There was a fight, of course. His men stayed out of it because my men would have killed them. It was a long fight and very painful. Zacul left with the scar I have described. It was nearly a week before I could hold a baseball. I was surprised to hear later that he lived." Rivera looked at Tomlinson. "He was not a fan of the game. He refused to play because he said the game originated in the United States."Tomlinson had been following along attentively. "Hell no, a guy like that wouldn't play. This Zacul sounds like the original conehead to me."Rivera said, "I have not seen him since that day, nor his six friends. It is a matter of pride that very few other men followed him. His soldiers hated him. He used fear to command. Since that time, though, he has gathered many other troops so that now the strength of his army equals mine. Zacul is the only reason that I am not now sitting in the Presidential Palace in Masagua. I know I must first defeat him. He knows that he must first defeat me. We both wait like great cats, gauging the other before we stalk the prey. I am confident, though, that my army will prevail. We have always performed with honor on and off the field of battle. But Zacul does not know the meaning of the word. Fate will play a hand, do not doubt. We will emerge victorious. Soon I will live in Masagua City, in the Presidential Palace. I will be the servant of my people."
"As a communist," Ford said. He was not smiling now, holding the fresh beer the orderly had brought.Rivera did not reply for a moment. Then he said, "Have you watched my men marching? Have you seen how they are armed?"Ford had, of course, noticed. Many of them carried Soviet weaponry, but older arms: AK-47s with the scythe clips and wooden stocks, plus odds and ends of other eastern bloc ordnance.Rivera said, "There was a time when the Soviets gave me their full support. Now it is Zacul's men who carry their new weaponry. I do not know how he won their attention, but it doesn't matter. Other than that, I will say no more to you about my intentions. Understand, you are my friend, but you also once worked for a government that may even now be planning my destruction. Perhaps you still do."
That raised Tomlinson's eyebrows; he looked at Ford quizzically as Ford said, "No, I don't—but you have no way of knowing for sure. I understand that. But your intentions are important because, in asking you to help, we'll also be helping you. I don't care anything about politics. You know that. But I'm not politically unaware."
"If I enter the Presidential Palace," Rivera said carefully, "it will not be as a puppet. Besides, communism is dead in the Soviet Union. Perhaps it is dead all over. It is a truth that brings me great sadness." He paused. "This much I will tell you even though I truly do not see how you can be of help. "
"I think I know where Zacul's main camp is."
"So you have said. But it is a thing I often hear. Besides, why do I need to know where Zacul hides when he and his army know so well where my camp is?"
"Your plan is to wait until he attacks you?"
Rivera made a sweeping gesture. "Look around and you will see my plan. Look around and you will see the mountains that protect us. On each mountain we have built an observation tower. In each tower is a man with a radio who communicates with my headquarters. If Zacul tries to attack us here, we will destroy his army as it comes up the mountain. And he surely will try to attack. He is an impatient man."
Ford said, "You're the one who spoke of his intelligence. You think he'd try such a thing if he felt he would fail? When he comes, he'll be prepared. Maybe his friends, the Soviets, will provide him with planes and helicopters. The mountains aren't going to help you much if Zacul has enough helicopters."
Rivera sat silently for a time contemplating his beer. He had plainly already considered the possibility, and it troubled him. Ford said, "Zacul knows you're a patient man. He knows you'll wait. But every day you wait, you give Zacul more time to prepare for a successful assault on your camp. "
Rivera looked at him. "It is possible."
"It's probable."
"Yes, probable. So what do you propose as an alternative?"
Ford took out the map of Masagua, the one with Zacul's probable camp location marked, and spent fifteen minutes outlining two specific strategies. When he was done, Rivera remained hunched over the map. Tomlinson stirred uncomfortably when Rivera said, "You are not talking about a battle, here." He looked at Ford, and spoke in Spanish. "This is an assassination."
Ford could not sleep that night; could not sleep, probably, because he was anxious to be gone. He was anxious to find out if Rafe's son was still alive, anxious to be done with this business in Masagua so he could get back to Sanibel, his stilt house, his work, and the life that he had once hoped would be simple and without encumbrances. That simple life, the one recommended by Thoreau, was an unrealistic goal, though—not that he had ever wanted it; not really. He had wanted a simpler life, not a simple life, but now even that was proving impossible. In a modern world, only a person who was absolutely selfish could live an absolutely simple life, and only a hermit could live free of the personal and moral obligations inherent in taking one's own existence and the existence of others seriously.
Tomlinson would have something to say about that; yeah, Tomlinson could spend an hour talking about the obligations of existence.
Ford stood in the darkness beneath a huge guanacaste tree. He wore khaki fishing shorts and the blue chambray shirt. It was cool after the evening rain. The moon was up, and there was the smell of burning wood: the cooking fires of the soldiers. He had a small flashlight, and he walked from the line of tents toward the dense foliage bordering the cloud forest. There was a copse of wild plantain trees, with their large bananalike leaves and bizarre, colorful inflorescences, growing above a pool that was the confluence of several mountain rivulets. Touched by the flashlight's beam, each big leaf became a separate and living entity, each leaf the possible host or habitat of a variety of insects and animals, and Ford studied the leaves, trying to relax. The best way to see the jungle, he knew, was from above; the best way to learn about it, though, was from below, one leaf at a time, because each plant was a microcosm of the great green whole.
By crouching he could see up and inside one of the plantain leaves, and there was a colony of small bats roosting: disk-winged bats, their leathery wings pulsing with the regularity of lungs. The sudden light stunned them for a long instant and then they were gone in a panic, their eerie shapes silhouetting against the moon. The leaf that had held the bats leaned out over the water, and Ford placed his foot at the edge of the pool so he could get a closer look. There were beetles feeding on striations of the leaf, some kind of heliconia-feeder, but Ford didn't know which kind. Nearby, frogs began to trill again, and Ford used the flashlight to find them: red-eyed and brown tree frogs. It was the mating season, and several of the females had smaller males clinging to their backsides. That made Ford search for something else, and it didn't take him long to find the glutinous deposits of frog's eggs stuck to the undersides of the leaves. Some of the eggs had already matured into tadpoles, and the viscid masses hung in the light like icicles, dripping life into the water below . . . where two—no, four—cat-eyed snakes waited, feeding on the globs of tadpoles in a frenzy.
Ford watched the snakes feeding, taking an odd pleasure in knowing that this same drama was going on all around him; the same cycle of copulation, birth, and death; the same earnest theater being played out by jaguars, dung flies, tapirs, leaf-cutter ants, crocodiles, boas, and men throughout the millions of acres of jungle darkness.
A twig snapped behind him and Ford turned to see Juan Rivera standing in the shadows. He was bare chested and smelled of soap, as if he had just finished showering. Behind him, the face of a teenage Mayan girl peered out through the flap of Rivera's tent. She called the general's name softly, but her voice had the flavor of a command.