Ocampo drew near. “That is the mural at the ASJ headquarters in Tegucigalpa,” he said.
Tegucigalpa was the national capital. “ASJ?”
“Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa,” Ocampo explained. “The Christian, non-profit who established the Peace and Justice Project. They’ve been cultivating informants over cups of coffee and rice and beans for more than ten years now. And today, our new investigative agency housed here in the public prosecutor’s office is negotiating how to replicate their methodology.”
Listening, William glanced at Mayes again. The man’s enmity was etched into his hard features. It was coming clearer to William all the time — Honduras was full of people taking things into their own hands on both sides. Men like Sausa, protecting and furthering their interests, and also organizations like the Peace and Justice Project, which sounded like Evangelical crime fighters.
“They’re that successful?” William asked the prosecutor.
“Oh yes. To date, their approach has yielded a ninety-five percent conviction rate.” He pronounced the word con-bickshun. “Two years ago, PJP helped police apprehend eighty-four alleged murderers in Tegucigalpa and here in Sand Pedro. Sixteen court cases which ended in a guilty verdict. This year it’s already going to surpass that. Twice the number of apprehensions and already more guilty verdicts.”
Hanna beckoned for William to sit down, but he was fascinated, listening to the portly prosecutor.
“Deep in the slums, amid discarded photo albums, gang graffiti, abandoned homes, Mara Salvatrucha rules the streets. They war constantly with Calle Eighteen, to gain more territory and fresh recruits.”
Ocampo said the gangs looked alike save for their footwear — MS-13 members exclusively wore Nike Cortes, while Calle 18 wore only Reebok.
It was Reebok shoes William had seen on the feet of the man dying in the kitchen where Arnold Sterling lay murdered by Sausa, and later in the bar, La Cueva.
Hanna was right, the whole thing was tied into the drug war. Sausa used Calle 18 gang members to populate his private police. In return, they gained impunity in Roatán where they could sell more drugs. The young women were caught in the middle of it all.
Detective Catarino came hustling into the room. William finally took a seat beside Hanna and Isabella while Catarino moved to his own chair at the head of the square table arrangement. He barely looked at anyone, seeming preoccupied.
“The vigilante justice is a failure,” Mayes said. He’d been listening to Ocampo, too. “Look at what happened in El Salvador. The Catholic Church openly engaging in talks with gang members in a bid to bolster a truce. Crime has soared in El Salvador! It failed. Or, take Mexico — these self-policing networks are only emboldening the cartels. Things are worse, Ocampo.”
“Maybe they have to get worse before they get better,” Isabella spoke up.
It was clear that the informal meeting was off and running before Catarino, still fumbling with his brief case, had even declared it begun.
“Turning to law enforcement is a non-starter,” Ocampo argued. “Hondurans are more than accustomed to the headlines about rampant corruption among police. The unlawful use of force is a chronic problem, and the agency in charge of policing reforms doles out punishment to a miniscule number of badly behaving officers—”
“Listen to yourself,” Mayes snarled. “You’re talking about excessive force in the police. It’s men like you who are standing in the way of our ability to be effective!” He hit the table with a fist, grabbing everyone’s attention. The room, already filling with tension, felt electric.
William glanced around for the ombudsman, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was supposed to be on his way with some of the victims. William didn’t know which ones.
“Alright,” said Catarino, rising. He met eyes with the people in the room, one at a time, until his gaze held on Ocampo. “With due respect, Mr. Ocampo, we’re not going to get anything done today like this, enflaming passions.”
Hanging over all of it, William figured, was Ramón Sabillón, the man in the mural. While President Hernandez had turned to militarization to quell Honduran bloodshed, he’d become ensnared in his own corruption scandal. Sabillón had been working to expose the collusion between drug traffickers and the police. Sabillón had become the people’s hero. It was Hernandez on one side, turning to martial law, Sabillón on the other, exposing corruption. Like one giant dysfunctional household, the children running afoul while the parents fought.
William glanced at Isabella, and his heart went out. No one had a choice where they came from, they fought to survive the conditions they were accidentally born into.
Catarino was spreading out documents on the table in front of them, his eyes skipping over the paperwork. “Okay,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to go over here before we bring these charges against Penninger. Everybody buckle your seatbelts, take a deep breath.”
* * *
The meeting lasted almost six hours. Near the end of the first hour, the ombudsman showed up with three of the victims from Penninger’s boat. They had been examined by a forensic specialist at the Northwest Hospital and were prepared to testify against Penninger in open court. The other victims had either refused the tests, didn’t want to testify, or both. Catarino indicated that having the three of them was excellent, and thanked them profusely.
William watched the girls. He could too easily picture them all crowded into that stifling storage room.
The body of the deceased girl had been scheduled for an internal autopsy, and Catarino’s unit was putting pressure on an overwrought mortician until it was done. So far, cause of death did appear to be consistent with a drug overdose.
The talk came around to William and his depiction of events for the night before. He felt his blood rise as he spoke, the eyes of the young women on him, and Mayes staring from across the room. William relayed his arrival, his first meeting with Sterling, and his investigation.
