Sanibel Flats

'We might be able to work something out—'

But Zacul was already walking away, not listening, giving orders to Ford over his shoulder. 'Your associate will leave for Costa Rica tomorrow by truck. You will not. You will stay with us until he returns with the book you so generously offered to give me. At that time we will discuss percentages and logistics. As of now, the terms you have offered sound agreeable—with the exception of special items, like the jade mask. '

'But Tomlinson doesn't know where the book is—' 'Then you will tell him.' Zacul's dark eyes took on that penetrating look; wild, near the borders of control. 'You will not leave here until I have it.'

Julio Zacul returned to his quarters, ignoring salutes, ignoring the garbage heap these peasant soldiers had allowed his camp to become, eyes focused only on the doors that were quickly opened for him, until he threw himself on his bed, his face wet, his veins burning, his brain fighting a gray deliquescence, that woozy feeling of reaching critical mass on the cocaine express. 'Suarez! Suarez, you shit-heel! Suarez!' He closed his eyes, breathing deeply while his heart pounded in his ears, then he opened his eyes, allowing his vision to blur within the symmetric zone of the ceiling fan overhead. What would Guzman think if he saw him now?

A dark thought, and Zacul cringed as it lingered. Abimael Guzman Reynoso, that great man; Guzman who had told them all that to triumph over the capitalists, they must not fall victim to the weaknesses of the capitalists: no alcohol, no tobacco, no drugs, no sex; nothing that was pleasurable until they had eliminated the cancer, cut it out and killed it. Of course, Guzman himself had chain-smoked cigarettes and bedded many of his students—young women and men—but that was all right. Guzman was the swordsman; they were the sword.

Zacul had been seventeen when he left the house of his wealthy father to attended the University of San Cristobal in the department state of Ayacucho, in the mountains southeast of Lima, Peru. It was there he was assigned to Guzman's philosophy class; it was there he fell under Guzman's spell.

There were already rumors about the man. It was well

known he was an ardent Chinese Maoist; it was not well known that, by his careful recruiting of fellow professors, he had gained control of the university. Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path, had already been founded, and Guzman's philosophy—that capitalism could be eliminated only by killing without conscience—was soon its only curriculum.

'Terror,' Guzman had told them, 'is our only weapon. In the end, the people we terrorize will get down on their knees to thank us.'

Zacul, always a good student, had also always been a moody, solitary boy. That changed when he met Guzman and was accepted into Sendero. His first assignment (and that's what Guzman called them—assignments) was a raid on the village of Lucanamarca. It was a summer morning in February when Zacul and twenty others, armed with rifles and axes, entered the village looking for an informant. The villagers, who were mountain peasants, insisted they knew nothing of an informant. Zacul had watched transfixed as the leader of his group ordered all the women and children of the village into a church, then set the church on fire. As mothers tried to push their children through the windows of the burning building, members of Sendero used their axes to kill the children. It was a horrifying thing to watch, yet it had also filled him with a strange elation; a tingling in the spine. Zacul had drawn closer the blazing church as if drawn by a magnet, when suddenly a village woman skidded around a corner to face him. She was as surprised as he by the confrontation, her eyes a study in pure terror, and Zacul had continued to walk toward her as she backed away . . . back, back, back, her hands thrust outward, and then she had dropped to her knees—not at all what he had expected. Instead of fighting for her life, she had simply knelt there, her eyes looking up at him, body slack, knees slightly spread in complete submission, her face very pale but calm. The first time he swung the ax, his aim was bad, and the blade cut through her shoulder. She had kicked some, yet the expression in her eyes was unchanged—as if she had awarded her body to him, completely to him, and Zacul had never felt such a sensuous rush of emotion in his life. Once again he had swung the ax, burying it in the top of her head and, though the feeling of pleasure lingered, the climactic emotion faded with her last breath.

He and his comrades killed more than sixty people that day; eleven by his own hand, and each produced in him that same wondrous feeling. Later Guzman personally congratulated him, then took him to bed—a strange night of pain and pleasure that ended with him sobbing in Guzman's arms. Zacul moved very quickly up the Sendero ladder after that. He was among the first assigned to take the movement out of the country. Masagua, Guzman had told him with tears in his eyes, was ready for the new generation.

On the bed, Zacul rolled onto his side, still breathing heavily. 'Suarez, you pig. Suarez. Get in here!'

There was a tap at the door and Suarez came in quietly, as a nurse might enter the room. 'I'm sorry, Julio. I was only just told that you were calling.' He had opened a plastic bottle and was tapping out small blue capsules into his palm. Zacul grabbed three and swallowed them quickly, then lay back again, already feeling better, knowing the pills would soon do their job. He said, 'The two Yankees—do you trust them?'

Suarez said, 'Of course not. But the large one, he knows something of the book. That is clear. '

'Tomorrow you will arrange for a truck to take the hippie to Costa Rica. If he produces the book, we will deal with them. We need the money.'

'If he doesn't?'

Zacul didn't answer. Instead he said, 'And this child we have; the son of that whore Rafferty—he is no longer any use to us.'

'Then we should no longer keep him as a prisoner?'

'The prisoners—that's another thing! I'm sick to death of their stubbornness and their filth. I can smell them when I walk to the lake. This camp is becoming a pigsty, I tell you. We have been patient enough! I have my limits!'

'Of course.'

'We'll shoot them this afternoon.'

'Very well.'

'I'll shoot them.'

'The boy, too?'

Zacul sat up, feeling the first sweet edge of the medicine entering his bloodstream. He thought for a moment, and said, 'No. This evening, when I'm done with the prisoners, you'll bring the boy to me.'

'Certainly.'

'Then you and I and the other officers will have a special dinner. A small celebration.'

Suarez said, 'I will notify the cook.'

Ford said, 'I'm looking for frogs.'

Tomlinson watched patiently as Ford, on hands and knees, crawled along the path, pushing over rotted logs, which immediately swarmed with ants or termites.

Finally Tomlinson said, 'I'm the last one to rush a student in his work, but don't you think we ought to figure out a way to make Jake part of this deal before you do any more collecting?'

'That's what I'm doing. That's exactly why we need to find this frog. A bright-red tree frog. You could help, you know. You have any cuts or anything on your hands?'

'No.'

'Good. We need a bunch of them. '

They had bathed from buckets inside their hut and changed clothes while the chef, Oscar, fried fish fillets for their lunch, corvina in garlic sauce. It was among the best fish Ford had ever had, but Tomlinson had refused it, choosing to have the cooks in the main mess ladle out a plate of red beans and rice for him.

Now they were halfway down the jungle trail that led to the Pacific, already beyond the high bluffs at the southern perimeter of the lake. They had told Oscar they were going for a swim in the ocean. They told him to tell the general if he saw him. From the expression on Oscar's face, the chef clearly hoped he would not see the general.

Ford said, 'You know what Zacul wants, don't you?'

Tomlinson was already kicking over logs, making a halfhearted search. 'Yeah, he wants the book and he wants to sell us a lot of artifacts at inflated prices and make a ton of money. That's what I mean: Couldn't we work the boy into the deal some way?'

'How? The book's in New York. It won't even get to Florida for another day or two—and I'm not positive