A Stillness Lost: A Val Bosanquet Mystery

By A. J. Davidson

Following Catalina’s liver cancer diagnosis, a broken Val and his friend Dave travel to Guatemala in a last-ditch attempt to trace Rosa Silva, Catalina’s sister, missing for over twenty years. Within twenty-four hours the two men are fugitives, desperate to remain one step ahead of the Guatemalan police, and totally unaware that an old adversary and the ruthless Zeta cartel have them in their sights. Their hunt for Rosa exposes a mountain village’s dark secret dating back to Guatemala’s civil war and leads to a showdown with terrifying consequences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. J. Davidson
• Release date: Oct 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310793257

A. J. Davidson

AJ Davidson is a traditionally published author and playwright, who, in Spring 2010, made the switch to Indie. He is keen to explore the potential of a rapidly changing publishing world, and is enjoying the closer contact with his readers that e-books afford. AJ has a degree in Social Anthropology. Married for 32 years, he has two children, a Harrier hound and a cat called Dusty. Not one for staying long in the same place, AJ has lived in many countries across several continents. He has worked as a pea washer, crane-driver, restaurateur and scriptwriter. A member of the ITW. Represented by the Jonathan Williams Literary Agency.

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A STILLNESS LOST

A. J. Davidson

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

AJ Davidson on Smashwords

A Stillness Lost

Copyright © 2015 by AJ Davidson

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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Other books by AJ Davidson

Fiction:

An Evil Shadow –A Val Bosanquet Mystery

Death Sentence – A Val Bosanquet Mystery

Moon on the Bayou – A Val Bosanquet Mystery

Sandman – A Val Bosanquet Mystery

The Kingdom – A Val Bosanquet Mystery

Paper Ghosts

Wounded Tiger

Piwko’s Proof

Churchill’s Queen

Decoys

Non-Fiction:

Kidnapped

Defamed!

Dedicated to Janell Parque – An Author’s Accomplice

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Bonus Sample of Paper Ghosts

A Stillness Lost by AJ Davidson

Following Catalina’s liver cancer diagnosis, a broken Val and his friend Dave travel to Guatemala in a last-ditch attempt to trace Rosa Silva, Catalina’s sister, missing for over twenty years. Within twenty-four hours the two men are fugitives, desperate to remain one step ahead of the Guatemalan police, and totally unaware that an old adversary and the ruthless Zeta cartel have them in their sights. Their hunt for Rosa exposes a mountain village’s dark secret dating back to Guatemala’s civil war and leads to a showdown with terrifying consequences.

Chapter One

Valeria rested her hand on her brother’s forearm and said, You must be a very proud man today.

Tomás beamed with delight, but didn’t take his eyes off the festive scene laid out on the flat drying ground in front of the Sol family finca. You have no idea. I only wish Marta could have lived long enough to see her first grandchild christened.

His wife had died six months earlier from complications after elective heart surgery. It was nobody’s fault, just rotten luck. At least she hadn’t suffered and her last words were about the impending birth of her daughter’s child. Tomás was determined that the heartache he still felt daily at his wife’s premature death should not throw a shadow over baby Reuben’s christening. The party would be a declaration that the period of mourning for his wife was over and it was time to celebrate new life. He had insisted on hosting the celebration at the family coffee bean producing finca in the Western Highlands. Like many wealthy Guatemalan families, Tomás still felt a close tie to the land, the acreage that had provided his family’s fortune. Although he no longer lived there, he visited as often as possible…for most holidays and religious festivals. Tomás had spent an idyllic childhood growing up in the mountains before leaving for law school in Guatemala City. His grandfather had built the house and cleared the land, constructed the terraces, and cultivated the first coffee crop. Tomás’s father had purchased more land and expanded both the business and the finca. The last thirty years had seen Tomas play his own vital part in preserving the family estate and fortune.

For much of his younger years, Tomás Sol had had to navigate a tricky course between the series of right-wing military regimes, backed by the USA, which had consecutively wielded power in Guatemala and his work as a civil rights lawyer for the downtrodden farm laborers, the dispossessed, and the families of the disappeared—the poor underbelly of Guatemalan society. Tomás’s father had brought him up to believe that the affluent had no greater purpose in life than service to those less fortuitous. Being the legal counsel for the families of the disappeared and the oppressed Maya had often earned him the disapproval of the generals, yet his political acumen, wit, and a hefty slice of good fortune ensured that his legal practice survived during the worst times his country had ever endured. He guided the firm through the bad years and was ensured it was well positioned to reap the rewards and prosperity brought by the peace accord of 1996.

