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

by J. M. Porup

  She lifted my head and looked me in the eyes. “Hold on to me till morning,” she said. “Then I am yours.”

  “And if I fall asleep?”

  She pulled me down into her. “Then this will be goodbye. Forever.”

  Two Bolivian gunships. Cannon pointed at me.

  I rounded the corner of the island and there they were, gray behemoths armed by sailors with saltwater envy. They were anchored just offshore, blocking my path to the south beach, the main landing area for the island. I nudged the rifle under a pile of life preservers with my foot.

  A narrow space between the two ships. I slowed the engine, aimed the launch toward the gap.

  “Quite el motor!” a megaphone trumpeted.

  I cut the engine, let the momentum carry me alongside. A potbellied dwarf looked down at me. He wore a blue uniform and his cap, weighed down by mountains of gold braid, tilted low over his nose. Two grunts in camouflage and helmets dangled their rifles over the side, loosely pointed at my vital organs.

  So this was the mighty Bolivian navy. The guns were real though. I smiled and put my hands in the air.

  “Sí, señor,” I said. “Que está pasando? I want to visit the island.”

  “No one gets on or off the island today.”

  I winced. Two meters above me, the dwarf leaned over the gunwale, shouted straight down at the crown of my head through his megaphone.

  I said, “Friend of mine is on the island. Want to know if he’s OK.”

  “No go, gringo,” growled one of the grunts cheerfully.

  “No soy gringo!” I thrust my fist in the air. “Viva la revolución! Death to the American imperialist tyrants!”

  The two marines ducked their heads, chuckling. A yellow hand touched the braided dwarf on the shoulder. The dwarf turned. From the way his shoulders twitched, he was arguing with someone. He turned back to me, megaphone still glued to his lips.

  “Proceed to the island. Land at the eastern end of the beach. Report to the federal police.” An unamplified expletive. “That is all.”

  The marines withdrew their weapons. “Viva la revolución,” one said to the other. The dwarf smacked the back of the marine’s helmet, then hopped about, shaking his palm.

  I performed CPR on the motor, puttered at low throttle between the ships. I looked back. An Asian man next to the dwarf turned away as I did so, a blue baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.

  A Cubs cap.

  EIGHTEEN

  I landed on the beach as instructed. Puttered in on low power. Cut the engine. Paddled the boat into shore, then jumped out, pulled the launch onto the sand.

  The beach was swarming with backpackers. Happy-go-lucky souls who seemed to think the world was a beautiful place. Foreigners untouched by the world’s true misery. They strutted like peacocks on the sand, colorful backpacks and expensive waterproof, quick-dry, zip-off pants. Prestidigitation made easy: look, Ma, now they’re shorts!

  The beach was not long. A few hundred meters. A backpacker per square meter, or thereabouts. How many spoiled middle-class brats was that? I suppressed what remained of my math cortex for once, lest the answer result in nausea.

  A group of tall, blond, dreadlocked Swedes surrounded a pair of midget policemen in oversize peaked caps. All the Swedes’ worldly possessions lay at their feet. They spoke Spanish with an Argentinian accent.

  “Terrorists try to blow us up, here on the island, and you won’t let us off?” one said.

  The police officers simultaneously opened their arms wide in sympathy, a Bolivian sister act in camouflage drag. “But we feel the same way, señor. No one gets on or off the island. This is all we know.”

  I edged my way through the crowd, avoiding the cops. A huddle of girls spoke low in English, a thick British drawl.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Like you don’t know,” said one with sunburned cleavage and Liverpudlian twang.

  I hooked my thumb over my shoulder. “I just landed. Got my own boat.”

  The girls sat upright, a festival of perky mammaries. Soft Liverpudlian fingertips caressed the back of my hand. “Can you get us off?”

  “Sure,” I said, rolling my jaw. I tried not to look down their shirtfronts, failed. “As many times as you like,” I added.

  They groaned. Fists went to mouths, covered sudden smirks. One was not amused, however. “You got a boat or don’t you?”

  I smiled at their discomfort. “Of course.” I pointed. “Right over there. What’s with all the cops and stuff?”

