She was wearing only underpants, her arms covering her breasts. Cerdo grabbed her clothes, then wadded them into a ball and pitched them to Joaquin. He held the bundle in open hands, as if offering Nisho her clothes. She came toward him, pleading as she reached for the bundle. He laughed in her face and quickly pitched it back to the fat guy. He made the same phony offer, and again Nisho fell for it. He tossed her clothes back to another guerrilla. She was soon running back and forth, still trying to cover herself, tears streaming down her face.
“Stop it!” shouted Matthew.
The sharpshooter responded with another warning, this one even closer. Matthew stopped in his tracks, still knee-deep in the eddy.
“Nisho! Nishooooooo!” Joaquin shouted.
She was bouncing back and forth, one guerrilla to the next, as they played keep-away with her clothes. As she raced by Joaquin, he reached out and grabbed her by the panties, ripping them off. She screamed and fell. The guerrillas shouted with excitement as Joaquin waved the panties over his head. The guerrillas formed a circle around her, tossing her clothes from one to the next, over Nisho’s head, behind her back, howling each time she reached up and exposed her nakedness. Joaquin put his gun aside and grabbed her from behind, taking a breast in each hand. She kicked and swung wildly as he lifted her from the ground, then bit his arm.
He cried out and slapped her across the head.
Matthew seized the moment and dived for Joaquin’s gun. He got a hand on it, but only for a split second. Cerdo rapped him across the head with the butt of his rifle. Matthew fell to the ground hard, bleeding from the head.
Her screaming grew more shrill and desperate. The guerrillas were shouting, no longer laughing. It was more like a barbaric chant.
Matthew sensed that someone was standing over him, but his head was throbbing, his vision blurring. Gradually the noises faded. He raised his head one last time, just high enough to see three men drag a screaming Nisho off behind the rocks, and then his world turned black.
43
Maria and I had traveled by boat up the coast from Puerto Cabezas, then hiked another half hour into the thick of the rain forest. The Mosquito Coast was living up to its name. I was covered with insect repellent, but nothing short of dousing myself in gasoline and setting myself on fire could have deterred these monsters. I was sure they’d drawn at least a pint of my blood by the time we reached the first clearing. We stopped for water from our canteens atop a barren, muddy hill. Hundreds of short sticks were protruding up from the ground.
“What’s with all the sticks?” I asked.
“Mudslide. The last hurricane. Used to be a village here. The sticks are where we found the bodies.”
I took a wider look and saw even more sticks. Hundreds more in every direction, up one slope and down another. It was the jungle version of Arlington National Cemetery, except that everybody here, children included, had been washed away at the same horrific moment in the same giant river of mud. Maria fell silent, eyes closed, as if in prayer. I bowed my head and said a little one of my own.
That was our last real break of the afternoon. We walked nonstop for two more hours, sharing water along the way, until we finally reached an old Miskito Indian settlement at dusk. It was little more than a small clearing in the trees. There were no real roads, only footpaths that led from the hub to the forest in all directions, like the spokes of a wheel. In the center of the clearing was an old wooden building that appeared to be a combination church and schoolhouse. About a dozen tumbledown shacks surrounded it. A group of Indian children came out to greet us as we entered their village. I was suddenly surrounded by outstretched hands, some of them tugging at my backpack. They knew Maria by name, which lessened my anxiety.
“I used to teach here,” she said over the incessant chatter of the children.
“Teach what?”
“Bible school.”
I suddenly understood what had drawn her to Lindsey, a lost soul if ever there was one.
Maria said something in the native Miskito language, and the smiling children backed away, allowing us to pass. I followed her around to the back of the church, where she stopped at the door to a small cottage. She knocked twice, and the door opened. A woman with short blond hair was standing in the doorway, the first Caucasian I’d seen since leaving Managua. The short hair threw me. In the waning daylight I almost didn’t recognize my own sister.
“Nick?” she said.
“I came to see if you want to change your long-distance carrier.”
She smiled, appreciating the humor, then came out and gave me a rather unexpected hug. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I said.
We didn’t tell Maria that we wanted to talk alone, but on her own initiative she headed off to chat with her former pupils. Lindsey led me inside, closed the door, and lit the oil lamp on the table. It was a one-room shack, and the lamp was the only source of light. The bed was a woven hammock. A pitcher and washbasin were resting on the nightstand beside it. The floor was a collection of straw mats on dirt. We sat at opposite sides of the table on the only two chairs in the room. She offered me a tin cup of water.
“You’ve had your shots, right?”
“I got them before I went to Colombia.”
“You went to Colombia?”
The way she’d asked, it was clear that she didn’t know about Dad. She seemed genuinely shocked as I told her all about the kidnapping. It took several minutes. I finished with the part that I assumed would be of greatest interest to her.
“The insurance company thinks you’re behind Dad’s kidnapping.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“That’s what I thought. For starters, how would you even know he had kidnap-and-ransom insurance?”
She paused, then said, “Actually, I think I did know that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dad never came right out and told me he had it. But he wanted to buy a policy for me, and I guess I sort of assumed he had it for himself.”