He looked along the three lines of trestle tables that had been hired and erected for the banquet. The rough planking had been covered with linen runners and decorated with elaborate displays of freshly cut flowers. Sunlight sparkled off the crystal and silverware, and the tables groaned with the weight of food and drink that Tomás provided for his guests. A whole steer had been spit roasted, as well as six suckling pigs and four goats. Pitchers of ice cold Gallo beer stood next to chateau-bottled wines from Bordeaux and a Chilean vinery Tomás had invested in. His guests were as diverse as his provisions. Three High Court judges rubbed shoulders with Mayan coffee pickers. Senior law firm partners chatted with truck drivers. A number of high-ranking military had been invited, but all had gracefully apologized and claimed they were not available. The police chief for the department was the sole representative of local law and order. Tomás insisted that there would be no seating plan at the party. To their credit, the judges and lawyers seemed to be enjoying the relaxed, informal atmosphere, though a couple of the wives didn’t appear so thrilled. Seated at the far end of Tomás’s table was Isabella, his daughter and only child, and her husband Alfonso. The newly-christened Reuben was asleep in a bassinette placed next to his daughter. They had married three years before and Alfonso, a civil engineer, was currently working on a new dam in the mountains to the north. Isabella had, until the birth of her child, worked for a government department that strove to prevent the theft and illegal export of Mayan artifacts and relics. It was a cause his daughter was passionate about, but she had privately admitted to her father that it sometimes felt like a battle against an overwhelming enemy. A battle Guatemala could not hope to win.

The bishop stood and the assembled guests bowed their heads as he said grace. Tomás had personally asked the bishop to act at the christening, and the cleric had been happy to oblige. The Sol family was a huge donor to the Catholic Church, although the church had witnessed shrinking numbers over recent years. The military had strove to weaken the church’s position in Guatemala society, yet Tomás also knew that Catholic hierarchy had intervened on his behalf on a number of occasions when his civil rights work had irked the government.

Finishing his blessing by making the sign of the cross, the bishop said amen and sat down. With no word of command, the brigade of waiters stepped forward and started to fill glasses, while a number of white-jacketed chefs delivered huge silver salvers to the tables, piled high with the tender cuts of barbecued meat that they had prepared with care. It was customary for the bishop to start first, and no one, not even the judges, would dare taste a morsel until the cleric’s plate was full. The sound of laughter and lively chatter filled the air as guests relaxed and prepared to enjoy the feast.

A wine waiter filled Tomás’s glass with a Chilean Merlot that he was particularly fond of. He caught his daughter’s eye and raised his glass in a private toast. He could not remember seeing Isabella look more beautiful or more radiant than today. Not even on her wedding day. Marriage to the man you love will always be very special, but even your wedding day took second place to the day you christened your first child.

Tomás took his sister’s plate and spooned on some of the wonderful array of vegetable hors d’oeuvres he knew she favored over a surfeit of protein. It had been her decision that the guests should serve themselves. Valeria thought it best to avoid the stuffiness of a more formal service, advising Tomás that the estate workers might be uncomfortable with a formal banquet. It was a day for fun and relaxation with family, friends and colleagues, not pomp and etiquette. The Sol finca might not be all that far from Guatemala City as the crow flies, but there was a huge chasm between the prevailing cultures.

Only when every guest had food on their plate did Tomás finally tend to his own appetite. It seemed like hours since he’d enjoyed some churros dipped in hot chocolate on the breakfast terrace before setting off to the small church in San Roque, seven miles further down the valley.

The sound of a powerful engine reached the ears of the baptism celebrants. All eyes shifted to the finca’s gates to witness the latest surprise Tomás had lined up for his guests. An elaborately chromed and brightly-painted chicken bus drove at speed through the entrance. The converted American school buses were a common sight in Guatemala City or speeding along the Pan-American Highway, but they were rarely seen on the narrow, twisting roads of the Highlands. The worn out school buses were shipped to Guatemala and fitted with larger engines and manual shifts, better suited to their reincarnated role. The body work was sprayed, with each bus company having its own distinct pattern of paintwork and chrome. They were affectionately known as chicken buses because of the breakneck speeds the drivers reached as they pushed their vehicles to the limit.

A few guests applauded as the bus pulled up in a cloud of dust near the trestle tables. What a wonderful idea of Tomás’s, some of the diners thought…to have the musicians arrive in a chicken bus. Totally Guatemalan.

Tomás stood and looked at his sister, but she was clearly as much at a loss as he was. One of the judges’ security detail reached hesitantly under the flap of his jacket.

With loud pneumatic hisses, the doors of the bus all opened simultaneously and a stream of black-clad men poured out. They wore ski-masks and carried a range of automatic weapons. The first shots came from within the bus as the bodyguards were taken down by deadly sniper fire. Only one of the guards managed to get off a shot, and it harmlessly struck the chrome fender of the chicken bus.

