MAMista

‘The MAMista is an illegal organization.’

‘Yes, it is. But the Benz government officials tolerate me and others like me.’

‘And you get invited to drink with the Americans and the CIA chief smiles at you. I don’t get it.’

‘It is expedient. Channels of communication remain open between all parties. Sometimes we give warnings about … things we do.’ She didn’t want to say ‘bombs we plant’. Neither did she want to tell him of the hostages that were sometimes taken: government officials that they held for ransom. Inez Cassidy had handled such matters. It was not a way to make yourself popular. She finished her wine, drinking it too quickly. She put the glass down.

‘How do you know the secret police are not biding their time and collecting evidence against you?’

‘Our secret police don’t bide their time. They send a murder squad to gun you down without witnesses.’

‘But the Americans? Do they know what you do?’

‘The American government is not wedded to the Benz regime,’ she said simply.

‘That sort of expedience,’ said Lucas. He could see she did not want to say more.

The music was switched off as five chairs were placed in position at the end of the room. Five musicians climbed up on to the chairs. They produced a chord or two on the electric guitar and a rattle of maracas. A sigh of disappointment went up from those guests who had been hoping that the Americans would produce a pop group or some American-style music.

‘Mother of God,’ said Inez, regretfully noting it and adding it to her total of blasphemies that would have to be confessed. ‘I really can’t endure another evening of that.’

‘Are you here with anyone?’ Lucas asked.

‘Spare me a sip of wine,’ she said, taking his glass from him and drinking some. The gesture was enough to answer his question. She was not here with anyone she could not say goodbye to.

‘Shall we have dinner?’

‘Yes, I’m starved.’ It was the sort of archness she despised in other women. It ill suited a politically committed woman of thirty. She looked at the people dancing. The man who had brought her was dancing close with the editor’s daughter who’d just left college in California. It was a modern lambada: danced to the rhythm of the samba. She was a good dancer but she was pressing close and smiling too much. The man would be a good catch: a young and handsome coffee broker. He’d inherit plantations too when his father died.

‘Italian food?’ He’d noted the neon sign for the San Giorgio restaurant as he was arriving here, so he knew exactly where it was.

‘Wonderful,’ said Inez. She looked again at the dancers. Inez had been in her twenties before the plumpness and spots of youth had disappeared. The sudden transformation had been intoxicating but she’d never completely adjusted to the idea of being a beautiful woman. It must be much easier for pretty young girls like that one; they grow up learning how to deal with men. For Inez the prospect of another relación was not only daunting but funny.

‘What are you smiling at?’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said. ‘You leave now. Don’t say goodbye to anyone. Drift out slowly. I will be downstairs in ten minutes’ time.’

He nodded. It was better that they were not seen leaving together. The music changed to a habanera, a very old Cuban rhythm in which gringos often detected the very essence of Lat in American amor. Over the fast tempo, words were sung very slowly.

Lucas knew that listening carefully to trite lyrics was one of the symptoms of falling in love, but the words – a tryst under a star-studded sky – seemed curiously apt. He avoided Angel Paz and Chori, who were drinking, eating and talking and seemed oblivious to the music. He edged out into the corridor.

As he got there he saw Mike O’Brien leaving, preceded by a short dark man who was frowning and looking at his watch. Lucas did not want to see O’Brien. He stopped and pretended to study the notice board. There were small ‘For Sale’ notices: microwave ovens, cars and TV sets being disposed of by Americans on their way home. In one corner of the cork board the front page of tomorrow’s edition of The Daily American had been posted.

‘Benz Representative at White House Meeting’ shouted the headline over a story about the Benz government’s young Finance Minister who was in Washington asking for money, tanks, planes and military aid and anything he could get. The reporter thought the US President would demand a crack-down on Spanish Guiana’s drug barons as a condition for aid.

Lower down on the page under the headline ‘State of Emergency Laws to be Renewed’, an editorial said that the ‘Orders in Council’ by means of which the Benz government ruled were expected to be renewed when the current term expired in two weeks’ time. Meanwhile the Prime Minister controlled the Council of Ministers, Council of State, Religious Affairs, Public Service Commission, Audit and Privy Council. The Minister of Finance controlled the Customs, Tax Department, Investment Agency, Economic Development and Planning and the Department of Computers and Statistics. And ‘Papa’ Cisneros, the Minister of Home Affairs, from the fifteen-storey building that dominated the skyline, controlled the National Police, Municipal Police, the Federalistas, the Prisons and Places of Detention, Immigration, Labour, Municipal and Central Security, Weights and Measures and the Fire Service.

In effect, said the editor, the country was in the hands of three men, all of them close to the President, Admiral Benz. The Constitution forbids legislation without the approval of democratically elected representatives, the editor reminded his readers. He added that the elected council had not met for almost ten years. It was as near to open rebellion as anyone could get away with in Spanish Guiana, tolerated only because it was printed in English for a small number of foreigners who would tut-tut and do nothing.

Having given O’Brien time enough, Lucas followed him down the corridor, opened the door and went out on to the dark landing. He could see the illuminated red buttons of the elevator and he sniffed tobacco smoke. There was too much smoke for it to be from one man waiting there. Lucas looked round. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement. As he turned he saw a figure rushing at him with hands upraised to strike. Had the man known Lucas he would not have raised both arms while approaching him with hostile intentions.

