The Candidate (32 page)

Dee looked at him. Christ, she thought, their internal numbers must be worse than she thought. Swampy’s video of Stanton’s little error destroyed them. No one ever talked about uniting in the future when they thought they were going to win. That was strictly talk for the losing camp.

“We have to think about the general election,” Carver continued. “The nominated candidate is going to have to combine the strengths of both campaigns. We will need to be sure that our two sides have enough respect for each other so that we can be on the same team.”

Dee suddenly got it. This bastard was angling for a job. He knew they were going down and he was a rat looking for the first lifeboat off the ship. She suddenly felt light. She looked at him and rested a hand on his arm. She toyed with the idea of sticking the knife in and giving it a good, hard twist. Part of her longed for it. It was the part that was still an outsider and wanted to destroy those who always looked at her as a misfit. But she was a winner now. She was strong. It was better politics to be merciful.

“There will be a place for you,” Dee said softly. ‘You know that, Howie.”

Carver smiled gratefully. “And my candidate? There’s been a lot of talk in the press about a united ticket. That would bring both sides together pretty nicely.”

Dee nodded. “I can’t speak for the Senator, but that looks possible. We’re very open to it.”

Dee could scarcely believe it. This was virtually a capitulation. Somewhere deep within her, though, an alarm bell went off. This was no time to be too magnanimous. No one had even started voting yet.

“But, look, we’ve got one more debate to get through yet. We’ll keep it clean if you will and then we can talk,” she said.

She was offering a deal. A calm, straight road to the finish line. No upsets, no surprises, no more nastiness.

Carver nodded. “Sounds good to me, Dee,” he said and he proffered a chubby hand. Dee took it gladly, surprised at his feather light grip in her own.

She had to give him something in return. “You fought a good fight, Howie,” she said. “But you chose the wrong horse. My guy was clean as a whistle. That’s all it was. He was spotless.”

CHAPTER 21

THE HOT BREEZE from the Caribbean blew in like an unwelcome guest at General Carillo’s table and sent his napkin fluttering skywards like a released seabird. He made a futile grab for it, but it was beyond his grasp, caught in the air and flying from his terrace into the streets below. Carillo cursed his luck and pushed away his plate of rice, pork and beans.

He was not hungry anyway. He slept poorly the previous night and was unable to rectify that with a long siesta this afternoon. Now, even though he was fatigued, he still felt fidgety and nervous. His mind raced ever since he heard the American was back in Guatemala in the company of some woman. A “blogger” whatever that was. Something like a journalist, he was told. It was confusing and unnerving. Just as he started to believe he was getting his just reward – that his life’s efforts were not in vain and unrecognized – this happened.

Still, Federico was a good man. He was loyal as a dog and could be trusted to do his duty. Any General was only as good as the men he commanded. He knew that. With Federico deployed out in the field, he knew he had options. Carillo stared out as the blue waters slowly darkened as the sun went down. A smattering of Garifuna fishing boats dotted the horizon, not yet choosing to come into the shelter of their homeport. Carillo sighed. He longed to get out of here and go home. Back to the mountains. Back to the green hillsides and cool fresh air of his youth. Soon he would have the money to grease the right palms and buy the return from exile that sheer politics itself would not allow.

He imagined his
finca
in his mind. One just like his grandfather had owned on the outskirts of Antigua. It would not be too big. There was no need to be greedy. It would just be a plot of good land on which the coffee beans would practically burst forth. His workers would be loyal village folk and he would be a good master to them. Perhaps he might even take a wife. It was not too late for him, even though he was past sixty. Such things were not unheard of for men of power, money and dignity. She would be a young village girl and he would fill her belly with children. He closed his eyes, sleepy at last, his mind filled with the sound of wedding chimes.

Except it was not church bells he heard. His mind snapped away from its reverie to register his phone downstairs. He hauled himself to his feet, hearing his tired bones crack in complaint, and went to answer the call.

It was Federico. “Sir, I followed
los Americanos
and they went to visit a church in the slums.”

“A church?” the General said and dared himself to feel a little glow of relief. “Are they just playing at being tourists?”

“I do not think it was the church they were interested in. It was the priest. Father Gregorio Villatoro.”

The General felt a stab of adrenalin at the name. It surged through his body and left him feeling like a just struck cymbal with a ringing sound in his ears. He could not find the words.

“General?” Federico asked. “What would you have me do?”

“That son of a bitch priest,” Carillo spat and at last found his voice. It was like the collapse of a dam and a torrent of emotions poured through his mind. Visions of a long ago day of blood and mayhem; of fighting a righteous cause and striking a blow against the enemy. A day forgotten for many years and that should remain so.

“I thought he was dead long ago,” Carillo shouted. “What is he doing in the slums? Stirring up trouble with his communist bullshit. It sickens me that he is allowed to preach Marxism still after all these years.”

“It is an offense against God and the Motherland,” Federico said.

An abomination, Carillo thought. But his anger was only a thin veneer for the panic he started to feel, like a slick of oil on a deep and raging ocean. Why were these Americans digging around in that part of the past? He thought they had an agreement on all that. Silence in return for money. It was simple. It was in no one’s interest to excavate old history; to dig up the bodies of the long ago dead. Were they turning on him now? Was he to be betrayed yet again?

Carillo set his jaw firm. “Federico,” he said. “We cannot let the enemy move against us. We must strike back. You know what to do.”

Federico said nothing. He did not have to. He had his orders now. His leader needed him. His country needed him. The phone line went dead.

