The Loneliness of the Once-Distant Agent
Part 4
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Lucas leaned forward, resting his hands on the table, and stared hard at Patrick Robinson. "Tell us who you're dealing with."
Robinson stared back without speaking, the way he'd been staring back without speaking for the last half hour. Lucas could tell he was scared, and trying to hide it, but it hadn't loosened his tongue yet. They stared at each other for a long moment, and when Robinson finally looked away, Lucas strode towards the door and banged it loudly as he went out. Let the man think he was frustrated – but Lucas had always been patient, and his time in prison had refined his patience even more.
Mercy stood by the video screens in the observation room, and glanced up as Lucas came in.
"Give him a few minutes," Lucas said. "Then go in there and beg him to tell us everything he knows about the Fazackerley gas."
"Good cop bad cop, and I have to be good cop?" Mercy guessed, and when Lucas nodded, she said, "I wish I could be DCI Gene Hunt for once." She said the name with special emphasis, trying to sound masculine, and failing. Then, in a normal voice, she added wistfully, "Or Ros."
Lucas grinned. "Good cop bad cop wouldn't work so well if you were Ros."
"It's my face, isn't it?" Mercy asked with a sigh.
"Yes," said Lucas truthfully. Mercy had a warm, open face, one that you instinctively felt you could like and trust. She could never be as emotionally cold or as ruthless as Ros … he got back to the subject at hand. "By the way, how are you at playacting?"
Several minutes later, after Mercy had had her chance to plead with Robinson and was now punching the code in to open the door of the interrogation room, Lucas met her there and said, "You must be hungry. Go and get some lunch – I'll deal with him."
"I should stay here," Mercy replied, feigning reluctance as she glanced back over her shoulder.
"Go on," Lucas said. "It won't be like last time."
Mercy hesitated again, and Lucas gave her a little push. "Go on. I'll be good – I promise."
"I'll save a chapati for you," Mercy said, and walked away. Lucas closed the door behind her, smiling, then turned to face Robinson, and dropped the smile abruptly. Without taking his eye off the man, he walked around the desk and shoved both him and the chair to the floor. Indignant, Robinson tried to get up, but Lucas pushed him down again, putting a foot on his chest to keep him there, then glanced down the length of his leg at him.
"Have you ever been tortured?" he asked in his deepest voice.
Robinson stared up at him. His eyes were wide open and he'd started to pant – Lucas recognized the first signs of panic as the man cried, "You can't torture me! That's illegal!"
"Only if you can prove it," Lucas shot back. "It'll be your word against mine, and I won't leave any marks."
Right on cue, the door burst open and Mercy squealed, "I thought you said you'd be good!"
"And I thought you said you were going to lunch," Lucas protested, watching with an expression of disapproval on his face as Mercy rushed over and helped Robinson up, setting the chair back on its feet as well. "You know how much we need this information!"
"I can't let you do this," Mercy said.
"Yes, you can," Lucas cajoled. "I can get him to talk, I can get the information we need."
"Don't," Mercy said, walking towards the door. "Just don't. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to report this."
Mercy punched in the code to open the door from the inside, and Lucas caught up with her just as the lock released. She turned to defend herself, just as they'd planned, pushing him away so that she could leave the room. Suddenly, however, her leg flew up and her shoe hit him in the face, sending him sprawling onto the floor.
"Oh, no!" Mercy gasped, rushing towards him. "Are you all right? I – I –"
Once the dizziness had ebbed somewhat, Lucas became aware of blood oozing from his nose, but the epicenter of the pain was slightly to the left, just under his eye. His whole face throbbed, all the way back to the cut on his scalp from the chamberpot, and it took him a moment before he even wanted to try to sit up. Mercy reached out as though to touch his nose, then pulled her hand back and let Lucas do it himself.
"'S'not broken," he said thickly, and Mercy grimaced at what he'd inadvertantly said.
"Come on," she said, putting a hand under his arm to help him up. "I'll get you some ice."
They went out, and as soon as the door had shut behind them, Mercy gasped, "I am so sorry! I only meant to kick you in the chest! I can't understand it – this never happens in tae-kwon-do training!"
"'S'all right," Lucas said.
