“We’ll unload the luggage and weapons, then tie down the plane and cover it with a camouflaged netting,” the woman said as they jumped down to the ground. “We have about a twenty-mile ride before we meet the horses.”
“Wellington Curtis will meet us there?”
“Colonel Curtis is with the troops. He never leaves them.”
“After that plane ride I don’t blame him.”
Carrying the Uzi, Hawker grabbed his duffel. While the woman threw out her baggage and supplies Hawker kept his eye on the line of trees. He had never seen such huge trees—even in Venezuela. The trees were ancient, massive, black. Steam seemed to rise from the trees, and the elephant-ear-size leaves sagged in the stillness and the heat. The air was gaseous with the smell of vegetation, rot, black earth. In the distance there were the screams of birds and the chattering of monkeys. The sounds, the humid smell of jungle, the stillness, all touched some prehistoric nerve in Hawker, some chord he recognized but could not identify. He could feel the chord deep within him, a dark thing with catlike eyes and teeth of the carnivore, the chord of the beast. In that startling moment Hawker felt as if he should rip his clothes away, grab the woman by the hair, run her naked into the jungle to hunt, to rear offspring, to survive.
“James? Are you all right?”
“What? Oh, yeah, sure. I was just listening to the monkeys. They make quite a racket.” In his mind he reminded himself: Why would monkeys frightened by a plane escape to the highest limbs of the trees? “And I was just watching the line of trees,” he said. “You said to watch, didn’t you?”
“Have you seen something?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“Not yet.”
Hawker and the woman helped the little man, Mario, load the supplies into the Land Cruiser. The woman kept up a rattling dialogue in Spanish. Hawker’s Spanish was fair, but he had to concentrate if he wanted to understand. Now, though, he was concentrating on something else.
When the Toyota was loaded, the camouflage netting staked down, Mario slid in behind the wheel, Laurene Catocamez took the passenger seat, and Hawker sat on the luggage, one hand on the roll bar, the other resting the little submachine gun against the side of his head. As they started out across the field toward the jungle, Hawker quietly opened the top of one of the crates. Six grenades sat within, like metal eggs in compartments.
He put two of the grenades at his feet and squatted down, waiting. If he was wrong, it would do no harm. If he was right, he wanted to be ready.
Unfortunately he was right.
The soldiers opened fire way too soon, when the Land Cruiser was two hundred meters from the line of trees. The first hail of fire slapped through the grass with a scything sound followed by the muted poppa-pop of the weapons.
Behind them the plane exploded in bright orange flames and black smoke.
Something hot splattered across Hawker’s face as Mario, the driver, slumped sideways. The Land Cruiser veered wildly and the woman screamed. Hawker jumped into the front of the vehicle and saw, in a look, that the driver was dead. He rolled the corpse out into the grass, and grabbed the wheel, and turned sharply away from the fire.
“Get down!” Hawker yelled, shoving the woman roughly to the floor.
He began to drive a serpentine route across the field, gradually angling toward what appeared to be an opening in the forest. Slugs ping-tinged off the body of the vehicle, and Hawker knew that at any moment the Toyota could explode into flames.
“Who are they?” Hawker demanded.
The woman was in hysterics. “My God, they shot poor Mario! Why did you leave him? Answer me, damn it! Answer me!”
“Because he was dead! Who are those soldiers?”
“Oh, Mario. Poor, poor Mario.…”
Just ahead, fifty meters away behind some bushes, Hawker saw movement. He stood, his foot still on the accelerator, and opened fire. On full automatic, the Uzi shredded the bushes. One man in army khaki jumped to his feet, clawing at the black holes where his eyes once were. Two others tumbled out, their chests oozing red gore. Other men, he saw, climbed farther into the underbrush.
Hawker shoved the Uzi at the woman. “Stick a new clip in this. Did you hear me?! Reload this or we’re all going to die!”
