Mapuche (47 page)

“Wait, goddammit!” he yelled at El Toro. “You can see perfectly well that they're not cooked!”

His starving buddy filched another mussel that was sizzling on the grill, swallowed it in one long, satisfied suck, and wiped his hands on his rather filthy undershirt.

“Mussels are eaten raw!” he decreed.

His crude laugh didn't amuse anyone but himself. The fat man poured a little sauce on the shellfish, making the embers crackle. They'd been doing nothing in this monastery of country bumpkins for three days. It was a haven of peace that the two friends didn't expect to get to—they had almost been caught by the cops in the delta.

“Hey, pour me some wine,” El Toro said again.

He handed a glass to the emaciated specter and toasted him for the fifth time. The mussels were almost cooked, and they would soon move on to the meat.

“Finally!” he shouted, sauce glistening on his shaggy chest; the black, thick hair was sticking out of his undershirt.

There was a movement in the monastery's covered courtyard that they didn't notice, absorbed in their meal. Parise crossed the garden, his skull a sickly white under the sun, and stood in front of the embers of the barbecue.

“We're going to take a little ride,” he told his men. “From now on, there will be no drinking, understand? And go change your clothes!” he added, looking at El Toro, whose face was shiny with grease. “The general and the cardinal are coming with us. Get going!”

 

*

 

They left the Los Cipreses monastery in the middle of the afternoon, jammed into the Land Cruiser with tinted windows. The two henchmen sat in front with Del Piro, Ardiles, and von Wernisch behind them, with the bald giant in the back, where he could stretch his legs. A marked route, handguns; they drove on paved portions flanked with potholes, passing only a few flea-bitten Indians on horseback and a couple of forest industry trucks.

Leandro Ardiles had regained hope after Díaz's telephone call. The former SIDE agent had the original ESMA form; once it was in his hands, it would constitute the best possible protection in the event that somebody decided to sacrifice him. Too many people were involved in this affair. They'd work in the background to find him a pleasant retirement in a country that had no extradition treaty. It was still about an hour to the Escondida lagoon, at the heart of the national park near the Chilean border. An old-man smell spread inside the car; El Toro held his nose and winked at his buddy, gesturing toward the cardinal. Von Wernisch was gripping the door handle, observing the road with glassy eyes. They passed Puerto Bustillo and its stony
miradors
, and a few poor farms, the last bastions of humanity before the forest. The Escondida lagoon was about a dozen miles away.

Parise was grumbling in the back of the Land Cruiser; he was six foot seven and felt cramped as he scrutinized the map of the ecological preserve. The sun was going down over the pine-covered ridge; the last houses had given way to a dense stand of trees that covered the foothills of the Andes, whose peaks pierced the sky. The road was longer than expected.

“At this rate, we won't get back before nightfall,” El Picador remarked.

“Shit, we're going to miss the match!”

“What match?”

“River-Boca!” El Toro snorted.

They had been driving for some time on a dirt track. The Land Rover was accelerating on a hill when Parise cursed in the back: he'd lost reception. All they needed was for Díaz to call just then. The 4x4 was throwing up brown dust in the meanders of the national park. They drove past a limpid lake that could be seen below them. The lagoon. Díaz had to be waiting for them somewhere near the body of water, sick, it seemed. Poor fellow. The 4x4 reached the top of the hill and started down the long slope that crossed the forest. They were gaining speed when suddenly the tires exploded.

El Toro slammed on the brakes with all his weight, skidded sideways, and lost control of the vehicle. Propelled toward the trees, the Land Rover bounced off a trunk and buried itself in the neighboring pine tree, smashing the windshield in the process. In the back, Parise, who was not wearing a seatbelt, went flying, and the others hung onto whatever they could find. Finally, after a last jolt, the car stopped in the ditch.

There were a few seconds of bewilderment, and then the cardinal began to groan, holding his sides. Next to him, Ardiles was grimacing, his arm in a sling.

“What happened?”

El Toro switched off the ignition while his buddy took out his gun.

“Get out of the vehicle!” Parise ordered. “Quick!”

