Guatemala – Journey into Evil

‘That’s…’ Davies started to say, but Clarke had hung up. The SAS CO stood for a moment holding the dead receiver, then slammed it down with what he considered appropriate violence. Then he sat seething in his chair for several moments, staring out through the office window.

Across the frosty parade ground the last of the sunlight was silhouetting the distant peaks of the Black Mountains.

‘Bastard politicians,’ he eventually murmured, and picked up the phone again.

Having ascertained from the Duty Officer that ‘Razor’ Wilkinson was on twenty-four hours’ leave, the CO left the room for the second time in fifteen minutes, wishing that he hadn’t answered Clarke’s call. The American request wouldn’t have gone away, but at least he and Razor would have had one more evening in blissful ignorance of its existence. Though come to think of it, the bastard would probably have called him at home.

Davies climbed into his BMW, turned on the ignition and pressed in the cassette. Billie Holiday’s voice filled the car with its smoky sadness.

He drove out through the sentry post and started working his way through the rush-hour traffic towards his cottage on Hereford’s western outskirts. ‘Look on the bright side,’ he told himself. A couple of years ago he would have felt much less happy about sending Wilkinson into a situation like this one. The man had always been a fine soldier, as sharp as he was brave, but until recently his leadership potential had been undermined by a stubborn refusal to grow up emotionally. Bosnia – and the wife he had found there – had seen him come of age, and Razor now seemed as complete a soldier as the SAS had to offer.

So why, Davies asked himself bitterly, put him at risk for a bunch of psychotic generals? What possible British interest could be served by identifying a guerrilla leader for people whose only claim to fame was that they had invented the death squad?

In fact, the more he thought about it the angrier Davies became. A mission like this should be offered to someone, not simply ordered. This guerrilla leader posed no more threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom than Eric Cantona, and probably considerably less. And though Davies didn’t know much about Guatemala, he was willing to bet that anyone faced with choosing between Army and guerrillas on moral grounds wouldn’t have an easy time of it.

He gripped the wheel a little tighter, and wondered, for only about the third time in a military career which spanned nearly thirty years, whether he should refuse a direct order. It would make no difference to Razor – he would simply receive the order from someone else – but the gesture might be worthwhile. After all, he only had another three months in the CO’s chair – what could they do to him?

Davies sighed. Who was he kidding? They could make his life hell, and just when he was happier than he had been for years. All the cushy jobs and consultancies which a retired lieutenant-colonel could expect to be offered would just melt away. All he would ever hear would be the sound of doors closing in his face.

He turned off the main road and thought about Jean. Did he have the right to risk whatever future they might have together by making grand gestures?

She would expect nothing less of him, he decided.

But there was also Razor’s future to consider. He had almost ten years to go before retirement from active service at forty-five, and a refusal to accept this mission – always assuming the bastards didn’t go for a court martial – would certainly stop the lad’s career in its tracks.

Davies felt his temper rising again. The man was a national hero, for God’s sake, whether the nation knew it or not. He had been one of eight SAS men landed on the Argentine mainland during the Falklands War, and one of six who had returned alive. Between them the two four-man patrols had provided early warning of enemy air attacks which could otherwise have wrecked the San Carlos landings, and destroyed three Exocet missiles which might well have claimed three British ships and God knows how many lives.

There had never been any public recognition of their contribution, and now it seemed to Davies as if insult was being added to injury.

He guided the car down the swampy lane to his cottage. Once inside, he poured himself a generous malt whisky, put on Miles’s Porgy and Bess with the volume turned down low, and looked up Razor’s home number in his book.

It was Mrs Wilkinson who answered. Davies had first met Hajrija on the occasion of her arrival in Britain two years earlier, when she was accompanying an SAS team returning from their investigation of alleged renegade activities by a regimental comrade. The welcoming committee from the MoD had asked her what she was doing on British soil, and her future husband had told him that she wanted to see if England was ‘really full of pricks like you’.

Davies smiled inwardly at the memory as he asked to speak to Razor.

‘He’s in Birmingham,’ Hajrija told him. ‘Seeing his mother and his football team. The two great loves of his life,’ she added with a laugh.

