Night of the Jaguar (27 page)

Krill, however, was not laughing at his own joke. He went through Matthew's wallet, too.

“And Matthew Connelly. North American journalist. We know you, Connelly. You're the gringo who loves them fucking
piricuacos
so much.”

“No, Comandante, forgive me, I do not
love
the
piris
.”

Piricuaco
was the Contras' favored term for Sandinistas, it meant
rabid dog,
for which there was only one solution. Ajax was glad Connelly knew the right lingo to use.

“A journalist writes the stories his editors tell him to.” Connelly shrugged his shoulders like a laborer ordered to dig a hole in a swamp. “My bosses tell me to write about the army, I write about the army. I am like a soldier following orders. We have that in common.”

“No, gringo, we don't. I am the only one who gives the orders here.”

Krill's men smiled and murmured their agreement. Ajax smiled, too; even Krill didn't like gringos!

“True, Comandante,” Connelly bowed his head, as he, too, seemed to feel these soldiers' disdain. “But I am here now because I told my bosses I had to write about you as well. That's why I arranged this letter and came all the way here looking for you.”

Connelly handed over Amelia's letter from the Contra leadership. Krill read it.

“You and your mule.” Krill nodded to one of his men, a bearish man with one eye almost closed by scar tissue. One-eye quickly stripped Ajax of the heavy pack he'd been toting since Epimenio had led them into the bush. “I know nothing of this letter. No one told me you were coming.”

“Son of a bitch, Krill look at this!” One-eye keened like a kid in a candy store and dumped Ajax's pack on the ground.

The rest of Krill's patrol stared gape-mouthed at the cartons of Marlboros, bars of soap, and packets of instant coffee piled like a Christmas miracle. Greedy hands reached out. Ajax kept his eyes on Krill, whose gaze never wavered from Amelia's letter. But one short, sharp hiss from their leader froze his men's hands just short of the pile of goodies. Krill finished reading the letter with silent, slow-moving lips. Then he deigned to look down at the goodies, then back at Matthew.

“This is all for me?”

“Of course, Comandante. A good guest always brings gifts to his host.”

Krill signaled One-eye again, who quickly broke open one pack and handed the Reds around. Soon all were smoking.

“You are not my guest yet, gringo. I think you might be spies.” One-eye handed Krill a lit butt. Krill inhaled deeply. “We will see.”

Krill turned and walked off. His men hoisted their gear and fell in behind him. Ajax thought first contact had gone well. Then One-eye ordered two men to tie “the spies' hands” and bring them along.

They walked for six hours. Almost due north by Ajax's reckoning. He and Matthew had crossed one river, where Epimenio had left them, looking glum and guilty. He and Matthew had wandered north-by-northwest. They'd made as much noise as they could without being too obvious. Left tracks and made a big fire that night. They'd met no one, yet still, in this isolated vastness, they had come across two huts of such desperate poverty the word hovel was too grand to describe them. They'd left soap behind at each one and kept on.

If things went badly now, they might not be able to flee the way they'd come, Ajax knew that. So he kept a map in his head anyway. If they had to run for their lives, he at least needed to know the way home.

They were in Krill's camp before he or Matthew had realized it. In the darkening dusk it was eerily familiar to Ajax. Fires banked so low the flame tips barely peeked over the mound of earth piled to snuff them out instantly. They gave off little light, but enough to reflect the eyes of each Contra as they led Ajax and Matthew deep into the camp. There were more than three dozen in all, plus the twenty-two Krill had with him on patrol. Krill and One-eye bivouacked at the center, with the others in three concentric circles. There was very little talk, but what there was grew louder and more relaxed when Krill arrived, as if the return of their leader signaled all was well. In any event, they seemed not a troop of men expecting imminent attack.

One-eye led them to Krill's fire, pushed them to the ground, and slit their bonds. He dumped half of Matthew's goodies on the ground and went off, Ajax assumed, to distribute the rest. In a few moments, whispered cries of joy confirmed it. Matthew collapsed onto the ground. He had been blowing hard for hours on the long slog. Ajax had found the pace exhausting, too, but his body still remembered how to handle it, and, in truth, he welcomed the thirst and pain of a grueling march—it sweated you down to your core.

