Guatemala – Journey into Evil Page 7

  Behind Cabrera stood their host, the thinner Colonel Serrano. The two men might hold the same rank, but it didn’t take the SAS men long to realize which of them was in charge. There was nothing overt – Cabrera didn’t defer and Serrano didn’t patronize – but there was still no room for doubt. Cabrera was just a soldier, which in this country might well mean no more than a well-connected bully in uniform. Serrano, his black eyes like burn-holes in a gaunt face, was obviously one of the men who took the real decisions. Intelligence most likely, despite the Guatemalan Government’s promise that this would be a strictly military affair.

  Lines like that were hard to draw any more, Razor thought. He and Chris had been shepherded into a spacious living room, where several comfortable sofas and armchairs were arranged around a woven rug.

  ‘I took the liberty of ordering coffee,’ Serrano said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Razor said, thinking about the football magazine which had been left lying, a little too artfully, on the coffee table. He had the strong sense that they were already being manipulated.

  ‘My son loves football,’ Serrano said in English. ‘He still talks about your Gary Lineker in the World Cup.’

  ‘Yeah, great player,’ Razor agreed, manfully resisting the temptation to get drawn in.

  A maid arrived with the coffee, but Serrano saw to the pouring and distribution himself, rather in the manner of someone orchestrating a children’s tea party. The coffee was deliciously strong.

  ‘How was your flight?’ Serrano asked Razor.

  ‘Fine. I slept most of the way.’

  ‘And you have been enjoying your time in Antigua?’ he asked Chris.

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘Well, if there is anything else we can arrange for you, any sights you would like to see, please inform Lieutenant Gómez. I’m sure he will be able to fit it into the schedule somehow.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Serrano waved away the gratitude. ‘We appreciate your help in this matter, believe me. It may not seem an important matter to people outside our country, but these are crucial times here, and any set-back to the peace negotiations could be serious, not only for us but for the whole region. You are aware of the current situation in Mexico?’

  ‘We’ve got a rough idea,’ Razor conceded.

  Serrano leaned forward in his seat. ‘The so-called Zapatistas are basically left-wing agitators from Mexico City who are using the Indians’ grievances to further their own aims. And they have strong links with terrorists in this country who seek the same ends. At the moment their main anxiety is that my government will reach an accord with the Indian groups and, as you English say, pull the carpet out from under their feet.’

  Razor took a sip of coffee. Gómez had listened to Serrano’s pitch with dog-like devotion, but Cabrera seemed bored by the whole business. ‘How does our man fit into all this?’ Razor asked.

  Serrano smiled ruefully. ‘Until recently we thought this man was long since dead, but after he claimed responsibility for several recent outrages a full investigation was mounted, and it now seems that he has spent several years across the border in Chiapas, plotting with the Zapatistas. His group wants no accommodation with the Government, no peace, so he is an outlaw even among the other guerrilla factions, who do want peace.’ Serrano looked sadly at the two Englishmen. ‘This country has been at war for far too long,’ he said. ‘That is why we are a poor country, despite all the advantages we have.’

  Razor nodded, not so much to signal his agreement as to accept that there was no point in challenging his host’s version of Guatemalan reality. This was going to be one of those jobs which couldn’t end too soon. ‘So what exactly do you have in mind?’ he asked.

  Serrano smiled. ‘Well, first, I would like to play you a tape of the man who claims to be El Espíritu.’

  He got up and walked across to the expensive sound system in the corner, turned it on, and depressed the play button on the cassette deck.

  A calm, philosophical voice floated across the room. The man was asking a series of questions in Spanish, with little clicks in between them to indicate where the answers had been edited out. In the background Chris could hear the faint chirp of a bird. It sounded like a great kiskadee.

  Razor listened, conscious that the three Guatemalans were watching him closely. The voice might well belong to the man from Tikal: it held that same distinctive blend of humour and great sadness which he remembered. It probably was him. But Razor didn’t feel like betting anyone’s life on it.

