"De niece is de daughter of de uncle," Barney said. And everyone kissed and hugged him.
"That's wonderful, Barney. You're such a smart boy."
"You bet."
"How about this? CIA."
"CIA?" Barney was confused. "I think I work for the CIA." He stuck his finger in his nose to think. "But I don't work. I play."
"You used to work for them, darling. But they were bad, bad people."
"Very bad?"
"Awful. They beat you up."
"The soldiers beat me up."
"They did not!" The women frowned. Some turned their backs on him. "You're bad, Barney. Bad for thinking the soldiers hurt you."
"They whipped me with the big snake. They hurt my hands," Barney said helplessly.
"That was the CIA. Not the soldiers."
Barney's eyes widened in confusion. He was sure it was the soldiers. "Maybe they were different soldiers," he offered.
"That's right," the blonde said, brightening. All the women kissed him. "Good Barney," they said.
"Yeah. Other soldiers. CIA soldiers. Bad."
"De Culo, the greatest man on earth, made them stop. Now soldiers are nice to you."
"De Culo good, CIA bad," Barney said.
"The CIA is still near," the woman whispered.
"Here? Here?"
"Yes."
"Where?" He looked anxiously around the room.
"We don't know. Tell us, Barney. Tell us where they are, so they don't come again to hurt you."
"I... I don't know. What's the answer, lady?"
"Come on. You know."
"Huh-unh." Barney shook his head vehemently.
"Maybe he's the only one," the woman said quietly to her associates. "Okay," she said louder. "Here's another word."
"I'm tired of this game."
"Just one more. Installation."
Barney yawned. "Installation is what daddy puts around the house to keep out the snow," he said. "Hey, when's it going to snow?"
The women ignored him, chattering among themselves.
"That's all, Barney. You've been a good boy."
"How about some ficky-fick?"
"Later, sweetheart. We have to look for CIA men, so they don't come to harm our Barney."
"CIA bad," Barney confirmed. "Ficky-fick good."
"Drink some water," the blonde said, and led the women outside.
"He doesn't know anything," the blonde later told Estomago. "You might as well kill him and get it over with."
"El Presidente wants us to go through with this."
"It's pointless."
"But it is a direct order, Gloria."
Gloria Sweeney shrugged. "Have it your way."
"My way keeps you out of working at the installation, remember," Estomago said with a threatening swagger.
"Yeah. Thanks a heap, big shot. I suppose working at that whorehouse was your idea of a great career opportunity."
"Better than being shot, like the other women. Or perhaps you would prefer their fate."
A nervous tingle shot through Gloria's spine. "Not at all, Robar, honey. You know I was just joshing. I'm grateful for everything you've done for me." She caressed his thigh. "And I just love being sweet to you."
"That's enough," Estomago said, clearing his throat. "We'll save it for later."
"Anytime you say, jumbo." She left him to bathe in a stream and wash the stink of fear off her.
That night, a soldier wearing a big painted sign reading CIA hanging around his neck entered the hut to remove Barney's fingernails.
The next night, another soldier, similarly identified, came to beat him within an inch of his life.
The food stopped coming. The women stopped coming. The smiles ceased. Only the water remained. And the smoldering fire.
Bound again by abrasive rope around his wrists, Barney cried and asked for his mother.
"We hate your mother," a soldier said, and slapped him hard across the face. "This is what the CIA thinks of you and your mother. Your mother fucks gorillas."
"CIA bad, bad," Barney wailed.
"You didn't tell the good soldiers that we were here," the soldier said, "so we came to hurt you."
Barney looked from face to face around the hut. They were all in there with him, all the soldiers and women. They shook their heads sadly as the bad CIA man walked deliberately to the fire and removed the glowing poker.
"The CIA is going to hurt you now unless you tell us where the other CIA men are."
"Don't know," Barney said as the man walked closer and closer to him, the poker gleaming red.
"We're very bad men," he said, stepping so close that Barney could smell the burning cypress wood sticking to the end of the poker. "We want you to remember who we are."
"CIA," Barney said. "Very bad."
The soldier lifted the poker directly above Barney's stomach. "Very bad," he said. "For you." And he brought it down to trace the letters CIA on Barney's burning belly, the stench of incinerated flesh filling the hut as Barney screamed his last memories away.
Two days later, Barney's eyes opened to see the barrel of a magnum pointed directly at them.
"He knows nothing," Estomago said. "Let us end this charade now and be done with it."
"Hey, I've got an idea," Gloria said. "Want to have some fun with him before he goes?"
"Fun. You always think of fun."
"No, really. This'll be a gas." She whispered into Estomago's ear.
He laughed. "Why not?" he said, tucking the magnum back into his thigh holster. "It will be amusing for the men."
He shook Barney out of the fog that had come back to reclaim him. "You. Get up. You are free."
"Free?" Barney said, not sure what the word meant.
The soldiers unbound his wrists and led him, wobbling, to the grounds outside the hut. There they tied another length of rope around one arm, this time a longer, thinner one.
"You will perform the ritual of the bat," Estomago said. "For it, you will fight a man while blindfolded and bound to him by this length of rope. If you kill him, you will be set free."
"Fight," Barney mumbled, looking vaguely at the red gashes on his stomach which had already filled up with pus.
The blonde woman giggled. "Find him someone cute to fight, honey. That'll make it more interesting."