  A redhead with freckles scratched her cleavage, pulled down on her shirt so I could get a better view of her green bikini top. “You didn’t see it last night?”

  “See what?”

  “The bloody fireball, mate. The explosion.”

  “Hotel Finski went fucking boom,” said another, a blonde with a smoker’s throaty voice and a T-shirt that showed stick figures engaged in various improbable sexual acts. “Must’ve killed a dozen people.”

  You can live in fear or you can live, Pitt had said. Your choice, bucko.

  “Holy crap.”

  “Bucket brigade’s been running up and down that bloody hill since before dawn.” The redhead nodded over her shoulder. Stone and gravel steps led to the top of the island, four hundred meters above, where most of the hostels and hotels perched.

  “Looking for a friend of mine,” I said. “Name of Pitt. Any chance you seen him?”

  “Pitt,” puttered the Liverpudlian. “Pitt Pitt Pitt.”

  What was it about the man that left women and children stammering his name?

  “American,” I said. “Long blond hair, surfy looking? Shark-tooth necklace?”

  “Pitt!” squealed the redhead.

  “Everybody saw him.” A roll of the eyes. Toss of blonde hair.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Disgraceful.” Her intonation and vocabulary verged on Valley Girl. “Total scene. Two girls got in a total clawing match over him.”

  I grinned. “That’s Pitt, alright. What’d he do?”

  The redhead held out a hand to silence her companion. “Told them both to fuck off.”

  “Let him drink his beer in peace.”

  “Too right.”

  The Liverpudlian and the redhead looked at each other, then at the sand. I got the feeling they were the two girls in question.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Seen him since, by any chance?” My voice trailed off into the upper octaves.

  “Not since yesterday.”

  “Oh. My. God.” Naked palms caressed bare cleavage. “You don’t think—”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I just want to know.” I craned my neck up at the hill. “They taken the bodies out yet?”

  “No,” said another, a silent scornful brunette with a tattoo of a penis on the side of her neck. “Still up there. Bloody Bolivians. You know how they are.”

  I turned and made for the stairs.

  “Hey!” the redhead yelled after me, her green bikini-clad boobs falling out of her shirt at this point. “You gonna get us off or not?”

  “Count on it,” I said, and to my dismay they whipped their heads in mosh pit giggles. I heaved myself through the crowd to escape from the sound.

  The Escalera de las Incas, as they are known, are steep. At four thousand meters, even without luggage, the climb was strenuous. I panted to a stop halfway up. An eruption of yellow hair quivered on a stair, the body beneath it curled into a fetal ball.

  I gasped for air. “You’re blocking the path.”

  A sob shook her. I squatted on my heels, pushed the hair out of her face. “Hey,” I said. I patted her cheek. No response. I patted harder. I shook her shoulder roughly.

  “You filthy pig!” she shouted, her accent Swedish, and swung a bare-knuckled punch at my face. I ducked. Her fist crashed against the back of my skull.

  I grabbed her wrists. “Girl. Chill.”

  She clung to me, her head on my shoulder. “Why won’t they l
et me see him?”

  “See who?”

  Her tears trickled down my neck. “Go away,” she growled into my shoulder. “Let me die.”

  “Happy to,” I said. “Do unto others and all that. First tell me what’s the matter.”

  She clung to me tighter. “It’s Sven.”

  “Who’s Sven, baby?”

  She sat back, dug her wrists into her eye sockets. “Sven is Sven.” She tried to smile but failed. “Burnt and crispy. Toasty, even.” She lowered her head into her hands.

  “Where? How do you know?” I shook her. “Tell me.”

  “The fucking Finski. Boom.” Her fingertips traced an explosion in midair.

  “What happened?”

  “We had a fight. Told him I was sick of traveling. He said I could go back to the hostel if I was tired.”

  “Did you?”

  She nodded, lips pressed together, a trumpeter preparing a high note. “He went to have a beer. Finski’s got a bar.”

  “I know.” I’d gotten drunk there many times myself. “And?”

