Текст книги "Red Jungle"

Автор книги: Kent Harrington

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

THIRTY

Russell had been calling Mahler at Tres Rios, but wasn’t getting through. When he finally got an answer, Mahler told him his cell phone had been damaged and he’d been unable to call out.

“I’ve been hurt,” Mahler said. “I can’t move it—the jaguar– by myself.”

“I’ll be there tomorrow,” Russell said.

“You’re sure? We don’t have much time. The news about the jaguar will get out, it always does.”

“Yes. Tomorrow at the latest. Are you alone?” Russell asked. “Where are the men?”

“Yes. Alone,” Mahler said. “I thought it best.”

Russell held the phone a moment. The words were chilling.

“Carl’s dead. I’ll explain later,” Russell said finally. “I’ve called his brother in Paris. It’s all arranged. The brother is to meet us at Puerto Barrios in a week. He’s flying in from Paris and making arrangements. He’ll take delivery there at Barrios. He’s arranging it all.”

“What happened to Carl?” Mahler asked.

“I can’t say now.”

“Hurry up, then,” Mahler said.

“Yes. I just have to finish up here in the capital. A few loose ends,” Russell said.

“It’s very big. Much bigger than I expected. But I can’t move it,” Mahler said again. “I don’t know how the bloody hell we can get it out of the temple. And it’s too big for the river.”

“We can take it through Bakta Halik,” Russell said. He didn’t want to talk so much on the phone. It was dangerous.

“Maybe. That’s twelve kilometers of jungle. You haven’t seen it. It’s big. Taller than I am,” Mahler said. Mahler sounded exhausted. “I guess it’s four meters high.”

“Jesus,” Russell said, and they were suddenly cut off.

•••

“Why are we here?” Katherine asked.

He looked at her. He’d rented the penthouse suite at the Camino Real. It had a fabulous view of the Volcan de Fuego.

“Because this is where you’re going to meet with President Blanco.”

“No, it isn’t. The delegation is scheduled to meet him in the ballroom,” she said.

“I want you to change that,” Russell said.

“You want me to ask the President of the republic to come up here?”

“Yes,” he said. “I do. It won’t be difficult.”

“Russell, what in God’s name is going on?” she asked.

Katherine was wearing a blue pants suit. He’d never seen her in that kind of formal business wear. She looked the part of UN delegate now, almost severe-looking, he thought, and older.

“You’re going to tell him that the delegation has special information about human rights abuses in the country. That Blanco has been named personally, and that you want to give him a chance to clear his name before the delegation goes to the press. That you are concerned for the delegation’s safety if they leave the hotel, and that the delegation would appreciate it if he came here, in a more private setting,” Russell said.

“That’s absurd. There is no such report. And we aren’t concerned about our safety. We have the UN Commissioner of Human Rights with us, for God’s sake. No one would dare do anything to her.”

“Do you want Carlos Selva to be president of the country?” he asked. He was sitting down in the huge living room. The maid had just opened the curtain, ignoring their conversation in English.

“Of course not. The man’s a monster. And he has violated human rights as head of intelligence. I should know,” she said.

“Well, if you don’t help me, Carlos is going to assume the Presidency tonight. Blanco is leaving the country. He’s had enough. He wants to go to Miami and appoint Carlos President. We can stop Carlos. But you’ll have to help me.”

Katherine came further into the huge room. The maid went to the servi-bar and started putting out soft drinks on the bar top. He’d ordered the bar to be stocked, and bottles of liquor to be arranged on the bar top. When he’d said the word Blanco, the maid had looked up at them for a moment

“I’m going to assassinate Blanco, and I want you to help me,” he said calmly.

She looked at him a moment as if he had said something childish.

“You’re out of your mind,” she said finally.

“No, I’m not,” he said. “You say that you want to change the world. You’ve said that since we first met. You said you’ve dedicated your life to it. Everything you do is about that, about helping people—about fighting back against evil. Well, here’s your chance. You have a real chance to do something instead of just talking about it. If I kill Blanco, he can’t appoint Selva.

“We’re going to take over the government. Madrid’s group. Antonio has promised to hold elections in 12 months. In the meantime, there’s a plan to end the economic crisis. We’re going to sell the national phone company and the oil company. Jose will be able to stabilize the balance of payments with the money.

