Betrayed (53 page)

When Vicki prudently refrained from responding, Joe finished catching her up on the last few days of the investigation. “Michael’s comment you passed on to us about Zone 4 led counter-narcotics straight to the heroin processing lab, a warehouse owned by Hernandez. They got most of it. But with Hernandez dead and Camden missing, there’s no real proof of any current CIA involvement. Officially, Camden’s been written off as an embassy ‘bad apple’ using his connections to run narcotics—hardly the first and probably not the last. With him out of the picture, both the Guatemalan and American powers that be have decided to let the pictures of that massacre twenty years ago come out and take credit for bringing a war criminal and murderer to justice, even posthumously.

“Bill and my father have agreed to make statements as to what they walked in on that night and their orders to remain silent. As for the CIA, admitting that long retired personnel made one bad call has actually made them look pretty good—the new transparency and all that. At least your parents and those villagers will at last have justice.”

“Justice.” Vicki snorted. “That’s something I still don’t get. Why didn’t they just do the right thing from the beginning? Not just Michael or Bill Taylor and the others. All the way back to when they were deciding it was easier to make a few extra dollars by accepting forced labor instead of pushing a minimum wage law down here—at least for American companies—or that it was ever okay to play God with other people’s governments and countries.”

Joe’s broad shoulders rose and fell as he said reflectively, “I guess it’s like you said that night at the center—about doing what’s right and not giving way to fear. Problem is, we humans always have had a tendency to do it the other way around—making our decisions by fear, not what’s right. With the plantation owners and big business, it was fear that if they made reforms, they’d lose economic dominance and wealth. Even for the ordinary Spanish and Ladinos, there was always the fear that the Mayan majority would rise up and sweep into power if not kept repressed. And among the Mayans, there was plenty of fear for their own skins that led to denouncing their neighbors, taking revenge.”

“I suppose for Michael and others like him, it was fear that if people found out what they were doing, they’d actually have to start being accountable for their activities. Though in the end, it looks like Michael got his wish. No real scandal for the US or CIA.” Vicki looked out across Lake Izabal, now warming to the same blue-gray as the sky above, the eastern horizon a glorious splash of oranges and reds. “So do you think he’s really in that lake somewhere?”

“I don’t know. Without a body, we’ll never know. Though being who he is, Camden’s capable of being back in some Black Ops unit at Langley by now.” Joe gave Vicki a keen look. “Which is it you’re hoping?”

Vicki shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard to wish someone you’ve known dead, even though he’d have killed me in a heartbeat and was ultimately responsible for my sister’s death, whether or not he actually pulled the trigger.”

 “Does it worry you he might still be out there? That he might still come after you?”

 “Not really. Michael’s a professional, and he has his own code. I don’t think he’d hurt me except for a greater good or even hold a grudge. That much I’ve learned about him.” Vicki shook his head. “He was so sincere, so sure of what he believed, so committed to his country and his duty. That’s why it didn’t even enter my mind to suspect him. I didn’t agree with everything he said, but I trusted him implicitly.”

“People who truly believe what they say and act on it are the most dangerous. Especially if they believe their cause sets them above the rule of law.”

“Dangerous.” She turned her reflective scrutiny on her companion. “That’s the other thing that confused me so much, that . . . that made me believe what I saw, even when I didn’t want to. Bill said you weren’t a safe person to know. And you agreed. Up there on the mountains and even on the search—well, you looked so angry . . . you really did scare me.”

“I was more than angry,” Joe answered. “I was furious, not to mention scared stiff. I’d discovered that the person running this drug op wasn’t just some crooked UPN commander but a mass murderer likely responsible for your sister’s murder as well. And here you were, once again poking your nose into a hornet’s nest without a thought for the danger you were in. When I saw you in those woods and in that helicopter—”

Once again, he hadn’t even mentioned the jeopardy in which she’d placed his own mission, but Vicki felt her cheeks burn. “I know. . . . I’m so sorry. It was stupid. I could have ruined everything.”

“No, you weren’t stupid. As far as you knew, you were the only person taking Holly’s death seriously. It was just one of those things that can mess up the best planned op. In any case, it’s ended and ended well.

“As far as Bill’s crack about being ‘safe’—again it was the truth, though maybe not the way you took it. I had a persona to maintain, and it wasn’t safe for you to start seeing me as a different person. That warning of Taylor’s was meant as much for me as you. He could see I was letting you get under my skin—and maybe not maintaining the impersonal distance need for the mission at hand.”

“Because you felt sorry for me about Holly and about my family.”

Joe’s eyes were suddenly intense and very close. “No, because you were one of the most incredible people I’d run into in—well, too long. I’ve spent so much of these last years undercover, and most of the people I deal with are scumbags on their way to prison if I’ve anything to say about it. Then along came you—strong, caring, determined to do good and save the world even when you didn’t think it would matter. ”

Joe cleared his throat before he went on, “Anyway, I guess I just wanted to shake it through your head that the world really isn’t a lost cause. That it’s still a pretty awesome creation in the hands of someone big enough to take care of it—and us.”

Vicki found herself speechless under the intensity of his gaze. She swallowed before she managed to get out, “Yes, I . . . I’ve kind of learned that myself these past weeks.”