Razor had always been close to his mother, Davies remembered. ‘Can you give me her number?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but he won’t be there. He’s meeting friends before the match.’

Hajrija’s English was almost as good as Razor’s, Davies thought. Maybe even better. ‘I’ll call his mother and leave a message,’ he said.

She gave him the number. ‘What’s it about?’ she asked with her usual directness.

‘Sorry, I can’t tell you,’ Davies said.

‘That doesn’t sound good.’

Davies didn’t deny it. ‘When is he due back?’

‘He’s driving back in the morning. I think he has a class at twelve.’

‘Thanks.’ He hung up, feeling worse for hearing the anxiety in Hajrija’s voice. He took a sip of malt, and punched out the Birmingham number she had given him.

The drive from Villa Park to the house his mother and stepfather had recently bought in Edgbaston took Razor Wilkinson about forty-five minutes. It was the first time he had seen Tottenham since November, and the first game they had lost since…November. Someone up there had obviously decided he was too damn happy these days. Bastard.

Razor pulled the car in behind his mum’s Escort and noticed with pleasure that the downstairs lights were still on. He let himself in, and found her watching the opening credits of Newsnight.

‘Jack’s gone to bed,’ she said. ‘He’s got an early start tomorrow.’

And he’s probably also being tactful, Razor thought. One of the things he liked most about his new stepfather was that the man understood how close the bond was between mother and son. Since Razor’s babyhood it had just been the two of them – the classic one-parent family of Tory demonology. And Razor had known a lot of kids with two parents who would have happily swapped them for the relationship he had with one.

He sat down and grinned at her.

‘They lost,’ she said.

‘Yeah, but they looked good.’

She smiled at him. ‘I remember you sulking for days when they lost.’

‘I was only about six.’

‘Twenty-six, more like. Hajrija phoned,’ she added. ‘Your boss wants to talk to you. Urgently.’

‘The CO?’

‘Lieutenant-Colonel Davies. He wanted you to call him as soon as you got in. The number’s by the phone in the hall.’

Razor left her with Peter Snow and walked out into the hall, wondering what could be so urgent that it couldn’t wait until the morning. If Hajrija had passed on the message, then she had to be all right.

He keyed the number, listened to eight rings, and was about to give up when a somewhat breathless Davies answered.

‘Wilkinson, boss,’ Razor replied. He could hear a woman’s voice in the background, which both surprised and vaguely pleased him. He had always felt an instinctive liking for Barney Davies, and it was fairly common knowledge around the Regimental mess that the man’s marriage break-up had turned him into a social recluse. Maybe he was coming out of his shell at last.

Or, then again, it might be a hooker. Or his mother.

‘Something’s come up,’ the CO was saying. ‘Remember the week you and Docherty spent in Guatemala in 1980?’

‘Christ, not very well. I’d only been badged a few months. Why, what’s happened?’

Davies told Razor exactly what Clarke had told him, and did his best to keep his doubts to himself. Before airing them, he wanted Razor’s reaction. ‘Would you be able to recognize this man?’ he asked, hoping the answer would be no.

‘Yeah, I don’t see why not. We spent quite a lot of time with him. Even taught him how to play Cheat.’

‘Did you like him?’

‘I wouldn’t say that. He was holding English hostages, and threatening to kill them.’ He paused. ‘Docherty sort of liked him, though,’ he said.

Davies grunted. ‘Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.’

‘What about Chris Martinson?’ Razor asked.

‘What about him?’ Davies asked, surprised.

‘He’s in Guatemala.’

‘He is? I had no idea. What the hell’s he doing there?’

‘There’s a town there where you can do Spanish courses and live with a family while you’re doing them. He’s hoping for a field job with one of the charities when his term ends, and he wanted to bring his Spanish up to scratch.’ Razor grunted. ‘And no doubt he’s doing some bird-watching while he’s there.’

‘How long has he been gone?’

‘Two weeks, two and a half…I’m not sure. I think he’s due back at the end of next week. He had a lot of leave piled up.’

‘Ah,’ Davies said, wondering how he could make use of the coincidence. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘sleep on this, and I’ll see you in my office when you get here in the morning.’

