The Second Bat Guano War: a Hard-Boiled Spy Thriller (29 page)

The boat threw itself onto the beach. Holding on was useless. I hurtled through the air, shoulder-planted myself into the beach, got a mouthful of sand for my trouble.

“Everyone alright?” Aurora asked.

“Tasty,” I said, tonguing the grit that lodged itself between my teeth.

Victor trudged up the sand to the building. “This way.”

He slid open the main door of the barn. The smell of manure was overpowering. Light filtered in through slats in the walls, reflecting off the dust motes. Half-dried llama abortions hung from the rafters. The unlucky llama mothers spat at us from their stalls. Aurora shuffled toward one the color of dirty coal, stroked its mangy fur.

“You look hungry,” she cooed. “Yes you do. Who feeds you, huh? Who feeds you?”

My eyes adjusted. Parked in the back corner stood a van covered in burlap tarp. I put my hand overhead and smacked the roof of the vehicle with my open palm. It rang hollow. I said, “Thought you said you had a jeep?”

Victor stuck his hands into a pile of llama manure, massaged it with his fingers. “Katherine has it,” he said.

“I thought you said she left. And what are you doing?” I asked.

He straightened up, a set of car keys dangling in his shit-covered hands. Strode across the sawdust-scattered floor. Held the keys in my face. “She did. Is there a problem?”

Aurora waved a hand between our faces. “Yo. Guys. Who’s Katherine?”

Victor and I glared at each other. I spoke first.

“Ex-wife.”

“Wife.”

She bit her lip. “I see…”

Victor yanked the tarp off the van. A miasma of llama dander fogged the air. I coughed and sneezed. Put a finger to each nostril and emptied it onto the floor. Wiped my nose with the back of my sleeve. One of the van’s rear windows was missing. The others were covered with black cloth. Llama fetuses festooned the interior. It was the same van, I realized. The van they’d kidnapped me in. Victor hefted a bale of hay from behind the back wheels.

“So where’s she gone?” I asked.

“Katherine?”

“No, the teddy bear I lost when I was twelve.”

Victor panted for breath. At four thousand meters, every movement was an exertion. He said, “We’ve got another place. Where we can hide. We were worried something like this might happen.”

“Which is…where?” I asked.

He wiped his hands on the dirty tarp. “Forgive me if I do not tell you all my secrets on first acquaintance.”

“You said that at the cave,” I pointed out. “We’re no longer first acquaintances. More like second acquaintances. Now spill.”

“Alas,” he said, “nor on second acquaintance either.”

“Let’s just go,” Aurora said.

“Can’t.” Victor got in the van, started the motor. “It’s in the mountains. Need a jeep to get there.”

“Fine,” I said. “You two go. Just drop me off at the bus station on the way.”

“The bus station?” he said. “What do you want to go there for?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Take a bus?” I said. “You go wherever you want. I’m heading back to Lima.”

“You can’t do that,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because they’ll kill you.”

“Fine with me,” I said. “As long as I kill one man first.”

An explosion outside rattled the building. Bats in the rafters squealed, thundered out of the barn in a cloud of flapping wings, splattering us with guano.

“They’re shelling us,” Victor shouted. “Come on!”

Aurora got in and straddled the gear stick. “So where are we going then?” she asked.

I hopped in beside her and slammed the door. “As long as it’s near a bus stop, I don’t care.”

Victor reached between her thighs, reversed out of the barn. “I know a guy. In La Paz. Get us a jeep.”

“But how are we going to cross the border?” Aurora shouted over the roar of the engine. “Won’t they be looking for us?”

Victor ground the gears, his fist in her crotch. He flung the van around, facing the lake. “You never crossed this border before?”

“Crossed it last week. Why?”

“You weren’t paying much attention, then.”

An explosion shattered the remaining rear window. Splinters of wood and bits of llama, both fresh and dried, hailed down on the windshield. I looked back. The barn no longer existed. Victor spun the wheels, surged onto the gravel road that ran along the edge of the lake.

Aurora said, “They’re not joking, are they? They really want to kill us.”

“It’s not a ‘they,’” I shouted. “It’s a him. One man.”

“Yeah? Who’s that?”

“Ambo.”

“Who’s Ambo?”

