Higher Cause

by John Hunt

  Joseph was one of the fortunate few island residents who discovered The Piling. He was treated with great respect in this small, dark, and secret bar. The flavor of the beer was enhanced by the illicitness of the place.

  He walked down the road to the harbor. Traffic was heavy now, as it was getting on toward dinnertime. Joseph marveled at how much Paradise Island had changed in just a couple of years. He remembered his first views of the place: buildings under construction everywhere; the roads unpaved and muddy; nature winning the battle against the intruding mankind. He had not conceived of the possibility, when he first came, that this chain of islands might harbor the wrecked hulk of a ship that was recorded in history as having burned off of Pitcairn’s Island hundreds of kilometers away. Even now it seemed silly, but Joseph knew with every fiber of his being that it was true.

  He knocked twice, then twice again on the vertically paneled exterior wall of the wharf’s warehouse. He was at the far end, which overlay the water. It smelled nice here: salt scents mixed with the pungent odor of diesel fumes. Joseph was immersed for a moment in memories of his youth in the merchant marine. His reverie was broken by the squeak of the rusty hidden hinges on which this concealed door hung. It swung inward, and the enterprising dockhand that managed the place welcomed him in.

  “Good evening, Joseph. It’s been a long time. Good to have you visit us again!”

  “It truly has been a while,” Joseph responded. “What, say, twenty-one hours?”

  “More than that. You left early last night.”

  “Oh yes. You are correct.” He looked around the room with a puzzled expression.

  The proprietor asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Joseph appeared dismayed as he replied, “Well, I have been here for over thirty seconds, and I’m wondering where my beer is?”

  It was now the turn of the dockhand/proprietor to appear dismayed, and he made a great show of leaping over the bar, grabbing and filling a large plastic cup from a tapped keg, and returning to Joseph briskly.

  “I found it, Joseph. It was behind the bar. I’m so ashamed.”

  “Well, David, don’t let it happen again. If it does, I might not come back for a whole day.”

  The dockhand bowed humbly, repeatedly, as he backed away.

  Joseph made his way over to one of the five tables in the cramped bar. The place was mostly dark, as it had only a few dim electric bulbs to provide illumination barely adequate to create even faint shadows. The bar itself consisted of a reinforced sheet of plywood, through which holes had been cut for the lines from the tap to be drawn through. Efficiency, and the lack of any plumbing, dictated that the standard vessel, mugs, be replaced with plastic cups, just as at a fraternity party. The dirty cups could then be tossed into a large green bag in the corner, which occasionally, and only when unquestionably overdistended, was removed to the dumpster on the wharf.

  His little table was no better designed than the bar itself. It was a standard-sized steel oil drum, bottom side up. The stool was comfortable, and the drum just the right height on which to lean.

  On the other side of the room, which was only seven meters away, two men were involved in a boisterous conversation using descriptions almost designed to offend the gentler ear. One of them, a large man with greasy pants and a greasy shirt, was smoking a cigar, the fumes of which offended Joseph’s more sophisticated taste in tobacco. The man looked like he might have just come out of the engine room of the small freighter alongside the pier. Joseph could not see his face. The other man was none other than Professor Evan Harrigan. He was attired in a tweed sports jacket and green slacks, and he looked for all the world like an Oxford academician. The two were a strange pair.

  Both of the men had their backs to the door, so Joseph doubted that the professor had noticed him enter, despite the small size of the place. Besides, they had never even talked except for a few words at a Hash. Harrigan motioned for the other to talk quietly, and the conversation took on a more conspiratorial tone. Onbacher could only hear portions, until he drifted closer by moving slowly through the shadows. He worked his way into the dark corner so that he could observe the two men surreptitiously.

  Harrigan was saying, “As I told you before, this needs to stay very hush hush. Only you and I can know about it for now.”

  “I still don’t understand,” the greasy man was saying, “but I’ll do what you ask. Makes the work real hard for me though. One man doin’ all that luggin’. Your equipment is pretty heavy. I should have at least one more man.”

  “I told you that I’d pay you more. It will be worth your time, I promise.”

  The obese man nodded. “Let me ask you something. When this little shenanigan of yours is played out, don’t you think some people are going to be mighty angry with you? I mean, it’s not like anyone’s gonna be expecting this t’happen.”

  “The shock value is what I like,” Harrigan answered.

  “It sure as Hell will be a shock, too. There will probably be a lot of collateral damage, don’t you think?”

  Harrigan nodded. “That is why it has to be out there, and not here. I haven’t yet done all the calculations to see how big it will be, but I know I won’t be able to keep it small.”

  “And you think you’ve got the right to do this?”

  “No,” Harrigan replied. “I probably don’t. But then, if it works as planned, nobody will care if I had the right to do it or not, will they?”

  “I s’pose not.”

  The two men stopped talking and sipped at their drinks in quiet. Onbacher decided it would be wise to move away. He had come close enough that had they turned, he would appear to have been snooping on them — which he was, but that didn’t mean he wanted to get caught.

  The heavy man, the one whose face Onbacher had not been able to see clearly, was likely of little importance — just a lackey hired by the professor to haul machinery. Harrigan was the key. Joseph made a mental note to talk to Petur about him.

