The train rolls by again, like a corner of the world coming unhinged. My head is bursting with pulsating waves of pain. I hear my name. He's here again. The guard unbolts the door. I try to open my eyes to the light, but the pain is too much. A short, stoutish figure in a hooded sweatshirt, like a medieval monk, silhouetted by the light, walks in. Next to him are the two guards with shaved heads, black shirts and loose fitting pants who accompany him always, unquestioning, muscular loyalty, the cream of the Santos Muertos, barrio warriors from Tegucigalpa to Las Lomas. With nonchalant inattention, as if I were a sack of inert matter, they strap me down, pinning my arms and legs to the rough mat with rubber ligaments.
Mr. Lyons. Good evening for you, sir.
His voice is melodious. He is in good spirits. I never know what sets his moods. It is like a cypher of the world, a reverse polarization. I may be reading too much into it.
I can see you are happy to see me.
Not at all. My voice is raspy.
Why are you such an angry man? Have you been hurt?
That's a silly question. You obviously don't care about my pain.
The executioner must still be concerned about the prisoner’s well being. After all, we are, how you say, humanitarian.
That's an insult. Humanity would spit you out in disgust. You have no conception of the word.
You should perhaps be more careful of your words.
I will not.
We will enjoy your silence in the right time. But that is not for you to know. It is like Jesus said. Not even He must know the final hour. But we know yours. Believe that. He laughs, a snarling sort of laugh.
I don't know why you keep me here. I obviously don't have the information you are after. Why don't you just kill me? That would clearly give you pleasure and spare me the pain of listening and seeing you. A win-win situation or are you not interested in winning, Chagnon?
Our victory is ripe and ready to harvest. We have already won. We are waiting for the worms to finish you off from within. You are the man sentenced to die and waiting for the execution to come. The fear hardens your flesh and freezes your heart.
You have no idea about my heart.
It is not your heart. The mother, our saint of death made it for us. That is your only purpose. You are food for us, Mr. Lyons.
Chagnon, seriously. If you have any mercy you will give me a window. Somewhere to see the light. I'm afraid I'm losing my mind. I have the worst sort of dreams. I don't know if I'm asleep or I'm awake. It's intolerable. For the love of God, please.
He approaches the board I am strapped down on. He stares hard at me, his eyes little pinpricks of hate in the dim light from the open door. The guards rustle outside, cursing in Spanish. Our conversation bores them. They are anxious for Chagnon to get on with the show. I want to keep Chagnon talking for as long as I can. His words are a source of strength in some perverted way. I spend days turning over the things he's said, thinking of retorts, looking for the flaws in his logic, the telltale signs of a crackpot, delusionary world view. His men think he is a demigod. I am convinced he is a very human charlatan in devil's garb. My good fortune is that he loves the sound of words, especially his own. It is almost as good as shooting up for him, and in me he literally has a captive audience. I can use the situation to my advantage if I play the ground game right.
He turns and stares out the door. Then he starts.
The love of God is just a concept. I will tell you a story. It is about a man. Let us call him Y. Y is born into a good family. He studies hard and does as his parents wish. He wins a scholarship and studies in the greatest universities and learns the secrets of the science of the day and is dedicated to his work. He marries his childhood sweetheart and they have a son. Then one day he returns to his country and is horrified by the conditions in which common people live, the slaves of the world. Y retreats to a mountainside, a hermit's life, and discovers that he is called to a different path, the Via Negativa. It is path of resistance, of maladaptation, of leading a revolution for the poor. But truly a revolution that requires a new morality, a new man, like Nietzsche’s.
Okay. Yeah. I have no idea why you're telling me this.
Well, you see he is a good man. Y is a believer in the love, as you say, of God. But then he discovers through his, how you say, research that God was seeking a man with a new prayer, a prayer for justice, for revenge. But the world does not understand. It must be destroyed. Do you understand me, Mr. Lyons?
I can't understand that kind of hate.
What do you think Y must do?
Pray. For forgiveness, for understanding, and for mercy in the hereafter.
There is no here or after for him or for you, Mr. Lyons. There is no such god that listens to the prayers of the good man. There is only power and the authority of a bankrupt law that can no longer hold us back from our triumph.
Even strapped to the board I can move my head. I stare as hard as I can, and I think he's looked away, but it is only momentary. He is back in my face in the next second.
What do you call triumph? I ask.
You have nothing. No idea. I don't know why I waste my, how you say, breath on you. You are correct. If I simply kill you it will be better.
He paces the room uneasily, something bothering him. It is like he needs my approval before he sets out to destroy me. My instinct is to tease it out, continue to resist. Now he has me interested.
I bet it's some kind of crackpot grand design you've got cooking. Isn't it?
He turns and marches back to the side of the bed.
It is a grand design. I will not lie to you. We are beside the portals of space and time. Once we have the code of the Chocomal, there will be nothing to stop us. No world government, no power to match the Santos Muertos. Not even death. We will roam the galaxies forever and take up our true destiny as the Lords of the Universe. Then we will have our enemies. They are destined for our slaves for the rest of eternity. If you are smart you will join us.
