In the doorway of the coral-stone building he stopped again and waited to hear if he had disturbed anyone, but the village slept on. When he found the vestry again he used stout masking tape to bind the peon’s feet and ankles, and to cover the mouth, while leaving the nose free to breathe.
As he relocked the main door he glanced with satisfaction at the notice beside it on the blackboard. The notice was a lucky ‘plus’.
Back in the empty shack he risked a pen light to examine the labourer’s worldly possessions. They were not many. There was a portrait of the Virgin on one wall and stuck into the frame a faded photo of a smiling young woman. Fiancée, sister, daughter? Through powerful binoculars the man had looked about Dexter’s age, but he might have been younger. Those caught up in Colonel Moreno’s penal system and sent to El Punto would age fast. Certainly he was of the same height and build, which was why Dexter had picked him.
No other wall decorations; just pegs on which hung two sets of work clothes, both identical – coarse cotton trousers and a shirt of the same material. On the floor a pair of rope-soled espadrilles, stained and worn but tough and reliable. Other than that, a sombrero of plaited straw completed the work clothes. There was a canvas bag with drawstring for carrying lunch to the plantation. Dexter snapped off his torch and checked his watch. Five past four.
He stripped down to boxer shorts, selected the items he wanted to take with him, wrapped them in his sweaty T-shirt and bundled them into the lunch bag. The rest he would have to lose. This surplus was rolled into the knapsack, and disposed of during a second visit to the latrines. Then he waited for the clang of the iron bar on the hanging length of railway track.
It came as ever at half past six, still dark but with a hint of pink in the east. The duty guard, standing outside the village just beyond the chain-link double-gates of the farmland, was the source. All around Dexter the village began to come to life.
He avoided the run to the latrines and wash-troughs and hoped no one would notice. After twenty minutes, peering through a slit in the boards of the door, he saw that his alley was empty again. Chin down, sombrero tilted forward, he scurried to the latrines, one figure in sandals, pants and shirt among a thousand.
He crouched over an open hole while the others took their breakfast. Only when the third clang summoned the workers to the access gate did he join the queue.
The five checkers sat at their tables, examined the dog tags, checked the work manifests, punched the number into the records of those admitted that morning, and to which labour gang assigned, and waved the labourer through, to join his gang-master and be led away to collect tools and start the allocated tasks.
Dexter reached the table attending to his queue, offered his dog tag between forefinger and thumb, like the others, leaned forward and coughed. The checker pulled his face away sharply to one side, noted the tag number and waved him away. The last thing the man wanted was a face full of chilli odour. The new recruit shuffled off to draw his hoe; the assigned task was weeding the avocado groves.
At half past seven Kevin McBride breakfasted alone on the terrace. The grapefruit, eggs, toast and plum jam would have done credit to any five-star hotel. At eight fifteen the Serb joined him.
‘I think it would be wise for you to pack your grip,’ he said. ‘When you have seen what Major van Rensberg will show you, I hope you will agree this mercenary has a one per cent chance of getting here, even less of getting near me, and none of getting out again. There is no point in your staying. You may tell Mr Devereaux that I will complete my part of our arrangement, as agreed, at the end of the month.’
At eight thirty McBride threw his grip into the rear of the South African’s open jeep and climbed in beside the major.
‘So, what do you want to see?’ asked the Head of Security.
‘I am told it is virtually impossible for an unwanted visitor to get in here at all. Can you tell me why?’
‘Look, Mr McBride, when I designed all this I created two things. One, it is an almost completely self-sufficient farming paradise. Everything is here. Second, it is a fortress, a sanctuary, a refuge, safe from almost all outside invasion or threat.
‘Now, of course, if you are talking about a full military operation, paratroopers, armour, of course it could be invaded. But one mercenary, acting alone? Never.’
‘How about arrival by sea?’
‘Let me show you.’
Van Rensberg let in the clutch and they set off, leaving a plume of rising dust behind them. The South African pulled over and stopped near a cliff edge.
‘You can see from here,’ he said as they climbed out. ‘The whole estate is surrounded by sea, at no point less than twenty feet below the cliff top, in most areas fifty feet. Sea-scanning radar, disguised as TV dishes, warn us of anything approaching by sea.’
‘Interception?’
‘Two fast patrol boats, one at sea at all times. There is a one-mile limit of forbidden water round the whole peninsula. Only the occasional delivery freighter is allowed in.’
‘Underwater entry? Amphibious special forces?’
Van Rensberg snorted derisively.
‘A special force of one? Let me show you what would happen.’
He took his walkie-talkie, called the radio basement and was patched through to the slaughterhouse. The rendezvous was across the estate, near the derricks. McBride watched a bucket of offal go down the slide and drop to the sea thirty feet below.
For several seconds there was no reaction. Then the first scimitar fin sliced the surface. Within sixty seconds there was a feeding frenzy. Van Rensberg laughed.
‘We eat well here. Plenty of steak. My employer does not eat steak, but the guards do. Many of them, like me, are from the old country and we like our braai.’
‘So?’