The Rocket Man (45 page)

Despair was written all over Katie's face. ‘I've never driven a jeep.'

‘I'll show you. Look – it's just the gears.' He quickly ran through them with her. ‘Don't worry about me. The important thing is that you get safely to Asunción, and get out of the country. I'll be all right in the end, I promise you. If anyone comes, if the police contact you or anything, if they question you about the shooting, say you didn't see what happened. You were not in the room; you didn't see it. That's all you have to say. Don't say that I admitted I did it. Tell the truth, what you saw, but no more, just that you didn't see.'

‘Of course, of course, I promise.'

‘Now drive carefully.' He kissed her swiftly on the mouth, and got out of the jeep.

Katie said, ‘What about your things?' Dmitry picked up his briefcase, deciding it was better that she didn't have it. He took a bottle of mineral water and some bread.

‘Wait for me the other side for as long as you reasonably can, but if there's a patrol or something, you go on, won't you?'

Katie's face bore a terrible, stricken look. She said, ‘I shall never get over it if anything happens to you.'

‘Nothing will happen to me. It's you I'm worried about. Go on now.'

Katie hesitated for a moment longer and then, without a backward glance, threw the jeep into gear and started to move. He watched her ascend jerkily through the gears, gathering speed. He turned and ran as fast as he could over the uneven ground till he was out of sight of the road, then started to walk away from the road in the blistering heat.

It was much more difficult than he had imagined. The roadblock was opposite a military fort. He had to try to keep to the scrub rather than the open ground to cut down on the chances of being seen. There was little shade against the intense sun, and once he was walking he found he soon became unbearably hot. His belly and ribs ached from the blows he had received yesterday and he was exhausted from lack of sleep. After an hour of walking he changed direction; he sat down under a
quebracho
tree and had a drink, leaning against its bulbous trunk. It was hard to resist the temptation to lie down on the parched earth and doze. When he left he abandoned the briefcase.

He walked for about two hours. He wished he hadn't asked Katie to wait. He seemed to have had one bad idea after another. He thought of her sitting in the car in the heat, vulnerable and afraid. In any case, if they got through this roadblock there were all the others. When he tried to head back to the road it seemed further away than he had thought. Eventually he reached it, a straight line running into a haze of heat, mirages shimmering on the surface. There was no sign of Katie. Then he saw a vehicle in the distance; it came closer; it was a jeep. He thought of diving into the undergrowth but it would be too late; they would have seen him; he couldn't bear to be pursued through the scrub like a hunted rabbit. It would be better to give himself up; if he did so, they were less likely to shoot him. Dmitry stood still. His heart was pounding; he was afraid that when they saw him they might shoot anyway. The jeep stopped. A soldier got out, carrying a rifle. He shouted, ‘Put your hands up and come slowly towards us.'

Dmitry did so. He walked towards the soldiers, hands raised. His limbs felt heavy and drained of power, as in a dream. A few yards away he halted. They stared at him with blank, puzzled faces. Then Dmitry said, ‘I'm lost. My car broke down; I was robbed.' He thought that they must have passed the abandoned car on the road.

One of the soldiers, who seemed to be in charge, said, ‘Come here. Put your hands here.' Dmitry put his hands on the side of their jeep and they searched him. Then they said, ‘You have no papers?'

Dmitry repeated, ‘They were stolen.'

‘Come with us.'

He climbed into the jeep and they drove back to the roadblock. After some discussion; the soldiers came forward and asked him to get down. He said, ‘You were not anything to do with the English
señora
?'

Dmitry hesitated, and then said, ‘What English
señora
?'

The soldier shrugged. He turned to his companion and spoke in Guaraní; Dmitry couldn't understand them, he stood in silent despair. They took him through the gate into the fort and sat him on a bench in the compound. They said, ‘Wait,' though he could hardly do otherwise. Two of the soldiers stood guard; the other went into one of the buildings. For a long time nothing moved.

