then I had an off-the-wall idea, a long shot, the all-or-nothing take
you go for when the sun is dying and the unions are looking at overtime.
"You do tourist flights, right?" I started, still working on the idea.
"So how about pretending I'm an eco nut? A lover of the rain forest.
You can tell whoever you're so afraid of that you're taking me up into
the wilds to show me jaguars or something. A regular tour. Just
cruising around, taking in the sights. Totally innocent. And then if we
accidentally scouted a little, maybe we could find the place."
"Jesus, you're serious about this, aren't you?" Dupre nervously crushed
out his cigarette, staring at me glassy-eyed.
"Never been more."
He extracted another Gauloise.
"Okay, a counteroffer, Miss . . ."
"James. Morgan James."
"Right, Miss James. I'm beginning to think you've got no realistic
sense of proportion about this part of the world. You--"
"Fools rush in, right?"
"My point precisely. But if Steve here means what he says, well, maybe
there's a little room to negotiate. Maybe I could take you on a quick
sightseeing trip. And just for laughs I could kind of inadvertently
stray over the area I think you might find productive. Assuming we can
locate it. But here're my terms. I do it and Steverino and me are
square. Consider it a twenty-thousand-dollar cruise."
"Fine with me." Steve didn't even blink, and I loved him all over
again, right on the spot. Though the truth was, I knew he'd never
planned on seeing a penny of the money again anyway.
"And you think this place is Ninos del Mundo?" I was trying not to get
my hopes up too much, but still . . .
Dupre lit his new cigarette. "You didn't hear this from me, okay? You
heard it from the embassy or some other damned place. But that's one
name for it. Another is 'Jungle Disneyland.' Actually, I think the
local name is _Baalum_, the old Maya word for jaguar. But everybody
acts like it's a state secret, so all you get are rumors."
"Well, assuming we find it, then how could I get in? I mean actually
in." I was squinting at him, feeling my body tense. What was it Lou had
said about a word he'd heard when they were taking Sarah? It sounded
like "Babylon"? I also thought that was what she'd whispered to me.
Could it be the word was actually Baalum? The gloomy morning skies
abruptly flooded with the brilliant white light of hope. I glanced back
at Steve, and our eyes locked for a long moment.
"Morgy, for chrissake, what are you saying?" Steve took my hand. "Don't
you realize this is Guatemala? Don't even think about it."
"We're just talking now, okay?" I squeezed his hand then looked back at
Dupre. "I was just wondering. Once we've found it, could I get a sneak
look-see? Assuming I wanted to?"
"Well, I'll tell you one thing, Miss Morgan James." Dupre was fingering
his new cigarette, oblivious to my reaction. "Give no serious thought
to just driving up. The Army'd be all over your butt in the time it
takes to cock an AK-47." He glanced up at the sky again, though now a
dense bank of dark clouds had swallowed what remained of the sun. A
pre-rain gloom was enveloping the park, which was starting to empty
out, the hawkers and loiterers headed home to wait out the weather.
"But if we do find it, then as long as we're there, I might be able to
drop you off for a quick glance somehow, say, if we did it around
twilight time . . . that is, if that's what you want. But it's ten
minutes tops, and that's my final offer. Frankly, I think you'd be
ill-advised in the extreme to do it, but . . . in any case, it's got to
be a low-profile enterprise all the way. We screw this up and we could
easily swell the ranks of the 'disappeared.' "
"But you think you could actually locate it?"
"What I hear, the place is on a tributary of the Usumacinta River, a
latrine they call the Rio Tigre. Way up in the northwest. Low-level
Army types, you meet them in bars from time to time, like to BS about
it. I've got a rough idea where it might be, though you don't know
whether to believe a bunch of kid recruits after half-a-dozen beers."
Then my mind clicked. The Rio Tigre? Didn't that have something to do
with where Lou said Sarah was found? That was definitely where I wanted
to go.
