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It started with the stun grenades. Emiliano’s foot soldiers had brought up bullet-proof riot shields, and they were launching the grenades from behind them.

Abi, Rudra, Nawal and Dakini laid down as much blanket fire as they could, but it was clearly ineffective. Their ammunition was running out. The grenades were getting nearer by the minute.

Then Emiliano’s men started in with the tear gas.

Dakini was the first one to jump into the cenote.

Snot and tears were streaming down Abi, Nawal, and Rudra’s faces.

Nawal was the next to go. She felt semi-hysterical. She couldn’t breathe. All she could think about was how the feel of cool water on her eyes would be.

Rudra watched both of the women leap into the pool. He dragged himself to the edge of the basin. It was a fifty-foot drop. The girls had both survived it. He could see them bobbing around in the centre of the pool, violently rinsing their faces.

He glanced back at Abi, shrugged, and then eased himself over the side. He dangled for a moment and then let himself fall. The feel of the water was an exquisite blessing. He let himself sink as deep as he was able, before scissoring his legs and making for the surface.

Abi plunged in beside him.

Both men scrubbed at their faces, desperate to see again. Desperate to get their weapons clear of the water before they became useless.

Fifty feet above them, Emiliano’s foot soldiers were carrying their boss out of the Toyota on an improvised bier. The morphine had already started to give him hallucinations.

Emiliano grabbed his physician’s arm. ‘Give me more.’

‘I can’t give you any more. It would be too dangerous. Intravenous morphine is an unstable drug. There is only so much the body can take. You will already be hallucinating. Later, you will be constipated also.’

‘To hell with the constipation. And I can stomach the hallucinations. Give me more morphine. I’m in pain, I tell you. My foot is burning up.’ Emiliano screwed up his face, as if he were trying to clear his head through the drug-induced mist. ‘But not so much that I become unconscious. Do you understand what I am saying?’

‘I can’t give you any more, I tell you. It might prove fatal.’

Emiliano pulled a pistol out from underneath his blanket and shot the doctor. A single bullet, direct to the head. The doctor crumpled next to the bier like an empty suit of clothes. ‘Fatal? That’s what I call fatal, pendejo. Kick him into the cenote one of you.’

Emiliano’s men were gathered in a ragged line just shy of the lip of the cenote. One of the men nudged the doctor’s body with the toe of his boot until it toppled over the side. He made very sure that he was not outlined against the sky while he was doing it.

‘Now pick up that syringe.’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

‘Do you see this vein in my arm?’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

‘Inject the morphine into it.’

The man aimed the syringe at Emiliano’s vein.

‘Squeeze out a bit first, man. You don’t want air in there. When you think you’ve found the vein, draw a little back to check if there’s blood. Then shoot me up.’

The man was sweating uncontrollably by this time. He dabbed at his forehead with his sleeve. He found the vein, drew up a little blood, then forced the plunger home.

Emiliano sighed. He laid down his pistol and pressed his finger firmly onto the spot. ‘You got the other bodies?’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

‘Throw them in there too. The good doctor deserves some company.’

The bodies of Vau, Alastor, Berith and Asson were dragged to the lip of the cenote and kicked in.

‘Anyone else still to come?’

‘None of our own. You were the only one of us injured, Jefe. And none of their people escaped, bar the two in the Hummer.’

‘We’ll deal with them later. They won’t be able to get out of the country without their passports. We can pick them up anywhere. They have to eat. They have to sleep. They have to take a shit.’ Emiliano raised his chin in the direction of the cenote. The pupils of his eyes were enlarged out of all proportion to their original size. ‘Constipation? That damn fool doctor. I told him to give me some more morphine. You heard me. Don’t people obey orders around here any more?’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

‘The Hummer. It’s got a Snooper on board, hasn’t it? So when it next sends a text, we can fix its position by satellite?’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

‘Okay. Now you and your men go and explain the situation to the floaters. With sound effects.’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

Half a dozen of Emiliano’s men spread themselves out just shy of the cenote lip. Then they stepped forward in unison and began spraying the walls and surface of the cenote with bullets. After about a minute, they stopped.

Abi, Rudra, Dakini, and Nawal were still floating in the water. They hadn’t been hit, just as Emiliano had intended, but they were confused and disorientated.

‘Now explain to the floaters that they have to let their weapons and their cell phones sink. In full view of us up here. If they don’t, we’ll bombard them with hand grenades. It’ll be like a butcher’s shop down there. If they’re not killed, they’ll be permanently deafened by the concussion.’ Emiliano snatched at something in front of his face. Then again. His cheeks were numb from the new hit of morphine. Mosquitoes were beginning to seem like hornets to him.

One of his men called down the instructions. Then there was a pause. ‘They’ve done it. They’re just floating there.’

‘Now tell them not to go near the edge of the cenote. Not to try and climb up the sides. That if they do so, my snipers will kill them.’

‘It’s impossible to climb up the sides, Jefe.’

‘Say what I told you to say.’

The man did as he was instructed.

‘Now carry me to the edge. And bring me a chair.’ Emiliano held out his arms and two of his men lifted him to the very lip of the cenote. Two other men brought him a fold-up director’s chair. One of the men held the full weight of Emiliano’s shattered foot in a loop made from another man’s shirt.

Emiliano sat down. His foot was settled with fastidious care in front of him. After a brief lacuna, in which he stared across the cenote pit as if his eye had been caught by an unknown variety of flower, he leaned forwards and looked down at the pool below. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand.

‘You see. You’ve got all your friends down there with you now.’ He counted with his fingers. ‘One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.’ He snatched at the air again. ‘Eight Little Gringos who’ve destroyed five million dollars’ worth of my product. The question is, are you going to be able to repay me in some way? Right the wrong you have done me? With interest, of course. Two million dollars. And also two million dollars for my foot, let’s not forget that. We’ll call it an even ten for the sake of argument. Can you manage this? If so, I will winch one of you out of the pool to arrange it. If you can’t, you will all stay in there until you drown. The pump hose has already been drawn up. And there is no other way out of the cenote. The walls are sheer. We’ve done this before, you know. It takes between two and three days, as a rule of thumb, for the will to live finally to evaporate. Give or take a day or two. And depending on sex, of course. Women float for longer, usually, having more natural buoyancy.’ He lashed out at another mosquito.

Some of Emiliano’s men were beginning to look a little concerned. But none of them wished to emulate the doctor.

‘I’m going to the hospital now. Call out, if you want to take me up on my offer. Otherwise there will be ten guards stationed here at all times. If you try and swim for the walls, they will shoot you. If you try and use the floating bodies as buoyancy aids, they will shoot you. Do you get my drift?’ Emiliano threw up one hand in an imperial gesture. ‘Drift. Did you get that? A pun. A very good pun indeed, in the circumstances.’