It was a pleasant surprise. My left eye was half closed but not as swollen as it felt.

I looked over again to see how Aaron was doing and the answer was, not good.

He wasn't enjoying his visit to my planet one little bit. I wondered why and how he'd got involved in this s.h.i.t. Maybe he'd had no choice. Maybe he was just like me and Diego, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We splashed our way through mini-Manhattan, where large neon signs flashed down from the top of buildings on to the wet tarmac below. It was a completely different world from El Chorrillo, and a whole galaxy away from what had just been happening in the old Zone.

Aaron gave a small cough. 'You know what you're going to do with that guy yet, Nick?"

"We need to hide him somewhere on the way to your place, once we're out of the city. Any ideas?"

Aaron shook his head slowly from side to side. I couldn't tell whether he was answering or if it had just come loose.

"We can't leave him to rot... G.o.d forbid. He's a human being, for G.o.d's sake."

There was resignation in his voice.

"Look, I'll bury him for you. There's an old tribal site near the house. No one will find him there. It's the right thing to do he's someone's son, Nick. Maybe even someone's father. The family in the picture, they don't deserve this."

"No one goes there?"

He shook his head.

"Not in a few hundred years."

I wasn't going to argue with that. If he wanted to dig a hole, that was fine by me.

I got back to looking at the neon as he drove, and hoped that someone like him found my body one day.

We came to the airport road toll booth the other side of the financial district, and this time I got out a dollar of my own money. I didn't want us standing still any longer than we had to. Diego would take quite a bit of explaining.

He paid the woman with a sad "Gracias' and a thanks to me for giving him the money. This wasn't a good night out for him at all.

The lights faded behind us as we hit the road out of town. I dug out the wallet again, hit the cab light and looked at Diego's family picture. I thought of Kelly, and the way her life would be if I died without sorting out the mess I'd created. I thought of all the things I'd wanted to say to her, and hadn't ever managed to.

I wondered if his mum had wanted to say those things to her son, to tell him how much she loved him, or to say sorry about the stupid argument they'd had. Maybe that had been the stuff that had flashed through Diego's head in the moments before he died, things he wanted to say to these people raising their gla.s.ses at the camera as I killed him.

The wind through my window got stronger as we gathered speed. I wound it up only half-way to keep me awake, and I tried to concentrate on what I'd seen on the CTR and get back to work. Instead, I found myself wanting to curl up like a seven-year-old, desperate to keep the night monster at bay.

"Nick! The police! Nick, what do we do? Wake up! Please!"

Before I'd even fully opened my eyes I was trying to calm him down. It's all right, don't worry, it'll be OK." I managed to focus on the VCP (vehicle checkpoint) ahead, set up in the middle of nowhere: two police vehicles, side on, blocking the road, both facing left. I could see silhouettes moving across the two sets of headlights that cut through the darkness. It felt as though we were heading straight into the Twilight Zone. Aaron's foot had frozen on the accelerator pedal.

"Slow down, for f.u.c.k's sake. Calm down."

He came out of his trance and hit the brakes.

We'd got close enough to the checkpoint for me to see the side windows of the four-wheel-drives reflecting our headlights back at us. Aaron dabbed at the brakes to bring us to a stop. There was a torrent of shouts in Spanish, and the muzzles of half a dozen M-16s came up. I placed my hands on the dash so they were in clear view.

Aaron killed the lights and turned off the engine as three torch-beams headed our way. The shouting had stopped, and all I could hear now was the thump of boots on tarmac.

SEVENTEEN.

The three men who approached with M-16s at the ready were dressed in olive green fatigues. They split up, two going left, to Aaron, the other towards me. Aaron started to wind down the remaining half of his window. His breathing was becoming increasingly rapid.

There was an abrupt command in Spanish as the nearest man shouldered his a.s.sault rifle. Aaron lifted his a.r.s.e from the seat and searched around in his back pocket. I saw the red glow of cigarettes beyond the 4x4's headlights as figures moved about in the shadows.

A green baseball cap and bushy black moustache shoved its way through Aaron's window and demanded something from me. I didn't respond. I didn't have a clue what he was asking and just couldn't dig deep enough for the energy to look interested. His M-16 swung round from his back and banged against the door. I saw sergeant's stripes and Tolicia' badges on his sleeve.

"He wants your ID, Nick."