Join you? Is that an offer?
I have always told you, Mr. Lyons. Tell us the code and we will release you and make you one of our riders, one of the Caballeros of the Santa Muerte.
I can't help myself and begin to laugh. Loud, rolling belly laughs that I can't hold back. The guards step from the wall outside where they have been crouching. I can see their dim shapes come nearer, waiting for Chagnon's word to crush me with the rubber flails they carry on their belts. They stop just short of breaking my bones, but leave me with deep bruises that keep me immobilized for days. My laughter stops. Chagnon lights a cigarette. I smell the smoke of his exhalation. I haven't smoked for about thirty years; I quit one day, worried about my health, and took up jogging to please Mary. The thought of her cleans my mind of superfluity. Someday I will die, but not just yet.
You have much to learn, little man. Much to learn.
Chagnon snaps his fingers and the guards stand and tighten the rubber straps, almost cutting off my circulation. I wish I could pass out. When they have left and closed the creaking metal door, the room is again plunged into total darkness.
Chagnon. A window, please, I shout, before drowning out my thoughts with loud, involuntary, sheep-like cries of anguish. He has left, and once again I have nothing except the ghosts of my past dancing before my eyes. I can't even move, immobilized by the straps around my arms and legs. Outside, in the halls, I can hear the screams of other prisoners in similar cells. I wonder how many people here are at their mercy. It is some kind of prison camp, but there seems to be a logic of sadism that drives their use of torture. That kind of evil cannot be sustainable, I think; but in my heart I know they are just the words a man tells himself as a comfort in desperation.
Later, hours later, maybe the same day, maybe the next morning, there's no way to know, he is back with the guards. This time they march in methodically, rolling in the gurney with the board and the tank for a session under the lamps. I know what is coming, but it is no use breathing to calm myself. I
am hyperventilating with fear when they strap me down on the dunking board.
You are a bastard, Chagnon. You said this was done. There's nothing more to get from me.
Your son has the tablet.
Ricky? You better not touch him. I swear I'll haunt you from the grave if you do.
Immediately I am plunged into the water. My arms struggle against the straps, and I hold out as long as I can with my chest convulsing, my heart pounding. When they spin the board up I am not conscious of anything but the air filling my lungs and trying to gain an edge on the moment when they will spin me back down. It is war and I cannot win, but I cannot give up either. Two, three times I go down, and then on the fourth I black out and feel myself go under as I breathe a bolt of water into my chest. Then I am on the floor, shivering in the black, the train rushing over my head, my face covered in vomit. I turn over onto my knees and think hard, trying to remember where I am. I grope across the floor until I find my bucket and vomit again into it. Two new guards march in and carry me down the hall to the shower, where I wash out the bucket and wash myself under the steaming water. It is meant to revive, to keep me alive for more punishment. How long can this go on? I want to die and will figure out a way to cheat Chagnon of the pleasure if I can. That is my only hope now. It is a despairing one, but what can God expect from a man near drowned every day?
I don't know what I am thinking, but am grateful for the guards as they sit in the hall and smoke cigarettes, giving me all the time in the world under the water and the fluorescent lights. There is no mirror, but I see myself in the chrome surround of the shower stall. I look cadaverous, bloodshot eyes sunken into the sockets. But still, it's me and I'm alive. That's reassuring. I am not so easy to knock off.
The guards walk me back and do not tie my hands behind my back. They pause outside the hatch to the cave. I look one in the eye. He stares back unblinking, some kind of recognition.
Cigarette? I ask.
He smiles and taps one out of the pack.
Marlboro? I ask.
Yes, says the guard. Very good cigarette.
He lights it for me. The other guard laughs nervously. If Chagnon could see this he would not be happy. Consorting with the prisoner. He is either brave or foolish. Probably the latter.
Yes, it is. I say. Very good.
You must go inside.
Okay. Thank you. Gracias, señores. I wave the cigarette and take another long drag into my lungs. The pleasure of the nicotine combined with the shower making me clean is too intense for words. It is like an out-of-body experience. It is not me feeling this comfort. I don't want to go back into the cell.
Inside now, says the guard, the older one. He opens the hatch and they each grab an arm.
No, no, I say. I can do it alone. Hands off, please.
I get down on my knees and crawl back into the darkness of hell. They throw the bucket in after me. It hits my legs as I stand back up. The guards laugh and clamp the press, locking the hatch.
Cabron de la puta madre. . .
The last sliver of light disappears, and I try to remember the particular slant of it across the doorframe with my eyes wide open. But there is nothing, and soon the memory fades, and I am alone in the night with only my real memories. Ricky, my son, wherever you are, be careful. Chagnon knows you have the tablet.
