I waited. The birds quieted. The sounds of the lake and the wind came back. The cigarette I’d sensed must have been residual from the gunboat. Or my imagination.
Still, it was time to go. Now. I set the pistol on my pack and gathered my things—camera, knife, water bottle—and was thinking I should also cover the exposed glyphs when the cave grew darker. As if someone or something had blocked the entrance.
“Well, well, well,” said the man standing there.
He moved toward me, slowly, a dark figure silhouetted against the light of the opening, his feet squishing in the muck. Not until he was almost on me did I recognize him. Lieutenant Fuentes, second in command to Gonzales, dressed in khakis and white T-shirt.
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t grab my pistol either. It was too far away.
He snatched the flashlight from my hand and let the beam play over me.
“What happened to your face?”
“Chichicaste.”
“This the cave you were searching for?”
I nodded.
“What’d you find?”
“Nothing, just a cave.”
He swung around with my light, shining the beam on the candles. On the skull. On the stone sentinels. I eased away from him, along the wall toward the Beretta, and was almost within reach when he grabbed my arm. “What about the gold? Did you find it?”
“There’s no gold here. Look for yourself.”
I didn’t see the blow coming. Didn’t expect it. The cave flashed white, a ringing filled my head. “Lying bitch. You didn’t come out here for stone statues.”
He tried to slap me again, but this time I jumped sideways and went for the pistol.
He slammed into me, knocked me to the ground and slapped me again.
The fight went out of me, and as I lay in the dung, whimpering, gasping for breath, he straddled me. “Bitch! I could kill you with one blow. Nosey little girls like you mean nothing.”
He groped for my machete, found it, and raised it above my head.
I closed my eyes and waited. I was going to die in this horrible place. Become another statistic, another missing person, another Catherine Cohen.
Chapter 38
When the blow didn’t come, I opened my eyes and saw him lighting a cigarette. He inhaled, blew smoke in my face, and lowered the cigarette so close to my neck I felt the heat.
“How about we play a little game, dulce?”
The cigarette touched my neck.
I screamed. I fought, but couldn’t budge him. He burned me a second time, and a third. He laughed at my screams, this horrible man who’d turned me into a whimpering rag.
“The gold,” he asked again. “Where is it?”
“There’s nothing here. See for yourself.”
He eased off me and squished about the place, letting the beam of his light settle on the place I’d been working. “Well, well, well, so you found the Moses glyphs.”
He knelt beside me. “Now, now, dulce, don’t cry. It’s going to be all right. We can work this out.” He stroked my hair and rubbed my face with his filthy hand.
His machete was at my throat, his mouth next to my ear, his foul breath playing over me. “You’ve got two choices: One, you can take off your pants and walk away, pretend this never happened. Or, two, I can shove this machete up your sweet little chucha.”
He undid the top button of my dungarees and lowered them. They caught on my boots.
He unlaced my boots and yanked them off. Then he pulled off my dungarees and spread them for me to lie on. “Oh, look at those black panties,” he said. “Nice. Sexy. Take them off.”
He watched as I slipped them off, his nostrils flaring, erection bulging.
He stripped off the web belt that held his pistol, unbuckled his belt and unzipped his trousers, letting his khakis drop to his ankles. Then he was on me, thrusting like a dog.
I bit my lower lip and let my hands play over the ground beside us, searching for a weapon, a rock, anything to bash in his head.
Nothing but guano.
Candles flickered around us. Stabs of pain shot through me.
“Can we move over?” I pleaded. “There’s a pebble under my back. It hurts.”
He put his arms beneath my legs and pushed me backward against the wall.
Next to my Swiss Army knife, still open on the long blade.
Defiance raged in my heart. That son of a bitch. That piece of shit. I transferred the knife to my right hand and waited. Waited until both his elbows were planted on the ground on either side of my face. Waited until his head was turned slightly away and his eyes glazed over in pleasure. Waited until he was saying, “Oh, yes, dulce. Oh, yes.”