“Why would Sterling hire you?” It was the first of many of Mayes’s questions. “You have no license as a private investigator. You’re a Canadian, but I’ve got nothing on your background. Several witnesses we spoke to said you were a missionary with Samaritan’s Purse, but Samaritan’s Purse denies it.”
“I’m not being investigated,” William said calmly. “Penninger is.”
Mayes leaned across the table. “You don’t think Penninger will hire defense? And you don’t think they’re going to look at you, dig into who you are, and throw the whole thing out because there’s not a whit of due process?”
“I’m a civilian. It doesn’t apply.”
Catarino interjected. “The point is, we spin this the way we have to. That is why we’re all here. Mr. Chase is right. He’s not beholden to the same laws of due process under the Honduran Constitution. He found Penninger’s boat while investigating a missing person as a private citizen. There’s no Honduran law that says this is illegal.”
Mayes blew air out his lips and sat back in his chair. He folded his arms. “They’ll tear it up,” he repeated. “This is why you need actual police.”
Catarino pulled out a sheet of paper and held it up. “I thought you’d say so. That’s why I made the call to a preeminent international law firm. I spoke with their headquarters right here in San Pedro Sula . . .” Catarino looked over at William and the others, explaining, “They’ve agreed to take Mr. Chase on retroactively as an attaché investigator.” He dropped the paper onto the desk.
They continued to argue over the subject of William’s viability as an official investigator for another half hour. During the time, William excused himself. Mayes stared with incredulity as he left, but William didn’t care.
He took the stairs, passed through security and stepped out of the building. He lit a smoke in the hot sun and leaned against the wall.
After a few drags, Hanna stepped out into the dazzling sun and joined him. “You doing okay?” She borrowed the cigarette.
“And so the w
heels of justice turn.” Something crossed his mind and he squinted at her. “Did you know about this? How effective Isabella’s group has been with this Peace and Justice Project?”
“I’m catching up, like you,” she said with a trace of defensiveness. “Like Ocampo said, for most people, turning to law enforcement is not a route they want to take. Even after they’ve been attacked, raped. You should see some of the places in this city. Victims either don’t trust the police, or they’re afraid of what will happen to them after trial.”
“They’ll be targeted.”
“Exactly. There’s a lack of protection there. That’s why I think Catarino and Ocampo are wise to follow Isabella’s lead.”
He pitched the cigarette away and stared up at the sky. “So what now?”
“Now we hunker down, work with the prosecution, bring the formal charges against Penninger, hopefully later today. Sausa will take some work. We’ll have to—”
“I meant what now for us.”
She fell silent. He watched as she smoothed back her hair and tied it into a ponytail.
When she didn’t respond, he looked out over the street.
The van was sitting in the parking lot with the rest of the vehicles. He thought he saw someone sitting in one of the cars nearby, engine running.
“I’m glad you came,” she said at last. “We’ll take it one day at a time.”
It didn’t answer his question.
Or, maybe it did. He kept looking at the shadowy figure in the car.
Hanna turned to him and offered a smile. “Come on. Let’s go get through this.”
“Alright.”
They walked back inside together.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Isabella’s small home was crowded. There was a video crew setting up in one of the bedrooms, a sight William hadn’t expected. The three young people in the crew, a woman and two men, dressed fashionably in black, tinkered with the equipment.
William stayed out of their way while he watched. They set up a laptop with an edit program running and a device called “black magic,” which rendered the video it recorded to a playable file. Then they performed a test, the woman sitting down while one of the men filmed her and the other attended the laptop.
She gave her name and then counted to ten, raising her voice as she went through the numbers. Finally she repeated the phrase, the quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dogs, enunciating the words.
When she was done, the crew gathered around the laptop and played back the footage. One of the men manipulated an equalizer. William heard her recorded voice, her recitation of the numbers and phrase, and then the voice became modulated; deeper and distorted.
Nicole arrived, along with Emma and Funi. It was the first time he’d seen the young women since Roatán, when Julio had boated them to the mainland.
Nicole looked tired, like she had recently gone through withdrawal — which she had. There was a spark in her eye, though, and she took the stool in the middle of the room with a sense of determination. They closed the door as they recorded her testimony.
Because of Sausa’s connections to the gangs, Isabella wanted to take every precaution to protect the identity of the victims. Today’s recordings were preliminary, a way to open the case, but the victims could opt to deliver their official testimony this way, too. Wearing hooded robes, voices distorted, they could share their terrible stories with anonymity.
This was how the Peace and Justice Project worked, by keeping the survivors safe.
Funi found William in the hallway outside the bedroom-turned-recording-studio. She surprised him with a sudden hug.
“Thank you,” she said.
He thought of his blood circulating inside of her body.
He made polite conversation with her, but his mind drifted. Once she’d slipped into the room to record her statement, he descended to the kitchen where he found Isabella in the kitchen making the evening meal. She’d remodeled the kitchen with low counters and a sink she could access from her wheelchair.
William asked her if there was anything he could do, or get for her.
