The man at the door kept striking at the barrel until it retreated. At the edge of the hole, the door’s metal skin exploded inward.
The Warriors outside were shooting through without exposing their barrels.
She made it into the next room. The men crowded the back wall, pointing their rifles at the doorway. The black man ran in and slammed the door. He nodded, and someone hefted open a trapdoor in the floor.
The black man walked to the edge. He took in Julia and Stephen. “Come,” he said.
Julia hesitated.
His expression softened. “It’s not a dungeon. It’s an underground passage. To a safer place. It’s only a matter of time before those blokes get in.” Tinged British, his voice was deep and smooth.
As if to appease her, or to indicate he was out of there, with or without her, he stepped into the hole and descended until he was gone. She peered down. A flashlight flicked on, revealing the man’s face at the bottom of steep stairs. She glanced at Stephen and dropped her foot through.
The air below was moist and cool and redolent with an earthy scent that reminded Julia of clean skin. Without a word, the man turned and walked into a tunnel, carved through red dirt and clay. She followed. As they moved deeper, the sounds of the other men’s boots on the steps, the creaking of leather holsters and jackets, the rattle of their weapons became ambient white noise, like the dull roar of a conch. When the man in front of her spoke again, he was a decibel shy of yelling.
“These passageways were constructed during General Stroessner’s dictatorship. He had a passion for torture. Paraguay has been free of him for three decades now, but evil still haunts this little town, so the tunnels remain. The trapdoor we used has a metal core and a good lock on the underside, but even if your mates with the guns get in, they probably won’t find us.”
“Probably?” Julia said.
“Best we can do on short notice.”
They came to a room from which a half dozen tunnels branched off. The man lit a lantern that hung from a hook in the ceiling and waited for the other men to stream in. He spoke in a foreign tongue and someone responded.
“Everyone’s here,” he said. “Name’s Sebastian Tate.” He flashed a set of big teeth and held out his hand.
“Julia,” she said. “This is Stephen.”
His eyes settled on Stephen’s shoulder. “You’re hurt.” He called to someone behind them. An old man with a mangy long beard stepped forward, pushing a huge revolver into the front of his pants. He gingerly peeled Stephen’s jacket and shirt off the shoulder and prodded the wound with long, bony fingers. He waved his hand at it, as if disappointed. “Pire erida,” he said.
“Flesh wound,” Tate interpreted. “Are you in pain?”
“I’ll live.”
To the old man, Tate said, “Poha.”
The man rummaged in a leather pouch tied around his waist, produced three white pills, and handed them to Stephen.
“Aspirin,” Tate said. He turned to Julia. “You look like you can use some too.”
She touched the gash in her forehead. “Yeah, thanks.” She dry-swallowed the pills and asked, “How did you know to help us?”
“Those freaky triplets were shooting at you.”
“Triplets? We only saw two. I think.”
“There were three, as identical as Oreos. One of the men saw them come into town from Angra Road. Only one place those geepas could have come from. And if that place wants you dead, you must be worth saving.”
“What place is that?”
“The old air base. Now let’s get going.” He strode into one of the tunnels. As they walked, he explained that he’d come to Paraguay as a journalist for the London Times, covering the country’s escalating organized crime problem. What he found, however, was infinitely more sensational—the regular disappearance of the citizens of Ponta Pora and Pedro Juan Caballero. Men, women, and children, simply
gone. One per week, on average. His editors were not interested, so he took a year-long sabbatical to investigate, try to write a book. He “came under the enchantment of a beguiling inamorata,” was the way he put it—and the year stretched into two, then three. Despite the area’s paltry cost of living—the typical Paraguayan pulled down less than most Americans spend on cable television—his savings eventually eroded, and he took a job as the northeastern correspondent for ABC Color, Paraguay’s national daily newspaper.
He stopped and turned around, his hand gripping the side of a staircase leading up to a trapdoor, a thin bead of light seeping along its edges. Muted voices filtered through as well. And laughter, which made Julia smile thinly.
