Alpha Force: Blood Money Read online

  ‘Well?’ said Li and Hex in unison.

  ‘The moneylender was back in the village, scouting for business. Sami went through his stuff while he wasn’t looking. She found a card. It had a name on it: Tagore Trilok. She says it’s the kidney man. And,’ added Paulo proudly, ‘she just gave me his mobile number.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ said Li. ‘Phone him?’

  Hex’s fingers were already flying. ‘Pass it over here. We don’t need to phone him, we can do something far more clever. Mobiles work by getting a signal from cells – transmitters that send signals out in a small area. And since it’s all controlled by computer . . . if we find out what cells he’s been using, we can find out where he is.’

  ‘And where he is—’ began Li.

  ‘– Bina might be,’ finished Paulo.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Hex. He tapped Trilok’s number into a website. First he had to find out which phone company he used. No problem. This website would identify it in seconds. He got his reply. From that he knew which website to hack into to track where Trilok was. The website asked for a password. Not a problem. He flipped open another window and accessed a program he kept for just that purpose. In moments, an answer sprang onto the screen. ‘Yes!’ said Hex out loud, and fired the result into the keyboard. A new screen came up. Hex scanned it briefly. A broad smile spread across his features. ‘Well, well, well.’ He turned slowly to the others. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, in the last twenty-four hours he used his phone only in Nayla and Chennai.’

  ‘And he’s probably not far from here right now,’ said Hex.

  Li looked at the screen. ‘How accurate is it?’

  Hex looked disbelieving. ‘It’s dead accurate. It’s a computer.’

  ‘No, I mean, how detailed?’

  ‘We can narrow it down to a few blocks.’

  ‘Well, where is he now?’

  ‘I can’t see right now. But as soon as he makes or receives a call, we’ll see which cells he’s using. And that will tell us where he is.’

  Li said, ‘Let’s call him. What are we waiting for?’

  Paulo shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think we should. He’ll see the number’s unfamiliar. He might get spooked.’

  ‘Can we listen to what he’s saying?’ said Li.

  ‘Not without bugging equipment,’ said Hex. ‘But we don’t need to do anything fancy like that. He’s been making and receiving a lot of calls recently. It won’t be long before he pops up again.’

  Paulo thumped the grass emphatically. ‘And when he does we can follow him straight to Bina. I bet he’s not letting her out of his sight.’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Li. ‘We can’t go running after him. We’ll stick out like sore thumbs. Me, tiny and oriental; you enormous and Argentinian, Hex . . .’ She looked at Hex as if thinking of a way to sum up his appearance.

  Hex looked back at her. ‘Yes?’ he said sweetly.

  ‘I see what you’re saying,’ said Paulo. ‘We don’t look like anyone round here.’

  ‘Plus,’ said Li, ‘if he was in the clinic when we went there, or he’s been told what we look like . . .’

  ‘So that leaves me,’ said Hex. ‘The indefinable.’ He gave Li a pointed look.

  ‘I’m working on it,’ she replied.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Hex, ‘I hate to sound like a wuss, but this site is going to ask for passwords every ten minutes so I have to nurse the connection. I can’t run around after Trilok.’

  ‘Indefinable . . .’ Paulo was tapping his fingers slowly on the ground, as he often did when he was thinking. ‘Untouchable . . .’

  Hex snorted. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No,’ said Paulo. ‘Untouchable . . .’ He pointed to the people flowing through the market stalls. An untouchable squatted down at the corner, watching for tourists. ‘Look at him. Nobody sees him. Nobody even looks at him. I bet if one of us dresses up as an untouchable, nobody will even notice us. We can be invisible.’

  ‘Brilliant, Sherlock,’ said Hex. ‘Where are you going to get your outfit?’

  Paulo looked at Li. ‘Shall we do some more shopping?’

  ‘We’ll get a map too,’ said Li. ‘We must be very familiar with the streets. The moment Trilok’s mobile becomes active, we need to know where to find him.’

