by Joe Gannon
And closer to home the news was just as galvanizing.
The Sandinista Front was in a fight for its life, not at war, but in an election! As part of the deal to end the Contra War, Krill’s war, the government had agreed to an early election and was facing a united opposition bloc heavily subsidized by the Americans. He listened to revolutionaries, titans in their own time, make radio ads like the politicians they had become. He guessed it was a good thing. The era of the pistol-packing, fatigue-clad, bearded revolutionary was over.
There were going to be a lot of hangovers.
But in camp, life went on in the old way. Everyone had a job. Claribel left him to attend to her nursing duties, which, if he guessed correctly from the location of the tent on the far edge of the camp, meant hers was the last face many of them would see. Even Gladys, now that the death watch was over, was put to use. Ajax watched her on a pistol range giving instruction to new recruits. She’d always been a dead-eye shot, it’s what’d first drawn his admiration. How many years ago was that?
“You wanna give it a try?”
Gladys held out a .357 to him, might have been the one they had in San Salvador. He put his hands up, Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!
“The compa is reputed to be the best shot in Nicaragua,” she told the recruits, who, from what Ajax could see, were all under fifteen or over fifty.
“How do you work this thing?” He turned the pistol over like a yokel looking over one of them new cellular phones. Gladys pretended to show him the two-handed grip. It took him two shots to get his eye back. The other four he was just showing off.
A few days after that the headaches stopped and he even felt he’d put back a few of the thirty-odd pounds he’d lost. He’d even thought to take Claribel up on dessert, but she and Gladys seemed pretty tight. Still, Ajax realized he was actually enjoying himself—for the first time in literally years he was content.
It was at the end of his second week back amongst the living that young Peck arrived in the camp.
40
It was the boy with the long eyelashes who alerted him. Gladys had returned the Needle to him, but he’d hardly touched it, tried not to think about it—him, them. The day had started well. Ajax had woken and decided it was time to pay his own way too. He’d found the armorer, knowing that after a big battle the first job was to repair broken weapons, as those captured from the enemy rarely outnumbered those lost in combat, damaged, jammed, or otherwise fouled. It was like doing a jigsaw—a spring from this one, a bolt from that one, even a single screw from another and you’d piece together a serviceable weapon. It was slow, steady work, done mostly in silence and he’d been at it a few hours when a familiar feeling made him look up.
And there he was. Ajax checked left and right to make sure no one else could see him. But it was different this time. Not the boy—he was the same. The staring eyes that did not see, the evil gash across his throat, the wet gore covering his fatigue jumper. The wound and the violence as fresh as the day Ajax had made them—perpetually fresh, like the boy lived in the moment of his death.
For the first time it made Ajax a little sad.
The boy with the long eyelashes had been a specter haunting Ajax, true. But then he’d become an ally, saving Ajax’s life on more than one occasion. But Ajax wasn’t sure if he could ever look on the boy again without seeing the terror in Gladys’s face the night she’d shot him. She had been in fear of her life, he’d seen it and remembered it. It had changed how he saw himself. All his adult life he’d been feted by men for his daring in battle, celebrated for his exploits as a common soldier and comandante. But he’d never thought of himself as a killer until he saw the fright in Gladys’s face. Now he wondered if he was just another man scaring women.
So he’d tried to ignore the ghost of the boy with the long eyelashes.
A column of Farabundos arrived from another camp. Ajax looked up from an AK-47 he was repairing and saw Nora talking with El Ocho. She saw him, smiled, and joined him at the armory.
“Comandante Nora.”
“Captain Montoya.”
He shrugged.
“Then compañero Ajax.”
“Better.”
“Heard you got shot.”
“But not killed, thanks to your people.”
“So, it’s good I didn’t kill you in San Salvador.”
“I think so.”
She smiled. “Me too.” She ran her hand over his stubbled cheek. “You looked better clean-shaven.”
“I’ll find a razor.”