Lucas kicked. He hit the exact spot he wanted on his assailant’s knee, aiming his blow to knock the man in the direction of the staircase. Now Lucas brought his hand down sharply. The pain that burned the attacker’s leg was equalled by that of the sudden blow that Lucas delivered to his kidneys. Bent over and off-balance, the man toppled and went crashing down a long flight of concrete steps emitting a shrill scream of agony. More shouting came as he hit four men who were standing at the bottom step. They all fell down.

From the dark staircase above Lucas, voices shouted, ‘Federalista! Stay where you are! Federalista!’ and men came rushing down and swept him back into the newspaper offices. Lucas ran with them, pushing back through the crowded room as if he was one of the policemen. The music stopped in a discordant sequence of notes and all the lights went on to flood the room in the glare of blue office lighting. A woman screamed and everyone was talking and shouting at once.

A police captain with gold leaves on his hat climbed up on to one of the chairs that the musicians had vacated. He shouted for silence and then he made a short announcement in Spanish. Then a bearded interpreter got up and repeated the same announcement in English. While all this was going on, Lucas edged his way further into the room to get as many innocent people as he could between himself and the man he had injured. Soon they would start trying to find out who had kicked one of their officers down the staircase.

Lucas stood on tiptoe and saw Inez across the room looking for him. She made a face of resignation. He nodded. The police captain – through the interpreter – said that everyone would be taken to Police Headquarters and questioned. Those who wished it would be permitted to make a phone call from there. No calls could be made from this office. The reactions were mixed. Local residents had seen it all before and stood sullen and resigned. A young woman began to sob in that dedicated way that goes on for a long time. The man with her began to argue with a policeman in German-accented Spanish.

The interpreter got on the chair again and said, ‘American nationals who have their passports with them will be permitted to leave the building after being searched. They must deposit their passports with the police clerk standing at the door. He will issue an official receipt.’

Lucas saw Inez. She no longer had her handbag. He supposed she had dumped it somewhere lest it incriminate her in some way. She saw him looking her way but gave no sign of recognition.

Chori was at the buffet table. He’d found a bottle of whisky and was pouring himself a big measure of it.

5

EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, TEPILO.

‘No one’s perfect, kid.’

From the top floor of the American embassy building on the Plaza de la Constitución you might have seen the fifteen-storey building of shining bronze glass that housed the police headquarters. But one could not see the skyline of Tepilo from the top floor of the embassy because the window glass was frosted ever since rooftop spies had been seen with telescopes peering into it.

The top floor was the CIA floor. Even the ambassador asked permission before going there, although all concerned insisted that this was a mere formality.

Michael Sean O’Brien was a well-proportioned man of thirty-four. His unruly hair, once red, had become almost brown, but together with his pale complexion it marked him as of Celtic blood. So did his boundless conviviality and short-lived bouts of anger. His career through the Office of Naval Intelligence, the US War Academy and then as a State Department analyst had brought him to be CIA station head in Tepilo. ‘Next time, I make sure I get a post much farther east,’ he said wearily. Still holding an unopened can of Sprite, he used his finger to flick through the latest batch of messages to have come off the fax machine. It had been a trying morning as he sorted out the flood of questions that poured in from all quarters following the previous night’s raid on The Daily American. ‘Much farther east,’ he said.

His assistant didn’t respond except to smile. Even the smile was not too committal. When O’Brien was angry it was better to remain silent.

‘This place is too close to the Washington time zone,’ said O’Brien. ‘John Curl and his merry men snap at your heels all day long. In Moscow our guys can work all day knowing that Washington is asleep.’ He sighed, knowing that Latin American experts like him were unlikely to get very far from the Washington time zone. It was one of the many penalties of that specialization. Sometimes he regretted that he hadn’t worked harder at German verbs.

‘Can I get you a fresh cup of coffee?’ said his assistant, who that morning had taken quite a lot of the wrath that O’Brien would have liked to expend upon his superiors.

‘No,’ said O’Brien. He sat down behind his desk, snapped open his can of Sprite. He drank it, savouring it with the relish that Europeans reserve for vintage wine. Then he chuckled. ‘But you’ve got to hand it to these bastards. They’ve got the State Department jumping through hoops of fire for them, Pablo.’

‘Yes,’ said his assistant. His name was not Pablo, it was Paul: Paul Cohen. He was a scholarly graduate of Harvard whose difficulties with the Spanish language had made him a butt of O’Brien’s jokes. Calling him Pablo was one of them.

‘You saw the transcript of that phone call Benz took from his man in Washington. The White House said these boys here have got to straighten up and fly right, if they want aid. That was yesterday morning, right?’

The assistant treated no direct question as rhetorical. ‘Ten thirty-four local time,’ he said.

‘So Benz phones Cisneros at the Ministry. Cisneros kicks ass and the Anti-Drugs Squad raid the Daily American offices and the airport. Notice that, Pablo: not just the Daily American offices. And to both places they take with them all five of those Drug Enforcement guys the Department of Justice sent here to teach the locals how to do it. And what do they find, Pablo? They find eight Americans carrying coke.’

‘Two carrying,’ said his pedantic assistant. ‘The other six only had traces of it on their clothing.’

‘Tell the judge,’ said O’Brien, who didn’t like his stories to be dismantled. ‘The fact is that Uncle Sam reels back with egg on his face, while Benz and his boys are laughing fit to be tied.’ He finished his drink and then bent the can flat and tossed it into the bin. ‘The whole raid was a fiasco. I was there at The Daily American. I could see it was just a show. The cops told me some yarn about their guys being beaten up and tossed down the stairs. But we’ve heard that story a hundred times before.’

‘Yes, we have,’ his assistant said. ‘They didn’t try to detain you?’