Viper's Nest Read online

  Burt pulled back his lips into a semblance of a smile. ‘Hey honey, things are pretty stacked right now,’ he said placatingly. ‘I’ve still got to sort out that goddamn mess with the pick-up and we haven’t unloaded the stock we brought back from Mexico. Don’t you worry though, honey.’ He gave her hand a squeeze. ‘Just leave everything to me.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Cate was hanging on to the front seat of the red Mustang, hurtling back down the winding road. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Even the freezing-cold air conditioning couldn’t remove the faint whiff of sweat and sickly smell of stale aftershave, and Cate could feel the waves of tension coming from the driver. It was all Cate could do not to beg Burt to stop the car and let her out. Instead, she forced herself to concentrate on the task in hand.

  ‘So, Burt,’ she said, turning to him. ‘How long have you been dealing in Mexican stuff?’

  ‘Not long as it happens,’ he said, giving her a sideways glance. ‘I used to box, act, do a bit of stunt work and, when that got too painful, I played in a band. After a few years I got a bit too old to be a rock-and-roller.’ He grinned self-deprecatingly. ‘That was tough. I was washed up, with nothing to do. So I took on removals and house clearances for an old buddy who had a second-hand shop selling furniture and then I went out on my own and got a lock-up in Santa Monica.’

  He yanked the car violently around a hairpin bend, narrowly missing a woman who was hanging on to the leads of what seemed like a dozen dogs. As he glared back at her over his shoulder, Cate slipped her right hand down the back of Burt’s seat and released the listening device. That was the easy one. She eyed his phone, lying on the tray in between their two seats.

  Burt growled as he straightened up the car again. ‘Where was I? Oh yeah. Then I bumped into this guy in a hotel – an old friend back from my boxing days. He asked me to help ship some stuff over the border for him from Mexico – you can buy imitation stuff down in Mexico cheaply and bring it here for people to buy at inflated prices. It was good work – easy and the money was great.’

  He went quiet and looked again in the rear-view mirror. Something was bothering him, Cate thought.

  ‘After a while I started to bring my own stuff back,’ he continued. ‘Bits and pieces at first, and then I went the whole hog and rented Mexicano Magic – started selling it myself. That’s where your mom comes in.’ He grinned mirthlessly at Cate. ‘She’s got that cool British accent which makes people think they’re dealing with some sort of aristocracy. It makes it all more – how shall I say? – respectable.’

  Cate stared back at him coldly. ‘You mean you flog fakes to innocent people?’ She couldn’t help herself.

  ‘Hey there! That’s harsh.’ Burt hit the brakes for a set of traffic lights just as they turned red. ‘It’s called commerce, Cate. It makes the world go round. Especially here in the good old US of A.’

  Cate persevered. ‘And do you ever sell – well, anything a bit more precious or genuine?’

  Burt shot her a speculative look. ‘You kinda nosy, ain’t cha?’ he said. He had tensed up again and his voice had lost its friendly tone. ‘What makes you ask that?’

  ‘No reason.’ Cate shrugged, doing her best to look innocent. ‘It’s just that I love Mexican jewellery. The turquoise stuff.’

  ‘OK. That kind of precious.’ Burt relaxed visibly. ‘Honey, if you want some Mexican jewellery, that ain’t a problem. I’ll get you some next time I’m down there.’

  The road had finally bottomed out and Santa Monica lay ahead. As Burt looked over his shoulder, Cate dropped her rucksack casually on to the centre tray.

  ‘Burt,’ she shouted above the noise of his engines, ‘could you stop at an ATM? I need some cash.’

  He nodded and pulled over as Cate grabbed her rucksack and the phone that had been concealed underneath it. She stood with her back to the road, pretending to have a problem with the buttons on the cash machine, praying that Burt wouldn’t get out of the car and come over to see what was causing the delay. As she waited for the cash to come, she slid open the back of his phone and removed the battery, then dropped in the flat card chipped with a bug that would record every single conversation Burt had on his phone. She replaced the battery and cover and pushed the phone up the sleeve of her denim jacket. She looked over her shoulder to where Burt was sitting in the car, engine still running, his fingers tapping impatiently through the open window.

