Bogotá, Colombia

I know the sound of a semi-automatic weapon being cocked. Some might mistake it for a briefcase lock mechanism or a workman slapping a power unit into a high-speed drill. It's similar but not the same.

And I'd just heard it in the corridor outside my hotel room.

I stepped over to the door and listened, heard the brush of footsteps on the carpet, a hushed cough and heavy, nasal breathing. The movement stopped outside the next door along and I was guessing it wasn't the room maid.

Wary of getting my eyeball blown out, I took a quick look through the peephole.

Three guys, heads in close like they were having a team talk. Their features were blown out of shape by the fish-eye lens, but I made out dark, unshaven faces and the standard Colombian attire of crumpled jackets and pants.

And guns.

Two of the men were holding semi-automatics with big macho can suppressors, while the third, who was gesturing a lot and therefore the leader, was holding a machine pistol. It looked like a Steyr TMP, a nasty weapon capable of spitting out 900 rounds a minute. Lucky you can't get a magazine that big. The men looked jumpy, turning to watch both ends of the corridor, like they had no business being there.

Definitely not cops.

FARC, at a guess. That's Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – the national guerrilla group with a brutal reputation for high-profile kidnappings and killings. If not them, it would be one of the drugs cartels in town looking for an easy ransom. Whoever they were, I was thinking the man next door had been selected as their next source of income.

It was none of my business.

I'd heard my neighbour in the bar the previous evening. He was an American mining engineer, middle-aged and well dressed, head of a minerals company. He'd been friendly and chatty and everyone within earshot knew he was in the country talking business with the government. Careless of him. What the two guys he'd hired as security clearly hadn't told him was that here in Colombia, you don't go round pushing that kind of detail about yourself. It's asking for trouble.

Worse, he'd dismissed his two minders saying he'd got some shopping to do before heading home and could handle that all by himself.

I watched the man with the Steyr lean across and knock on the door. He called out in accented English, 'Sir? Room service.'

Like I say, it was none of my business. I could wait right here and let it blow on by; let it be somebody else's bad-hair day. No point inviting trouble.

I picked up my overnight bag, opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.

For a second nobody moved. The nearest gunman, short, heavy in the gut and sporting a large moustache, rolled his eyes at me in surprise. The other two were busy waiting for my neighbour's door to open. None of them were expecting any interference from the hotel staff or guests.

Moustache was the first to move. He made an 'O' of his mouth and began to haul his gun round at me.

I threw my bag at the other two to distract them, then stepped forward and kicked Moustache into the opposite wall. He bounced back with an ooff and dropped his semi-automatic right into my hand. I smacked him across the head with it and turned to face the others.

The man with the Steyr was already looking up in surprise from the bag at his feet, and his colleague was only marginally slower. There was no time for niceties; if the Steyr began firing, I'd be mincemeat. I shot them both, Steyr first, then his friend, the suppressed shots sounding flat in the confines of the corridor, a round each to the head to reduce the chance of a reflex firing.

'Hey! What the—?' The engineer was standing in the doorway, a bag in one hand, briefcase in the other, white around the eyes as he saw the blood and bodies lying right where he usually picked up his Herald Tribune.

I reached forward and grabbed his collar, dragging him out into the corridor, then picked up my bag. 'Express check out,' I said, and hustled him towards the emergency stairs. We had to get out of here now.

Not that he came easily. 'What the hell is this – who are you?' he demanded, trying to break free. He was pretty strong and wasn't making it easy to save his skin.

'Those men were here to snatch you,' I told him. I kneed the emergency door open and pushed him towards the stairs. 'If you'd argued or fought back, they'd have cut their losses and killed you where you stood. They'll have friends who still might. The choice is yours: you haul your ass and come with me and do exactly as I say ... or you stay here and die.'

He complied but I had to nudge him all the way down the stairs and out through a narrow door close to the kitchens. I was hoping we didn't bump into hotel security along the way. They'd just be doing their job, but I didn't want to take a chance that they were in on the set-up and have to start taking them out.

I opened the door and we stepped outside into a blanket of warm, spicy air and the rasp and clatter of city traffic in downtown Bogotá.

And more trouble.

A large black 4×4 with blacked-out windows was waiting outside, engine ticking over and adding to the polluted atmosphere. The driver was doing his bit, too, blowing smoke through a narrow gap at the top of the window and nodding his head to a currulao beat of drums, marimba and some sort of shaker instrument whose name I'd forgotten. He was trying to be the cool, bad dude, but his eyes were too freaky, constantly flicking to the mirrors then back along the street on the look out for cops.

