Saint Death - John Milton #3 Read online

  * * *

  Saint Death

  A John Milton Novel

  Mark Dawson

  * * *

  I have fought a good fight

  I have finished my course

  I have kept the faith

  2 Timothy 4:7

  “Put on the whole armour of the God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil / Because we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

  Ephesians, Chapter 6, Verses 11 to 17

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  Samalayuca

  South of Ciudad Juárez

  Mexico

  * * *

  ADOLFO GONZÁLEZ lowered his AK and the others did the same. They were stood in a semi-circle, all around the three stalled trucks. There was no noise beyond the soporific buzz of the earth baking and cracking under the heat of the sun. Dust and heat shimmered everywhere. He looked out at their handiwork. The vehicles were smoking, bullet holes studded all the way across the sheetmetal. They were all shot up to high heaven. The windscreens had been stoved in by the .416 calibre rounds that the snipers had fired. Some of the holes that ran across the cars were spaced and regular from the AKs, others were scattered with uneven clumps from number four buckshot. The Italians had come to the meet in their big, expensive four wheel drive Range Rovers. Tinted windows, leather interiors and xenon headlamps. Trying to make a big impression. Showing off. Hadn’t done them much good. One of them had tried to drive away but he hadn’t got far. The tyres of the car were flat, still wheezing air. The glass was all shot out. Steam poured from the perforated bonnets.

  Adolfo looked up at the hills. He knew Samalayuca like the back of his hand. His family had been using this spot for years. Perfect for dumping bodies. Perfect for ambushes. He’d put three of his best snipers up on the lava ridge. Half a mile away. They had prepared covered trenches and hid in them overnight. He could see them coming down the ridge now. The sun shone against the dark metal of their long-barrelled Barretts and reflected in glaring flickers from the glass in the sights.

  He approached the nearest Range Rover, his automatic cradled at his waist with the safety off. Things happened. Miracles. It paid to be careful. He opened the door. One of the Italians, slumped dead over the wheel, swung over to the side. Adolfo hauled his body out and dumped it in the dust. Bad luck, pendejo. There were two more bodies in the back.

  Adolfo walked around the end of the truck. There was another body behind it, face up, mouth open. Vivid red blood soaked into the dirt. A cloud of hungry flies hovered over it.

  He went to the second truck and looked through the window at the driver. This one had tried to get away. He was shot through the head. Blood everywhere: the dash, the seats, across what was left of the window.

  He walked on to the third vehicle. Two men inside, both dead.

  He walked back to the first truck to where the body lay.

  He nudged the man’s ribs with his toe.

  The man moved his lips.

  “What?”

  The man wheezed something at him.

  Adolfo knelt down. “I can’t hear you.”

  “Basta,” the man wheezed. “Ferma.”

  “Too late to stop, cabrón,” Adolfo said. “You shoulda thought of that before.”

  He put the automatic down and gestured to Pablo. He had the video camera and was taking the footage that they would upload to YouTube later. Leave a message. Something to focus the mind. Pablo brought the camera over, still filming. Another man brought over a short-bladed machete. He gave it to him.

  The dying man followed Adolfo with his eyes.

  Adolfo signalled and his men hauled the dying man to his knees. They dragged him across to a tree. There was blood on his face and it slicked out from the bottom of his jacket. They looped a rope over a branch and tied one end around the man’s ankles. They yanked on the other end so that he fell to his knees, and then they yanked again, and then again, until he was suspended upside down.

  Adolfo took the machete with his right hand and, with his left, took a handful of the man’s thick black hair and yanked back to expose his throat.

  Adolfo stared into the camera.

  He went to work.

  * * *

  DAY ONE

  The City of Lost Girls

  * * *

  When you’re lost in the rain in Juárez,

  And it’s Easter time too,

  And your gravity fails,

  And negativity don’t pull you through,

  Don’t put on any airs,

  When you’re down the Rue Morgue Avenue,

  They got some hungry women there,

  And they really make a mess outta you.

  Bob Dylan

  ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues’

  From:

  To:

  Date: Monday, September 16, 5.21 P.M.

  Subject: CARTWHEEL

  Dear Foreign Secretary,

  At our meeting last week you requested sight of a report detailing the circumstances in which the agent responsible for the botched assassination in the French Alps has disappeared.

  I attach a copy of that report to this email.

  While writing, please allow me to reiterate that all efforts are being made to locate and recover this agent. He will not be easy to find, for the reasons that we discussed, but please do be assured that he will not be able to stay undetected forever.

  If there is any follow-up once you have considered this report please do, as ever, let me know.

  Sincerely,

  M.

  >>> BEGINS

  * * * EYES ONLY * * *

  CODE: G15

  PUBLICATION: analysis/background

  DESCRIPTION: n/a

  ATTRIBUTION: internal

  DISTRIBUTION: Alpha

  SPECIAL HANDLING: Orange

  CODENAME: “Cartwheel”

  Summary

  Following the unsatisfactory elimination of the Iranian nuclear scientists Yehya Moussa and Sameera Najeeb, John Milton (aka G15/No. 2/ aka “John Smith”/ aka “Cartwheel”), the agent responsible, has gone AWOL. Location presently undetermined. Milton is extremely dangerous and must be recovered without delay.