  Back in the car, she gave him an apologetic grin. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. Wasn’t used to the instructions.’

  He grunted and nodded. Then, as he went to release the handbrake, Cate felt his phone vibrate in her sleeve and emit a loud bleep. Automatically, Burt reached down between the seats. As he realised his phone wasn’t there, a puzzled look spread over his handsome face.

  ‘That yours?’ said Cate, trying to sound as casual as possible, although her heart was racing. She reached on to the floor. ‘Sounds as if it’s coming from here.’ She straightened up and handed him his phone.

  ‘Thanks,’ grunted Burt, looking down at the incoming text. Suddenly his face paled and he almost threw the phone back into the tray as if it had suddenly become red-hot.

  ‘Where d’ya want dropping?’ he said roughly, pulling back out into the traffic. ‘I’ve got things to do.’

  Santa Monica Pier was packed. Groups of tourists rubbed shoulders with young families enjoying a stroll and couples who were holding hands and taking each other’s pictures. Cate passed signs for boat rides, cafés and fishing rods for hire and then, before she even reached it, she could smell and hear the funfair – the sickly aroma of candy floss, the dirty fumes from the diesel engines hazy in the sunlight, the excited screams coming from the rollercoaster which loomed high above her.

  As Marcus’s text had instructed, she walked over to the ticket booth, which was underneath the Big Wheel. She stood there, scanning the crowd, trying to ignore the blaring music, and waited.

  Above her, the huge wheel cranked and ground its way across the bright blue sky, tiny gondolas full of people hanging from it, quivering like baubles on a Christmas tree.

  She looked at her watch. Marcus was late. The music faded away and the clanking above her stopped and, as the gondolas disgorged their passengers, the next people in the queue surged forward to take their place.

  ‘I think it’s our turn.’ A familiar voice spoke quietly in her ear and at the same time she felt a nudge in her back, propelling her towards an empty gondola. She didn’t have to look round.

  The interior of the gondola stank of stale chips and coffee, and the floor was dirty, as if it hadn’t been cleaned for months. As it weaved and rocked upwards, Marcus gazed out of the window. ‘I love these things,’ he said. ‘Always have done. Henri sends his regards, but excuses himself on the grounds that he hates heights! It’s the one flaw in his otherwise robot-like brain. How are you getting on with Burt Tyler? Anything to report?’

  ‘Give me a chance,’ Cate protested. ‘I only met him a few hours ago. Actually you’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve just fitted a bug in his car, down the back of the driver’s seat, and one in his phone.’

  ‘Great work, Cate,’ Marcus said enthusiastically. ‘I’ll get the boffins to activate the bugs. Anything else? What’s your impression of him?’

  ‘Edgy,’ Cate said thoughtfully. ‘Nervous. Jumps at the slightest thing. Odd really, because Mum usually goes for really laid-back types. They have to be, to cope with her.’

  Cate paused, thinking hard. ‘I don’t know if I was imagining it, but at one point he got a text and I could have sworn Burt looked really scared when he saw the number. Yeah, scared stiff.’

  Marcus was looking out of the window. He nodded thoughtfully, then turned to her, his expression grave. Suddenly Cate felt nervous.

  ‘You haven’t brought me here just to ask about Burt, have you?’ Cate said. ‘After all, I could have told you that on the phone.’

  ‘You’re right, Cate,’ Marcus said grimly, his
face suddenly stern. ‘I wanted somewhere we could be safe, where I knew it was impossible to be overheard. I have to tell you some bad news. In the early hours of this morning, Gabriel Montanez was found dead in a back alley a few hundred metres from the Erin Hotel.

  Cate shook her head, trying to take it in. ‘Montanez? The guy who nearly killed Ritchie and me the other night? What happened?’

  ‘We’re not sure yet,’ said Marcus, ‘but it looks as if he was felled by a heavy punch, hit his head on a paving slab, and died from the injuries almost instantly. In his rucksack we found a stash of dollars, an airline ticket to Spain, a false passport, a Beretta and a silencer.’

  ‘An assassin’s kit,’ said Cate, half to herself. ‘Was he carrying anything else?’

