by J. M. Porup
TWENTY-FOUR
The SUV in front of me rocked on its suspension. A man slid from the passenger seat onto the ground. Wisps of black hair straggled from his ears. A blue fitted Cubs cap perched on his scalp.
I said, “Hak Po?”
He winked at me. The SUV rocked again, this time a heavy dip and shudder, like a small boat in high seas. Ambo emerged. He adjusted his Stetson, scuffed his boots in the salt. When he saw me, his head jerked back and he grinned.
Kill.
My molars ground the word and spat it out a hiss. He had driven me from Lima. Killed his own wife. Framed me for her murder. Killed Pitt. Tried to kill me. Ordered the deaths of dozens of innocent people. Now was his moment of triumph. To gloat. But not if I could help it. By habit I went for my switchblade, forgetting the cops had taken it. Shit. Now what was I going to do? Just let him walk all over me again? An explosion at my right ear deafened me.
I flinched. The SUV’s windshield cracked, but no bullet hole appeared. To my right and behind me, Aurora jumped on Victor’s back. He must have taken the gun from her. He held the pistol tight in both hands, tried to point it at Ambo.
All around us, safeties clicked off. “Hold your fire!” Ambo roared.
The Frenchwoman bellowed, pounded her fists against her breasts. I grabbed hold of Victor’s wrists, tried to bring the gun down, but he squeezed off another shot. Damn you, I thought. Give me the fucking gun. I want to kill him. Not you. Me. Let me do this one good thing before I die.
Gloved hands pried Aurora off Victor’s shoulder, dumped her on the ground. She let out an outraged squeak in midair. Cute. A soldier in camouflage loomed behind us. He snaked his arm around Victor’s neck. Lifted him off the ground by the throat. Battered the gun with his other hand, but failed to disarm him.
“Drop the weapon,” the man grunted in Spanish.
I fought with Victor, trying to pull the gun free, but he fired again.
“They’ve won,” I said, grappling with him, my lips close to his ear. “We lost.”
“We. Have. Not.” He fired twice more. The bullets ricocheted off the roof of the vehicle.
I put all my strength into my thumbs, tried to break his grip. There was only one bullet left, and I wanted it. But I could not budge his fingers. Between clenched teeth, I said, “Live to fight another day, dude.”
“No,” he said. “Too late. To stop it.” He clutched at the commando’s forearm. “All. Going. To die.” He put the gun barrel in his mouth, said, “Checkmate,” and pulled the trigger.
Brains, blood and bits of skull exploded backward, showering the tourists in a cloud of freshly dead vulcanologist. The commando looked like a watermelon had exploded in his face. He let go of the body, dabbed a gloved fingertip at the blue-gray goo splattered across his goggles.
My hands were covered in gore. I wiped them on my trousers. I am such an asshole. I can’t do anything right. Why didn’t I just let him shoot Ambo? Victor would have killed him. Might have, anyway. And now what? Six bullets and the bastard was still standing. Now what the hell do I do?
I was considering the available options when two commandos tackled me from opposite directions, crushing me between them, knocking the breath from my chest. They slammed me to the ground, cheek first into the hard-packed salt. My broken nose throbbed from the impact. A knee ground into my left kidney. The commandos bound my wrists behind my back with flexible plastic.
“That the best you can do?” I said. “Come on, make it hurt, marica!”
One of them rabbit-punched me in the neck. I blacked out for a moment. A voice like an echo down a long tunnel said, “That can be arranged.”
Pointy green snakeskin boots scuffled to a stop inches from my nose. A drop of blood fell onto the salt. Ambo’s voice, far above, said, “Stand him up.”
Two soldiers yanked me to my feet. Ambo clutched his left shoulder with his right hand. Blood seeped through his down vest. It looked like something he’d bought in the seventies, and never bothered to replace.
“Cut him loose,” he ordered.
A knife brushed the inside of my wrists and I was free. I rubbed my neck with my good hand.
“Well, Horse,” he said, “I guess I owe you one.”
“For what?” I asked, incredulous.
He nodded toward the dead body. “For trying to stop him.”
“You mean Victor?” I said. “I wasn’t trying to stop him.”