“We’re here,” Tate said.
eighty-five
Julia and Stephen followed Sebastian Tate up from
the tunnel into what amounted to its polar opposite: a cavernous warehouse, brightly lit by hanging metal lamps and warmed by a clanking industrial furnace. Boxes and crates lined the walls, leaving a ballroom-sized area in the middle. Like the room at the other end of the tunnel, the floor here was hard-packed earth. A fine pelt of grass had sprouted around the edges of the open area. A flea market’s assortment of tattered sofas, disemboweled easy chairs, automobile seats, and lawn chairs with missing webbing appropriated half of this open area, along with a hodgepodge of shelves, tables, and dressers. The spirited conversation Julia had heard from below came from roughly two dozen people, mostly women.
One of them, a pretty woman in her thirties with flowing black hair, walked quickly toward them. “Mba’eicha?” she asked.
“Opavave al pelo pa,” Tate answered.
She collided with him and wrapped her arm around his neck. He groaned as she squeezed him. Then they kissed, long and passionately. She broke away and studied Julia and Stephen.
Tate spoke to her, and she returned to a small group of women.
“My Rosa,” he said, flashing two rows of big teeth.
Rosa returned with two other women, each trying to talk louder than the others until they were very nearly screaming.
Tate calmed them down, addressing each in turn. He grinned at Julia and Stephen. “Rosa wants to wash your clothes. She says she’s never seen two dirtier people.”
A young woman stepped closer. “Jahu?”
Tate nodded. “Ernestina will prepare baths for you in the back rooms. And Fatima will get you drinks and soo ha chipa—meat and bread.”
“How nice,” Julia said, nodding. “I feel like I should understand them. That’s not Spanish?”
“Guarani. Mostly an aboriginal tongue, with a measure of Spanish tossed in.” He pointed at Stephen’s side. “You’ve got another injury.”
Through the soaked and muddy clothes seeped a basketball-sized circle of blood.
Stephen looked under his arm at the splotch. “Must have torn out the stitches.”
“Roberto will see to that.”
He hailed the old man who’d helped earlier. Roberto grunted off the floor, where he was removing his boots, and began a shuffling journey toward them.
Tate said, “He was trained as a vet, but he’s pretty good with humans too.”
Julia nudged Stephen. “I guess I get a bath first, then.”
“Enjoy.”
Ernestina took her hand and led her toward a door. Before stepping though, Julia looked back. Tate was kneeling by two men, showing them how to field-strip an automatic pistol.
Fifty minutes later, Stephen was sitting on a sofa, Julia
beside him in one of the formerly overstuffed chairs. Both were wrapped in heavy Indian quilts, self-consciously waiting for Rosa to return with their clothes. Whatever the temporary discomfort of sitting almost nude among strangers, Julia thought, being warm and clean was worth it. She’d had to drain the tub of its murky red water after a quick submersion and refill it to soak the rest of the grime off her body. Even so, she was still dislodging granules of cinnabar sand whenever she ran her fingertips over her scalp.
Fatima stepped up to the low table
before them, balancing three large bowls in her arms. As she set each on the table, she announced its contents. “Yva.” She lowered a bowl of whole fruit: apples, bananas, mangos, and mostly oranges. “Asodos.” Steaming slices of charbroiled meat.
A hearty aroma washed past Julia, and despite the meal she’d eaten at the Pig’s Eye Tavern, she felt hungry again. By Stephen’s rapt attention to the bowl, she guessed he was feeling the same.
“Chipa.” Loaves of brioche-type bread, so hot the girl’s beaming face wavered behind its steam. Fatima straightened, planted her hands on her hips, and smiled, pleased with herself.
“Gracia,” Julia said.
Ernestina had given her a cursory lesson in Guarani. So far, Julia’s repertoire consisted of four words: yes, no, thanks, and bathroom. What more did anyone need?
Fatima nodded at Julia. She swung her head around, tossing her hair over one shoulder. She flashed emerald eyes at Stephen and gave him a smile measurably bigger and brighter than the one Julia had received. “Okaru.”
Stephen stared dumbly at her. Julia couldn’t tell if it was the word or her stunning beauty, so flirtatiously displayed, that left him speechless.