Victor braked hard, throwing us against our seatbelts, ending conversation. Aurora braced her hands against the dash. Victor hunched over the steering wheel. He counted to ten out loud, then lurched forward. An explosion shook the van, made us fishtail on the pitted gravel road.

The bombardment continued. Victor braked at random intervals, accelerated for a few seconds, slowed, advanced. Explosions ripped craters behind us, ahead of us, around us. Each time Victor edged around a crater, I closed my eyes, convinced the gunners would finally get it right, consoling myself that I would disappear in a puff of painless mitochondria.

An explosion tipped the van sideways onto two wheels, and Victor fought to bring it back to earth. Another shattered the side window, splashing my lap with shards of glass. I picked fragments from my cheek.
Don’t let me die yet,
I begged the earth.
I’ve got one thing left to do.

“Who’s Ambo?” Aurora asked again.

“The man I intend to kill.”

Aurora said, “So you guys in or aren’t you?”

We sat in line at the border, a long string of trucks ahead of us. The lakeside gravel road had finally curved inland and mounted a paved highway. We had joined a caravan of trucks and buses heading for the Bolivian border. With any luck I should be able to grab a westbound bus at the border post.

“In?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “we have a choice.” She turned to Victor. “Don’t we.”

Victor rested his hands on the steering wheel, his chin on his knuckles. “I’m for it.”

“For what?” I asked.

“Stop the war.”

I clucked my tongue. “How do you suggest we do that?”

“Call the papers,” she said. “Expose this to the world.”

“What planet do you live on?” I said. “You think the scum at the
New York Times
aren’t working for the CIA? Or any other newspaper for that matter. It’s big business, baby. Money is all that matters to them. The truth?” I farted, and the stink of my rotting carcass filled the van. “Plus, even then, assuming you found an editor who didn’t have the CIA blackmailing him, you’d need proof. How you going to prove there’s a plot?”

“So we put it online, like Wikileaks,” she insisted. “The net is still free.”

“For now,” Victor said.

“That might work,” I admitted. “But you would still need proof. Hard evidence. Where you going to get that?”

She curled her knuckles tight, pressed them between her thighs. Bowed her head. “There’s got to be something we can do,” she said. “And I don’t care what. Those fuckers killed Sven.” A tear trickled down her cheek.

She looked so forlorn. I felt sorry for her. I rolled down a window, and cold mountain air swept away my scent. I put my arm around her and pulled her head to my shoulder. “It was nothing personal,” I said. “It was Pitt they were after. Sven was just collateral damage.”

She pulled away. “And that’s supposed to what, make me feel better?”

Victor held up a hand. “I like the idea,” he said abruptly. “It’s a long shot, though.”

“What’s that?” Aurora asked, wiping her cheeks with her fingertips.

“We can go to the second refuge, where Kate and the others are. Or,” and he lowered his voice, “we can go into the Salar de Uyuni. We can go to the mine.”

“And do what?” I asked. “Get killed in the crossfire?”

He held up a cell phone. “Satellite roaming,” he explained. “If we can get video evidence of the bombing, I can send it via satphone. Get it out to the world.”

“But what does a video of a mine blowing up prove?” I demanded. “How is that evidence of CIA involvement? And how are the Americans planning to frame the Chileans, anyway?”

“These are all good questions, Horace,” Victor said, and fingered the bruise under his left eye. “I don’t know the answers. All I’m saying is, let’s go and improvise. Document what we can. They aren’t expecting visitors. The mine’s in the middle of nowhere. There must be some kind of evidence we can find once we’re there on the ground.”

“And even if we do find some evidence,” I said, “what good does it do? By the time the bombing takes place, it’s too late.”

“Too late to save the mine. True. But if I can get the video to the Bolivians, plus whatever evidence we find, it might be enough to prevent them from invading Chile. We still got,” he said, and shook his wrist, consulted his watch, “two days before the bomb goes off.”

“Two days?” Aurora said.

“Well, a bit less, actually. Day after tomorrow at 11:37 in the morning, what Pitt said.”

“But the CIA knows you know,” she said. “Knows that Pitt told you that. Wouldn’t they push forward the timer and blow the mine immediately?”

Victor shook his head. “They are arrogant Americans. They think they can do what they want and get away with it. Why should they change their plans just because of some annoying activists who live in a cave?”