  Analysis

  >>>extracted

  Control records that Milton evinced a desire to leave the service on returning to London following the completion of his assignment in France. The meeting is said to have been heated and ended with Milton being put on suspension prior to a full assessment and review.

 

  His subsequent behaviour was observed to be erratic. He began to attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous (almost certainly in contravention of his obligations under the Official Secrets Act). He rented a house in a poor part of Hackney, East London, and is believed to have become emotionally involved with a single mother, Sharon Warriner. Our investigations are ongoing but it is believed that he was attempting to assist Ms. Warriner’s son, Elijah, who is believed to have been on the fringes of a local gang. We suspect that Milton was involved in the death of Israel Brown (the successful rapper who performed under the nom de plume of ‘Risky Bizness’) whom we understand to have been the prime mover in the relevant gang.

 

  The order to decommission Milton was given on Monday, 15 August. A second G15 agent, Christopher Callan, (aka G15/No. 12/“Tripwire”), had located Milton at a boxing club set up for local children by a Mr. Derek Rutherford. As Callan was preparing to carry out his orders, he was disturbed by Mr. Rutherford. In the confusion that followed, Callan killed Mr. Ruthe
rford and shot Milton in the shoulder. This was unfortunately not sufficient to subdue him and he was able to overpower Callan––shooting him in the knee to prevent pursuit––and then make his escape. ANPR located him driving a stolen car northwards. The last sighting was on the M62 heading into Liverpool. The working hypothesis is that he boarded a ship to leave the country.

 

  Analysis of Milton’s psychological assessments (attached) suggests that his mental state has been deteriorating for some time. Feelings of guilt are not uncommon in Group 15 operatives and Milton has worked there for a decade. It is regrettable that warning signs were missed, but perhaps understandable: Milton’s performance has always been superb. He was perhaps the most effective of all our operatives. Subsequent analysis has led us to the conclusion that he is suffering from insomnia, depression and possible re-experiencing of past events. PTSD is a fashionable diagnosis to make but it is one that we are now reasonably confident is accurate.

  Regardless of his mental condition, Milton is far too dangerous to be ignored. He was a key part of several key British and NATO intelligence successes, not all of which have been reported in the press, and his value to the enemy is difficult to assess. The damage that he could do by going public is similarly incalculable.

  >>> ENDS

  From:

  To:

  Date: Wednesday, September 19, 5.21 P.M.

  Subject: Re: CARTWHEEL

  Dear M.,

  Thank you for the report. I have shared it with the P.M. who is not, as you might well imagine, best pleased with its contents. You are to convey his displeasure to Control personally and to remind him that it is of the highest importance that Mr. Milton is located. We simply cannot have a man with his skills and knowledge running around outside of the reservation, as our American cousins would undoubtedly say. I am not sure which grubby little euphemism our mutual friend would prefer, but let’s settle on ‘retirement.’

  All due haste, please.

  Regards, etc,

  James

  * * *

  1.

  JOHN MILTON got off the bus and walked into the parking lot of the first restaurant that he found. It was a hot day, baking hot, brutally hot, the noon sun battering down on Ciudad Juárez as if it bore a grudge. The sudden heat hit him like a steelyard furnace. The restaurant was set back from the road, behind a wide parking lot, the asphalt shimmering like the water in an aquarium. A large sign, suspended from a tall pole, announced the place as La Case del Mole. It was well located, on Col Chavena, and near to a highway off-ramp: just a few miles to the border from here, plenty close enough for the place to snag daring Americans coming south for a true taste of la vida loca. There were half a dozen similar places all around it. Brightly painted, practically falling to bits, garish neon signs left on day and night, a handful of cars parked haphazardly in the lot. Awful places, dreadful food, and not the sort of establishment that Milton would have chosen to visit. But they churned through the staff so fast that they were always looking for replacements, and they didn’t tend to be too picky about who they hired. Ex-cons, vagabonds, vagrants, it didn’t matter. And there would be no questions asked so long as you could cook.

  Milton had worked in places like this all the way up through Mexico. He knew that they appealed to tourists and the uncritical highway trade and that this one, in particular, was still in business for three main reasons. It was better advertised than the tumbledown shacks and chain restaurants around it; the parking lot was big enough that it would be almost impossible to fill; and the daily seafood special was just $19.95, three dollars cheaper than the seafood special of any of the nearby competitors. Milton had worked in a place in Mazatlán until he had had to move on two weeks ago, and he was willing to bet that this would be just the same. The special would be the same every day: cold crab salad (made with a cheap fish, not crab), a fried fillet of haddock that was just about on the turn, a couple of crab legs, a fruit cup and half an onion instead of a baked potato.

  It would do him just fine.

