Where There's Smoke (57 page)

From the backseat Key told her to keep the pistol ready to fire if necessary.
 
She nodded acknowledgment, but said nothing more.

At one time the population of Ciudad Central had exceeded one million.

Key doubled that half that many lived there now.
 
Even taking into account the lateness of the hour, the city appeared deserted.
 
The streets were dark, as most city streets would be past midnight.
 
But these streets were beyond dark and sleepy-they were dead.

Structures that had once been thriving businesses and gracious homes were now battle-scarred shells.
 
Nearly every window in the city had been boarded up.
 
No light shone through those few that hadn't been.

Lawns that marauders hadn't completely trampled were in a sad state of neglect.
 
Vines and undergrowth grew unchecked.

The jungle was reclaiming territory that had belonged to it long before man had striven to tame it.

On walls and fences and every other conceivable surface had been scrawled graffiti advocating one junta or another.
 
The only point on which all sides seemed to agree was their hatred for the United States.

Cartoons depicted the president in all manner of disgusting and humiliating postures.
 
The American flag had been desecrated in countless ways.
 
Key had been in many countries hostile to the United States, but he'd never felt the antipathy as strongly as here, where it was as powerful as the stench of raw sewage.

"Oh, my God!"

Lara's gasp drew Key's attention forward.
 
A woman's body was hanging by the neck from a traffic-light cable.
 
Her mouth was a gaping, black, fly-infested hole.

"Some of El Corazon's handiwork," the priest explained to his horrified passengers as they passed beneath the swaying corpse.

"Montesangren women are valued as soldiers.
 
They're not spared military duty because of their gender.
 
When they're found guilty of an offense, they're dealt with just as harshly as their male counterparts."

"What was her crime?"
 
Lara's voice was husky with revulsion.

"She was exposed as a spy who carried secrets to Escavez.
 
They cut out her tongue.
 
She drowned in her own blood.
 
Then they hung her body in that busy intersection.
 
It's a warning to everyone who sees it not to cross El Corazon del Diablo."

Considering the risks Father Geraldo was taking to help them, Key didn't blame him for his closet drinking.

"Here we are," he said as he pulled the jeep into a walled courtyard.

"You'll find it changed since you were here, Mrs. Porter.
 
The few Montesangrens who are still faithful to the church are afraid to have it known.
 
I hold daily Masses, but more frequently than not, I'm the only one in attendance.
 
That makes for empty offering plates."

Key alighted and looked around.
 
The courtyard was enclosed on three sides by stone walls covered with bougainvillea vines.
 
When Father Geraldo noticed Key's interest in the arched opening through which they'd entered, he said, "Until three years ago, there was a very beautiful and intricate wrought-iron gate.
 
It was requisitioned by the rebels."

"Sounds like the Civil War when the Confederate army made cannonballs from iron fences.
 
What'd the rebels use your gate for?"

"Pikes.
 
They severed the heads of the generals of Escavez's army, impaled them on the pikes, and left them in the city square until they rotted.
 
That was shortly after you left, Mrs.
 
Porter."

She didn't quail or turn pale or faint.
 
"I'd like to go inside," she said in a level voice.
 
"I'd forgotten how ferocious the mosquitoes here can be."

Key admired her fortitude.
 
Maybe the danger they'd experienced tonight, coupled with seeing evidence of so many atrocities of war had inured her.
 
Then he reminded himself as they carried their gear toward the entrance of the rectory that she'd experienced an atrocity firsthand.

One of the encompassing walls of the courtyard doubled as the exterior wall of the church.
 
It was taller by two-thirds than the other two walls.
 
Typical of Spanish architecture, the sanctuary had a bell tower, although the bell was missing.

Another of the walls formed the exterior of the school, which Father Geraldo sadly explained was no longer used.
 
"I wished to teach catechism, but all the various juntas wanted the children indoctrinated to violence and retaliation, which are incongruous with Christ's teachings.
 
The nuns were faithful, but feared for their lives.

Parents, under the threat of execution, were afraid to send their children to class.
 
Eventually the enrollment dwindled to nothing.
 
I closed the school and requested that the nuns be reassigned to the States.
 
There had been so many clergymen executed that all elected to leave.

"For a while the vacant school was used to house orphans.
 
There were dozens of them, victims of the war.
 
Their parents had either been killed or had abandoned them to join the fighters.
 
One day soldiers arrived in trucks and transported the children to another place.
 
No one would ever tell me where they were taken.

"This," he said, unlocking a heavy wooden door, "is where I live and do what little work I'm still permitted to do."

To Key, the rectory was extremely claustrophobic, but he was accustomed to having the sky as his ceiling.
 
The priest's quarters were a warren of small rooms with narrow windows and low, exposedbeam ceilings.
 
