LITMIR.BIZ

      60

      The deafening noise of the propellers increased as a couple of thousand horse power fed into the Double Wasp engine on the right wing, slewing it round until the rear cargo hatch came to rest in line with the warehouse door.

      Kathryn watched men in red overalls scamper forward and jam wooden chocks beneath the oversized wheels of the C-123 light cargo plane which they’d picked up for the princely sum of one dollar from the Brazilian Air Force on the understanding that the charity had to make it airworthy and ship it off the military airbase within thirty days or it would be used for target practice. It had been in such a bad state they only just made it, but it had clocked up over twenty thousand flying hours since.

      The pitch of the engines fell and the watery mist whipped up by them began to clear as the rear hatch lowered. Kathryn marched across the wet tarmac, followed by Becky the intern and a customs officer who held his cap in place with one hand and a clipboard in the other. Kathryn had brought Becky so she could check everything in the tightly packed cargo hold against the manifest, and so that her eager prettiness would distract the customs officer and the rest of the ground crew while the most precious and unregistered part of the load was discreetly removed.

      Kathryn had seen her father many times over the past few years but never in Ruin. It was too dangerous, even after all this time. Instead she always flew to him in Rio or they met somewhere else to spend a bit of time together, discuss the charity’s latest projects, fulminate on whatever injustices were currently being visited upon the planet, and drink good whisky.

      She reached the top of the ramp and peered at the large corporate logo stencilled on the thin aluminium skin of the first master pallet. The majority of this particular shipment was high-nitrate fertilizer, a gift from a large petrochemical company to salve its conscience for all the bad it did to the world. Kathryn was always conflicted by accepting such donations, but figured the people who were ultimately going to benefit from them didn’t care about the moral high ground; the only ground that mattered to them was the sort they could grow food on.

      In a couple of days this fertilizer would be mingling with the sterile dust surrounding a village in the Sudan – if the Sudanese government gave them permission to fly it in, and if Gabriel managed to persuade the local warlords not to steal it all and turn it into bombs. He’d been making good progress before she’d called him back home. Now he’d have to start all over again.

      Kathryn glanced to her side.

      Becky and the customs officer were already checking the serial numbers on the crates. Beyond them she saw two of the three-man crew walk round the wing and head towards the rear of the plane. It required an effort of will not to look directly at them. Instead she waited for them to clear her peripheral vision before turning to make her way back down the loading ramp. ‘I’ll go tell the forklift driver he can come and make a start,’ she called over her shoulder.

      ‘Thanks,’ the customs officer said, without looking round.

      Kathryn headed to the warehouse. It was almost three-quarters full of packing cases and master pallets arranged in evenly spaced lines. Ilker was rearranging some crates containing water-filtration kits. She pointed in the direction of the plane and he flicked her a thumbs-up, spun the forklift and headed for the open door. Kathryn continued down one of the passageways between the crates and into the office at the back of the warehouse.

      One of the crewmen was helping himself to coffee from a jug that sat beneath the TV on the far wall. He turned and looked at her, his deeply tanned face already wrinkling into a huge smile. ‘Flight officer Miguel Ramirez at your service,’ he said, tapping the ID badge on his flight suit.

      Kathryn leapt across the room, nearly knocking him over in her desperation to give him a hug. Despite her tiredness, her concerns about the present, the traumas of the day just gone, and the weight of history that hung over the ones to follow, she forgot everything for a moment and just held him.

      After ninety years in exile, Oscar de la Cruz had come home.

      They held each other tightly until Kathryn’s phone chimed in her pocket, breaking the spell. She pulled back, kissed her father on both cheeks then took it from her pocket. Oscar watched her face clench into a frown as she read the email that had been routed to it.

      ‘Gabriel?’

      Kathryn shook her head. ‘The girl. She’s at the police station.’

      ‘Who’s the source?’

      ‘Someone inside the Central District building.’

      ‘Reliable?’

      ‘Accurate.’

      Oscar shook his head. ‘Not the same thing.’

      Kathryn shrugged. ‘He delivers when required and the information is always good.’

      ‘And what information has this source given us in the past?’

      ‘Police files covering every Church-related investigation in the past three years. We heard about him through a press contact.’

      ‘So I assume he does not give us this information for the love of our cause?’

      ‘No. He gives us this information for money.’

      She looked down at her phone, re-reading the message, registering the time it had arrived, feeling angry with herself that she hadn’t seen it before. She cleared the screen and pressed a button to speed-dial a number. She wondered if the source had sent her the information before or after the Citadel. It didn’t really matter. By now the people who’d tried to abduct the girl at the airport would undoubtedly have the same information she did and would already be re-grouping.

      The dialling sequence ended.

      Somewhere in Ruin another phone started to ring.