The man sat on the brush floor, with moisture seeping in through the seat of his pants, marvelling at how a simple payoff could have brought him undone.
He slapped at a flying bloodsucker attempting to make a meal of his earlobe. The high-pitched buzz was distressing in and of itself. The sun still had enough power to make the terrible press of heat and humidity utterly unpleasant, but the small clearing in the forest remained heavily shaded by the thick, intersecting layers of overhead canopy. Luperico reached for any recall of the smaller details of those days. For something that might just reduce the pitiless stare with which his liberator/captor regarded him.
He remembered that when it became obvious Paris had forgotten them, that the whole world was falling apart, he had moved quickly to secure his immediate future.
And yes, that did mean he released a few of the prisoners before their time. The young German, he remembered well now. The memories came rushing back, as if a dam wall had collapsed. This Baumer stood out for two reasons. When the man arrived in Guadeloupe, his file was sealed. Luperico was given no idea of the prisoner’s background, nor of what had led him into expedient detention - a form of incarceration where the individual was held without acknowledgment, ’
‘Baumer, yes, I did release him,’ he admitted finally. ‘But you must understand, our situation was quite desperate. We -‘
‘Not interested. Why did you release him? It wasn’t from the kindness of your heart.’
Luperico had difficulty maintaining eye contact with her. Her gaze, although almost inhumanly cold, still seemed to weigh him in judgment. Was it his imagination or did the forest seem unnaturally quiet now?
‘Well, I was paid, of course. A bribe, if you must. We are both adults, senorita …’
He waited, hoping she might give him something, but the woman’s demeanour did not change. She didn’t speak. She simply stared at him, waiting for him to continue.
‘Look,’ he went on, gesturing helplessly, ‘it was obvious to me he was one of the bearded crazies. Even though he was clean-shaven. I have dealt with enough of them to recognise the type. Fanatics, all of them … But you would know that, after 9/11,’ he added, hoping to create some common link. ‘This German was no different. A fanatic with more sense than most, but still a death-obsessed medieval god botherer, no? But what did it matter? Their great Satan was gone. There could be no return to France for him. Not when Sarkozy prevailed in the war. So what did it matter, letting one more savage out into the wild?’
The log on which he sat was rotten, and it crumbled underneath him as he shifted his weight. Luperico’s backside cracked the thin husk of the hollow, fallen tree trunk with a loud crunch and he dropped a couple of inches before emitting a little shriek when he realised he was covered in stinging red ants. He leapt to his feet and tried to brush them from his pants. The woman was on him before his heart could beat again. He had no idea what she did to him, but he felt his legs suddenly swept out from under him as his shoulders were driven down into the ground. Into the giant ants’ nest he had just disturbed. He would’ve shrieked aloud, and for much longer, but the fierceness of the expression on her face, now less than a foot from his, unmanned him. She looked predatory, carnivorous.
‘Tell me exactly how he was released.’
He tried to speak but she was choking him. He could feel his eyes bulging and his face turning red as he spluttered and slapped ineffectually at her stranglehold. She regained control of herself just as he felt himself about to pass out, but he remained unable to answer her with any alacrity. Instead he rolled away from the ants, coughing and gagging for air.
‘It was another Turk,’ he said with great difficulty, fighting the urge to vomit. ‘A businessman. He described himself as Baumer’s uncle, but that was almost … almost certainly a lie. But he was a businessman. He was in shipping. One of his ships was in port and he offered to take Baumer away. What did I care? It was one less prisoner to feed, one less crazy to worry about. The world was at an end. It did not matter.’
His tone was almost pleading. The woman had withdrawn to the other side of the clearing and gave a very strong impression of having to restrain herself. Why did she care about all this? What was it to her? Like him, she was just a functionary.
‘The name of the Turk,’ she demanded. ‘The one who came and took your prisoner, the one who bribed you. What was his name?’
Luperico noticed the tips of her fingers moving rhythmically, tapping the black holster in which she wore her sidearm. Panic sluiced through the former jailer. If she intended to frighten the information out of him, she was doing herself no favours. How was he supposed to think with the prospect of execution hanging over him?
‘I-I do not remember.’
‘You need to remember, believe me.’
He felt ants crawling around under his clothes, biting him and tearing small pieces of flesh from the open wounds inflicted by his torturers. He was terrified and in agony.
‘It is too hard …’ he protested. ‘Those days, they were the end of days. The end of the world. How can you expect me to remember the name of one fat Turk?’
She seemed to understand that she was distressing him. The woman folded her arms and made an obvious effort to collect whatever feelings were threatening to run away with her.
‘So, you were bribed by a Turk. A businessman with shipping interests. Do you remember the name of the ship you said was in port?’
‘
The woman took in a deep breath, composing herself again. He watched her, wary of what she might do next.
She seemed to resolve a debate within herself. He flinched as she reached inside her combat vest, but rather than producing a weapon she pulled out a resealable plastic bag. She unfastened the Ziploc and removed five or six pieces of paper. Photographs.
She dropped them on the ground in front of him before stepping back, paying him the compliment, he supposed, of at least pretending he was a threat to her. Luperico didn’t need to be told to pick them up. Brushing ants off himself, resisting the urge to shake his legs like a wet dog to throw more off, he bent down to retrieve the images.
There were six of them, all men, two of whom were white, while the remainder were Arabs, or maybe Persians. For one brief, shining instant, his spirits actually lifted - he recognised one of them.
‘This is him! He’s the Turk who offered me the bribe, without a doubt.’
The woman nodded as though she had known all along. Satisfied at last.
For the first time since he’d been picked up by the Oficina Seguridad, perhaps for the first time since he had fled Guadeloupe on one of the last flights out of the airport, Ramon Luperico felt as though circumstances had finally broken his way. For close to five years he had grifted and scavenged a path through the anarchy of
But perhaps this might be his chance to escape. He had helped this woman with something that was obviously very important to her and the people who had sent her. And it was such a small thing. So many of the jihadists passed through that Baumer would surely not have been his responsibility for much longer anyway. He had done a small wrong in this instance, no more. The woman had said she was not at all interested in those instances. And she was American, which was good. The Americans were looking to rebuild the empty land. A man of his talents, they would surely …
A loud metallic click interrupted his happy thoughts of redemption. He looked up from his reveries. Confused. The woman was pointing something at him. He was looking right at it.
He did not finish the thought.
12
NORTH KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
‘You can’t do this to us, Mister. We ain’t done nothin’ worth a hangin’.’
In her dream, the three men, the three surviving road agents from the gunfight at Crockett, were already dead. And yet they lived. They sat astride their horses on legs broken so badly that the feet of the youngest one