“Okaru,” she repeated and pretended to pick something out of one of the bowls with all five fingers and put it into her mouth. “Okaru.”
“Eat!” Stephen said, snapping out of his daze. “Yes, thank you … gracia.”
Fatima pursed her lips into a coy smile and sauntered off.
No chef in Paris or New York could have made a dish better tasting than the asodos and chipa. The two ate leisurely and watched their hosts move about the big room, discussing points, studying maps, cleaning and re-cleaning guns. A few wandered over, nodded solemn greetings, grabbed oranges, and returned to their business. Julia became aware of an almost palpable sense of apprehension hanging in the air, a musty odor of fear.
A shifting shadow caught her eye, and she spotted a man sitting high on a stack of crates, peering out one of the windows that lined the top of the twenty-foot-high walls. In the shadows, only his dark shape was visible against the dull-iron luminance of the world that lay beyond the glass, but she could clearly make out his rifle. She was scanning for other lookouts when Fatima came by with two mugs made from bull horns.
“Terere,” she called the drink. They thanked her and she left, swishing her simple cotton dress to and fro as she did.
Julia smelled the concoction and sipped. She made a face and set the mug on the table.
“You better like that,” Tate warned, plopping down on the sofa next to Stephen. “Everybody drinks that stuff here. Everybody, all the time.” “It’s bitter,” she complained.
“You get used to it.” He surveyed the remaining food on the table, peeled off a strip of bread, and pushed it into his mouth. Chewing slowly, he leveled his sad, perceptive eyes at her. He was not smiling. “Wanna tell me why you’re here and why Nana-ykua doesn’t want you to be?”
“Nana … ?”
“Nana-ykua. It means ‘Demon of the pit.’ The townsfolk believe that place is evil, and for good reason. Long as most can remember, people would go out that way and never come back. Or they would—with tales of the guards shooting at them. What are you here for?”
Stephen answered. “They kidnapped my brother.”
Tate nodded. “That’s what they do. That bloke over there, the one with the scar on his face? That’s Emilio. His papa disappeared ten years ago, right off the streets here in PJC. Emilio went to the local tahachi, the police. Said they’d look into it, but they didn’t. One of our men, who used to be on the force, said a drive out to the gates of the air base was good for a 100,000-guarani banknote—a couple days’ wages. Emilio even went to Asuncion, to the federales. Nothing ever came of it. He got together with others who’d lost someone, a wife, a child. They’d go out and take potshots at the guards, the buildings, try to sabotage the vehicles heading out there. Eventually Nana-ykua installed heavier security, some really nasty stuff, and that ended that. Emilio and his mates started patrolling the streets at night. They interrupted a couple kidnappings. Beat them good. After a few of those, the disappearances stopped. Then they began in Cerro Cora, about fifteen klicks west. We helped set up patrols there too. Then in Antonio Joao. Kept pushing the kidnappings farther and farther away. Where’d they get your brother?”
“Chattanooga.”
“In the States?” Tate’s eyes flashed wide. “Whoa.”
“Not the same kind of kidnapping,” Julia said. “But they have him, and we want him back.”
Rosa came over and sat on Tate’s lap. She spoke to him.
Tate nodded at Stephen. “Your clothes are ready. They’re in the back room, where the baths are.”
Stephen left, and Rosa began running her fingers over Tate’s head and neck.
Julia watched for a moment, then said, “You’ve made this your home.”
“Rosa’s my home.” He closed his eyes, feeling her gentle massage. Then he looked around the room. “These are wonderful people. Kind-hearted. Generous. They don’t deserve what’s been happening to them. Husbands, wives, kids—just gone. Stolen. At first I wanted to expose the problem the only way I knew how, by writing about it. Then I found Rosa, and all these mates found me. Now I want to help in more tangible ways.”
“That’s admirable, fighting their cause.”
“It’s my cause now too.” He smiled up at his lady. “Rosa won’t go back to England with me. She won’t leave her family. So this is my home, as long as Rosa will have me.”
Rosa kissed the top of his head, then his ear.
“Looks like the feeling’s mutual,” Julia said. She paused a moment. “You’re handy with guns.”
