‘Por favor,’ Harris said after clearing his throat, wondering if the man might be deaf.
The Indian paused and looked up at him with hound-dog eyes, as if waiting tiredly for Harris to continue.
‘I’m looking for François Laporte.’
The Indian stared at Harris blankly as though he had not understood a word.
‘Fran-çois La-porte?’ Harris repeated, emphasising each syllable.
The Indian put down his knife and got to his feet. He turned his broad back on the two men, opened the front door and went inside the hut.
Mumbled words came from inside and a moment later the Indian returned, leaving the door slightly ajar. He sat back down on his stool and picked up his knife.
Jacobs stepped closer to Harris. Both men craned to look through the small opening but it was too dark inside to make anything out. There was movement and a second later a man stepped into the doorway.
At first glance he appeared to be quite old, a slight stoop adding to the impression. On seeing the two men he straightened up and regarded the strangers with squinting eyes. It was more an expression of curiosity than a reaction to the light.
Harris recognised him immediately as the man in the photograph, although his skin was darker and his features were craggier. The date of birth in the file gave the man’s age as forty-six but he looked ten years older. His face was scarred in places, old scars, and he had a weariness about him, as if he was ill or had been through an intense physical struggle.
‘Can I help you?’ the man said in a thick, distinctly French accent.
‘François Laporte?’
‘My name is Victor,’ he said.
Harris was not put off. He knew this was his man. ‘I’m Walter Harris. And this is Tom Jacobs,’ he said with a contrived politeness intended to put possible suspects at their ease before he delivered his next sentence - which usually had the opposite effect. ‘We’re with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.’
Victor eyed the two men’s sweat-stained and muddy clothes. ‘Are you lost?’ he asked.
Harris maintained his polite smile, noting that the man had a sense of humour. ‘I don’t believe so, no.’
‘You’re a long way from home,’ Victor said wearily, showing no outward sign of surprise.
‘Not really,’ Harris said. ‘This is part of my patch.’
‘A patch,’ Victor echoed. ‘Yes . . . that’s about all this place has ever been to America.’
‘Aren’t you a visitor yourself ?’
Victor looked a little annoyed. ‘I live here.’
‘Aren’t you French? You were born in the Dordogne - as François Laporte.’ ‘I was born in a small village called Masseube - near the Pyrenees, actually. And my name is Victor. At least your trip was not entirely wasted. You now have my name and place of birth correct.’ Victor stepped back into the hut and closed the door.
Harris continued to smile, appreciating what he took to be the man’s bravado. ‘Mr Laporte . . . Victor,’ he called out. ‘I’ve come a long way just to ask you a few questions.’
The door remained closed.
Harris waited patiently, his smile fading.
Jacobs looked at his boss. ‘What do we do now?’
Harris ignored the question and stepped forward onto the porch. As the FBI man reached for the door the old Indian came to life. He jerked his head up and looked at Harris who froze as the Indian pointed the knife at him.
Jacobs was unnerved. He wasn’t used to this. He glanced over at the soldier, hoping that the man might help. But the little fellow was sitting back, his eyes closed, slowly munching his food and oblivious to everything else going on.
Harris stood his ground. If Victor’s watchdog got to his feet he would back off. ‘Did you know that Colonel Steel was dead?’ he called out. ‘He was murdered. In Washington DC.’
The porch awning flapped gently in the breeze. Harris began to wonder if this was a waste of time. He couldn’t force Victor to talk. He had been aware that Victor might not have been at home but he hadn’t thought that he’d find him and then be ignored by the man.
Harris looked back at Jacobs in the vain hope he might have a suggestion, but the young agent’s expression was vacant. Harris stepped back off the porch. He had no intention of giving up yet, not after the damned slog to get here. But this was beginning to look a little tricky.
‘What do we do now?’ Jacobs asked.
‘Is that all you can say? Why don’t you try coming up with a suggestion now and then instead of acting like some stupid schoolkid?’
Jacobs wasn’t offended by the insult. ‘We could offer to pay him.’
‘What?’
‘Pay him.’
‘You’re suggesting the FBI starts paying for interviews? ’
‘No. Just this time. We’ve come a long way. It would be a shame to go back empty-handed, that’s all.’