"Morgy, have you lost your senses?" Steve had placed his hand on my
shoulder. "If the Army's involved in something down here, you don't
want to know about it. Don't lose sight of the fact those goons knocked
off two hundred thousand villagers since the freedom-loving days of the
Gipper, for fear they might be Commies, with the CIA practically flying
in the ammo. This whole damned country's just one big mass grave. Yet
another unclaimed corpse or two won't make a hell of a lot of
difference."
"Steve, I'll bet you anything that's where she is." Saying it, I had a
vision of all the things that had happened to me, and to Sarah, because
of Alex Goddard. I couldn't wait to confront the bastard. "He's brought
her back."
Steve just glared at me for a long moment, despairing.
"Christ, you make me nuts. Okay, look, how about this? At least let me
come with you. That way we'll face the unknown together."
Though I had a lump-in-the-throat moment, I didn't say anything, just
stood there glorying in the feeling of being together. It was so
wonderful to have him with me and so difficult to think about pressing
on without him.
There was a long, awkward pause, and then he glanced at his watch.
"Blast, I've got to hit the road if I'm going to get back in time to
set up for tonight's shoot. I just pray I can beat the rain." Then he
pulled me around and circled me fully in his arms. "Please,
Morgy, I really don't like the sound of this. I'll move heaven and
earth to get back here by Friday night, and if you still want to check
out this '_Baalum' _place, then we'll figure out a way to do it
together."
"Just you stay safe." I hugged him back. "Nothing I do is going to mean
much if I don't have you. Don't worry. I'll be okay."
Alan Dupre had abruptly taken an even deeper interest in the darkening
sky. I got the feeling he was uncomfortable being around two people
capable of caring.
"It's only for a couple of days," Steve went on. "We'll both be okay if
we just stick together."
"Right," I said, and kissed him harder than I ever had.
Five minutes later, my heart and my head still at war with each other,
I was alone in the virtually empty park with my brand-new best friend.
Watching Steve's Jeep blend into the smoggy haze of the avenue made me
feel like half of me had just disappeared into another dimension.
"So that's that," I declared finally, turning back and taking a deep
breath. I had to find Sarah before something else truly horrible
happened to her. And the one thing I was determined to do was keep
Steve as safely distant from my search as I could, even though it meant
I was going to be terribly lonely for the next few days. "When can we
leave?"
"Hey, get real." Dupre choked, whirling around. "We can't go today.
Case you hadn't noticed, there's a storm coming. If you really want to
go . . . and I mean really want to, then maybe in a day or so.
Preferably when Steve--"
"I don't want to drag him into this," I said evenly. Truthfully, I was
sounding braver than I felt. But then I remembered once going down into
the four-hundred-year-old subterranean harem quarters of the Red Fort
in Agra, seemingly miles underground and pitch black, with nothing but
a flashlight, surrounded by screaming bats and knee-deep in guano, for
no better reason than I was determined to see how the women there once
lived. So how much scarier could this be?
"Well, I say no way," Dupre told me. "Not today. Correction, make that
no fucking way." He had removed his aviator shades and was cleaning
them with a dirty hanky. "Besides, I don't think you have any business
going up there in the first place. If you're not scared shitless, you
ought to be."
"Alan, I think you 're the one who's afraid to go."
He almost reached for another cigarette, but then stopped himself. "I
will definitely plead guilty to a deep-seated disquiet about the people
who rule this placid paradise. But if it'll square things with Steve,
then I'll take you up to have a quick look, for my sins. But it's got
to be after the weather clears."
I finally realized he was already thinking about his next loan. Steve,
beware.
"Tomorrow then?" I wasn't going to blink, because the Peten was where
Sarah had ended up the first time and I was sure that was where Ramos
had taken her now. _Baalum_.
Dupre stared at the sky a moment longer, then caved. "Maybe we can
shoot for tomorrow late. If I can convince myself this storm has done
its worst." He looked back at me. "But I gotta tell you one thing, Ms.
Morgan James. We blunder in up there and end up getting ourselves
'disappeared,' we won't even get our pictures in the papers. You'd
better tell your immediate loved ones where you're going, and it
wouldn't be the worst time in the world to think about making a will."
The way he said it, I was sure for once he meant every word.