“SAS, in a previous life.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him, seeing more in his weathered face and firm body than she had before. SAS was considered the first and still the best special forces unit in the world.
“This ragtag bunch,” he continued, “farmers and ranchers mostly, needed my kind of help.”
“To protect themselves from the kidnappings?” A former SAS member seemed like overkill. Start taking people where she came from, and a good two-by-four would put an end to that quick enough.
“They have bigger plans, if they can ever—”
He looked up and nodded appreciatively.
Stephen was heading toward them, dressed in clean clothes and looking thoroughly pleased by the fact. As he walked past a cluster of men, the man Tate had identified as Emilio stepped up to him. The two spoke words and continued heading toward the oasis of furniture set to one side of the expansive room.
Stephen plopped down and held up something for Julia to see. It was a big revolver.
“He wants you to inspect it,” explained Tate. “It was his father’s.”
“Yes, my papa’s. A nice gun,” confirmed Emilio, standing by the couch and grinning down at Stephen.
Stephen hefted the weapon and sighted down the barrel.
“Very nice,” he said. He handed it back to Emilio, who lofted it proudly, then shoved it into his waistband.
“Well, look at you,” Julia said, eyeing Stephen’s fresh appearance.
Stephen tugged at his collar and brushed the front of his clean and apparently ironed shirt. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I am myself again.” He plucked some meat out of the bowl and folded it into his mouth.
Emilio pulled a lawn chair closer and sat.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” she told him.
“You feel better?”
“Much, almost human. I’ll feel even better with my clothes on.”
Emilio blushed, the blood giving his dark skin a cinnamon hue. “Soon, I think.” He spoke to Rosa, who glanced at Julia and laughed good-naturedly. She slid off Tate’s lap and walked toward the back rooms.
“I’m fine, really.” Julia pulled the quilt tighter and tucked the edges under her legs. She turned to Tate. “You said they have bigger plans that could use your
SAS background. What?”
“To crush Nana-ykua!” Emilio said. He yanked the pistol out of his waistband and pumped it in the air. “Aikoteve peikoteve che rehe, Nana-ykua!”
Cheers and hoots sprang from the men around the room.
“Well …” Tate said, patting the air to calm Emilio and urge him to put away his weapon. “Someday.”
“Someday? No someday!” Emilio said. He smiled at Julia. “We get them now, no?”
Stephen was nodding. Julia didn’t know how to respond. Was Emilio offering this group’s help? Could they really go in, guns blazing, and get Allen?
Emilio said, “Bad people out there. Who is gone? Who they take?”
“My brother.”
“Oh, eme’ena.” He stood and yelled at the others, an obvious rallying cry.
The other men raised their weapons over their heads. Some had to dash across the room to grab a pistol or rifle. They chanted the same phrase over and over. To Julia it sounded like the non-words of an Ennio Morricone soundtrack, or maybe “We can fight! We can fight!”
Emilio slammed his revolver down on the wood table. He raised Julia’s horn of terere. “We go tomorrow,” he said, showing her every tooth in his mouth. “No more! No more Nana-ykua!” Tonight we rejoice and drink.” He hoisted the horn. The brown liquid splashed out, soaking his face. He laughed and the other men joined in.
Julia grinned at Stephen. She asked, “You ready?”
“No more Nana-ykua!” he said, punching his fist in the air.
eighty-six
Julia’s eyes snapped open. She gasped for air, but nothing came. A palm was clasped tightly over her mouth. Her hand immediately slid under the jacket she was using as a pillow; then she remembered she did not have a pistol.
Tate’s face loomed out of the darkness. He held a finger to his lips and removed his hand. He turned from her and pressed his hand over Stephen’s mouth. He woke much more gracefully than she had: only his eyelids moved, sliding open like those of a restless corpse in a movie. She checked her watch. 3:40.
Tate jerked his head toward the door of the little room they occupied and started picking his way over the sleeping bodies of the men around them. Julia and Stephen followed him with their backpacks. They stepped out of the smaller room into the cavernous central room, which was nearly as dark; fat bars of moonlight fell through the high windows and streaked the floor. Tate pressed himself against the wall and looked up at those windows
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