Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [100]
‘They’ve all got their hands full already, I expect,’ Carlyle joked.
Helen shot him a sour look. ‘Moving away from events in the jungle,’ she said, ‘I have some more news.’
‘Oh, yes?’ he said warily, expecting anything from a demand for money to an announcement that his mother-in-law would be paying them a visit.
‘About Agatha Mills,’ Helen said, rolling back on the sofa and pulling her knees up to her chest.
‘What about her?’
‘Well . . . Agatha and Sandra Groves did know each other.’
Carlyle yawned. ‘You told me that already.’
Helen rose above the rebuke. ‘They were both involved in a Daughters of Dismas campaign against the arms trade. Their particular interest was in British military aid to Chile. Apparently it was being used to finance mercenaries in Iraq.’
Carlyle let this new information sink in. ‘Does this come from the woman that you spoke to before?’
‘Yes.’ Helen glanced at the television screen to make sure that the adverts were still running and that she wasn’t missing any of her jungle fun. ‘I spoke to Clara again this morning, and she put me on to a couple of other people she knows. They say that the two of them were quite active about it.’
‘Was there anyone else involved?’ Carlyle asked.
‘Dunno,’ Helen shrugged.
‘Well, you’d better get your friend to check,’ he chided her. ‘These two have ended up dead, which means any of their chums could now be at risk. They need to get in touch with me straight away.’
‘I will pass the message on,’ Helen said coolly. She picked up some papers that were lying on the floor. ‘They were targeting a company called LAHC.’
‘Which stands for?’
Helen quickly scanned the text. ‘I don’t know. It was reportedly using men and equipment, paid for by British money, as so-called private security guards. Some of those guards are accused of human rights violations.’
‘I get accused of human rights violations,’ Carlyle snorted, ‘on a fairly regular basis.’
‘Not including murder,’ Helen said bluntly. ‘This isn’t a laughing matter.’
‘I was just—’ Before he could finish his sentence, she dropped the sheaf of papers into his lap, restoring the television’s sound just as her programme resumed.
If anything, the stripper’s bikini seemed to have shrunk during the commercial break. Her nipples, meanwhile, seemed to have grown massively. Through great force of will, Carlyle managed to tear his eyes away from the screen and scan the documents that Helen had handed him. Much of the material was in Spanish, but one thing he could read was a Daughters of Dismas press release entitled Time To Act Against Iraq Mercenaries. Keeping one eye on the stripper’s tits, Carlyle scanned the text. Mercenary recruitment agencies are sending former soldiers to Iraq . . . human rights abuses . . . unauthorised use of Army weaponry . . . assault . . . murder. He read on: American private security companies who recruit guards at the request of the US government to send into armed conflict zones, to protect strategic installations and military convoys, tend to subcontract to South American firms like LAHC Consulting. The owner of LAHC is Gomez Gori, a retired admiral of the Chilean navy who played a leading role in overthrowing the democratically elected Chilean government in 1973.
Gomez Gori? Well, well, well. At that very moment, however, Tizzy McDee stepped into a shower. Her bikini became transparent and he completely lost his train of thought.
It took him several minutes to return to his reading. The only other item in English was a newspaper cutting from a year earlier:
IRAQ: CHILEAN MERCENARIES IN THE LINE OF FIRE
by Daniel Franklin
SANTIAGO, 9 March (CNW) The 150 former members of the Chilean military who are working as private security personnel in Iraq are potential targets of the resistance there, as indicated by the gruesome murders of three security contractors a week ago.