“Carlos won’t hold elections—ever,” Russell continued. “You know that. And he won’t do anything about the economy except what the fools at the IMF tell him to do. The country will end up like Argentina, only much worse.

“You’re either with us or not. I promise you it will make a difference,” he said. “Otherwise, the Communists will come back, and this time they’ll win. Help me stop that from happening. We can stop all that suffering.”

The maid walked by him and nodded. He took out a ten quetzal note and tipped the woman, and she left.

Katherine hadn’t said a word. He got up, went to the bar, and took out a beer. He didn’t know what she would do. If she said no, he knew he would probably die, because he would have to shoot Blanco in front of his bodyguards and the whole world. He poured himself the beer into a tall, elegant glass, went back and sat down on the couch. For a moment he just looked at the white head of beer in the glass. He wondered whether he had the balls to shoot Blanco in front of everyone.

Katherine sat on the edge of the couch, her knees together, her purse on the floor next to her.

He didn’t want to die now. He wanted to take Beatrice and leave the country and be happy, have a family with her. He wanted to have a daughter. He wanted to see her grow into a woman. He wanted to be an old man.

“What’s the world coming to?” she said. “Do you think killing people ever really works?”

“Yes. I do. What do you think the world would have been like if Hitler had been shot in 1936? Their side does it all the time. And that’s why they win all the time. You see, they aren’t like us, always wanting to be good. You can’t be good all the time. Not with them. They don’t respect anything but power. That’s all they respect,” Russell said.

“You’re sure he’s going to appoint Carlos?”

“Yes.”

“Do you really believe Madrid is any better? Really?”

“Yes, I do. He’s different. You know that. He’s modern.”

“Why do you believe him?”

“Because he believes that it’s time to stop listening to the embassy and to the IMF and to the whole lot of them. He wants to make the country independent and free and capitalist, and truly democratic. That means jobs and prosperity, and not just for the rich. It’s as simple as that. Now I have to have an answer,” he said. “Will you help me?”

She sat there across from him and didn’t answer for a long time.

“Yes. I’ll help you. Because Carlos is a monster. But not because I believe in Madrid, or any of them. I’ve learnt too much about the world. That’s the irony. That’s the truth. I’ve been a kind of liar. I don’t believe, not really. I mean, that people are good. I don’t know what I believe in. I’m completely lost. I love you. I believe in that. That’s all I believe in, and you don’t love me. So you see—nothing makes sense to me.”

“You’ll help me, then?” She nodded her head.

“We’ll change things for the better,” he said

“Will we? And the other side? Do you think they will let Madrid take power just like that?” He didn’t answer. “They’ll kill him later.”

He took Katherine to her room, then went out to the pool off the lobby and dialed Selva’s cell number.

“I’ve got the Red Jaguar,” Russell said. There was a long pause.

“Good. Where?”

“It’s big. Very big. So it’s worth millions, only God knows how much,” Russell said.

“What is it you want?” Selva asked.

“We need help in getting it out of the country.”

“All right,” Carlos said.

“We want to make you a partner.”

“I want fifty percent.”

“Fine. Blanco’s coming to the Camino Real to talk to the UN people. Why don’t you come with him? We’ll talk here.”

“Okay,” Carlos said. “Good work.”

•••

Spring 1988

The Cardinal had gotten a call from Isabella’s brother in Paris. They had been to school together. For a moment the cardinal thought that Roberto Cruz had called just to say hello, and was pleased. But then he heard the news of Isabella’s disappearance.

He promised to help. Olga came to his office and was made to wait. The Cardinal would not meet with her, but he assigned a young priest to drive her to the hospitals, where they made inquiries.

The young priest, also an Indian from the highlands, spoke to her in Quiché and Spanish. They went to the public hospital in the Cardinal’s brand new Chevy, with a driver. The young priest was sure they would find her mistress, he told Olga. Nothing escaped the knowledge of the church. Cardinal De La Tierra could move heaven and earth.

They searched the wards of the hospital, looking for people who were too ill to have given their names, or, for some reason, had been admitted without identification. They were all poor people, and Olga knew Isabella would not be there. She felt this with a certainty she couldn’t describe. It was unimaginable that her mistress could be here in these shabby, cold wards.