The gunmen in ski-masks leveled their terrible weapons and started to hose the assembled guests with a concentrated raking fire. Tomás saw the head of one of Guatemala’s most senior judges explode in a red mist as a high-velocity round struck him full in the face. The judge’s wife scream cut short as her chest turned red with gore. Crystal glasses and wine bottles exploded as the bullets scythed along the length of the tables. A miasma of wine, beer, blood, flesh, and bone marked the trail of death. A couple of guests and a waiter scrambled for the shelter of the finca, but were mown down by a tracking stream of bullets.

Tomás could do nothing but watch as one of the gunmen turned his Kalashnikov towards Isabella, Alphonso, and the bassinette.

No, Tomás roared, his voice drowned out by the rhythmic thump of the assault rifle. There had been any number of atrocities in Guatemala during the previous forty years. Slaughters perpetrated by both sides during the civil war, and more recently the gang violence in the urban areas, but Tomás knew with a dreaded certainty that this was no politically-inspired murderous rampage. Mexican gunmen had made several armed intrusions into the Western Highlands during the previous twelve months, but until today they had never before ventured this deep into Guatemala. The Zeta cartel was known to be responsible for the wave of atrocities. They used random attacks to strike terror into the communities living along the Pan-American Highway, ensuring that nobody resisted their demands. A twenty-first century colonial expansion, and like so many of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, inspired by drugs, greed, and conducted with barbarous ferocity.

Tomás could only watch helplessly as his daughter and her husband slumped to the compacted earth, their blood splashing against the rich soil. A gunman took a step forward towards Tomás, inserting a fresh banana clip into his weapon as he approached. Tomás raised his hands in a desperate attempt to stop the high velocity rounds that chopped through his fingers and ripped holes in his chest. The last sound he heard as darkness descended was a piercing cry from Reuben’s bassinette.

The final few sporadic shots were fired just seventy seconds after the first sniper bullets had neutralized the judges’ bodyguards. The gunmen stepped through the carnage they had created to check that there would be no survivors of the Sol christening. A couple of the killers removed their ski-masks so they could gorge on the spit-roasted beef. Juices ran from the side of their mouths as they ripped off chunks of the meat; nothing like wholesale slaughter to work up a hunger. Another of their number started to lift out bottles of beer from a crate that had somehow survived intact. He handed the frosted bottles to his fellow Zetas.

"Search the finca from top to bottom. Make sure everyone’s dead," Jorge ordered, as he accepted the bottle of Gallo beer, the cold suds bubbling from the neck.

Jorge’s words were the first spoken by any of the Zetas since they’d driven through the gates of the finca. He would never admit it, but he had a fierce pride in his men and drilled them mercilessly when preparing for this intrusion. Anyone not up to scratch was omitted. Each man knew exactly what was expected of him and none had come up short.

A black SUV barreled through the gates and stopped parallel to the front of the bus. Earlier Zeta intrusions had been conducted with a fleet of SUVs, but it had been Jorge’s idea to mount this one from a chicken bus because they were striking deep into the Western Highlands, and a fleet of fast-moving SUVs was sure to attract unwanted attention.

A woman opened the driver’s door of the SUV and stepped down. She wore taupe cargo pants and a pale green polo shirt. Her eyes were shielded by Ray-Bans and she smoked a thin black cheroot. The men called her La Loba, she wolf, and she was the only person that Jorge truly feared. An Englishwoman from Belize, she had been advising the Zeta cartel for just short of twelve months. It had been her initiative to launch the Guatemala incursions and had led the early ones, impressing the men with her cold-bloodedness. Like a she wolf, she displayed no fear and showed no qualms about attacking the weak. Twelve months and her single-minded ruthlessness and savagery ensured she rapidly usurped Jorge in the Zeta hierarchy. But Jorge still puzzled over why the cartel had afforded her the opportunity to prove her value in the first instance. The Zetas did not normally recruit outside of their own. Not through any sense of altruism. The cartel demanded a fierce loyalty, and any betrayal, no matter how slight, was punished with savage reprisals against the man’s entire family. How could the cartel hope to extract unquestionable obedience from a woman with no apparent ties? This paradox was what chilled the marrow in Jorge’s bones. What knowledge or skill did La Loba possess that levered influence with the cartel’s leaders? He was determined to get to the bottom of the conundrum. What made this Englishwoman so special to the cartel?

