Hurricane Gold

  James watched as one of the Indians calmly raised his rifle and fired a single shot. Then Manny was silent.

  The men spoke quietly to each other and the shooter shook his head.

  James stayed down, hoping they hadn’t seen him, trying to flatten himself on the rocks, and ignore the way they cut into his bare flesh.

  Then he felt something cold and hard press into the back of his neck and a soft voice said, ‘Don’ move, or I kill you.’

  24

  Pinaud Elixir

  El Huracán was sitting at the huge mahogany table in his dining room taking his morning coffee. The windows to the balcony were open and the thin white curtains were flapping in a cool ocean breeze. The sun was riding high across a blue sky decorated with puffy clouds. All the scents of the island drifted in, the smell of the trees and the rotting vegetation in the jungle, the sharp tang of the sea, and from closer to hand the smell of breakfast being prepared. He himself had been up for hours, but many of his ‘guests’ slept in and ate their breakfast late.

  He was looking forward to spring, when the island would come alive with bright flowers and fruit and heavy scents. He knew that it would be upon them all too soon. Time passed quickly now. There was no escaping the fact that he was growing old.

  There came a knock and presently one of his men put his face round the door.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘We found the others.’

  ‘Bring them in.’

  ‘There is only one. A boy. We had to shoot the man.’

  El Huracán grunted and nodded. Then he sat back in his chair, stretched his legs out under the table and lit a cigar.

  The boy they brought in was tall with black hair falling untidily over his forehead. His skin was tanned from the sun and covered in cuts and bruises and insect bites. He was half-naked and, but for his cold, grey-blue eyes, El Huracán would have taken him for a wild boy, a savage from the jungle.

  Those eyes were strong and bright and sharp, and seemed to say that, despite what had happened to the outside of him, inside the boy was unchanged. His heart beat strongly.

  El Huracán smiled. He liked the boy.

  ‘Bring him something to cover himself with,’ he said, and one of his men hurried out. ‘Sit down’ he went on.

  Warily, the boy sat at the table, ever watchful and alert, like a jaguar.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, and the boy nodded. El Huracán gave a sign to another of his men and he too slipped quickly out of the room.

  El Huracán sat there watching the boy and smoking his cigar. For his part, the boy watched him back.

  ‘I have many questions,’ said El Huracán. ‘But they can keep until after you have eaten. I will ask one thing, though. Did you mean to come to Lagrimas Negras, and do you know what this island is?’

  The boy nodded ‘yes’ to both questions without hesitation.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ asked El Huracán.

  This time the boy shook his head.

  ‘I am the ruler here. This is my island. They call me El Huracán.’

  ‘The Hurricane?’ said the boy, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes. And just like a real hurricane you cannot argue with me. I am king, chancellor, judge, jury and executioner. There is no law but mine. My word is absolute. I was named after a Mayan god – Hurakan – the god of wind and storms. And here I am God.’

  The first of the men returned with a brightly coloured, native blanket. He moved silently to the boy and draped it over his shoulders. The boy wrapped it closer about himself. A minute later a tray of food and drink was brought in, with bread and cold meat, cheese, fruit, nuts, a glass of orange juice and a jug of iced water.

  El Huracán watched as the boy greedily set to, working his way methodically through the food until all the plates were empty.

  ‘So,’ said El Huracán when he had done, ‘why are you here?’

  The boy straightened in his chair and pushed back from the table.

  ‘I followed someone,’ he said.

  ‘Ah,’ said El Huracán.

  ‘Mrs Glass,’ said the boy. ‘Mrs Theda Glass.’

  ‘And what did you mean to do with the señora when you caught up with her?’

  ‘She has something that doesn’t belong to her.’

  ‘You were taking a great risk coming here.’

  ‘I know.’

  El Huracán let out a great puff of blue smoke. ‘You should know that I have several rules,’ he said.

  The boy looked at him coolly, waiting, not afraid, but listening closely.

  ‘I have a strict rule that only people with money can stay on my island,’ said El Huracán. ‘By the look of you, I would say that you have nothing.’

  The boy shrugged. ‘Not a single peso,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Normally I would send you back. Hand you over to the police, or the army, or whoever you were running from.’

  ‘I’m not running from anyone,’ said the boy. ‘I told you – I came here to find Mrs Glass. That’s all.’

  ‘You present me with a problem,’ said El Huracán. ‘I have never had anyone like you turn up here before. You are not a policeman. You are too young. So, what are you?’

  ‘I’m just a boy.’

  El Huracán laughed quietly. ‘I can see for myself that you are not just any boy,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you who you are. Your name is James Bond. You tricked Señora Glass into thinking that you were a Mexican pickpocket so that you could try to rescue two American children that she had kidnapped.’

  ‘You know a lot about me,’ said James.

  ‘It is my job to know everything,’ said El Huracán.

  ‘So she’s here then?’ said James.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mrs Glass. She must have told you all that. And I suppose she’s already sold you the stolen naval documents.’

  El Huracán looked at him without saying anything.

  This all felt slightly unreal to James. He had had no clear idea of what to expect on the island, but he could never have imagined this. The place felt more like an expensive hotel resort than a criminals’ hideout.