As the Land Cruiser careened past the dead soldiers Hawker pulled the pins of two grenades and tossed the grenades into the brush. They exploded behind the Toyota, and in the mirror Hawker saw two men stagger drunkenly into the clearing. The blast had sheared off one of the men’s arms, and the stump that remained spurted blood.
“Is it reloaded yet?” Hawker demanded.
The woman thrust the Uzi at him. Her eyes were glazed with shock and rage. “Yes, damn it! But I want you to know right now that I hold you responsible for the loss of Mario!”
“He was dead, damn it!”
“Do you know that for sure? Are you a doctor? At least we could have carried him with us and given him a proper burial!”
“Christ, you act like he was your brother or something.”
“He was, you bastard. He was.…”
six
The next five minutes seemed like five hours.
The vigilante carried on a running gun-battle with soldiers. More than once he thought of abandoning the vehicle and the woman and striking out into the jungle alone.
Instead he clung stubbornly to the wheel with his left hand while holding the Uzi in his right.
What had looked to be an opening in the forest was really nothing more than a muddy logging path. The Land Cruiser roared down it, jumping and jolting through the potholes. Once they drove into what appeared to be a wide puddle. The puddle was so deep that water came up over the floorboards, yet the Land Cruiser continued to run.
Ahead, someone had dragged a tree across the trail. In the bushes on either side Hawker could see men waiting. He slid down into the seat, touched the brake, and made ready to shift into reverse. But in the rearview mirror he could see more soldiers running after them.
“Grab one of the automatics and put down some fire behind us,” Hawker ordered.
The woman wiped her eyes defiantly, but she took up a weapon, slid in a fresh clip, and began to fire. She fired tentatively at first. But then her anger took control, and she began to spray her little Uzi back and forth passionately, a look of sheer hatred on her face.
“You sons of whores!” she screamed, sobbing as she fired. “You cowards!”
Behind them, soldiers tumbled to the ground or dived for the trees, but there were still too many of them. Hawker realized that somehow he would have to get past the fallen tree and the soldiers, who waited in ambush ahead.
The vigilante jammed the Land Cruiser into four-wheel-drive low, then upshifted into second, gaining speed.
“Hold on!” he yelled. “Reload and get ready to fire ahead of us.”
Hawker sat crouched behind the wheel, headed straight for the fallen tree. Then, at the last moment, he swung the wheel to the left just as the soldiers stood to open fire. He could see the looks on their faces clearly as the red vehicle bore down on them, could see their eyes grow wide as they realized that the Toyota was going to run them down.
The first soldier they hit flew up onto the hood of the jeep, a glazed look in his eyes. Hawker tipped his submachine gun over the windshield and squeezed off a quick burst. The 9-mm. slugs knocked the soldier away, into the grass.
The woman was laying a sheet of heavy fire off to the right, and Hawker grabbed another grenade and tossed it overhand to his left.
Behind them was an explosion and more screams of agony.
Then, unexpectedly, there was silence, silence but for the roaring whine of the four-by-four as it strained against its gears. Silence but for the sobbing of the woman as she reached for still another fresh clip.
Hawker took her wrist. “It’s okay,” he said soothingly. “I think that’s it. I think we’ve made it.”
The woman tore her hand a
way and jammed in a fresh clip, anyway. “You do not know them!” she snapped. “They are not men, they are animals! Now that they have found us they will not give up. They will never stop!”
“Fine,” he said, “just stay ready, then. But don’t fire unless you need to. The sound of a weapon carries a lot farther than the sound of this jeep.”
“Bastards!” she shouted at the trees.
Hawker turned his concentration to driving, dodging potholes, taking the best route through the gloom of the rain forest. He drove silently for many minutes before the woman beside him sighed, then settled back into the seat. She lit a cigarette with shaking hands.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” Hawker said softly. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have shoved his body out. But he was dead. There’s no doubt about that. But he was killed instantly. He probably didn’t feel a thing. He didn’t suffer.”
