The Return: A Novel (48 page)

*   *   *

They heard honking behind them. Father Santana checked his mirrors and then pulled to the side of the road to allow a convoy of pickup trucks to pass. Each one carried a posse of hard-faced young men, standing and swaying, the barrels of their assault rifles making a picket around their close-cropped skulls.

“I wonder what that’s about,” said the reporter.

“The clans are gathering, it seems,” said Marder.

“Let me check the Net.” Pepa twiddled her smartphone for a few minutes and then exclaimed, “Jesus Maria!”

“What?” The two men in unison.

“The Templos bombed one of Cuello’s boats in the marina at Playa Diamante and machine-gunned one of their cantinas.”

“Did they get the
jefe
?” Marder asked.

“It’s not being reported. I rather doubt it; he’s careful and he has a lot of boats, both in the Playa and in Cárdenas, and any number of properties he controls. In any case, it looks like the war is heating up, and it’s apparently going to happen here, on the coast.”

This idea was confirmed when two more such convoys, with dozens of vehicles and hundreds of men, passed before they hit the coastal road. As they made their northward turn, Marder said, “Look, I’d appreciate it if you kept quiet about Carmel and Lourdes for a while. I want to tell Skelly about it myself.”

*   *   *

In the event, Skelly got only a partial truth. Marder found him in the command center, formerly the living room of the mansion, now packed with the adult population of the island, and many of the children. Skelly stood soldier-straight in front of a whitewashed half sheet of plywood, upon which had been drawn a large-scale map of Isla de los Pájaros. Marder waited by the door at the back and watched; Skelly saw him but did not acknowledge his presence.

Skelly was, of course, an excellent military briefer, and Marder could see he was getting his points across despite his halting Spanish. He even had a sheet of clear plastic that he dropped over his map and drew on with china markers to show the locations of his troops. The tactical situation was not complex. The island was a hog-backed, egg-shaped territory oriented north–south, connected to the mainland slightly below its equator by the causeway, a distance of perhaps one hundred meters. There were a hundred or so meters of beach on the seaward side, with the remainder of the northern coast occupied by cliffs plunging directly into the sea. The house, now the final redoubt, was located on the peak of the ridge in the center of the southern hemisphere, directly in line with the causeway.

Skelly’s shining pointer—a recycled car aerial—flitted over the chart, indicating the only possible routes of attack: the causeway itself, the beach, and the south side of the island, where the former owner had constructed a tiny marina, with a semicircular basin and two wooden docks. The defending forces owned three DShK heavy machine guns and six PKM light machine guns, all ex–Soviet Army, and, from the same source, seventy-two AK-47 rifles. Skelly had eighty-four men at his disposal, including the three Hmong—
los chinos
, as the people called them—who now sat together in one corner of the room, squatting against the walls and whispering together in their chirring tongue.
Los chinos
would each command one of the DShKs—huge 12.7-mm machine guns on wheeled carriages—and these would constitute the heart of the three strong points on which the defense was based and which were directed against the three supposed routes of attack.

Flick flick flick
went the pointer. The other men had been arranged in four platoons. Three would support the strong points: Alpha on the roof terrace and house approaches, commanding the causeway; Bravo to the south, above the marina; and Charlie, deployed below the terraces of the house and directed at the beach. Delta would be based in the house proper and be used as a reserve or the core of a last-ditch defense.

A simple plan, Marder thought, but they could have only simple plans with the kind of half-trained soldiers they had. He looked at their faces as Skelly concluded his talk. “Any questions?” Skelly asked. There were none. The peasants and artisans of the Colonia Feliz defense force clutched their unfamiliar rifles and moved uneasily within their webgear, and most of them wore on their mild brown faces the look of boys standing along the wall at their first dance. Some of the younger ones, of course, had tied on red headbands and looked fierce, and now Marder found that almost everyone was looking at him. After a moment’s hesitation, he went to the front of the room.

