The Second Bat Guano War: a Hard-Boiled Spy Thriller

by J. M. Porup

“And once again Bolivia gets screwed.”

  He poured himself another cup of chai. Every movement in the cave echoed, a chattering of shuffled feet and subdued voices.

  “How do you know all this?” I said at last, dreading the answer.

  “You know my source already.”

  I choked on my own saliva. “Pitt.”

  “Who else?”

  Victor held the teapot over the empty third cup. I nodded. It was better than nothing, I supposed. He poured.

  I said, “So Pitt finds out about this plot. He comes here? To you? Why?”

  “Pitt is a man of conscience.”

  I made a rude noise.

  “If you think that,” Victor said, “then you do not know your friend as well as I had hoped. He came here to atone. For his sins.”

  “Was he successful?”

  “Yes. And you can be too.”

  I looked around me. Water dripped from stalactites. “By chanting mantras in a freezing cave?”

  “He saw what we have here. What we do. That a war would destroy all this.”

  “All what?”

  He shrugged. “Our work. Volunteering. Meditation. Our search for peace.”

  The hot chai burned my lips. I drank anyway. “How,” I said, “do you propose to stop this war?”

  “We’ve got a plan.” He held up a hand. “Forgive me if I do not tell you all my secrets on first acquaintance. But if you’re willing, we’d like you to do the honors.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Victor leaned into the light, his raccoon eyes puffing many shades of purple. He snuffled on blood, swallowed.

  “Pitt had you kidnapped,” he said, “because he thought you’d want to be here.”

  “You keep saying that, but all I see are a bunch of self-righteous volunteers in orange-and-red sheets.”

  “Here you can find the redemption that you seek.”

  I lifted one side of the chess table. The teapot and chessboard crashed to the floor. “No redemption here,” I said. “Hello-o?” I hollered. “Redemption? Woof-woof? Doggy treat, big boy?”

  “Stop the American evil.” Victor’s voice was sharp now. “Send it back where it belongs. Turn the tide on the forces of imperialism, be part of something great. The greatest thing to ever happen to mankind.”

  I frowned. “That’s not a war you can win. That’s why I left the States in the first place.”

  “You cannot escape them,” he said quietly. “Their monstrous reach extends to every corner of the globe.”

  “Tempting,” I said. “Find brick wall. Apply forehead. Tally ho!”

  He took a picture from his pocket and held it out to me. A pretty blonde woman, mid-thirties, and a girl, obviously her daughter, aged twelve or so.

  “See this?”

  “Your favorite whores?”

  I didn’t see the hand coming. My cheek burned. I blinked a couple of times. I thought about slugging him back, but decided I deserved the slap. “Not prostitutes then,” I said.

  “They are my family, Horace,” Victor said. His face was intense. “The Americans killed them.”

  “Bullet, blade or bomb?” I asked.

  His hand shook. He put the picture back into his shirt pocket. He said, “Blade. A not very sharp one, either.”

  “Oh,” I said. It leaked out against my will. “I’m sorry.”

  “First the CIA tortured them. With a rusty steak knife. In front of me. These very eyes, Horace.” He chewed his lip. A trickle of blood ran down his chin. “Then the Americans raped them. And when I still refused to talk, they hung them from the ceiling by their toes and set them both on fire.” He rubbed an eye. “The screams…they made me watch.”

  A bubble of silence surrounded us. I spoke first.

  “Why would they do something like that? Are you a dissident?”

  His fingers threaded together and apart. “I made a great discovery, Horace.” He lifted his chin. “I am a geologist. I found a way to harness the Earth’s energy. For peaceful purposes. But they wanted me to make a terrible weapon. That uses the Earth’s own power for destruction. I refused.”

  “So how come you’re still alive?”

  He tapped his temple. “Because of what’s in here. They kill me, they will never know the secret.”

  “What’s the weapon?”

  He shook his head sadly. “That will go with me to the grave.”

  “And now you want your revenge, is that it?”

  He sat back, examined his fingernails. “I have passed beyond the revenge chakra, my friend. Gaia shall exact true justice on our oppressors. I seek only peace in what little time remains to me.”