"Are you sure?" she asked, and when Lucas reassured her again, she offered, "I'll help clean you up."
"No, there's no time," Lucas said, catching her by the arm as she turned towards the loo. "It'll look more real this way. Just do the door like I told you."
While Lucas grabbed the necessary items that he'd already organized, Mercy went to the door of the interrogation room, then turned around and threw herself against it three times, hitting it with her upper back and shoulders. After the third time, she hesitated for an alarmingly long moment, then finally slid down and collapsed sideways so that she was lying in a heap on the floor. Lucas reached over to press the key pad, and once he'd got the door open, he bent down to pull her away into a more appropriate position. She felt unusually stiff and resistant, and didn't look at him as he tugged on her upper arm and the waistband of her jeans.
Just as Lucas had hoped, Robinson was watching the scene with a terrified expression on his face, glancing from Lucas to Mercy and back again until Lucas pulled the door shut. He could feel a new trickle of blood from his nose, but he had to wait until he'd placed all the items on the table before he could scrub at it with his sleeve. Robinson watched his every move, looking as tense as though he were about to jump up and race for the exit, away from the madman who'd just attacked his own colleague and was now coming for him. Recognizing the signs, Lucas knew that sooner or later, the tension would break, panic would take over and Robinson would make a run for it, even if he was rationally aware that the door was locked. Biting down on similar memories, Lucas pushed them away, and forced himself to concentrate only on the task at hand, which was picking up one of the restraining straps.
As Lucas expected when he approached, Robinson jumped to his feet, intending to flee, but Lucas punched his fist directly into the man's solar plexus, driving him back into the chair. He took advantage of the man's temporary inability to breathe to grab Robinson's arms and strap them to the arms of the chair, then got down on one knee to do his legs. Recovering somewhat, Robinson kicked out, but Lucas had positioned himself to the side, and didn't even have to try to avoid the man's foot. When Robinson was secure, Lucas straightened up again, then pushed the chair over as he'd done before. Robinson landed with a heavy metallic thud and a cry of pain.
"Have you ever been tortured?" Lucas asked, taking the towel and the water bottle from the table and coming around to stare down at his prisoner. Robinson stared back, even more terrified than before as Lucas went on. "Have you ever been waterboarded? I have – and I know that a man will say anything – anything – to make it stop. But I'll also know if you're telling the truth."
Lucas twisted off the lid of the water bottle and held it up, then poured some onto the towel, making sure that any drips landed on Robinson's face. Robinson flinched away, and it took all of Lucas' self-control to keep looking at him, and not to glance over to the door. Mercy was supposed to burst in as soon as he wet the towel, but there was no sound of the door opening. Was she in the toilet again, instead of stopping the torture before it began, as they'd discussed? He couldn't let Robinson see any weakness, any sign that they were bluffing, so he'd have to go through with it, at least until Mercy came back. Gritting his teeth, forcing himself to not think, not remember, not sympathize, Lucas squatted down next to Robinson and slapped the wet towel over his mouth and nose.
Robinson reacted instantly, struggling to free himself. Lucas could have held his head in place, but instead he let Robinson shake it back and forth. Trying to keep his expression neutral, Lucas watched as Robinson finally managed to dislodge the towel and sink back, gasping for air.
"Who are you working with?" Lucas asked. "Who's buying the Fazackerley gas from you?"
He reached across the man's face to pick up the towel again, and to his relief, Robinson finally shrieked, "All right! His name is Caballero! Juan Joaquin Caballero! Please! I'll tell you everything, just don't – don't –"
Lucas dropped the wet towel demonstrably to the floor and simply waited.
+++++
When the first session of interrogation was over and Lucas had gathered enough information to make a worthwhile report, he left Robinson sitting at the table and went out. Mercy was waiting behind the door, her face twisted with anxiety.
"Lucas, I am so sorry," she gushed, but Lucas didn't have time just then to listen to her apology. He strode by, praying that nobody else would be in the men's toilet, and thankfully, nobody was. Now that he was away from the situation, he couldn't keep the memories at bay any longer, and leaned over the sink as they came flooding back. Although he retched once or twice, he didn't actually vomit, and eventually, he was able to slow the images racing through his mind and then stop them completely. He glanced at himself in the mirror; he felt cold with sweat and his heart was racing, but it was over now, and he'd survived. He could put the experiences away and ignore them again.
