Where There's Smoke (62 page)

"I am sorry.
 
So sorry," Dr.
 
Soto repeated.

She understood now why he had been reluctant to tell her about this mass grave.
 
He had feared reprisals, but not from El Corazon.

From her.

"Leave me alone."
 
As Key tried to pull her away from the brink of the macabre pit, her fingernails left bloody tracks down his forearm.
 
He grunted in pain but only redoubled his efforts to bring her under control.

"Lara."
 
Father Geraldo knelt beside her, speaking gently.
 
"God in His infinite wisdom-" "NO" she screamed.
 
"Don't talk to me about God!"

Then in the next breath she entreated the deity for mercy.

"Who did this?"
 
Key's hard hands were still bracketing her shoulders but he had fixed a murderous glare on Dr. Soto.
 
"Who ordered that little babies be shoveled into a mass grave?
 
Good God, are you people barbarians?
 
I want a name.
 
Who gave the order?
 
I want that motherfucker s name.

"I am sorry, senor, but it is impossible to know who gave the order for a mass burial.
 
Everything "Dr. Soto's next utterance was a soft gasp.

He dropped to his knees, clutching his chest, then collapsed onto his side.

Father Geraldo was into his third Hail Mary when he pitched forward and landed flat on his face in the damp soil near Lara's right hand.

In fascination and horror she watched a dark pool form beneath his head.

"Christ!"

Key reached for the Beretta he'd dropped earlier but wasn't fast enough.
 
For his failed effort he got a boot in his ribs and went down with a grimace and a groan.

Crabbing backward, Lara tried frantically to move away from the gelatinous mess that had once been Father Geraldo's head.
 
She was yanked to her feet so swiftly that her teeth crashed tpgether.

"Buenas noches, senora.
 
We meet again."

It was the guerrilla leader from the roadblock outside Ciudad Central.

Ricardo.

The military transport truck hit a chuckhole.
 
Lara was thrown against the steel side of the "deuce and a half," which was the American slang for the tonnage of the truck.
 
They'd been traveling for hours.

Almost before her brain had registered that they were surrounded by armed men, her hands had been roughly tied behind her.
 
They were still bound, making it impossible to maintain her balance as the truck bounced along.
 
She'd been thrown from side to side so many times, she would be covered with bruises.
 
If she lived.

That was still open to speculation.

Father Geraldo was dead.
 
Dr. Soto had died in mid-sentence.
 
Key was very much alive.
 
Thank God.
 
He had kept up a litany of abusive curses as they were dragged from the cemetery and forced into the truck.

Several soldiers had been riffling through their belongings left in the jeep.
 
One had been fiddling with the camera and lenses in the camera bag.
 
Key shouted at him.
 
"Keep your goddamn hands off that!"

Like Lara, his hands were tied behind him, but he rushed forward and kicked the bag out of the soldier's hands.
 
The hotheaded soldier cracked the butt of his pistol against Key's temple.
 
Key staggered and dropped to his knees, but he wasn't cowed.
 
He looked at the soldier and, with blood dripping from the wound on the side of his head, grinned and said, "Your mother got you by fucking a jackass."

Whether he understood English, the soldier interpreted the comment as an insult and lunged for Key.
 
Before he could get retribution, Ricardo ordered the younger man to get them into the truck.

There was some discussion among them as to whether they should bring the jeep along or leave it at the cemetery gate.
 
Ricardo decided to let one of the guerrillas follow them in it.

Lara and Key were hoisted into the back of the truck.
 
Their belongings, including the camera bag and her doctor's bag, were tossed in after them.
 
The soldiers climbed aboard, then lowered and latched the canvas canopy.
 
They could see nothing, but their captors insisted that they be blindfolded.
 
Naturally, Key didn't submit.
 
It took three men holding him down before they could secure the dirty bandanna over his eyes.

Lara knew that physical resistance would be futile, but her eyes conveyed the full extent of her contempt before she was likewise blindfolded.

The road was virtually impassable.
 
The soldiers were unwashed.

In the airless confines of the truck, the smell was overpowering.
 
She was thirsty but knew that any request for water would go unheeded.

Her butt was sore, as were her arms and legs.
 
The bindings around her wrists were beginning to chafe.

She wanted to know where they were taking them and why.
 
How much longer until they reached their destination?
 
Did they even have a specific destination?
 
When they reached it, what then?

She conserved the strength it would take to ask.
 
No one would answer her.
 
They had attempted to communicate only once.
 
Key had been punished for it.

"Lara?"
 
His throat had sounded as raspy and dry as hers.
 
"You okay?"

"Key?"

"Thank God."
 
He sighed.
 
"Hang in there and-" "1Silencio!"

"Fuck you."