  Marcus sighed, his dark eyes boring into hers. ‘A business card belonging to Burt Tyler. And a photograph of you, with your room number at the hotel scribbled on the back. Cate, you have to know. We believe you were his target.’

  CHAPTER 13

  Cate took a swig of water from her bottle, swilling it around her mouth as she tried hard to quell the panic that was threatening to shut her throat and stop her breathing.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked eventually. ‘Why would anyone want to kill me? I barely know anyone in LA. I’ve only been here three days.’

  Their gondola was at the highest possible point on the wheel now, rocking gently in the light breeze. Far below her, Cate could see people like pieces of the Playmobil that her brother used to enjoy before he got into computers. How could she be thinking about that now? she wondered vaguely.

  ‘You’re clearly a danger to them, whoever they are,’ said Marcus. He shook his head. ‘We have to consider the possibility that somehow someone has found out about your work with us. When you turned up here, they panicked, assumed the worst and thought you’d been sent in as an undercover agent.’

  Cate stared at him, almost transfixed in horror. ‘But how could that happen?’ she said. ‘IMIA is one of the most secure organisations in the world. Henri himself told me that. He said that only you, Marcus, and a handful of other people even knew I had worked for IMIA. It’s impossible, surely, that anyone could know about that connection.’

  But even as she spoke, even as she protested against it, she knew that the theory made sense. She had tried to tell herself that it was a random attack, but deep down she knew that someone had deliberately tried to run her off the road the other night.

  ‘Ritchie said that the twins had told him something about me.’ She was talking almost to herself. ‘About how I was good in a crisis and had saved them from a shark attack last Christmas. But he never mentioned anything about me being a spy – and I’m sure the twins didn’t know. They’d left the turtle sanctuary before the real action kicked off anyway.’

  ‘We’ll check Ritchie out, just in case,’ Marcus said. ‘Anyone else?’

  Cate shook her head. ‘Not that I can think of.’

  ‘I’m sorry to say this, Cate,’ Marcus said quietly, ‘but have you considered —?’

  ‘No,’ said Cate sharply. ‘Not my mother. She doesn’t know anything about my work with you. I never told her – and of course Dad wouldn’t either.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Marcus, holding up his hands. ‘No one’s accusing her of anything. It’s just that she may have inadvertently passed information on to Burt. And it’s looking more and more likely that Burt is up to his neck in this whole thing.’

  There was an awkward silence. Then Marcus continued in a placatory tone. ‘We checked out your boat, the Ming Yue. It belongs to a Chinese billionaire called Xu Yongmin, head of a Shanghai steel corporation. He’s had it moored here for the last year or so, pretty much for the exclusive use of his wife and daughter. Apparently, the teenage daughter is desperate to be a Hollywood actress – wants to be the next Lucy Liu. Every so often they throw huge yacht parties and invite film producers, actors, that sort of thing, hoping that she’ll get her big break. Anyway, it turns out neither he nor his family have been in LA for months. He says the boat is locked up, fully secured with CCTV, and only the harbour master has the key. So whoever you saw on that boat last night, it wasn’t the owner.’

  ‘What about Novak?’ Cate asked. Anything on him?’

  ‘Now there’s a strange one,’ said Marcus. ‘We checked him out and he does work for your friend Johnny James. According to the agency that found him the job, he did indeed come with impeccable security credentials. But when we double-checked his references, it turned out there were no records of a Novak Dabrowski. No service records, no photographs, no personal files. Nothing.’

  ‘So the references were fake?’ Cate asked. ‘Can’t you arrest him for that?’

  ‘It’s not quite that simple,’ said Marcus. ‘Lots of former agents change their name when they leave the services – assume a whole new identity and start a new life. It’s a form of protection for people who’ve been involved in very dangerous work.’

  ‘So you think Novak is one of those people?’ asked Cate, trying to understand what Marcus was saying. ‘He did do work for the security forces, but his name isn’t really Novak?’

  ‘Could be,’ said Marcus. ‘In any case, we’ve got people trying to find out. But only the very top guys know who these people are and often they won’t release the details, for very good reasons. And to be honest, we haven’t got a lot to convince them we have a valid need to know. Only that he was on a boat showing photographs to a Chinese businessman who says he wasn’t there.’