They tried the French hospital, which catered exclusively to the country’s wealthy. They were told that there were no Jane Does, and no Isabella Cruz had been admitted either. The difference in the two hospitals was striking. Olga insisted, in a show of pique and anger, on walking all the halls. She was allowed to only because the young priest used the Cardinal’s name. Olga had seen many of the people in this hospital pass through the apartment on the Reforma: young society women who’d just given birth, old men who’d known Isabella’s father and who were dying. Some recognized Olga and made inquiries. Olga answered politely that she was searching for her mistress. Several showed real concern.

The head of the air force, who’d been a good friend of Isabella’s mother and was dying from bladder cancer, said he would call his friend at X7, the Guatemalan equivalent of the CIA. He made a big show of it. He was in pain, but stayed on the phone, calling all afternoon to no avail. He died that evening, thinking of Isabella, about the day he first met her, how vivacious she was and how pretty. A military man all his life, he faced death well, but allowed himself to dream as he died of that afternoon on the plantation with Isabella’s father and mother, when he’d been young and strapping. He’d met his wife that day. He died happily in a morphine dream.

They stopped for lunch at a cheap restaurant near the cathedral. Olga ate with the priest at a small square wooden table. Neither one spoke. He paid for the lunch, and she thanked him. They went back to the Cardinal’s office and heard the news that a white woman’s body was being held in a church on the outskirts of the city near Antigua. They went off immediately. Olga knew that God had taken her mistress. The priest, seeing her suffering, said that there was no telling that her mistress was the one they’d found. Olga felt she was there. He tried to hold her hand, but she didn’t let him. She was mad at God. God was not fair or good. She was sure of that now.

The church near Antigua had steep stone steps. They walked quickly up them, passing the sitting Indians who’d come for market day. They entered the smoky anteroom littered with burning candles, then passed into the church itself. Afternoon light shone through the blue and yellow stained glass. Blue light fell on the empty crude wooden pews. Banks of candles lit the dark corners off the apse. There were many lit candles, as Ash Wednesday would be that week. Purple cloth had been draped over the saints.

The woman’s body had been left where it had first been laid down. The police, overwhelmed by the war, would not come. They had called an ambulance, but it had not come either. There were so many deaths from the war that the army had requisitioned all the ambulances.

Olga began to sob. The priest tried to stop her, but she rushed to the body in front of the altar. She threw back the cloth that had been laid over it and screamed, a horrible sound.

The young priest would never forget it. It was an angry scream, he thought, a scream from a person who had been cheated. The scream dented his faith in God. Men suffered so. He wondered for the first time why it had to be. Later, when the war became unbearable, and the killings crueler and crueler, he decided that God was not a benevolent God, but rather a distant cruel man with little love for his charges. He left the priesthood and became a doctor, studying in France on a scholarship. He came to believe science was the only real god. And even that god wasn’t benevolent, or even kind; at best, it was suitable.

He tried to pull Olga off the body, but it was impossible. She struck out at him. Her grief intimidated him. After a moment, he gave up. He bent down by the corpse on the cold stone floor and said an “Our Father,” then crossed himself slowly and went to find the parish priest.

They called the Cardinal for instructions on what to do. Because of the lack of ambulances, they were forced to load the body in their car and take it to the undertakers. A doctor was called to perform an autopsy, only because Isabella’s brother insisted on it.

THIRTY-ONE

It was raining lightly. The downtown traffic was heavy at noontime. Katherine Barkley, her hair slightly wet from the rain, crossed a quiet tree-lined street a few blocks from the Hotel Camino Real. It was a neighborhood of elegant older homes, built when Guatemala was still one of a handful of countries producing all the world’s coffee.

She stopped in front of a large ranch-style house. The house, well off the street, was surrounded by a huge tropical garden. Katherine could see coconut palms and birds of paradise. A well dressed Guatemalan bodyguard was guarding the entrance.

Katherine gave the guard her name. He called someone inside the house on his cell phone, then pushed a button and the gate swung open. He smiled at her, but she didn’t notice.

She was frightened now, certain that Russell would be killed. She’d sounded a mayday at the embassy and called for the meeting as soon as she’d found out about Russell’s plan to assassinate Blanco.

