Earth Thirst

by Mark Teppo

  Big white bird…

  “That's it,” I whisper as the pieces start falling into place.

  “What? An albatross?”

  I tap the page I've got open in the hotel folder, and she leans over to see what I'm trying to show her. “‘The Hanga Roa Royal Resort is part of Hyacinth Worldwide, a network of family-owned hotels and resorts,'” she reads. “Okay, and…”

  “On the plane flight out here, you were telling me about your research. One of the companies you mentioned was…”

  “Hyacinth Holdings,” she finishes.

  “On the wall of the temple, there is an old mural. Most of it is gone, but the trim along the top is still there. An ornamental row of white-winged birds and hyacinths.”

  The pieces start clicking into place.

  Hyacinths on the wall.

  The Bird Man ceremony.

  Hyacinth owns the hotel.

  Big white bird, falling into the ocean.

  Hyacinth is in the agriculture industry.

  The albatross. The harbinger of ill luck.

  “I remember,” I tell Mere. “I remember why I came here before. Arcadia sent me. We were abandoning the island.”

  Mother sent me because I do what she asks. I follow orders.

  I had been sent to kill the steward.

  BOOK FOUR

  HYACINTH

  TWENTY-FOUR

  We put together a plan to get off the island. We've got an hour or two before a sitrep of zero becomes odd, and we make the best of it. Mere calls the front desk to check into the next flight going east. We're booked on the midday flight to Santiago, Chile, in four days, but if we show up at the counter at the airport and make enough noise and wave enough cash around, we can probably get our flight changed.

  Especially if we play up the disgruntled newlywed angle. No one likes to see relationships go sour that quickly.

  Mere leaves first, heading out the front door since E was probably the only one watching from the lobby. I linger, mainly to get the body out of the maid's closet and up to our room. I slip the tracking chip into the pocket of E's pants, along with everything else I had taken from her.

  I keep the phone. I send one more progress report on the way to the airport and then I shove the phone down behind the seat in the back of the cab.

  Mere is waiting for me next to the security check-point. She's wearing a large hat and dark sunglasses, and she's got a handful of wadded tissue. Her glasses are big enough to hide the fact that she's been crying, pretty heavily.

  “What happened?”

  “I had to put on a real show,” she says, offering me a boarding pass. The flight leaves in forty-five minutes.

  * * *

  Once the doors of the plane shut, I stop staring up the aisle; once the plane is in the air, I start to relax. I've been anticipating the arrival of any number of people: airport security, Secutores, the captain of the plane. None of those people show. It's just a tiny trickle of tourists, and then it is time to go.

  The six-hour flight is uneventful. Mere sleeps for most of it. When we land in Chile, we slip into the flow of passengers leaving the airport. Twenty minutes later, we're outside the main building, standing on Chilean soil, and no one appears to be the wiser. The flight wound back a number of time-zones, and I had been worried that during our actual flight time, our ruse would have been discovered and someone would have called ahead.

  For the moment, though, we appear to be ahead of Secutores, and now that we are on a larger landmass, it'll be easier to disappear.

  The airport is in Pudahuel, a short subway ride outside of the city. I change some of my dwindling cash into local currency while Mere examines a subway map, trying to figure out which line will take us into Santiago proper.

  She's been full of questions since we landed, and I've managed to put her off to this point, but once we get on the subway, she starts up again. This time, I get the sense that she's not going to stop until I give her some answers.

  “Let's just find a hotel,” I try. “There will be time enough for all of this.”

  “Do we have enough cash? I need some things. What about our passports? Are they still good?”

  “I can get more money, and we don't need to worry about the passports.”

  “What are we going to do for ID? Should I go to the US Consulate then?”

  “Why?”

  “I'm an American citizen. I've been kidnapped by an international security company. I was aboard the Liberty when—”

  We're sitting next to each other in a pair of narrow seats, our thighs touching. I reach over and silence her with a touch on her leg. “Let's not worry about all that quite yet.”

  “I'm going to worry about something.”

  “I know.”

  “It's what I do.”

  “I know.”

  “These are the things I'm going to wonder about.”

  “Yeah, I see that.”

  “You need to give me something else to gnaw on.”

  “Like…”

  “Hyacinth.”

  “Later,” I tell her. “When I'm sure.”

  She sighs heavily, and flops her hand down on top of mine. As the subway pulls into an underground station, she looks out the window. “I typically project three to six months for research before I even start laying out my story. I tell no one what I'm working on. Maybe one or two people at the network,” she says quietly, forcing me to lean toward her to hear the story. “But after Hachette Farms”—she swallows heavily, and her fingers tighten on mine—“after the incident with Kirkov, things changed. It all broke too big, and everyone knew my face. I couldn't do anything without someone—somewhere—trying to figure what my angle was. They didn't know the details, but they could guess as to the general shape of the piece. I wasn't a friend to Big Ag—they knew that—and research got harder. Sources were less inclined to go on the record. I had to dig deeper. I had to take more risks. I filed a couple of stories where my facts weren't quite solid, but I was close enough that public opinion did the rest for me. I couldn't stop them, but I could make them change how they did business. I could make them be more cautious about breaking the law.”