“I’m glad. At least that much good has come out of your coming back here.” Joe’s voice grew somber as he said, “I didn’t know then you had your own connection to this place beyond Holly. After Bill’s crack that day, he told me the other reason I had no business getting close to you–that you happened to be Jeff Craig’s daughter and had no idea that I—or rather my father—was closely involved in your parents’ deaths.”

Vicki put a hand on his arm and felt it clench under her fingers. “Joe, you can’t think I’d blame you for anything your father did or didn’t do. I—I don’t even really blame
him
anymore now that I understand better how it all happened. And you’re the one who helped bring Raul Hernandez to justice after all these years—and your father and Bill. That’s what I choose to remember, not what happened twenty years ago."

The muscles under her hand relaxed fractionally. “I’m glad you can be so forgiving. Because my father really is a pretty special old man. As yours was, from everything I’ve seen. I saw his photos Bill had. He really had an extraordinary gift. And a passion for this country and its people. Like his daughters.”

At his slight smile, Vicki seized gratefully on the change of subject. “Yes, I have those pictures now. Bill brought them over to Casa de Esperanza. Said they really belonged to me. He’d rescued them that night before Alpiro and Raul could burn them. All they wanted were their blackmail shots.” Bill had also begged Vicki’s forgiveness. Touched and disconcerted by actual tears in the man’s eyes, Vicki had hugged him fiercely. “Evelyn gave me the ones she had of his as well. I’m going to have the collection printed as a book, as my father had in mind. I can’t say how much it means to me to finally have a legacy of my birth parents.”

“Not the only legacy.” Only when Joe lifted the knapsack beside him did Vicki take notice of the bundle he’d brought. He unwrapped it to reveal an urn, weathered and encrusted with dirt.

“Something else Bill wanted you to have. You know your parents were cremated, courtesy of the embassy. There was no family to collect their ashes. Bill kept up a burial niche for them in Guatemala City.” Joe didn’t need to explain. Vicki was well aware that except for the wealthier family crypts, burial space was usually rented. When rent ran out, unclaimed remains were tossed into a common grave. “He asked me to deliver this to you.”

Vicki lifted the urn. It was heavier than her sister’s funeral box but still so light to represent two human beings.
Because it doesn’t. What my parents were—what they are—is not in here
.

For a long moment, she cradled the urn in her hands.
I will see you again, Mama . . . Papa. Until then
.  T

Then she looked down at the swirl of mist and foam and spray below and in one swift motion emptied the contents of the urn out over the rock outcropping. “There! Now they’re with Holly. At least—well, you know what I mean. Thank you. I can’t imagine a more beautiful place to remember them.”

Setting the urn back on the rock beside her, Vicki shook her head. “You know, it really does seem an incredible coincidence that we should all end up here together like this now. Holly. Me. You. Michael. Bill. Raul and Alpiro. All these people from twenty years ago coming back at the same time.”

Joe tucked the urn back inside the knapsack. “Not as much a coincidence as one might think. Bill was here because of his past connections, and it was those same past connections that brought Michael to take over for his father as handler for Raul and his network and caused Hernandez and Alpiro to choose these mountains. And I was only called in because those past connections had reared their ugly heads.

“The real coincidence is Holly choosing this place as her environmental crusade without even knowing who she was or that she’d once lived here. Even you chose a project in Guatemala because she was here. Though maybe even that wasn’t all coincidence. Holly may have been too young to remember these mountains consciously. But there must have been some subconscious memories—sights and sounds and smells—that drew her here out of all the places on this planet.”

Vicki remembered her own first reactions to this place. “Yes, I know what you mean.”

“But truth is, I don’t really believe in coincidences. I think God had a plan that entailed bringing you back to your past. And not just you. All of us had unfinished business here.”

“
I don’t believe in coincidences
.” How long ago had Evelyn McKie said the same to her? Vicki looked at Joe sharply. “A plan? For Holly to come back here to die? For another village to be massacred? For me to almost mess everything up?”

“Don’t go there.” Now it was Joe’s hand that was on Vicki’s arm, his fingers warm as he lifted her cold hand and folded it in his own, his voice gentle. “Whatever happened here—of good or evil—is still in God’s control and His plan. As Holly is His child. She lived on this earth until she’d finished God’s plan for her life. Then she went home. Don’t forget—this life isn’t our real destination or our real home. In fact, it’s just the start. More like, well, our boot camp, you might say, from the point of view of eternity.”

 “Now you do sound like a soldier.” Vicki managed a smile. “No, I know you’re right. I’ve been thinking too of what the villagers were always singing—that our real home is a long ways beyond this world. Still, after all this, it doesn’t really seem like we accomplished much. It’s not like we saved the world. Alpiro and the others are still getting away with an awful lot. There’re plenty of other drug dealers out there. And all those . . . those fires of corruption and violence and hate that seem to be just under the surface as much as the fires down at the dump. Do you think Holly’s death—any of this—has really changed anything?”

“Who knows? But one mass murderer is dead and can’t hurt anyone again. The media coverage has focused a lot more attention on the plight of the cloud forests as well as its Mayan residents. Holly would find that alone worth all of this. We’ve stopped one explosive situation and one narcotics network—put out one small fire, you might say. For me that’s enough. After all, we were never called to save the whole world, just our part. You’re the one who told me what we’re called to do, the difference one person can make.”