She made her way through the lush garden to the front door of one of the CIA’s many safe houses in the capital. Colonel Oliver North had used the house; some of the embassy’s older CIA officers jokingly called the place “Ollie’s house.”

Iran-Contra, the Bay Of Pigs, the Contra wars—until today, Katherine’s role in history seemed very vague. She’d joined the CIA, like many of her generation, on the heels of 9/11. She’d intended to go to medical school, but had joined the agency in a fit of anger and patriotism instead, because she wanted to help her country fight terrorism. Until she’d fallen in love with Russell, she’d been a fast-rising star in the agency’s covert directorate.

That afternoon, her career seemed beside the point As she approached the safe house, everything suddenly was appallingly clear to her: It was a dirty world, and this was a dirty country. And now, she felt dirty too, for being part of it all.

She walked through the heavy front door and stood for a moment in the foyer, wondering what had happened to her after only three years in the agency. She’d been a naïve, fearless girl, and now she was something else altogether. Now she was afraid.

Crowley, the station head, was on a satellite phone. The other two men, much younger than Crowley, were sitting at a table. They glanced at her nervously as she came in, a thinly veiled suspicion in their expressions. How had she ended up here, in this room, she wondered, with men who didn’t care about her, in love with someone their cables referred to as the “unpredictable American?”

Crowley nodded to her as she entered. The satellite phone’s portable cone-shaped dish sat on the floor of the simple living room, pointing towards an open French window that looked out onto the garden. There was a patter of rain on the metal roof. The two younger officers with Crowley wore casual clothes, and sat at the dining room table just off the living room.

Crowley, in his sixties, was near retirement. He’d posed as an AID official all his career, and was the most innocuous-looking man Katherine had ever met. Quite small, almost tiny, Mr. Crowley, as he was called, was the last man in the world anyone would have thought could be an intelligence officer, much less Head of Station. He looked like a back office bank clerk. In fact he was very experienced, having started out as a young man in Vietnam and then Cambodia. Tonsured, his small bald head gleamed in the electric lights. Natty, he looked like one of those people who never allowed himself to get dirty. He wore golf clothes, but never golfed. It was rumored that he was bisexual. But looking at him now, Katherine didn’t think so. There was something too square, and far too cunning for him to be caught up in sordidness like that.

Still on the phone, Crowley came and sat at the head of the table and motioned for her to sit down next to him.

The CIA had been using this house since the 1950s. It was still filled with bamboo furniture and mid-century touches bought years before. Watercolor paintings of scenes from the highlands decorated the wall.

The house had served as the military command center during the Bay Of Pigs invasion. This was the very living room that old American Coffee Pete had worked from forty years earlier, coordinating the air support the Cuban invaders had expected. The planes that would have carried the day, waiting on an air base in Nicaragua, were grounded by Kennedy himself at the eleventh hour.

“Now I want you to tell us again about Cruz-Price and what he’s up to,” Crowley said, looking at her and smiling, settling into his chair. He put the phone down on the polished table. She realized that it could still be on and that others might be listening. She took a breath.

“Cruz-Price is part of a group that’s going to assassinate Blanco. They think that will incite a coup that will allow Antonio De La Madrid to seize power.” She tried her best to sound indifferent, to keep the emotion out of her voice. Crowley reached over and made a show of turning the phone off. “They’ll call back. You seem to have gotten everyone’s attention, dear.”

“And what do you think of young Cruz-Price and his band of merry men?” Crowley said after what seemed like an eternity. He’d been looking across the room, but suddenly turned and looked at her full on.

“I suppose they’re desperate,” she said quickly. She was frightened of him, and felt her heart start to race.

“Killing Blanco won’t make a difference, you know. Not a bit. Only make it easier for our man to take over. Selva. Eye of the storm and all that. He’ll rush in and bring stability to the chaos. Everyone wants a soldier at times like that, dear. No good at all killing Blanco, as far as that goes.”

“We could stop it . . . Blanco’s killing,” she said. She was sorry she’d said it, and wanted to pull the words back.

Crowley stared at her for a moment. Each time he’d called her dear she wanted to slap him.