And that was when I plunged the knife into his neck.
His shriek was awful. He rolled off and grabbed wildly for the machete, blood spurting from his neck like water from a hose, spilling over me.
I scurried along the wall on all fours, trying to reach the pistol. Or get away.
I found the camera and flung it at him. And would have dashed for the opening except he grabbed my ankle. I kicked loose and rolled away. Now he was coming at me with the machete in one hand, holding his other hand to his neck, tripping over his pants like the Bulgarian ambassador, blood escaping between his fingers.
“Bitch!”
He was almost on me, breathing hard, his cries ratcheting up from curses to an enraged scream. I grabbed the pistol, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
I dashed to the corner of the cave. He kept coming, tripping, cursing.
“Puta!”
I pulled back the slide to chamber a round and pulled the trigger again.
Flame erupted from the barrel. The report seemed to shake the cave. Fuentes spun around and fell to his knees, clawing at the muck. A stain spread over his back.
I stepped closer, shaking, staring in disbelief. Blood bubbled from his mouth and dribbled over his chin. “What did you do with Catherine?”
“Bottom of the lake,” he snarled, and lunged at me.
I fired again. He fell face down in the dung, jerked a few times and lay still. The blood slowed from gush to steady flow to nothing. I shot him again to be sure he was dead. I kicked him. I screamed at him and called him every dirty name that came to mind.
Then I leaned against the wall and broke into sobs.
Chapter 39
The sounds of the outside came back—the breeze off the lake, the birds and monkeys and frogs. It was as if the world didn’t care what happened. The lieutenant could just as well have been a snake that came to a bad ending. But now it was over.
Or was it? Suppose he’d come with friends and they were outside, waiting?
I reloaded the pistol and stumbled to the opening.
No boats and no soldiers, only a misty rain and a little waterfall that trickled over the cliff.
I stepped into the waterfall and cleaned myself as best I could. My legs wobbled, my hands shook. I’d never felt so dirty, so soiled. My natural impulse was to flee, to get away from this horrible place. But what about the body? Leave it? No, not if I wanted to report the discovery and come back. Best to tidy up and remove the evidence.
Still wet and shaking, I stepped back into the cave and incredibly found myself thinking about Scarlett and Melanie and how they’d disposed of the dead Yankee. Easy for them. There were two of them. Only a matter of dragging the body outside and burying him near the house. I on the other hand needed to drag it at least a hundred yards through jungle and swamp.
By myself.
I pulled on my clothes, got back into my boots, gripped the lieutenant by his ankles and pulled. His T-shirt slid up to his neck, revealing the bullet holes. My hands, wet with rainfall and muck, kept slipping. Still, I pulled, cursing and panting, until I got the body outside.
The buzzards that before had been circling in the overhead came down in flocks, alighting around me, ugly and black with their crooked necks. Damn them. How coul
d they appear so soon? Was it the gunfire? Had the squatters heard it too? Or the men in gunboats?
Alarmed at the thought, I gathered my things, put them outside, concealed the cave entrance with vines and creepers, and again grabbed Fuentes by the ankles.
The sogginess of the ground worked in my favor, but I had to look at him. At his lifeless eyes and open mouth. At the way his head flopped side to side like a dead chicken. At the buzzards that flapped along the ground behind him, spreading their wings in threatening motions.
The knot in my stomach grew tighter. Nausea swept over me. The vultures made it worse. I sank to my knees and threw up. Then the rain came back, falling in sheets, conspiring with the overhead canopy to turn daylight to darkness.
I cried in frustration. There, on my knees in the middle of a jungle, with rain soaking my hair and clothing, washing away the vomit and the drag marks left by the body.
Again I dragged him, pulling him backward. His belt caught on a protruding root. I yanked off his belt and flung it into the brush. Then it was down through the jungle, pulling, stumbling and grunting, until I reached the swamp—where it was even darker.