“No?” He raised his eyebrows. “Then what were you doing?”
“I wanted to kill you myself.”
Ambo made a fist, backhanded me across the face. My broken nose snapped a second time. I groaned. Tasted blood. My legs went rubbery. He caught me as I fell. Put his good arm around me and pressed me against him.
He said, “I don’t know whether to shoot you or give you a medal.”
“I’m not particular,” I said, and spat in his face. Blood and phlegm trickled down his cheekbone. “Fielder’s choice.”
He pushed me away. Wiped at the gob of spit. His monster fist clutched great folds of my jacket, pulled it tight against my body, lifted me on the tips of my toes. He put his nose close to mine.
“I didn’t kill Lynn.”
“You found out I was fucking her.”
His gaze wavered. “I am an old man, and a fool.”
“We agree on something, then.”
“I didn’t kill Pitt, either.”
“So you say.” I grinned. “There’s only one thing I regret.”
“What’s that?”
I smirked at his wounded shoulder. “It’s a shame that Victor missed.”
Ambo let go of me. Shook his head. “You just love that righteous anger, don’t you. You got no fucking clue.”
“Don’t I? Mister Captain of the Dissent Suppression Unit, I kill people who threaten American corporate profits?”
“This isn’t a DSU case,” he said.
“What company are you working for this time?”
He gestured over my shoulder. “And your new friends? Are they deluded activists as well?”
The others lay on the ground, orange plastic one-time cuffs around their wrists. The earflaps of the Dutchman’s woolen hat fell to the side, knitted llamas prancing in the salt. The Frenchwoman coughed up incoherent oaths on the commandos’ boots. The Japanese men puffed on their cigarettes from where they lay on their stomachs.
“They know about the sabotage. They know about your plan to start a war. You’ll have to kill us all, you realize that?” I smiled triumphantly. “’Cause we’re all witnesses. To this atrocity.”
“No more kill. Kill no good.” Hak Po appeared soundlessly at my side. “Horse,” he said. “So please see you.” He stretched his lips tight across his teeth. Held out a hand.
“Hak Po,” I said. I looked at Ambo for an explanation. He offered none. I shook the bony hand. “Love your new home delivery service. How much for a couple grams of your finest?”
Hak Po laughed, slapped my arm. “We not here satisfy your cocaine fantasies, my friend. Much bigger eels to boil.” His hand lingered on mine. “Elephants to hunt.” He leaned into me, whispered, “Big game.”
“Speaking of which,” Ambo asked. “Have you seen Pitt?”
“You son of a bitch,” I said. I pulled my hand from Hak Po’s skeletal embrace and swung my fist at Ambo’s head. It landed in the padded softness of his white palm. He held my hand firm.
“You see?” he said to Hak Po.
“Maybe you right.”
With my left hand I aimed an uppercut at Ambo’s head. This time I connected with his jaw. A snapping noise and an explosion of pain announced a second fracture of my little finger. In the rush of adrenaline and cold, I had forgotten about it.
“Motherfucker.”
The pain was intense. I rode the wave. Gasped from deep inside my chest. My eyes rolled back in my head. But a thought dampened my joy: was this an addiction too?
Ambo squeezed my right fist in his paw. “Suppose
,” he said, and looked shyly at the ground, “suppose I told you Pitt wasn’t dead.”
“Suppose I told you cocaine cured cancer, Lima was beautiful, and America was a free country.” I took another swing at his head with my broken fist, looking for more pain, but Hak Po latched on to my arm with both hands.
“No time for this,” he said. “Need your help. Come with us. Now!”
The mouth of a volcano.
The satellite image zoomed in. Snow encircled the peak. A man stood at the lip of the crater. The image zoomed in again, until I could see the man’s face.
It was Pitt.
“When was this taken?” I asked.
“That’s a live feed, son,” Ambo shouted from the front seat of the SUV. “He picks his nose it’s real time.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I said. “Pitt’s dead. I saw the body.” I looked up from the video display on my lap. “You killed him.”
Ambo sighed, rubbed his jaw. “I am beginning to wish I had.”
“You what?”
“It’s a long story, Horace, and we have little time.”
“Well then you’d better be quick about it,” I said. “Use easy words. I’m not too smart.”
