Deity (21 page)

And rifles.

“Holy shit!”

The
wheels slapped the ground a second time. KC quickly adjusted, opening the power
to the twin turbines.

“Hang
on, boys!” she called back to her passengers as she pulled on the controls.

The
cockpit pinged with hail, but the storm she was taking off in wasn’t
weather-related. “They’re shooting at us!” Father Ruiz yelled.

No shit, Sherlock!

The
Ladybug took large, air-gulping bounces toward the end of the landing strip. KC
urged more speed from the plane. “C’mon, baby! Go!”

She
pulled back on the controls with all her might just as the wheels rumbled off
the strip and into the field. A jolting bounce off a rock, a ditch or whatever,
and the Ladybug finally caught air.

GobabyGobabyGobabyGO!

A
spray of bullets pelted the plane. The trees bordering the field reached for
them, tearing off the landing gear and jerking them right. KC nearly lost
control as the Ladybug rolled to the side.

Son of a…

The
right wing dipped dangerously for the trees. KC corrected, but it wasn’t
enough. The wing clipped the groping vegetation, sending the plane into a
tumble for the ground.

KC
clinched her eyes shut against the oncoming collision. For a moment she saw
nothing. There was only the crunch of metal and the rattle of her body jerking
in her seat. The controls shook violently in her hands.

And
then there was silent stillness.

The
Ladybug was quiet.

KC
opened her eyes. Through a crack in the cockpit windshield he saw the world
ninety degrees from normal. Dangling awkwardly over the broken co-pilot seat,
she unbuckled her safety harness and fell to the mangled ruin of her plane.

That’s
when she smelled smoke.

“You
guys all right back there?” she called, pulling herself through the horizontal
cockpit frame.

A
groan returned from somewhere within the overturned cabin. KC slipped over the
cracked cabin windows and noticed the metal skin of the right wing buckled just
inches beneath her feet. Flames lapped through a broken window near the leaking
fuselage, belching black smoke into the cabin. A voice took immediate command.

“We
have to get out of here!”

It
was Peet, emerging from the smoke with the priest thrown over his shoulder. The
pale archaeologist looked near collapse himself. Clearly the landing hadn’t
done any favors to his fear of flying.

Without
further hesitation, KC reached for the cabin door above her head. She flipped
the locking lever, cranked it around and the door broke its seal. With a shove,
she threw the door open and reached for the priest.

“You
first!” she ordered and Peet reached up and pulled himself through the opening.

Next
went the priest, hoisted out of the cabin between the two of them, and then
Peet reached down, grabbed her wrists and pulled her out like a rag doll. When
she stood atop the side of her demolished plane now boiling in choking black
smoke, KC noticed the men—dozens of them masked in black balaclavas and
pressing rifles to their shoulders.

The
muzzles were all aimed directly at them.

There
was no escape, no getting off the burning Ladybug except for the farmer’s
pickup backing its crew of armed men up to the wreckage that had buzzed them
moments ago.

Zapatista

“I
knew I shouldn’t have come down here. Now I have no plane, no job… I should
have gone back home after I dumped you off in Mexico City.”

For
the most part, Peet wasn’t listening to KC’s lamentations. He had other worries
on his mind as they bounced in the bed of the small pickup—one in a parade of
pickups, rifles and balaclavas following a two-track road that plunged deep
into the humid forest.
Another jungle.
Where they were
going Peet couldn’t say but if his previous experience with balaclavas meant
anything at all, he knew he was in a bad situation.

Peet
wasn’t sure how far they’d driven through the forest when they suddenly broke
into a clearing planted in corn and cocoa. In the midst of the nearby forest
swells climbed a small, tin-roofed adobe village. There appeared to be nothing of
consequence there, but it seemed to be the caravan’s destination. They rolled
into the village where near-naked children studied them with curious, brown
eyes, widened as though witnessing a Disneyland
parade maneuver their rain-eroded streets. Women peered at them from airy adobe
facades, slapping out tortillas in front of their hot comals.

The
caravan pulled up to a squatty, windowless block of a building, fronted by the
skeletal framework of a coverless veranda. Across the blanched side of the
building, just above the place where their pickup parked, were slapped the
words which Peet silently translated, PEOPLE OF WHITE AND YELLOW CORN CLAIM
YOUR LAND. Peet’s sketchy Spanish could translate the sign, but he couldn’t
understand a word from the masked man suddenly barking orders at them as he
leaped out of the back of the pickup.

“Just
as I suspected,” Father Ruiz grumbled.
“Mayas.”

“What
is he saying?” Peet asked.

“I’m
only familiar with the dialect, not the words themselves.”

The
man barked again, this time in Spanish. Even Peet understood him then and
promptly climbed out of the pickup behind KC and the priest and followed them
into the building.

There
was only one room inside, an open community hall, as best Peet could tell. A
good hundred or so folding aluminum chairs stood propped against each other in
a row lining one wall, a rudimentary stage dominated the adjoining wall. On a
table just off stage left stood a carved wooden figure of the Virgin of
Guadalupe, a fold of her long blue robe bullet-shorn just below the hip. Another
slug left a ghastly
hole
dead center above her soft,
pious eyes. There was little else to the room, except two opposing windows on
the east and west walls which permitted the only light into its dim confines.