It was so long before she responded that Hawker thought she hadn’t heard him. “He suffered enough in his life,” she said finally. “I’m glad he didn’t suffer in death. The way I acted back there, I am sorry. It was my way of mourning for him. I will miss my little Mario, but he is dead now, and there is nothing I can do about it. He is gone.”
“You didn’t tell me you had a brother.”
“There are many things I did not tell you about me. Mario was my youngest brother. There was a sister too. I raised them both, from the time I was thirteen when we were left alone. I was, in many ways, their mother. It was very difficult for all of us. We were much too young to be on our own.”
“Your sister? Is she … still with you?”
Laurene Catacomez shrugged. “I do not know. When she was fourteen, I was sixteen. A man from Guatemala City came to our village. He was very fat, very rich. He had a gold tooth. My sister was very beautiful with the body of a woman despite her age. He took her away. He said he wanted her to be his wife, but I felt he took her away to sell her on the street. I told her this, but she would not listen. She was a dreamy thing, our little Limona. She liked pretty dresses and bright ribbons. The man promised her an automobile. Nothing could stop her from going. So then it was just Mario and I. He was a good brother, and when I became interested in the rebel cause, he followed along, not because he believed in the cause but because he did not want to be alone. He had not the heart for fighting, so Colonel Curtis allowed him to do the cooking and other chores for the camp. I felt sure that I would die by violence before my dear Mario.”
“Laurene, the soldiers who attacked us, were they Guatemalan?”
“No. I do not think so. I am sure they were government forces from Masagua.”
“Yet they crossed the river into Guatemala? Weren’t they taking a serious risk?”
The woman’s laugh was sarcastic. “The borders are not so well drawn in Central America, nor are they so well respected. The government forces live only to kill. It does not matter to them where they kill.”
“Then they must know where your rebel army trains. If that’s true, doesn’t it seem reasonable to expect them to attack as soon as they regroup?”
“Yes,” she said, “it does seem reasonable.” Looking at Hawker, she added, “My poor Americano. You came here for a brief meeting, yet you have landed in the middle of a war. Let us hope you get out alive.”
“Let us hope,” James Hawker said, parroting her.
The horses were waiting where Laurene’s brother had tied them, five splay-legged animals that slumped beneath the hornless saddles like vultures.
Hawker finally found time to urinate, then he and the woman strapped the gear on the two packhorses, hid the Toyota as best as they could, then set off along the river through the rain forest.
The vigilante put a grenade in one of the oversized pockets of his Egyptian cotton safari shirt and slung the old Uzi across his back. After a few miles of riding through the pale gloom of the forest, the woman led them up a steep gorge into the foothills, away from the river.
“We don’t have far to go now,” she said, stopping her horse momentarily at a broad tree with black-green leaves. From the tree she twisted off several avocado pears and tossed one to Hawker. “Colonel Curtis asked that I blindfold you before taking you on this trail. After what we have been through, though, I don’t think it’s necessary. But before we go into camp, I’ll have to blindfold you for appearance’s sake. I hope you don’t mind.”
From a smaller tree Hawker took a handful of tiny green limes. He squirted lime juice onto the avocado and ate. “And what if I choose not to be blindfolded at all?”
The woman shrugged. “I would prefer that you did refuse. That way you would never be allowed to leave us.” The woman kicked her horse and left Hawker sitting there, unsure about whether to feel flattered or angry.
The narrow trail climbed higher and higher into the mountains. There was a whoof of distant thunder, and the leaves in the high trees began to rattle. Hawker realized that it was raining, a warm rain that plastered the shirt to the woman’s sharp breasts. The vigilante felt a stir of strong physical wanting, and he wondered what it was that attracted him so to the woman. Perhaps it’s her anger, he thought. It makes her indifferent to the past and to the future. She seems to accept everything for exactly what it is: hardship, killing, sex, she takes them all at face value. She lives in the present, in the instant of her breathing, and that makes her a damn unusual woman.