On either side of me, brown-faced Bolivian commandos in American surplus camouflage sat rigid, rifles at their sides. On a distant mountaintop, Pitt paced back and forth.
The caravan of SUVs stopped in front of a concrete bunker just outside the perimeter of the mine. The exterior was blackened and scorched. The acrid smoke from the explosion billowed around us, singeing my nose. A sign on the wall of the bunker declared: Gentleman’s Rec Centre, Condoms Mandatory.
We traipsed inside. Half a dozen rooms stood open, green sheets crisp and tight. Shower stalls along one wall gleamed with a recent cleaning. The place smelled of bleach.
Hak Po opened a heavy wooden door. “Sauna,” he said. “Soundproof. No bugs.” He grinned at me.
“Bugs bad,” I said.
The three of us stepped into the small room and closed the door. Ambo threw off his jacket, unbuttoned the collar of his green-and-black checked flannel shirt. Hak Po pressed a scratched red button on the wall, and the heating element crackled.
Ambo plucked at his lower lip. “Where should I begin.”
I said, “Let me see what I can guess.”
He closed his mouth and shrugged, winced at the pain. “Go ahead.”
“Pitt’s gone rogue. He faked his death, and he’s trying to stop the war over the lithium.”
Ambo nodded. “Not bad. What else?”
“You’ve been trying to kill me because you don’t want the truth to come out. Don’t interrupt me. And you will probably drop me down a mine shaft as soon as you finish this interrogation. Which,” I said, “does not motivate me to tell you anything.”
Ambo massaged his palm across the stubble on his head. Wisps of steam rose from the heating element. “So what’s Pitt doing on top of a volcano?”
The hot air caught in my throat. “That I don’t know.”
Ambo said, “He wants to destroy the world.”
“Spare me,” I said. “It’s not the end of the world just because you can’t have your little war.”
“War’s off, Horace.”
“Then what’d you blow up the mine for?”
“Who said that was us?”
“Victor. Industrial sabotage, provoke Bolivia into a war.”
“We were going to have a war. I don’t deny it.” Ambo poked at his wound. The bullet hole in his shoulder dribbled blood with each pulse of his heart, soaked into his shirt. He peered at it curiously, as though it were some rare cosmic phenomenon, but did nothing to staunch the flow. “But then Pitt got involved,” he said. “Why do you think the Bolivians are helping us?” He waved a hand toward the door.
“Maybe they’re part of it. They want their land back. Maybe they’re colluding with you to start the war, and plan to double-cross you later.”
Hak Po shook his head. “When Ambo say ‘end world,’ he mean ‘end world.’ You listen me?”
I turned to Ambo. “And what the fuck is going on here, dude? You’re sitting here with a Chinese spy.”
“Well, dude,” he said, glaring at me, “if you shut up for a minute and listen, you might find out.”
“Listen?” Hak Po asked again. “Patient?”
I sat. The sauna’s warmth brought circulation back to my fingers. My left hand throbbed. I fingered the bone fragments floating around in my pinkie. Better than coffee.
“Make it quick,” I said.
Hak Po cleared his throat, spat on the floor. He pressed his knees together, hands folded on his lap. He looked at the floor, admiring his loogie. “There two places in world with lithium. You know this?”
“Tibet and the Salar de Uyuni,” I said, remembering Victor’s lecture in the cave. “Plus Afghanistan and Australia.”
“But Tibet deposits small. Other deposits very small.”
“Which means Bolivia is the proud owner of most of the world’s lithium. Your point?”
“Yes. Cocaine no fry brain.” He smiled at his joke. I said nothing. He continued, “There faction of monks in Tibet. Hate modern world. Fight against China, what they call China’s ‘occupation.’ Even though for centuries Tibet lawful ancient part of Chinese Empire—”
“Hak.” Ambo’s voice a warning.
“These monks want destroy modern life. Want destroy lithium.”
“What for?” I asked. “I mean, what does that have to do with anything?”
Hak Po shrugged, poked at his loogie with the toe of his boot. “Petroleum run out. Lithium battery new gasoline. No lithium, then when oil go away, many people die. Maybe billions. Many Chinese. World go back old ways.”