Estomago pointed to the young recruit with the sad eyes. "Him?"
"Perfect."
He signalled the boy to advance. Silently he came into the circle where Barney waited, weaving unsteadily on his feet. The boy's arm was tied to the rope. Blindfolds were placed on both men.
"Here are the knives," Estomago announced, placing a curved killing knife in each of their hands. "When I give the command, the two of you will fight to the death." He turned to one of the soldiers. "Get your rifle ready," he said quietly. "If the American should win by a freak accident, I do not want him to leave alive."
"Yes sir." The soldier obeyed, disengaging the safety catch on his rifle.
"Very well," Estomago shouted. "Begin!"
In a crouch, the boy circled Barney, who poked hesitantly at the air. The crowd laughed.
"Hsss!" the boy whispered. "This way." He led Barney to the edge of the circle. The spectators cleared the way. He slashed at Barney, narrowly missing him, even though Barney could barely walk.
"That boy fights almost as poorly as the American," Estomago said, his belly shaking with mirth.
The boy slashed again, this time falling to the ground and rolling close to the jungle edge.
"Birds," Barney said.
"We are close to the forest," the boy whispered. "Pretend to fight me. I will take you out of here." He cut into the air again and inched closer to the edge of the clearing.
Barney fell.
"Kill him, kill him!" the women in the crowd shouted.
The boy lunged. "Get up. Quickly. Hurry. It is time."
Barney scrambled to his feet as the crowd crooned with excitement. "Perhaps he will give us a show, after all," Estomago said. "But you are both too far away for us to see well," he shouted to the two men. "Come back this way."
"Now," the boy said, tearing off his blindfold and Barney's. "Try to keep up with me." He sprinted through the jungle like a gazelle on his long young legs while Barney dragged behind, the rope forcing him to keep pace. "Come." Two shots rang out behind them.
Branches tore at Barney's open wounds. Each step burned his damaged feet like hot coals. His broken hands could barely hold the knife, but he knew he must hold it. He knew nothing any more, remembered nothing except that this boy was a friend and that he had to hold on to the knife and run, run as he had never run before.
The boy cut the rope between them. "I know a small clearing not far from here," he said. "You can rest there, and drink good water to make you well." He pushed Barney ahead.
At the clearing, where a small waterfall fed into a stream from underground caves, they stopped. "Do not drink yet," the boy said. "We will wait in the cave for nightfall. Estomago's men are not far behind."
Barney opened and shut his eyes to try to clear his head. Everything was filmy, unreal.
"Trust me," the boy said as he pulled Barney into a small cave to wait.
It was damp in the cave, and Barney's cramped position hurt his burns, but the boy had said to trust him, so he trusted him. In time, he slept while the boy watched and guarded.
He shook Barney awake. "Come. It is time for us to leave."
"Wait," Barney said, touching the boy's arm. "Why are you helping me?"
The boy looked at him with his sad, dark eyes. "Denise Saravena was my friend," he said. "After my mother died, Denise brought us food until I was old enough to join the army."
"Who is Denise?" Barney asked.
After a moment, the boy said, "Let us wash your wounds and drink at the waterfall. Then we must go. I know a small mountain village north of Puerta del Rey where we will be welcome."
They drank at the foot of the waterfall. Barney let the cold water run over his bare feet and stomach, washing away the putrefaction that had begun to develop in the burns.
It felt good. Barney's head began to clear. He tore his shirt to make a bandage for his hand so that he could hold the knife better. He tore off strips of cloth to cover his feet. As he was splashing water over his head and neck, the boy whirled around, his knife poised for throwing.
Out of the forest ambled a chimpanzee, chattering and running in a zigzag. The boy sighed.
"You know what you're doing with that knife," Barney said, relieved.
The boy lay on his stomach to drink. "No man knows more than the jungle," he said. He waded into the water to wash. Then the shot came and sent the boy sprawling into the mud at the other side of the stream, a hole the size of a grapefruit in his back, his thin legs twitching for a moment before he lay still.
Barney saw the soldier before he had a chance to turn around, so by the time he turned, his knife was already spinning in the air and came to rest with a thwack in the soldier's chest. The chimpanzee at the other end of the stream screamed and scurried noisily into the jungle as Barney scrambled back into the cave. Moments later, when the other soldiers appeared, they followed the noise of the chimpanzee. And Barney was safe to look on the lifeless form of his friend, a boy young enough to have been his son.
He waited an hour, staring all the while at the dead boy who had saved his life. None of it made any sense to him any more. Strangers come and then they go, and some of them hurt you along the way and some help you. And some even die for you. But why, God, why him? Why not me? I don't remember half my life, and this boy didn't even get to live it. Why didn't you take me instead? he said to himself, as he dug a shallow grave for the boy with a rock beside the stream.
Then, without thinking, without caring, he wandered aimlessly into Puerta del Rey the next morning, stopping to spend a day and a night in a sleazy cafe that served him three bottles of tequila in exchange for his brass belt buckle.
And after the three bottles were empty, Barney felt good for the first time in all the life he could remember. He felt so good that he called a press conference in the middle of town to say that the CIA was bad. The CIA was in Hispania. The chief of police, somebody named Estomago, looked surprised to see him, although Barney didn't know the man from Adam. He didn't want to know anybody. The CIA was here. The CIA was bad. And who the hell cared?