Captives (18 page)

And even at those times when she had been denied this, her one true communion, she had found she could sit in her cell, on her mattress, and conjure up the sea around her. The walls faded, everything faded, till she was alone—but never lonely.

For if it were anywhere, that's where his spirit was: it was the sea into which his blood had poured and the bloodied sea that washed his island now—as it had long before the first Taino people, arriving in their simple canoes, had named it Caguama, the great sea turtle. The sea would not let the island forget Rafael. Of its million whispers Caguama must by now have heard every one.

Today, though, when the sea smiles, Maria smiles back, for she will soon be close to it without this wire mesh between them. A guard, realizing there is a prospect of change in the air, has brought her up to date on a rapidly developing situation.

*   *   *

It seems the anti-terrorist concerns, which had seen universal approval for the American-backed action against the Portuondo hostage takers, have been challenged in the liberal west. Slowly a number of independent journalists has ascertained the viciousness of the action; discovered not a military engagement but a “massacre.”

For that is the word that has been taken up by the press in general. It was a way to make the story run. Then the publication of the diaries of one of the hostages had led to a rash of linked articles and profiles. “
MASSACRE
” was at times in these substituted by “
BLOOD-BATH
.” In short, a local horror had become international.

Attention had then focused not only on the U.S. role, but on United Nickel, the American company which had, in the words of one article, “plundered the land and impoverished its people.” One investigative journalist had traced the mother of a local man who had colluded with both the guerrillas and the authorities. Her husband had been a worker at United Nickel. Now her husband and her son were dead. What had this poor, innocent woman—Pilar Ferrer—done to deserve such tragedies in her life?

General Quitano felt he had to act against “this predatory company that thinks it can ride roughshod over our people.” He would not wait for the promised commission. There followed a number of incendiary speeches, stressing his independence of judgement, his country's rights, and their long history of independence from foreign intervention. You could see how puffed up these speeches made him feel; in the same way as you could see emotion ravage him when he mentioned the disloyalty of those within his own family.

“My own nephew,” his voice cracked, “whom I taught to pitch and to swing a bat … that he should betray me…”

A puffed-up little runt—well, Mason had always known that. But his unreliability was a more serious affair.

The orders went out to withdraw U.S. support—military and economic—from General Quitano's government. Who did they think they were, turning on an American company like that? It was a point of principle, though not one that troubled Mason a great deal. Because it wasn't the endgame yet. It rarely was the endgame in his experience. Already opposition to the Quitano regime was beginning to gather around the guerrilla leader's exiled mother, Mercedes Portuondo (Quitano). The networks broadcast interviews with her in which she came across as articulate and dignified.

“The lives Pilar Ferrer and I have lived have been very different. But in two respects we are alike. Each of us has lost a loved husband and a son … and each of us yearns for peace on our island, true independence from foreign interference, and the liberty of those who have opposed the present regime.”

Mason sniffed.
Paz! Independencia! Libertad! That
old threesome again. Still, there was a chance, if things worked out, that
Señora
Portuondo would be more congenial to deal with; more reliable than her opportunistic brother-in-law had proved to be. Some day a U.S. Air Force airplane would be waiting to take her back to Santa Clara. In the meantime Mason's bag was already packed—sneakers, snorkel, camera—for another field in Central America.

*   *   *

Maria finished her exercise routine with twenty-five trunk curls. Beads of sweat trickled from her armpits down the sides of her rib cage. But her breath was even. Calm. She felt her jumpsuit loose about her, like a skin to be sloughed off.

“It won't be long now,” she whispered to the sea. “All the bad apples will fall. Soon,
mi compañero … mi amor.
”

The bones of the dead ask

As if in prayer

What have you done

With our gifts? The wind

Thickens in the south.

Clear your throat—

It is time you prepared an answer.

Copyright © 2007 by Tom Pow

A Neal Porter Book

Published by Roaring Brook Press

Roaring Brook Press is a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership

143 West Street, New Milford, Connecticut 06776

All rights reserved.

First published in the United Kingdom by Random House Children's Books

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First American Edition May 2007

eISBN 9781466874527

First eBook edition: May 2014