MAMista (16 page)

Maestro made his way up the trail to where Lucas had seated himself at the highest part of the hill. When he arrived his greeting was admonitory: ‘From here you are in sight of the Yankees.'

‘From here I am
not
in sight of the Yankees,' said Lucas, who had carefully selected the spot for that reason. This
was the summit of the ridge. Not far away the Americans had their white box containing all the mumbo-jumbo for measuring temperatures and humidity and rainfall. Farther down the slope, in a carefully chosen sheltered site, there was the survey camp.

‘Comrade Ramón will speak to you.'

‘I'm delighted,' said Lucas. He got to his feet and smacked the dust from his trousers and then stubbed out the end of his cigar, making quite sure there was no fire danger. Maestro led the way down. ‘Eduardo died,' said Maestro bitterly.

‘Yes, he died,' Lucas said. ‘The other will probably die too. Why did you tell Eduardo that the bullet had removed his eye?'

‘He asked me.'

‘He was in shock. He couldn't handle such truth. He lost the will to live.'

‘A man does not lie to his comrade,' said Maestro stubbornly. When Lucas didn't respond he added, ‘Our revolution is a struggle for truth.'

Lucas said nothing. They went to where Paz and Ramón were talking. Both men were wearing unusual clothes. Ramón was wearing the uniform of a captain of the Federalistas. Inez was with them but standing back as if not a part of their conversation. Ramón said, ‘Señor Lucas, what do you think of this?'

Lucas sensed that Inez was watching him closely but he did not look at her. He looked at Angel Paz, who was dressed in American khakis. ‘What is he supposed to be?' Lucas asked.

Paz scowled. Until Maestro and his men had arrived the revolution had been a cosy affair in which Angel had been able to talk to the MAMista leader about the strategy of the revolutionary movement. Ramón, believing that one day Angel Paz might write it all down and have it published, played his role. Paz felt that on many aspects of the struggle Ramón was entirely right, and had demonstrated a sophisticated grasp of his fight in relation to world affairs. Now
however Maestro was monopolizing Ramón's time, and what was outrageous, the Englishman was being consulted too.

‘It's a ruse to get through the gate,' Ramón explained patiently. Self-consciously he put on the cap of his Federalista uniform. Ramón looked convincing. Why shouldn't he be convincing? In only slightly differing circumstances Ramón could well have become a Federalista captain.

Lucas looked at Paz. He stepped back and looked at him again. ‘What can I say? He looks …' Lucas raised his arms and then let them fall to slap against his sides in a gesture of despair.

‘What is wrong?' Ramón asked.

Lucas looked at Paz. There were all sorts of specific things wrong: his shaved head and the belt drawn tight around his waist instead of resting upon his hips in the American style. Surely he didn't intend to wear those white cotton gloves. And Paz did not have the poise or the manner of the men of the American survey team. The overall effect was totally unconvincing. ‘I don't know,' said Lucas.

Paz was angry but, determined to show his restraint, said nothing. For years he'd been going around, telling people that he wasn't an American; now he was trapped into declaring himself to be recognizably one.

‘Can you make him right?' Ramón asked.

‘Never in a million years,' Lucas said.

‘Jesus Christ!' Paz blurted, unable to contain his anger. ‘I lived in Los Angeles.'

‘I don't care if you were born in the White House,' said Lucas, speaking in English. ‘I was watching them this morning. The survey team are not simply Americans. They are all drawn from one narrow band of society: white, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class, college-educated men.'

‘There is a black man with them,' Ramón said.

‘One individual. That makes no difference to the overall appearance of these men.'

‘How can you say I don't look American? I am American, you dumb bastard!' Paz snapped. It wasn't true in every respect but he was indignant.

‘Perhaps you do look American but you don't look like them,' Lucas said. ‘Surely you can see that … Good grief, I look more like them than you do.' He stopped suddenly, regretting his words the moment he'd spoken them.

Although Lucas had said it in English the meaning of his words was quite clear to Ramón and to Maestro too.

‘Señor Lucas,' said Ramón gently.

‘I know what you are going to ask, Ramón, and the answer is no.'

Paz also guessed what was in Ramón's mind. ‘Wait a minute,' he said. ‘I know more about Americans than this English creep.'

‘Be quiet a moment,' said Ramón. Paz looked as if he was about to explode with rage but did no more than bite his lips and snort loudly.

‘This is to avoid bloodshed, Colonel Lucas.'

‘It's not possible. I am a foreigner, a neutral.'