El Picador's face was flecked with glass shards from the windshield. El Toro struggled to open the doors stove in by the accident and was the first to get out. The engine was smoking under the buckled hood; he helped the cardinal extricate himself from the car, still shaky, then freed Ardiles and the head of security. All four tires were flat, the 4x4 tilted into the ditch. Somebody must have spread tacks on the road.

“Díaz set a trap for us,” Parise groaned.

He took out his Glock and was warily taking a step toward the road when there was a detonation on his left. Del Piro was thrown against the door of the Land Rover, a large-caliber bullet having hit him in the middle of his chest. He collapsed with a death rattle before the stupefied eyes of the old cardinal.

“Take cover! Take cover!” Parise yelled.

The bullets were ricocheting beneath his feet, and they could be heard hitting the nearby tree trunks: his men pushed von Wernisch and Ardiles toward the pines, abandoning the bloody corpse of the pilot in the middle of the road. The firing was coming from the thickets below them. Parise stumbled on a root and let out a cry, his ankle struck by a bullet. He gritted his teeth to keep from howling, saw the blood and the bits of bone under his sock, and understood that the wound was serious.

“
Vamos, vamos!
” he growled to make them get going.

The giant swore as he hobbled toward the others, who had stopped a little higher up in the woods. They were being targeted from the bushes on the other side of the road. El Toro and El Picador emptied their clips into the bushes.

“Get back up! Get back up under cover, for Christ's sake!”

The two men didn't see that their boss was wounded; they helped the old men climb up the steep terrain, taking them by the arm. Parise covered their retreat, his back against a tree trunk, sweating with pain.

“Goddamned fucking Díaz,” he cursed.

A bullet whistled over his head, and another hit the neighboring tree. Precise firing from the bushes down below. Unfa­vorable terrain. Paris limped after the group that was making its way up the slope, his ankle on fire. Although Ardiles insisted on walking alone, El Picador was supporting the cardinal, who was still complaining about his ribs. A bullet ricocheted under the nose of Ardiles, whose arm was in a sling, and he paled with rage in his Ralph Lauren polo shirt. El Toro pulled him under the branches; bullets were hitting behind them. Short of breath, they cut toward the east, where the terrain was less difficult. The smell of pines had disappeared, or fear had changed their senses. Parise was clumping along, struggling.

“
Vamos, vamos!
”

He fired a few shots haphazardly to cover them. The men advanced, keeping their heads down in the shade of the branches, tripping over roots and clumps of ferns. Von Wernisch was moaning with the effort, he almost had to be carried. Finally the shots behind them became more sporadic, then stopped . . . They went on another hundred yards, and soon heard nothing but their lungs on fire.

“Halt!” shouted Parise, who was bringing up the rear.

It was dark under the big trees. The road below could no longer be seen, only a wall of intertwined vegetation that seemed to grow thicker as the sun went down. Parise was sweating heavily.

“You, help the cardinal lie down somewhere more or less comfortable. El Toro, secure the terrain, we have to stop for a couple of minutes.”

“O.K.!”

Ardiles had aged ten years; von Wernisch seemed overwhelmed by what had happened. Exhausted by his trek, Parise sat down to examine his ankle: the bullet had broken the malleolus into several pieces. The stress over, the pain shot up all the way to the knee.

“Did you get hit, boss?” whispered El Picador, seeing the extent of the damage.

“Yeah,” Parise said, his head dripping sweat.

His cell phone was still not receiving, and night was falling under the araucarias. No one would come to help them, the place was isolated, and the two old men limited their movements. Parise ruminated: with his ankle in pieces, he wasn't much of an asset. They could leave the old men to their fate—but that would signal to his henchmen that they could do the same thing to him in the event of danger. He had to get back to the road, find a place where the cell phone would have reception.

“Help me get up, I beg you,” whispered von Wernisch, whom El Picador had helped lie down. “These infernal roots are breaking my bones!”

Ardiles was mopping his brow, leaning up against a tree.

“So, Parise,” he said impatiently, “what is all this crap? Where is Díaz?”

“I don't know, general.”

“And you, cardinal? I thought Díaz was supposed to be a patriot!”