  She turns her head and looks at me. It would be easy to get lost in her gaze, but there's tension in her face that keeps me at bay. “I was never more than an annoyance. A line item on a budget: damage control, media spin, that sort of thing. And I had a network of people I could rely on; people who I knew would ask pointed questions if I disappeared. It was a game we played. I wrote a story, and they did a cost analysis internally. Was it cheaper to let me have my day and go do business some other way, or was it time to shut me down? You see? It's not personal. It's barely political. It's all about money. That's all they care about.”

  I recall Callis's command to follow the money. “Is that what is going on here?”

  She shakes her head. “I don't know. Personal vendettas don't make any sense in the corporate world. Resolving a grudge isn't boardroom thinking, and if we're talking about an enormous corporate entity, we have to assume there's a lot of boardroom thinking that is driving decisions. Unless you pissed off an entire corporate board.”

  “Isn't that what you do with your stories?”

  “Yes, but not like this. They don't come to my apartment and do awful things to my cat.”

  “You don't have a cat,” I point out.

  “Well, yeah—” She gives me a look that says such details are somewhat beside the point.

  “Look, it all boils down to controlling the market. Whatever I do with my stories or whatever direction they're heading is all about locking down market share. Destroying the competition or beating up on your personal enemies is meaningless if you don't control the market.”

  “So where does the video fit into this?”

  “They want us to react. They want us to be horrified and outraged. They want us to get all wound up and go off on a tear in one direction, while they do something sneaky in the other direction. It's
a distraction. They're trying to keep us from thinking about the big picture.”

  “Hell of a distraction,” I point out.

  She nods absently, returning her attention to the window. We're still underground and the tunnel walls are a blur rushing by. “And expensive,” she says pensively. “Which means what's at stake is worth significantly more.” I can see her reflection in the window and I can tell she's looking at me.

  What's at stake is Arcadia, and she knows it too.

  * * *

  We get off the subway at the Baquedando stop, near the Bellavista district. The wooded slope of San Cristobal rises to the north of us, and I'm immediately set at ease to be close to trees again. We wander the streets awhile, getting our bearings, and stumble upon a two-level, open-air mall. Mere drags me into a restaurant that isn't subtle in its mood lighting—orange and red lamps pointed at the walls and ceiling give off the impression of dining in a cavernous lava dome. The dark booths rise like stones out of a lake of shadows that covers the floor.

  “I thought you might like the ambience,” Mere says after the host seats us. She has to raise her voice to be heard over the music, and as soon as she finishes speaking, she shakes her head and slides out of her side of the booth and comes over to mine, bumping me with her hip to make room. “Not very ambient,” she says when she's settled next to me.

  “It's a privacy screen,” I say, trying to adjust myself in the seat so that I have a little more space between us.

  “Yes,” she nods. “That's a good word. Privacy. This is hardly the soundtrack to an intimate dinner.” The music was banal, heavy with electronic beats, and I vaguely recognize it as something that had been popular in the US a few years ago.

  “When was the last time you took someone to dinner?” she asks, trying to make the question seem casual as she looks over the menu. Making small talk. But I feel a tiny tremor running through her body. Her heart rate seems elevated, though I can't be sure I'm not hearing echoes of the music.

  “Several years,” I say. “You?”

  She shakes her head. “We're not talking about me.”

  “We're not?”

  A waiter glides up to our table, seemingly legless in black trousers and a red shirt that glows in the indirect light of the restaurant. He starts in Spanish, switches smoothly to English when Mere offers him a rustic “Hiya,” runs us through the specials, and then glides away in response to her request for a couple of caipirinhas.

  Mere puts the menu down on the table and rests her head on her hand so that she can give me her undivided attention. “Yes,” she says, “we're talking about you. Because I'm in Chile—illegally—where I'm probably being targeted by a bunch of ex-military heavies, while chasing the biggest story of my life. Oh, and there's this whole semantic game we're playing about the word ‘vampire,' which, yes, is another story entirely. And probably even bigger than the first one.”

  “Is this an interview then. Like that book?”

  “No, not like that book.”

  “Off the record then?”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  The waiter returns with our drinks and hovers, waiting for us to order food. Mere glances at him, frowns, and reaches for the menu. “Tapas,” I tell him. “Exquisitas combinaciones.” I pick up my drink. “Más bebidas, por favor,” I add.

  “Gracias,” he says, collecting our menus and disappearing again.

  “What was that about?” Mere asks.

  “I ordered.”

  “I figured that much out. What did you order?”

  “Tapas. Chef's choice.” I give her a guileless smile. “And more drinks. It sounds like we're going to be here awhile.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  It's not hard to get her drunk. She's tired, jetlagged, emotionally wrung out, still recovering from being doped by Secutores, and hasn't had a decent meal in more than twelve hours. What surprises me is that it takes as many drinks as it does.