‘OK, boss,’ Razor said, wondering why the CO sounded so anxious. Maybe he’d forgotten to drop in at Boots on the way home to pick up some condoms. Or maybe he knew more about the situation in Guatemala than Razor did. Which wouldn’t be difficult. He couldn’t remember reading or seeing a single news item about the place in the past fifteen years.

He did remember the ruins where the negotiations had taken place. The two of them had driven there by jeep along the jungle road from Belize, stayed in a one-room inn which deserved a minus-five-star rating, and met with the terrorist leader on a square of grass surrounded by soaring stone temples. Tikal had been the name of the place. There had been monkeys in the trees, and huge red parrots zooming round in formation like dive-bombers, and those birds with the huge multicoloured beaks whose name he couldn’t remember. Around dawn the mist had lingered in the trees, and one morning he and Docherty had climbed to the top of one of the temples and seen the tops of the others sticking out through the roof of mist like strange islands in a strange ocean.

He was only twenty-one then, not much more than a kid, and he supposed he hadn’t really appreciated it.

‘You OK?’ his mother asked from the living-room doorway.

‘Yeah, fine. It’s just one more job that no one else can do.’

The moon had been gone for several minutes, and the luminous haze above the distant ridge-top was visibly fading. Tomás Xicay could almost feel the sighs of relief as true darkness enveloped the clearing where the compas were taking a ten-minute rest-stop. There was nothing but shadows around him, and the rustle of movement, and the whisper of conversation.

A hand came down on his shoulder. ‘Is everything OK, Tomás?’

‘Sí, Commandante,’ he told the Old Man. He was tireder than tired, but then which of them wasn’t? Except maybe the Old Man himself, who always seemed utterly indefatigable.

‘Only a few weeks,’ the Old Man said wryly, and moved on to encourage someone else.

Tomás smiled to himself in the dark. When, two months earlier, their current strategy had been agreed, that had been the crucial phrase. ‘We must get them on the run, if only for a few weeks,’ the Old Man had told the group leaders gathered that night on the hill outside Chichicastenango. ‘Show the Army and the Americans that we are still alive, and that they are not immune to retribution.’

What would happen after those ‘few weeks’ no one knew for certain, but there was no doubt that the sort of aggressive tactics they had decided on would have a limited lifespan, because surprise always carried a diminishing return, and without it they would always be outgunned. And they knew that the longer they pursued these tactics the more certain it was that most of them would be killed.

As the column got back underway Tomás found himself wondering whether the Old Man ever had any doubts, and if so who it was he shared them with. Tomás at least had his sister, though being the man of the family he naturally tried to shield her from his more negative feelings. On his return from the city she had been quick to notice that something had upset him, and he had told her it was just seeing their relations, and the family memories they brought back. That had been true, but it was not the whole truth. During his days in the city he had seen their struggle in a different light, and it had disturbed him.

This column of compas, striding through the night forest, seemed so full of strength and rightness, so powerful…but there were only forty-four of them, and only the trees and the darkness shielded them, and not 150 kilometres away two million people were getting on with their daily lives oblivious to the guerrillas’ very existence. In the city it was hard to believe that the Government could ever be toppled, that anything could shift the dead-weight of all that had gone before. It all seemed so permanent, so solid. Five hundred years’ worth. And when Tomás thought about how much his people had suffered to keep their world alive, he found it hard to imagine the world of the Ladinos and the Yankees proving any less stubborn.

Still, no matter how much he might doubt their eventual triumph, he never doubted the need to continue with their struggle. What, after all, was the alternative? To accept the way things were? The poem in Tomás’s pocket had the words for that: ‘…it seems to me that it cannot be, that in this way, we are going nowhere. To survive so has no glory.’

It had been the Old Man who had introduced him to the poetry of Pablo Neruda, a few months after their first meeting in the Mexican refugee camp. By then they had become firm friends – or perhaps more like father and son – but at the beginning Tomás had found it hard to take the older man seriously. His stories had seemed so outlandish, so much like comic-book adventures, that Tomás had taken him for the camp storyteller, more of an entertainer than a fighter.

