In Flames (11 page)

A river came into view, a complex flow of current impatient and impetuous, a desensitizing sound that could suck me in, drifting half sleepily toward some inescapable unknown, if I weren't conscious of an unavoidable fact. A ludicrously large sum of money left unpaid, and I'd soon be dead.

A long river bend loomed, water straining to reach a midpoint in the turn where the river divided, a calmer branch nearly level with a more gradual slope of ground, and on the far side, water exploding in a steep drop, a surface of boiling froth, vivid foam covering everything, bubbling, spinning, spraying apart before falling, joining again, reconfiguring into ball shapes until this branch of the river disappeared. Abruptly as wild foam vanished in the near fork, froth lapsed into a green, almost placid, shallow stream. Walking was less difficult on this riverbank. The day's heat soared, as early morning sun jumped clear of treetops, grew swollen, losing outline, changing brilliant blue sky to chalky white as pale as a dead fish's belly, sickly and colorless. The tall man stopped, bending to the water's edge to grasp a rock. Turning slowly, he sent the rock crashing into a tree trunk. “Here, señor, come look.” The men in front made way for me, and the leader pointed at the base of the tree trunk where a thin green snake about four feet long lay dying, head crushed, tail flailing violently. “Green mamba, señor, hard to see, a tough killer. Poison paralyzes your muscles, then heart and lungs collapse. It's like a woman.” The leader laughed. “See the tail? Just like a woman, green mamba tail the last thing to die.” He looked quite pleased with his joke. “We stop here.”

We didn't have to wait long by the snake-infested river.

On the far side, a mulatto man in cream-colored linen trousers, white shirt, and city shoes emerged from green chaos, an apparition as unlikely as a ghost, behind him an armed man in faded khakis who waved to his comrades surrounding me.

Guard and ghost removed their shoes and waded across the stream, an almost comical scene, the ghost inexperienced, awkwardly carrying a black leather bag in one hand, city shoes in the other, trousers rolled to his knees, the insurgent escorting him as agile as a forest creature. They neared the bank close to where I was sitting, and a third person stepped from the forest on the opposite side. His appearance snapped my captors to attention. They saluted his figure, and he returned the gesture. He wore the same washed-out khaki uniform they wore, no insignia, a pistol strapped on his waist. He had the charismatic bearing of a natural leader, calm where others swaggered. And his face was immediately recognizable to me, as I'd only recently seen him leaping around a brazier fire, and before that taking a white rose from Elaine's hair before quietly praying over Ferg's coffin in a cemetery chapel. He'd been reading a breviary at police headquarters, this same man who caught me rummaging in his briefcase, photographing his mail—Padre Cardenio Morena, humiliated priest,
el Conde Moro
. He kept his combat boots on, splashing straight into the stream as if crossing firm city sidewalks, set to walk on water to reach his men.

“You've come a long way,” he said when he approached me. “You have to be fit to continue. Dr. Sánchez will examine you.”

“This is all a mistake.”

“I know, but here we are. We all make mistakes, you made mistakes.”

“I should have turned you in.”

“Maybe.” He turned to his men and lectured them angrily in rapid patois. Dr. Sánchez took me aside. “How do you feel, señor?”

“How do you think? They're out to kill me.”

“Can you go on, can you walk more?”

“I have a choice?”

The doctor shook his head. “It's on radio and television, señor, an awful mistake. These men got bad information.
El comandante
is very upset.”

“And my country—”

“Your embassy says nothing, not yet, but it's on CNN. You're a big story. I have medicine for you. Prozac, Xanax, antibiotics, something to help you sleep, if you need that, although I think you have no trouble sleeping.”

“How much longer do I have?”

“The radio says three days. But I think the time will extend.”

“I think your
comandante
will have his men kill me.”

“He's not my
comandante
. I'm the only doctor who'd come out here, the only one these men allow. I can't stay now. I must go back to the city and report you're well, but exhausted. I hope this medicine helps.”