  After we've cleared a dozen plates and half as many drinks (of which I had one and a half), I have our waiter get us a cab. Mere's already half asleep by the time I coax her out of the booth. Once in the cab, I tell the driver to drive around for twenty minutes or so, and it only takes Mere five to fall asleep, her head resting against my shoulder. Fifteen minutes later, confident that we're not being followed, I tell the driver to take us to the hotel I had spotted near the open air mall.

  I leave her in the car until I have a room, and then I carry her in. The concierge gets the elevator for me. “Thank you.” I nod toward Mere's limp form. “Too much to drink.”

  “It happens,” he replies with that nonjudgmental air that good hotel staff learn. I smile, trying to make it seem like I'm the long-suffering one in the relationship, as the elevator doors close.

  We're on the eighth floor, in a corner room. I key in, arrange Mere on the bed, and cover her with the sheets. I prowl around the room for a few minutes, pausing to peek out at the parade of lights that are strung along the side of San Cristobel, and then I acknowledge that I'm too restless to sit and wait. I leave Mere a note and go back downstairs.

  The mall is still open and I find a telecom shop where I buy a few international phone cards and a new pay-as-you-go phone. I get a small laptop too, using the debit card that I got from the bank in Adelaide. It creates a money trail, but I don't have any choice right now. I don't have enough pesos to pay for it, and changing the rest of my Australian money is going to require a bank.

  If we're going to keep moving, changing money is going to be a problem. I'm going to have to trust that the bank channel is secure for the time being. If it isn't, it's better to find out now rather than later when I really need it.

  Afterward, I find a quiet bench off the main thoroughfare of the mall and sit down to figure out how to make the phone cards work. Australia is on the other side of the International Date line, and with the time difference, it is tomorrow morning there. I follow the directions on the card and then punch in Ralph's cell phone number.

  He answers on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Did I wake you?”

  “What? No, no. No, I was just… is this—?”

  “It is.”

  “Are you…? Is…?”

  It's hard to ask questions when you're worried about who might be listening in.

  “We're fine. Enjoying our honeymoon,” I tell him. “How are the neighbors?”

  “Restless. Some of the natives are getting curious too.”

  “Sounds like a party.”

  “I think the neighbors are leaving soon, though. If they haven't gone already.”

  “Any forwarding address?”

  “Just the one on file.”

  “Well, sounds like that party is almost over. Should be nice and quiet after that.”

  “So, ah, look, the neighbors.” I can almost hear him thinking through the code phrasing we've adopted, trying to fit it to what he wants to tell me. “The landlords—the ones who own the place the neighbors have been staying at—I think they pulled the lease.”

  I parse what he's telling me. “Interesting. Any idea on who the landlords are? Is someone else moving in?”

  “Nada,” he says dejectedly. “I got zilch.”

  “I was thinking about buying my new bride some hyacinths,” I tell him. “But it's the wrong time of year. Could you look into it for me? Where I could find someone who could grow them out of season? Get them to hold them for me? Until we get back.”

  He's quiet for a minute. “Yeah, sure,” he says eventually. “Holding on to some hyacinths. I can do that.” From the stress he places on certain syllables, I think he's got my request figured out. Hyacinth Holdings.

  “Great, thanks. I'll call later.” I hang up.

  I call Callis next. Rather, I try to, but he doesn't answer. I let the call ring for a long time, wondering why it doesn't go to voice mail. All I can imagine is an old rotary phone in a dusty room somewhere, in a house that no one lives in anymore.

  I
end the call and shove the phone in my pocket. I don't need to talk to Callis, and maybe this is his way of reminding me that I need to stay away from making contact. If I'm isolated, then not only am I safe from whatever is poisoning Arcadia, Arcadia is also safe from me.

  Mere says this isn't personal, but I can't help but think of Talus's warning on the boat. She's not family. Remember your priorities.

  The matter is personal, though. It has been for a long time.

  I need to remember who the steward was on Rapa Nui.

  I start walking toward San Cristobal. There will be trails, walking paths through the trees. If not, I'll just find my own way through the woods. I've done it before. All that really matters is that I get under the trees for a while.

  They don't judge me. They still accept me as family. They'll let me rest, and maybe they'll even help me put my mind back together.

  * * *

  Mere is still sleeping when I return to the room. Her hair is mussed around her head and her shirt is twisted around her body. The only part of her that moves is her chest and her throat. Watching both becomes hypnotic, and I can feel the thirst tickling at the back of my throat.

  How many times have I been in a room like this, watching someone like this? There were others before Val, a long list of faces that are all out of focus. But it was different with the others. None of them knew about Arcadia. None of them knew how I was different. I was a man with an exotic past, loath to talk about family and where I had been before I met them. I lied to them all. I was good at dodging questions, at coming up with false emergencies and interruptions to derail persistent questions. After a while, most of them gave up trying. Some of the relationships failed for that reason. Some of them flourished because the exotic and unknown were perpetually exciting.

  Mere knows too much already, and I fear that learning more is only going to make her want to stay.