“I hear you got a knife would do as well.”
He looked away, shook his head. “Not anymore.”
She smiled again, but this time ruefully. She understood. There was an awkward pause. Nora broke it.
“So, you’ve heard the news from home?”
For a moment Ajax was uncertain, and then realized she meant Nicaragua.
“Yes. Seems the comandantes are trading fatigues and pistol for suits and slogans. Think you’ll do the same here?”
She shook her head a long time. “Who knows? They say it’s a new world. Cold War is over, communism dead … We wanted a revolution. Like you. Now your revolution will be put to a plebiscite and we’ll have to settle for peace. We lost a lot of people. Some of our best fighters.”
“Whatever happened to that shoe-shine boy?”
“Ernesto? Still shining shoes, collecting intel. If the war had gone on he’d’ve been a comandante someday. Now, he might shine shoes forever.”
“You never know. He might wind up running a battalion of them. He’d make a good capitalist.”
She laughed. It was a nice, throaty woman’s laugh and Ajax got immeasurable pleasure from having made her laugh. She looked over her shoulder and grew somber.
“I’ve brought someone who wants to meet you. He’s a friend. Not like you, but a friend. Do you understand?”
He didn’t. But then Nora signaled El Ocho and Ajax saw the crop of orange hair atop a gangly body clad in fatigues striding toward him. She’d meant: he’s mine, don’t hurt him.
* * *
Young Peck sat opposite Ajax and Gladys. Ajax wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Maybe some arrogant gringo who’d finally made it to the big time—Look, Ma! A gun-toting revolutionary! But Peck seemed not that, maybe somehow chastened by the lifestyle. Or the combat.
“I hear you’re looking for me.”
Ajax smiled, the Dr. Livingstone, I presume moment. He slowly unbuttoned young Peck’s shirt. Jimmy smiled but was clearly discombobulated by the intimate act. When Ajax had revealed young Peck’s chest, he looked at Gladys. See? Peck’s chest and shoulders were covered in freckles.
“No.”
“No?” Peck seemed uncertain as to the turn of the conversation.
Ajax slowly re-did the buttons. “I haven’t been looking for you for a while.”
“Really, because…”
“What was the plan, Jimmy?”
He took a deep breath. “Have me kidnapped just before the offensive began. Put the government back on its heels, looking for me. And denying they’d killed me. Make sure the American press played it up big. I mean with the Berlin Wall coming down and everything, make sure they covered it, and with an American missing, presumed murdered by the government, it was an ace in the hole. Then the FMLN would rescue me … and … and…”
He sounded regretful. Remorseful. And rehearsed. Ajax looked at Gladys, who squinted her eyes in doubt.
“Bullshit.” Ajax finished re-buttoning. Gave Peck’s chest a little pat. “That’s American thinking.”
“What?”
“The FMLN was launching their biggest offensive of the war. That means they’re going to lose their best, they wouldn’t waste their time on a PR stunt like…” Then the clouds parted. “You did it. It was your idea. You were freelancing!”
“I wanted to help the Revo! I had been! You know I was undercover, infiltrating the death squads. This was the next step.” Peck threw him
self to his feet. “After all America has done, yes, I thought why not help, with the only thing America cares about: an American life!”
“Sit down! You couldn’t have pulled this off without help…”
“Jasmine.” Gladys almost whispered it.
Peck nodded. “Yes. She thinks like me, internationally. She saw the benefit and we had the resources. Me, it was just a matter of disappearing.”
Ajax closed his eyes. Yes, now it all made sense. “But that wasn’t enough, was it? Once you got to thinking about it. Just disappearing.”
“It was a start.”
“Did you kill him, Jimmy?”
Peck held his hands up, like Who me?
Ajax felt the first twinge of anger since Gladys’d shot him. “The morgue pictures showed a body beaten to death. Red hair, pale skin, but no freckles. Did you kill him?”