  ‘They were photos of Mexican antiquities,’ said Cate. ‘Surely that has to mean something, given your current investigation.’

  Marcus pulled a face. ‘You were the only one who saw them. We’ve got nothing to go on. If we pick him up now, everyone will know we’re on to him and any contacts he has will disappear. We have to wait it out, see what other evidence we can turn up.’ He put a hand on her arm. ‘In any case, we don’t know where Novak Dabrowski is. Not right now. The head of housekeeping at Johnny James’s place confirmed that he’s supposed to be somewhere in New York, on compassionate leave and not due back till next week.’

  There was a loud clanking sound as the wheel began its downward journey and, despite herself, Cate jumped in her seat.

  ‘Listen,’ Marcus began. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out an airline ticket and handed it to her. ‘This is one first-class ticket back to London. We appreciate what you have done so far. You’ve been amazing, as usual. But we think your cover has been blown, Cate, which means you are now in real danger. You need to get out of LA. Today.’

  ‘And then what?’ Cate asked angrily. ‘You arrest Burt and my mum gets dragged into something she probably has nothing to do with? I know what you guys are like. Normal rules don’t apply. My mum wouldn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ Marcus rubbed his eyes. ‘Henri gave you his word that we would try to keep your mother out of this. But if Burt is in deep with a gang like this, then yes, she could be in serious trouble.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Cate suddenly. ‘A much better idea than me running back to the UK. We – that is Mum and I – have been invited to go to Mexico tomorrow morning, with Nancy Kyle and Lucas Black on his private jet. Lucas is filming some more footage for the fundraiser and Nancy wants us to keep her company. It’s the perfect solution. It would get Mum and me safely away from LA and leave you lot to work out just who is pulling the strings behind these thugs.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Marcus said slowly. ‘What if your mother tells Burt where you’re staying? If he is linked to these people, you could still be at risk.

  ‘Well, that’s just it,’ said Cate triumphantly. ‘I wasn’t actually planning on staying with them for long anyway. They don’t know it yet, but I was going to leave Mum and Nancy to their swimming pools and spas and go to El Tajin – check it out and see for myself where the twins went missing. I’m going to book into one of those backpacker hostels and pass my
self off as a student of Mexican history. It’s the perfect cover. But I can’t do it alone. I need some back-up – and an escape route. I need IMIA to promise to get me out of there if anything goes wrong. What do you say, Marcus? Are we back in business?’

  Marcus gazed out of the window of the gondola. He was suddenly quiet, too quiet and Cate felt her heart lurch.

  ‘What is it, Marcus?’ she said. ‘What is it you aren’t telling me?’

  Marcus turned to her and smiled a weak smile.

  ‘Jeez, Cate,’ he said. ‘I thought I was the one who was supposed to be the experienced spy. I’d better get back to spy college.’

  Cate waited patiently. Marcus was, as usual, trying to joke his way out of trouble. He shrugged and spread his long fingers wide in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you. We knew that if we did we would never get you on that plane. But it looks like that’s not going to happen anyway.’

  Cate nodded in agreement.

  ‘OK,’ Marcus continued. ‘You know we thought that there were no fatalities at the El Tajin heist?’

  She nodded again, this time trying to quell the nauseous fear that was rising from her stomach.

  ‘They found two bodies in the jungle a few kilometres inland from the camp. The government knew about it but chose, for their own reasons, not to tell us right away.

  ‘Not the twins – don’t worry.’ Marcus laid a reassuring hand on Cate’s suddenly clammy arm. ‘It was the guards from the camp.’ Marcus’s face tightened in anger. ‘Hands tied behind their backs and shot through the head. Young men, family men, both of them. Just doing their job.’

  Cate looked at him in horror. She felt a stab of guilt that, for a few seconds, she had been relieved that it was the guards and not her friends. But at least now she knew the real truth about just how ruthless this gang could be.

  ‘I have to go,’ Cate said suddenly. ‘I have to get down there to at least try to find the twins. You know, Marcus, I could be just the one to do it.’