“Now I’m really confused. The last time you and I had a phone conversation, you said that you hadn’t spoken to Mom or Dad since Christmas.”
“The last time you and I talked was almost three months ago.”
“Are you saying things have changed between you and Dad?”
“Honestly, we were becoming. . close.”
I put down my tin cup, leaned into the table, and looked her in the eye. “Lindsey, knock off the games. Maria told me about you and Guillermo. I know all about the story you were writing on the plight of these divers.”
“Did she also tell you that Dad was my source?”
“She said it was Guillermo. An unwitting Guillermo at that.”
“Anybody who asked, I told them it was Guillermo. This is a dangerous story. Dad was really sticking his neck out by feeding me information.”
“So you decided to put Guillermo’s neck on the chopping block?”
“He deserved it. The creep never told me he had a wife in Florida.”
“You didn’t know he was married?”
“How would I? She’s never here. I guess she prefers Palm Beach to Managua.”
“Go figure.”
“Anyway, after Dad dressed me down for dating his partner, we started meeting for coffee twice a week, that sort of thing. It didn’t take long for him to realize that my journalism career was going nowhere. That’s when he asked me to write this story.”
“You expect me to believe that he asked you to expose the abuses of his own company?”
“It’s not about his company. Rey’s Seafood trains its divers and uses the right equipment. Its divers get paid very well, too. That’s why Dad’s practically going out of business. He can’t compete with some of these other companies that send untrained divers down all day long with no gauges.”
“So it’s your job to write the story that will blow the competition out of the water. Literally.”
“Why didn’t you just come home?”
“Because the story isn’t finished yet,” she said without a moment’s hesitation.
That was the most grown-up statement I’d ever heard my sister utter. I smiled with my eyes and said, “I’m proud of you.”
“So was Dad.”
“I’ll bet he was. But what about Guillermo?”
“Honestly, he thinks Rey’s Seafood should shut up and do business the way some of his competitors do.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Sure. Training and equipment cost money. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it was practically putting the company out of business. That’s why Dad went to Colombia.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Last time Dad and I talked, he said there were some good boats for cheap in Cartagena. Every extra boat they add to their fleet increases cash flow by about fifty grand a month. So Guillermo gave him two choices. Cut the diving costs or go get the boats.”
“Guillermo sent Dad to Colombia? He never told me that.”
“Take it from me and his wife. He’s not the most honest person I’ve ever met.”
“So I’m learning,” I said, staring blankly at the flickering flame in the lamp.
“What are you thinking?”
After a moment or two I looked back at my sister and said, “I think it’s time I had a serious talk with Guillermo.”
I woke to the sound of screaming monkeys. At least I thought it was monkeys.
Lindsey and I had stayed awake late, just talking. I’m not sure what time we’d finally gone to bed, if you could call straw-covered earth a bed. I woke several times during the night with a horrendous backache. It made me think of my father, sleeping on the cold ground in some mountain jungle night after night.
A beam of sunlight was streaming in through a hole in the east wall. I rolled over to keep it from hitting me in the eyes, but sleep was out of the question anyway. I thought the screaming monkeys were at it again, and then I realized that all along it had been the unfamiliar ring of the satellite phone I’d rented for this trip. If I’d been insistent on going to Nicaragua, Alex had been equally insistent that I be reachable anywhere at any time, just in case of an emergency.
I answered with trepidation, fearful of what an “emergency” might mean in my family these days.
“Nick, I’m so glad I got you.” It was Jenna. She was one of three people who had the satellite number, along with Mom and Alex.
“Is everything okay?”
“Don’t worry. It’s only some legal maneuvering. I just got out of a hearing.”
It seemed early for court, but then I realized that she was two time zones ahead of me. “What happened?”
“I’ve been trying to keep the pressure on the insurance company while you’re away. I got in front of the judge this morning and forced them to produce a company rep who will tell us exactly why your father’s coverage was denied.”
“That’s great.”
“The bad news is that Quality Insurance is a Bermuda-based company. Duncan Fitz convinced the judge that we have to go there if we want to take the deposition.”
“When is it?”
“That’s why I’m calling. It’s tomorrow.”
“Yikes.”
“It’s the old adage: Be careful what you wish for. I told the judge we wanted to move as quickly as possible for your father’s sake.”
“You did exactly the right thing. Unfortunately, I’m literally in the middle of nowhere right now.”
“You want me to try to postpone it?”
“No. I’ll do what I have to do to get home tonight.”
“Anything I can do here to help?”
“Buy me a pair of knee socks and Bermuda shorts?”
“With those knees? Forget it.”
I laughed, then said, “You’re coming to Bermuda with me, right?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Well, I’m up against my old firm. It’s such short notice. We’ll practically have to prepare on the plane as it is. I mean-”
“Nick, I just asked a question: Do you want me to go?”
She wasn’t being testy. She was just bringing me back to the only thing that mattered. “Yes. I want you to go.”