Aaron presented his own. It was s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the sergeant, who stopped shouting and stood back from the window, using his mini-Maglite to inspect the docs.

"Nick? Your ID, please don't vex these people."

I pulled out my plastic bag lethargically from under my jacket and rummaged in it like a schoolboy in his sandwich box, just wanting this to go away.

The other policeman on Aaron's side had been standing behind the sergeant, his a.s.sault rifle shouldered. I heard boots behind the wagon, but couldn't see anything in the mirror.

I gripped myself: What the f.u.c.k am I doing? Switch on! Switch on!

My heart-rate pumped up a few more revs per minute, and at the same time as I looked in my bag I made a mental note of where the door handle was, and checked that the door-lock k.n.o.b was up. Lethargic or not, if I heard the squeak of rusty hinges from the tailgate I'd be out and running. Handing my pa.s.sport over to Aaron for the sergeant, I knew I was reacting too slowly to all of this.

There's a body in the back, for f.u.c.k's sake!

The sergeant was gob bing off about me as he looked at my pa.s.sport with his Maglite. I only understood the odd word of Aaron's replies.

"Britanico ... amigo vacaciones ..." He nodded away like a lunatic, as if he had some sort of nervous disease.

The sergeant now had both our IDs in his hands, which would be a problem if I needed to do a runner. Without a pa.s.sport, my only option was west, or the emba.s.sy.

Straining my ears, I waited for the tailgate to open. I ran my hands through my hair, keeping my eyes on the door handle and visualizing my escape route, which wasn't exactly difficult: three steps into the darkness to my right. From there, I'd just have to take my chances.

I was brought back to the real world by the sergeant bending down once more and pointing at my clothes as he rattled off something to Aaron. He replied with a funny, and forced a laugh, as he turned to me.

"You're a friend and I picked you up from the airport. You wanted so much to see the rain forest so I took you in at the edge of the city. Now you never want to go in again. It was so funny, please just smile."

The sergeant had joined in the laughter and told the other guy behind him about the d.i.c.khead britanico as he handed back the IDs. Then he banged the roof of the Mazda and followed the others towards the blocking wagons. There was a lot of pointing and shouting, followed by the roar of wagons being revved and manoeuvred clear of the road.

Aaron was shaking like a leaf as he turned the ignition, but managed to appear relaxed and confident from the neck up for the police's benefit. He even waved as we pa.s.sed. Our headlights caught four or five bodies lined up on their backs on the side of the road. Their clothes glistened with blood. One of the kids was still open-mouthed, arms flung out and eyes wide, staring up at the sky. I looked away and tried to focus on the darkness beyond the headlights.

Aaron said nothing for the next ten minutes as we bounced along the pot-holed road, headlights lurching. Then he braked suddenly, pushed the selector into Park, and jumped out as if a bomb was about to go off. I could hear him retching and straining as he leant against the Bac Pac, but not the sound of anything coming up. He'd left it all at Clayton.

I just let him get on with it. I'd done the same myself, when I first started: sheer terror engulfs you and there's nothing you can do but fight it until the drama is over. It's later, when there's time to think, not only about what's happened but, worse, what the consequences might have been if things had gone wrong that's when you part company with your last meal. What he was doing was normal. The way I had behaved back there wasn't, not for me.

The suspension creaked as he closed the door, wiping his waterlogged eyes. He was plainly embarra.s.sed, and couldn't bring himself to look at me. I'm sorry, Nick, you must think I'm a real p.u.s.s.y. Guys like you can handle this stuff, but me, I'm just not made for it."

I knew that wasn't exactly true, but I didn't know how to say so. I never did at times like this.

"I saw a couple of guys blown away a few years ago. I had nightmares about it.

Then, seeing Diego's body and those kids back there hacked to death, it just..."

"Did he tell you what had happened?"

"It was a robbery. PARC. They cut them up with those things." He pointed down at the gollock.

"It doesn't really make sense -they normally don't bother folks here. No money." He sighed, both hands on the steering-wheel, and leant forward a bit.

"You see what they'd done to those kids? Oh, G.o.d, how can people behave like that?"

I wanted to change the subject.

"Look, mate, I think we'd better get rid of Diego. As soon as there's a bit of light we'll find somewhere to hide him. We can't go through that s.h.i.t again."

He lowered his head on to the wheel and nodded slowly.

