Free Blood of Paradise by David Corbett Page A

Country’s still scraping the bottom of the UN’s development index despite fifteen years of doing everything Washington wants. Debt load to international banks is obscene but they tax street vendors, not the wealthy. Meanwhile you’ve got generals at SOUTHCOM testifying to Congress about progressives down here as ‘emerging terrorists.’ That’s creepy, Jude. Like calling the Maryknolls a terrorist cell—which happened during the war, by the way.”
    â€œGranted, things have ramped up since 9/11, and some of it’s kinda off-the-wall.”
    â€œThey’re scared. Elections have swung left in Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina. Uruguay’s next. Probably Bolivia after that. Maybe Mexico. People down here are sick of the corruption and the poverty. So what does the Pentagon do? Claim anybody who won’t just shut up while the crooks cash in is on a jihad. You visited the embassy lately?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œThen you know. The spooks have landed. Way too many trim fit guys in golf clothes wandering around the halls.”
    â€œLook, I’ve got beefs with the Pentagon too. Never met a guy in uniform who didn’t.”
    â€œJude, I know that. My dad’s pure Corps. My brother’s in Iraq. I’ve heard it all.”
    That was news, the bit about her brother. Jude tucked it away, then said, “Well, down here they’re building roads. Schools. Clinics. I know. I helped.”
    â€œNot enough. Sorry. Not by a long shot. And not always for the best reasons.”
    â€œThat’s my fault?”
    â€œThe people you work for—”
    â€œAxel’s a hydrologist.”
    â€œFor whom, Jude? The women lining up barefoot at the pozos every morning, carrying the jugs back home on their heads? Or the soft drink company pumping hundreds of gallons a minute, bleeding the aquifers dry, just so they can move on to the next place and do it again.”
    She’d done her homework. Jude hated this. God only knew what she’d think if he told her about Malvasio.
    He said, “You don’t know Axel. He’s nobody’s stooge.”
    â€œThen they’ll bury his findings and hire somebody else. And what about the next guy they tell you to protect? What if he’s not quite so noble?”
    â€œI don’t have control over that.”
    With one hand she gathered her windblown hair while the other reached out again for her toenail to etch away another scab of red polish. “Well, there’s the two-buck question, Jude. That lack of control, who you work for—doesn’t that mess with your head?”
    Sure it does, he thought, and if I could manage a word in edgewise, I’d tell you about it. But before he could wring the piss out of that thought and say something reasonable, a figure tottered out of the darkness into the road. Spotting him in the headlights, Jude slammed his foot down on the brake. The tires squealed across the soft blacktop and Eileen turned white, gripping the dash as the truck fishtailed back and forth, then lurched to a dead stop. The engine sputtered and died, leaving as background only the tick of the radiator, the hush of the wind, the murmur of the distant surf.
    Jude opened his door to get out. “Stay in the truck, okay?”
    â€œIt’s just a vagabundo.”
    â€œI realize that.”
    â€œDon’t hurt him, okay?”
    Of all the things she’d said so far, that was the first that cut to the bone. It isn’t personal, he thought. Sure. “I don’t hurt people,” he said. “It’s not what I do.”
    He slid out and hailed the man, who swerved on his feet in his rags, clutching a bottle of aguardiente , the local white lightning. As Jude drew closer he could smell the filth on his body, the rotted teeth, and yet the man’s eyes were feverish and sad. He looked ancient, though Jude guessed his age to be somewhere close to thirty. He asked