by John Hunt
Enrico Marcos was not weak or small. And he was an able fighter — quite capable of defending himself. But he had been caught off guard, and the hormones that had consumed him seconds ago now weakened his muscles. The huge arm, which he knew was his father’s, would not give up its grasp. Enrico dug madly for the point in the elbow that would force the arm to release him, but he could not find it through the mass of fat.
He kicked wildly in an effort to break free, but each move only squeezed his trachea and carotid arteries further. As his father dragged him out onto the porch, the oxygen in his brain continued to exhaust itself. Enrico began to panic, and lost any chance of freeing himself. He twisted and turned madly. His father seemed to have no intention of releasing him. Enrico could feel the world closing in on him. As he slipped away, he thought for a moment how unfair it was that his own father was slaying him. Then a sea of blackness enveloped him, and he went limp.
36. Conspiracy Realized
PETUR HAD BEEN sick for a few days. With people traveling from all over the world to Paradise 1, it was not surprising that epidemics such as the cold and flu found their way early to this little geographically isolated island in the Pacific. Petur was no more immune than anyone else. He grabbed a tissue and blew his nose as he walked to answer the knock on the door.
“It’s happening, Petur.”
Elisa walked in though the glass doors as soon as he began to slide them open. She moved briskly over to his sofa, and then, as if too energized to sit down, remained standing and repeated what she had just said.
“What’s happening, Elisa?”
“It is only three weeks until the Mexican elections. A few months ago I told you it might occur in six to twelve months, remember? Things have changed. The overthrow of the Mexican government is going to occur in three weeks, during the fall elections.”
“That soon? I thought you said they weren’t going to do this democratically. If they use the elections, well, that sounds pretty democratic.” He sneezed twice.
“Petur, I have shown you how these people have been manipulating the emotions of the population. The election may seem fair and equitable, but do not underestimate the power of social psychology. The people of Mexico are being conned. And they will vote in a new president in three weeks. Then, the Mexicans will come here.”
“How sure are you of this?”
“I am completely sure that the government will change hands now. And I am completely sure that, of the changes undertaken by this new government, one of the first will be to repossess the Paradise Islands. I believe they will use the notion that the Island Project owes Mexico billions of pesos in never-paid taxes. The new government will want to prove to the people that it is a justice-seeking organization. They will come here. The potency of this symbol in reinforcing their power base is not to be underestimated. The government-to-be knows this. They know it well.”
Petur sat forward in his seat. “Elisa, I see you only occasionally. For months now I have taken your word that you glean all this information from reading newspapers. I am very glad that you are reading those papers, I might add. But I simply cannot imagine how you can derive information such as you claim to have from simply being a connoisseur of the press! Is there anything you are not telling me?”
Elisa, dressed in her long gray burlap outfit, with her hair tied tightly in a bun, and her thick red glasses perched upon her nose, smiled. Despite all the rest, her smile was a beautiful thing to behold.
Petur waited patiently. After a moment, he said, “Well?”
Elisa’s smile faded. “Of course there are things I have not told you.”
A crease formed in Petur’s forehead. “Will you tell me now?”
“No.”
“Can I not be trusted in these matters? I am the leader of this Project, as you know.”
“Trust is not the issue here, Petur.”
“Is there any more information that you have of which I should be aware?”
“I will inform you of any important information that I might come across.”
Petur shrugged. Faith in his people’s abilities was in his nature. He would have to be comforted by that faith now. “The council asked you for recommendations. Are you prepared to make those recommendations now?”
“Yes. Would you like to hear them?”
Petur nodded. “You will have to go through them twice — once with me, and once with the council.”
“That’s fine.” Elisa sat down. “You are aware of my prediction for the impending chain of events in Mexico and Paradise. But I will summarize. First, the elections are an opportunity to take over the government of Mexico with credibility and with international acceptance. Neither the incumbent party nor the opposition will be the victors, despite the overwhelming sense among all parties that the opposition will win handily.” She frowned. “No; I misspoke. Not all parties feel that way. The conspirators know better. You see, at the last minute, the opposition party will suffer a severe blow — I do not know exactly what that will be — and the people of Mexico will be left with no one among whom to choose. And into this void a new contender will emerge. This will be the current vice president of Mexico, Alberto Jimenez. He will leave his party with great celebration and launch his own campaign. He will make his message clear. He will have the answers that the people have been programmed over the past year to demand. In fact, he will seem to be a gift from the heavens, for he and his new party will perfectly fit the image of the ideal government that the Mexican people have been taught to desire. There will be no time to dig up dirt, to stain his image. With the support of the conspirators’ group, his candidacy will succeed, and he will march into power with an impressive mandate.”
“You definitely could not have picked this up from the newspapers, Elisa.” Petur frowned.
She continued, seeming to ignore him. “The administration will turn over its power quickly, as the country will demand that its president-elect be inaugurated. But the new president’s mandate will need reinforcement, and as I have said, the Island Project will be a means of reinforcement. They will come, very soon after the election, to take over the Island.”
“How soon after?”
“I am speculating, but I would guess within two weeks.”