“In fact, there is.” She gave him a short list of grocery items. “You can read Spanish? And here, you can take my van.” She provided directions to the Supermarcados La Colonia El Alamo.
“That’s almost to Choloma,” he said. “Is there anything closer right here? I could walk.”
For a moment she just looked up, studying his face. “Take the van, honey, it’s alright.”
“I’d like to stretch my legs.”
Her eyes shined in the light of the late day, streaming in the kitchen windows. “Alright, yes. There’s a fresh market in Chamelecón. About a kilometer.”
“Thanks.”
She gave him a look. “You really shouldn’t.”
“I’m a gringo, I know.” He winked and asked, “Do you have some paper? A pen?”
She pulled out a desk drawer tidy with such things. He sensed her eyes on him as he walked out of the kitchen.
He looked around for Hanna as he left the house, but didn’t see her. Hanna had seemed to be scarce since yesterday’s big meeting.
William turned down the street, headed deeper into the barrio. He thought about the case Catarino and Ocampo were building. Catarino was confident that with the extradition treaties between Honduras and the US, Sausa would be apprehended once all of the testimony and paperwork was submitted to US authorities. Catarino had a connection with the State Department he was already working with.
Their chances looked good for either bringing Sausa back to Honduras to stand trial for rape and sex trafficking, or, if it played out the other way, for him to stand trial for his crimes on U.S. soil. Either way, Sausa was going to have to lawyer-up and deal with the fallout.
At the very least, his name was about to be dragged through the mud, and his businesses would suffer. Reporters would smell blood in the water. Chances were he’d lose shareholder confidence, he might even be fired by the Board of Grantham Ltd. and Seascape. William hoped so.
Meanwhile, Penninger was going to stand charges for murder. Angela’s autopsy was underway, and the pathologist was confident that blood toxicology, though it took some time, would confirm drug overdose. DNIC was going to raid Penninger’s dive school and meet with Conchella and the Roatán police to officially take possession of the drugs found at La Cueva.
A few blocks along the dirt streets beyond Isabella’s home, the streets were littered with trash. The homes were a hodgepodge of corrugated metal and wooden planks. Children played in the mud streets.
Dozens of eyes peered at William from side alleys and behind doors. It was Chamelecón, a sprawling barrio on the edge of the city. Isabella had said it was home to over a hundred thousand.
The sun was setting on Mara Salvatrucha territory, and the jungle encroached where Calle 18 originated. In between, a stretch of abandoned homes bore the scars of battle — bullet holes in the concrete, doors ripped away, the houses stripped bare. The jungle was taking over, reclaiming the barrio, turning the battleground into a wilderness.
He walked until only a few dogs remained in the streets, the ground softened by the tropical rains.
William’s footsteps left deep impressions. He watched as an oddly plump chicken waddled across the road.
This was the dividing line between the two gangs. Their war originated here, but impacted the entire country.
Your job is not to judge. Your job is not to figure out if someone deserves something. Your job is to lift the fallen, to restore the broken, and to heal the hurting.
A seventeen year-old girl had understood that. Hanna had understood that. He thought maybe he was coming to understand it, too.
But it wouldn’t be easy. The United Nations human rights office continued to sound the alarm on killings of public prosecutors in Guatemala and Honduras. Human rights defenders were increasingly vulnerable in Central America. Men like Sabillón were in constant danger.
Th
e survivors, victims like Nicole and Emma and Funi, needed continued protection. Hanna would need protection, too. The drugs weren’t going away, sex trafficking wasn’t going to stop. Honduras was becoming mobocratic; whether the gangs were drug traffickers, police, or private militias, it was a war of tribes. And in the middle of it all, the casualty of innocents.
He found a rusted barrel to sit on, and he took out the small notepad and pen. He wrote without stopping until he’d gotten out everything he wanted to say.
He watched a young girl chase the fat chicken as he folded the note and put it in his pocket.
The girl stopped, halfway across the road, when she saw William. He smiled at her as he stood up, and raised a hand. She didn’t smile back. Instead, she looked beyond him, her expression slack. Like she was about to see something she was all too accustomed to seeing.
William turned around. A man was walking along the muddy road in between the abandoned homes. He limped along, not seeming to be in any hurry.
There was a gun in his grip, the muzzle pointed down. He raised it up, aiming for William.
* * *
“I saw you outside the Public Prosecutor’s office,” William called over. “I don’t have the box. I smashed it. If you’re working for Lazard, you can tell him.”
Jason Staryles stopped walking. He was twenty yards away, close enough that William could see the damage done — Jason’s face looked misshapen by a battery of bruises. One of his eyes was massively swollen, the puffed skin mottled to a yellowish purple. “I don’t care,” he said. “I just want you dead.”
“And not just me. You’re after Sabillón.”
“Nothing wrong with being efficient.”
So, that was that. There was no negotiating with Staryles. And if William tried to run, he could end up getting someone hurt. Which was why he’d left Isabella’s in the first place, to draw off the assassin so that no one did.
Titan Trilogy 3.5-Black Soul Page 25