  And he had certainly not been expecting to meet this elegant, clever man, who looked half Mexican Indian, half African and wholly unlike anyone he had ever met before. There was a coldness, a stillness and a watchfulness about him that made him seem more reptile than human.

  James remembered the big iguana he had shot, how it had looked like something unimaginably ancient and alien. He could have looked into its shiny black eyes for all eternity and still not known anything about what was going on inside its mind, or its chilly heart.

  This man was the same. His name, El Huracán, put one in mind of raging destructive chaos. But his eye was the eye of the storm. Dark and deceptively calm.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ said James.

  El Huracán took a sip of coffee, delicately wiped his mouth on a crisp white napkin, and nodded.

  ‘The girl who was with me?’ said James. ‘Precious Stone? Do you know where she is?’

  El Huracán clicked his fingers and said something to one of his men, who bowed and backed out of the room. ‘She arrived this morning,’ he said. ‘Wandered into the square looking like a drowned rat. She was asking for help, saying her friend was unconscious on the beach with a crazy man, but she would tell us nothing more, not who she was, where she had come from, or what she might be doing here. Now I know.’

  ‘Where is she?’ said James. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Do not worry yourself, James,’ said El Huracán. ‘She is safe.’

  A moment later there was a happy cry from across the room, and there was Precious, wearing a simple peasant dress. She ran across the polished marble floor and threw her arms around James.

  James hugged her back.

  ‘How touching,’ said El Huracán. ‘So you are Precious Stone? I should have realised.’

  Precious looked round at him, frowni
ng.

  ‘Mrs Glass is here,’ said James. ‘She’s told him everything.’

  ‘She told me a story that she thought had ended,’ said El Huracán. ‘It seems it is far from over. It seems there is one last chapter to tell.’

  ‘What are you going to do with us?’ asked Precious.

  ‘That is enough talk for now,’ said El Huracán, clapping his hands. ‘My men will take you to your rooms. They will bring you clean clothes. You will bathe and my doctors will see to you. Then you must rest. I will see you later and we can talk some more. We will have a civilised dinner and I will tell you what I have decided to do. Now, run along.’

  The next few hours passed in something of a blur. James and Precious were taken to adjoining rooms in one of the blocks off the main plaza, with a shared balcony and views out towards the sea.

  James took a scalding hot shower, ignoring how much it stung, and scrubbed his sore and aching body with coarse soap. It felt so good to be clean again. He washed his hair with a gloriously rich shampoo, and was delighted to see rivulets of filthy grey foam snaking down his body into the drain. He noticed the label on the shampoo, Pinaud Elixir, and promised himself that he would only ever use that brand from now on in memory of the best shower he had ever had. Then, although he was by now spotlessly clean, he climbed into the bath, and lay stretched out flat in it until the water had grown nearly cold.

  At last, smelling of roses, wrapped in a huge, soft dressing gown, and feeling heavy and sleepy, he was taken to the medical block, where a doctor and two nurses took his temperature, his pulse and his blood pressure. They felt his bones and dressed his cuts and went over every inch of him, checking that he was all right.

  ‘What’s this?’ the doctor asked, feeling a bump on James’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s just an insect bite that won’t clear up,’ said James. ‘I’ve had it for days. It’s very painful.’

  ‘As if some creature were chewing away at your flesh under the skin?’ said the doctor.

  ‘Yes,’ said James. ‘Exactly like that.’

  ‘It is Dermatobia Hominis,’ said the doctor, wrinkling his nose.

  ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’ asked James.

  ‘A nasty little bug called the botfly, or beef fly,’ the doctor explained. ‘The adult captures a mosquito and lays an egg on its proboscis. When the mosquito next takes a feed it injects the egg under the skin of its victim. A maggot hatches out of the egg and feeds on the muscle tissue of its host.’

  ‘You’re telling me I’ve got a maggot growing in my shoulder?’ said James.

  ‘Yes,’ said the doctor, ‘and another one on your back. Don’t worry, it is painful, as the maggots are covered in spines, but it is not serious. Here…’

  James watched as the doctor taped a piece of raw bacon over the lump.

  ‘What’s that for?’ he asked.

  ‘We have to lure him out,’ said the doctor. ‘The maggot breathes through a tube that he sticks through your skin. This way, he will eat his way up out of his hidey-hole into the bacon, but the tape will suffocate him. In a few days we can remove the tape and the bacon and squeeze the little monster out like toothpaste.’

  Feeling slightly sick, James was returned to his room where he settled down on to his bed. The last thing he heard before he fell asleep was the key turning in the lock of his bedroom door.

  This may feel like a hotel, he thought to himself as he drifted into unconsciousness, but I must never forget that it is nothing of the sort.

  ‘What happened to you this morning?’ James asked.

  ‘You knocked yourself out trying to get me past the reef,’ said Precious.

  The two of them were sitting out on their shared balcony in big wicker armchairs looking at the view and chatting.