  18

  TESTS

  Amber was in a corridor. It was empty, but there were voices at the other end. She passed a bathroom, then a room with easy chairs and a television. She went in and switched it on: the noise would help cover any sounds she made as she moved around. There were bars on the windows, just as Mootama had described. It was definitely the safe house.

  Was Bina here?

  Amber came to a closed door. She listened. All quiet. Did she dare go in? Taking a deep breath, she turned the handle and pushed the door.

  It was a dormitory: six beds were arranged along the wall. A man lay on one of them, reading. He looked up at Amber.

  Amber had to bluff it out, pretend she was meant to be there. After all, there would hardly be intruders with that security lock on the door. ‘Sorry. Wrong room.’

  ‘Women’s room is next door,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’ Amber retreated quickly.

  The next room was another bathroom and then there was one more room at the end. No medical facilities, then; it was just residential. All the testing must be done out in the clinic. As Amber approached the room at the end she heard laughter. Female laughter.

  She opened the door. Four faces looked round at her. Amber scanned them briefly, but none of them was Bina.

  They were all older – mid-twenties to mid-thirties – and skinny like the people from Nayla. Villagers who were selling their kidneys.

  ‘Come in, dear,’ said a woman in an orange sari with curly pink patterns. ‘No need to hide. Come and join us.’

  ‘Oh, how lovely,’ said a woman in an emerald-green sari. ‘A young one!’ She looked at her companions. ‘Isn’t she a lovely girl?’ She patted the bed next to where she was sitting.

  Amber felt herself blush. She wasn’t used to effusive behaviour. Her parents hadn’t been like that and it just made her uncomfortable. But she went and sat down, and called up the photo of Bina on her mobile.

  ‘I’m looking for my friend. Have you seen her?’ She passed the phone to the woman next to her, who wore a splendid sari with red and navy patterns.

  ‘Her friend’s in here too!’ exclaimed the emerald woman.

  Amber’s heart leaped. ‘Have you seen her?’

  The woman in the red sari was shaking her head. ‘No, dear, I haven’t. But I was having my tests this morning, so I may have missed her.’ She handed the phone to the next woman, in the orange sari.

  ‘Lovely girl. No, I haven’t seen her, and I’ve been here since yesterday.’

  She passed the phone to the next woman, the one in emerald green, who looked at the picture and handed it back to Amber. ‘She’s very pretty, your friend. Who could forget if they’d seen her!’ The woman looked intently into her eyes. ‘Don’t worry. We will be your friends while you’re here!’

  Amber realized they thought she was asking about Bina because she was apprehensive and wanted moral support.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the woman in red. ‘We’ll look after you until your friend arrives!’ The emerald woman’s enthusiasm seemed to be catching.

  ‘It’s lovely in here,’ said the woman in orange, looking at Amber earnestly. It seemed her arrival had unleashed an outburst of mothering instinct. ‘I am being taken good care of. They will only operate if I can afford to lose a kidney. You have no need to worry.’

  ‘I wish I had done this years ago!’ chuckled the woman in emerald green. ‘They bring us our meals. We don’t have to do any cleaning. I haven’t had to fetch water. There is electricity in every room and a television. I wish I had three kidneys to sell!’

  There was more laughter. Amber could hardly believe these women were preparing for a major operation. The atmosphere was more
like a sleepover party. Had they been drugged so that they wouldn’t feel anxious? It would be easy to slip them some Valium to make them easygoing and co-operative. At least they weren’t hugging her; Indians generally weren’t very touchy-feely, so she would probably be safe.

  ‘And don’t worry about your friend,’ said the woman in orange. ‘She may already have gone to the hospital. In which case it’s all good news because soon she will have her money!’

  Amber didn’t find this comforting at all, but she believed them when they said they hadn’t seen Bina. They had no reason to hide anything. They were here to sell a kidney and go.

  A nurse put her head round the door. ‘Oh there you are, Amber.’ She sounded irritated. ‘Have they shown you into here already? We’ve been looking for you. If you come with me, we’re ready to do your tests now.’

  ‘Go on, girl,’ said the woman in the emerald sari. ‘You’ll be fine. It’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘We’ll see you later,’ said the woman in orange. They waved at her, smiling broadly as she left.