Key had to duck his head to pass through the doorways.
 
His shoulders barely cleared the walls of the dim corridors.

More than once the toes of his boots caught on the seams of the uneven stone floor.

"I'm sorry," the priest said when Key tripped and bumped into a wall.

"The rectory was built by and for European monks much smaller than you.

"No wonder they prayed all the time.
 
They didn't have room to do anything else."

Father Geraldo indicated that they precede him through a connecting doorway.
 
"I have refreshments in the kitchen.
 
You'll be glad to know that it was modernized in the late fifties."

By contemporary American standards, the kitchen was woefully outdated, but it was centuries ahead of the other rooms of the rectory.

They sat down at a round table while Father Geraldo served them fruit, cheese, bread, and slices of a canned ham one of his relatives in the States had smuggled to him.
 
Out of deference to his meager hoard, they ate sparingly.

"The water is supposed to be sterilized, but I boil it anyway," he said as he removed a pitcher from the refrigerator.
 
He placed lemon slices in their glasses.
 
There was no ice.
 
He also set a bottle of Jamaican rum on the table.
 
Only after Key had helped himself to it did the priest pour a glass for himself.

"It helps me sleep," he said sheepishly.

Lara was polite enough to wait until they'd finished the meal before broaching the subject of her daughter's grave.
 
"Where do we start our search, Father Geraldo?"

He looked at them uneasily.
 
"I thought you might have a plan.

All my inquiries have led to dead ends.
 
This doesn't mean that no information exists.
 
It simply means that no one is willing to impart it."

"The result is the same," Key said.

"Unfortunately, yes."

Lara, however, seemed undaunted.
 
"I want to start by searching the American embassy."

"There's no one there, Mrs. Porter.
 
It was looted and has remained vacant these past years.

"Do you remember my husband's aide and interpreter, Emilio Sanchez Peron?"

Key had traveled extensively in Central and South America and was familiar with the custom of tacking on the mother's maiden name to establish an individual's identity.

"Vaguely," the priest answered.
 
He refilled his glass from the bottle of rum.
 
According to Key's count, this was his third drink.

"As I recall, he was a quiet, intense young man.
 
Slight in build.

Wore glasses."

"That's Emilio.
 
Have you seen or heard from him?"

"I assumed he was killed when the embassy was raided."

"His name didn't appear on the casualty list."

"That could have been an oversight."

"I realize that," Lara said, "but I'm clinging to the hope that he's still alive.
 
The embassy library fascinated him.
 
He spent most of his off-duty hours there.
 
Do you know if the library was ransacked along with the rest of the building?"

Father Geraldo shrugged.
 
"The rebels have very little time for recreational reading," he said with a wry smile.
 
"But I wouldn't expect to find anything there intact, including the library.
 
I haven't seen it, but from what I've heard, the building was destroyed."

The discouragement that settled on Lara's face was heartbreaking to see.
 
"What about Ashley's death certificate?"
 
Key asked.

"Wouldn't a doctor have signed one before she was buried?"

"That's a possibility," the priest conceded.
 
"If the certificate wasn't destroyed, if the doctor's name was recorded, and if we can locate him, he might know where her body is buried."

Lara sighed.
 
"It seems hopeless, doesn't it?"

"Tonight it does."
 
Key came to his feet and assisted her out of her chair.
 
"You're exhausted.
 
Where is she sleeping?"

"I need a bathroom first, please."

"Of course."
 
Father Geraldo indicated a narrow passageway.

"Through there."

While Lara was in the bathroom, which fortunately had plumbing, Key and the priest shared another drink.
 
"If you're so limited in the work you can do here, why don't you return home?"
 
Key asked.

"Getting reassigned shouldn't be a problem considering the number of missionaries who've been slaughtered."

"I made a commitment to God," he replied.
 
"I may not be very effective here, but I doubt I'd be much more effective elsewhere."

He raised his glass of rum and drank deeply.
 
Father Geraldo knew that in the States he would be committed by the Church to an alcohol-addiction rehab facility.
 
Staying in war-torn Montesangre was his self-imposed penance for his weakness.

"You might die here if you stay."

"I'm well aware of the possibility, Mr. Tackett, but I'd rather die a martyr than a quitter."

"I'd rather not die at all," Key said somberly.
 
"Not yet."

The priest looked at him with renewed interest.
 
"Are you Catholic, Mr.

Tackett?"

Key chuckled at the notion.
 
There wasn't even a Catholic church in Eden Pass.
 
The few Catholic families in town traveled twenty miles to worship.
 
They were treated with only a little more tolerance than the Jewish families and were looked at askance by the Protestants of his hometown, where most folks erroneously assumed that if you were American-born you were automatically Christian.