‘A shame? Are you still high?’
There was a sudden crack of thunder so loud that it unsettled both of them. Seconds later the heavens opened up and it started to rain heavily.
‘This is just great,’ Harris grumbled as the downpour instantly soaked him.
Just then the hut door opened and Victor stepped onto the porch. He looked confused. ‘Did you say Steel was dead?’ he asked.
Harris glanced down at his feet as the ground around them flooded quickly. ‘That’s right.’
‘You think it was me,’ Victor said, a grin livening up his face.
‘You haven’t been out of this country since you arrived here ten years ago,’ Harris said above the noise of the rain.
‘I willed it to happen. Every night before I went to bed I prayed,’ Victor said, looking up at the sky. ‘And every morning I woke up I prayed. God finally heard me. The Antichrist is dead. My wretched life is finally complete. I can die in peace.’ Victor’s eyes suddenly narrowed. ‘You wouldn’t be joking, would you? That would be in very poor taste.’
‘I’m not very good at telling jokes. I certainly wouldn’t have come all this way to tell one.’
Victor looked down at the old Indian, smiling. ‘Did you hear that, Yoinakuwa? The great beast and slayer of innocent women and children is dead.’
The Indian held his gaze for a moment, his dour expression unchanged, and went back to peeling his vegetables.
Victor’s smile faded as he remembered the old man’s pain and how it could never be eased even by such glad tidings.
‘Can we go inside?’ Harris asked. ‘We’ve come a long way.’
Victor did not appear to hear, lost in his memories, and stepped back into the hut. Another thunderclap shook the air and the volume of the rain seemed to increase. Harris walked onto the porch, keeping an eye on the Indian.
Jacobs was uncertain if he should follow but he took a step towards the door anyway. The Indian remained focused on the
calabazas
.
Harris stepped into the doorway and looked at the interior of the hut. A fire crackled in a grate on the far side of the cramped little room. One opening led to a kitchen area and another to a bedroom. It was basic, to say the least, well lived-in and cluttered. The air inside smelt like a mixture of tobacco and mildew but it was not an entirely unpleasant odour. The room had only one window, partly covered by a grubby curtain; the lack of light added to the impression of musky dilapidation. A table stood against a wall and two old leather armchairs on either side of a crate that acted as a coffee table faced the fire. Various items adorned the walls and shelves, mostly old Indian weapons and pictures. There was something strangely cosy about the place. Perhaps it was nothing more than the atmosphere created by the crackling fire and the sound of the rain beating on the roof.
Victor lit a twisted cheroot from the flames of the fire and blew thick smoke at the ceiling before slumping down into one of the armchairs. ‘Please, sit,’ he said.
Harris put down his backpack and eased himself into a chair. Jacobs looked around the room as if it were a museum. He stowed his own soaked pack and sat on one of the creaky chairs while studying the knives on the wall.
‘Would you like a drink?’ Victor asked.
‘That would be great.’ Harris shrugged.
‘Yes. We should celebrate such good news. Yoinakuwa!’ Victor called out.
A moment later the Indian stepped into the doorway.
‘Some wine,’ Victor said, his gaze resting on Harris who was slow to catch on. ‘Visitor’s treat.’
‘Oh. Right,’ Harris said, digging into his pocket to produce some notes. ‘Dollars okay?’
‘Of course,’ Victor said. ‘Where is the Yankee dollar not welcome?’
Harris held out several dollar bills, unsure how much to offer. Yoinakuwa took them all and walked away, closing the door behind him and muffling the drumlike noise of the rain hitting the awning.
Harris and Jacobs exchanged glances. The younger man looked vindicated.
‘Did you change your name or is that our mistake?’ Harris asked Victor.
‘I was born François . . . François Laporte. When I found myself embroiled in the local politics here I decided it was . . . well, politically uncomfortable. “François” sounded too much like Franco . . . as in Francisco Franco, the fascist general - Spanish Civil War.’
‘Yes, I understand.’
‘We were in the middle of a revolution and I thought Victor was more victorious-sounding.’
‘A scientist turned revolutionary. That’s quite a switch.’
