The Fighting Man (1993) (14 page)

They came at seven minutes after the given take-off time.

The big station wagon speeding across the runway, as if they believed the runway were their property, and the brakes screaming, and them spilling out.

He remembered faces, had always been good with faces. There was the one who went under the title of Intelligence Analyst, quiet and superior. The one who was called the Treasurer, spectacles and austere, like the bank man who had his account in Florida. The one who was the Liaison Officer down from Southern Command, who seemed to believe that an American infantry officer was a favoured creature. The flier went to them, pointed to his watch.

He let them come to him.

They were dressed in old fatigues. Their caps were DEA, set clumsily. The Treasurer and the Intelligence Analyst had not shaved. They carried Colt carbines. He thought that they took enjoyment from playing at soldiers, dressing up as military men. He heard the grovelled apologies. Something about the traffic coming south out of the city. He thought that they hated to apologize to anyone, and in particular to a Guatemalan officer.

Colonel Arturo smiled with sweetness. ‘Well, if you are ready, gentlemen . . . ?’

He walked to the helicopter. He knew the Huey UH-1H. The air force of Guatemala had five of the UH-1H machines, difficult to maintain now after the ban on all military supplies imposed by the Washington liberals for so-called human rights violations, just shit. They banned the supplies for old Guatemalan Hueys, and rippled enough muscle to
demand
the right to station their own helicopters and DEA personnel on the sovereign territory of Guatemala. He felt the small surge to his anger . . . They came behind him. At the hatch of the helicopter he asked to see the flight plan. He asked to be told the schedule.

He made the last point. He checked his pistol and his Uzi, confirmed they were unloaded and then looked into the faces of the flier and the Intelligence Analyst and the Treasurer and the Liaison, challenged them.

‘I’m sorry, it is a rule of the Guatemalan armed forces that firearms must always be checked before they are taken onto a helicopter or fixed wing. I am sorry if that is not the procedure of the Americans . . .’

They cleared their weapons. He would not be dominated.

FROM
: Security Service, London.

TO
: Ministry of Defence, Intelligence, London.

REF
: BREN/Rm129B/CentAm/932.

ATTENTION
: Personnel.

See attached. Backgrounder required soonest on BROWN, Gordon Benjamin.

Brennard G.

End.

They were away from the part of the graveyard where the tall stones stood shoulder to shoulder in parade, the crosses and Virgins of remembrance. The burial plot for the disappeared son of a street salesman was rough ground at the far edge of the graveyard, where waist-high weeds had been cleared. Alex shaded her eyes. The moisture was in the armpit of her best T-shirt, and streams of perspiration ran to the small of her back and were held at the tightness of the waist of the skirt. Before she had come to Guatemala she had only attended the funerals of her grandparents; her knowledge of funerals was just about all from Guatemala. The priest talked fast. Only a small attendance. If the student had died in a road accident, if illness had taken him, then the whole street in which he had lived would have come for the funeral. He had died after being seized, tortured, by the Death Squads, and few had the courage to be there. She thought the priest gabbled the service; only the strongest call of duty had beaten his fear of consequences.

The man beside her, tired, middle-aged, smelled of sweat. She was in the third row back from the graveside and the first earth had been thrown to rattle down onto the box of cheap wood. The man beside her wore a white shirt and a good tie, and a suit that showed the creases of life in a wardrobe, and he mopped at his high forehead with his handkerchief. The father of the disappeared student was supported by his wife and his daughter. Alex thought the strength of the mother was magnificent, humbling. The man beside her, several times, swore under his breath, and his face was screwed in sharp anger. The wife and the daughter of the disappeared led the father from the graveside, and the priest was hurrying away.

The gravediggers ladled the earth into the pit with long-handled spades.

‘How did you know him?’

‘I taught him, I taught him the seditious subject of
mathematics
. I also told him that he was stupid to go to demonstrations, naïve to think that because a civilian sits in the Palacio Nacional anything is different in Guatemala. He was only a boy who held banners and ran from the police when they fired the gas, and shouted. He was no threat to them . . . You are from the Peace Brigades, yes? You are the people who preach the non-violence? I tell you, the non-violence is rubbish. Nothing will change in Guatemala without violence. They will have to be burned out, the generals and the colonels and the men of the Death Squads . . . My wife this morning will be crying in fear in our house because I have made the slight and insignificant gesture of going to my student’s funeral. My dear young lady with the fine intentions, it would be difficult for you to understand the fear in which we live.’

Alex said simply, ‘There is no-one to burn them out.’

He made a reply. She did not hear his words. A helicopter went low overhead. It seemed to tilt in its flight as if to give the crew and passengers a better view of a dispersing crowd in a city graveyard. She followed the flight of the helicopter, watched it soar and head away for the north.

It was what she believed, there was no alternative to the turned cheek.

He was gone from her side.

She walked back to the Land Rover.

She saw the set teeth of her dog.

There was a plain envelope tucked under one of the windscreen wipers. She snatched it, crumpled it, threw it onto the floor in front of the passenger seat.

Down the road was the car with the smoked-glass windows and the idling engine.

FROM
: Security Service, London.

TO
: Secret Intelligence Service, London.

REF
: BREN/Rm129B/CentAm/934.

ATTENTION
: Central America Desk.

See attached. Require soonest assessment of stability of current Guatemala regime. What possibility insurrection?

What opposition group could BROWN, Gordon Benjamin, be recruited to? What Cuban involvement?

Brennard G.

End.