“There,” she said, pointing. “Do you see?”
In the near distance a small river leapt off the brink of a cliff forming a waterfall. The waterfall glistened and roared in the gray light of the storm, disappearing into the bright flowers of the jungle.
“Yeah,” said Hawker. “It’s very pretty.”
“It’s also our first checkpost. I must blindfold you now.”
Hawker shrugged. “Okay, fine. But if you see anything the least bit suspicious, let me know immediately, damn it.”
The woman maneuvered her horse beside his and tied a bright red bandanna over his face.
“Can you see?”
“Yeah. The inside of this bandanna.”
Hawker was surprised to feel her lips claim his in a passionate, but brief, kiss. “What a strange sense of humor you have, James Hawker.”
Hawker allowed himself to be led up the twisting trail like a child on a park pony. The roar of the waterfall drew nearer, and he heard the woman call out a greeting in Spanish that was returned by the voices of two men.
“This is the Americano?”
“Si. Colonel Curtis is in camp waiting?”
“Our colonel is in camp, but do you not think he will be jealous of this handsome gringo man-child?” one of the guards chided. “Perhaps he will insist that Ramon and I scar his pretty white face—”
“Silence,” the woman cut in. “Are you so sure that this man does not speak Spanish—”
“I do not care what the gringo hears!”
“Save your nastiness, Balserio. The government forces approach. They attacked us after we landed. My brother, Mario, was murdered. This man beside me fought more bravely than you have ever fought. Stand aside so we may pass!”
They rode for only a short time before the woman brought the horses to a stop again. There was an edge to her voice as she spoke, and it took Hawker a moment to recognize the edge as nervousness. He had not heard nervousness in her voice before.
“We are only a short way from the camp,” she said. “I would like to prepare you.”
“Don’t tell me—you want to tie my hands, right?”
“I am not joking. You are a man of the world and have no doubt seen many … strange things. But it is possible that some things you see in this camp may appear stranger than they actually are. You are an outsider. You have come from a comfortable, modern world. Our world is not comfortable and it is not modern. Our war is not a modern war, though it is sometimes fought with modern weapons.”
“What in the hell are you getting at, Laurene? I’m getting a little tired of sitting her
e with my eyes covered, listening to your Ping-Pong talk. If you have something to say, come out and say it.”
“I am only asking that you do not judge Colonel Curtis—and his methods—too quickly. He is a brilliant man, but he has had to live in a strange world these last two years. The jungle does things to a man from your civilization. It changes all men, even him. I do not always approve of what he does, but he is much brighter than me, much brighter than you and all of us, and he has a reason for everything—”
“Laurene, damn it, tell me what you’re trying to say, or I’m going to rip this blindfold off and go in and look for myself.”
“Perhaps that is the best way,” the woman said softly. “But, before you do, I want you to promise that you will not judge him too quickly. I have been as honest with you as I can be. Last night, James, we shared something that was very good. If you have any appreciation for what passed between us, then grant me this favor: Do not judge the colonel too quickly.”
“Okay, okay,” said Hawker. “I promise. Now let’s get going.”
seven
Hawker took the woman’s words of warning as an uncharacteristic insertion of the dramatic. What could he possibly see in the camp of the Masaguan rebel army that he hadn’t seen at some other time in his life?
Hawker was wrong. There were a great many things he had yet to see. And the camp was one of them.
Around him he could hear voices, some speaking in low Spanish, others in guarded English. Someone called out for the colonel as the horses came to a rocking stop, blowing air. It was cool here, and Hawker could hear the sound of running water—a brook? But there was something else too: mixed with the sweet odor of jasmine and frangipani was an odd, rancid odor, like a mixture of sweat and animal grease. And there was a great stillness about the place, too, despite the voices, despite the clump of bare feet on soft earth—a strange, deathly stillness not related to sound.
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