At least, until the next time.
Lucas turned on the hot water tap, letting it run for a moment, then cleaned the blood off his face. He'd have a black eye soon, and a spectacular bruise on his cheek, but that didn't matter. Feeling slightly better, he exhaled in a ragged sigh, then straightened up again just as the door opened.
"Lucas?" It was Harry. "Are you all right?"
As he reached for a towel to dry himself off, Lucas wanted to say, No, Harry, I'm not. I've just tortured somebody else in the same way that I was tortured, doing the same thing to him that still gives me nightmares. Instead, he turned around and gave his boss a practised smile. "Yeah, Harry, I'm fine."
Harry looked silently at him for a long moment before finally giving in. "Be ready to brief us as soon as possible, then."
He went out, and Lucas followed, intending to get a clean shirt from his locker in the changing area before he did anything else. Everyone kept a spare set of clothes there, even Harry, though he rarely needed to change. Mercy waylaid him immediately, however, and he noticed before she even spoke that she was wearing a different pair of jeans. The reason for her lack of response to the pre-arranged signal was instantly clear.
"Lucas, I'm really sorry," she gushed. "I guess I shouldn't have come back to work to-day, even though I'm actually feeling fine. But I thought I could spend the day at my desk, I didn't know we were going to be so short-handed! And now I can't just leave again …"
Understanding completely about wanting to come in to work no matter what the circumstances, Lucas clapped her forgivingly on the shoulder and gave her an honest smile. "It's all right, Mercy, we got him to talk. See what you can find out about Juan Joaquin Caballero, will you?"
Mercy repeated the name and nodded. "So – Harry didn't threaten to fire you for using illegal methods of interrogation?"
Lucas had been so concentrated on the moment that it had never occurred to him that he might face consequences for what he'd had to do. Now, the sudden, stabbing fear of losing his job made him stare at Mercy for a moment too long before he was able to respond. "No, he just slapped my hands, told me it never happened, and that I shouldn't do it again."
She grinned. "Oh, well, that's all right, then." And as Lucas turned away, she added, "But if it came down to an inquiry or anything, Lucas, I'd back you up."
Lucas turned back, surprised. "Thanks."
Once he was presentable again and had organized his findings, Lucas went to the meeting room. Harry was already there, along with Mercy and one of the analysts on loan from GCHQ.
"The name he gave us was Juan Joaquin Caballero," Lucas said, putting a picture of the man's passport up on the screen, "and the number of pounds he was promised for the Fazackerley gas is two million."
Mercy made a sound of awe and astonishment. Harry merely raised his eyebrows.
"He also admits to smuggling out the components of the gas through the bomb shelter, as we suspected. We didn't get a match with Caballero when we checked the CCTV footage of the buildings around Spencer-Clark, and Robinson confirmed that he didn't think Caballero picked them up himself. We're now looking for connections between Caballero and anybody who works in that area, but we might not have time to confirm anything."
"Robinson's delivered everything?" Harry said.
"All the components, but not the final formula," Lucas confirmed. "He was waiting for the next installment of the money – when we picked him up, he'd been about to access his account at a local internet cafe."
Harry nodded. "So, who is this Caballero, and what does he want with this gas?"
Lucas glanced over at Mercy, giving her a silent signal to speak. Obviously still dazzled by the thought of two million pounds, Mercy blinked a few times, then glanced down at her notes. "Um … I haven't found out very much, actually. His father is from Cuitlatepan, his mother is English, he was born in Cuitlatepan and mostly stayed there except for school holidays as long as his parents were married. They divorced when Juan was about ten, and his mother brought him back to England permanently to live with her. He studied chemistry at Cambridge, a year ahead of Patrick Robinson, but later went into marketing pharmaceuticals, and now travels regularly between his company in London and sister companies in Latin America. At the end of his last trip, he spent time in Cuitlatepan visiting his father."
"What are his parents' names?" Lucas asked.
