The six months that had passed between the time Haydon had left Guatemala with Lena Muller’s body and the announcement of Dr. Grajeda’s funeral made Haydon believe that the Kaibile assassin had in fact missed his mark that rainy night back in January. And what had happened to Dr. Grajeda in the meantime? Haydon had heard nothing in the interim and assumed Grajeda was dead. How had he lived in those six months? And how had he really died? It made Haydon feel odd that he already had grieved for the doctor and that many times over the past six months he had thought of him in the past tense while he was actually still living. Now he had to grieve for him all over again. And he felt guilty as well, for the earthshaking reaction that Dr. Grajeda had anticipated upon the publication of the microfilmed documents that Haydon had carried out of the rain forests of Alta Verapaz had not occurred. Dr. Grajeda must have waited tensely in the ensuing months for the thunderclap of media attention to the scandal that his papers exposed, only to realize after months and months that nothing was to come of it at all.
The grim fact was that Haydon himself had spent considerable time and expense to make sure the documents got to the most respected journalists and specialists interested in Central American affairs in every branch of the media. But the media was a mistress much in demand, and a mistress who demanded much of her suitors. Guatemala? There was the maelstrom of Eastern Europe, the upheaval in the Soviet Union, there were the firestorms of hatred in the Middle East. The sins of General Luis Azcona Contrera were washed away by the blood of other horrors in other places, places where the United States had invested far more money and had far more at risk. Besides, Guatemala had already been converted from its heathen ways. It was already a democracy.
Dr. Grajeda must have realized all of this with suicidal despair as he hid and sweated in the jungles of the Petén. It must have haunted him as he lay awake in the dark, cicada-ridden nights and remembered his brief time with Lena Muller and how, together, they had dreamed of assembling a truth so powerful that its revelation would bring forth a redemption of children.
About the Author
David L. Lindsey is the author of six highly acclaimed novels, including A Cold Mind, In the Lake of the Moon, and Mercy. He lives in Austin, Texas.
Table of Contents
Title
Publisher
Description
Reviews
Booklist
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
About the Author
Body of Truth Page 46