  I chuckled. “With a little help from a brigade of activist monks armed to the teeth, is that it?”

  “You like what you see here?” Victor asked.

  “You mean living in a cave?” I said. “Not really, no.”

  “Horace.” His eyebrows narrowed. “We do, actually. We ask only to be left alone. And a war would destroy this. All of it.”

  “But we’re on the Peruvian side of the lake,” I objected.

  “You think that’s going to make a difference when the shooting war starts?”

  “Look,” I said. I drank my tea. It burned its way into my belly. “Everybody’s got to die. Nothing I can do about it.”

  “Just one man, Horace.” Victor sat back, his face now in darkness. “One man can save the world. One man can destroy it. Which man are you?”

  “Funny. Ambo told me the same thing. Although according to him the world can’t be saved.”

  “He was half-right,” Victor said with a smile. “It only takes one man. You’re more powerful than you realize.”

  “You’re both wrong,” I said. “Hell, I can’t even save myself. How am I supposed to save the world?”

  “It is by saving the world that you save yourself. The work is the cure.”

  I sneezed. “Bullshit.”

  Victor’s head bowed, the crown of his head in the light. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  Guilt tugged at my soul, buried itself like a frightened chipmunk in my astral carry-on baggage. What’s an extra gram, I thought, when you’re carrying multiple metric tons.

  “It’s none of my concern.” I drained my chai, let the empty cup crash to the floor at my feet. “They want to kill each other? I say, let them.”

  SIXTEEN

  The dinner hour.

  Cauldrons bubbled over wood fires on the smooth pebbles high on the beach. Victor brought me here, put a bowl in my hands, then excused himself. I stood in line, a single file of silent monks. A cold wind blew. I shivered. The monks were dressed in less than I was, but either did not feel the cold, or pretended not to.

  I shuffled forward, my boots hissing against the small stones. My body was in agony from lack of my usual medications. Food might help me think more clearly. I had agreed to wait until tomorrow to see if Pitt would show up. Not that I had much choice in the matter. Where was I going to go?

  I tapped the monk ahead of me in line. Asked, “You guys been here long?”

  He looked over his shoulder, wagged his finger at me, put it to his lips.

  “What, no talkie-talkie? Moron.”

  My turn came at the canteen. A fat monk spooned rice into my bowl. His face shone with sweat. It trickled down his chin, dripped into the pot beneath him. He scooped some broth over my rice. I looked up, expecting more.

  “That all?”

  But his frantic waving told me to move along, that he too could or would say nothing.

  The monks scattered across the beach. They sat along the shore, watching the moon hover over Isla del Sol.

  “Hey! Everyone!” I shouted. I waved my arms to get their attention. Thirty or so shaved heads regarded me in silence. “I’m looking for my friend Pitt! Any of you seen him? No? No one? Anyone?”

  They shook their heads in unison, brought their fingers to their lips. “Goddamn deluded idiots,” I said, and plopped myself do
wn in the sand.

  No chopsticks, no spoon. As I puzzled over the best way to eat my meager meal, a monk sat in the sand a few feet away. Blue denim peeked out at his ankles. So that was how they kept warm.

  The broth scalded my tongue. I scooped up a wad of rice, burning my fingertips, juggled it against my molars, relishing the pain. The monk at my side stopped eating. He watched the food travel from bowl to mouth.

  “Have you seen Pitt?” I asked, breathing steam.

  Pitt? He mouthed the word, then said it out loud. “Pitt?”

  “You talk?”

  “Shh!” He pointed. I followed his gaze. A fire burned at the far end of the beach. Victor and Kate knelt, studying what appeared to be a map. The master monk sat near them, his elaborate headdress adding an extra two feet to his height. The whip curled over his shoulder.

  “So what’s the deal?” I said. “No one wants to talk to me.”

  “I’m just a volunteer,” he said, voice barely audible. He looked out over the water, bowl under his chin, lips barely moving.

  “Volunteer. Is that the word.” I opened my mouth wide, letting the cold air soothe my burnt palate. “Bunch of morons, you ask me.”