“I'm the wrong person. Why keep me, can't I go back with you—”

“They're desperate, and like all desperate men, they persist in hope. They think Americans will pay for you, because you're one of them. A good U.S. citizen. I can't dissuade
el comandante
. I'm very sorry. I have to go back to the road, it's about two miles away, where the river crosses it.” He looked at me and his eyes spoke.
Register this, say nothing. Do as you must and good luck
…More specific information was needed about that magic road, but the doctor had to leave. He handed my medications to
Comandante
Padre Cardenio, and recrossed the stream with his guard, vanishing into forest chaos.

Padre Cardenio approached me. “Hungry, señor? You like hard bread, sausage…”

“Padre, this is a huge mistake, you know who I really am.”

“Of course. A petty spy, a clumsy novice, and I bear you no grudge. You're worthless. The men made a mistake, an innocent mistake.” His voice was gentle, without the fierceness of avenging angel or trace of the anger he'd shown his men, but with the patience of a man more accustomed to enduring pain than inflicting it. “The men made an innocent mistake, they believed what the woman told them.”

“I'm more trouble than I'm worth, Padre, and I'm worth nothing, like you said.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Why did your men believe her—”

“Because they're men, they're only human. Regrettable, they should have known better.”

“What will you do with me?”

“You have to stay with us for a while. I forgive you the past. You can help free many innocents from slavery on this island. A lawyer is speaking with your embassy, and with the oil company and your employer.”

I had no idea whether this was bad news or good. Start of an ascent from hell or plunge into an abyss.

“The lawyer has new proposals, all the new facts.”

“You've got the wrong man, that's a fact. I'm worth little to the embassy and nothing to the oil company. And Xy Corp. won't—”

“It's bankrupt, I know.”

“Who were they after…Elaine, they wanted the woman?”

“They thought she was rich. Her husband left her property. Then she gave them the idea you're worth more. You're an unfortunate error.”

“An appalling error. No one gives a damn about me, I guarantee.”

“I'm sure you're wrong. I may not have the greatest opinion of you, but you underestimate yourself. A lawyer will arrange things. Your ambassador will discuss with your president, he tells our president what to do, and Arbusto obeys their orders. The general has his career to think of. That's how it works.”

“Maybe, but you're still misinformed about me. Can I eat before you kill me?”

“No one will kill you. And of course you must eat, we have food, not a lot, maybe not what you're used to. I apologize, but it's how we live in the mountains. And it's better than most people eat on this island.”

“If you say so, Padre.”

“No, not if I say so, it's true.” From a backpack, he extracted Swedish hard bread and dried sausage. “May I borrow your machete, señor?” He washed the blade in the stream and sliced the sausage. As he held the hard brown bread and broke it in two pieces to share with me, something in the positioning of his fingers reminded me of my childhood, and a priest saying Mass, bending to the altar and cracking a thin white wafer over a chalice. He handed me my food. “Eat, señor, please.”

“Thank you, Padre, that's a lot of sausage, your supplies should last a long time. You think I'll live to see the end of it?”

“Yes. And don't call me padre, that life is over, I'm excommunicated. Maybe you recall why. Yes, I'm still a man of faith, there's Santería, but I don't ask you to observe that. I didn't recognize you the other night as a visitor, I'm sorry. But if you have to call me anything, my men call me
comandante
.”

“What will you do if the embassy and oil company refuse your proposal?”

“We pray they accept.”

Prayer
…a doubtful idea, my captors praying. Who'd be my executioner? The rebel with rotten teeth, the spear bearer, the potbelly…a single shot to the back of my head and
adios
, go with God.

“Believe me, señor, I'm sure they'll accept.”

“Then I'll pray with you, Padre, I pray all your gods and saints are listening. May I have more water now?” I almost asked for rum.

After lunch, they let me rest, and I fell into dreamless sleep, until awakened by the sound of a transistor radio and my name repeated, the Spanish clear enough, the facts less so.