Sink him here, in knee-deep water? No, too shallow. Best to sink him in the lake.
The swamp made it easier. No buzzards either. I floated and pulled the body, half hoping a giant alligator or some other man-eating creature would relieve me of the burden. It didn’t happen, but when I reached the lagoon and open air, the buzzards again swept down in flocks, alighting in trees and on the ground as if waiting for my summons.
I backed away. “Go for it.” I muttered.
They fell upon the body like ravenous wolves. I retreated to the water’s edge in disgust—and that was when I saw the lieutenant’s boat, a small aluminum outboard in the reeds next to mine.
Now I had a boat and a body problem.
I waded into the water and was lashing his boat to the rear of mine when I saw the cell phone, hanging from a bracket. Dear God, no. What if he’d called Gonzales? What if he was on his way?
Without thinking, I flung the cell into the water.
Exhausted and filthy, feeling like a corpse myself, I hurried back through the swamp and up to the cave for my things. It might have taken fifteen minutes or it might have taken thirty. All I know is when I returned with my pack and AK-47, the lieutenant’s body was covered with a swarming, pulsating mass of buzzards, feasting like maggots.
I yelled at them. I flung sticks and rocks, but all they did was flutter and flap around, fanning me with their wings and stench. Yet somehow, with the buzzards following, I managed to drag the body to his boat, get it aboard and lash it to the motor. Then I hopped into my boat and towed this floating mass of black vultures back through the passage and into the lake.
No patrol boats. Nothing but dark clouds and light rain. Good.
I hit the throttle and got away from that cursed place as fast as I dared, the little funeral boat scudding behind, vultures jumping ship like trash blowing off an open-bed pickup.
When I was well away from the island, surrounded by open lake, I stopped, picked up the AK-47, and blasted a hole the size of a bucket in the bottom of the lieutenant’s boat.
Water rushed in. The boat sank lower, and when swells were washing over the gunwale, I cut the towline with the same knife I’d used on Fuentes and watched it sink.
Chapter 40
Nelson’s eyes grew wide at the sight of my drenched clothing and battered face. “Chichicaste,” I told him. “Fell into a patch.”
He was kind enough not to probe. Didn’t mention the damage I’d done to the cabin either. Instead, he cleaned the boat and put it away, waited for me to clean and change, and then we were in his boat, heading back to Granada.
Sabio almost jumped out of his chair. I told him my chichicaste fib and hurried toward the stairs. “Wait,” he said, and ran after me, waving an envelope. “The police department on Ometepe wants you to call them. It’s about you damaging your guide’s car.”
I could have screamed, and probably would have if he hadn’t thrust the envelope into my hand. “Here, this is from the gringo. It’s a fax.”
I raced up the stairs to my room to read it.
My dearest Jen. Nelson told me you were out on Ana Maria by yourself. Why? Please get back to the States pronto. I love you with all my heart.
Tears welled up. I stared at the message. Could I have been wrong?
I picked up the phone, got the international operator, and called his home number.
He answered on the second ring. “Thank God. Are you all right?”
“No, Alan, I’m not all right. What happened? Why did you go home?”
“It’s complicated. I’ll explain when—”
From the background came a woman’s voice, an angry voice asking who it was, the words in Spanish, Alan saying it was someone from the embassy.
“Liar!” she shrieked. “It’s your girlfriend. Give me the phone.”
The voices grew muffled, as if Alan put a hand over the mouthpiece. Then he came back.
“Just tell the ambassador I’ll check in later.”
I slammed down the receiver. Lying bastard! How could he do that to me?
I ripped off my clothes, tears flowing, and stepped into the shower, setting it as hot as I could stand. Then I scrubbed myself as long as I dared, trying to wash away the foul experience.
My back ached from the strain of dragging the body. I felt filthy, defiled, violated. The memory of the lieutenant was like chichicaste inside my stomach. Alan’s lies hurt even more.