Peet
noticed his hollow footsteps as they marched through the empty room. They were
dismal steps, almost captive to a death march until they stopped short behind orders
to sit against the stage front. Obediently, they slid against the wooden stage
until they were sitting on the floor, waiting. Waiting for what, Peet couldn’t
tell. The majority of their masked captors mingled within the entryway at the
other end of the room, glancing at them from time to time and speaking to each
other in hushed Mayan tones. It wouldn’t have mattered if they yelled at each
other since neither Peet, KC or the priest understood their language, but even
without words, Peet could see their captives were uncertain what to do with
them.

“Who
are these guys?” KC whispered.

“The
Zapatistas,” Father Ruiz answered flatly.

“Now
how the hell do you know that?”

He pointed to a black banner hanging on the far wall. A
lone red star boldly stood out from its center. “That is the flag for the
Ejército Zapatista de Liberación National,
or
the EZLN.
More commonly known as the Zapatistas.”

“I’ve
heard of these guys,” Peet said. “Must have been back in 1994, when they
rebelled against the signing of the NAFTA agreement.”

Father
Ruiz nodded. “The military quickly subdued them and ever since the Zapatista
revolution has been primarily non-violent.”

KC
squirmed against the wall, her bare arms straining against the ties behind her
back. “Does this look non-violent to you?”

Father
Ruiz hardly moved a muscle. “The peace must have been a front until the
Zapatistas found the Talking Cross of the Cruzob. If they have the Talking
Cross, they may feel bold enough to declare war again. Their movement has developed
considerable international support.”

Peet
lowered his own voice. “But what would they need John and Matt for?”

“What
if they didn’t want them,” KC suggested. “What if John and Matt somehow got in
the way, just like us?”

“We
don’t even know for sure that the Zapatistas took them,” Father Ruiz reminded
them.

A
pair of boots shuffled across the floor, catching their attention. The
approaching Zapatista moved authoritatively; a comandante backed by a half
dozen subordinates. Peet rigidly pressed against the stage front as the men
fanned out behind the comandante, rifles at the ready. An order was called out
and as Peet scrambled to his feet between Father Ruiz and KC, he couldn’t help
but wonder about the slain Virgin on the nearby table—an innocent victim,
perhaps, of some reckless firing squad.

“Whatever
happened to your friends,” KC said in a hushed voice, “I’m afraid it’s about to
happen to us.”

The comandante marched straight for Father Ruiz. Though
average-sized himself, the masked Zapatista seemed to tower over the priest. Without
hesitation, he ripped the priest’s white collar from his throat and waved it in
his face as he barked a flurry of insults at him. Peet’s meager Spanish caught
the gist of the accusations. The Zapatistas thought Father Ruiz was using his
priesthood as a disguise.

A disguise for what?

Peet
felt confused and powerless at the same time. The desperation of a man about to
be executed rose within him – a borderline panic that demanded a way out. He
worked his hands behind his back but there was no loosening the rope that held
them. What could he do but stand there and wait to die?

Father
Ruiz feverishly denied the accusations against him, explaining he had no
credentials to prove his vocation when the comandante demanded them. That
wasn’t the response the Zapatista wanted to hear. In a rage, he grabbed the
priest and threw him face down onto the floor. Before Father Ruiz could gather
himself, the comandante stepped on his neck and placed the muzzle of his rifle
at the back of his head.

“Stop!”
Peet yelled.

He sprang forward in a knee-jerk reaction that was sure to
get them both killed. Nevertheless, he rammed a shoulder into the comandante,
knocking the masked man off of Father Ruiz. It was a bold move, one he would
have never made had he had the time to think about it. But he couldn’t just
stand there and watch the murder of a priest. He had to do something.
The least he could do was attempt to save Father Ruiz’ life.

But
Peet was too late.

As
his momentum felled him over the top of the Zapatista, an explosion rattled the
walls.

Stranger

Father
Ruiz’s heart skipped a beat, but he was still alive and very much bewildered. He’d
heard Peet make his move. He felt the release of pressure as the comandante
fell away. Their collision with the floor seemingly shook the ground beneath
him. Even the walls were shuddering, and before Father Ruiz could make sense of
what was going on, the whole room was instantly filled with confusion. There
was yelling and scuffling—the climactic noise of boots and voices was muffled
by their haste to escape the building.

What
was going on?

He
would have guessed an earthquake had struck were it not for the echoes of a
tremendous boom still resonating in his ear. When Father Ruiz finally dared to
look up, the Zapatistas were gone. The comandante was the last to escape,
launching orders toward the men fleeing before him.

The
room was quiet. Empty.

“What
the hell is going on?” KC asked.

Together,
Peet and Father Ruiz rose to their feet as the sounds of the panicking village
began to reach them from outside.

“The
village must be under attack,” Peet offered.

It
was then that an explanation presented itself.

The
door through which the Zapatistas had fled now opened yet again and a lone
masked gunman entered the room.

“Here
we go again,” KC muttered.

But
Father Ruiz instantly recognized a difference in this Zapatista. He was tall,
not short and wide like the others. More importantly, when this man took up his
weapon, it was to sling it over his shoulder and when he spoke, he spoke English!

“Hurry,”
he said.

He
rushed toward them, pulling a knife from his belt but it wasn’t an attack. Instead,
he sliced at their bindings until all their hands were free. “Now run!”

Father
Ruiz was wary, but after having quite literally dodged a bullet to the head, he
was willing to go on a little faith and trust this rogue Zapatista. He quickly
fell in line behind Peet and KC as they chased the masked stranger to a back
door, which he
blew
open with a single blast from his
rifle. They rushed toward the jungle out back while villagers scrambled along
the rutted street on the other side of the building. The stranger headed for a
plank-walled chapel where a larger replica of the Virgin watched over a Jeep
waiting for them there.