The police were convinced, the announcer said, that rebel insurgents mistakenly captured Señor Daniel Shedrick, a junior architect on the new harbor project, apparently believing he was an important oil company executive. No mention of Elaine Ferguson. Club Saint Ignatius. Or Padre Cardenio Morena. A minimum of news received all the attention. “It seems Shedrick is also implicated in the murder of San Iñigo's favorite radio host, our own Delgado Vinny, deeply loved on this island by many who still mourn his death. Shedrick was one of the last people seen with Vinny. Government sources believe Shedrick's capture by rebels might actually be some sort of strange revenge, insurgents looking to perform a service that would win popular approval they otherwise fail to gain…a dirty business from which nothing good can come for San Iñigo.”

Remarkable how media amplified kernels of information (kidnapping, mistaken identity) into terrifying structures of speculation, ignoring essentials. Frightened people craved news for reassurance, a more intense experience of being scared, and those inciting fear were in the business, not of dispensing information, but of assembling enough listeners or viewers for delivery to sponsors who wrote big checks. But no check for Dan Shedrick's freedom, of this much I was sure.

“Our mountain forests,” the newscaster said, “are vast and dense, and can never be thoroughly searched. Of course, this is how the insignificant insurgency survives…”

The U.S. embassy hadn't issued a statement yet. My captors, according to the news broadcast, were giving the oil company three days to respond to their demands.
Was time up?
…I'd pretty much lost track of time. My next thought, a ridiculous idea, was that back home in the States friends were hearing about this disaster at lunch, seated around tables at the Princeton Club in Manhattan. “Dan? Poor son of a bitch.”

“Rotten luck.”

“Well, he wanted adventure.”

And I could picture myself strung up in a tree, a tiny kernel of information, swaying in the sun like a piece of drying fruit. Adventure achieved, and someone's idea of justice served.

“Padre,” I said, “the doctor gave you my medicines, didn't he?”

“Yes. And please call me Cardenio. If you can't say
comandante
, I understand, I don't mind.” He opened the box from Dr. Sánchez. “You have Prozac—peace of mind? Tranquilizers for sleep, you don't need that now. No time for sleep. Antibiotics, if you get infection. You want peace?”

“And water, please.”

“We have rum too, if you want. No? Maybe later. You shouldn't worry. In a couple of days, it's over, everything is finished.”

“I'm finished.” I took an aspirin from the box and swallowed it with canteened water. I knew meds would be fatal for me, dulling my senses, leaving me at a disadvantage. The water from the mountain rainforest was fresh and sweet.

“Listen, señor, tomorrow or maybe next day, they announce they accept a new offer. In so many words, of course. No details, but a satisfactory conclusion. Lives and faces saved. And the next night you dine by the sea at your beach club, I promise you.”

“Padre, tell me something, what are you doing in all this?”

“I'm no padre any longer, señor. You saw me the other night. And you know I have a wife and child. Monsignor Mendoza himself announced this in the cathedral—I'm out, like I said. I committed mortal sin, a serious sin in his opinion, with full knowledge, willingly and with absolutely no doubts in my mind. Really, you didn't hear?”

“Once ordained, you're always a priest. The way you broke that hard bread, Padre, I can see you still there behind the altar.”

“You're hallucinating.”

“And you? You think someone will pay millions for me? I'm broke. Ask JPMorgan Chase, they'll tell you. All I'm lucky to have here is a job. And probably not even that anymore.”

“Two jobs.”

“Will you order one of your thugs to finish me off? Or will you do it—”

“No, señor, I command no one else for that awful task.”

“Then you better set aside some Prozac. Or Xanax. Here, this one is a great anxiety killer, Padre, behave anyway you like, and no guilt. Like going to confession, when you come out, you're clean again, you can always start fresh.”

The commander's eyes shifted restlessly. He stood as if rising from an altar, the service finished.
Ite, missa est
…

“Don't go away yet, Padre, listen. I need more water, before we move out again.” He stared at me, sorrowfully and in silence. “Look, it's no secret, I'm scared. What's so hard to understand? If I can't talk it out with a priest, then where am I? Left with that yellow-faced killer or the potbellied slob. They want to murder me.”