  Her lower lip cavorted like a whirling dervish. “The last I saw him alive.”

  “And the bodies?”

  This triggered the garden sprinklers for a second time.

  I shook her. “The bodies. Where are they?”

  “The fuck you care?” she wailed, chest heaving with sobs. “He’s dead. Don’t you see?”

  “Hey,” I said. She was yabbling away to herself in Swedish. I raised my voice. “Hey,” I said. “I know how you feel. But I need your help.”

  She beat her forearms against my head, a toddler’s tantrum. She screamed, “You don’t know shit how I feel!”

  I slapped her. Hard. She went still. Back straight, mouth open. I said, “You think you’re the only one who’s ever lost someone?”

  She stared at me in wonder. A little voice came out of her face. “Have you lost someone too?”

  I sat on the stair next to her. “Look. Just tell me where the bodies are. I’ll leave you alone then. Promise.”

  “Who’re you—you—” she stammered, and swallowed some snot. “Who’re you looking for? Who did you lose?”

  Below, black dots milled about on the beach. The warships stood offshore. I tried to block the memory. Failed. I said, “Who I lost is none of your business. I’m looking for a friend of mine. Name of Pitt. Blond hair, shark-tooth necklace?”

  She shook her head. Pursed her lips to catch a sob. Her hair stuck to her face.

  I said, “I have to go see if his body is there.”

  “They won’t let you.”

  “Who?”

  “You’ll see.” She raised her voice, claws extended, and screeched at the gorgeous blue sky. “Fucking animals!”

  “Hang on,” I said. “How do you even know Sven’s dead? If you haven’t seen his body, I mean.”

  “I stood here and watched,” she said. “Everyone’s down on the beach. The police insisted. Sven didn’t pass by.”

  “So how can you be sure?”

  “I saw… I saw, I saw…” She hyperventilated, and I slapped her again. She sat back on the stairs. She took a deep breath. “I saw his shoes. Sticking out. From under the blanket. Handmade shoes. I made for him. A gift. For this trip.”

  We sat there a long moment. The cold mountain wind blew through us. I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I said at last.

  “Everybody’s fucking sorry,” she said. Shook her shoulder free. “That doesn’t bring my Sven back.”

  I stood. Nodded. I’d been there. There was nothing I could say or do to help her. I left her sitting on the gravel-packed staircase, screaming Swedish curses at the empty heavens. I ran the next few stairs, eager to get away from her. She made me uneasy. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. But my progress was soon reduced to a slow, painful slog, pushing my protesting knees beyond their natural limit, the sound of her voice nagging at me like my overactive conscience.

  I panted up the steep incline. At each step I passed fond memories, recollections I did not deserve, did not want to remember. Times of happiness and joy. The hotel where Kate and I once stayed. The restaurant where we ate breakfast, the view of the lake prominent from the garden terrace. The bush where we had made love, despite the thorns. The stretch of grass where we had lain, Liliana on my stomach, until she pooped and it trickled from her diaper onto my shirt.

  The stairs evened out. I pushed myself forward along the now gentle incline. The haze of smoke in the sky grew nearer. I rounded a bend between two houses and there it stood: the charred remains of the Hotel Finski: “Fun” Finski owner and sole proprietor, best backpacker hostel and bar on the island, and home to the only chef in Bolivia who knew how to prepare an authentic Malaysian satay.

  The stench of burnt flesh filled the air. A crowd of soldiers loitered near the blackened shell of the building, smoking cigarettes. Empty buckets lay on the grass. A grunt with a machete hacked at low-level shrubs near a neighboring building. The remaining embers of the fire hissed and smoked.

  Scattered about on the grass lay a dozen blankets covering body-length lumps. I started to run, my oxygen-starved muscles complaining, my lungs hungry for air. I fell to the ground next to the nearest corpse. Lifted the blanket. The skeletal face of an old woman grinned at me, bits of flesh attached to the jaw. Gray threads of silken hair twisted from the scalp. I slipped on the wet grass and pitched onto the body, the blanket slipping, the smell of burnt meat and hair enveloping me.

