Angels of Vengeance: The Disappearance Novel 3 by John Birmingham Page B

commander, a deputy and four other men. Given the air of neglect, the sloppiness and general dereliction of duty that seemed to characterise ‘Facility 183’, Caitlin did not imagine the commander to be a bright and shining star of the regime. It was unlikely he’d have adequate security in place, relying instead on the fearsome reputation of Roberto’s security apparatus to dissuade anyone from interfering with his little fiefdom. As a militia enforcer, he was probably a former gang member who’d thrown in his lot with Morales as the dictator grew ever stronger during the post-Wave chaos. La colapso , as it was now known across most of South America.
    Chances were, the CO was the one wielding the blowtorch, tyre iron or whatever it was that had reduced the screaming man to such a pitiable state. Caitlin swallowed on a dry mouth as memories of her imprisonment and torture in Noisy-le-Sec tried to break out of a small, black box at the back of her mind. She attended to her craft, as she always did when needing to put aside unpleasant realities.
    The Echelon agent reached into her khaki backpack and checked her notes of when the guards had appeared from inside the crumbling stucco building. No patterns. She scanned the entire compound again, using her binoculars, searching for entry and egress points, logging at least three. She plotted her approach: mentally rehearsing the stealthy advance down the hill, under the cover of the forest canopy; her emergence from the brush; the possible scenarios that might play out as she engaged the guards. She was particularly concerned about the thick, stone pillars holding up the red-tiled roof of the portico that shaded the front of the building. They would provide good cover to anyone firing at her. She spent some time pondering how to turn that tactical disadvantage to her favour.
    She had no schematic of the building’s interior, but made her best guestimate of the layout based on what she could see of the rough, L-shaped block. The door through which the two wandering guards, the smoker and the soccer expert, sometimes appeared undoubtedly led into the facility’s reception area. Caitlin couldn’t make out any details through the windows at that end of the building, but the fact that the windows were glass and unsecured told her there were no cells behind them. There might be an open-plan office perhaps, like a detectives’ bullpen. There might be a warren of rooms. But the cells where she would find Lupérico were undoubtedly at the other end of the structure. There, small, mean windows – just holes in the adobe no larger than a man’s head, all of them barred by iron grilles – looked out over a motor pool. Two of the vehicles there were civilian, but Caitlin noted an ancient-looking police car from the building’s previous life. The rust-streaked sedan had sunk down on deflated tyres and a thick bed of weeds. It obviously hadn’t moved in years.
    As she took another sip of water, a new player appeared. His uniform was neat, and he moved with purpose and some grace. A thin man with a widow’s peak on a high forehead, he barked a few commands at the two guards on the front veranda. They scrambled from their chairs, one almost falling over as he lost his balance. Caitlin focused on the officer through her binoculars.
    He was in an altogether different class from the men he was busy bossing around. She recognised the bearing of somebody used to giving orders and being obeyed, even feared. He lashed at his underlings with his voice, but never raised a hand in their direction. This guy was no former gang-banger, but he was a militia officer.
    Ex-cop? Ex-military maybe?
    She wondered if he was the facility’s commander or deputy. Or possibly an outsider come in to supervise the questioning of Ramón Lupérico.
    She warned herself off personalising his back story. Just because Lupérico was important to her, it didn’t necessarily make him important to the regime in this