  The nurse led Amber out into the corridor. ‘They shouldn’t have shown you in here yet. You’re supposed to have tests first.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Amber. She had nothing to be sorry about, but hoped that if she sounded contrite, the nurse wouldn’t ask who had shown her in.

  As they passed the common room and the bathroom, Amber had a quick look in each. Both rooms were empty. That settled it. She had looked everywhere in the safe house and clinic and Bina wasn’t there.

  The nurse took Amber back through the security door, through the dialysis room, and into another room that looked out onto a scruffy yard at the back of the building. There were no bars on the windows; indeed, this window was wide open, although it didn’t seem to help the ventilation. Bina couldn’t be on the premises – they would certainly have kept her in the section of the building that had bars.

  The room looked like a doctor’s surgery, with the usual equipment Amber was used to from her checkups in the US. A blood pressure monitor sat on the desk alongside a stethoscope; there was a trolley with sterilized instruments, a yellow box for used needles.

  ‘Sit down on that couch,’ said the nurse. Amber did as she was told.

  The nurse went over to the trolley and Amber heard wrappers being torn open. She saw a needle being fitted onto the end of a syringe.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ said Amber.

  ‘We’ll start by taking your blood. This will tell us which of the patients on our transplant list you match.’

  Automatically Amber put out her left arm. And then she remembered what the man on the dialysis machine had told her. He had had test after test, paying every time, in the hope of finding somebody who was a match. What if they found she was a match for him? To disappoint him would be so cruel. Or she might match someone else. Even if she matched no one, someone would pay for this test. Someone who couldn’t afford another wasted result.

  The nurse came towards her, the needle glinting in her hand. ‘I’ll have to take quite a bit as there are a number of people to test you against . . .’

  Amber saw the syringe. It was huge. She stood up and put on an expression of panic. ‘No.’

  The nurse glared at her. ‘It’s only a needle. You’re not scared, are you?’

  For a moment Amber found the situation funny. Thank goodness she hadn’t told any of them she was a diabetic. They’d never believe that someone who had to inject herself had a phobia about them. ‘If you don’t mind,’ said Amber, ‘I need to think about it . . .’ She made to move towards the door.

  The nurse blocked her way. ‘Just sit down and it will all be over.’

  Amber backed away towards the window.

  The nurse advanced, more angry now. ‘I said, sit down!’

  Amber’s hands touched the sill. In a flash she had vaulted out. She landed on hard earth, rolled to her feet and was already running. There was an iron gate leading onto the street. The nurse put her head through the window and shouted something, but Amber sprinted for the gate and was out in moments. She leaned against the wall getting her breath, and called Alex.

  19

  CRUEL CITY

  On the edge of the road, next to the park, a tattered figure sat hunched like a shivering animal. He wore stained, striped rags that looked like an old set of pyjamas. His face was greasy and stained and his head was swathed in a filthy turban. People going into and out of the park stepped over him without noticing.

  Li and Hex were looking at him, though. It was Paulo. Once they’d bought some rags, he’d got into his costume immediately. Now he sat on the pavement begging, while they sat on the parched grass in the park, enjoying a snack of bhajis. Li had just taken an update call from Alex. They’d been excited about his lead but they all agreed they couldn’t pin all their hopes on Bina being there. So Hex kept watching for Trilok’s next phone call.

  ‘Why is it,’ said Hex, ‘that Paulo makes such a good rancid, stinking old devil?’ On a previous mission in Ecuador he had had to impersonate a street urchin, and had done it so convincingly even his friends were fooled.

  Li shook her head. ‘Maybe this is what he’s like when he’s out with the cowboys on the range. We’re just seeing the real Paulo.’

  Hex whistled through his teeth. ‘The guy must have no sense of smell. And to think you found someone actually selling those old things. They probably can’t believe their luck.’

  Li grimaced. ‘It looked like somebody had died in them.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Hex urgently. ‘Our man’s gone live.’ He touched a key on his palmtop. ‘Yes, there he is.’ He leaned over the map that Li had spread out on the ground. ‘Right here. Two streets away.’

