The Price of Freedom

by Chris Kennedy

  The town was a lot bigger than I would have thought for a city that wasn’t connected to anywhere by road; Pedro guessed it had over 5,000 inhabitants. I didn’t ask how the town supported itself.

  A number of boats were tied up to the bank, some of which were quite large. None as big as my former yacht, but still big enough to carry a good amount of cargo.

  “Welcome to Colombia, Señor,” Pedro said. “Where would you like me to let you off?”

  “An airport would be nice,” I said with a little sarcasm.

  “Sorry, but that is on the other side of town.”

  “What? What is?”

  “The airport. Acandí has an airport.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. Acandí used to have quite a bit of tourism, although I am told the number of travelers has fallen off considerably the last few weeks.”

  “No shit. An airport.” After all my travel, my mind had a hard time grasping the fact that a podunk town in the middle of nowhere had an operating airport.

  “Sí, Señor. It also has a number of large hotels and hostels. As I said, tourism used to be very large here.”

  “Well, let me off near the airport, if you would.”

  “I am sorry, Señor, but that is south along the coast,” Pedro said. “I do not think taking this boat into open water, as overloaded as it is, would be very smart.”

  I nodded. I didn’t want to go swimming with all my gear, whether there were snakes or not. “That’s fine,” I said, waving to the bank. “Anywhere is good, then.”

  “Muchas gracias,” Pedro replied. He went another hundred yards, then turned in toward a small bulkhead that had two small boats already tied up to it. “This belongs to my friend, Santiago. He will be able to help you with directions.”

  “That would be great,” I said. “Is there a bar around here? I’d be happy to buy you a drink.”

  “Sorry, but I need to pick up…a shipment while I am here. This trip allows me to mix business with more business. Next time you are here, though, I would like that.”

  I nodded as I stepped off the boat, doubting that I would ever be back. Of course, I thought with a smile, I never would have expected to be in Acandí the first time.

  Strange things happen in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Santiago was easy to find as I stepped away from the water—he turned out to be the dark-skinned portly man who came hustling toward me. He seemed somewhat annoyed to have a large white man invading his space, but his frown turned into a smile when he saw Pedro wave from the—now unburdened—boat.

  “Hello,” he said. “I am Santiago. You are a friend of Pedro?”

  “Maybe not so much a friend as a client,” I said, “although we’re going to sit down for a cerveza when I return, so I guess everything worked out well. Is he a friend of yours?”

  “Yes.” The man nodded. “We started out much like you—as business associates—but we have become friends. He is someone who can be trusted to keep his word.”

  “That alone makes him valuable,” I noted. “It’s hard to find that kind of people these days.”

  Santiago nodded as he sighed. “All too true, unfortunately.” He smiled. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Yes, I would like it very much if you could point me in the direction of the airport. That is, if it is running…”

  “Sí, it is operational, although I do not know where the airplanes are flying to, nor how much it will cost you to go there.”

  “That’s fine,” I said with a smile. “Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll work it out.”

  “Nothing could be easier. Go south from here, and keep going south another 400 meters when the road reaches the jungle. It is about a two kilometer walk.”

  I thanked the man and walked through town shaking my head. The entire civilized world had fallen, but you wouldn’t have known it from looking at the town of Acandí. I walked through a residential area and saw people tending their gardens and working in their yards. I reached the commercial area and saw a number of bars, restaurants, and hotels, all of which had people coming and going. I couldn’t see many foreigners, but for the majority of the citizens of Acandí, it looked as if life hadn’t changed over the last couple of months.

  Then again, maybe it hadn’t.

  I shook my head, not sure how the global collapse had somehow missed this town. I saw at least six hotels and five bars as I walked along, and all of them seemed open for business. I reached the end of town and crossed the bridge over the Acandí River. There were a few more outposts of civilization, and then I saw it—the black tarmac of a runway. I shook my head. I had expected a small grass strip, but this was a real airport, with a runway long enough that you could probably have landed a C-130 on it.

  The terminal, though, was underwhelming. It consisted of a small building next to a small paved ramp where a single-propeller aircraft was being loaded. The aircraft taxied out as I approached, so I went into the building dubiously labeled, “Alcides Fernández Airport.”

  The inside of the “airport” was even more unimpressive than the outside, as the main room held nothing but a desk and four chairs. There was no schedule posted, no cafeteria waiting to feed me—there weren’t even any soda machines around. It had been a long time since I’d had a soda or a coffee, and I would have killed—literally—for one right about now. The one air conditioning unit in the building had power and, while the terminal wasn’t anywhere near as cool as I would have liked it, it was at least luke-cool. And it was far less humid in the “terminal” than it was outside. Two doors at the back of the room looked like they led to small offices.

  I walked over to the man who was sitting behind the desk. He was reading an old, frayed magazine. If he noticed me, he didn’t give any indication. I could already tell this wasn’t going to go well.

  “Hi,” I said finally.