When he saw us appear, his jaw dropped. Then he did the wrong thing: he tossed the cigarette aside and tried to get out of the car.

I waited until the door was half open, then kicked it hard, slamming him back inside the vehicle. He tried to get out again, this time reaching for a semiautomatic in his waistband, so I opened the door and dropped him with a chop to the throat. He fell out and rolled choking into the gutter with the other debris.

'Get in,' I said.

The American looked shocked. 'Where are we going?'

'The airport. You're leaving the country, aren't you?'

'Yes, but how did you know?'

'I heard you discussing it in the bar last night. My guess is, so did these men, which is why they marked you down for a ransom.'

He gestured back at the hotel. 'But I haven't paid the bill ... and we should call the police, tell them what happened.'

'Nothing happened. Remember that.' I pulled out my cell phone as he placed his bags in the back and slid into the passenger seat. 'What's your name?' I threw my bag in and got behind the wheel, stuffing the semi-automatic from the man upstairs under my thigh, where I could get at it. I threw the one dropped by the driver under the seat.

'Nate Sweetman. Why?'

I ignored him and dialled the hotel reception. I could hear shouting from inside the building and guessed the man I'd disabled upstairs had come round and was back in the game.

Time to go.

I checked the street for obstructions. All clear. Fifty metres to the main drag, then left towards the airport. Hit the gas.

As we reached the end of the street, a voice answered. I said, 'This is Challenor in three-oh-two. I've paid and checked out, but meant to ask for Mr Sweetman's bill in three-oh-four to be added to mine. Can you take care of that?'

The receptionist was unfazed. 'Of course, Mr Challenor. No problem. I trust everything was satisfactory during your stay?' In the background I could hear shouting echoing around the reception area.

'Almost perfect,' I replied neutrally.

'In that case, have a good trip and thank you for staying. We hope to see you again soon.'

Unlikely, but nice of him to say so. I snapped the phone shut and took us out on to the main street heading north east.

'Listen good,' I said to Sweetman. 'If we have to leave the car for any reason – any reason at all – you do exactly as I say, when I say it. Do you understand?'

Sweetman just stared at me. He was in shock.

'Say it.' I slapped his shoulder to focus his mind.

'Yes. Yes, I understand.'

For good measure I added, 'They were probably planning on lifting you for ransom on your way out of the country.'

'What?' He didn't understand.

'It's what they do to gain time. Nobody would have been any the wiser until you failed to show up at your destination. During that time they'd have had you tucked away out of reach and ready to make their demands.'

'But why? What value could I have to them?'

'You're a mining engineer, right?'

'How do you know that?'

'You told everybody. I know you've had meetings with the new Mines and Energy minister and his officials; Colombia's high up on the world's exporters of coal, and you're here to advise them on that and about the Canadians who are seeking licences for gold and silver projects. That makes you valuable.'

His mouth dropped open. 'But I've been very careful about my itinerary.'

'No, you haven't.' I'd found out all that by being in the bar – and I'd only been here a couple of days. 'It doesn't take much; once they had that and got your name and somebody on the hotel staff to fill in the details, you became a high-value target.'

Sweetman shook his head. He didn't buy it yet and looked lost. 'I can't believe this is happening.'

'Believe it. It happens all the time.' I steered past a broken-down delivery truck and a bunch of guys arguing about what to do. 'You got lucky; some people don't.'

I ran through the only available plan in my head. We had a small window to get clear of the city and head for the airport. Dead bodies in the corridors of a hotel – even dead bodies of armed FARC kidnappers – meant the cops would be shutting down the streets as fast as they could, the net moving inexorably outwards. Only at the airport would we be relatively safe.

But we had to get there first.

'Why not call the police?' he repeated.

'Because we'd get tied up for hours, maybe days, while they figured out what to charge us with. Do you want that?'

'No. I guess not.' He shook his head and went silent for a few moments. Then he said, 'You've done this before.' He was coming out of the first phase of shock and looking at me carefully, like a scientist might study a lab rat, part fascination, part revulsion.

'A few times,' I replied. More than a few, as it happened.

'So it's your job, your work?' He was looking at my suit, white shirt and tie, like he doubted I was entirely sane. He was probably right.

'It's what I do, yes.' I checked the mirrors. No signs of pursuit so far, which was good. The local cops like to do things noisily, with lots of lights and sirens. It gives everyone fair warning to clear the streets. Living in a drugs capital, where the car right next to them might be full of men with guns and bad nerves and no conscience tends to make them like that.