‘We must force the gate to get gasoline and another truck. Using Paz was just a way of doing it without shooting. Otherwise, I am afraid that they will suspect a trick and open fire on the jeep before opening the gate. Then we will have to take the camp by direct attack.'

‘Look at them; those clothes will not fit me.'

‘Shirts and pants. We have more such clothes.'

Lucas did not agree lightly. He felt very uneasy about the whole undertaking. And yet he could see no other sensible, honourable course. What would he do if Ramón attacked the camp? What would happen to the American wounded if Ramón insisted upon moving off with his stolen truck and gas? ‘If I had your word that there would be no shooting …' said Lucas.

‘You have it,' said Ramón solemnly.

Lucas rubbed his chin. Now he regretted saying it. He
was here representing the Foundation. If news of his cooperation in this criminal endeavour ever got out, the Foundation would be pilloried, and rightly so. Before him came the faces of all those self-seeking half-wits with whom he sat at the meetings. He shook his head and they were gone. For if Ramón was helped in simply grabbing a truck and fuel and making off, Lucas could sleep easy tonight. ‘Tell me your plan,' Lucas said.

‘No,' said Paz before he could stop himself. He kept fiddling with the clothes that were at the centre of the argument. He ran his thumbs around the belt and tugged at the shirt pockets in a pantomime of agitation.

Ramón looked at him but did not reprimand him. He felt sorry for him. Ramón had been such a short-fused youngster not so long ago. To Lucas Ramón said, ‘I will be interested to hear your view, Colonel.'

‘Very well.'

‘Come and look at my plan of the camp.' He turned to Angel Paz: ‘Go and fetch for me the list of Yankee vehicles. Change out of those clothes. After that go with Novillo and learn how to strip down the heavy machine gun.' He indicated Novillo, a big fellow who had been assigned to the machine gun more because he was strong enough to carry it than because of his mechanical aptitude. Paz didn't move. He wanted to stay and participate, and hear the plan again. ‘Go,' said Ramón. ‘I want the list.'

Lucas did not show the reverence for Ramón that Paz thought was his due. Despite any shortcomings he might have perceived, Paz's feeling for this revolutionary hero bordered upon love. Angel Paz loved Ramón, just as he loved the idea of violent revolution and his own violent participation in it. Paz was young and so had an almost limitless capacity for love and for hate. It wasn't entirely his youth that made him like that. Such men remained passionate lovers and pitiless haters all their lives, but it was his youth that made Angel Paz believe that it mattered
so much. Ramón seemed to understand this, for he watched with a sad face as Paz went off to do his errand. Then he sighed. The young man's impossible expectations were already a burden that Ramón did not want to bear.

Ramón turned to Lucas and smiled. When he explained his plan, he spoke to Lucas as an equal. The ‘Englishman's' age, his declared political apathy and military experience all contributed to this decision. He did not speak with Lucas as if he was a member of the revolutionary army. Lucas was granted a position of temporary privilege and limited confidence. Ramón spoke to him as an embattled tycoon might speak to a financial journalist, or an illustrious parent to his errant son's headmaster.

Lucas was briefed and changed into khakis by the time Angel Paz brought back a list of the vehicles in the compound. Four jeeps, two pick-ups, three walk-through vans, two Toyota Land-Cruisers and three Volvo trucks.

Ramón looked at the list and said, ‘The best two Volvos, the best Toyota and the two best jeeps. We must disable all the other vehicles. When the helicopter comes in, some lunatic might decide to pursue us.'

‘They are CIA,' said Paz. ‘If they are just doing a geological survey what do they need all that transport for?' He stood arms folded. It was a physical stance that none of the others would have adopted in Ramón's immediate presence, for to their mind it looked insubordinate and offensive.

Ramón said, ‘They hold it all here for the teams that go along the valley. They store food in freezers here and take it out as needed. It could be just a survey.'

Paz said, ‘The Volvo four-by-four looks like it has an articulated chassis. It would climb a wall. Take that.'

‘Not many walls where we are going,' said Ramón. ‘The Toyota is narrow; better suited to the jungle tracks.'

Lucas said, ‘Do you know if they remove the rotor arms, or immobilize them in some other way?'

Before anyone spoke Maestro arrived. He said, ‘There is
no one checking the main gate now. The sentry is sitting in the box out of the sun … And the picket is unarmed. The radio shack is closed down. The jeep is cleaned and on the way up here.'

Ramón said, ‘They will probably have guns locked away somewhere.' He turned to Lucas. ‘If they hide the rotor arms we will find them. Once inside there will be no hurry.' He touched his face with his fingertips, brushing every wrinkle and scar as if his was the hand of a blind man discovering the face of a stranger.