The helicopter crossed above them. Vee was further ahead and Zed was further behind, but the rest of them were gathered close and squatting and sitting and flopped, rest halt, near to the wide root base of a ceiba tree. The butterflies were around them, but there were fewer mosquitoes, the bastards would be back by the end of the afternoon and Gord had seen Zeppo scratch at his neck and ankles . . . He had not spoken through the morning, at any of the rest halts, to Zeppo nor to Harpo. He had watched and he had learned. Jorge spoke to them, cudgelled them and encouraged them, and won grudged response. Jorge had the way with them . . . The helicopter, he thought, would have been at an altitude of little more than a thousand feet but the tree canopy could have muffled the beat of the rotors, it might have been higher. The noise of the engine grew. All of their eyes, useless, were turned to the wigwam frame of the stacked rifles. The noise of an engine was a threat, recognized by all of them. Groucho’s tongue slipped to his lips, nervously moistening them. Zeppo was peering up into the leaf ceiling of the trees. The helicopter was directly over them. Harpo clenched, unclenched, his fists. The power of the engine beat down through the canopy. Eff had giggled and made a play with his hands of shooting upwards. Jorge grinned, a flash of teeth. The helicopter was moving away. Their world was the jungle and the tightness of trees and vegetation and vines, and it was the world of the mosquito swarms, and it was the world of the bright fluttering butterflies. And outside their world was the fighting . . .

Gord pushed himself up.

He said it grimly, ‘Time we were moving.’

He stood and wriggled the straps of his pack over his shoulders. He could watch and he could learn. Jorge pulled Zeppo up and laughed, and then Jorge lifted up Harpo’s pack and helped him to take the weight of it. He saw the way that Groucho gazed on Jorge, rank admiration. Gord felt almost a jealousy. Bloody Jorge, pretty boy, doing the rounds of hearts and minds, winning friends and influencing people, while all the won friends and influenced people detested the pompous bully that was Gordon Benjamin Brown. His turn for the pretty boy’s attention.

‘All right, Gord?’

‘Fine . . .’

‘You are a bit afraid?’ said quiet, private.

‘I am not afraid,’ Gord hissed.

Jorge said, ‘Then you are alone, and lucky, we are all afraid of the helicopter. Perhaps it was with tourists, or with oil men, or with a rancher, or perhaps it was a military helicopter. We don’t know, so we are all afraid – all but you. You should be a very happy man. Gord, that you are not afraid . . .’

He was squashed. Gord’s creed of leadership dictated that the front runner must never show weakness nor demonstrate hesitation. The young man fragmented the concrete of the creed. Gord thought the more of him. It was the humanity that had captured him, but then he knew sweet damn all about humanity.

‘We have to make ground,’ Gord said.

He could no longer hear the helicopter, only the creaking cart wheels of the flame thrower.

FROM
: BREN, Rm129B.

TO
: HOBBES, Hispanic Affairs Desk. Rm93A.

Meeting, please, at your convenience.

Thanks,

Brennard G.

End.

They ran courses on most projections at Quantico, the Virginia training base. But they hadn’t allocated lecture time on how to confuse the ass off a ranking Guatemalan field officer. The guy smirked, like the plan was baby games, like they’d telegraphed him the identity of their Confidential Informant.

A fast walk round the buildings of the
finca
, and the cattle stockades, and the fodder barns and the tractor sheds, and then the Intelligence Analyst and the Treasurer had disappeared, and the
caporal
, the work overseer who had been walking with them and hanging behind the manager, he’d gone as well. What Tom saw was the smart satisfaction smile of the colonel. They’d taken tea in the manager’s office, and sandwiches, and just about finished the meal when the Intelligence Analyst and the Treasurer had shown again.

‘There’s another strip, south-east, I’d like to see that, Tom . . .’

‘No problem.’

Tom shrugged his agreement to the Intelligence Analyst. It was done like he was being asked a favour, to take them to the next strip. But he was just the ferry man. He was the flier and he provided the lifts, and his bird was the workhorse. He could see the frustration of the Intelligence Analyst, fidgeting, smoking, and not willing to believe the Confidential Informant, the
caporal
, until the second strip had been checked out.

Tom had had his supper in the embassy dining hall the previous night with the Treasurer. The Treasurer had said this was the most fucking corrupt country he’d served in, worse than Peru, made the Brazilians seem like altar kids. The Treasurer had said that he hadn’t yet met a Guatemalan that he trusted. The Treasurer sat now boot-faced, like it was dollars going down the deep drain.

They’d all taken their weapons when Tom Schultz had parked the bird, and they all checked them before they boarded again.

He took her up carefully.

The colonel was beside him, but the guys behind were quiet. It was shaping into a bad day . . . They didn’t look in the DEA, the recruiters, for men and women who thought they were on crusade when they were off narcotics-hunting. Crusaders were unstable and would have been weeded out in the Total Background checks. They had their commitment, and bad days were not welcome . . . He flew low. There was cloud gathering with a poor ceiling. He stayed under the cloud the few miles to the strip that was south-east of the
finca
.

It was clear from the air.

It was like a kid had used a brown crayon marker on the green of the landing strip. There were the two sets of brown tramlines. He saw the run of the landing wheels and the run of the lift-off wheels . . . The colonel banged his arm and the bird bucked because the blow shook his hand on the cyclic control stick . . . Asshole . . . Mad, he turned . . . Shitface . . . The colonel was pointing down. Tom saw it.

Beyond the end of the strip was a black gouged hole in the tree line.

He was at the hover. He was shouting. He was gesturing for the guys behind. He could feel their weight craning forward against his shoulders.

Tom brought her down. First touch of the skids and the colonel was unbuckled, jumping and running.