"Sure, sure, you're right."

"It'll be OK, he'll be found sooner or later and buried properly..."

We drove on. Neither of us wanted to talk about Diego or bodies any more.

"What road are we on?"

"The Pan-American Highway."

It didn't feel like one. We were bouncing around in ruts and pot-holes.

"Runs all the way from Alaska to Chile, apart from a ninety-three-mile break in the Darien Gap. There's been talk about joining it up, but with all the trouble in Colombia and the destruction of the forest, I guess we prefer it how it is."

I knew about the southern part of the highway; I'd been on it enough times. But I wanted us to keep talking. It stopped me having to think. I leant down and rubbed the sweatshirt wrapped round my now very painful leg.

"Oh, why's that?"

It's one of the most important stretches of rain forest still left in the Americas. If there are no roads, that means no loggers and farmers, and it's kind of like a buffer zone with Colombia. Folks call it Bosnia West down there"

The headlights were sweeping across each side of the road, illuminating nothing.

"Is that where we're going, to the Gap?"

He shook his head.

"Even if we were, this eventually becomes not much more than a track, and with this rain it's just darned impa.s.sable. We're heading off the road at Chepo, maybe another ten minutes or so."

First light was starring to edge its way past the corners of the sky. We bounced along for a while in silence. My headache was killing me. The headlights exposed nothing but tufts of gra.s.s and pools of mud and water. This place was as barren as a moonscape. Not much good for hiding a body.

"There's not a whole lot of forest here, mate, is there?"

"Hey, what can I say? Where there's a road, there's loggers.

They keep on going until everything's levelled. And it's not just about money: the folk round here believe it's manly to cut down trees. I reckon less than twenty per cent of Panama's forest will survive the next five years. That's including the Zone."

I thought of Charlie and his new estate. It wasn't just the loggers who were tearing chunks out of Aaron's jungle.

We drove on as daylight spread its way gloomily across the sky. A primeval mist blanketed the ground. A flock of maybe a hundred big black birds with long necks took off ahead of us; they looked suspiciously like pterodactyls.

Ahead and to our left I could see the dark shadows of trees, and I pointed.

"What about there?"

Aaron thought for a few seconds as we got closer, clearly disturbed again, as if he'd managed for a moment to forget what we had in the boot.

"I guess so, but it's not that far to where I could do it properly."

"No, mate, no. Let's do it now." I tried to keep my voice level.

We pulled into the side of the road and under the trees. There wasn't going to be time for ceremony.

"Want to help?" I asked, as I retrieved the gollock from under my feet.

He thought hard.

"I just don't want the picture of him in there, you know, in my head. Can you understand that?"

I could: there were a whole lot of pictures in my own head I wished weren't there. The most recent was a blood-soaked child staring open-mouthed at the sky.

As I climbed out the birds were in full song: daylight was nearly here. I held my breath, opened the back, and pulled Diego out by his armpits, dragging him into the treeline. I concentrated on not looking at his face and keeping his blood off me.

About ten metres inside the gloom of the canopy I rolled both him and the wiped clean gollock under a rotted deadfall, covering the gaps with leaves and debris.

I only needed to hide him until Sat.u.r.day. When I'd gone, maybe Aaron would come back and do what he'd wanted to in the first place. It shouldn't be hard to find him; by then there'd be so many flies they'd sound like a radio signal.

Having closed down the tailgate I got back into the cab and slammed the door. I waited for him to move off, but instead he turned.

"You know what? I think maybe Carrie shouldn't know about this, Nick. Don't you think? I mean-' "Mate," I said, 'you took the words right out of my mouth." I tried to give him a smile, but the muscles in my cheek weren't working.

He nodded and steered back on to the road as I tried to curl up once more, closing my eyes, trying to kill the headache, but not daring to sleep.

Maybe fifteen minutes later we hit a cl.u.s.ter of huts. An oil lamp swung in one of them, splashing light across a roomful of faded, multicoloured clothes hung up to dry. The huts were made of breeze block with doors of rough planks nailed to a frame and wriggly tin thrown over the top. There was no gla.s.s in the windows, nothing to hold back the smoke from small fires that smouldered near the entrances. Scrawny chickens ran for cover as the Mazda approached. It wasn't at all the sort of thing I'd been shown in the inflight magazine.

Aaron jerked his thumb over his shoulder as we drove past.