It was the British resort-developer, Henry Nash. With his Amsterdam-delivered visa he passed effortlessly through customs and immigration and took a taxi into town. It would have been tempting to book in at the Torarica, far and away the best in town. But he might have met real Britishers there, so he went to the Krasnopolsky on the Dominiestraat.
His room was top floor, with a balcony facing east. The sun was behind him when he went out for a look over the city. The extra height gave a hint of breeze to make the dusk bearable. Far to the east, seventy miles away and over the river, the jungles of San Martin were waiting.
PART THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Jungle
It was the American diplomat, Ronald Proctor, who leased the car. It was not even from an established agency but from a private seller advertising in the local paper.
The Cherokee was second-hand but in good repair, and with a bit of work and a thorough service, which its US-army-trained new owner intended to give it, it would do what it had to.
The deal he made the vendor was simple and sweet. He would pay ten thousand dollars in cash. He would only need the vehicle for a month, until his own 4x4 came through from the States. If he returned it absolutely intact in thirty days, the vendor would take it back and reimburse five thousand dollars.
The seller was looking at an effort-free five thousand dollars in a month. Given that the man facing him was a charming American diplomat, and the Cherokee might come back in thirty days, it seemed foolish to go through all the trouble of changing the documents. Why alert the taxman?
Proctor also rented the lock-up garage and store shed behind the flower and produce market. Finally he went to the docks and signed for his single crate, which went into the garage to be carefully unpacked and repacked in two canvas kitbags. Then Ronald Proctor simply ceased to exist.
In Washington, Paul Devereaux was gnawed by anxiety and curiosity as the days dragged by. Where was this man? Had he used his visa and entered Surinam? Was he on his way?
The easy way to indulge the temptation would be to ask the Surinam authorities direct, via the US embassy on Redmondstraat. But that would trigger Surinamese curiosity. They would want to know why. They would pick him up themselves and start asking questions. The man called Avenger could arrange to be set free and start again. The Serb, already becoming paranoid at the thought of going to Peshawar, could panic and call the deal off. So Devereaux paced and prowled and waited.
Down in Paramaribo the tiny consulate of San Martin had been tipped off by Colonel Moreno that an American pretending to be a collector of butterflies might apply for a visa. It was to be granted immediately, and he was to be informed at once.
But no one called Medvers Watson appeared. The man they sought was sitting at a terrace café in the middle of Parbo with his last purchases in a sack beside him. It was 24 August.
What he had bought had come from the town’s only camping and hunting shop, the Tackle Box on Zwarten Hovenbrug Street. As the London businessman Mr Henry Nash he had brought almost nothing that would be useful across the border. But with the contents of the diplomat’s crate and what he had acquired that morning, he could think of nothing he might be missing. So he tilted back his Parbo beer and enjoyed the last he was going to have for some time.
Those who waited were rewarded on the morning of the 25th. The queue at the river crossing was, as ever, slow, and the mosquitoes, as ever, dense. Those crossing were almost entirely locals, with pedal bikes, motorcycles and rusty pickups, all loaded with produce.
There was only one smart car in the queue on the Surinam side, a black Cherokee, with a white man at the wheel. He wore a creased seersucker jacket in cream, off-white Panama hat and heavy-rimmed glasses. Like the others he sat and swatted, then moved a few yards forwards as the chain ferry took on a fresh cargo and cranked back across the Commini.
After an hour he was at last on the flat iron deck of the ferry, handbrake on, able to step down and watch the river. On the San Martin side he joined the queue of six cars awaiting clearance.
The San Martin checkpoint was tighter and there seemed to be a tension among the dozen guards who milled around. The road was blocked by a striped pole laid over two recently added oil drums weighted with concrete.
In the shed to one side, an immigration officer studied all papers, his head visible through the window. The Surinamese, here to visit relatives or buy produce to sell back in Parbo, must have wondered why, but patience has never been rationed in the Third World, nor information a glut. They sat and waited again. It was almost dusk when the Cherokee rolled to the barrier. A soldier flicked his fingers for the needed passport, took it from the American and handed it through the window.
The off-road driver seemed nervous. He sweated in rivers. He made no eye contact, but stared ahead. From time to time he glanced sideways through the booth window. It was during one of these glances that he saw the immigration officer start violently and grab his phone. That was when the traveller with the wispy goatee beard panicked.
The engine suddenly roared, the clutch was let in. The heavy black 4x4 threw itself forward, knocked a soldier flying with the wing-mirror, tossed the striped pole in the air and burst through, swerving crazily round the trucks ahead and charging off into the dusk.
Behind the Cherokee there was chaos. Part of the flying pole had whacked the army officer in the face. The immigration official came shouting out of his booth waving an American passport in the name of Professor Medvers Watson.
Two of Colonel Moreno’s secret police goons, who had been standing behind the immigration officer in the shed, came running out with handguns drawn. One went back and began to gabble down the phone lines to the capital forty miles east.
Galvanized by the army officer clutching his broken nose, the dozen soldiers piled into the olive-drab truck and set off in pursuit. The secret policemen ran to their own blue Land Rover and did the same. But the Cherokee was round two corners and gone.
In Langley, Kevin McBride saw the flickering bulb flash on the desk phone that only linked him to the office of Colonel Moreno in San Martin City.
He took the call, listened carefully, noted what was said, asked a few questions and noted again. Then he went to see Paul Devereaux.
‘They’ve got him,’ he said.
‘In custody?’
‘Almost. He tried to come in as I thought, over the river from Surinam. He must have spotted the sudden interest in his passport, or the guards made too much of a fuss. Whatever, he smashed down the barrier and roared off. Colonel Moreno says there is nowhere for him to go. Jungle both sides, patrols on the roads. He says they’ll have him by morning.’