There was a scuffle, then a moan, and Key hadn't spoken to her since.

She tried self-hypnosis to remove her mind and body from the present situation.
 
But each time she tired to conjure up mental pictures of a desert sunset, or a rolling tide, or drifting clouds, her focus returned to the mass grave in the cemetery where her daughter would be interred forever.

Accomplishing what she had set out to do was an impossibility.

Why then didn't she try to escape, and let a soldier's bullet be her deliverance?
 
Father Geraldo and Dr. Soto had felt no pain.
 
Instant extinction.
 
How lovely.

Why did she still have the will to survive?

No, it was stronger than will.
 
It was a resolve to see the ones responsible for such an atrocity punished.
 
Burying the daughter of a U.S. ambassador in such an unspeakable manner violated universally acknowledged human rights.
 
If she lived, she would see to it that the world knew about the disgrace.

Lara had dealt with many terminally ill patients.
 
Until tonight she had not understood their unwillingness to surrender life.
 
How could one hang on, stubbornly clinging to life, knowing that the situation was hopeless?
 
She'd often contemplated the human spirit's refusal to accept death.
 
Now she understood that one could survive even the worst possible circumstances.

The survival instinct was stronger than she had believed.
 
It preserved life, even when the mind had given up.
 
If that were not so, she would have died upon seeing that mass grave and learning that her baby girl was buried there.
 
That innate determination to live sustained her through the long night.

She must have dozed because she came awake when the truck ground to a halt and she heard sounds of activity outside the truck.

She smelled wood smoke and cooking food.

"Here already?"
 
Key quipped sarcastically.

She was brought to her feet and lifted out of the truck.
 
Her limbs were stiff and sore.
 
She stumbled when she was shoved forward, but the fresh air on her skin and in her lungs was welcome.
 
She breathed deeply and tried to work circulation back into her legs.

Suddenly the blindfold was ripped off.
 
Ricardo was standing close, smiling broadly.
 
"1Bienverndo!"
 
She recoiled from his rancid breath.

"El Corazon is anxious to welcome his special guests."

She was surprised at his command of English.
 
"I have plenty to say to El Corazon, too."

He laughed.
 
"A woman with a sense of humor.
 
I like that."

"I wasn't being funny."

"Ah, but you were, senora.
 
Very funny."

Just then a woman dressed in dirty fatigue pants and a sweatstained tank top launched herself against him.
 
After an embarrassingly passionate kiss during which he openly fondled her, she purred, "Come inside.
 
I have food for you."

"Where is El Corazon?"
 
he asked.

"Waiting inside."

Still groping each other, they ambled toward a crude shack and climbed the rickety steps to a shallow porch and a curtained doorway.

The other soldiers were being similarly greeted by women in the camp and given bowls of food dished from a communal cooking pot suspended over the campfire.
 
They drank fresh coffee from tin cups. ara would have settled for a drink of water.
 
Her lip was still tender and swollen.

Two men with semiautomatic weapons were standing guard over her and Key.
 
When Lara first saw him, she gasped.
 
He was sitting on the ground near her, but the guards stood between them.
 
The wound on his temple had coagulated.
 
It looked nasty and needed to be cleaned and disinfected, probably sutured.
 
She wondered if she'd be given access to her doctor's bag, but thought not.

His eyes were ringed with shadows of fatigue, as she knew hers also must be.
 
His clothes, like hers, were filthy and perspirationstained.

It was barely daylight, so the sun wasn't yet a factor, but the humidity was so high that a mist as dense as fog clung to the tops of the trees in the jungle that surrounded the clearing.

Key was looking at her with a stare that penetrated, but she didn't need this silent communique to realize how precarious their situation was.
 
While he had her attention, he cut his eyes toward the camera bag.
 
One of the soldiers had unloaded it and their other bags from the truck and dropped them near where she stood.

Lara cocked her head inquisitively, knowing he was trying to tell her something but unable to decipher what.

Then he mouthed, "Magnum."
 
She glanced quickly at the camera bag.

When she looked back at him, he nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Senora, senor."
 
Ricardo swaggered from behind the curtained doorway and propped himself against one of the posts supporting the thatched roof.
 
"You are very fortunate.
 
El Corazon will see you now.

A respectful silence descended over the camp.
 
Those who were eating set aside their food.
 
All eyes turned to the front of the shack.

Even the children who'd been chasing one another and dodging toy machine-gun bullets ceased their play.
 
The rebel soldiers stopped trying to impress the women with exaggerated tales of their exploits.

Everyone's attention was focused on the porch of the shack.

Ceremoniously, the curtain was drawn aside, and a man emerged.

Lara sank to her knees.
 
In a voice almost soundless, she exclaimed,

"Emilio!"
 
excuse me, Miss Janellen?"