‘Is it? Surely scientists are revolutionaries by nature. An FBI agent turned revolutionary, now that would be fantastic. If that’s why you’re here by the way, you’re too late to join up. The revolution’s over.’
Harris smiled politely.
‘So. If you have come all this way just to tell me that Steel is dead then I’m flattered,’ said Victor.
Harris took a moment to collect his thoughts. ‘What can you tell me about Steel?’ he asked. ‘How did you know him?’
Victor shrugged. ‘Steel worked for the CIA. Did he not?’
‘I’ll be honest. I don’t know who he worked for. I’ve come here to ask you some questions, that’s all. It’s just a small part of a larger investigation.’
Victor shrugged. ‘That much was obvious, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Steel came here to help the rebellion because at the time it suited American foreign policy in the region. He was a clandestine operator. He had no papers of authority. But he had money, weapons - he could provide lots of both. He supported us, or at least gave us the impression that the United States supported us. And why should they not have? We were democratic liberals prepared to risk our lives to kick out a bunch of fascist pigs. It was a classic enough story. The Neravista government was nothing more than a corrupt, despotic dictatorship of the worst kind. They were a darkness, a blight on the land, and Neravista himself was an evil man with the blood of children on his hands.’
Harris wanted to avoid any political stuff and paused to let the moment pass. ‘How often did you see Steel?’
‘He came now and then. He would appear out of the blue, without warning.’
‘Over how long?’
‘A year, maybe. You see, we believed he was our friend. Maybe he was for a time. I’m sure he began by following orders. It seemed as though the Americans supported us in the beginning. Why would they have merely pretended to? But Steel changed his mind at some point, or his bosses did. Or we were sidelined by something that became more valuable to them. I don’t know. I was not privy to that information.’
Harris took a notepad from a pocket and opened it. He jotted down a comment before underlining his next question. ‘Did you know an Englishman named John Stratton?’
Victor stared at the fire, smiling thinly. ‘Stratton. Yes. I knew him.’
‘Do you know who he worked for?’
‘He worked for Steel, at least in the beginning. He seemed to be his own boss. You didn’t ask people like him where he came from or who he worked for . . . It was obvious what he was.’
‘What was that?’
‘What else could he have been? He was a mercenary. ’
Harris nodded as he made a note. ‘Steel left behind a letter to be opened in the event of his death. It included a list of names, people who should be suspected of his murder if he died in suspicious circumstances.’
Victor chuckled as he took a long draw on his cheroot.
‘Why do you find that amusing?’
‘I’ll bet you don’t have the list with you.’
‘No.’
‘That’s because you could not have fitted it into your pack. There were many people who wanted to kill Steel. I knew a few thousand myself.’
‘I suppose Steel meant those who would have had the skill to find him as well as kill him. After all, considering the line of work he was in . . . Stratton was on that list.’
Victor shrugged as if he had no idea why.
‘In an excerpt from Steel’s report on the rebellion he wrote that Stratton had betrayed him.’
Victor shook his head, as though he was denying a statement he’d heard often before. ‘What do you know of the rebellion?’ he asked.
‘Not a lot. There was a popular rising against Neravista’s dictatorship. It lasted several years and the government succeeded in putting it down.’
‘So many suffered for so long. So many died and you describe it all in a couple of short sentences.’
‘I didn’t mean to make light of the conflict. There’s hardly a country in this part of the world that hasn’t gone through a painful change of government costing many lives in the last forty years.’
‘I suppose it was a small rebellion compared with most. This is a small country. Around here it’s still called Sebastian’s Rebellion. It was the rebellion of many but it bears the name of one man. And rightly so . . . You heard of him?’
‘I understood that he was one of the rebel leaders.’
‘There were several leaders, true, but Sebastian was the main one. He was the most intelligent, the most powerful, the most determined to finish what he essentially began . . . I was his second in command, you know . . . his last one . . . Through the course of the campaign some of us lost our way. Doubt set in. Ideologies altered. Then came confusion, lies, corruption. By the end just about everyone had betrayed someone in some way. Not Sebastian, of course. He never wavered from his course, to the very end. Stratton’s only betrayal was of himself. He betrayed his own code of survival. We all lost in the end.’