"Juan Felipe Caballero, and his mother's name is Irene Boyce. I haven't found much on either of them."
"Juan Felipe Caballero?" asked the analyst from GCHQ, and Lucas glanced at him in surprise. "You know that name?"
"I've come across it recently, I know I have," the man said. "Let me check up on it and I'll get right back to you."
He went out, and Lucas glanced over at Harry, who asked, "What else did Robinson tell us?"
"He didn't want to know what the gas was for," Lucas reported. "But he was planning on taking the money and making a hasty and permanent relocation to Spain. It was also his plan, if anything went wrong, to shift the blame to Rory Miller."
"Did he say how he contacted this Caballero?"
"Caballero mostly contacted him, by mobile and by letter drop, but he does have an emergency number to call if anything went wrong."
"Letter drop? Isn't that a bit old-fashioned nowadays?" Mercy asked.
"Sometimes old-fashioned is better," Lucas said. "Emails and SMS's leave electronic traces, but once the letters were destroyed, there's no proof they ever existed."
"And of course they were destroyed," Harry stated.
"Robinson says he rolled his own marijuana joints and literally inhaled them."
Harry's mouth twitched slightly while Mercy said, "Up in smoke. Well, that's one way to get rid of them."
The analyst came to the door and leaned in. "About the name. It's not much – he's only listed as a possible associate of a member of the cartel Nombre de Dios. Possible, because there were rumours, but no proof."
"Isn't the Cuitlatepanian ambassador being threatened by certain cartels?" Mercy asked, and Lucas nodded. "He was posted to London in an attempt to keep him safe, or perhaps safer should be the word."
"Before he was appointed as ambassador, he was the head of the secret service in Cuitlatepan," Harry chimed in. "And he went after the cartels quite vigourously."
"Like a one-man crime-fighting machine," Lucas said, quoting from one of the newspapers he skimmed each day. "But now it looks like the cartels could be catching up with him."
"It would make sense," Harry said with a nod. "But we don't want to jump to conclusions. Lucas, you said that Robinson had an emergency phone number? Let's think about contacting this Juan Joaquin Caballero and see what we can learn."
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Part 5
Lucas leaned forward, resting his hands on the table, and stared hard at Patrick Robinson. "Tell us who you're dealing with."
Robinson stared back without speaking, the way he'd been staring back without speaking for the last half hour. Lucas could tell he was scared, and trying to hide it, but it hadn't loosened his tongue yet. They stared at each other for a long moment, and when Robinson finally looked away, Lucas strode towards the door and banged it loudly as he went out. Let the man think he was frustrated – but Lucas had always been patient, and his time in prison had refined his patience even more.
Mercy stood by the video screens in the observation room, and glanced up as Lucas came in.
"Give him a few minutes," Lucas said. "Then go in there and beg him to tell us everything he knows about the Fazackerley gas."
"Good cop bad cop, and I have to be good cop?" Mercy guessed, and when Lucas nodded, she said, "I wish I could be DCI Gene Hunt for once." She said the name with special emphasis, trying to sound masculine, and failing. Then, in a normal voice, she added wistfully, "Or Ros."
Lucas grinned. "Good cop bad cop wouldn't work so well if you were Ros."
"It's my face, isn't it?" Mercy asked with a sigh.
"Yes," said Lucas truthfully. Mercy had a warm, open face, one that you instinctively felt you could like and trust. She could never be as emotionally cold or as ruthless as Ros … he got back to the subject at hand. "By the way, how are you at playacting?"
Several minutes later, after Mercy had had her chance to plead with Robinson and was now punching the code in to open the door of the interrogation room, Lucas met her there and said, "You must be hungry. Go and get some lunch – I'll deal with him."
"I should stay here," Mercy replied, feigning reluctance as she glanced back over her shoulder.
"Go on," Lucas said. "It won't be like last time."
Mercy hesitated again, and Lucas gave her a little push. "Go on. I'll be good – I promise."
"I'll save a chapati for you," Mercy said, and walked away. Lucas closed the door behind her, smiling, then turned to face Robinson, and dropped the smile abruptly. Without taking his eye off the man, he walked around the desk and shoved both him and the chair to the floor. Indignant, Robinson tried to get up, but Lucas pushed him down again, putting a foot on his chest to keep him there, then glanced down the length of his leg at him.
