Free Red Jungle by Kent Harrington Page B

all business, tearing open the concrete sacks and showing him how much water to add. He mixed carefully now, following her instructions, while others came with buckets and took the concrete away to pour in the forms that had been dug and built by a previous crew the weekend before.
    He met the general’s wife, Beatrice Allenby-Selva, that afternoon. All the volunteers had been invited in for tea at the great house. He was sure his mother had known the general’s family, and it was even conceivable that he’d been here as a child, given the proximity to his mother’s plantation, but he didn’t remember it. The original plantation house had been burnt down during the war, one of the workers had told him. The general’s new house had just been completed. It was massive and very modern, and looked like it belonged in Connecticut, not Guatemala. No one had seen either the general or his family during the day. But they had all seen a brand new Toyota Land Cruiser, two bodyguards hanging on the running boards, race past the construction site several times while they’d been working.
    All the foreigners working on the project were presented to the general before tea was served. Carlos Selva was dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, like any American executive might have worn on the weekend. Selva wore his black hair combed straight back. He had a high forehead and was white, obviously from European stock. The general was handsome in a very starched way and somewhat younger than Russell expected, maybe only 39 or 40. There was a trace of gray in his mustache. He had serious blue eyes and seemed smug, like so many important men he’d met as a journalist, Russell thought. He’d come to associate smugness with political power, in fact.
    The general barely glanced at him as they were introduced. They shook hands perfunctorily, and then Selva was onto the next person.
    Russell had purposefully come in his dirty work clothes. A lot of the others had cleaned up more. He had not. It had been his way of hiding, making sure that there could be no possible connection made between him and his mother’s family. The moment passed, and there had been no recognition in Selva’s eyes.
    As their group was coming down the hall towards the garden, Russell saw Beatrice for the first time. She was coming in the opposite direction, flanked by her nanny and her two young children. The moment he saw her, he knew he had to speak to her. There was something about Beatrice, something about her beautiful face that beckoned. It was the intelligence of course, and her great beauty, and the way they harmonized.
    All the young men noticed her. She wore trendy slacks that showed her naked stomach, which was muscled. She stopped to say something to her husband. She put her hand on his shoulder. She’d been a dancer, and it was obvious, she had a great grace.
    She was smiling and leading the children, joining the group. It was clear she had been told to make an appearance and bring the children, as it made the general and his trophy wife (he’d been married twice before) seem even more affable.
    Beatrice was introduced to everyone when they got out to the garden, where the staff had set up drinks tables. She went out of her way to make eye contact with everyone she met. She kept hold of one of her children’s hands. Russell noticed she was wearing an over-sized gold cross. He thought she might be winking at the system, because she was dressed so au courant and she was so young. The juxtaposition of bare midriff and gold cross somehow didn’t seem to fit exactly, unless you took the cross as making a kind of joke of it all.
    He was struck by how young she was. She must have been only twenty-five, or less. She seemed to be a child herself. It was the nature of her beauty, he supposed, trying not to stare. She was equal parts siren and waif. The children, both toddlers, were beautiful—a girl and a boy. Both favored their mother, and were very