  ‘It could be,’ he admitted. He shrugged. ‘Fifteen years is a long time to remember a voice.’

  Serrano sat down again. He didn’t seem disappointed. ‘Easier to remember a face,’ he agreed. ‘And that is what we hope to arrange.’

  ‘How exactly?’ Razor asked.

  ‘We are mounting a surgical operation. A company from Colonel Cabrera’s Kaibil Battalion…you may have heard of them – they are our special forces. They are on stand-by in Uspantan, in Quiche province, close to the scene of the latest outrage. When we receive the necessary intelligence, which should be within the next few days, the Kaibiles will be going in to pluck out this terrorist gang, and we are hoping you will go along for the ride, as the Americans say. If you are on the spot there will be less chance of mistaken identity, and less time wasted. Yes?’

  It was more or less what the SAS men had been expecting. ‘You understand that while we are in your country we have to act under specific “rules of engagement”,’ Razor said. ‘We can only use our own weapons in self-defence. We cannot actively assist your troops, even in a matter of law enforcement.’

  ‘Understood,’ Serrano agreed.

  ‘But we will expect to be issued with the necessary weapons of self-defence,’ Razor persisted, determined to leave no doubts in the man’s mind.

  ‘Of course. You have your handguns – your regiment uses Browning High Powers, I believe – and we can supply you with Uzis and whatever else you consider appropriate. That can all be dealt with in Uspantan. I suggest Wednesday morning for the flight – that will give you two whole days to recover from your journey yesterday, and to see some of the city. Lieutenant Gómez has some plans for you, I know.’

  ‘Sounds fine,’ Razor said, getting to his feet. He had a strong urge to remove himself from the lounge, the villa, and probably the country as well. Colonel Serrano’s expectations sounded reasonable enough, but then the German generals had thought much the same of Hitler’s, at least in the beginning. Razor had only finished rereading The Rommel Papers a month or so before, and was more sensitive than usual to the perils of soldiers wearing political blinkers.

  Serrano seemed content enough, and gave each Englishman a friendly pat on the shoulder as Gómez shepherded them back out to the limousine. Cabrera, who had not uttered a single word since the initial greetings, shook their hands again, as if to seal a non-existent relationship.

  In the Pan-American Hotel Hajrija awoke to find Razor already gone. She felt slightly bilious, but nothing worse, and once again thanked her lucky stars that so far she had been spared the horrors of acute morning sickness.

  In the shower she found herself smiling at the memory of their lovemaking the night before. The two of them were so good together, and at first she had assumed that he was simply a wonderful lover. Certainly her other experiences in bed had not been half as satisfying. But according to him, neither had his. It seemed that they were only wonderful for each other.

  She supposed Razor would be happy when she eventually told him about the baby. For two months now they had been letting nature take its course – not so much trying for a baby as making no effort to prevent one. Abandoning the idea of a defensive midfield anchor in front of the back four, as Razor had so poetically put it.

  Her pregnancy had been confirmed on the day he had gone to Birmingham, and the mission had been agreed on before she had had a proper chance to tell him. She had waited several days for a suitable moment before realizing
that one was unlikely to appear before this business was over. She knew he was less than enthusiastic about this particular job, and she had no intention of giving him something else to worry about. If she had thought for a moment that the news would make him more careful, then she would have told him. But he was a happy man these days, and in Hajrija’s experience happy men – or at least those over thirty – tended not to throw their lives away.

  He wasn’t the only one who was happy, she thought, smiling at herself as she checked her make-up in the mirror. After the horrors of the war in her country she supposed anything would have looked pretty good, but the two years in England had been more than just a relative blessing. She had picked up her journalistic studies once more, and through a series of articles had built up a reputation as a freelance expert on the affairs of her homeland. She had made friends, both among English people and members of the expatriate Bosnian community. She had a husband whom she loved and who loved her, and a baby on the way. It was all a far cry from waking up to the sound of falling shells, and wondering not only whether she would live to see another day, but whether she really cared one way or the other.