Marder had not given many speeches in his life, and certainly none like this, but he relied on the generic type of such speeches, many of which had been given to people such as these in the history of their unhappy land. He told them that they were about to make history, that they fought against wicked people who were trying to steal their land and destroy everything they had worked for and steal the future of their children. He said that he had come here as a stranger but that his late wife was from around here and that he had resolved to build a monument to her memory by doing something she would have done, had she been able. He told them that his wife’s parents had been murdered, as so many others had been, by the evil ones, the same ones who would shortly come here with their weapons, thinking that they could simply take anything they wanted by violence. He said he swore to them on his wife’s memory and by the Blessed Virgin that he would never give in, that he would resist to his last drop of blood. He said that if anyone wanted to leave, they could go now, without shame, but once the battle started he expected everyone to give what he himself would be happy to give, his life for peace and justice and a better future for them and their children. Long live the Colonia Feliz!

Marder raised his fist as he said this last, feeling like a fool and a fraud, but in fact the people cheered; they cheered, Viva Don Ricardo, Viva Don Eskelly, Viva la Colonia Feliz.
Arriba los Felizistas!
Marder caught Pepa Espinoza staring at him with a look he had not seen on her face before, a kind of stunned surprise.

The people started to leave for their posts and other duties. Marder took Skelly’s arm and suggested they take a walk. They went out through the front door, through the gardens of the house, and onto the road that led to the village. They passed the beer truck that Skelly had used to transport the weapons from Asia. Marder noticed that a crew of men was loading it with bags of fertilizer.

“I see you’re making good use of La Familia’s beer truck,” said Marder.

“Yeah, we have to spread the fertilizer around, up where they have crops started.”

“If they’re still planting stuff, I guess they think we can defend the island.”

“And you must think so too. That was quite a speech, boss, I got to say. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“But, seriously, what are our chances at this point?”

“Seriously? Like in any combat situation, it depends. I mean, it’s not
suicide
, or I wouldn’t be here. These boys aren’t real soldiers, but they’re fighting for their homes, and that counts, as we all learned in Vietnam. I can’t try anything fancy, and I’ll be satisfied if they just stay in their positions and fire their weapons in a disciplined fashion. On the plus side, we have better weapons, real military pieces, made by people who expected them to be used by peasants. They’re reasonably accurate and totally indestructible. The other guys have American fake ARs designed to feed the fantasies of right-wing assholes. If it comes to slaughter, that stuff won’t hold up. Also, our enemies aren’t soldiers either, and they’re fighting for an easy life where they get to push everyone around. Is that as important or as inspiring as fighting for hearth and home? Well, the Wehrmacht did pretty well for a while on that basis, but, again,
los malosos
are not the Wehrmacht. I don’t think they’ll advance against the kind of automatic fire we can bring on them for a while. ‘For a while’ is the key point there. We have no resupply, obviously, and not that much ammo, maybe three hundred rounds for each rifle and a couple of thousand for each machine gun. Twenty-six of our homemade claymores, five dozen or so homemade grenades. We were supposed to get RPGs, but they weren’t in the shipment. Baan said they’re coming on the—get this!—
next
shipment. Everyone’s all Amazon dot com nowadays. So, the bottom line is, I think we can hold out for a while, long enough for the story to get out and the army to move in. Absent that—well, we run out of ammo, we use sharp sticks and harsh words.”

“What makes you think the army will come?”

Both men turned, surprised, toward the source of this comment. Pepa was there with her Sony, having clearly followed them out and discreetly trailed them.

“Why
wouldn’t
they come?” asked Marder.

“First, because the action is up north, in the big cities, and down in Acapulco. There’s mass murder in Veracruz, Guadalajara, Monterrey, not to mention the killing zone along the border. And they’ve started up in the Defe itself and that’s intolerable; it’s an affront to national sovereignty. The point is, your small war may not be a priority for the army just now. Second, they might see it as a minor skirmish among gang factions. They didn’t hear your noble speech about defending hearth and home, besides which, peasants resisting with military arms is not something the rulers of Mexico ever want to encourage. All I’m saying is that if you’re counting on the military to bail you out, you may be disappointed.”

“I’m counting on you, though,” said Marder, “as much as on the soldiers.”