  “They haven’t brainwashed you then.” He picked at his food.

  “I’m sorry?” I said, and studied him, but his face was low over his bowl. I looked back. The master monk walked along the beach toward us, arms crossed over his chest.

  The monk passed. I turned again to my dinner companion.

  “Can’t say I see the appeal, no.” I lowered my voice. “You don’t sound like the others. What happened? The brainwashers missed a spot?”

  He kept his eyes on the ground, moved his lips imperceptibly. “Let’s just say I’m beginning to have my doubts.”

  I swallowed a mouthful of rice. “You really think Victor can stop the war?”

  The guy choked on his soup. The monk with the whip looked sharply at us for a long moment. I waved. He looked away.

  “Is that what he told you,” the guy muttered.

  “What,” I said, “you mean, there’s more?”

  He leaned his head toward the fire, toward Victor and Kate. “Get a hold of that map. See if you can—”

  “Michael!”

  My eating buddy swallowed, an audible gulp of unchewed food.

  “Bowl down. On feet.” The accent was thick, strange, Asian. The same I’d heard in the van.

  Michael stood. He covered his ass with his hands.

  “Vow silence, Michael. When you learn?” The master monk stood between us. The whip dangled from his hand. It resembled Sergio’s cat-o’-nine-tails. Four feet long, a dozen strips of leather ending in twists of barbed wire. He said, “Ten strokes.”

  Michael reached under his robes, unsnapped his jeans. He pushed them down to his ankles. He lifted his robes, exposing his bare cheeks. He took the whip, hefted it in one hand.

  “One,” he said. He whipped the instrument over his shoulder. It dug into the skin. He yanked it free, and bits of gore flecked onto the sand.

  “Two.”

  In slow strokes he slashed at his exposed flesh. Blood poured from deep gashes. He counted to ten, numbering each stroke, but otherwise made no sound.

  The robes slipped to the ground. He bowed toward the master monk, returned the whip.

  The monk bowed back. “Flesh weak. Mortal. Must teach it, obey. Then, mind free.”

  Michael closed his eyes, nodded. He stepped out of his jeans, draped them over his shoulder. He bent down for his bowl of food, but the master monk kicked it away, spilling the broth in the sand.

  The beach. Later. The man in the moon hid behind the gathering clouds, ashamed to look at us. Kate sat on the sand at my side. It was cold. We hugged our knees with our arms. The night was a long, bitter silence between us. I spoke first. I knew the answer before I opened my mouth, but said it anyway.

  “We could try again. Have another child.”

  “No!”

  There was fury in her voice, the untouchable righteous anger that had once drawn me to her. Smite all injustice, tear down the corrupt, rebuild the world anew. Her impossible idealism had been the perfect counterpoint to my cynicism.

  Until La Paz.

  “We are but a speck of dirt on Gaia. We are cockroaches,” she exploded, in answer to my unspoken question.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’d agree with that.”

  “No,” she said. Her finger out, instructive. “An infection. A disease. We are leeches sucking the life force from this planet.” She put her lips an inch from my ear. “A liver fluke. A brain parasite.”

  I did not turn. I stared at Isla del Sol. One by one the lights on the island went out. I wondered if Pitt really was over there. If he was looking back at us right now. If he felt the same way.

  “Parasites,” I said, and imagined myself as groin lice on an ugly whore.

  She followed my gaze. “Yes. Parasites. We deserve to die.”

  “I suppose we do.”

  “All of us.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The memories flooded in. I could no longer hold back the images, the torn, shredded cries that lingered in my soul.

  “This ends here.” She stabbed my knee with her finger. “With me. I will not spread the infection any further.”

  “Is that why you’re with him? With—” I forced the word out, like a tough turd. “With Victor? Playing activist? Stopping a war?”

  She rested her chin on her knees. “Wars are petty things. They do not interest me. I think only in the end of days, and the care of my soul.”

  “End of days. Care of your soul.” I stared at her in profile, her forehead hard and white in the moonlight. “It’s just a stupid fucking war. What is this talk of apocalypse? You expecting a pale horse?”