  He crossed the parking lot and went inside. The place really was a dive, worse when viewed in the middle of the day when the light that streamed through the grime-streaked windows revealed the peeling paint, the mice holes in the skirting and the thick patina of dust that lay over everything. It was seven hundred miles west to the Pacific and eight hundred east to the Gulf but the owner wasn’t going to let small details like that dissuade him from the nautical theme he obviously hankered after: a ship’s wheel, netting draped down from the walls, fronds of fake seaweed stapled to the net, lobster pots and shrimper’s buoys dangling from the ceiling, a fetid and greening aquarium that separated the bar from the cavernous dining room beyond.

  A woman was sitting at the bar, running a sweating bottle of Corona against the back of her neck.

  “Hello.”

  She nodded in response: neither friendly nor hostile.

  “Do you work here?”

  “I ain’t here for the good of my health, baby. What you want?”

  “Came in to see if you were hiring.”

  “Depends what you do.”

  “I cook.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, honey, but you don’t look like no cook.”

  “I’m not bad. Give me a chance and I’ll show you.”

  “Ain’t me you gonna have to show.” She turned to the wide open emptiness of the restaurant and hollered, “Gomez! New blood!”

  Milton watched him as a man came out of the back. He was big, fat and unhealthy, with a huge gut, short arms and legs and an unshaved, pasty complexion. The T-shirt he was wearing was stretched tight around his barrel chest and his apron was tied right to the limit of the strings. He smelt bad, unwashed and rancid from rotting food.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Smith.”

  “You cook?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where?”

  “Wherever. I’ve been travelling up the coast. Ensenada, Mazatlán, Acapulco.”

  “And then Juárez? Not Tijuana?”

  “Tijuana’s too big. Too Californian.”

  “Last stop before America?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Are you the owner?”

  “Near enough for you, cabrón. That accent––what is it? Australian?”

  “English. I’m from London.”

  Gomez took a beer from the fridge and cracked it open. “You want a beer, English?”

  “No, thanks. I don’t drink.”

  Gomez laughed at that, a sudden laugh up from the pit of his gut that wobbled his pendulous rolls of fat, his mouth so wide that Milton could see the black marks of his filled teeth. “You don’t drink and you say you want to work in my kitchen?” He laughed again, throwing his head all the way back. “Hombre, you either stupid or you ain’t no cook like what I ever met.”

  “You won’t have any problems with me.”

  “You work a fryer?”

  “Of course, and whatever else you need doing.”

  “Lucky for you I just had a vacancy come up. My fry cook tripped and put his arm into the fryer all the way up to his elbow last night, stupid bastardo. Out of action for two months, they say. So maybe I give you a spin, see how you get on. Seven an hour, cash.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “In another life, compadre. Ten. And another ten says you won’t still be here tomorrow.”

  Milton knew that ten was the going rate and that he wouldn’t be able to advance it. “Deal,” he said.

  “When can you start?”

  “Tonight.”

  * * *

  2.

  MILTON ASKED Gomez to recommend a place to stay; the man’s suggestion had come with a smirk. Milton quickly saw why: it was a hovel, a dozen men packed into a hostel that would have been barely big enough for half of them. He tossed his bag down on the filthy cot that he was assigned and showered in the foul and stained cubicle. He looked at his reflection
in the cracked mirror: his beard was thick and full, the black silvered with flecks of white, and his skin had been tanned the kind of colour that six months on the road in South America would guarantee. The ink of the tattooed angel wings across his shoulders and down his back had faded a little, sunk down into the fresh nutty brown.

  He went out again. He didn’t care that he was leaving his things behind. He knew that the bag would be rifled for anything worth stealing, but that was fine; he had nothing of value, just a change of clothes and a couple of paperbacks. He travelled light. His passport was in his pocket. A couple of thousand dollars were pressed between its pages.

  He took a scrap of paper from his pocket. He had been given it in Acapulco by an American lawyer who had washed up on the shores of the Pacific. The man used to live in New Mexico and had visited Juárez for work; he had been to meetings here and had written down the details. Milton asked a passer-by for directions and was told it was a twenty minute walk.

  He had time to kill. Time enough to orient himself properly. He set off.

  Milton knew about Juárez. He knew it was the perfect place for him. It was battered and bloodied, somewhere where he could sink beneath the surface and disappear. Another traveller had left a Lonely Planet on the seat of the bus from Chihuahua and Milton had read it cover to cover. The town had been busy and industrious once, home to a vibrant tourist industry as Texans were lured over the Rio Bravo by the promise of cheap souvenirs, Mexican exotica and Margaritas by the jug (served younger than they would have been in El Paso’s bars). They came in their thousands to fix their teeth, to buy cheap spectacles, to buy Prozac and Viagra and other medications for a fraction of the amount charged by domestic pharmacies. There was still a tourist industry––Milton passed shops selling sombreros, reproduction Aztec bric-a-brac, ponchos and trinkets––but the one-time flood of visitors had dwindled now to a trickle.