  In England she had rarely felt homesick for Bosnia, and it seemed strange that the feeling should have been so strong on her first evening in Guatemala. It might have something to do with being pregnant, she thought, as the grinning bellboy took her down in the hotel lift, but on further reflection she doubted it. There had been something about the Plaza Mayor which had evoked her own country, something beyond the superficial Third World similarities. A feeling of warmth, perhaps. Or community. The word ‘solidarity’ crossed her mind, like an echo from the Yugoslav past. All these words were clichés. None of them offered an adequate expression of what she had felt.

  In the empty dining room she pursued the thought, eating her way through a large plateful of fresh fruit and slowly sipping a cup of milky coffee. It had to have something to do with belief, she decided. Not in God so much as in some sort of wider purpose. Some connectedness. Or something. She suddenly felt determined that the child growing inside her should know other worlds than the ever-so-practical world of the English, who only seemed to indulge their sense of wonder in gardening gloves. Or, in her husband’s case, in watching Jürgen Klinsmann.

  She smiled to herself, finished the coffee and checked her watch. Razor had said he would either call or return by one o’clock, which left her more than two hours to explore. The guidebook said the area was generally safe in daylight, though not apparently for women on their own. But it probably hadn’t been written with female veterans of the Bosnian Army’s elite Anti-Sniper Unit in mind. Either way, the Plaza Mayor was bound to be safe.

  She left the hotel and retraced their steps of the day before, emerging into the square opposite the flat bulk of the Palacio National. The sky was blue, the sun shining, but there were far fewer people about, and nearly all of them were Ladinos. The Indians were presumably back on their farms, or back in the houses where they lived as servants. Those groups of enchanting young girls with their beautiful woven blouses and skirts and mischievous smiles might even be in school.

  Hajrija wandered around the square, not feeling in the slightest bit threatened, but experiencing an absurdly acute sense of loss. There was nothing here to evoke the homeland she loved. On the contrary, the vacant expressions on the faces of the adolescent soldiers were all too reminiscent of that homeland she had been only too glad to escape.

  Back in the villa, Serrano poured Cabrera a shot of aguardiente and put another cassette in the tape deck. He had already heard the new tape but the Kaibil commander had not. And unlike Serrano, he had personal connections with the Morales family.

  The two men listened to the now-familiar voice of the man who called himself El Espíritu, the quiet intensity of the questions and the nightmarish passivity of the answers, the obligatory propaganda, the echoing shot.

  ‘If I ever get my hands on that fucker…’ Cabrera said emotionally.

  ‘With any luck you will,’ Serrano told him. ‘Now what did you think of the two Englishmen?’

  Cabrera shrugged. ‘I expect they are good at what they do.’

  ‘But not much class, eh?’

  ‘They are not officers,’ Cabrera said, as if that decided the matter once and for all.

  ‘A good thing too,’ Serrano said, pulling the packet of Marlboro Lights from his left breast pocket. ‘Officers would be more likely to worry about the whys; these two will just get on with the job.’ He flicked the Zippo lighter open. ‘Though I did detect some hostility from the younger one.’ He smiled wryly. ‘But then he’s been here for several weeks.’

  ‘Let him be hostile,’ Cabrera said. ‘The older one made it clear that they don’t want to be considered combat personnel, which suits me fine. The realities of our war might be too much for their sensitive stomachs.’ He smiled. ‘We’ll find this bastard, get them to identify him, and then send them home with some souvenirs.’

  ‘OK,’ Serrano agreed, ‘but as long as they’re with you, you’ll have to keep a tight rein on your boys – we don’t want to solve one PR problem by creating another…’

  ‘You want results, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I want results,’ Serrano said coldly, ‘and I don’t expect your Kaibiles to behave like mother’s boys. But nothing too gratuitous, not this time. If you want to make examples then wait until after the Englishmen have gone.’

  The limousine had just passed under the now-familiar railway bridge and entered the narrower streets of Zona 1. ‘How far are we from the hotel?’ Razor asked Gómez.

