Open Pit (23 page)

Aida doesn't answer. She'd intended to, but everything got so crazy. Now, with the arrest, she doesn't know when she'll see Marta again, or how long she can stand to stay at the house. “I ran out of time,” she admits. “But Marta really has done everything to turn the mine into a moral campaign. It's like she's looking for revenge or —”

“You put your trust in things you shouldn't, and you are suspicious of the things you should trust!” says Carlos with force, cutting her off.

Aida reddens further. “I'm doing my best.”

“This is not a school competition. No one will pat you on the head for doing your best. I have to leave,” he says and hangs up.

Aida listens to the foreign-sounding dial tone, staring over at Paco's wide back as he keeps an eye out for dangers she doesn't want to guess at.

5:10 PM
. 45 KM south of the Salvadoran-Honduran border

Sitting on his haunches, Cristóbal is unsure how to feel about taking the telephone call. He has been grateful to know just enough about Pepe's plans. He has felt capable of doing a good job. So, while he's happy to have his cousin's trust, he's afraid of the phone that rests about a foot in front of him on a flat, lichen-covered rock. This object includes him in knowledge Cristóbal would prefer to skip.

When it starts vibrating, Pepe picks up, as he said he would. Immediately, his face transforms. He looks intensely curious. Whatever this person is calling to tell him, Pepe needs to know it. Little by little, the curiosity is replaced by assent, Pepe nodding meaningfully. Must be good news. But now, abruptly, alarm. Something dark overtakes Pepe's face. His eyes rush back and forth as he takes in the voice of his contact. Those eyes are frightened. But Cristóbal can't dwell on why. It's his turn. He doesn't question the reason he will be Pepe's mouthpiece, or who's going to hear him. Pepe figures it's necessary and that's good enough. Cristóbal takes the phone, surprised by its unfamiliar weight. The line is open.

“Tell him to check his mailbox,” says Pepe, his voice tight. “I've asked an associate to drop off a map and instructions for the exhumation team. These should be faxed to the Canadian embassy. The press too. There should also be a note signed by ‘Enrique' that says —” Cristóbal hastens to keep up, but feels pressured by Pepe's increasing agitation “— that because of the mine's actions this morning, I cannot release a hostage.”

Cristóbal stops cold. Releasing a hostage was always the plan.

Pepe scowls. “I have been left with no choice. Even if the mine is closed, if they do not lift this deadline of Thursday for the exhumation, on that same day I will kill a hostage instead. Tell them that!” Pepe nearly yells. “And tell them I've already decided which it will be.”

Cristóbal searches Pepe's eyes to determine whether he really wants him to repeat these threats, but Pepe is already getting up, like his decision is final. Cristóbal says the words and hangs up the way Pepe showed him earlier, resting the phone back on the flat rock. The cousins are quiet. Above them, birds caw, and Cristóbal, who loves animals, listens in, picking out a
torogoz
. “
Primo
. Will they do it?” He poses the question as quietly as he can so as not to upset his cousin, doing nothing to pop the lid on his temper.

“They have to.” Pepe's breathing has sped up. His exposed face is pinched with strain.

“Was there anything else — about the police? Do they have our names?” Cristóbal has a bad feeling suddenly.

“They need to know how serious we are.”

This doesn't sound like an answer. Cristóbal watches his cousin pace around, picking up speed, as if the thoughts in his mind are powering his legs.

Then he stops. “You need to talk to Rita,” he says. “I know she's trying something.”

“She isn't.” Cristóbal is as forceful as he can be with just these two words, stepping over Pepe's last statement.

The abruptness startles his cousin. “Delmi told me,” says Pepe, each word very precise.

“Delmi lies.”

“I waited because I wanted to be reasonable, but if you can't handle her, I will.”

Cristóbal knows he's putting a lot on the line, but he refuses to distrust his wife.

“I'm asking you to talk to her,” Pepe says, nearly pleading. “To tell her to —”

“I won't,” says Cristóbal. “And you stay away from her.” Though his words are a direct threat, he tries to make them sound conciliatory.

Pepe rolls his mask back over his face then comes close and reaches out his hand. At first, Cristóbal thinks his cousin wants to help him up or to shake on it, but Pepe just wants his phone back. When Cristóbal passes it, Pepe pulls the object roughly away, turns and walks off, back towards where the others are.

Cristóbal resists following right away and stays defiantly seated, tearing at some nearby leaves and letting the pieces sprinkle over the lichen, listening for that calling
torogoz,
before getting up and making his way to the campsite, which is just a space like a corridor between two high rock faces over which Cristóbal has placed a layer of cut boughs. There, he sits with Rita and rests his back against the cool, damp rock.

5:15 PM
. Police Headquarters, San Salvador

The year after he launched his mine Mitch hired an efficiency consultant to assess his entire operation. Unlike a lot of people in his industry, he wasn't afraid of an outsider's perspective. The consultant provided excellent feedback, including the strong suggestion that Mitch delegate more, which he did, hiring more staff, cutting back on his time in Peru, where he co-owned another site. He focused all his energy on the project he cared about most:
Mil Sueños
. He stopped fooling around, remarried, had his twins. He aimed for balance, let his wife talk him into the Ashtanga classes.

All that was before. So what's different about El Pico, he wonders, as he hurries, quite late, through the main entrance. Why has it made him feel like a kid from the outskirts of Squamish again? He was on edge even before this kidnapping screwed everything up. Mitch knows it has something to do with the relentless criticism he's faced over
Mil Sueños
. All the talk has put him on the defensive. Not that he believes any of it. Mitch knows his opponents would hum a different tune if they had to run his business for a year — a month, even. If they were suddenly responsible for this much money, this many investors, they'd get how complicated it is.

