Countryâs still scraping the bottom of the UNâs 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 youâve got generals at SOUTHCOM testifying to Congress about progressives down here as âemerging terrorists.â Thatâs creepy, Jude. Like calling the Maryknolls a terrorist cellâwhich happened during the war, by the way.â
âGranted, things have ramped up since 9/11, and some of itâs kinda off-the-wall.â
âTheyâre scared. Elections have swung left in Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina. Uruguayâs 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 wonât just shut up while the crooks cash in is on a jihad. You visited the embassy lately?â
âSure.â
âThen you know. The spooks have landed. Way too many trim fit guys in golf clothes wandering around the halls.â
âLook, Iâve got beefs with the Pentagon too. Never met a guy in uniform who didnât.â
âJude, I know that. My dadâs pure Corps. My brotherâs in Iraq. Iâve heard it all.â
That was news, the bit about her brother. Jude tucked it away, then said, âWell, down here theyâre building roads. Schools. Clinics. I know. I helped.â
âNot enough. Sorry. Not by a long shot. And not always for the best reasons.â
âThatâs my fault?â
âThe people you work forââ
âAxelâs a hydrologist.â
âFor 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.â
Sheâd done her homework. Jude hated this. God only knew what sheâd think if he told her about Malvasio.
He said, âYou donât know Axel. Heâs nobodyâs stooge.â
âThen theyâll bury his findings and hire somebody else. And what about the next guy they tell you to protect? What if heâs not quite so noble?â
âI donât have control over that.â
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. âWell, thereâs the two-buck question, Jude. That lack of control, who you work forâdoesnât that mess with your head?â
Sure it does, he thought, and if I could manage a word in edgewise, Iâd 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. âStay in the truck, okay?â
âItâs just a vagabundo.â
âI realize that.â
âDonât hurt him, okay?â
Of all the things sheâd said so far, that was the first that cut to the bone. It isnât personal, he thought. Sure. âI donât hurt people,â he said. âItâs not what I do.â
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 manâs eyes were feverish and sad. He looked ancient, though Jude guessed his age to be somewhere close to thirty. He asked
Landon Dixon, Giselle Renarde, Beverly Langland