Now Ajax saw the boy he’d come looking for. The good kid, the gringo who wanted to help save the world.
“No, I didn’t! I swear to God! Max said he’d seen my doppelganger at the Artisans’ Market. Had actually called out to him thinking it was me. He was just a tourist…”
Ajax shot to his feet. “Say his name!”
“Liam. Liam Donaldson.”
“So you thought.”
“If Jasmine and I staged my kidnapping the government would blame the Farabundos and the FMLN would blame the escuadrones. A checkmate. But if I could use this guy…”
“Say his fucking name!”
Peck recoiled from the fury. Ajax could tell he’d expected to meet a compañero, not a cop.
“Liam. If I could get Liam arrested for real, there’d be real witnesses. Then when the army figured out he was just a tourist they’d let him go! We’d claim it was me and I was still in custody. And during the offensive I’d be rescued by the Farabundos.”
“How’d you work it? Liam’s arrest?”
Peck rubbed his fingers through his hair, massaged his scalp like he might rearrange the recent past.
“Me and Jasmine…”
“You told Max. What?”
“That the guy, Liam, was an FMLN courier. He was a backpacker, had visa stamps in his passport from all over. Central America…”
“And you thought Max would turn him over to the army?”
“I…” He shook his head. “He said he would. Jasmine was sure he would! I just wanted to make it believable.”
“Oh, you made it believable. I wish I had the morgue photos to show you. Liam Donaldson died screaming.”
“I’d make him eat them.” Gladys was on her feet and in front of Peck. “I’d make you fucking eat them.”
“You’re missing the big picture. It wasn’t a huge advantage, but it was a tactical advantage. And we used it. I’m sorry he’s dead, but to make omelets you have to break…”
Gladys snatched his skinny ass up by his shirt. “You finish that sentence and I’ll break your fucking face.”
Ajax took ahold of one of her bony fists. “Easy, Lieutenant.”
“Fuck him, Ajax! Look what we did, what we had to do trying to find his sorry ass.” She turned on Peck. “And you just playing soldier. You’re a dead man.”
Peck got to his feet. “Don’t threaten me in my own camp.”
“It’s not your camp!” Gladys was nose to nose with him. “It’s their camp. And what happens when we get back and tell Donaldson’s family you got their boy killed? Huh? The FMLN’s gonna have to either admit what they did, they got an American killed. Or they make sure you never reappear alive.”
“My compañeros would never harm…”
“Roque Dalton.” Gladys was right back in his face. “Know him?”
“Of course I do…”
“The greatest Salvadoran poet of the twentieth century and your compañeros killed him. This very group, the ERP. Killed him for ‘ideological deviation.’ You think they’d hesitate to kill your sorry orange ass? They just lost hundreds of their best and for what? To get the gringos to back off and accept a peace deal. And now you are gonna put American blood on their hands. When all they have to do is make sure you never leave this jungle.”
Despite himself, Peck looked around the camp. The logic of Gladys’s death sentence was overwhelming, and it was clear Peck had never thought of it before.
“Now, make an omelet with those eggs, asshole.”
Ajax didn’t smile, at least not on the outside. But he was admiring Gladys’s thinking. Seems a lot had changed in the last ten weeks.
Peck looked lost. His swagger deflated. “Ajax, surely you understand.”
“We talked about you.”
Peck looked from Ajax to Gladys and back again.
“Father Ellacuría. We saw him the day they were killed.”
“I know.”
“We talked about you. Did you know his family, Liam’s family, had called them? Asking for their help? He went to Notre Dame, and they’d called, his parents, hoping the priests might help.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“And we talked about you. They said they thought you were naïve. Good, but naïve.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“So that means about one of the last things they did, the padres, before they died, was to parse your lies.”
He stood up, almost nose to nose with Peck.
“It just seems they should’ve had something more important to do. Don’t you think?”
“I … I was trying to help.”
“They always are. Go away.”
Whatever bluster was left in young Peck went out of him and he limped away on luffing sails. Gladys was not mollified.
