The Demands of the Dead (9 page)

I took a knee, studying the grass. In this part of the world, at this time of year, it rained pretty much every day, though not for very long. There had been three, maybe four rainfalls since the shooting, but the killer had not taken a well-worn path. He'd broken branches and trampled grass himself, blazed his own path, without a machete, just moving branches and vines out of the way with his hands. I followed the killer's path backwards, leaving Chavez and the others behind at the clearing, realizing that neither the police nor the Army would have bothered to try serious tracking, because most people didn't know how to do it.

The killer, clearly no tracker himself from from the amount of sign he had left for me, had walked a few hundred yards off-trail through the bush, before setting up on Gonzalez and Diaz. He had started on the main trail, walked off of it, set up, and walked back the way he came. The main trail was, from a tracking point of view, practically a highway, and I couldn't get a sense of the killer's travel once he was back on it.

Very slowly, I worked my way around in a spiral centered on the point where the killer got off the main trail, trying to find trace of him on the other side of it.

I found a track, timed right, on the other side of the trail. Someone small had stood there, also watching the trail where the killer had gotten off it, and come back on it. Then the small person had moved fast through the woods, until that small person reached the corn fields of the village.

These weren't the killer's tracks. The disturbances were too light, the footfalls too close together.

From these tracks, it seemed to me that somewhere in the village of Hatuey, there was a small child, maybe 10 years old, who could well have seen the killer's face, then ran non-stop back to the village.

I walked back to the crime scene on the main trail, where Chavez was waiting.

“What did you find, Mr. Brown?”

“Nothing,” I said. And he knew I was lying.

Back on base, at night, I dragged Chavez from our quarters to an interrogation room. I closed the door behind us while he sat down, straight-backed, hands folded on the table. I sat with him.

I said: “I'll trade you some information. The killer is one man, military trained, possibly sniper trained, but not from any elite unit because he doesn't know any bushcraft. He wasn't wearing rubber boots and he didn't have a machete, which means he probably wasn't an indigenous Zapatista from Hatuey. And he didn't know the victims well enough to be emotional about them, though he definitely knew them, so I don't think it was a revenge killing. He had access to police and army information, coordinated with the saboteur of Gonzalez's rifle.

“Even if the killer is from a drug organization, he is working with someone from Public Security. If we find the insider, we find the killer.”
Also, there's a little villager somewhere in Hatuey that has seen the killer's face.

“Unless,” Chavez said, “a rebel or supporter from outside took off his rubber boots, put down his machete, and used what he knew about our patrols to assassinate those boys.”

“Possible. You find the insider, I'll look for the guerrilla. But now it's your turn to talk. What does Saltillo know that he's not telling us? Why did you ask aggressive questions to your superior officer, Beltran, in my presence? I know you knew Gonzalez, maybe Diaz too. What were they into? What happened between you and Marchese? Who are your informants in the rebel organization?”
Besides the French-Mexican journalist who you were photographed with...

Chavez stood up, kicking his chair away behind him. “Even though this is an interrogation room, Mr. Brown, this is not an interrogation. You told me almost nothing that I didn't already know, so you don't have enough to exchange, for all those questions. Good night.”

At about 2am that morning, I got up to go to the bathroom. We didn't have our own in our quarters. Our bathroom was shared by design with everyone quartered in this hall. Practically, that meant we had our own bathroom, because I didn't think anyone else was quartered in the hall right now. I washed my hands, splashed my face with cold water, and heard two pairs of very quiet footsteps coming in. I rushed out, drying my hands on my shorts, thinking it better to face them in the hallway than the bathroom.

Their faces weren't visible in the dark, but there were two of them in T-shirts and uniform pants, no weapons I could see, one stocky and short, the other tall and lean. Madero and Escalante. I walked directly toward them. They said nothing. Neither did I.

No talking. Their plan was probably intimidation, then, and could have been intended for either Chavez or me. The idea would be the same as in interrogation, to leave no visible injuries while sending a message. Back home no one would have tried pulling this on me, their unarmed combat instructor. But I had no reputation here, unfortunately for these poor guys. I sighed.

“Good evening guys,” I whispered.

“Your partner is a traitor,” Madero said.

So they were here for Chavez. But, Chavez being fast asleep, I suppose I would have to do.

I slowed my breathing, stretched my neck, prepared. My mind started racing, and I didn't try to slow it down or stop it, saving all my will for the violence that approached.

This was not planned to be an assassination, but a demonstration, an intimidation, a private message between cops. If these were predators, I would not have seen them coming at all. I would have been hit with overwhelming force, probably weapons, before I knew what was happening. Assassinating me – or Chavez for that matter – before our investigation had even really begun would bring more political trouble down on Public Security, on the bosses that these boys answered to.

I considered them, probably working-class Mexicans, probably following orders, thinking they were about to get the drop on either an arrogant superior officer (Chavez) or an arrogant American (me). Then again, there were two of them, they were used to violence, and they were dangerous. I could tell by the way they moved that they weren't going to be talked out of this. They came to fight, not quite a fair fight with two-to-one odds, but they came empty-handed, gave me fair warning, and because of that, I wouldn't hurt them – much. By my count, if I spilled their blood, I would lose; if I broke any of their bones, I would lose; and if I surrendered or lost the fight, I would definitely lose.

Doctrine for fighting multiple attackers was to use footwork to keep one of them between you and the other. These guys approached with bluster, as cops usually do, sure of their size and strength in numbers, and I could easily have maneuvered my back to the wall, to keep Escalante in the middle and Madero, with his short arms, behind and out of reach to hit me. But I also did not want to leave any visible injuries and I, too, wanted to send a message. So I leaned to one wall, leaving enough space on the other side for Madero to start making his way behind me. Escalante threw the first punch, the standard high right hook, which I guided with my right hand into my left elbow, in the Filipino
Eskrima
style.