Still, they've taken something from him. A trust or a faith. Mitch can feel it. He remembers those high school French tests he was forced to do against his will. Seeing his guards escort that forensic team and all their equipment past his gates was a lot like that. Mitch's hands were tied. But it awakened in him a new insight: in tough times, balance is a luxury. This is not a test. He cannot fail. Mitch is happy to go along with Carlos's plan, but he also has to cap his losses, like Sobero said. Thursday is plenty of time for those assholes to dig around their sandbox for old bones. Then they're gone. No one can say Mitch didn't give them a chance.

Mitch is held up at the front entrance for ten minutes, where he's gently frisked, and a tough-looking female officer with a double chin calls to verify that he is expected. He has no problem with the screening. Mitch is actually pleased at the level of professionalism on display in this modern, rather nice-looking cop shop.

Finally he's led up an elevator and down a hall to a door with a small reinforced Plexiglas window. The guard puts her pass card to a panel, the light flashes green and the door clicks open. Inside, Sobero is sitting on one of several folding chairs, looking very much at home. It takes Mitch a moment to pinpoint what else looks different about him. Then he realizes: Sobero has removed the suit jacket he nearly always wears at
Mil Sueños,
and his shirtsleeves are rolled up to reveal nearly hairless forearms. Despite a sign posted high on the wall behind him that says smoking is prohibited, Sobero exhales from a cigarette stuck into the corner of his mouth.

As the door opens further Mitch sees that another man is standing with his back to them. He's facing the kind of one-way mirror Mitch has only ever seen on
TV
. In the adjacent room is Marta Ramos. Mitch has expected her to be handcuffed, but she's seated on a chair with her elbows on a desk, palms apart. Across from her is a man in a casual shirt with his legs stretched out to the side and crossed at the ankles. Neither of them appears to be talking.

Though Mitch has craved this sight and more than once imagined himself in the position of inquisitor, judge and executioner in fantasies of revenge against members of that Committee, of Greenpeace, MiningWatch, Rights Action and many other organizations that have enjoyed kicking him in the balls, the stark contours of the interrogation room make him queasy.

“Sit,
Señor
Wall,” says Antonio de la Riva Hernández, without turning.

Sobero lifts his eyebrows and Mitch moves to take the chair beside him.

“Manuel says you want to watch.”

“I — yes. Well, no. It's not really about watching,
per se
. Manuel said this meeting could be fruitful. I just want this whole situation resolved.”

“Resolved,” Hernández repeats. In the semi-transparent glass, Mitch can see the reflection of the man he knows from the news.

“Okay,” says the captain, slapping one thigh in a startling manner then turning suddenly to face Mitch. His hair is dyed a depthless black. “We resolve this ‘situation.' For you.” Hernández is not ugly, as he seemed on
TV
. His big nose suits his face. But his large round eyes are cold, moving down slowly to inspect Mitch from head to toe.

Mitch smiles nervously, looking towards his Chief of Security. But Sobero keeps staring straight ahead. “I appreciate that,” Mitch says. “That's fantastic, thank you.”

Hernández waves his hand as if to swat away Mitch's gratitude. Then he throws a different kind of look at Sobero — one that makes Mitch feel distinctly left out — then exits the room, appearing a moment later through the door visible through the one-way glass. The other man steps out.

Hernández takes a seat and he and Marta Ramos occupy the space in silence for several minutes. Marta, whom Mitch has never met in person, is chubby and mannish. Mitch thinks she looks tired, totally unthreatening.

“It is obvious that you are responsible for the abduction,” Hernández says, finally. His voice is being pumped into the room where Mitch sits, but arrives thinner and distant, without the gravelly wheeze it carries in person. Mitch has the sudden realization that he isn't going to understand the proceedings. His comprehension of Spanish is decent, but not when native speakers are conversing quickly and, in this case, as if from the bottom of a well. “Shit,” he says, and turns to Sobero, who sighs loudly, then translates. Mitch wishes he had decided better than to be here. He could be in Los Pampanos overseeing that forensic team in person.

Hernández raises the back of his hand towards himself like the truth of what he's just said is so self-evident it bores him. He examines invisible dirt under his close-cut fingernails. Marta tries not to be unnerved, putting aside thoughts of what this hand might have been responsible for during the war, what necks it wrung, and death orders it signed. It's only a show.

“You are famous.”

Marta shakes her head.

“Yes. You are. People are sympathetic to you. You lived in what you call ‘exile.' This makes you heroic.”

Marta pictures the morning she landed in Toronto in
1987
, when the threats had become intolerable. Trembling at Arrivals in her thin blouse, clutching a piece of paper where she'd scribbled the name of the contact person with Partners for Justice, Neela Hill. Marta was widowed, her children terrorized. Very heroic.

“I think that, for you, we don't need to waste time. We'll come right to the point. If you tell me where the foreigners are, you will be free to continue struggling for
justice
.” Hernández obviously finds the word funny. “You will be immune to prosecution. Your brave little Committee for the Environment will be finished, naturally. But you will start again, I'm sure.”

“I'm not saying anything until my lawyer arrives.”

“She arrived several hours ago,
Señora
Ramos. We've decided she can wait a few more. I felt we should talk first.”

The hair on the back of Marta's neck stands up: after everything, in El Salvador, this is the reality.

“
Señora
Ramos? Are you listening? We have direct evidence from the office you keep in Los Pampanos. Emails that show you planned the kidnapping.”

Marta says nothing. She remembers her unfulfilled wish for an alarm system.

“Let me describe this in greater detail, and you correct me. You have no means to stop the mine's expansion at El Pico. According to your emails, you plotted with two members of your committee to hire these four kidnappers. You got one of them, Rita Santos, to offer the bus driver money. You knew he wouldn't ask questions. A sad story, the poverty of our country.