"Have you ever been tortured?" he asked in his deepest voice.
Robinson stared up at him. His eyes were wide open and he'd started to pant – Lucas recognized the first signs of panic as the man cried, "You can't torture me! That's illegal!"
"Only if you can prove it," Lucas shot back. "It'll be your word against mine, and I won't leave any marks."
Right on cue, the door burst open and Mercy squealed, "I thought you said you'd be good!"
"And I thought you said you were going to lunch," Lucas protested, watching with an expression of disapproval on his face as Mercy rushed over and helped Robinson up, setting the chair back on its feet as well. "You know how much we need this information!"
"I can't let you do this," Mercy said.
"Yes, you can," Lucas cajoled. "I can get him to talk, I can get the information we need."
"Don't," Mercy said, walking towards the door. "Just don't. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to report this."
Mercy punched in the code to open the door from the inside, and Lucas caught up with her just as the lock released. She turned to defend herself, just as they'd planned, pushing him away so that she could leave the room. Suddenly, however, her leg flew up and her shoe hit him in the face, sending him sprawling onto the floor.
"Oh, no!" Mercy gasped, rushing towards him. "Are you all right? I – I –"
Once the dizziness had ebbed somewhat, Lucas became aware of blood oozing from his nose, but the epicenter of the pain was slightly to the left, just under his eye. His whole face throbbed, all the way back to the cut on his scalp from the chamberpot, and it took him a moment before he even wanted to try to sit up. Mercy reached out as though to touch his nose, then pulled her hand back and let Lucas do it himself.
"'S'not broken," he said thickly, and Mercy grimaced at what he'd inadvertantly said.
"Come on," she said, putting a hand under his arm to help him up. "I'll get you some ice."
They went out, and as soon as the door had shut behind them, Mercy gasped, "I am so sorry! I only meant to kick you in the chest! I can't understand it – this never happens in tae-kwon-do training!"
"'S'all right," Lucas said.
"Are you sure?" she asked, and when Lucas reassured her again, she offered, "I'll help clean you up."
"No, there's no time," Lucas said, catching her by the arm as she turned towards the loo. "It'll look more real this way. Just do the door like I told you."
While Lucas grabbed the necessary items that he'd already organized, Mercy went to the door of the interrogation room, then turned around and threw herself against it three times, hitting it with her upper back and shoulders. After the third time, she hesitated for an alarmingly long moment, then finally slid down and collapsed sideways so that she was lying in a heap on the floor. Lucas reached over to press the key pad, and once he'd got the door open, he bent down to pull her away into a more appropriate position. She felt unusually stiff and resistant, and didn't look at him as he tugged on her upper arm and the waistband of her jeans.
Just as Lucas had hoped, Robinson was watching the scene with a terrified expression on his face, glancing from Lucas to Mercy and back again until Lucas pulled the door shut. He could feel a new trickle of blood from his nose, but he had to wait until he'd placed all the items on the table before he could scrub at it with his sleeve. Robinson watched his every move, looking as tense as though he were about to jump up and race for the exit, away from the madman who'd just attacked his own colleague and was now coming for him. Recognizing the signs, Lucas knew that sooner or later, the tension would break, panic would take over and Robinson would make a run for it, even if he was rationally aware that the door was locked. Biting down on similar memories, Lucas pushed them away, and forced himself to concentrate only on the task at hand, which was picking up one of the restraining straps.
As Lucas expected when he approached, Robinson jumped to his feet, intending to flee, but Lucas punched his fist directly into the man's solar plexus, driving him back into the chair. He took advantage of the man's temporary inability to breathe to grab Robinson's arms and strap them to the arms of the chair, then got down on one knee to do his legs. Recovering somewhat, Robinson kicked out, but Lucas had positioned himself to the side, and didn't even have to try to avoid the man's foot. When Robinson was secure, Lucas straightened up again, then pushed the chair over as he'd done before. Robinson landed with a heavy metallic thud and a cry of pain.
