The Power of Five Oblivion

their pockets but the risks were getting too great.
    “How did you get here?” Matt asked, chewing a piece of bread.
    “I travelled with you. On the top of the truck.”
    So Lohan had travelled on the roof! Matt hadn’t heard him climb or jump down. But he wasn’t surprised. Lohan could walk into a crowded room in broad daylight without anyone noticing. It was just one of the skills he had been taught.
    “How much fuel do we have?”
    “The jeep’s full and we’ve got another hundred litres in tanks. The good news is they carried you south when they took you to Fernandinho.”
    “Who’s Fernandinho?”
    “The drug lord who just bought you. They call him Fat Freddy – but not to his face. Anyway, the compound is one hundred and sixty kilometres south of Laua.” Laua was the name of the village where the slave market had taken place. “So if you still want to go to Salvador, we’re on our way.”
    “Can you think of a better plan?”
    “No. But six hundred dollars isn’t going to be enough if we want to get tickets on a plane.”
    They drove for two hours in silence, following a road that must have been a major thoroughfare at one stage: the concrete was still in good repair and there were even painted lines down the middle. Lohan had brought maps and a compass with them. That was typical of him. No matter where they were, he had the ability to find anything they needed, disappearing for half an hour and then returning with food, medicine, supplies … whatever. Matt was careful not to ask too many questions. He had never met anyone who could be so cold-blooded about their own survival.
    At last they pulled to one side, driving behind a clump of bushes where the jeep would be concealed. Lohan wasn’t worried that anyone had followed them from the compound but if other drivers happened to pass, he didn’t want to be a target. There were any number of people who would cut their throats to steal their transport.
    It was about half past three, the night heavy and close. Matt had just about got used to the mosquitoes, but the darkness – the way the jungle stretched out with no seeming end – still unnerved him. Lohan drank some water and helped himself to what was left of the food while Matt climbed into the back and tried to make himself comfortable on the seat. He had spent many nights like this and knew he could sleep with the window open and wake up covered in bites or he could close the window, turning the back into a hot, airless oven – in which case he would barely sleep at all. It wasn’t much of a choice.
    “Did you ever use children?” Matt said. It was what he had been thinking earlier. Suddenly he wanted to know.
    “Children?”
    “To carry drugs.”
    Matt hadn’t asked Lohan about his life in Hong Kong before the two of them had met. The more he learnt about the Triad leader, the more difficult it might be to travel with him. But he knew he wasn’t going to sleep while the image of the Brazilian boy remained in his head. He looked over the front seat and saw Lohan’s eyes reflected in the driver’s mirror. They were dark and cruel, and Matt knew that they had seen more violence and death than he could begin to imagine.
    “Yes.” Lohan answered the question as if it were obvious, as if it were nothing to be ashamed of.
    “Why?”
    “Sometimes it was easier. Especially in airports. When the customs officers see a little boy clutching a teddy bear, they probably won’t want to look inside the bear.”
    “Or inside the boy.”
    “We had people who swallowed drugs and carried them for us inside their stomachs. But they were paid. It was their choice. What you saw today – that we would never do.”
    “But you still smuggled drugs.” Matt hadn’t meant to throw out the accusation and regretted it immediately. But Lohan didn’t seem to mind.
    “It was part of our business, yes.” The voice – reasonable, considered – floated out of the darkness. “Does it bother you, Matt?”
    “Drugs have killed a lot of people.”
    “Cars have killed more. So have cigarettes and alcohol.”
    “But they’re all legal.”
    “Who decides what is legal or not legal? Politicians! And do you think that politicians are always right, that they always know what is best? People all over the world wanted drugs and it was part of my work to supply them. I think this was reasonable. Supply and demand. It is at the very heart of capitalism. Unfortunately, a politician in some room decided