clung to his scalp just above the ears.
'Our nickname for this facility,' he explained. Stenzer's military cap lay by his elbow on the plastic-surfaced desk that separated them.
All three had been taken to a long, low building resembling a concrete bunker. Beyond it Kendrick had noticed an airstrip extending all the way to the edge of the jungle, and scattered around were other buildings, many surrounded by trucks. Kendrick guessed that this was the main barracks for their guards and the pilots who transported the prisoners.
Inside the building was a long row of elevators, each big enough to accommodate a truck. Their ride down had been long, the cage rattling and jerking continually as it descended. Several minutes later, its grille-gate slid open to reveal a long, grey corridor lined by metal doors. Kendrick had then been separated from the others and pushed into an empty cell lit with flickering strip lighting. There he had crouched on the bare concrete floor, waiting until the soldiers returned uncountable hours later to deliver him to this man Stenzer.
A calendar hung on the wall behind Stenzer's shoulder. Kendrick focused on it, noticing how days were ticked off in a loose, childlike scrawl. He saw that it was now the end of July.
His stare locking on Kendrick, Stenzer nodded in the direction of the doughnuts and coffee. 'Would you like