"Have you ever been tortured?" Lucas asked, taking the towel and the water bottle from the table and coming around to stare down at his prisoner. Robinson stared back, even more terrified than before as Lucas went on. "Have you ever been waterboarded? I have – and I know that a man will say anything – anything – to make it stop. But I'll also know if you're telling the truth."
Lucas twisted off the lid of the water bottle and held it up, then poured some onto the towel, making sure that any drips landed on Robinson's face. Robinson flinched away, and it took all of Lucas' self-control to keep looking at him, and not to glance over to the door. Mercy was supposed to burst in as soon as he wet the towel, but there was no sound of the door opening. Was she in the toilet again, instead of stopping the torture before it began, as they'd discussed? He couldn't let Robinson see any weakness, any sign that they were bluffing, so he'd have to go through with it, at least until Mercy came back. Gritting his teeth, forcing himself to not think, not remember, not sympathize, Lucas squatted down next to Robinson and slapped the wet towel over his mouth and nose.
Robinson reacted instantly, struggling to free himself. Lucas could have held his head in place, but instead he let Robinson shake it back and forth. Trying to keep his expression neutral, Lucas watched as Robinson finally managed to dislodge the towel and sink back, gasping for air.
"Who are you working with?" Lucas asked. "Who's buying the Fazackerley gas from you?"
He reached across the man's face to pick up the towel again, and to his relief, Robinson finally shrieked, "All right! His name is Caballero! Juan Joaquin Caballero! Please! I'll tell you everything, just don't – don't –"
Lucas dropped the wet towel demonstrably to the floor and simply waited.
+++++
When the first session of interrogation was over and Lucas had gathered enough information to make a worthwhile report, he left Robinson sitting at the table and went out. Mercy was waiting behind the door, her face twisted with anxiety.
"Lucas, I am so sorry," she gushed, but Lucas didn't have time just then to listen to her apology. He strode by, praying that nobody else would be in the men's toilet, and thankfully, nobody was. Now that he was away from the situation, he couldn't keep the memories at bay any longer, and leaned over the sink as they came flooding back. Although he retched once or twice, he didn't actually vomit, and eventually, he was able to slow the images racing through his mind and then stop them completely. He glanced at himself in the mirror; he felt cold with sweat and his heart was racing, but it was over now, and he'd survived. He could put the experiences away and ignore them again.
At least, until the next time.
Lucas turned on the hot water tap, letting it run for a moment, then cleaned the blood off his face. He'd have a black eye soon, and a spectacular bruise on his cheek, but that didn't matter. Feeling slightly better, he exhaled in a ragged sigh, then straightened up again just as the door opened.
"Lucas?" It was Harry. "Are you all right?"
As he reached for a towel to dry himself off, Lucas wanted to say, No, Harry, I'm not. I've just tortured somebody else in the same way that I was tortured, doing the same thing to him that still gives me nightmares. Instead, he turned around and gave his boss a practised smile. "Yeah, Harry, I'm fine."
Harry looked silently at him for a long moment before finally giving in. "Be ready to brief us as soon as possible, then."
He went out, and Lucas followed, intending to get a clean shirt from his locker in the changing area before he did anything else. Everyone kept a spare set of clothes there, even Harry, though he rarely needed to change. Mercy waylaid him immediately, however, and he noticed before she even spoke that she was wearing a different pair of jeans. The reason for her lack of response to the pre-arranged signal was instantly clear.
"Lucas, I'm really sorry," she gushed. "I guess I shouldn't have come back to work to-day, even though I'm actually feeling fine. But I thought I could spend the day at my desk, I didn't know we were going to be so short-handed! And now I can't just leave again …"
Understanding completely about wanting to come in to work no matter what the circumstances, Lucas clapped her forgivingly on the shoulder and gave her an honest smile. "It's all right, Mercy, we got him to talk. See what you can find out about Juan Joaquin Caballero, will you?"
Mercy repeated the name and nodded. "So – Harry didn't threaten to fire you for using illegal methods of interrogation?"
Lucas had been so concentrated on the moment that it had never occurred to him that he might face consequences for what he'd had to do. Now, the sudden, stabbing fear of losing his job made him stare at Mercy for a moment too long before he was able to respond. "No, he just slapped my hands, told me it never happened, and that I shouldn't do it again."