“Dear. You know very well we aren’t allowed to interfere in the internal politics of sovereign nations. Isn’t that right?” He said in a fatuous tone, finally bothering to look down the table at the others. The phone rang and he reached for it.

“ . . .They’d like to speak to you,” Crowley said.

She took the phone from him. She told the head of the CIA’s Central America desk exactly what she’d learned about the plot against President Blanco. When she finished, she was told to put Crowley back on the line.

Katherine glanced at her watch. It was almost four o’clock. Blanco was scheduled to come to the penthouse at 6:00. She’d arranged everything the way Russell had asked her to. Then she’d come here. She wanted to save Russell’s life, and she still thought she could. She believed she’d done the right thing by telling Crowley. She didn’t care about the mission anymore; she was in love, and desperate to save him. She’d only mentioned Russell once during the phone call to Virginia, making a point of calling him “the American.”

“If they decide not to interfere, you’ll have to stay out of it,” Crowley said. “Up to a point, I suppose. We can’t legally help him, but we can support Cruz-Price. He might be useful in the future. You can always use someone like that.” Crowley looked at her evenly. It was obvious that he didn’t care about Blanco one way or the other. His murder would be a policy decision.

“I’ve never really understood Cruz-Price. What do you think he wants, Katherine . . . just this girl?” Crowley said, leaning forward. “You seem to know him fairly well?” He dropped his gaze slightly as if he’d said something off color.

Does he know? Katherine wasn’t sure what they knew about her and Russell. She supposed they might suspect she had gotten involved with him. It was something about the way they were all looking at her now, suspicion tinged with envy. She noticed one of the younger men wore a wedding ring.

“Have you told us everything about Cruz-Price’s motivations?” Crowley asked. “It is crunch time. We wouldn’t want to be taken by surprise.”

“He simply believes Selva is wrong for the country and that the communists will take advantage of the chaotic economic situation. He hates the communists. I think it’s something personal, something to do with his mother,” she said. She stopped talking for a moment. Crowley’s expression was passive. “He believes Madrid has a chance of winning, if they can get a fair election.” She said it quickly, as if it were the key and she were betraying him again. She wanted so desperately to protect him, she felt insecure.

“I think he can be very useful in the future. If Madrid is elected, he’ll be part of the government,” she said. “I’m sure he’d cooperate with us. I’m sure of it.” This was a lie, but she didn’t care. In fact, she had no idea what Russell would do.

The satellite phone rang. It made her jump. Crowley took up the receiver and listened. He listened for quite a while.

Katherine felt the two younger officers in the room boring a hole in her. They both, she believed now, thought she’d “hooked up” with Cruz-Price. It was obvious to her, as she glanced at them. Neither one of them would look straight at her.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do,” Crowley said finally, hanging up the phone. “We’re to stay out of it.”

Katherine was shocked. She’d been sure they would protect Blanco, stop it somehow.

“The important thing is to get Selva in place,” Crowley said.

The two younger officers in the room were obviously surprised. They had nothing but contempt for Selva. They wanted De La Madrid to win the election, because he was a democrat and all their intelligence indicated that he wasn’t hostile to the US in any serious way. But the officers were all young and for the most part still idealistic, if no longer naive. Selva, they knew, was predictable and completely compromised. He would take orders from the embassy, and that’s all that mattered to Washington. Everyone knew Selva was a pig, but he would be their pig.

“The clandestine people are very concerned about your safety . . . under the circumstances. There’s no reason for you to go back to the hotel. In fact, they’d like you to come home now,” Crowley said. She’d gone pale. Crowley thought she was frightened because they might have asked her to be in the room when Russell Cruz-Price shot Blanco.

“I’d like to go back and get my things out of the hotel. Personal things,” she said. “Of course,” he said. “We can have someone go with you if you like.”

“No. That won’t be necessary,” she said. “I’ll need an excuse to leave the commission . . . I’ll tell them I’ve gotten a call from my mother… tell them that my father’s gravely ill,” she said. “How’s that? No, I suppose not. That. . . .” She stood up. It was a silly suggestion, but she was upset.

It was raining hard outside now. She could see the rain bending the birds of paradise and battering the orange bougainvillea that grew along the garden wall.

“Langley has already arranged to have the NGO call you back to New York,” Crowley said. “Do you want to take my umbrella?”