Ten—The Steep
The control center was a round room of uncertain dimensions, lit by overhead fluorescent lights and blinking signals of the consoles, radar maps, satellite images, talking heads, and other assorted visual displays of the screens apportioned geometrically in rows. There were no windows. Ricky felt like he was in an underground bunker. But he wasn't sure. The man who was walking at his side was a Lieutenant Coppinger, addressed as such by the men they came into contact with, but he was dressed in a windbreaker and the flat sneakers favored by skateboarders. He had been assigned as Ricky's escort. Newman was at one workstation, standing with several scholarly looking people and high-ranking military men. Lieutenant Coppinger walked briskly forward towards Newman and his group. Ricky followed closely behind, glancing at the computers, fascinated by the split screens, the sheer amount of information being processed and put into actionable form. He was pleased to know that here were the men and might that could take on the power of the Santos Muertos. Still, he was frustrated that it had been several days since he'd awoken in the military compound and he had not been allowed access even to a telephone so as to contact his uncle Tony or Lianne; and nobody seemed to want to talk to him about his father. He had been kept busy playing basketball with the Lieutenant and his soldier buddies or swimming laps in the pool or, at any time of the day or night, eating in the cafeteria. It was always open and staffed by an odd mixture of Latin American and East African men and women wearing hairnets and blue jump suits.
Ah, here they are, said Newman, dressed in a tweed coat and glasses, which gave him the air of a recent retiree from the world of academia. He had such a changeable aspect that it must have been a learned skill. He was accompanied by a couple of men in uniforms, their fronts emblazoned with patches of medals.
Ricky, what we are looking at here is a schematic of your tablet and several configurations of ratios that could possibly be what's actually represented on it. There also seems to be a possible story line involving the kingdom of one of the Maya chieftains, Pakal.
I want that back. It's mine.
I understand that. You will get it back, said Newman.
Ricky, this is a very important tablet, added a woman with a mass of grey hair and a long, horse-like face. She sounded like she thought he was stupid or something.
I know that. But it's mine.
The reason it's important, Ricky, said Newman, is that the ratios here represented might be the key to the tonalities, the vibrations, that dominate the structure of most matter. We believe, according to some key informers inside the cartels, that the LSM is close to producing a weapon that could make it virtually unstoppable. We don't know the exact nature of this weapon, but we believe it is similar to a high-frequency, active auroral resonator that will inject sound beams into the ionosphere to create huge, extremely low-frequency lenses that can destroy ballistic missiles and manipulate the weather. That might not be the extent of it, because we know that Chagnon's research interests include special relativity and time dilation.
I just want to find my father.
We know that.
I want to go home.
You can't go home. And the reason for that is your house is under surveillance by the Santos Muertos, and we can't even trust the local police anywhere in the country at this point. It's a different world today, Ricky, than it was even just five years ago. We’re in a defensive posture as far as guarding the homeland. We want to protect you, but we also want to help you find your father.
Well, where is he? You said you knew where he was.
And we do. Here's the plan. And I know not everyone is in favor of it. Newman looked around gravely, but positively. Then he played with the mouse, clicking to zoom in on the radar map.
This is the refinery plant in Fort McMurray, Alberta. It's called the Harken Oil Sands. You, Ricky, are the man. We're going to show you how you can get in there and get your father. Are you up for that?
Sure.
Let me see if I've got this straight, Robert, said one of the military men, clearing his throat and shifting from one foot to the other. The kid will infiltrate the plant, locate the main sections of the Santos Muertos facility within the plant, and report back to us with details of the layout.
That's right, said Newman. Ricky, your father is somewhere inside there.
Sounds good, but I want the tablet. And I want to go home first.
Newman looked around at the other adults. The military officers looked uncertain. The woman was downright hostile.
He can't have the tablet. I need more time, she said.
You have a reasonable facsimile of it. I don't see the problem.
It's too dangerous, a different officer spoke up. I'm still not convinced we can't go in with Team Six and blast the place with bunker busters. The Canadians would be fine with it.
We have them on stand by, don't we, said Newman. Look. Give the kid a try. He has had some success getting us this far. This could be the key to turning them.
Or the spark that starts off a major world conflagration, said another man in a black suit.
Ricky just needed to get the tablet back as that was a present for his mother. Then he remembered that she was dead. Somehow he blamed these people for that also. But that was stupid. He wasn't thinking straight. He needed his father to say something like: Ricky, a good night's sleep is worth all the gold in the world. The fact that his dad was somewhere up in Canada was a big inconvenience. He knew that he was missing major parts of the picture but that he would not do whatever they wanted. What he wanted was to get himself and his father home. When he thought about where he most wanted to be right then, he thought of Lianne and the beach. Her legs would be doubled up under herself on a towel and her hair would be blowing around in a warm breeze. That sight would be a major comfort to him, he thought. There was very little comfort in this place.
The men and the expert lady listened and watched as Newman directed them on a tour of the Harken Oil Sands, as it said in big black letters on a screen which had descended from the ceiling.
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