  The man sighed. “Yes?” he asked, looking up. He did a bit of a double take—apparently, tourists were in short supply.

  “I’m looking for a flight out,” I said.

  “Sorry, you just missed it,” he replied. “That was our one scheduled flight for the day. When it comes, anyway.”

  “Where does it go?” I asked, my blood pressure beginning to boil.

  “Panama City,” he replied. I ran my hand over my face. I could have flown here, rather than having to drive, boat, and hike…and then boat some more? He went back to looking at his magazine.

  “I’m not done,” I said, my voice low.

  “I told you,” the man said, obviously not getting the hint, “that’s the only—”

  I slapped a palm on the center of his magazine, stopping him. “I don’t care if that’s the only flight today. I want to know more. I have other questions. Since you don’t have any more flights, I think you can answer them for me, without being rude again. Trust me, you don’t want to make me angry.”

  He sighed. “What do you want to know?”

  “Where do you get the gas to refuel the planes that land here?”

  “It comes from some oil field in the interior—I don’t know where. All I know is it’s shipped here from somewhere near Barranquilla.”

  “When do you have a flight going to somewhere near Barranquilla?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you not know?”

  “I don’t know because there is no schedule anymore. Planes come when they come. Fuel comes when it comes. Maybe today. Maybe mañana. Who is to know anymore? I am told the North Americans had a war and killed most of themselves. This is bad for tourism, as none of them come here anymore. We are starting to see more tourists from Barranquilla, but there is only one plane that flies here from there. When it is broken, no one comes. The flight from Panama City usually comes in the morning and leaves in the afternoon. If you would like to go to Panama City, you can go there tomorrow. Maybe they will have something to Barranquilla, o
r somewhere near there mañana. Who is to say?”

  I decided not to beat him to death for being lazy and stupid, but it was a near thing. Ultimately, the fact that I was going to have to wait here until the next plane came saved him. I didn’t want him to void his bowels when I killed him, which would have ruined the environment. If nothing else, it was cool in the building, and I wasn’t leaving it again until I had to.

  I walked over and pulled two chairs together so I could put my feet up on one while I sat in the other. Then, having nothing better to do, I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

  Because you have to have priorities in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It was the next day before another airplane showed up. I had moved to the floor to continue my napping. Although it was hardly what I’d call comfortable, the boxes of MREs in my pack made a better pillow for my head than they did sustenance for my belly. It also kept my bag from walking away while I was sleeping.

  The sound of a propeller woke me up and, finding myself alone in the room, I walked outside to see what was going on. A different man from the day before was standing just outside, shading his eyes as he watched a twin-engine Cessna circling to land.

  “Do you know where that plane is from?” I asked.

  “I believe that is the airplane from Puerto Colombia.”

  “Where the hell is that?”

  “It is near Barranquilla.”

  “Great. So I can get to Barranquilla from there?”

  “You don’t want to go there, Señor,” the man said. “Barranquilla had a large factory for the JalCom Corporation. It was destroyed in the war a couple of months back. Mucha devastacion.”

  My shoulders sagged. Another dead end. “Well, shit. I thought the guy here yesterday said the oil production facilities were in Barranquilla.”

  “Oh, no, Señor. Our oil production facilities are not in Barranquilla. They are close, but not actually in Barranquilla. The refinery is to the west of the city, in a much smaller town. Puerto Colombia. It is a common mistake.”

  “Huh. I’ve never heard of Puerto Colombia.”

  “Puerto Colombia was one of the largest ports in Colombia back in the colonial days,” the man said proudly. “It was used to move goods from Barranquilla. It had a large pier, the Muelle de Puerto Colombia, which was built in the 1800s. When it was first constructed, it was the second longest pier in the world—many major ships could tie up to it at the same time.”

  “No shit?”

  “No mierda, Señor. My abuelo had pictures from when he was a boy fishing from it. Over the years, though, Buenaventura took over as Colombia’s major port, and they dug a better canal into Baranquilla, so Puerto Colombia was no longer needed. Soon, no more ships came to Puerto Colombia, and the pier fell apart in the early 2000s. It was rebuilt around 2030 by JalCom to ship the oil from the Caño Limón oil field. The people of Barranquilla didn’t want the oil to come into the city, in case there was a spill or a fire.” He gave me a wry smile. “It did not prevent the bombs from falling there, though.”

  “But the refinery at Puerto Colombia is still working?”

  “Sí, Señor. It still gets oil from the oil field, refines it, and ships it onward.” He waved a hand toward the airfield. “We could not operate this without it.”

  It was nice to talk to someone who actually knew something. Especially since he seemed to be a normal human being and wasn’t trying to harvest my DNA for some sort of scientific research. “Where do the oil ships go?”

  “Many places around the Caribbean, and even a few places in the old Estados Unidos,” the man said with a shrug. “There are not so many ports there anymore.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a nod.