W
hat seemed hours passed. Dmitry shifted uneasily on the bench. The soldiers stood near him, waiting, expectant. Dmitry's head had begun to hurt. He had had hardly any sleep for two nights; he was thirsty; the heat was intense. It was obvious that they didn't know what to do with him. He had given too much money away to the other soldiers; if he had kept some for a bribe, probably they would have let him go.

An officer emerged from one of the buildings and came over to him. He asked a series of questions. Where was he from? What had he been doing in Mariscal Estigarribia? Dmitry mumbled his answers. He denied knowing anything. The officer was not impressed. Finally he shouted something at the soldiers who indicated to Dmitry to get to his feet. They took him to a truck and told him to get inside the back. Dmitry said, ‘Where are we going?' but they didn't answer him.

The jeep headed northwards and east, back on the road on which they had come. The late afternoon sun made long shadows; the air had cooled a little, he felt a faint breeze. It was the hour for the jaguars to hunt; Dmitry stared into the distance, hoping for a glimpse of one. They were heading back to Mariscal Estigarribia. The name, which had seemed to him so romantic when he had first read it, now revolted him. The sun was setting as they arrived at the checkpoint; the light was a rich yellow colour; the breeze on his damp shirt made him suddenly feel cold. Or perhaps it was not the wind; it might have been fear. He did not like the way the soldiers were looking at him.

They escorted him into a red brick building. Dmitry stood and blinked for a few moments as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. A powerfully-built uniformed man got up from behind a desk. His face was more European than Guaraní, but he had black, impenetrable eyes. He introduced himself as the Commandante, Vargas. He spoke a good Spanish, his voice smooth and well enunciated; Dmitry had no difficulty in following him.

Vargas said, ‘I understand you were picked up at the roadblock. You have no papers?'

‘My papers were stolen.'

‘So. Tell us who you are and what you were doing here.'

‘I am an employee of the United Nations. I have diplomatic status. This is all a misunderstanding. I –'

Vargas made a dismissive gesture. He sat down and took a sheet of paper from a drawer. He said, without emotion, ‘Your name, please?'

‘Dmitry Gavrilov.'

‘Spell it.'

Dmitry did so. He stumbled over the letters; finally Vargas passed him the paper and he wrote it down himself.

‘Your nationality?'

‘I am an international civil servant. My country of origin is of no importance.'

‘Why not? Why should you wish to conceal it? Are you an American? You do not look like an American and you do not speak like one either.'

Dmitry said, ‘I'm from Austria. Part of the United Nations is based there.'

‘And you claim to represent the United Nations. That should be easy enough to check. Perhaps you could give me the name of the resident representative here in Asunción?'

Dmitry was suddenly fearful. If only he had looked this up. ‘I'm sorry, I don't know his name.'

‘You don't know his name.'

‘No, I haven't met him.'

Vargas looked at Dmitry coldly with his black eyes. Dmitry felt utterly confused; he didn't know how much Vargas knew; he felt he was being played with. Vargas said, ‘You wouldn't be here to see Wolf Richter, would you, by any chance?'

Dmitry thought for a moment and then said, ‘No.' His hesitation however had told Vargas something; he continued, ‘Do you know who I mean?'

Dmitry wondered if he should deny knowing him. Perhaps it was a trap. On the other hand, it might be worse in the long run to lie about it. He said, ‘I have read about his project in the papers.' A feeling of hopelessness descended on Dmitry; he did not know how to explain himself. He did not want to lie, and yet he did not think they would believe the truth.

‘So you are here because of Richter. You admit this?'

‘I am not admitting anything.'

Vargas's eyes narrowed. He looked back to his piece of paper. ‘But if you are not here on official United Nations business, and you are not here to see Wolf Richter, then what kind of business are you here on?' His voice had a hard edge to it; he gave the impression he was struggling to remain patient, that he was giving his prisoner every chance to put his case.

Dmitry was in torment. He thought, they must know what has happened. He wondered if he wouldn't do better just to come out with it all. Even now he could probably have defused the situation. If he had been more relaxed with the soldiers, had he started out by telling them what had happened, had addressed them man to man; had he said, ‘Look, this is all about a woman. You know how it is…' he might have ended up sitting playing cards and drinking with them. But he looked like a man who was hiding something; his whole appearance implied guilt.