  A shout behind me grew into a chorus. I humped the corpse, trying to get up, but fell again. The soldiers dragged me to my feet and held me tight.

  “Looking for a friend,” I said in Spanish.

  A soldier in army fatigues with two chevrons on his sleeve swaggered over. A cigarette stuck to his lower lip. He looked me up and down. A rifle hung from his shoulder.

  He said, “What kind of friend?”

  “A friend. I told you. I think he might be here.” I nodded at the bodies.

  “The kind of friend who bombs hotels? Suicide bomber, maybe?”

  “Hijo de puta,” I swore. “I saw the fire on the island. My friend was staying here. Let me find the body.”

  A soldier fished through my pockets, looking for my ID.

  “Pasaporte,” the corporal said crisply.

  “No tengo.”

  “No passport?” He plucked the cigarette from his lips, blew smoke in my face and grinned, gold teeth glittering in the early morning light. “Then you are an illegal immigrant to Bolivia.”

  “I crossed the lake this morning. In a boat.” I pleaded with the platoon of thin conscripts. “I just got here.” I gestured to the corpses on the ground. “I saw the explosion. I was so worried, I must have left my passport at the hotel.”

  “And where is your hotel?”

  “In Puno,” I lied. “In Peru.”

  The corporal sucked on the stub of his cigarette, dropped it to the ground. The cinder flickered in the cold breeze. Smoke trickled upward toward my nose, died.

  “My brother went to your country. He was an illegal. They put him in jail. They raped him in the ass. Your black people. Then they deported him. Now he has AIDS.” He spat. “Why should we not do the same to you?”

  I clenched my buttocks, wondering how to avoid an unwanted party in my pants.

  “I have committed a grave crime against the Republic of Bolivia,” I said. “While there is nothing I can do to make this right, perhaps as the smallest token of my sorrow, you will accept the two hundred US dollars in my left front trouser pocket as an on-the-spot fine.”

  The soldier holding my arms relaxed his grip, but did not let go. The corporal pushed his pockmarked face close to mine, the tobacco stench masking the reek of death surrounding us. I thought about asking him for a cigarette, but decided against it.

  “You try to bribe me, gringo? In my country, bribery is illegal.”

  I avoided his eyes. “In mine too, corporal. I would never think of some
thing so base as to offer a bribe to an upright, outstanding exemplar of Bolivian machismo such as yourself.” I angled my head toward the sky off my left shoulder, spoke to the soldiers behind me. “I mean no offense to the great people of Bolivia. I merely wish to ascertain if my friend be alive or dead. If what little I have can atone for my breaking of your sacred law, then I hope such a pitiful sum be sufficient that you forgive my atrocity.”

  The man behind me snickered. “He talks funny.”

  The corporal held my gaze. Then he clapped me on the shoulder and laughed. “We don’t want your money, gringo.” He jerked his chin at the man behind me. “Let him go.”

  I took a deep breath and rubbed my wrists. “Thank you, sir,” I said, looking around at the blankets stretched out on the ground, wondering which, if any, of the lumps was Pitt. “If I can just—”

  The corporal blocked my path again. He grinned. “Private Gonzalez here needs to see a dentist.” The private in question smiled broadly, offering his black teeth into evidence. “The army does not pay privates much money. Perhaps you could help him out?”

  “Of course,” I said. I took the money from my pocket. It was all I had left from raiding the hostel’s cash box. While crossing the lake in the boat, I had transferred my stash from its hiding place to my pocket, thinking I might need some money when I got to the island. I hadn’t realized I would need it so soon. “How much does that cost?”

  The corporal took the money from my hand. “I think forty dollars ought to be about right, don’t you?”

  I nodded vehemently, my chin banging against my collarbone. “That seems fair.”

  His boots crunched on burnt grass as he indicated another conscript. “Huevito here is nineteen years old and has five kids. They all need shoes. Ten dollars a pair, no?”

  Private Huevo and I nodded enthusiastically at each other.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Ten dollars each for these other gentlemen, who have been of such great assistance to your grace this day,” —the money was duly handed out— “and a little something for my wife back in La Paz.”