In one story the Old Man had been taking some explosives to the guerrillas in the mountains, when he was stopped at an army roadblock. The soldiers were in a good mood that day, and only gave him a few bruises and burns before telling him he could continue on his way for no more than the price of his sack of beans. Unfortunately this was where he had hidden the explosives, so for an hour or more the Old Man pleaded and whined for the sack’s return. Eventually the lieutenant in charge of the roadblock grew so sick of this incessant lament that he hurled the bag at the Old Man and told him to get lost. His one great achievement in life, the storyteller told his listeners, was not to recoil at the prospect of an explosion as the sack landed at his feet.

And then there was his favourite escape story. He had been staying with comrades in Guatemala City, and alone in the house when the sound of vehicles approaching at high speed had alerted him. He had walked out into the front yard, picked up a broom and started sweeping, just as the lorries came hurtling down the street. They had screeched to a halt and disgorged running soldiers, all of whom raced straight past the Old Man into the house and started breaking furniture. The lieutenant in charge, who had been sent to arrest a notorious guerrilla leader, told him: ‘Get the fuck out of here, old man!’ He had accordingly shuffled off down the street.

Both these stories, Tomás had later found out, were true in every detail. The man he had taken for the camp storyteller was probably the most successful guerrilla leader in the history of Guatemala’s forty-year civil war. And if anyone could ‘get them on the run for a few weeks’, then it was him.

3

Barney Davies dropped Jean off at the hospital where she worked, and reached his office before eight, feeling torn between post-coital bliss and pre-mission anxiety. The smile which bubbled up from the one kept fading into the frown caused by the other.

The briefings on the current situation in Guatemala, which had already been faxed from Whitehall, didn’t do much for the smile. There was a lot of talk about that country’s return to civilian democracy, a few pious generalities about increased respect for human rights, and a lot of waffle about the importance of maintaining stability throughout Central America. According to the Foreign Office mandarins, the existence of a Mayan Indian rebellion in the Mexican state of Chiapas made it all the more imperative that the alleged progress towards an acceptable peace in Guatemala be sustained.

Reading between the lines, Davies was not convinced. After finishing the report he stared morosely out of the window for several minutes, and then ordered a second cup of tea and his first rock cake of the day.

One way of reducing the risks involved in sending Razor into the lion’s den, he had decided, was to send him in with company. The two men had got to know each other during the Bosnian business, and the mere fact that Razor had known that Chris Martinson was in Guatemala suggested at least a minimal level of continuing contact.

What the Guatemalans would think of it, Davies had no idea. Nor did he much care.

The tea arrived, together with a surprisingly friable rock cake.

The seventy-mile drive from Birmingham, most of it on motorways, took Razor about as many minutes. Driving was something he had always done well, and usually faster than this. But as Hajrija had tactfully pointed out, if all the other drivers had his judgement and reflexes then he could get away with driving like a lunatic. Until then…

He was getting older in more ways than one, Razor thought. Ten, fifteen years earlier, and the prospect of a mission like this would have had his body churning out adrenalin by the pint. His heart would have been leaping at the thought of getting away from Hereford and into action, away from routine and into the unknown. One voice in his brain was still singing this song, but only one, and it sounded more like an echo of his youth than a part of the man he now was. Other voices were dolefully reminding him that these overseas outings only ever looked good in prospect and retrospect, and were rarely anything other than terrifying at the time. This particular mission, so far as he could tell, looked about as inviting as a fortnight in Mogadishu. And on top of everything else he would be away from Hajrija for longer than he cared to think about.

By the time he reached Stirling Lines Razor was having trouble keeping in contact with the adventurer within.

Barney Davies greeted him with a wide smile and ordered cups of tea on the intercom. Razor glanced at the photograph frame on the CO’s desk, half expecting to find a new face inside it, but it still contained the familiar picture of his children. In the dim distant past another photograph had featured a wife.

‘What exactly do they want me to do?’ Razor asked, once the tea’s arrival had signalled the start of business.