“Dead man walking.”
“No. He’s not. And don’t say it like that, like you’d like him to be. There’s a family in Indiana gonna bury their boy in an empty casket. You really want two? You spent more time with Big Jim and Margaret Mary than me. You really want them to bury their only surviving child?”
Gladys’s answer did not matter. Ajax would not see harm come to Amelia’s brother.
“But what he did, Ajax! All this was a waste!”
Ajax sighed. She had a point there. Even if she was talking more about shooting him than Peck’s perfidy. Stupidity.
“Ajax…”
“It’s time to go, Gladys.”
“Go?”
“Home.”
“Where’s that?”
“I really don’t know.”
41
But it was time to go.
It took another week to set it up. Despite the truce in the countryside, the death squads took no holiday, respected no paper. So it was decided that Gladys and Ajax would try to travel on their expired American passports through Nicaragua where, while less than welcome, they had a better chance of not being murdered than trying to leave through the airport in San Salvador. Usulután was about forty miles from the sea, mostly by navigable rivers. They’d get a boat from there.
It was harder to leave than he’d thought.
His weeks with the Farabundos, or at least the two he’d been awake for, had assembled in him a feeling that he’d not known in years. Almost like being a child again. It wasn’t happiness, Ajax Montoya wouldn’t know happiness if it walked up and sat on his face. It was more of a situational contentment, really. They had little but everything they needed. There was always a rifle that needed repairing, a slit trench that needed digging, or some poor animal that needed skinning. There were deep and long talks about peace and politics, which he and Gladys stayed away from—they had no place in the debate over peace versus the cost of their savage war. Yet as a former comandante guerrillero, and one many of them had heard of, his opinion had often been sought.
But his life, whatever it was, was still out there. The boy with the long eyelashes reminded him of that each time he’d appear. Ajax no longer looked around to see if anyone else saw. It didn’t matter. One family needed to know that their son would be home, the other not.
On their last day
in camp, El Ocho told Ajax that Nora was walking in a cow for the party. He said it with a bit of a leer, as if the thought of fresh beef was sexy.
She arrived with a large escort, and faster than they could lay an ambush they’d strung some colored lanterns, lit the candles, and every bottle of hidden beer or rum appeared from deep inside rucksacks. The camp commanders huddled for a while, but their troops lost no time cutting up whatever fruit was to hand and pouring all the liquor over it into an enormous punch bowl made out of a crate for mortar rounds.
Ajax had just about convinced himself to end six years of sobriety when he caught Nora’s eye as she came out of the tent. A great cheer went up when she appeared with El Ocho. Someone handed her a gourd filled with punch and she downed all that was in it in one go.
Another cheer went up.
She made a beeline for him.
“Comandante.”
“You’ll go home now.”
“To Nicaragua, anyways.”
“There’ll be no welcome for you there.”
He smiled. She was teasing him about the news from Nicaragua. The Sandinista Front had lost their election. Not only for president, but the plebiscite on the Revo. For the first time in history a revolution had been voted out of office. And went.
“They say it’s a new world, comandante.”
“Nora.” She rubbed a hand over his smooth cheek. “You shaved for me.”
“The least I could do.”
“Yes, it was. What a pain in the ass you are. You come down here, messing with my operations, using our aid stations, our medicines, taking up space, eating our food, drinking our water, but not our punch, I see. Do you know how much you owe us?”
“I do, Nora.”
“Good.” She lifted what Ajax had mistaken as a bandolier off her chest and tossed it to him. “Carry this.”
“What is it?”
“A hammock. Come with me.”
Nora strode off. Ajax was a bit confused. He looked around and saw Claribel, one arm around Gladys, smiling and waving, Go, idiota. Go! Then she reached around Gladys and pounded her fist into her palm. Go!
The rest of the camp withheld comment until Ajax had followed Nora into the bush. Then an enormous cheer went up.