  ‘About two kilometres, perhaps,’ the lieutenant said, surprised.

  ‘We’ll walk from here. Get some exercise. It’s straight down this road, right?’

  ‘But…’

  ‘We’ll meet you back at the hotel, OK?’ Razor tapped the driver on the shoulder and told him in Spanish to stop the car. The driver looked at Gómez, who nodded.

  ‘This area is not a hundred per cent safe,’ Gómez said, but Razor and Chris were already climbing out.

  ‘We can probably take care of ourselves,’ Razor told him with a grin, and closed the door. The limousine drew away slowly, as if it were dragging the weight of Gómez’s reluctance.

  On both sides of the street locals were staring at the two men in their strange uniforms.

  ‘They can’t wait to get their hands on our berets,’ Razor guessed.

  ‘Who could?’ Chris agreed, as the two men started ploughing a furrow up the pavement. ‘I take it your sudden desire for exercise was a polite fiction.’

  ‘It was claustrophobia. Lieutenant Gómez seems a nice enough lad, but I don’t think I’m ever going to feel we’re seeing too little of each other. And it’ll probably be a damn sight easier to get some time alone here in the city than it will in the great Guatemalan outdoors.’

  ‘And it’s harder to bug a street than a limousine or a hotel room,’ Chris observed.

  ‘True. Now what did you make of Sooty and Sweep back there?’

  Chris grimaced. ‘I’ll lay you odds Sooty’s from G-2. Sweep just seemed like your average Ladino army officer – not very bright, probably a sadist…’

  ‘Didn’t you like him?’

  ‘What was there to like?’

  Razor grinned. ‘Well, I guess we’re not here to judge a Mr Human Rights contest. They did have their story off pat – one renegade guerrilla putting the peace at risk. And it could be true. According to the FO the negotiations between the Government and the guerrillas are at a crucial stage.’

  Chris was silent for a few moments, as they weaved their way through the traffic on 14 Calle. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, as they regained the safety of the pavement, ‘maybe the Government wants to kill this guy because he’s the strongest card in the guerrillas’ hands. They’re not going to tell us that, are they? They know we’d much rather believe we’re helping a peace process than simply targeting one of their enemies. I mean,
fuck it, if I lived in this country I’m not at all sure which side I’d be on. It sure as hell wouldn’t be an easy decision.’

  Razor sighed. He realized he had been hoping that the job would look more straightforward from close up, not less.

  They found Lieutenant Gómez chatting happily with Hajrija at one of the tables in the hotel’s covered courtyard. She had already accepted his invitation to take an afternoon tour of the city’s sights, and after their hasty departure from the limousine Razor and Chris hadn’t the heart to object. And in any case, what else did they have to do?

  The limo’s first port of call was Minerva Park, and the famous relief map which Ben Manley had mentioned. The horizontal scale was 1:10,000, which reduced Guatemala to the size of a square some fifty metres across. The vertical scale, however, was 1:2000, which exaggerated the mountainous nature of the terrain to an almost ludicrous degree. A Lord of the Rings landscape, Razor thought, staring down from one of the two observation towers, and remembering his thoughts of the night before. He asked Gómez to point out the town of Uspantan, and discovered that it was about a hundred kilometres north of the capital, nestling beneath the eastern end of a knife-edged range of mountains called the Cuchumatanes.

  Gómez then took them to lunch. The steak-house didn’t look much from the outside, but their reception within was almost ecstatic, and the food turned out to be excellent. ‘This is the restaurant of my wife’s family,’ the lieutenant explained, after the owner had insisted on shaking all their hands.

  After lunch Gómez suggested the zoo, but was overruled in favour of a drive out of the city. Chris wanted a clearer view of the mountains and volcanoes which rimmed the city, but which only ever appeared peeking above roofs or framed between distant buildings. In addition, Razor was becoming uncomfortably aware of the looks the blacked-out limousine was attracting. Everywhere they went people would catch sight of it and falter in their stride, waiting for the relief of knowing that it had not come for them.