  “No,” she said, looking dreamily at the stars. “The apocalypse will be man-made. It will be an enormous, global orgy of self-destruction, a long asphyxiation on exhaust pipe fumes, and coal plant dust, and heavy metal poisoning. In our greed and ambition we will achieve only death.”

  I found myself in the unexpected role of devil’s advocate to a cynic. “Is there no hope? Treaties, and all that. Stop global warming?”

  “No,” she said. “There is no hope. Man is an evil, base creature who deserves to die. Deep down we all know that. Understand that. We deserve to be punished. Can’t you see?”

  She turned to face me now, lips close enough to feel her hot breath on my cheek.

  “And Gaia will punish us,” I suggested, with a laugh that withered on my lips.

  “She will.” Kate looked at the stars again, nodded her head. “Oh, she will. All equally. And all just as fatally.”

  I remember holding Lili in my arms for the first time. How she howled! The sweetest sound I ever heard. Everything was new. Everything was different. We were pioneers in a world of delight. Diapers? What a wonderful surprise! Weeks without sleep? No problem! The world was young and we were in it and we were happy.

  After a couple of months, we got restless. Twelve-hour days running the hostel followed by twelve-hour nights with the baby exhausted us both. And diapers soon lost their luster.

  “Take a week off,” Alex had shouted across a throng of backpackers. “Hell, take a month off. You’ve earned it.”

  So we did. We came to Lake Titicaca. Stayed a week on Isla del Sol. Warm days, cold nights. Kate nursed. Slept. I hiked the island, admiring the never-ending views. One could live here, I thought, peaceful till the end of days.

  It had been Kate’s idea to visit the island. She had studied anthropology, and was fascinated by the Incan death cults. When she was strong enough, she’d traipse around the island in the afternoons, visiting archaeological sites and practicing her Quechua on the local llama herders.

  The Incas, she told me breathlessly one night as we struggled toward orgasm, had a deluge story, like in the Bible.

  “You mean like Noah.”

  “Like that,” she groaned. �
�Yes, like that. One day the volcanoes will erupt.”

  “Which volcanoes?”

  “All of them. At the same time. Yes. Like that.” She quivered, gasped, lay back on her pillow. “And it will herald the end of the world.”

  “Sounds deep,” I said.

  She giggled. Stretched her arms over her head. “Lake Titicaca will evaporate, and the island will become a mountain in a dropless sea.”

  “What a seriously downer take on life,” I said.

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  That was when we got the email. From Greg and Luisa. Cross the border. Let’s party!

  Some party.

  The hostel in La Paz. Lili asleep in the borrowed crib. I stroke her forehead. Turn back to Kate. “Just for a few hours. You need a break. She’ll be fine.”

  “But are you sure?” She frowns at me, forehead crinkled.

  Greg drains his beer and belches. “You lucked out, mate. Didn’t even know he had a sister.”

  “If you say so,” she says, and buries her nose in my neck.

  “Couple hours,” I say. “Back at ten.” I put my arms around her waist. “What could go wrong?”

  Chicken curry sparkles on my tongue, the best I’ve had in ages. Candle wax curls in swirls of multicolored bliss down the sides of a Chianti bottle. Kate lifts her glass in a toast to the world: to motherhood, Liliana, me.

  “May you have many more!” Greg yells, already shitfaced.

  “Maybe we should have one, darling,” Luisa says, fingers plucking at the back of Greg’s thinning hair.

  While they smooch, I lead Kate to the tiny dance floor. I’m not a fan of amplified pan pipe music, but right now I’m so happy I don’t care. Her hand in mine, my palm cupping the curve of her spine, her lips at my throat, we sway to the music, the rhythm pulsing through us, making us one with the universe.

  Back at the table, Greg and Luisa argue. He’s drunk. No he’s not.

  “Don’ wan’ no water,” he mumbles at the top of his lungs.

  “I’m not cleaning up your puke tonight.” Luisa pushes a glass of water toward him.

  He huffs and frowns, head lolling on his shoulders. He reaches for the water glass, knocks it over. Kate shrieks as the cold water lands in her lap. We jump up, mopping the spill with a fistful of paper napkins.