“We couldn’t just, you know, like, pick up the fucking phone?” My voice rose in a crescendo. “Look under the bed, boys, there’s a fucking bomb there?”

The truck ahead of us spewed a thick stream of diesel exhaust, ground ahead a few meters, stopped. Victor followed, the van gliding ahead in neutral.

“It’s not as simple as that,” he said, his voice so quiet we had to strain to hear him. “The Anglo-Dutch management is working with the CIA. They’re afraid of Ovejo. Nationalization. All their work up in smoke, you know? The company wants this war. They’d rather let the CIA sabotage their mine than lose the entire concession. Best case, you call them, they ignore you. Worst case…” He left the thought unfinished.

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Go back to Lima. Find Ambo. Stick some jumper cables on his balls. Make the fucker squeal.”

“Who is this Ambo?” Aurora asked.

“I told you. The guy I intend to kill.”

“And who is that?” she insisted.

“Jeremiah Freeman Watters. The
Amm Basderr a tha Yoo Ni Stase a Mareka.
Pitt’s father.”

Aurora gasped. “Assassinate the American ambassador?”

“Stop him, you stop the whole thing. He’s the key.”

I didn’t believe a word I was saying, of course. It would make no difference in the grand scheme of things if I killed him or not, although it would sure as hell scratch my itch. But I had no money, no documents and no vehicle. I could use their help.

“And how,” Victor asked, “do you plan to do that?”

“Confront him,” I said. “Demand the truth. Bring a gun. Maybe a car battery.”

Victor looked straight ahead. His eyes were pale, translucent half-orbs in the afternoon light. He said, “You think that, you’re a fool.”

He could see it too. “Am I?”

“Pitt’s father is a replaceable pawn, just like everybody else,” he said. “The machinery grinds ahead. All parts can be replaced. Or are you,” and he laughed, that barking sound again, “are you planning to fly to Washington, start shooting people at the CIA?”

I toyed with the idea. It would be fun. Multiple murder-suicide. But all I’d kill would be a bunch of underpaid rent-a-cops. It wouldn’t make any difference. The creeping American evil would continue to spread across the globe like a plague.

“You want revenge,” Victor said. It wasn’t a question.

“The only thing I want.”

“Stop the war, you destroy his career. Everything Ambo has built. Then you can go kill him. If killing is really what you want.”

Destroy his career.

I hated to admit it, but Victor had a point.
Hurt Ambo where it counts. His pride. Stop the war. Destroy his life. Then you kill him.
So much more satisfying that way.

“Now you’re talking,” I said. “I’m in.”

“And the worst case?” Aurora asked.

“Worst case what,” I said.

“Worst case if you make that phone call. To the mine.”

Victor sighed. “Worst case, they trace your call and send a missile in to take us out.” He uncurled his fingers from the steering wheel and blew air through his teeth, mimicking an explosion.

The three of us looked at each other. Aurora cleared her throat. “Maybe we should take a bus.”

“Good point,” Victor said. “Now that you mention it. Do. Let’s.”

Two trucks ahead of us in line was a bus. Victor pulled the van to the side of the road. He left the keys in the ignition, the doors unlocked. We hopped out and jogged to the bus. We were still a good half a kilometer from the border crossing.

The hydraulic doors opened with a shriek and a hiss. A squat, potbellied Indian in a blue poncho looked down at us from his throne. Amplified Andean pan pipe music blasted from the bus’s speakers, rattling the windows. Purple-and-green fringe dangled from the top of the bus window. On the dashboard a candle burned in a large shrine to the Virgin Mary, a cherubic Jesus held out in her arms.

“Sí?”
the man shouted over the music.

“Para La Paz?”

“Subanse.”

We got on.

Fifty unwashed Indians reclined in their rotting chairs. A Bolivian woman in traditional hoop skirt squatted on the floor, a puddle of urine spreading with each movement of the bus. We sat across the aisle from her, opened a window and did our best to hold our noses.

“How far is it to La Paz?” Aurora asked.

“Eight hours.”

“Oh God.” She stood, stuck her head out the window and breathed the cold, dusty mountain air.

Bolivian immigration is a joke. Hell, after closing time you can just walk across. It’s your job to get the stamp you need. Once, Kate and I arrived just as they closed up shop, and they waved us right through. “Come back tomorrow,” they said. “We’re going home.”