“I am fucking dying, really.” Matthew flopped onto his back. “I died before the sun went down and I would kill for some water!”

“Keep your voice down, Connelly.” Ajax was surprised at how raspy his voice had become.

“Yessir, Martin. Martin the mule. Oof!”

Matthew sat up as a full canteen was dropped onto his soft belly. Ajax caught with one hand the canteen tossed at his face. Matthew gulped mouthfuls, while Ajax took one long pull and swirled it inside his mouth until the parch was gone, then quietly gargled and swallowed the rest.

“You're going to get a bellyache from drinking so fast, gringo.” Krill sat down, stoked his little fire, and set a canteen cup of water on it. “You ought to drink like your mule here, nice and slow.” He emptied two packets of the instant coffee into the water and stirred the contents with the tip of a skinning knife. He gave Ajax a good looking over. “You don't seem too tired, Martin.”

Ajax shrugged. “We're Nicas, Comandante. Stoical on the outside, exhausted on the inside.”

Krill smiled. “Yeah, the gringos are a soft people. I had some other reporters with me.
The New York Times
and
The Washington Post,
they almost died just from the walking. You know them, Martin?”

“I know Mary Lantigua, but I don't think it was her;
The Post
has many reporters.”

“No, they were men. But even ignorant, simple Krill has heard of those papers.” Krill took out the ID cards he'd confiscated earlier. “But Matt-hew Con-no-lee? You don't work for the big gringo newspapers?”

“Comandante, I work for many newspapers and even though they are not so famous, my reports reach more people than
The Times
or
The Post
.”

“Like who?”

“
The Christian Science Monitor, Financial Times, Toronto Globe and Mail, The San Francisco Examiner
.”

Krill stuck the tip of his knife into the coffee, then tested it on his tongue. Satisfied, he sheathed the blade and sipped his brew. As he did, One-eye joined them at the fire. Ajax could see now that he was younger than Krill, heavier, with a wolfish cut to his face when he smiled. And smile he did as he sat down and locked his eye on Ajax.

Krill looked into his coffee and swirled it in the cup, as if, Ajax thought, he was consulting a Rolodex. “I never heard of these newspapers.”

“Well, the story I will write about Comandante Krill will be read by people in the United States, Canada, and Britain.”

“Any Nicaraguan people read it?”

Krill gulped his coffee and looked over the cup at Ajax. It was then Ajax was sure of what he'd suspected: Krill was fucking with Matthew, maybe with them both. But Matthew didn't get it, yet.

“Sure, some people in Managua, maybe. But the Foreign Ministry reads it and your leadership in Miami and Honduras.”

“Leadership?” Krill tapped One-eye. “You heard that? Leadership? In Miami? Honduras? What are these places?”

“Miami is a faggot town where the faggots live,” One-eye said. “Krill is the leader.”

A murmur went through the camp echoing One-eye's words, and Ajax realized Krill had been performing for his men, not Matthew.

“Of course, Comandante, here you are…”

Krill threw the dregs of his drink on the fire. “It was nice of you to bring Enrique Cuadra's body home for burial. Was doña Gloria grateful?”

“Doña Gloria,” One-eye repeated, and that, too, passed like a murmur through the camp.

One-eye was watching for a reaction, and Ajax knew it had to be the right reaction. So he laughed. It took Matthew a half second to catch on but then he did, too. Ajax picked up Krill's cup and began to make his own coffee. “You are like God, Comandante: all seeing and all knowing.”

“Yes, yes, right.” Matthew tried to catch up. “Omniscient.”

“Enrique was your friend, Con-no-lee?”

“A good friend, Comandante. And a good man. Did you know him?”

Krill shrugged as Ajax had earlier. “We took provisions from him when we needed them. He complained less than the others do. How did he die?”

“He was murdered.” Ajax tried to make it sound nonchalant, timing his words with setting the cup to the fire.

“Murdered, for real?” Krill, Ajax assessed, was genuinely surprised to hear it. “What a fucking country. Did the piris do it?”

“Ah, well, I don't think so.” Matthew took a long pull on the canteen. “Some say maybe a robbery.”

Ajax emptied a packet of instant into the cup. “Some say you did it.”

“Me?”

“The Contra.”