  They all shook their heads at the same time. What else could they do?

  “One step closer to complete failure. But we’re not there yet. Not yet.”

  Irreverently, the old man plucked an orange from the bowl and began peeling it. Nobody was shocked. None of the old traditions remained. Two centuries of obligatory ritual had been ablated in the last two years. The oranges in the center of the table, although they still symbolized the relevant families, no longer were sacred. And they were his oranges, blast it.

  He stated matter-of-factly, “Onbacher is persistent. And he knows now he’s sitting right on top of it. Why else would he make all these arrangements? He is putting together a salvage operation.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “Mexico.”

  “We have to accelerate the plan.”

  “These things take time. The timing is critical.”

  “If we wait any longer, timing will be irrelevant — completely. We’ll have lost.”

  “We used to pray a lot. Perhaps we should start praying again.”

  “We can speed up Mexico. Let’s just turn it on. We slowed it down before, now we can speed it up.”

  “You are naïve.”

  “But he may be right.”

  “Are we still in control?”

  “As much as we can expect. There are only two of us there. How much can two people control?”

  “They can speed it up, can’t they?”

  “Perhaps. That is our job for the next seven days. We must reconsider everything before we attempt to accelerate. Everything.”

  “We are about to topple a government. Can you believe what we are undertaking?”

  “It is amazing what we will do to avoid being murderers.”

  “We were never told our job would be easy.”

  “It’s decided, though. We will overthrow a government” — the old man put his orange down — “to save humanity.”

  33. Dissent and Exploration

  ENRICO MARCOS WAS getting impatien
t. Weeks were passing. He drove rapidly up the steep tree-lined driveway to his father’s house, and his tires screeched as he swung around a sharp curve to the right. If he came head to head with a descending truck, so be it.

  His father was being used, of that Enrico was sure. The men who started this strange, surreptitious internal warfare chose his father for who-knows-what reasons, but they had chosen wisely. He was a pawn who did as he was told.

  Enrico had been running around daily for the better part of a year now; he initially had been stoking the fires of discontent among the population, and was now spraying them with a cool mist. He had not ever been given full knowledge of the plan in which his father had such a great part. But he had figured much of it out on his own, and what he was not sure of, he had filled in with supposition.

  He had watched his father spend much of his net worth. The amounts he was doling out to his little army of propagandists were not insignificant. And for all the expense, there was no tangible return — just a population on the verge of major civil unrest.

  The Marcos family was now creating an unproductive organization that consisted of a mass of whining men who depended for their livelihood on their generosity. It would be difficult to train these men to traffic again in the drugs demanded by the youth, the idiotic youth, north of the border. For now, all this talking army could do was lead Mexico down the garden path. Yet, if his father would deviate from the plan championed by that group of so-called businessmen, then the Marcos family might recover from this debacle and even, perhaps, thrive.

  Juan Marcos could already have taken charge of Baja, had he allowed Enrico to push on weeks earlier. The area had been ripe for revolt, and so what if the rest of the Group was not yet prepared? To hell with them. They were unnecessary. Just weeks earlier, it would have been easy to send the people into a frenzy and encourage them to take up arms and declare their independence from Mexican central authority. But the forced delay had softened the public’s resolve. Enrico could begin to build it back again, but it would not be as strong or as certain. But, he was sure, it would be just about the strength that the planners who controlled his father wanted: just strong enough to kick out the current government, but not enough for open and armed revolt; just strong enough to satisfy the needs of the Group. But it would destroy his father.

  His men — the manipulators of opinion whom Enrico paid in cash weekly with his father’s money — were getting bored. Soon, the people would be tired of hearing them say the same old rhetoric all the time. The carefully contrived messages of discontent were getting redundant, stale. And stale was the way Enrico Marcos felt now too.

  He pulled the car to a stop by slamming on his brakes immediately in front of the stairs leading to the porch of his father’s home. The cries of complaint from the melting rubber of the tires brought the elder Marcos out the front door, curious as to what sort of accident had just occurred in his drive. When he saw his son tramping up the stairs, he frowned.

  “Enrico! What brings you here tonight? I was not expecting you.”

  The son nodded impudently at his father and marched right on past and in through the front door. Juan Marcos turned to follow, and the frown deepened a furrow in his brow. Enrico walked into the library, where he yanked open his father’s bar and removed a bottle of tequila. After unscrewing the top, he tossed down several large swallows as his father entered the room.

  “Bad day?”

  Two more swallows. Then the younger man held still for a moment as the alcohol warmed his esophagus and flushed his face. “I have been thinking. And what I have been thinking makes me angry.”

  The senior Marcos sat down on a wide sofa chair, the cushions straining under his mass. “Please tell me what it is you are thinking, son.”

  Leaning on the bar now, Enrico looked his father in the eye and reached deep in his bowels for his courage. He did not often confront his father, and when he did, he usually regretted it. “Father, I think you are being used.”

  Juan Marcos sat silently.

  “Father, Salingas and the others are setting you up. They are using you as a tool, and when they are done, they will ruin your life in politics.”

  “Tell me more, please,” responded the father, who did not appear concerned.