“On me.”

“Yes. On your talent and on the Internet. You’ll record what we’re doing and send it out: interviews, action, rockets’ red glare, bombs bursting in air, the dead and dying, the whole story of a popular resistance to the rule of the narcos. If you’re not killed, you’ll be famous.”

She looked stunned.

Skelly roared out a laugh. “That’s very sweet, Marder. Yet another invitation to join your death trip. Of course, it could be a problem getting the news out, because the first thing they’ll do is cut the Internet cable. The box is right there at the foot of the causeway.”

“It can go out through the cell tower,” said Marder.

“And that’s going to be their main target when they get here,” said Skelly. “Pepa might have to swim for it with a thumb drive in her mouth.”

“If I have to, I will,” said Pepa, surprising herself. It was not the sort of thing she usually said; it was like something in a bad film. That’s remarkable too, she thought; whenever we make a noble statement it sounds false in our ears. An interesting question, and she considered it for a few moments in silence.

Just then a group of children ran by, carrying ammunition boxes and containers holding food and water for the men on the lines. They were chattering and laughing and having a good time. One of them was the boy Ariel, who turned and waved gaily to Marder and shouted out something Marder didn’t quite catch.

“Did he say, ‘Victory or death’?”

“I believe he did,” said Pepa. “My God!”

Marder turned to Skelly and said, “Well, Patrick, once more we find ourselves in an enterprise likely to lead to the death of numerous children. I wonder why that is.”

“I guess we’re just lucky,” said Skelly, not smiling now. “By the way, do you know where Lourdes is? I haven’t seen her around since early this morning.”

“She should be in Mexico City,” said Marder. “Father Santana left for the airport with her and Statch early today.” Misleading, but not exactly lies.

Skelly gave Marder his shark look—something Marder hadn’t seen since Vietnam, and it took all his self-control not to quail before it.

“Oh? How did that get arranged?”

“She wanted to go. She’s not a prisoner. Didn’t she tell you she was going?”

“No. And neither did you. Or your girlfriend.” Skelly started to say something, then thought better of it and assumed a grin, although Marder could see by the way his nose pinched and went white around the nostrils that he was very angry.

“Okay, I’m a big boy. I get that she’s scared, she’s got some opportunities to pursue—I wish her the best. Maybe I’ll go up there and see her after this is over.” He clapped his hands, once. “Well, this has been pleasant, but right now I have to get to
el golf
and check out the troops.”

Skelly started to leave, but Marder touched him on the shoulder. “Wait—when the thing goes down, where do you want me?”

A more genuine smile returned. “Well, not in the command center anyway. Every time I gave an order they’d be looking at the
patrón
. How about up on the roof with the big rifle and your Steyr? You can snipe. I know you enjoy sniping.”

They watched him walk away.

“He’s as bad as they are,” said Pepa.

“Perhaps not quite as bad,” replied Marder. “And he’s on our side.”

“Is he? You’re very trusting where he’s concerned, Marder, and I have to say it’s unusual for such a devious person as yourself to be trusting that way, especially with respect to a
chingaquedito
like him.”

“Well, we go back a long way. Can you handle a kayak?”

She giggled, an unusual sound, and gave him a grin that dropped ten years from her face. “Well, change the subject! Can I handle a kayak? I spent three summers on the Sea of Cortez attending a very exclusive camp for rich young ladies, so, yes, I can handle a kayak, although it’s been … I’m embarrassed to say how many years. Why do you ask?”

“Because, if worse comes to worst and you have to get out of here with, as Skelly said, a thumb drive in your mouth, there’s a plastic kayak in an azalea thicket just to the west of the boathouse down by the marina. You’d want to wait for dark.”

“You cooked up an escape route for your daughter?”

“For you, actually. Carmel could swim off this island about as fast as you could paddle. And the kayak was here already. From the fun-loving Guzmán. I just stashed it there when they turned the boathouse into a strong point. Of course, there’s Skelly’s cabin cruiser, but he’s got the key to it, and also it’s kind of a big target. You’d do better with the kayak.”