She grinned. "Oh, well, that's all right, then." And as Lucas turned away, she added, "But if it came down to an inquiry or anything, Lucas, I'd back you up."
Lucas turned back, surprised. "Thanks."
Once he was presentable again and had organized his findings, Lucas went to the meeting room. Harry was already there, along with Mercy and one of the analysts on loan from GCHQ.
"The name he gave us was Juan Joaquin Caballero," Lucas said, putting a picture of the man's passport up on the screen, "and the number of pounds he was promised for the Fazackerley gas is two million."
Mercy made a sound of awe and astonishment. Harry merely raised his eyebrows.
"He also admits to smuggling out the components of the gas through the bomb shelter, as we suspected. We didn't get a match with Caballero when we checked the CCTV footage of the buildings around Spencer-Clark, and Robinson confirmed that he didn't think Caballero picked them up himself. We're now looking for connections between Caballero and anybody who works in that area, but we might not have time to confirm anything."
"Robinson's delivered everything?" Harry said.
"All the components, but not the final formula," Lucas confirmed. "He was waiting for the next installment of the money – when we picked him up, he'd been about to access his account at a local internet cafe."
Harry nodded. "So, who is this Caballero, and what does he want with this gas?"
Lucas glanced over at Mercy, giving her a silent signal to speak. Obviously still dazzled by the thought of two million pounds, Mercy blinked a few times, then glanced down at her notes. "Um … I haven't found out very much, actually. His father is from Cuitlatepan, his mother is English, he was born in Cuitlatepan and mostly stayed there except for school holidays as long as his parents were married. They divorced when Juan was about ten, and his mother brought him back to England permanently to live with her. He studied chemistry at Cambridge, a year ahead of Patrick Robinson, but later went into marketing pharmaceuticals, and now travels regularly between his company in London and sister companies in Latin America. At the end of his last trip, he spent time in Cuitlatepan visiting his father."
"What are his parents' names?" Lucas asked.
"Juan Felipe Caballero, and his mother's name is Irene Boyce. I haven't found much on either of them."
"Juan Felipe Caballero?" asked the analyst from GCHQ, and Lucas glanced at him in surprise. "You know that name?"
"I've come across it recently, I know I have," the man said. "Let me check up on it and I'll get right back to you."
He went out, and Lucas glanced over at Harry, who asked, "What else did Robinson tell us?"
"He didn't want to know what the gas was for," Lucas reported. "But he was planning on taking the money and making a hasty and permanent relocation to Spain. It was also his plan, if anything went wrong, to shift the blame to Rory Miller."
"Did he say how he contacted this Caballero?"
"Caballero mostly contacted him, by mobile and by letter drop, but he does have an emergency number to call if anything went wrong."
"Letter drop? Isn't that a bit old-fashioned nowadays?" Mercy asked.
"Sometimes old-fashioned is better," Lucas said. "Emails and SMS's leave electronic traces, but once the letters were destroyed, there's no proof they ever existed."
"And of course they were destroyed," Harry stated.
"Robinson says he rolled his own marijuana joints and literally inhaled them."
Harry's mouth twitched slightly while Mercy said, "Up in smoke. Well, that's one way to get rid of them."
The analyst came to the door and leaned in. "About the name. It's not much – he's only listed as a possible associate of a member of the cartel Nombre de Dios. Possible, because there were rumours, but no proof."
"Isn't the Cuitlatepanian ambassador being threatened by certain cartels?" Mercy asked, and Lucas nodded. "He was posted to London in an attempt to keep him safe, or perhaps safer should be the word."
"Before he was appointed as ambassador, he was the head of the secret service in Cuitlatepan," Harry chimed in. "And he went after the cartels quite vigourously."
"Like a one-man crime-fighting machine," Lucas said, quoting from one of the newspapers he skimmed each day. "But now it looks like the cartels could be catching up with him."
"It would make sense," Harry said with a nod. "But we don't want to jump to conclusions. Lucas, you said that Robinson had an emergency phone number? Let's think about contacting this Juan Joaquin Caballero and see what we can learn."
+++++
Part 5