  “Don’t you see? The others are all legitimate businessmen.”

  “So am I!”

  “Yes, father, you are too. But clearly there are portions of your business which would not withstand careful government scrutiny, if the government had the gumption to so scrutinize.”

  “With that I must agree.”

  “So, what do you think they are going to do when the so-called democratic revolt occurs? Do you really think they are going to give you, a prominent dealer of narcotics, the opportunity to govern the part of Mexico that shares the border with the United States? The gringos would complain bitterly to the new government.”

  “But they would be powerless to influence them!” Juan Marcos interrupted. “The US would not impose trade sanctions or reverse the NAFTA agreement because of me. No, the gringos aren’t even able to bare their teeth with credibility, to say nothing of actually doing anything!

  “You do not think that Salingas will arrange for your political defeat? You do not think that he will use your history as a drug smuggler to his advantage? Why do you think he picked you for this job? It is not as if you knew each other very well.”

  “I was in the perfect position to do what he needed. Nothing other than that.”

  “Yes, father, that is exactly right. You were the perfect chump in the perfect position to be used!”

  As heavy as he was, Juan Marcos could move quickly when he wanted. And he did so now. Before his intoxicated son could react, the elder Marcos rose from his chair, crossed the short distance between them, and struck a blow to his son’s nose with his enormous fist. Blood squirted down Enrico’s shirt immediately. But the sight of his son’s blood did not in the least deter the father. He shoved the hapless young man bodily against the wall and struck him repeatedly with his hand — first the open palm, then the knuckled backside. The blood from Enrico’s nose was smeared over his face by the repeated blows.

  In a moment, Enrico slumped quivering to the floor. He was not unconscious, but he was stunned and humiliated. His father turned away. Taking a towel from the bar, Juan Marcos calmly wiped the blood from his hands. As he wiped, he muttered, “Soon, you fool — soon you will see.”

  Through swollen eyes and bloody tears, Enrico peered up at his father as he walked slowly out of the room. Some blood dripped down the back of his throat. He coughed and spit a bloody mass of mucous across the room and onto the carpet. After a few minutes, he was able to climb to his feet.

  He trudged, solemnly, into the neighboring kitchen. For a moment, he had a feeling that Maria would be there. But then he remembered that she had left after only a brief stay. Her mother had taken ill again, or something like that. Supposedly, she was going to come back.

  His father must have walked through here after leaving the library, because the bloody towel was lying on the counter top. After pouring soda water onto to the already bloodied bar towel, Enrico began to wipe away the blood from his nose and lips. In a few minutes, he wiped away almost all of it. But the young man would never wipe away all the damage caused by his unpredictable and controlling father over the years. That damage was irreparable and gave him an impressive propensity for evil.

  The Elijah Lewis was steered cautiously toward the pier by Tim Bellamy. Its access through the coral beds was tenuous, and the currents in the lagoon were brisk as the waves from the gentle tides met the flow of the two wide streams that came down from the lower mountain peak. A false turn, or inadequate knowledge of the currents, could cause the hull of the ship to become too well-acquainted with a sand bar or a coral ridge. If this were to occur, it might not only delay or damage the ship, but also badly damage a coral ridge. Tim had grown fond of the coral in the beautiful lagoon. He would feel
forever guilty if he erred and wreaked havoc upon it.

  So Tim paid close attention, as always, to the different blues and greens of the water. The darker shades of blue indicated fresh water that poured down from the mountain peak. The streams’ sparkling clear effluent was strong enough to kick the bow of a small ship toward danger if it did not make quick corrections to its course. Tim had learned to make the corrections before the bow even reached the current. He could read the waters perfectly, and despite Tim’s youth and unkempt appearance, the shipmasters willingly gave over control to the pilot as soon as he came out to meet the incoming vessels.

  The several dockhands on the pier watched as the tug slid in gently along the pilings. The landing was perfect, as usual, and they worked quickly to secure the vessel with heavy lines.

  Captain Stouffer thanked the pilot and signed a form to pay Tim for his services. Tim nodded and moved off the bridge, nimbly leaping down the stairs from the starboard bridgewing and over the side to the pier below. He was almost at the pier access road when he had to leap out of the way as a rapidly moving golf cart careened around from behind the warehouse and shot onto the concrete platform of the wharf. He recognized the man driving the cart as Joseph Onbacher. Tim brushed the dust off his scuffed knees and shook his head in bemusement as he watched the cart head toward the gangplank, which was being lowered from the ship’s gunwale.

  Joseph looked sheepishly back at the harbor pilot, and waved in apology. He pulled the cart up to the base of the gangway just as it hit the concrete. In a flash he ran up the steps and requested permission to board.

  Captain Stouffer had just satisfied himself that the tug was secure when he saw the jolly and very wealthy owner of the Elijah Lewis scramble up the gangway. He ducked his head through the door to the bridgewing and called down to the man.

  “Good morning, Mr. Onbacher. Welcome aboard!”

  Joseph smiled and saluted informally in acknowledgment. He could be quite sprightly for a man of his age and despite his inactivity. He took two steps at a time, and he soon joined the captain on the bridge.