  Oil still flowed in this Fallen World. And I was going to catch a ride on it.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that.

  The aircraft circled one more time, then landed and taxied over to the ramp. The man with me picked up a pair of chocks, and when the propellers stopped spinning, he ran out and stuck them under one of the front wheels.

  Two men got out of the plane. The first was obviously a servant of some sort—he put down the steps and reached in to grab the other man’s briefcase. The second man carried himself as if he were royalty, barely acknowledging the first man’s presence. He acted like a corporate head, and I hated him immediately.

  I knew there were going to be problems between us, and I knew how this was going to end—poorly for Mr. High-And-Mighty.

  I stood in the middle of the concrete pathway, so the corporate head—if that was indeed what he was—had to pass me on the way to the building. “Hi,” I said as he approached. “I’m Joe Rinardi. I—”

  “I’m sure you are,” the man interrupted in an imperious tone, “and I’m sure someone cares.” He motioned at me as if waving me aside. “You are blocking the way,” he added when I didn’t move.

  “Yeah,” I said. “If I could have a moment of your time.”

  The man rolled his eyes. “Hmpf.” He looked over his shoulder at the servant, who was hurrying toward us. The servant set down the briefcase, took off his jacket, and put it on the grass to the side of the pathway. The man stepped onto the jacket, then back onto the pathway, avoiding me.

  I was too dumbstruck to move, or I would have stepped in front of him again. Sure, the Teledyne corporate heads got stuck on themselves sometimes, but nothing like this. The chairman of the corporation would have punched me or had someone remove me so that I learned a lesson about manners; acting like an effete snob never got anyone anywhere.

  Except for maybe in South America, I guessed; I wasn’t as familiar with Colombian culture as I might have been.

  Regardless, the man went around me and proceeded to the building, where the servant opened the door for him, while simultaneously trying to put on his coat and carry the briefcase he’d picked up again.

  The man from the terminal walked past, following them, but he had his head down and his shoulders slumped as might a man going to his own funeral.

  “Is he always like that?” I asked as he went by me, stepping into the grass like a normal person would.

  “Yeah.” He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Please don’t make him mad,” he added. “He’s worse when he’s mad.”

  Really? Oh, I had to see this. Unfortunately, when I walked into the terminal, the head was walking into one of the back offices, where there were several men who had apparently arrived while I was out on the ramp. The door closed, and I could hear the lock engage. A large group of women and young girls had come with the men; maybe they were traveling together or they had come to see the men off. Probably the latter; they looked sad rather than excited to be there.

  The terminal operator stood behind his desk, looking at the door the men had gone through with a forlorn look on his face.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “They are negotiating the price for gas.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t see why that was something for him to get his panties in a wad over, so I walked over to the door. The door was poorly constructed and having augmented hearing helped; without trying very hard, I could hear most of what was being said. I got bored after about five minutes—they really were discussing the price of fuel. It was a standard negotiation, assuming you were allowed to sell drugs for gas. Apparently, there was a large cocaine production facility nearby that the town ran. Not terribly surprising based on what I’d seen. The man also asked for some crates of fruit and vegetables. Big deal.

  After listening another couple of minutes, I went back to the terminal worker. “Didn’t sound too bad.”

  “That part isn’t so bad,” the man replied.

  “What is?” I asked.

  He nodded at the group of women. “When he is done, he will choose one of them to return with him to Puerto Colombia.”

  I didn�
�t like the sound of that, and my dislike obviously showed on my face. “Please do not say or do anything,” he added. “You will only make it worse.”

  “What happens to the woman he chooses?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “They do not return,” the man said sadly. “I am told he is hard on them. Most do not survive the flight back to Puerto Colombia.”

  I rolled my shoulders, glaring at the door. It sounded like the meeting was finishing. I took an unconscious step toward the room.

  The man ran around the desk and stood in front of me. “Please, Señor, do not do anything. If anything happens to him, they will cut off our gas. They will also bomb our town. If you kill him here, you will kill all of us as well.”

  The door opened, and the men came out. The head approached the women, looked at them for a moment, then pointed at one of the younger ones. “That one,” he said. The girl began crying, but she stepped forward.

  A growl escaped my lips, and the man grabbed my arm. “Please, Señor,” he hissed.

  The head turned at the noise and saw me. His nostrils flared with an expression of disgust. “That…person,” he said, “was disrespectful to me.” He turned back to the women and pointed at another one of them. “I will take that one, too.”

  Not my business, I said to myself. Not my business. I needed a ride, and I doubted I would get it if I had another altercation with the man.

  He started walking toward the door behind me, ignoring my presence as if I weren’t there. “Excuse me, sir,” I said as he passed me. He neither slowed nor looked in my direction. His minion opened the door, and he swept outside, with two of the local men escorting his prizes out after him.

  I grabbed the terminal worker as he started to follow them. “How often does this happen?”

  “About once a month,” he replied. He struggled to break my grip on his arm but was unable to.