‘I am not dressed like you.’

‘Wouldn’t matter. They don’t care about politics in the zones. It’s tribal. Localised gangs, territorial violence.’

‘I see.’ Barranco’s gaze went back to the city sliding past beneath them. ‘They have forgotten who did this to them.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

The rest of the flight passed in silence. They crossed the westward cordons and picked up the beacon for the West End cluster. Machines took the controls, read the flight data and drew the helicopter along a preprogrammed path. Hyde Park opened up under them. The hotels beckoned at its edge, like moored cruise liners from an earlier age.

Mike had Hernan Echevarria buried in the heart of Mayfair, well away from the modern hotels. They were playing to the dictator’s old-world pretensions. A Royal Suite at Brown’s, the whiff of two centuries’ tradition and the dropped names of European royalty along the historical guest list. An armoured Shorn limo collected Echevarria daily at the Albemarle Street frontage and ferried him about on a carefully balanced programme of meetings with senior banking officials, A-listed arms dealers and one or two house-trained political figures. Evenings were given over to opera and dinners with more tame dignitaries.

‘I’ll keep him busy,’ Bryant promised. ‘And I’ll keep him away from the Park end. You stash Barranco in the Hilton or something. Get a tower suite. I’ll cross-reference with you on programme, we’ll make sure these two guys never come within a couple of klicks of each other.’

The Hilton it was. They touched down on the tower helipad and were met by liveried attendants who busied themselves with the baggage and led Barranco and Lopez off in the direction of the access elevators. Chris went with them, mainly to take care of tips.

‘You won’t have to do that,’ he said, as the last attendant slipped out and closed the door with trained noiselessness. ‘Just sign gratuities on any room service you ask for, and we’ll cover it. I’d recommend about ten per cent. Expectations are a lot less than that, but it never hurts to be generous. So anyway, uh. I hope you’ll be comfortable.’

‘Comfortable?’

Barranco stood in the midst of the suite’s opulence, looking like a hunter whose large and dangerous quarry has suddenly disappeared into the surrounding undergrowth.

Chris cleared his throat. ‘Yes, uh. Joaquin Lopez will be staying on the floor below. Room 4148. I’ve put two armed security guards into 4146 as well. The hotel has pretty good security of its own, but you can’t be too careful, even up here.’ He produced a small matt black mobile and held it out. ‘This is a dedicated phone. A scrambled line direct to me. wherever I am. Any problem, night or day, call me. Just press the dial key.’

‘Thank you.’ Barranco’s tone was distant, but if there was irony in it, Chris couldn’t hear it.

‘I thought you’d probably want to rest now.’

‘Yes, that would be good.’

‘I’d like to introduce you to a colleague of mine later on, and also to my wife. I thought perhaps we could have dinner together. There’s a good Peruvian restaurant in the hotel mezzanine. We could eat late, say about nine-thirty. Or if you’d prefer to stay here and leave it for another night, that’s entirely up to you.’

‘No, no. I would.’ He drew a deep, jet-lagged breath. ‘Like to meet your wife, Senor Faulkner. And your colleague, of course. Nine-thirty will be fine.’

‘Good, that’s great. I’ll call here just after nine, then.’

‘Yes. Now I think I would like to rest.’

‘Of course.’

He let himself out and went down to talk to the security detachment. They were pretty much what he’d expected - two hard-faced men past their physical prime in shirt sleeves and shoulder holsters. They answered the door and then his questions with impassive calm. The surveillance equipment he’d ordered wired into Barranco’s suite stood unobtrusively on a low table to one side. Standby lights winked below the row of small liquid crystal screens. On one of them, Barranco had already collapsed onto a bed, fully clothed. Chris bent and peered.

‘He asleep?’

‘Out like a light.’

‘You sure he isn’t going to be able to find any of these cameras?’

‘Yes, sir. Unless he’s a surveillance specialist. And he hasn’t shown any signs of looking for them yet.’

‘Well, let me know if he does start looking.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And if he moves from the suite, I want to know before it happens. You’ve got my direct line?’

They exchanged weary glances. One of them nodded.

‘Yes, sir. It’s under control.’

He took the hint and left to check on Lopez. The Americas agent had been waiting for him. Chemical impatience made his movements about the room erratic and irritating. Chris tried to project calm.

‘No transit problems then?’

‘No, man. Onward tickets.’ Lopez grinned speedily. ‘They don’t give a fuck who you are, so long as you’re going someplace else.’

‘And Barranco? Did he talk to you at all?’

‘Yeah, he told me I was a running dog for the global capitalist tyranny, and I ought to be ashamed of myself.’

‘No change there, then.’ Chris wandered across to the window and stared out over the park.

‘Yeah, you want to watch him, Chris. He’s out of his depth with all this corporate stuff, he’s going to be defensive. Most likely, he’ll cling to what he knows. My guess is you’re going to hear a shitload of out-of-date dogma this week.’

‘Well, he’s entitled to his point of view.’

That cracked Lopez up.

‘Yeah, ‘s a free country,’ he chortled. ‘Right? Everyone’s entitled to their point of view, right? ‘s a free country! That’s right!’

‘Joaquin, you need to take some downers.’

‘No. Less time around these Marquista hero types is what I fucking need, man.’

The sudden, bright vehemence brought Chris around from his contemplation of the view. Lopez was standing glittery-eyed in the centre of the room, fists knotted, surprised by his own sudden rage.

‘Joaquin?’

‘Ah, fuck it.’ The anger fled as rapidly as it had come. Lopez looked abruptly drained. ‘Sorry. It’s just my kid brother hands me the same fucking line all the time. Running-dog capitalista, running-dog capitalista. Ever since I got my PT& I licence. Like a fucking skip-burned disc.’

‘I didn’t know you had a brother.’

‘Yeah.’ The Americas agent waved a hand. ‘I don’t advertise the fact. Little squirt’s a union organiser in the banana belt, up around Bocas, where we were. Not the kind of thing you put on a Trade and Investment CV if you can avoid it.’

‘I guess not.’

Lopez’s eyes went hooded. ‘I try to keep the worst of the shit from raining on him. I made contacts that are good for that much.

And when the strike-breakers do come round, I pay his hospital bills, I feed his kids. Gets back on his feet and he drops by to insult me again.’

Chris thought feelingly of Erik Nyquist. ‘Family, huh?’

‘Yeah, family.’ The agent lost his drugged introspection. Shot Chris a sideways look. ‘We’re just talking here, right, boss? You’re not going to go telling tales on me to the partners?’

‘Joaquin, I don’t give a shit what your brother does for a living, and nor would any of Shorn’s partners. They’ve got altogether bigger game to shoot. Everyone’s got an Ollie North or two hanging in the classified record. So long as it doesn’t interfere with business, so what?’

Lopez shook his head. ‘Maybe that’s a London attitude, Chris, but it wouldn’t wash that way with Panama T & I. I don’t want to wake up one morning and find myself served with a Plaza de Toros summons like you did to old man Harris.’

‘Hey, Harris was a fuck-up.’

‘Yeah, not much of a knife fighter either, even for a gringo.’ Lopez skinned an unpleasant grin, but something desperate leaked from the edges, around the eyes. ‘Time I reach that age, I want to be out of this fucking game. I do good work for you, Chris. Right?’