“Then I’ll go.”
I smiled. “I’ll call you tonight, okay?”
“Sure. Have a safe flight.”
As I switched off the phone, I felt upbeat that the deposition was set and that Jenna was coming with me. But the part we’d left unspoken was more than a little awkward, even ironic.
Bermuda was the place we’d planned to go for our honeymoon.
44
At 11:00 A.M. Jenna and I were seated side by side in the St. George’s office of Cool Cash. Frankly, I’d been unaware that the firm even had a Bermuda office. Nice place to hold firm retreats for partners, I presumed. The office had just one resident barrister, who was currently seated at the end of the table reading the Wall Street Journal. The real warriors were seated across the table, Duncan from Miami and Maggie Johans from New York. As general counsel, Maggie was evidently staying right on top of every phase of the case.
It had taken some doing for me to get out of Nicaragua in time for the deposition, and I never did get to talk with Guillermo. That would have to wait.
“Swear the witness, please,” I told the stenographer.
Jason Lee was a vice president of Quality Insurance Company based in St. George’s. He was a large man, husky but not fat, with salt-and-pepper hair that was thinning on top. His attire was the Bermuda businessman’s uniform, khaki shorts and knee socks, oxford-cloth shirt and blue blazer.
I covered the requisite preliminaries, and just as soon as I started asking questions of substance, Duncan jumped on me with objections. It was getting annoying, and I prepared for the worst as I moved to the heart of the matter.
“Mr. Lee, why did Quality Insurance deny coverage?”
He sipped his water. “Legal reasons.”
“Not to be flip, but the whole point here is to determine whether the reasons were legal. So let me try again: Why did Quality Insurance Company deny coverage?”
“We denied coverage on the advice of our legal counsel.”
Duncan grumbled and said, “At this point I wish to caution the witness not to divulge any communications with the company’s legal counsel. Those are protected by the attorney-client privilege.”
It was the kind of speaking objection that was designed to coach the witness, and I wasn’t going to let Duncan get away with it. “I’m not asking the witness to tell me what his lawyer’s advice was. I simply want to know the factual basis for the company’s decision to deny coverage.”
Lee answered, “I’m afraid I can’t possibly tell you the factual basis without revealing the nature of the legal advice.”
“Just tell me the facts that you presented to your lawyer.”
“It’s all intertwined. It’s protected by the attorney-client privilege.”
“This is the most ridiculous interpretation of the attorney-client privilege I’ve ever heard.”
“Then take it up with the judge,” said Duncan.
“The court has already ordered your client to tell us why it denied coverage. Either Mr. Lee is going to answer my questions or I’ll file a motion for sanctions.”
Duncan raised his hands, mocking me. “Oh, gee. In that case, we give up. I’ll have a cashier’s check in the full amount of the three-million-dollar policy in your hands before the close of business today.”
Maggie chuckled and said, “Or perhaps your family and its so-called Nicaraguan fishing company would be more comfortable dealing with a suitcaseful of cash.”
They shared a good laugh, and then Duncan glanced at the stenographer and said, “Those last remarks are off the record.”
“No way,” I sa
id. “I want it all on the transcript.”
The Bermuda barrister at the end of the table looked up from his Wall Street Journal, made eye contact with the stenographer, and simply cleared his throat. It was clear that the remarks would be off the record.
Maggie smirked, pleased with the teamwork.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Let’s call Judge Korvan in Miami right now. See what she has to say about your objections.”
The barrister jumped in again, sounding very British. “Actually, the proper procedure in these particular circumstances is to petition a judge who has jurisdiction in Bermuda. I’ll ring Uncle Henry straightaway, get a direct answer for you chaps.”
“Excellent idea,” said Maggie.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said flatly. “We’ll call Judge Korvan, who’s nobody’s uncle.”
“How long is this going to take?” asked Lee. “I have a two o’clock tee time at Mid Ocean.”
“You’ll make your tee time,” said Duncan.
“Don’t be so sure,” I said.
“Oh, I’m quite sure,” said Duncan. His tone was beyond confident, as if somehow he knew it was an absolute certainty.
I could feel my anger rising, but Jenna reeled me in with a gentle tug on the elbow.
Duncan said, “Go ahead, hotshot. Make your phone call.”
We exchanged a cold glare, then I picked up the phone and dialed Judge Korvan’s chambers.
All eyes were on the speakerphone in the center of the conference table. We were waiting to hear the voice of the Honorable Judge Penas.
My telephone call to Judge Korvan had been rerouted. For reasons unexplained, Judge Korvan had just today recused herself from the case. Her replacement was Humberto Penas, a puppet who owed his seat on the Miami-Dade County bench to none other than Duncan Fitz.
Finally his secretary announced his arrival, and we heard the judge’s voice over the box. “Good afternoon to all of you.”
Duncan seized the lead and introduced everyone. When the judge asked Duncan about his kids-identifying them by name, grade in school, and favorite sport-I knew I was in trouble.
“So what seems to be the trouble in Bermuda?” the judge asked.
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