They had done a remarkable job of cleaning the jeep. It was difficult to believe that this was the same vehicle that had delivered Dr Guizot's body to the riverside hut. How long ago was that, thought Lucas. He had already forgotten his life in London. Some of this revolutionary dedication and determination had rubbed off on him. No matter that their cause was anachronistic and futile. Lucas recognized in himself traces of the young, insubordinate and sometimes ruthless soldier he'd once been. He was not sure it was a change for the better.

‘As long as they look at you,' Ramón told Lucas for the umpteenth time. ‘As long as you get their attention everything else will go smoothly.'

‘If it's just a matter of getting their attention, let Inez go,' Lucas said.

The men laughed but Inez did not.

Maestro smacked her on the rear. ‘Laugh, comrade,' he told her. But she didn't laugh.

Paz spat into the dust.

Lucas climbed into the driver's seat of the jeep. Ramón put on his hat and sat behind him.

‘Take care, Lucas,' Inez said. He looked at her, surprised by the tenderness in her voice.

‘I'll do that all right,' he said grimly, and started the engine.

‘Take care, comrade Ramón.'

Lucas let in the clutch and let the jeep climb up on to the track. He drove carefully all the way down to the narrow surfaced road that the Americans had built to connect their camp to the highway.

THE SURVEY CAMP
.
‘I'll be okay, Belle.'

The jeep's engine was not running smoothly, and that worried Lucas. Even if it didn't stall on him it would attract attention in a way that he didn't want. As they came up to the tall chain-link fence that surrounded the camp, a khaki-clad sentry in his rooftop tower leaned over the rail to see them better. Now that they were closer, Lucas saw that the sentry positions each had a mounted machine gun. From his position the one leaning over the rail would have a panoramic field of fire. And he had a modern gun, clean and shiny. Whoever had sited it knew what he was doing. The sentry rested one hand on the breech. It was a casual attitude, perhaps just another example of Latin American
letargo
, but perhaps not.

The gate was open. The gateman was standing in the doorway of the guard hut to be out of the sun. Lucas changed down and turned in through the entrance. He gave a perfunctory wave to the gateman but didn't stop. Countless tyre tracks had churned the soil at the entrance so the car disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Which way? Which way? There would be only one or two directions in which such a vehicle would go at such a time. The fellow in the tower had moved round it to watch them. His machine gun shone in the sunlight. So did the
belt of bullets. Suddenly memories of Vietnam came flooding into his mind: an M-60 with a 100-round belt of disintegrating link 7.62mm. It would not be much fun to be on the wrong end of that.

Which way? Then he saw it. ‘Office' and an arrow. God bless the Americans, they always make things simple and sensible. He drove past a solid little building, adorned with the skull and crossbones warning sign that said it was the generator, and then he spotted on the roadway a neatly painted rectangle marked
visita
. Dear, hospitable, gregarious Americans. Even in the middle of the jungle there must be provision for callers, and a space allotted for their cars. Lucas parked in the space. It was conveniently close to a wooden balcony and a door marked ‘Reception'.

Lucas dabbed the accelerator and switched off the engine. It was very quiet. Lucas got out. For a moment Ramón remained in the back seat. He carefully looked all round. At his feet there was the ‘grease gun'. He had it resting across his foot so that he could kick it up into his hands. Satisfied that there were no unforeseen dangers, he picked it up gently and followed Lucas.

Lucas rapped upon the door and pushed it open. Ramón stood on the balcony behind him, holding the gun in a casual manner. Inside the office Lucas found four Americans. One sat at a desk typing, two faced each other at another table and the fourth – a barrel-chested black – was cranking the handle of an ancient phone. He put the phone down.

The man typing stopped. He was in his mid-thirties with prematurely greying hair. His name, John Charrington, was inscribed upon a black plastic nameplate on his desk. He wore rimless glasses that his wife said made him look ten years older than his true age. That's why he snatched them off before speaking to Lucas.

‘What can I do for you?' Charrington asked.

Lucas had a pistol on his belt, a .45 Colt automatic. Ramón had insisted upon it. Lucas felt uneasy. His soldier's
instinct was to draw the gun and continue the conversation at pistol-point, but it was a long time since he'd been a soldier and it seemed too theatrical for such a cosy domestic atmosphere. What would he do if they just smiled at the sight of the drawn gun? He couldn't shoot any man down like that. Lucas said, ‘I need a couple of gallons of petrol.'