'So you were here on an assignment?' Now he was intrigued, which was a nuisance, but better than him freaking out on me.

'Yes.'

'You sound American. What are you – Delta? SEAL? One of those black-ops units fighting the cartels? It's OK – I was in the Marine Corps, so I know.'

'Do you mind not asking so many questions? I'd like to get us out of here in one piece.'

He wasn't accustomed to being told to shut up, and bristled. 'What the hell – you think I should be happy seeing you kill two men in the blink of an eye? I should be grateful and shut the fuck up, is that it?'

'It would help. Or I could always leave you here to face the cops – and their friends in the cartels or FARC.'

He didn't like that idea so much. 'No. I guess not.' He shook his head. 'Sorry ... what just happened threw me, you know? I'm guessing you aren't a desk man, not with what you did back there. You're a security guy, right? Close Protection.'

I didn't say anything and let him jump to his own conclusions. There are two kinds of Close Protection: one is, as it says, up close, a visible barrier to a would-be attacker, designed to dissuade as much as shelter. The other is an outer shield – a shadow – deliberately out of sight, but with a wider view of the area around the protectee or principal. The shadow bit is what I do, unseen and often unknown by high-value assets whose people want protection without the high visibility of a gorilla in a suit.

This time I'd been in Colombia shadowing an A-list French tenor with a kidnap phobia. He was in town at the express invitation of the president's wife, to put on a show at her birthday bash. It had gone smoothly enough and the Frenchman was already halfway home by now, relieved he hadn't got himself kidnapped, shot or otherwise compromised so far from home, but unaware that I was with him right up to the departure desk. It had been an easy job for me, and I was now otherwise unemployed until the next one came along.

'If you want to do something useful,' I suggested, 'keep your eyes on the wing mirror. Any vehicle stays behind us too long, tell me.'

He nodded and leaned forward, eyes on the mirror. It wouldn't be much help, but it might keep him buttoned up for a while until we got clear of this mess.

I concentrated on my front, trying to keep to a reasonable speed yet constantly on the move between sticking points in the traffic. We had about ten kilometres to go to the airport of El Dorado, and I wanted to get there without delay.

The whole point about staying out of trouble in hostile territory is to avoid attracting attention and keep moving; once you stop you're at a disadvantage. There was also the local law enforcement angle to watch out for. Being picked up by a nosy or bored traffic cop would be awkward, especially as I still had the kidnapper's semi-automatic in my pocket and another gun under the seat. I was counting, however, on the car's tinted windows to get us through any potential trouble. Traffic cops don't like upsetting people who might just shoot them for the hell of it.

'There's another car like this one,' Sweetman muttered. 'It jumped the last set of lights to stay with us.'

He was sharper than I thought. I'd spotted the car and it was coming up too fast to be casual. When it slotted in behind us on a relatively clear stretch of road, matching our speed, I began to worry.

'Buckle up,' I said.

'Wha ...? Oh.' He tugged at the strap and sat back, then gave a nervous chuckle. 'It's like that scene in Bullitt.' When I looked at him, he added, 'You know – with Steve McQueen. It's a classic.'

'So?'

'The bit where the bad guys do up their seat belts ... you know things are going to get hairy.'

Jesus, a film nut on adrenalin. 'It's nothing like that. Believe me.'

I checked the mirror and got a whole load of black 4×4 and tinted windows in return. Whoever they were, they must have recognized the car and were sticking close to figure out where we were going. My guess is, they were nervous of stopping us and busy calling whoever was the usual driver of this particular vehicle.

I took a chance and lowered my window a few inches, then gave the hazard warning lights a single flash, followed by a brief flick of my hand out of the window. The air felt hot and sticky and my mouth felt dry.

A few seconds went by as the 4×4 stayed on our tail. Then it dropped back with a flash of its lights before turning off down a side street and disappearing.

I breathed more easily. For now, we were OK.

Sweetman noticed the move and looked at me like he was impressed. 'What did you just do? What happened?'

'Not sure,' I said. 'I'm hoping it was kidnapper-speak for "I'm good, thanks, so back the fuck off".'

As we arrived at the airport, I said, 'One thing you need to remember.'

'What's that?' He was looking a bit calmer, but it was probably short term.

'Make it two things. First is, have a strong drink as soon as you can. Make itaguardiente, the local brandy – it'll paralyse your vocal chords and settle your nerves. Second thing is, you know nothing about what happened. You saw nothing, you heard nothing, you left your room and went home. And you never come back here. Ever. Understood?'

He nodded. 'I get it. Reprisals. What about you?'

'Me? I was never here in the first place.'