Finally he said, without conviction, ‘It is a kind of holiday.' His words sounded wooden, hollow. He wondered whether it would help him to mention Cesar Madregón; on the other hand, he didn't want to get him into trouble. He decided to risk it. He said, ‘César Madregón brought me here. We were going to shoot the
tigre
.'

‘But it is not the
tigre
you have shot, is it, Señor Gavrilov?' Vargas looked him directly in the eye. ‘Wait a moment.' He called somebody in, handed him the sheet of paper, and told him to put a call through to the UN offices in Asunción. He looked at his watch. He said, ‘It may have to be in the morning.'

The man went out. Vargas continued to look at Dmitry with a cold detachment which frightened him. ‘So tell me your real reasons for visiting this part of the country. You cannot expect me to believe it's a holiday. You have admitted that you know about the rocket project. You have shot one of the guards from the rocket site. These are not the actions of someone who is here for some innocent purpose.'

Dmitry did not know what to say. He didn't know whether it was better to admit it and defend himself, or to keep silent. Whatever he said might incriminate him still further. He was so tired he couldn't think straight. The only people who had seen the shooting were Katie, who had promised she would not testify against him, Haynes, and Luís. They might have trouble proving what had happened. Besides, if a case ever came to court, he was sure that justice could still be bought in this country. The problem was, it was most unlikely ever to come to court.

Vargas got to his feet, scraping his chair across the floor with a loud noise which made Dmitry jump. ‘Come with me,' he said, ‘I want to show you something.' They went out through the door into a corridor and then into another room. Something lay on the ground under a blanket; flies were buzzing round it, there were dark stains on the floor. Dmitry at once felt dizzy and weak. The blanket formed the shape of a man. As yet, even in the small, airless room, there was no smell. Vargas kept his eyes on Dmitry's face as he drew back the blanket to expose the man's face. Dmitry did not want to look; he couldn't bear to be confronted with what he had done, but he knew he had to; then he thought that perhaps in some curious way it would even help him.

He took a deep breath and looked. They had not closed Virgilio's eyes; the lips were drawn back from the yellowed teeth; Dmitry could not take his eyes off the bloody hole the bullet had torn in the man's neck. Once he had started to look, once he had overcome his initial revulsion, he could not stop himself; he felt he had to study it, to understand it, to see what he had really done. But the more he looked, the more terrible it seemed. It was obscene, to think that an action of his had transformed the living, breathing, miracle of human life into this repulsive lump of dead flesh. He looked at Virgilio's rotten teeth, dissolved away by too much
gaseosa
; soon the lips around them would be rotting.

He turned and looked at Vargas and stared directly into his face. If Vargas expected some obvious reaction which would reveal his guilt, he didn't get it. Surely, anyone would be upset seeing such a sight unless they were hardened through their job to death. Dmitry felt he had to say something; he said simply, ‘
El es muerte
.' It sounded as if he was surprised; it sounded false.

With a flick of his boot Vargas kicked the blanket back over the man's head. ‘You are not going to deny that you have done this?' he said.

‘I will neither deny nor accept it. I do not believe that it is in my interests to say anything.'

Vargas said, ‘Come,' and they went back to his office.

Dmitry said, quietly, ‘I insist that you contact the UN resident representative in Asunción. He will be able to establish my credentials. If you believe that I have killed this man you should hand me over to the police to face the process of justice in Asunción.'

Vargas said, ‘You are a fool. You think you have the right to see a lawyer, have a trial, to withhold information? This is a military matter. You are in a military zone; there is no civil authority here. We have a military project here which we have a duty to protect; you are quite likely to be a spy, a saboteur. We would be quite within our rights to simply take you outside and shoot you right away. Nobody would ask any questions; nobody would challenge us. Do you understand me?'

Dmitry had started to sweat. He understood perfectly. He said, ‘But there would be an outcry. I am a foreigner, a UN employee of high rank; there would be questions asked.'