Don't hit the face
, Mr. Manley taught
, because the face can't hit you. The hand can.

He pulled his hand back – I wrapped my left hand around his tricep, cupped it, and slammed my right elbow into his bicep, full force. His arm hung limp and he took a step back, holding his right arm with his left. He wouldn't be throwing any more right hooks in this fight.

Madero grabbed my left arm and tried to turn me completely away from him. I wrapped my left arm deep into his underarm, took another step back into him, and pulled him into a Japanese shoulder throw from judo –
seoi nage.
It's an ideal throw if your
uke
(the one you're throwing) is taller than you are, and Madero was shorter, but it still mostly worked.

Madero fell flat and hard on his back between me and Escalante, all the air whooshing out of his lungs. I held on to his arm, pulled it up, and kneeled upright on his face. From here, I could break his elbow or his shoulder just by turning my body, and I turned very slowly to show him that I could.

“
Son resbalosos estos pisos,” I said, out loud now
Slippery, these hallways
. “Do you need a hand up?” I looked up at Escalante, still stupidly cradling his arm. “Maybe you can help officer Madero up? I'm going to bed.”

I put my weight down on Madero before springing back up again off of his body.

As I rose I saw that Chavez had walked out of our room and was cautiously approaching us with his service weapon drawn. Escalante helped Madero up and they scrambled off.

“They don't like you,” I said.

“No,” he said.

Chapter 4

We left as the base was waking up at dawn, neither of us seeing much value in another encounter with anyone on Hatuey base. Chavez went back to Tuxtla and his superiors. I wanted to see some of the people whose photographs I had been looking at, so I went to San Cristobal de las Casas.

San Cris is two hours east of Tuxtla in a bus - my new mode of transportation now that I was leaving the world of Seguridad Publica to travel among the rebels. San Cris was a city nestled into the mountains, and to get to it you went through them, looking up or down a mountain at every stretch, at the jungle or at somebody’s farm. Where Tuxtla was big, sprawling, new, built for the car and the bus, San Cristobal was colonial cobblestone town where people walked everywhere. Tuxtla's modern mestizo Mexicans going about their daily routines were replaced in San Cristobal with indigenous people in their traditional clothing, sitting on the grey stones selling their handicrafts to young backpackers from Europe and the US who wandered in groups looking for fun.

The bus dropped me off north of the city. I walked to the
zocalo
, the city square, crowded with backpackers and tourists even now, late at night. I needed to set up a headquarters – I needed to find a hotel. I sat on a bench in the park in the middle of the
zocalo
to look through the envelope Hoffman had given me.

In the two minutes it took me to go through my stuff, I was offered beads, gum, and thread bracelets and necklaces by a lineup of
indigena
women and children. A man offered me hammocks. A kid offered me candy that looked like solid chunks of honey. 3 for a peso.
Why not
, I thought.

Hoffman had included directions, and a map, to a central and relatively expensive hotel for me, but one without a telephone in the room. I called Hoffman from the front desk to report in. He had set me up with a local human rights group, and told me where I needed to be the next day. Would I be going straight back to Hatuey, this time with the human rights people instead of the police? He thought so, yes. Did I need to wrap things up quickly? No, no hurry, neither the Mexican nor the US government nor the human rights community were pushing him for a quick report. Neither the rebels nor the government were putting this in the media, so we had breathing space – for the moment.

That was the clear channel communication. I sent a summary of the conversation to Hoffman over email from a cybercafe near the hotel. Then I went through the whole routine again, and replied to Maria.

“Hello my love, I had a nice visit with uncle's extended family. Now I am going to visit with some new business associates outside of the city, including the CEO – I haven't met him yet but he seems nice from his photo - and hopefully we can have some productive meetings. The weather is really good and I miss you a lot. Love, LM.”

“LM” was “Los Muertos”, the email name that Walter was using, code that I was going to try to get into the Zapatista village. The comment about the CEO was that I knew Walter was here. I was smiling to myself as I deleted the evidence that I'd been on the computer. I knew it was a game, but it was hitting me that Walter was here somewhere, and that Maria had called me darling.

It was 11pm when I got to back my room, all my chores finished. It was a simple, single room, but even though San Cristobal was full of them, this was no cheap hostel for budget travelers. The paint was new, the floors were immaculate, the sheets smelled strongly of being freshly laundered. Light orange paint sang from the walls in a clever way that made it look like there was a fireplace going (there wasn’t). The rooms, including mine, opened into a courtyard complete with plants, a fountain, and statues—of cherubs. My room came complete with my own refrigerator with soda and drinking water, and a well-appointed private bathroom. Hoffman was a good employer.

Tomorrow at noon I had a meeting at the Chiapas Human Rights Defense Network. The night air breezed through my room, calling me out to a city with history and character. My hotel was right at the center of it all. If I didn’t want to go far, I could try the hotel’s own restaurant, which had a menu of Mexican and American food. I was hungry. But rest took priority. I slept.

I chose the much-photographed Café Historia for breakfast, having seen half of its clientele in US Embassy intelligence files. If coffee was a weapon in this war, the rebels definitely had an advantage over the police. Cafe Historia featured wait staff who handed out maps of San Cristobal, ground the coffee in front of you, and maintained chess tables and a schedule of cultural events. At some level below the rational, maybe in the waitress's micro-level body language, maybe in the nature of the glances I could only see in my peripheral vision, in the reactions to an American, I could feel that Walter had been here recently.