  He and Li were immediately on their feet, walking towards Paulo.

  Paulo saw them approach. This was the signal. As they got close, he heard Li say ‘Mount Road’ to Hex. Neither she nor Hex looked down at him as they walked past. They were minimizing the amount of contact between them. It was very unlikely anyone linked to Trilok was watching but it would be stupid to take a risk.

  Paulo got up. He had studied the map and committed it to memory. Like a cabbie, he now knew the quickest route to all the local streets. He had to catch up with Trilok immediately, as he wouldn’t get any more clues. If Trilok was in a rickshaw or a car, he might be away in seconds.

  Mount Road was three minutes’ walk away. Paulo shuffled along to a long, dank-looking alleyway. When he was sure no one was looking, he sprinted like the wind. Li had made him swap his trainers for a scrappy pair of sandals and they weren’t easy to run in. They flapped noisily with each footfall, the sound echoing off the narrow walls. A gutter ran along one edge and smells wafted out of doorways, none of them pleasant. Paulo concentrated on the light at the other end of the alley.

  A silhouette stepped out of one of the doorways. It stood like a menacing black shadow against the oblong of daylight, a knife in one hand.

  Dios, thought Paulo. He stopped and sized up the guy. The clothes weren’t much better than the ones Paulo was wearing. Well, that explained why he was prepared to rob an untouchable.

  The man came towards Paulo and babbled at him in Hindi. His teeth were large and glinted like broken stones in the light that slanted into the alley. The knife gleamed dully.

  Paulo reached inside his robe and brought out his wallet.

  The man stared at it and snatched it from Paulo’s hand. He probably thought Paulo had stolen it himself. He flipped it open. Inside was Paulo’s ID, with his photo. The man looked at it, glanced at Paulo and then back at the photo of the clean, grinning Paulo. His mouth dropped open.

  Paulo seized the moment. He kicked out at the man’s wrist, sending the knife straight up in the air. The weapon came down and both of them grabbed for it. Paulo found himself holding it by the handle. His assailant opened his hand in surprise and found a gash of blood across the palm, sliced by the blade.

  Paulo’s wallet was on th
e ground. He grabbed it and ran for the oblong of light.

  He emerged, the blood surging in his ears like thunder. This was Mount Road. Focus, he told himself. Where was Trilok? He might have gone by now. How long had that little detour taken? Maybe it was seconds. It felt like an hour.

  He still had the knife in his hand; he chucked it over a wall.

  Then he spotted Trilok. Having seen him in the village, he wasn’t likely to forget him. The kidney man was leaning against the wall of an apartment block, talking into his phone. Paulo squatted down on the pavement like the beggars he had seen, and waited. One foot stirred up a cloud of flies and he felt slime between his toes. He had stepped in a cow pat. Oh well – that would only make the disguise more authentic.

  Trilok finished his call and snapped the phone shut. He set off at an amble through the streets. Paulo got to his feet and followed slowly. He met Hex and Li coming out of a side street, and walked past without acknowledging them. He knew they were tracking him anyway.

  Paulo had never seen the kidney man’s face this close before. The man had big, fleshy features and wore a frown. Was that the face of a man worrying about a little Indian girl he was holding captive? Anyway, he wasn’t going to let him out of his sight.

  On the other side of town, Alex and Amber reached St Francis’s Hospital. It was modern, recently built, with palm trees in the forecourt that waved in the breeze as ambulances pulled up.

  ‘This is where that boy had his kidney taken out?’ said Amber.

  Alex nodded. ‘It’s a lot more swish than I was expecting.’

  A long limousine drew up and stopped outside the entrance. A uniformed chauffeur got out of the driver’s seat and opened the back door. A figure climbed out carefully, brushing the creases out of a linen suit. On his wrist was a large gold watch. He straightened up and began to walk slowly towards the doors.

  Amber remembered the women in the safe house; the patients at the clinic. She muttered to Alex, ‘It looks like the clientele’s a bit different here from downtown.’