‘Yeah. Sure.’ Chris frowned. Candour wasn’t something he’d looked for here, weakness still less. The naked anxiety in the agent’s tone was touching him in places he’d thought long sealed away.

And we’re still not into the brutal honesty shitstorm with Barranco yet. Jesus fucking Christ

‘I mean, I called it right everywhere you asked me, right? I set up what you need, soon as you needed, right?’

‘You know you have.’ He didn’t know which direction to roll this. Maybe—

‘I know I lost it back there in the NAME, I still owe you for that, but—‘

‘Joaquin, you’ve got to drop that shit.’ Chris made for the mini-bar. Shipped bottles and ice up from the chiller unit onto a table, talking as he worked. ‘Look, it was a problem at this end. I told you that, and I told you we look after our own. Just think about it. Christ, if you don’t trust me, think about the logistics of the thing. Would I have hauled your arse out of there, with all the expense we incurred, just so I could can you six weeks down the line?’

‘I don’t know, Chris. Would you?’

‘Joaquin, I’m serious. You really need to take something.’

‘You know Mike Bryant, right?’

Chris stopped, a glass in each hand. ‘Yeah. He’s a colleague, so watch what you say next, alright.’

‘You know he’s working a Cono Sur portfolio at the moment? Running contacts through Carlos Caffarini out of Buenos Aires?’

‘Yeah, I heard. Didn’t know it was Caffarini, but—‘

‘It isn’t any more,’ said Lopez abruptly. ‘Last week Bryant canned Caffarini because there were call-centre strikes in Santiago, and he didn’t see it coming. Or maybe he didn’t think it was important enough to chase. Now he’s on a ventilator in intensive care until his health cover runs out, and some fucking seventeen-year-old is running the portfolio at a quarter the old retainer. They were only strikes, Chris. Management abuse of female workers, localised action, no political demands. I checked.’

Chris put down the glasses and sighed. Lopez watched him.

Fuck, Mike, why can’t you just

‘Look, Joaquin. Strikes can get out of hand, whatever the original rationale. Reed and Mason, it’s chapter one stuff. You know that.’

‘Yeah.’ The Americas agent had the manic splinter back in his tone. ‘So tell me this, Chris. What’s going to happen to me if a banana strike gets out of hand on a certain plantation up near Bocas?’

Chris looked at him.

‘Nothing.’ He kept Lopez’s eyes while it sank in. ‘Alright? Got it? Nothing is going to happen to you.’

‘You can’t give me—‘

‘I am not Mike Bryant.’

The snap in his voice came out of nowhere, jolting them both. He clamped down on it. Made his hands work on the drinks. He dumped ice into two glasses, decanted rum over the cubes and swirled the mix. Spoke quietly again.

‘Look. I’m happy with what you’ve done for us and I don’t give a shit about what happened in Medellin. Forget about Caffarini and whatever’s going on in Buenos Aires and Santiago. I give you my word, you’re secure with us. Now let’s drink to that, Joaquin, because if you don’t crank down soon, you’re going to pop. Come on, this is expense account overproof rum. Get it down you.’

He offered the glass. After a couple of seconds, Lopez took it. He stared into the drink for a long moment, then his face came up.

‘I will not forget this, Chris,’ he said quietly.

‘Nor will I. I look after my people.’

The glasses chimed in the room. The liquor burned down. Outside the windows, something happened to the light as afternoon shifted smoothly towards evening.

Chapter Thirty

‘I still don’t see why you want me there.’ Carla checked her make-up again in the drop-down roof mirror as Chris rolled the Saab down into the Hilton’s parking deck. ‘It’s not like I know anything about the NAME.’

‘That’s exactly the point.’ Chris scanned the crowded deck, found nothing to his liking and steered down the ramp to the next level. ‘You can get him to tell you about it. I don’t want this guy to feel he’s surrounded by suited experts. I want him to relax. To feel in control for a while. It’s textbook client handling.’

He felt her eyes on him.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

The lower level was all but empty. Chris parked a good half dozen spaces away from the nearest vehicle. Since the proximity alarm had failed on him, he’d taken to parking out in the open where the security cameras could see him. It was irrational, he knew - no one short of a full covert ops squad was going to breach the perimeter defences of the Hilton or the Shorn block in the first place, let alone have time and skill to get through the Saab’s security locks before they were noticed. But the proximity alarm had failed. How exactly was still up for grabs, but in the meantime he didn’t intend it to happen again.

‘I’ll go up and get him,’ he said, killing the engine. ‘The restaurant’s on the mezzanine level. El Meson Andino. Mike said he’d meet us there.’

‘You don’t want me to come up with you?’

‘There’s really no need.’

He didn’t tell her that he wanted to check in on the security squad on the way, and that in some undefined way he felt ashamed of the two blunt middle-aged men and their assemblage of little screens and mikes.

‘Suit yourself.’ She dug out a cigarette and put it to her lips. She seemed to draw into herself as she lit it.

‘I’ll see you there, then.’

‘Yes.’

The security men had nothing to report. On the screen, Barranco prowled back and forth like a prisoner in a cell. He had dressed in a black dinner suit a decade out of fashion. Chris went up to collect him.

‘I don’t know much about Peruvian food,’ he said as they rode down in the lift together.

‘Nor do I,’ said Barranco shortly. ‘I’m from Colombia.’

The food turned out to be excellent, though how Peruvian it was became a matter for dispute a few glasses of wine into the meal. It broke the ice with a resounding crack. Barranco argued that a couple of dishes were pure Colombian, and Chris, casting his mind back to his time in the NAME, had to agree with him. Mike, on good social form, reasoned with great persuasiveness and almost no evidence, that the cuisine of the different regions must have interpenetrated over time. Carla suggested rather acidly that this probably had more to do with marketing than regional mobility. Peruvian was a consumer label here, not a national identity. Barranco nodded sober approval. He was obviously quite taken with Carla, whether because of her blonde good looks or her unorthodox political attitudes, Chris didn’t know or much care. He stowed an unexpected twist of jealousy and resisted the temptation to shift his chair closer to his wife’s. Relief at the way the evening was going closed it out.

Business leaked into the conversation in low-intensity bursts, mostly from Barranco’s side and nurtured by the warmth of Carla’s genuine interest. Chris and Mike let it run, sonar-tuned for the dangers of political reefs and set to steer rapidly away where necessary.

‘Of course, solar farms are a beautiful idea, but it is the old instability argument. The infrastructure is too costly and too easy to sabotage.’

‘Doesn’t that go for nuclear power too? I thought the regime was going to build two of those new Pollok reactors.’

‘Yes.’ Barranco smiled grimly. ‘Francisco Echevarria is a close personal friend of Donald Cordell, who is CEO of the Horton Power Group. And the stations will be built a long way from Bogota.’

Carla flushed. ‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Yes.’

Mike shot Chris a warning glance and picked up the bottle.

‘Senor Barranco. More wine?’

‘I had a question about Bogota,’ said Chris, feigning memory failure. ‘Oh, yeah. Last time I was there, I saw this really beautiful church in the centre of town. I was wondering ...’