“So, five weeks from now.” He thought for a moment. Then, hopefully, he asked, “And what are your recommendations?”
She turned to look out the window. The sunlight reflected off her glasses, momentarily blinding him. While sparkles of light fluttered across Petur’s retinas, Elisa said calmly, “You need to evacuate the Islands.”
37. The Motivations of Men
NOTHING! WE’VE SPENT weeks, and come up with nothing!” Onbacher finally voiced his frustration. “We haven’t even found the wreck of a rowboat!”
Petur, although not surprised that they had failed to find the hulk of the Bounty, sympathized with his friend. “Are you giving up?” His question was designed to raise Joseph’s ire.
“No, I am most certainly not giving up! And I’m never going to give up! But it sure as hell is frustrating. The crew has begun to ask what I have been unwilling to ask myself.”
“Like, ‘maybe it isn’t here at all?’”
“Yes. Maybe it’s not here at all. Maybe Christian left the ship’s lamp behind to serve as a false trail — to throw people off the scent.”
“You sound like a real Hasher now — talking about false trails and all.”
“But, Petur, maybe it’s true; maybe this was just a false trail. Think about it. He plants the lamp at the highest point on the island: the one place where sooner or later someone is going to look. Heck, maybe there are little artifacts from the Bounty at the highest point of every island in this part of the Pacific.
“Okay, maybe it is a false trail. Maybe the Bounty sailed away from here. To where?”
“Back to Pitcairn’s. Maybe Christian did stop by this island after the mutiny, before getting to Pitcairn’s. Maybe they left the lamp here w
ith the inscription about the sunken Bounty so that the Brits would stop looking for them. Then they sailed on to Pitcairn’s.”
Petur shook his head. “From what you tell me, Fletcher Christian was too smart for that. Think about it. This place stayed hidden until satellite mapping came along. We’ve already discussed how perfect this place would have been for them to hide at. Wouldn’t Christian have recognized this? And if he wanted to mislead people, why mention this thing about the bell? What was it he wrote?”
“It’s, ‘Look to the bell.’ And I have no idea why that’s there. I guess the bell is supposed to tell us something.” Joseph, pacing back and forth around the room as he talked, had yet to sit down.
Petur sat back down. Only one useful thought came to mind. “Joseph, let’s get ourselves a drink.”
“I could do with one or two. Yes, a beer would be nice right now.”
“A beer it is.” Petur walked to the kitchen and pulled two cold beers from the refrigerator. He glanced at the labels. He never kept anything but bottles from microbreweries, and less-appealing cans from one of Iceland’s manufacturers. This time, he had bottles of his favorite beer of all, Old Dominion — bottled at a small facility in Virginia. He had been to their brewery once. They put the caps on the beer bottles by hand then, one at a time. He looked at one of the metal tops. With their success, they must have obtained a machine to do that by now. The tops came off with ease.
He handed Joseph a bottle. Smiling appreciatively, he took a long pull. The two men stood by a large glass window that looked over Petur’s balcony toward the lagoon. There was the usual humming of traffic down by the pier — nothing like it had been during the biggest construction projects, but still, a busy day. A small freighter was tied along the pier, and another waited just outside the lagoon entrance for an opportunity to take the wharf’s prime position for unloading cargo. The Elijah Lewis was tied fast to the other side of the wharf, awaiting instructions from her dispirited owner.
“Let’s think it through, Joseph. Let’s put ourselves in Christian’s position. And let’s say the scenario that you’ve worked out is true.”
“I have done this over and over again, Petur. There’s not much to do out there, going back and forth and back and forth over what looks like the same stretches of water. I started to get paranoid that the crew was going to mutiny against me for being such a crack!”
“Wouldn’t happen, Bounty Hunter.” Petur used his Hash name.
“Yes, I know. Well, to distract myself, I started thinking just the way you were saying. It’s not like I haven’t been doing it all along, but this time I tried even harder. I pretended to be Christian, I worked through all kinds of daily chores he might have done. I tried to get into his head. But I came up with nothing that made sense. After much trying, that tactic has been a failure.”
“So, you are giving up.”
“No, Petur. I’m just frustrated — and tired of trying to get into his head.”
“I know, I know. But let’s try again — one last time. Let’s get into Christian’s head, together. Now and again, a friend can help.”
Onbacher closed his eyes. Petur could not tell whether or not he was angry. The older man then sighed, resigned to playing another mental game. “You start,” replied Joseph.
Petur, straightening up tall, ran his hand through his blond hair. “You’ll have to help me. What do you think Fletcher Christian’s biggest priorities were?”
“In my mythology, his biggest goal was to get the sphere back to England.”
“All right, then. I’ll accept that. Maybe it’s bull, but let’s work on the presumption that it’s true. Okay, working from the presumption, therefore, that he did not burn the Bounty, why didn’t he just sail home to England?”
“Because he needed a crew, and the mutineers could never have gone back safely.”
“How about the Maori? Why couldn’t he have taken them?”
“You mean, just sneak off the island one night with the Tahitian men? I doubt that he could have gotten away with it.”