Petrol. The word amused the Americans. And where would anyone go from here on just two gallons of it? For a moment words eluded him: ‘
Esencia … gasolina
.' His words came hoarsely for he was a little afraid. Were they laughing at him?

‘Gas,' said Charrington. ‘Are you out of gas?'

‘Gas,' Lucas agreed. ‘Yes, gas.' He laughed nervously.

‘Is that so?' said Charrington. He tossed his glasses into the drawer of his desk, slammed it and then ran a hand back through his hair. He looked quizzically at Singer and wondered what regulations there were about supplying gas to strangers.

When Charrington gave no sign of doing anything, Lucas said, ‘These men are MAMista.' In spite of his determination it sounded like an apology. If he didn't get them to comply immediately, Ramón was likely to come smashing through the door, firing his gun. ‘Please do as I ask,' Lucas said.

 

The guerrillas distinguished even the smallest skirmish with a name. This one,
la captura del marido
, was remembered not only because of the captive husband after whom it was named, but because the opening shots were fired by a woman. In the ballad they called her Maria for the sake of the rhyme.

Inez Cassidy was crouched behind a rock, trying to remember the words of the Cuban instructor at the training camp. There Inez had earned a marksmanship certificate for the highest scores in her class. In fact she had the highest score they'd seen for many classes. Some of the men resented
her ability with the rifle, but they all respected it, and when this task had to be done Inez was assigned to it. She did not follow everything the school taught. The Lee Enfield rifle was heavy and she rested it upon a rock, a method strictly forbidden at the training school. She grasped its battered wooden stock and wondered if it had been used to kill other men. The old British army rifle had been adapted to become a sniper's weapon: calibrated and fitted with an expensive modern scope.

She watched the jeep raising dust as it turned in through the gate. The top was folded down, so she saw Lucas raise his hand in greeting to the gateman and Ramón sitting stiffly in the back in his Federalista uniform, not deigning to acknowledge the sentry's existence.

It was all as it should be. As the dust settled Inez spotted the second man. He'd come out from the hut at the gate. He wore a white shirt, with an identity tag hanging from his belt. He was probably some sort of supervisor. He turned to watch the car pass the generator building. The supervisor felt in his back pocket. Was he reaching for a gun, a whistle, a handkerchief or perhaps a comb to slick back his greasy hair?

Lucas climbed out of the jeep. He showed no hurry. She admired that; the
inglés
was cool. He went to a door, pushed his way inside and was lost to her vision. She swung the gun to look at the main gate again. The two men were standing together. She held the sniperscope on the white-shirted man. He was quartered by the cross-hairs, enlarged and radiant in the glittering optics of the scope. He rested his hand on the gate as he watched Lucas and the car. He swung the gate and looked towards the hinges of it. Perhaps it was making a squeak; she was too far away to hear. She knew only that he must not be permitted to close the gate. It was fitted with a self-activating lock. Once closed, a key was needed to open it again. If he closed the gate now, they would have Ramón trapped there. She looked again at the
machine guns. A battle under such conditions would be costly. They must not close the gate.

Experimentally she took first pressure on the trigger. The white-shirted man swung the gate again and this time he moved it until it was in the halfway position. She gripped the gun very tight against her shoulder. It had been fitted with a soft rubber-faced butt. She knew the gun would leave a bruise on her upper arm. Shooting always did. But at the training camp the edge of the bruise noticed under her short-sleeved shirt could bring nothing worse than a scolding about holding the gun tighter. Here such a bruise was all the evidence the Federalistas needed to execute man, woman or child without trial. Neither would the death be mercifully quick. They had horrifying variations on cutting a living human into small pieces. For women they had devised methods far worse … she closed her mind to all of it.

Second pressure: the gate was still moving. There had been jokes about her ability to squeeze the trigger with her strong typist's fingers. In her hearing the remarks had been just risqué jokes, but she had sensed deeply felt antagonism too. Men could bear the thought of being shot by a man but being shot by a woman was seen to be a shameful end. The tension of her body was unbearable. The strain of keeping one eye closed – something she'd always found absurdly difficult – contrived to make her deaf to the shot. She felt the powerful punch it gave her, just as she had that first day when the instructor had walked down the line of trainees, kicking the gun barrels to demonstrate what the recoil would feel like.