La Loba removed her sunglasses and surveyed the scene of carnage with approval. The shrieking cries of Reuben from deep in his bassinette jarred her contemplation of victory. She picked up a bottle of Ron Centenaria Zacapa from the table, still three-quarters full despite a stray bullet having shot off its neck at the shoulder. Without betraying a trace of emotion, La Loba doused the baby’s blanket with the high-proof rum, one of the finest in the world. She drew deeply on her cheroot until the tip glowed, before taking it from her lips and touching it to the saturated blanket. The alcohol burned with a flame that was almost invisible, and immediately the acrid pungency of burning wool filled the air. The child’s cries of anxiety transformed to an ear-piercing wail that caused some of the blood-sated Zetas to turn away. As the infant’s final sound faded, the acrid smell of singed wool was masked by a stench more terrible.

Chapter Two

Carlos Ramirez, an airport immigration official, opened the American’s passport and compared the photograph with the man standing in front of his desk.

Business or pleasure? he asked, his English heavily accented.

Business, Val Bosanquet replied.

And what nature of business would that be? the official asked, as he scanned the passport, without bothering to look up a second time.

I’m a retired Louisiana Deputy Sheriff. I’ve come to your country to locate a Honduran woman who disappeared some years back.

The surprising answer caused the immigration officer to lift his eyes. Ramirez studied Val’s face.

"¿Los desaparecidos? Then it’s fortunate that you have plenty of time on your hands. Thousands of Guatemalans disappeared during the civil war and your CIA played its part. Very few were ever found. Dead or alive."

Time is short.

Ramirez shrugged and added a stamp to Val’s passport. "Buena suerte. Light a candle to Saint Jude, one of Christ’s twelve apostles."

The saint for desperate cases, Val made the point for Ramirez.

"Si, señor. Every Guatemalan man, woman, and child should be on their knees to him."

Even the Maya?

Sure, why not? Who doesn’t like a good each way bet.

Ramirez handed back Val’s passport. Welcome to Guatemala. He picked up that of Val’s travelling companion, Dave McElligott.

You still a Deputy Sheriff? he asked Dave, having checked the DOB. You don’t look old enough to be retired.

My pappy would have given me a good licking with his belt if I told him I wanted to be a cop. I’m just here to carry the bags and translate. My Spanish is better than that of my monolingual friend.

The two Americans made their way through customs to the arrivals hall. Neither man had checked in any hold bags, preferring to travel light, making do with small carry-on duffels. As Val had explained to the immigration official, time was short. Not Val’s, but that of Catalina, the woman he loved. There would be no sightseeing on this trip.

Other arriving passengers wheeled heavily-loaded trolleys past the two friends, who paused to scan the faces of the huddled crowd waiting to pick up fares, or greet friends and relatives. Some of them held up placards with the name of the passenger they were meeting. A half dozen faces were Mayan, Central America’s most numerous indigenous people. There was a hefty sprinkling of uniformed men, mainly military in olive green and police officers in dark blue, amongst the waiting crowd. None of the cardboard signs read Bosanquet.

Moreno definitely said he would be here to meet us? Dave asked.

Insisted on it. I think he could smell money. Val had never met the man and they had spoken only twice on the telephone. Right from the time when Catalina hired the Guatemalan private investigator, Alberto Moreno, to assist in tracking down her long lost sister, Val harbored serious misgivings about the ex-cop. The fact that he served with the discredited National Police during the notorious Rios Montt regime was the basis of his concern. It didn’t sit right with Val that a former cop in a far-right regime would be in any rush to find a missing Honduran illegal, especially Rosa, who had turned labor agitator and become a thorn in the side of the Guatemalan military-backed leaders. Moreno probably milked Cat for as much cash as possible, feeding her the odd snippet of information to ensure the income stream kept flowing. Despite his reservations, Val had contacted Moreno and explained that he and Dave were flying into Guatemala to continue the search for Rosa. Searching for a needle in a foreign country’s haystack, Val accepted that he could use any assistance going forward.

Val pulled his cell phone from his pocket and waited for it to fire up and log on with a local telecoms service. He hit the number for Moreno when three bars finally appeared. The call went straight to voicemail.

Let’s give him ten minutes, Dave suggested. Maybe he’s snarled up in traffic.

Let’s not. Val nodded towards a kiosk near the exit doors. There’s a car rental franchise.

Dave followed Val as the older man threaded his way through the groups of people meeting up with arriving travelers. The volume of high-pitched, excited Spanish chatter was incredibly loud. He should have expected that Val would lack the patience to wait to see if Moreno showed up. Ever since the all too recent catastrophic events back in Louisiana, his friend had become a driven man. Normally the calmest of characters, even under the most severe of pressures, Val was now a cyclone of nervous energy…a real force of nature. Like those infuriating furry toys that battery makers used to advertise the longevity of their power cells, Val seemed to be inexhaustible. He rarely slept, pacing the floor timbers of the shotgun house he shared with Catalina throughout the long nights. The daylight hours were either spent on