“Why is that a problem?” I asked.
“Horace!” Ambo said. “Everyone would die.”
“I say again, why is that a problem?”
They both started talking at once.
I held up my palms. “Sounds to me like what the human race deserves.”
“Most people aren’t like you, Horace,” Ambo said. “Most people want to live.”
“I’m not so sure about that. But what the hell,” I said, before he could interrupt. “I’ll play along. How, exactly, do a bunch of mystical Tibetan Buddhist monks plan on destroying a naturally occurring mineral?”
A yellow finger pierced the air. “Victor Ivanovitch Strezlecki.”
“Who has super cow powers?”
Hak Po lowered his head in a quick bow. “Victor vulcanologist. Talented man, Mister Victor. World number two at chess when child.”
“A master manipulator,” Ambo broke in. “For all I know, this conversation is part of his end game. He should have been a spy.”
Hak Po continued. “Victor twenty year study volcanoes in Andes. Peru, Bolivia, Chile. Top expert. No one else close.”
Ambo ripped his shirtfront open. Buttons skittered across the wooden bench onto the damp floor. He held out his cuffs to Hak Po, who undid them. He slid out of the sleeves. The wound to his shoulder blossomed across his chest like a Rorschach ink blot. He pressed the bunched-up garment against the wound. “The man did his postdoc at Oregon State. Speaks perfect English.”
“I noticed,” I said. “But what does any of this have to do with Pitt being on top of a volcano?”
“He’s getting there,” Ambo said, and closed his eyes. He slumped back against the wall.
Hak Po continued. “We watch Victor long time. Wife, daughter die in car crash. Here Bolivia.”
I snorted. “Who the fuck told you that, Hak?” I jerked my head at Ambo. “The land of the slaves and the home of the oppressors here tortured, raped and murdered Victor’s wife and daughter. True or false?”
Ambo chewed his lip. “Sure we did. I’d do it again, too. What if a rogue state got a hold of his weapon?”
“You mean a rogue state like America?” I shouted.
“Boys! Boys!” Hak Po held up a hand betwe
en us. “Save for later. Point: After family die, Victor go Tibet. Five year ago. Meditate. Last year, big explosion at lithium mine. Very bad. No production. Victor suspect. But, no volcano in Tibet. So no do more damage.”
“Why? Is he going to blow up a volcano?” I joked.
Hak Po nodded. “You understand lithium in water. Under Salar.”
“Duh. Yeah.”
“Very costly mine. Pump out water. Dry for one year, longer. Concentrate solution. Very low percent solution. Not like gold or diamonds, dig out of ground. What he do, try do, Mister Victor, is blow up volcano. Here Bolivia. The Salar. Vaporize salt water. Then, no more lithium.”
I frowned. “Let’s assume for the moment you aren’t talking completely out of your ass. Is that even possible? Making a volcano erupt on command?” Then the penny dropped. “You mean that’s Victor’s weapon?”
Hak Po smiled. “Good boy. Smart.”
Ambo didn’t join the smilefest. “Why do you think we tortured his family, Horace? For kicks?”
“With you?” I said. “Hard to say.”
“We show data to scientists,” Hak Po said. “They say, Victor that good. If Victor say, dynamite right spot, they believe he make volcano blow up.”
“OK,” I said. “But he’d have to do that for every volcano in the region.”
“Big fault line under Salar.” Hak Po traced a line of spittle on the wooden floor with his boot. “Dynamite right spot set off chain reaction.”
“A chain reaction,” Ambo echoed, taking the reins, “that will cause the volcanoes that surround the Salar to erupt, spewing lava across the salt flats.”
“Yeah, OK. But would that—”
“—do significant damage? The surface lava, no.” Ambo rode over my interruption. “Although it would be a nuisance for future mines. Victor’s true genius was discovering the fault line had weak spots. Trigger points, if you will. We ran his raw data through supercomputers. Simulations show his theory to be correct. The magma will well up under the fault line. There’s a ninety-eight percent chance it will break the surface. Even if it doesn’t, it will vaporize the salt water under the salt flats, cooking the water from the soil, and leaving the lithium trapped in the sands. It would become impossible to mine.”