  ‘Then we were washed over by a big wave,’ Precious went on. ‘I managed to get you to the beach, but I couldn’t wake you. I was so worried. It was still dark. Manny was already there. He must have found an easier way to get ashore. He was rambling, said he would take care of me. I wanted to go for help, but he wouldn’t let me. In the end I had to pretend to go to sleep and then sneak off when he wasn’t looking.’

  ‘I thought he’d done something to you,’ said James. ‘I was worried.’

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ said Precious.

  James couldn’t stop himself from grinning. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’m beginning to think you can.’

  ‘I’ve been a fool, though,’ said Precious angrily. ‘A stupid little fool. What did I think we were going to do when we got here? I didn’t think. We had no plan. My head was too full of revenge.’

  ‘Don’t give up now,’ said James. ‘We’ll find a way.’

  James had woken for a late lunch, which he’d eaten with Precious. They had both been given fresh clothes; simple white Mexican outfits, but clean and comfortable. Precious had put a flower behind her ear, and James thought once again how much better she looked without all her make-up and her fancy Hollywood dresses and her hair tortured into an elaborate and unnatural style.

  As they chatted the light slowly faded from the sky, which was streaked with purple and gold. Twinkling lights started coming on all over the island. Insects struck up their music. The air was warm and still. It was like a dream. For the first time in a long while, they felt safe and relaxed. Which was odd considering that they were in a haven for criminals, and somewhere out there, El Huracán was deciding their fate. No matter how friendly and welcoming he appeared to be, James understood that he could kill him without a second thought and nobody in the outside world would ever know a thing about it.

  At last there came the knock on the door that they had been both longing for and dreading. It was time for dinner. Time to find out what El Huracán had in store for them.

  James went indoors and quickly tried to brush his hair into shape. As usual he failed. He studied the face in the mirror. He looked thinner and older. He wondered if he would ever be able to adjust to life back at Eton.

  If he ever made it back to Eton.

  Strange to think of life going on there without him. All those boys asleep in their rooms, with nothing worse to worry about than winning a House cricket match or translating a few lines of Latin. Since his letter from Pritpal he’d had no contact with the school. He wasn’t to know that there was a growing pile of mail waiting for him at the central post office in Mexico City.

  Mail that he would never read.

  He left his room and marched across the plaza with Precious and their escort. Despite what he’d said to Precious earlier about not giving up hope, he couldn’t help feeling like a condemned man on his way to the scaffold.

  People were strolling in the plaza. They were mostly men, but there were a handful of women as well. James scanned their faces for a sight of Mrs Glass, but she was not among them.

  They were taken back to the dining room where James had first met El Huracán. They found the room deserted, but four places at the table were set for dinner, with heavy silver cutlery and crystal glasses. They sat down and waited, too anxious to talk to each other.

  James looked at the pictures on the walls. They were mostly framed plans and drawings of the island relating to its long history. There were some pieces of Mayan art, a couple of detailed maps, some old designs for the prison, architects’ drawings of El Huracán’s redevelopment and a row of documents concerning the slave trade.

  His attention strayed to the table and he noticed that Precious was staring at the other two place settings. He had wondered about them himself. One, he presumed, was for their host, El Huracán, but who was the other one for? And what might it mean for their future?

  Their questions were soon answered as El Huracán strolled in with Mrs Glass on his arm. She was wearing an expensive evening dress with matching jewellery and her hair was tied up in a silk turban with a diamond brooch pinned to the front of it.

  She was laughing and chatting breezily, but, when she saw whom she was going
to be dining with, the smile died on her lips.

  ‘Well, hello there,’ she said icily, as El Huracán escorted her to her seat.

  ‘Hello,’ said James.

  Precious said nothing. She had a face like thunder.

  ‘I believe you all know each other,’ said El Huracán. ‘We have a great deal to talk about, and I thought it was for the best if we did it face to face.’

  ‘I have nothing to say to her,’ hissed Precious.

  ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ said Mrs Glass with the hint of a mocking smile, ‘the feeling is entirely mutual.’

  ‘Please,’ said El Huracán, ‘I would ask you to leave all your guns at the door. This room is neutral territory. I won’t have any ill feeling in here. This is to be a civilised dinner.’

  He clicked his fingers and a servant poured chilled white wine for Mrs Glass.

  25

  A Civilised Dinner

  Fish soup was served and for a few minutes the four of them ate and talked with strained politeness. El Huracán asked if James and Precious were happy with their rooms, and how they had spent the day. He was interested in the gruesome details of the botfly maggots that James had picked up and told him how he had spent many years in the jungle when he was younger and was very familiar with the ‘hungry little devils’ as he called them.

  Suddenly Precious threw down her spoon.

  ‘I can’t stand it,’ she said. ‘How can we sit here and pretend that nothing has happened, when this woman has ruined my life? She killed all those people. She stole from my father. I can’t stand it a moment longer.’

  ‘Well, now,’ said El Huracán, turning to Mrs Glass with a polite smile wrinkling his ancient face. ‘What have you to say for yourself?’

  ‘I don’t have to defend my actions, here,’ said Mrs Glass haughtily. ‘There’s men a thousand times worse than me wandering around out there in the plaza, taking the evening air, without having to answer a lot of snotty accusations from a child. What kind of a place are you running here, Huracán? Letting kids like this in.’