The Power of Five Oblivion

would find out soon enough.
    “What’s your name?” he whispered to the other boy.
    The boy spat but otherwise gave no answer.
    The man climbed into the front of the truck and about a minute later they set off, rattling through the village, hooting frantically at anyone who got in the way. They drove for about an hour over rough, pitted roads that threw Matt around in the back and soon took all the skin off his ankle. He had no view. The man had drawn a tarpaulin across the back, and the front – with the driver’s and passenger seat – was boarded off. When they turned corners, Matt and the Brazilian boy were thrown against each other or sent sprawling across the rough floor of the cabin. Matt’s hands were still tied and there was nothing he could do but endure the long journey in silence. The worst of it was that he had no idea where he was going or what might be waiting for him when he got there. The other boy was silent and surly and didn’t seem to care.
    At last they slowed down and drew to a halt. Matt heard shouting. Then they rumbled forward a few more metres and stopped again. The engine was turned off. Several moments passed before the back of the tarpaulin was thrown open and green sunlight, the last rays of the day reflected by the surrounding forest, flooded in.
    The first thing Matt saw was men with machine guns – not in military uniform but jeans and black shirts, some of them bearded, some with baseball caps. He was in a sort of encampment, which at first reminded him of a monastery as he was in a courtyard between two covered passageways, like cloisters, built of bricks with rooms beyond. A wooden stockade surrounded the place, and although they were in the middle of the jungle, there had to be electricity here as he saw arc lamps, CCTV cameras and a radio mast. The driver came round and unfastened his shackle, and as he climbed down from the truck Matt saw a large wooden house that had shutters and a veranda and – of all things – a children’s play area with a slide and swings. Somebody rich lived here and they were well protected. Matt had already seen more than a dozen armed guards.
    The cafuzo , the man who had bought him, appeared with a knife and roughly cut through the cords that had tied his hands. Matt rubbed his wrists together, teasing the circulation back. He noticed some of the men looking at him and he didn’t like what he saw in their eyes. They knew something he didn’t, and whatever it was, he wasn’t going to enjoy it. He glanced to one side. One part of the compound had been given over to their work being done here. There were steel cylinders and plastic buckets piled high. Beyond, behind glass doors, men in white T-shirts leant over long tables, surrounded by laboratory equipment: glass cylinders, bunsen burners, different tubs of chemicals.
    Drugs.
    Matt knew at once where he was. The wooden house was the home of one of the many drug lords who were now, as they had always been, the wealthiest and most powerful men in Brazil – and this was where his supply line began. Whoever lived here had his own private army and his own scientists producing pure cocaine, which would spread all over South America and north to the United States. The only question was – how were he and the other boy supposed to fit into all this? Matt had a nasty feeling that they hadn’t been brought here to help keep the compound clean.
    The two of them stood by the truck, stretching their legs, avoiding the eyes of the men who were staring at them, weighing them up. The evening was already closing in. It was uncomfortably hot and airless. Matt heard the whine of a mosquito close to his ear and resisted the temptation to try and slap it. He was determined not to show that he was afraid, but there was no escaping the thoughts that whispered constantly in his mind. You are alone. You are thousands of miles away from home. Nobody knows you are here. These people can kill you quickly or slowly and nobody will ever find out. Nobody will care. One hundred and seventy-five dollars – that is all you are worth .
    A man appeared from one of the laboratories – a doctor. At least, he was dressed like one, wearing a grubby white coat with a stethoscope around his neck. He was bald, with glasses and a shaving rash. He went over to the Brazilian boy first and examined his eyes, lifting the brows with his thumb, then pulling back his lips to look at his teeth. At first the boy resisted and the