‘As far as I know, simply identify the man who calls himself “El Espíritu”, or “The Ghost”.’ Presumably he’ll be in custody by then, though how they intend to catch him without knowing what he looks like seems a moot point.’

‘And then?’ Razor asked.

‘You come home.’

Razor grunted. ‘So we have no guarantee that…’ He paused. ‘Well, that they don’t just take him out and have him shot on my say-so.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought they’d want that sort of publicity,’ Davies said carefully.

Razor looked up, feeling the weight of doubt suddenly bearing down on him. ‘Which might just mean that they’ll wait until I’m on the plane home.’

Davies shrugged. ‘Maybe. The US State Department told the Foreign Office that if the Guatemalan Army had a hundred suspects they would probably shoot the lot, just to make sure of getting the right man.’

‘Bastards,’ Razor murmured, leaving Davies unsure whether he meant the State Department, Foreign Office or Guatemalan Army. Probably all three, he decided.

‘Look,’ the CO said, deciding to lay some cards on the table. ‘I don’t like this any more than you do. The Guatemalans are leaning on the Yanks, and they’re leaning on us, and it’s you who’ll pick up the tab…’

‘Come back, Docherty, all is forgiven,’ Razor muttered.

Davies uttered a silent prayer of thanks that Jamie Docherty was now living in Chile, and far removed from this mess. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that there’s two ways we can go with this. Either you can refuse outright to go…’ He looked Razor straight in the eye. ‘And if you do I’ll back you all the way.’

‘Thanks, boss, but…’

‘Or you can go out there and play it by ear. When it comes to the crunch you’ll have to decide for yourself whether you want to identify this man or not. By then you should have a much better idea of who and what you’re dealing with. On both sides of the fence.’

‘You mean, when the moment comes I just look through the guy with an innocent expression on my face,’ Razor said, amused. ‘I like it.’

‘Not necessarily. We know the man kidnapped a whole tour party, and God knows what else he’s got up to in the last fifteen years. He’s no innocent, whatever else he is.’

‘He must be pretty old by now,’ Razor said. ‘He looked like a pensioner in 1980.’

‘Anyway,’ Davies went on, ‘I’m not sending you out there alone.’

‘I was going…’

‘Chris Martinson can keep you company.’

‘Oh, great. But I was thinking about someone else. The wife has always wanted to see Guatemala for some reason, and…’

‘I don’t think…’

‘Only as a tourist, of course. She can do her own thing while I bond with the Guatemalan Army. She could maybe open the odd fête, if the Guatemalans ask her.’

Davies grinned in spite of himself. ‘I don’t know…’

‘Maybe it’s only an old Yugoslav custom, but she thinks men on diplomatic missions often take their wives along, with all expenses paid by the grateful hosts.’

The CO laughed. ‘I can’t wait to hear what the Foreign Office will say,’ he said, reaching for the phone.

It took five minutes for the secretary to locate Martin Clarke, but far less time for Davies to lose his temper. ‘If you are not prepared to ask the Guatemalans to accept a two-man team then you can go and look for help somewhere else,’ he told Clarke. ‘I am not prepared to send a single soldier, no matter how experienced, into a potential combat situation without any reliable backup.’

‘I am not interested in debating the issue,’ Clarke said.

‘Then just get on with arranging what I asked for,’ Davies said, and slammed down the phone.

Razor raised his eyebrows.

‘He’ll call back in a few minutes,’ Davies said, with a confidence which he only half felt. It was kind of exhilarating, though, telling one of Her Majesty’s Ministers where to get off.

And it worked. Clarke was back on the line in less than five minutes, sounding chagrined but humble. The Guatemalans didn’t quite understand the necessity, he said, but they were happy to provide hospitality for as many Britons as came.

‘Good,’ Davies said. ‘Please inform them that Sergeant Wilkinson will also be bringing his wife, who is eager to visit their beautiful country. They will need accommodation, and so will Sergeant Martinson. He is already in Guatemala, in Antigua.’ He read out the address. ‘If the relevant authorities can liaise with Martinson, he can meet the Wilkinsons at the airport on Sunday. Oh, and we’ll need a ticket for Mrs Wilkinson on the same flight as her husband.’