Cocaine Read Online Free Page B

like.’
    ‘Yes’, drawled Suares, ‘perhaps that would be best.’
    Juan Andres Montero Garcia climbed the ladder towards the hatch with three Kalashnikovs pointing up at his coccyx.
    ‘ Go on,’ urged Suares to his prize pupil.
    Juan Andres opened the hatch, climbed outside, shut the hatch and started running.

    ***

    We sat together, dozing on the rear bench of the bus, clattering over the potholes and taking all five seats. I could hear the faint tinny sound of Kieran’s Walkman, which in my dreamy state led me to imagine we were a rock band on tour, sitting in the back of our tour-bus, recovering after a heavy night pumping a cocktail of tequila and groupies. He was asleep. The bench was only held in place by our bodyweight and none of us had trusted our bags to the overhead or over-wheel storage facility. I had a black leather bag which I’d purchased in Cotacachi, Ecuador’s answer to World of Leather. Kieran had a grimy black sports bag with grey straps and Juan Andres had a battered brown leather satchel which gave new meaning to the concept of traveling light.
    Everyone else on the bus was an Indio , and I heard Quechua rather than Spanish, a comforting, incomprehensible and soporific mix of low level white noise.
    ‘What about a passport?’ I asked Juan Andres. ‘If they think you’re dead.’
    ‘ No es problema. They more interested in peoples coming the other way.’
    ‘Into Ecuador?’
    ‘Si. Colombia, she need all the turistas she can get.’
    We exchanged a smile. He seemed relaxed so I forgot about being tense. I wanted to ask him about compound break-downs, solubility and texture, but I wasn’t sure if this was the right time to reveal to him that I’d read natural sciences at Cambridge, with a particular emphasis on the molecular structure of crystalline substances, and that my interest in South America was more than purely academic.
    That could wait until we got to know each other a little better.

5

    March 2007 – Cannes, South of France

    The next time I walked down the Croissette I thought someone was following me. I waited a minute until I could feel them nearly on top of me and stopped, turned round abruptly and walked off in the opposite direction. I peered out of the side of my Persol sunglasses, looking for evidence of anyone changing direction with me, but all I saw was a ridiculous old woman dressed like a prostitute, in fishnets, a short black leather skirt, garish red lipstick and wearing an orange wig. ‘ What a disguise ’, I thought. I doubted if her own children would recognize her, not that they would want to. But she was following me.
    ‘ Excusez-moi, monsieur ’, she began, in a quivering voice, ‘ vous avez de la monnaie ?’
    ‘If you have the time.’
    ‘ Quoi ?’
    She didn’t speak English. I gave her a euro. She looked disgustedly at it.
    The place I was looking for was in an arcade called Gray D’Albion, set on Rue D’Antibes, the main shopping street behind La Croissette . I found the shop just inside the main entrance. I stood on the red carpet and looked in at all the toys in the windows. It would be impossible to find a shop like this in a provincial town in England. Not one that sold Tasers, miniature cameras, air-guns, bugging equipment and crossbows, as well as all the other really good stuff that they didn’t put on display.
    The bullet-proof vests looked quite chic, but then the French had a much better sense of style than the British, even when it came to body-armour. I dawdled by the window for a few more seconds, checking to see if I was being watched. A few feet away a woman and three small boys were gawping at the miniature cameras with Leica lenses. There was no one else even remotely interested in me or the shop, so I walked inside and made for the brightly-coloured Mace stand.
    ‘ Bonjour monsieur ’, said a voice behind me. ‘Can I ‘elp you?’
    My heart sank, because this meant that I looked British or American or German, but