Petur took a drink from his bottle. The cool fluid felt wonderful as he swallowed. “Maybe he didn’t sneak. Maybe he tried to get a crew by saying they would sail to another island to hide the Bounty and return in a dinghy. None of the mutineers was willing to go, for the return trip would be perilous and unpleasant — nor would they wish to be caught and hanged if a British warship happened across them.”
“So he gets the Maoris to join him.” Onbacher was getting into the game now, at least a little.
“Sure. It makes sense. The mutineers take everything off the ship that they want to keep on Pitcairn’s, and then Christian and the Maoris sail off somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“Christian heads for Britain, maybe.”
“Didn’t happen, Petur.”
Petur grinned. “Hey, I’m on a roll here! Let me continue. And let’s not rule anything out.”
Joseph nodded and gave a little grunt of acceptance.
Petur continued, “So maybe Christian starts sailing for Britain, south around the Horn and back up through the Atlantic.”
Joseph interrupted. “Doesn’t work, Petur. The Admiralty could never have kept the return of the Bounty a secret. There was a press back then too, and everyone in England knew of the Bounty mutiny. No, the Bounty did not make it back to Britain. I’m sure of it.”
“All right, then. So he starts sailing for Britain, but something happens. The Maoris find that he has the chest with the sphere hidden somewhere on the Bounty. They get furious, set him ashore, and abandon him on Paradise 1.”
“Why the brass lamp? Why would he have the lamp, and why would he engrave it to say that the Bounty sank?”
Petur pursed his lips, shook his head, saying, “I don’t know.” He paused before adding, “But he didn’t say it sank.”
The two men stood quietly for several minutes, drinking their beer and looking out over the bay. The gentle, monotonous swells made their way across the ocean; the islands interrupted them only momentarily on their long voyage across the Pacific. Petur pictured himself on the Bounty, with only a few men helping to sail the vessel. What dedication Christian must have had! Attempting to sail back to England with a handful of Maori crewmen would have been courageous, albeit insane. What stopped him? Did the Bounty really sink off the coast of Paradise 1? If not, then why did Christian leave the engraved lamp there? It did not make sense. Something was wrong with their presumptions.
“Joseph, we said Christian’s priority was completing his mission. Maybe we were wrong.”
“Go on.”
“Maybe that was his priority to begin with, Joseph. Maybe he was dedicated to the task — sworn to it, even. He had orders to bring the sphere back to England, and he was willing to be known as a mutineer so that he could follow them.”
“Yes, so what then?”
“Something happened that changed his priorities.”
“When?”
“After the mutiny. It had to be after the mutiny.”
“I presume that he felt responsible for the men whom he manipulated into the mutiny. Don’t you think?”
“Absolutely!” replied Petur. “Of course he felt responsible for them. Of course he did. So, maybe he didn’t want to abandon them! Maybe he couldn’t leave them behind.”
“No, Petur,” Joseph interceded. “He was willing to use them in his plot to mutiny. The men who joined the mutiny were mostly scoundrels. They did not have a higher cause to motivate them. He would certainly leave them to fend for themselves; I have no doubt about that. But, maybe something else changed him. Do you think he found religion perhaps?” Joseph asked insincerely.
Petur considered this for a moment, then smiled and nodded his head gently, as if maybe he understood Christian, finally. “No, maybe not religion. Let me ask you something. Why is Paradise 1 and the Island Project so important to so many people?”
“Because the Island Project is our best ho
pe for surviving the next couple of centuries.”
“But you aren’t going to survive the next century, are you Joseph?”
Onbacher shook his head. “No.”
“And neither am I. None of us who are alive today are going to survive the next century are we? So what does it matter?”
“The children. We do this for our children of course.”
“Exactly! We do it for our children. I don’t even have any children yet. But the children are my priority. The Island Project in and of itself is not my priority. No, it’s the children, and our children’s children. I conceived of the Island Project and dedicated my life to it, not so that I could have a comfortable life, but so that our children could have a safe and nourishing home in which to learn and philosophize and pray and do whatever else they wish to do. So they could grow up and have an opportunity to love and be loved. The Island Project is simply a tool. The children are the priority. And Joseph, maybe that became the priority of Fletcher Christian.”
“His wife — she was pregnant.”
“Yes, she was, wasn’t she!” Petur was animated. “Suddenly, Christian was to be a father. He couldn’t take his pregnant wife on a long ocean voyage with little chance of making it to England. Had they made it to England, Christian no doubt suspected, he would be hanged so the Admiralty could keep its secret under wraps. A widowed Maori female, alone in England with a child, would not survive long either, although hers would be a slower death. On the other hand, if Christian were to go back to England on his own, he would leave his soon-to-be-born child to grow up on a forbidding island and with no one to assure his wife and child safety or comfort. If you were Christian, would you leave your wife and child behind on a remote island to complete a mission at the end of which you would likely be hanged as a traitor?”
“I certainly would think twice about it, Petur.”
“As would I. So, perhaps, did Christian. It wasn’t planned; those things rarely are. But Christian was in a position where he had to determine his priorities. He did so, and he stayed with his growing family.”