Through the scope she saw the man's head disappear into a bright pink cloud. Head shot; certain death. The second man at the gate had gone back into the guard hut. She swung herself round to aim at the sentry in his rooftop tower. It was easier for her to wriggle her hips, and move her body round, than to lift the heavy rifle to a new aiming position. She slowed the traverse as the tower flashed
through the scope. She swung back again, fidgeting her elbow to drop a fraction. She couldn't risk another head shot. A chest shot was more certain, allowing a greater margin of error.

She squeezed the trigger. She heard the shot this time, and heard the truck – with its load of men – as it sped towards the open gate. Still looking through the scope, she saw the sentry stagger against the gun which traversed. Then he drooped back over the rail, like a gymnast, before see-sawing gently and then tumbling right over it. He hit the roof like a rag doll, slid down it, arms and legs flailing, then dropped twenty feet to the ground and remained still.

She laid the rifle down and found herself mumbling a prayer without knowing who it was for. She came up on to her knees to see better. She should have remained flat and out of sight until the camp was occupied, those were the orders. But unless trouble came from the married quarters, that cluster of new huts behind the laboratory, there would be no more shooting.

Two sentries were dead. She could see them both: full-length in the dust. An irregular puddle of blood was forming under the twisted body of the man who'd fallen from the tower. It was scarlet and shiny and flies were buzzing around it already. She remembered her first bullfight. The horse had died in just such a mess and she had wept.

 

Lucas heard the shots and then the blast on the whistle but he did not turn his head. He should have guessed that the sentries were to die. It was an obvious opening to any plan that involved stealing trucks from a compound overlooked by a well-sited machine gun. They had, in effect, lost their lives when Ramón decided to come here. Or perhaps when they were assigned to that shift of guard duty. Sentries, like reconnaissance troops, were the first to die. It was part of the job. Then Lucas heard the truck and the excited yells of the men riding on it. He guessed
they would be brandishing their rifles as extras did in those old Hollywood films about Pancho Villa.

Inez Cassidy knew that sudden weariness that tension brings. She wanted to put her head down, shut her eyes and sleep. But she stretched her arms and felt the ache in her shoulder muscles where the bruise would appear. Her rifle toppled forward over the rock upon which she had rested it, and stuck there, muzzle in the earth. She didn't rescue it. Afterwards some said that Inez Cassidy dropped her rifle after shooting the two men, and the ballad of course says the girl ‘… threw down her gun, its bolt warm with tears'.

Maestro, for instance, insists that she threw the gun down. He was only a few paces away, seated at the wheel of a jeep with a whistle in his mouth. He noted the way the sentry in the tower was knocked backwards by the shot. Maestro had seen many men shot, and by now he could judge the point of impact from the way the body fell. This man toppled backwards with his feet and hands stretched towards Inez, as though imploring her not to shoot again. Maestro decided that the bullet had struck him at the waist, a few inches above the centre of gravity. Fatal. Maestro blew the whistle very loudly and then accelerated the jeep so that its wheels whipped up dirt and dust before it sped off down the hill.

Angel Paz was in the truck. He did not look back to see Inez firing. Maestro had permitted him to be up-front beside Novillo, who was the driver. Angel Paz was standing in the crude hole that had been cut in the roof of the cab, manning Novillo's ancient Hotchkiss machine gun on its crude homemade mount. It was Angel's task to kill the sentries if Inez missed. Consequently there was nothing for him to do except to leap out at the gate and open it and drag the body aside. He noticed that the blood, in tiny drops, was covered in brown dust. Ramón later reprimanded the driver and Angel for not running over the body. Such niceties could cost them the revolution, he said.

When Paz got back in the cab he was excited. He loosed off a few rounds into the air. The shots went over the married quarters and faces came to the windows there. Ramón cursed the boy's stupidity.

The four men in the office facing Lucas heard the truck coming and the shouts of the men. They looked out of the window and when they turned back to him he had a gun raised. ‘Please,' said Lucas. ‘You have families here. We want only trucks and gasoline.' But Lucas wondered whether he was telling the truth. Ramón had lied to him about killing the sentries.

‘Holy cow!' said Charrington. He gave no sign of having heard Lucas or even of knowing he was there. Charrington took his glasses out of the drawer, put them on and went to the window for another look. ‘Holy cow!'

Jerry Singer was looking at Lucas. ‘You've killed the goddamned sentries,' he said angrily. Lucas was surprised by the black man's beautiful bass voice.

‘I know,' said Lucas, although up to this moment he had only guessed what the shots were.

‘They are just local kids,' said Charrington, turning back from the window. The extended fingers of his hands were flexing and opening as if he no longer had control over them. ‘Only there to stop thieves … they would have raised their hands at the first challenge.'