“I . . . I don't understand.”

Parise tried to get his bearings, assessed the situation. The hidden shooter had at least two weapons, a revolver and a rifle—the more dangerous of the two. He could send his two men to find the shooter, but those two dolts might get themselves shot before they had located the target. El Picador helped the miserable cardinal to his feet; the churchman clung to him as if he were a winning lottery ticket.

“My ribs hurt too much to walk,” he yelped, skeletal under his cassock.

“Who's shooting at us?” Ardiles asked again. “Díaz?”

“In any case, it's not the cops.”

“Your job was to protect me!”

“My job is to get you out of here,” Parise growled, the pain making him ill-tempered. “O.K.?”

The old man shut up.

It grew damper as night fell. El Toro soon returned from his inspection, out of breath.

“I didn't see any movement,” he said. His suit was covered with dirt. “I don't understand what the plan is, boss!”

“I don't either,” his pal added.

The giant got up, his jaws tight to hold in check the pain in his ankle.

“We have to get back to the road,” he said. “The shooter is moving; we'll go around him.”

“The Land Cruiser is out of commission, boss.”

“Not to mention that I left the keys in it,” El Picador added.

“And your credit card number, did you think of that?”

El Toro laughed at his joke, then changed his mind when he saw his companions' gloomy faces. The sun had gone down on the other side of the hills, and night was now falling in waves. Parise asked the question he was fearing.

“Where do you think the road is?”

“That way.”

“There.”

“There.”

“I'd say there . . . ”

They'd pointed in three different directions. Only Ardiles shared his opinion: five o'clock.

Parise ordered El Toro to carry von Wernisch as far as he could. The compass had been left in the glove compartment of the Land Rover, they had no flashlight, they could hardly see, and they had only a lighter that burned El Toro's fingers. Somehow, the little group got into marching order. The insects were coming out as it grew dark. They struggled five hundred yards uphill and then turned toward the right, down the slope of the hill. Parise was hoping to find the road sooner or later, but after a time that seemed to him too long, the slope stopped descending. Worse, it began to rise again.

“What the fuck is going on?” El Toro grumbled. He was sick of carrying the old man. “I thought we were going to find the road!”

Parise was limping along at the rear of the group; they could hardly see each other in the darkness. The trees were tall and dense, almost covering the sky and the stars, if there were any. They fell silent, waiting. An opaque silence enveloped the forest. It would soon be completely dark.

General Ardiles was the first to understand. They were lost.

A smell of humus permeated the earth. They had felt their way several hundred yards over uneven ground before giving up the hope of finding the road. The vegetation was too thick, and forced them to make detours; they no longer knew where they were, whether north was in front of them or behind them. No one knew anything about the stars, and besides, they couldn't see them, and they were in danger of becoming even more lost if they continued to walk on blindly. Hector Parise was hobbling along, bent over and pale as a sheet in the shadows. Von Wernisch, bent over El Toro's shoulder, was complaining about his hip and his ribs, which had probably been fractured in the accident; Ardiles was also showing signs of weakness, as if the prospect of danger had reawakened the pain in his wounded arm.

They stopped among the tree trunks and ferns. It was totally black.

“We're going to wait until it gets light,” Parise decided. “There's no point in going on.”

In fact, they could hardly see their hands before their faces. The others acquiesced, exhausted, but worried about spending a night in the middle of the forest. El Toro's lighter ran out of fuel just as the group was settling down between the roots of a centuries-old tree whose top seemed to belong to another world. They had asked each other the same questions over and over without finding an answer, and were demoralized, while von Wernisch moaned and called on all his saints, his old bones killing him. They felt a need to come together, an ancient gregarious instinct.

After the damp, the cold gripped them. They were not equipped for it. And all the strange noises around them that made them jump. They stopped talking. Ardiles was squinting into the dark, a wild animal without prey, walled up in a furious foreboding silence. At first, El Toro had boasted loudly that he was going to “kill that fag Díaz,” but he too had lowered his voice. He was dying of thirst after their forced march, and the forest was beginning to scare him. You couldn't see anything, the moon had never come out again, and the stars had disappeared.