“Oh, Jesus. That’s the way, that’s the way.”
Kirby chewed on a nipple that tasted of salt. Breath in his ear sounded like far-off surf. The rhythms of sea and man merged and separated, merged and separated. “God, I’m thirsty!” Tandy cried, and collapsed like a sail, in the calm after a storm. Kirby had never heard a woman say precisely that in such a situation before.
A lot of elbows woke him, some of them his own. Cool darkness, the hush of a nearby air conditioner, all these elbows and knees and — ouch — foreheads in this too-small bunk. Memory came to his rescue just as Tandy patted him all over, hoarsely whispering, “Who the fuck are you?”
“Kirby Galway,” he told her. “I’m the pilot. One of the better guys.” “Shit,” she said, “you probably are, at that.” She laid her hot dry head on his chest, and he put an arm around her vulnerable thin shoulders. “What a life,” she said, and they slept.
7
Glimpses
The sun that had greeted Kirby in the sky early that morning had a little later peeked down through the moist layers of leaf and branch and vine and foliage to the jungle floor in the Maya Mountains near the Guatemalan border where it caught glimpses of a hunched hurrying figure in camouflage fatigues, moving west, staring about himself, nervous, flinching from every jungle sound, occasionally staring up in anguish at the watching sun, as though it were a hawk and he a vole.
Vernon panted as he moved, more from fear than exertion. He hadn’t expected another summons from the Colonel so soon, nor had he realized before last night just how completely he was in the Colonel’s power. He could no longer refuse the man, was no longer his own master. The Colonel could destroy Vernon at any time, not by reaching into his holster for that big Colt .45, but simply by passing on to the British Army or the Belizean government the proof of Vernon’s...
... treason.
“It means nothing” Vernon gasped, hurrying to meet his master. Guatemala could never invade, could never capture Belize. Taking the Colonel’s money was dishonorable, yes, chicanery at worst, because it was not within Vernon’s power, or anyone’s power, to sell Belize to Guatemala. And yet, and yet...
Everything was coming together at once, in the most terrible way. He had murdered Valerie Greene, yes he had, he had murdered her just as surely as if he had done it himself with his own hand. But he was not cut out to be a murderer; too late he understood that. He wanted to be a man with no conscience at all, and he was riddled with conscience as another man might be riddled with leprosy. The sting of his petty treason was as nothing to the savage bum of his guilt as a murderer.
And just as the Colonel held Vernon’s fate and future in the palm of his hand, so did the skinny black man, Vernon’s partner in murder. He had disappeared without a word, without a word except for a circular trail of Land Rover parts around Punta Gorda. Presumably he had fled the country; certainly, the police were looking for him. Could it be (astonishing idea) that he too had been unequal to murder, had been unhinged by it, driven to flight? If so, and if he were found, he would surely spill the whole story, starting with Vernon’s name.
“Too many things,” Vernon muttered, thrashing through the undergrowth, the moisture of his face part sweat and part dew and part tears. The wet fronds slapped at him, the ground was soggy and treacherous beneath his feet, and he could never entirely hide from the sun.
The Daimler wasn’t yet there. Good; it gave Vernon a chance to get control of himself, calm down, dry his dripping face on his shirttail. He walked back and forth in the clearing, in and out of sunlight, commanding himself to be at peace. The Colonel would not betray him, because he was still too useful. The skinny black man would not be found and would not return. Be calm, he told himself, be tranquil, be at rest.
How he longed to be at rest.
The Daimler came slowly through the jungle, like a whale, like a black puddle. Vernon stood to the side of the dirt track as the Daimler approached, sunlight winking at him from its glass and chrome. The big machine stopped beside him, its passenger compartment window slid smoothly down, and the Colonel appeared in the dark rectangle, leaning forward, eyes hidden by large dark sunglasses. Behind him the feral woman sat reading a French magazine: Elle, Vernon, inadequately protected behind his own sunglasses, blinked and blinked.
The Colonel extended a ringed hand out the window, holding a white envelope. “This is for you,” he said.
Vernon took the envelope. It was softly thick with currency, a lot of currency. What does he want from me? Why did things always have to move so inexorably from the theoretical to the real?
The Colonel had something else for him; a single sheet of paper. Vernon took it, and saw it was a Xerox of a part of one of the maps he’d given the Colonel the last time, a map showing recent refugee settlements. One of these was now circled in red. As he frowned at this map, wondering what it meant, the Colonel said, “On Friday, the day after tomorrow, a group of British journalists will be in Belice.”
“Journalists?” Vernon reluctantly looked up from the map. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“They are coming,” the Colonel said. “One of the things they will do in Belice is visit a refugee village, on Friday afternoon.” Pointing at the map in Vernon’s hands, he said, “You will see to it that is the village they visit.”
“But— Journalists? That has nothing to do with my department, I don’t—”
“You have a driver? Your confederate?”
Shocked that the Colonel knew so much about him, Vernon stammered, “He’s— he’s gone. Ran away a week ago. No-nobody knows why.”
“Someone else then,” the Colonel said, dismissing the problem with a flick of his fingers. The woman turned a page of her magazine; this time, she had no interest in Vernon at all. The Colonel, delegating authority, said, “You’ll arrange it. The journalists go to that village.”
“I don’t know if I can—”
“It is necessary,” the Colonel said. He confronted Vernon, impassive behind his dark glasses, waiting for another objection, prepared to slap it down. It is necessary; that was all his creature needed to know.
I will not think about why the Colonel wants all these things, Vernon told himself, his plans are foolishness and vain, nothing can happen, nothing can change. “I–I’ll try,” he said miserably.
“That village,” the Colonel said, and the window smoothly rolled up, ending the conversation.
Bewildered, bedeviled, hopelessly entangled, Vernon stood and watched the Daimler drive away, returning the Colonel to his world of certainties. Rest. Tranquility. What was going to happen? Would it never end? What terrible fate was he fashioning for himself?
Nearby, in bright sun, a large parrot on a branch looked at Vernon, spread his wings, and laughed.
8
North Guatemala: Me Taught Ron