When I came out, the phone was ringing, loud and abrasive.
I picked it up and said hello.
Silence, followed by a click.
Gonzales, it had to be him, checking to see if I’d returned. I dried myself, yanked on jeans and pullover, flung my things into bags, ran a brush through my hair, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Face and neck red and swollen, lip busted, eyes puffy and swollen, burn marks from the lieutenant’s cigarette. But no time for repair.
I called Sabio and asked him to send someone up for my bags.
But where to go? Who to tell? Mr. Easton at the embassy? No, he might turn me over to the Nicaraguans. My office? Couldn’t tell them either, not if I valued my job.
What I needed was a defense lawyer. Someone like…Stan.
He answered on the first ring. “Get out of there,” he said. “Now. Get to the airport. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Call from the airport. I’ll have everything arranged. Change taxis at least two times. Don’t leave anything behind. And Jen…”
“What, Stan?”
“I love you. Don’t ever forget it.”
Darkness had fallen by the time I stumbled out of a taxi at the airport. The pain in my lower back added to my misery. Worse, soldiers stood around in groups at the terminal entrance, staring at arrivals as if searching for fugitives. Like me.
How ironic that I could get busted for trashing Blanca’s junky Datsun.
I put on sunglasses in spite of the darkness, hired a porter to carry my things, and found a phone booth to call Stan. Yes, he told me from Virginia, he’d booked passage aboard a LACSA flight to Cali, Colombia, the only available flight—and it was already boarding.
“Go,” he said. “Call when you get there.”
I hurried through the ticketing process, paid my departure fee, trudged to the gate like an old abuelita, and was the last passenger to board. Not until we lifted off the ground and the lights of Managua slipping beneath me did I breathe easier.
Funny how the world had flip-flopped: Alan letting me down; Stan coming to my rescue.
Chapter 41
McLean. Virginia
Anight in Cali, a connecting flight to Dulles, and by late afternoon, I glanced out the window and saw the green countryside of Virginia coming up to meet me. I could have cried when we touched down, but my back was so painful I couldn’t retrieve a bag from the overhead bin. Or walk. So I wa
ited in my seat, crying, until an attendant rolled me off the plane in a wheelchair.
Would the FBI be waiting for me? Or the CIA?
No one questioned me. Customs didn’t trouble me either, perhaps because of my battered face and the wheelchair. At last, I came face to face with Stan.
“Christ,” he said. “I’ll get the car, pick you up in front.”
Even at his best, Stan had all the charm and warmth of an Easter Island statue, so it didn’t surprise me that he didn’t bring flowers and try to comfort me. Just plain old Stan in his dark blue suit. In the past I’d thought he was handsome. Now, comparing him to Alan, I thought he was too skinny, too balding, too pale, and as bland-looking as our marriage.
Yet he was all I had, so during the long ride back to McLean in his Porsche, my story came out—Gonzales, Fuentes, Blanca, the old Indian couple—everything except my affair with Alan.
He listened and patted my knee. “Were there any witnesses to what happened in the cave?”
“Only buzzards.”
“In that case, keep your mouth shut. Don’t tell a soul.”
We took Old Chesterbrook Road, drove into my neighborhood, and were soon at the townhouse I’d shared with Stan for two years. He helped me inside and plunked down on the sofa as if he still lived there. “Listen, Jen, can we talk about us?”
“Now’s not a good time.”
He stayed in the guest room. I called my mom, asked her to come up, and took a long hot shower, letting the water play over my back. Then I doctored my face, took an Aleve, and climbed into the comfort of my own bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep.
Instead, I found myself back on Zapateras, battling buzzards and dragging the lieutenant’s body through jungle and swamp. Gonzales showed up and I shot him about a hundred times, and I was shooting Blanca and Prudencia when the old Indian couple appeared next to my bed.
The Girl in the Glyphs Page 12