* * *

FOR MIKE it felt like giving someone a Judas’ kiss. He and Lauren spent the last hour in the bar of the Marriott talking and drinking. She was enthralled at the revelation about Natalia and her links to Carillo. She seemed to forget Mike worked for the Hodges campaign. She believed they were on an adventure together and had stumbled upon a scoop. A story she would write and post on the Internet once the South Carolina race was over. A story to make her a household name. She was almost light-headed with the excitement and flirted with Mike by resting her hand on his arm.

Mike responded in kind, laughing and joking. But inside he felt physically sick. He wanted to come to Guatemala to exonerate Hodges. To prove his payments to Carillo were innocent. Or that Natalia was some sort of traumatized victim, driven mad by what she witnessed. But it turned out to be the opposite. Carillo was a monster. Natalia was too. They killed and slaughtered scores of people in just Santa Teresa alone. It was truly a nightmare.

He knew he could not contain himself any longer if he drank more, so he suggested they make it an early night. Lauren smiled, perhaps thinking he was suggesting something else, but he simply kissed her on the cheek at her hotel room door. He registered what he thought was a flicker of disappointment on her face, then he waited a breathless ten minutes before he sneaked out of his own room and headed downstairs.

Now he was in the car alone and trying to navigate his way back through the streets of the city to San Gabriel. He looked through the windshield at the confusing streets and lights and tried to remember the way. Slowly, after many mistakes and diversions, he headed in the right direction. He took out his phone and called the number of the church. Villatoro answered. His voice sounded sleepy.

“Father,” Mike said. “I’m so sorry but there is an emergency back home and we leave early tomorrow. Can I come and see you tonight to look at Natalia’s papers? It is very important for us to be able to see them.”

Villatoro sighed down the line, a weary sound full of resignation.

“Please, Father,” said Mike. “We have come a long way.”

For a moment Mike felt a stab of shame. He lied to a priest. It came to this, this breaking of a taboo that he knew his own mother, steeped in her Catholicism, would find shocking. But there was no choice. He was desperate and feeling his way blind now.

“All right,” Villatoro said eventually and without pleasure.

Mike breathed a sigh of relief. At last, he thought. A break. He could check out those papers without Lauren and search for any link back to Hodges, and hopefully, if he was lucky, discover a fuller explanation of why Natalia wanted to kill him. Then he could spin some bullshit to Lauren and get home. She would be furious, no doubt, but it was for the best. Best for him, best for the candidate, best for the campaign.

He thought about that as he drove down a rutted road he was not sure he recognized.

The campaign existed in another world now. He could scarcely remember the long months in Iowa in all that snow and cold, all those meetings with bored farmers and stumping through tiny college campus after campus to win over a few students. What did he tell those young kids, he wondered. He tried to summon up some of the slogans and talking points that filled his life back then. That gave him drive and ambition he barely felt before. But he got nothing. They were just words now: dead things devoid of meaning. He pressed down his foot on the accelerator as his mind raced. He thought of Hodges and the amazing love he felt for the man when he first heard him speak, but he had not felt that way for a long time now. He was sucked into this investigation instead, not realizing until too late that his head had sunk under water and into the murky depths. He was adrift of the campaign now and dealt only with bloody events of the past, desperate to both find them out and cover them up.

He saw that his hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. He forced himself to relax, noticing as he did so his car drove past the dark silhouette of Villatoro’s church. He pulled over, got out, and paused to look up skywards into the darkness and gather his breath. Finally, he felt calmer and he entered the church.

Villatoro waited for him, seated on a pew at the back. Mike walked up to him. To save money, Villatoro did not keep electric lights on and only a few flickering candles illuminated the darkness. The priest was like a shade or ghost, the paleness of his face melted into the dim half-light and the dancing shadows. Mike sat down next to him. The two were silent for a moment. Then, to Mike’s surprise, Villatoro spoke first.

“I am glad to have called Natalia my friend,” he said. “You should know that. She taught me more about the power of God’s love than any priest.”

His voice was low but calm.

“She helped murder all those people in Santa Teresa,” Mike said.

Villatoro shook his head. “The fact is for a time Natalia knew God’s forgiveness,” he said. “She was truly sorry for what she did and she loved her daughter as much as any woman I ever knew.”

Villatoro stared at the altar as he spoke but now he turned to look at Mike. His face was serene. “If someone with her past can do that, then we all have hope,” he said. “Do you not see the wonder of God’s work in such a thing?”

Mike could scarcely believe his ears. Yet he felt envy at the priest’s emotions and the sheer love and forgiveness that radiated from him. But that was not all. There was something else. It was Faith. Mike envied him the surety of his beliefs. That these terrible events were not proof of God’s cruelty nor his non-existence but, in fact, the opposite.

“But after that she tried to kill Jack Hodges,” Mike said. “She traveled to America and hid herself with a rifle in a school in Iowa and then tried to shoot him. I’ve followed her trail. She tried to commit murder again.”

“Yes. Not every star shines forever. But we should be glad for her period of Grace. Her choice to become angry once more was a sad one.” The priest paused.

“But your candidate was saved, no? Perhaps that shows God’s hand. You must trust that the universe unfolds as it should. Our Creator would have it no other way.”

The priest stood up and walked in the direction of his back office. Mike stared at his broad back. The feeling of envy nearly over-powered him. How was the priest not angry? How was he so sure of things? But Mike followed obediently behind him like a twig dragged swiftly over rapids by a fast-flowing stream.

In his office Villatoro sat in his chair and reached into a desk drawer. He took out the same tattered box from which he got the photograph of Natalia. He placed it on the table reverently as if it were a Bible. Then he folded his arms across his chest. Mike tried to read his face but it was impassive as stone.