“No. No, thank you, sir.”

She turned and left. She felt the doorknob in her hand and then she crossed the garden in the rain, warm on her face. She went to the garden gate and felt herself trembling. She’d never expected that Washington would go for Selva like that. She’d been wrong, and she didn’t know what to do now but go back and try to stop it somehow.

She was two blocks from the hotel when they shot her from a passing car; she was dead before she hit the ground. They believed Katherine Barkley was a communist. She’d fooled everyone.

Most of the important European newspapers, including Le Monde, reported that a young American woman, part of a UN human rights delegation visiting Guatemala, was shot and killed, probably by a government-connected death squad, in Guatemala City. Le Monde reported that military elements were angry with the Commission’s interference in the country’s internal affairs. The head of the UN Human Rights Commission issued a formal complaint against the Blanco government in protest, and left the country immediately.

There was no mention of the killing in any of the American newspapers. The story had been quashed by someone at Langley whose job was liaison with the New York Times and other major newspapers.

•••

Russell waited in the enormous suite alone all afternoon, dressed in a blue suit and a black silk tie. He’d kept a pistol stuck between the pillows of the couch. But no one from the commission had showed up, and neither had Blanco.

When he’d tried to call Katherine’s room, she hadn’t answered. She didn’t answer her cell phone, either.

He watched the sun start to set, the ice melting in the ice bucket in front of him. She had betrayed him, he supposed, or simply become frightened. He didn’t really blame her. Strangely, he felt no anger towards her. It was his fate that things would end this way.

He’d taken off his jacket and tie, because the room was warm. He watched the rain come and go through the windows, with their view of the Volcanoes of Water and Fire. He walked to the balcony and watched the rain beat against the face of the hotel’s pool 12 stories below, the pool’s lights on now. The rain fell so hard and intense it seemed the world was ending.

There had been a tremendous silence in him as he listened to the beating of the rain on the window. He was going to have to kill Blanco when he came to give his speech in the hotel’s ballroom, and that meant he was certainly going to die. He didn’t want to die, not really, but he felt he had a duty. He would change history. It would be a little piece of history, but it would be his piece. It would do some small good.

He didn’t feel lost anymore. He’d had an epiphany when he realized he was going to die. He felt, finally, as if it all had meant something. His life had a purpose. That terrible feeling he’d had since the day he’d heard about his mother’s death was gone at last. In its place, for the first time, was a strange and cleansing resolve that he couldn’t have explained to anyone. It would have sounded idiotic, since he had no more desire to die than anyone else, now.

And this was the great irony. He’d finally found himself. He wasn’t sure whether it was a new self or a self he’d had as a child that was buried in the avalanche of his mother’s death. Old or new, he welcomed it. He was certain to die because of this thing he had to do, and yet it was precisely this moment that was responsible for his finding himself. He had to kill Blanco. And there was nothing that would stop him.

He called Antonio and asked him to go to his mother’s apartment on La Reforma and take away all his things. He didn’t want there to be any connection with Beatrice or his family. He’d kept a book of Rilke’s poems Beatrice had bought him in Antigua. She’d written “For my love” in the flap, and signed her name. He wanted nothing left that could hurt her. No connection with him. He’d been so sure that he was going to see her again. Now he was sure he would not.

“It’s going to have to be tonight, then,” Russell said to Antonio cryptically. They couldn’t speak in too obvious a way.

“You are at the hotel?” Antonio asked. Madrid was in his car, leaving his office.

“Yes. At the hotel,” Russell said. “I’ll have to go down to the lobby. . . . He didn’t come for the meeting. Something’s happened.”

“Are you sure? I mean, sure that you want to do it?” Antonio asked. He sounded upset.

“I want you to go get my things. They’re at my mother’s. I want you to pick them up and make sure that they are destroyed. There isn’t much. On my mother’s dresser. A book of poems. Can you do that for me? I want you to make sure

that it is destroyed. Take all my things. The maid will help.” “Yes, of course,” Antonio said. “But are you sure…?” “Very sure,” Russell said. “Goodbye. . . . Will you be there

tonight, when he comes?” “Yes,” Antonio said. “Goodbye, then.” Russell hung up; he didn’t want to speak any more.