Krill drew out his knife again and stirred Ajax's cup for him. “Listen, Martin, Gar-CIA. We are not ‘Contra,' understand? Because to be ‘en contra' is to be opposed. We, in fact, are ‘in favor' …”

One-eye leaned forward. “In favor of killing piricuacos!” A mirthful murmur passed through his men as the joke was repeated outward in the dark to the edge of camp.

Ajax laughed, too. Then he set his hand on Krill's knife. “Can I borrow this?” Krill smiled, but nodded. Ajax took the blade. “The papers in Managua say it was you because—” Ajax touched the blade tip to his throat once and over his heart twice. “He was killed like that: once to the throat, twice to the heart.”

“No? For real?” Krill held out his hand. Ajax stirred the coffee with the knife and then returned it, handle first. “I invented that, you know.” Krill touched the blade tip to throat and heart. “‘To kill the vampire.' But no. We did not kill Cuadra. If I wanted him dead, he would be dead here!” Krill drove the knife into the ground. “Who Krill says dies, dies.”

Ajax expected that to go round in murmur as well. Instead, Krill's men suddenly appeared out of the dark and formed a silent circle. Krill looked first to Ajax, then to Matthew, and back again, and again.

“Is this why you came here? To ask me if I killed Enrique Cuadra?”

“No, Comandante,” Connelly said. “I told my editors I wanted to write about the famous Krill.”

“And my men.”

“And your men.”

“Then go and talk to them.” Krill waved at the soldiers whose circle had grown tighter. “Ask them anything. They will tell you why we fight.” Krill turned to look at his men. “Answer the gringo's questions. Teach him what he needs to know.” Then he waved his leave for Connelly to go.

“Thank you, Comandante. Martin, bring the tape recorder.”

“No.” Krill jerked his knife out of the ground, wiped the blade on a pant leg, and sheathed it. “You go, gringo. Martin Gar-CIA stays.”

Ajax could feel Connelly's eyes on him. He passed the micro tape recorder to him and tried to avoid the gringo's gaze, which Ajax knew would flash some concern for his safety.

When they'd gone, One-eye lit himself and Krill a cigarette. He tossed one to Ajax, who made a show of leaning down over the small fire to light it, thus exposing his neck and back to them. Prey who have no fear don't hesitate to show their bellies to a predator.

“So, Martin, how old are you?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Really?”

“Yes, but I fuck like a teenager.”

Krill and One-eye guffawed. Krill emptied out Ajax's cup and made himself more coffee. “So you must've fought for the revolution, huh, when you were a kid?”

“Not me, I grew up in the States. Los Angeles.”

“For real? Grew up there?”

“For real. My mother and father immigrated when I was a baby.”

For the first time, Krill seemed actually impressed. “I lived in El Norte, too.”

“Yeah? For real?”

“Why do you say it like that? You think I can't live there?”

“No, but Connelly said you were one who stayed.”

“Yeah, I did. But they brought me to Miami in 1980. I was supposed to get some ‘training' from la cia.”

One-eye laughed and mumbled, “Krill gives the training, he doesn't receive it.”

“That's what I told them, but they never gave me shit anyway. That faggot-lipped Carter was still president, so I get to Miami and all they want to do is talk. Talk to me!”

“So you didn't stay long?” Ajax flicked his cigarette ash into the fire where it burned a second time.

“A few weeks. In Miami. You ever been to a mall?”

“Oh sure, L.A. has lots of them.”

Krill looked into his newly brewed cup of instant coffee and smiled at the memory of it.

“The first time I went into a mall, it seemed to me to be one of mi General's palaces.” Krill shook his head in disbelief, but Ajax doubted he'd ever set foot in one of Somoza's mansions. The Ogre had been as much a light-skinned, upper-class snob as any rich Nica was likely to be. “It was amazing. Huge, like nothing I had ever seen. Air-conditioning everywhere, it was like winter inside. And clean?” Krill made a snapping gesture with his fingers, which in Nicaraguan meant a thing was incalculable. “But you know what? Fucking gringos let
anyone
go inside! Not just whites and Cubans, but the blacks, too! And not just the black gringos, but the Jamaicans and even the Haitians.” Krill shook his head at what Ajax was sure was the still-lingering disbelief at the stupidity of gringos to hoard so much wealth, but then invite everyone to come in and gawk at it.