A King's ransom

43

Maria and I had traveled by boat up the coast from Puerto Cabezas, then hiked another half hour into the thick of the rain forest. The Mosquito Coast was living up to its name. I was covered with insect repellent, but nothing short of dousing myself in gasoline and setting myself on fire could have deterred these monsters. I was sure they’d drawn at least a pint of my blood by the time we reached the first clearing. We stopped for water from our canteens atop a barren, muddy hill. Hundreds of short sticks were protruding up from the ground.

“What’s with all the sticks?” I asked.

“Mudslide. The last hurricane. Used to be a village here. The sticks are where we found the bodies.”

I took a wider look and saw even more sticks. Hundreds more in every direction, up one slope and down another. It was the jungle version of Arlington National Cemetery, except that everybody here, children included, had been washed away at the same horrific moment in the same giant river of mud. Maria fell silent, eyes closed, as if in prayer. I bowed my head and said a little one of my own.

That was our last real break of the afternoon. We walked nonstop for two more hours, sharing water along the way, until we finally reached an old Miskito Indian settlement at dusk. It was little more than a small clearing in the trees. There were no real roads, only footpaths that led from the hub to the forest in all directions, like the spokes of a wheel. In the center of the clearing was an old wooden building that appeared to be a combination church and schoolhouse. About a dozen tumbledown shacks surrounded it. A group of Indian children came out to greet us as we entered their village. I was suddenly surrounded by outstretched hands, some of them tugging at my backpack. They knew Maria by name, which lessened my anxiety.

“I used to teach here,” she said over the incessant chatter of the children.

“Teach what?”

“Bible school.”

I suddenly understood what had drawn her to Lindsey, a lost soul if ever there was one.

Maria said something in the native Miskito language, and the smiling children backed away, allowing us to pass. I followed her around to the back of the church, where she stopped at the door to a small cottage. She knocked twice, and the door opened. A woman with short blond hair was standing in the doorway, the first Caucasian I’d seen since leaving Managua. The short hair threw me. In the waning daylight I almost didn’t recognize my own sister.

“Nick?” she said.

“I came to see if you want to change your long-distance carrier.”

She smiled, appreciating the humor, then came out and gave me a rather unexpected hug. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“I can’t believe you’re here,” I said.

We didn’t tell Maria that we wanted to talk alone, but on her own initiative she headed off to chat with her former pupils. Lindsey led me inside, closed the door, and lit the oil lamp on the table. It was a one-room shack, and the lamp was the only source of light. The bed was a woven hammock. A pitcher and washbasin were resting on the nightstand beside it. The floor was a collection of straw mats on dirt. We sat at opposite sides of the table on the only two chairs in the room. She offered me a tin cup of water.

“You’ve had your shots, right?”

“I got them before I went to Colombia.”

“You went to Colombia?”

The way she’d asked, it was clear that she didn’t know about Dad. She seemed genuinely shocked as I told her all about the kidnapping. It took several minutes. I finished with the part that I assumed would be of greatest interest to her.

“The insurance company thinks you’re behind Dad’s kidnapping.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“That’s what I thought. For starters, how would you even know he had kidnap-and-ransom insurance?”

She paused, then said, “Actually, I think I did know that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dad never came right out and told me he had it. But he wanted to buy a policy for me, and I guess I sort of assumed he had it for himself.”

“Now I’m really confused. The last time you and I had a phone conversation, you said that you hadn’t spoken to Mom or Dad since Christmas.”

“The last time you and I talked was almost three months ago.”

“Are you saying things have changed between you and Dad?”

“Honestly, we were becoming. . close.”

I put down my tin cup, leaned into the table, and looked her in the eye. “Lindsey, knock off the games. Maria told me about you and Guillermo. I know all about the story you were writing on the plight of these divers.”

“Did she also tell you that Dad was my source?”

“She said it was Guillermo. An unwitting Guillermo at that.”

“Anybody who asked, I told them it was Guillermo. This is a dangerous story. Dad was really sticking his neck out by feeding me information.”

“So you decided to put Guillermo’s neck on the chopping block?”

“He deserved it. The creep never told me he had a wife in Florida.”

“You didn’t know he was married?”

“How would I? She’s never here. I guess she prefers Palm Beach to Managua.”

“Go figure.”

“Anyway, after Dad dressed me down for dating his partner, we started meeting for coffee twice a week, that sort of thing. It didn’t take long for him to realize that my journalism career was going nowhere. That’s when he asked me to write this story.”

“You expect me to believe that he asked you to expose the abuses of his own company?”

“It’s not about his company. Rey’s Seafood trains its divers and uses the right equipment. Its divers get paid very well, too. That’s why Dad’s practically going out of business. He can’t compete with some of these other companies that send untrained divers down all day long with no gauges.”

“So it’s your job to write the story that will blow the competition out of the water. Literally.”

“Exactly. And they’re not too happy with me right now. Which is why I’m hiding out in this shack.”

“Why didn’t you just come home?”

“Because the story isn’t finished yet,” she said without a moment’s hesitation.

That was the most grown-up statement I’d ever heard my sister utter. I smiled with my eyes and said, “I’m proud of you.”

“So was Dad.”

“I’ll bet he was. But what about Guillermo?”

“Honestly, he thinks Rey’s Seafood should shut up and do business the way some of his competitors do.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Sure. Training and equipment cost money. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it was practically putting the company out of business. That’s why Dad went to Colombia.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Last time Dad and I talked, he said there were some good boats for cheap in Cartagena. Every extra boat they add to their fleet increases cash flow by about fifty grand a month. So Guillermo gave him two choices. Cut the diving costs or go get the boats.”

“Guillermo sent Dad to Colombia? He never told me that.”

“Take it from me and his wife. He’s not the most honest person I’ve ever met.”

“So I’m learning,” I said, staring blankly at the flickering flame in the lamp.

“What are you thinking?”

After a moment or two I looked back at my sister and said, “I think it’s time I had a serious talk with Guillermo.”

I woke to the sound of screaming monkeys. At least I thought it was monkeys.

Lindsey and I had stayed awake late, just talking. I’m not sure what time we’d finally gone to bed, if you could call straw-covered earth a bed. I woke several times during the night with a horrendous backache. It made me think of my father, sleeping on the cold ground in some mountain jungle night after night.

A beam of sunlight was streaming in through a hole in the east wall. I rolled over to keep it from hitting me in the eyes, but sleep was out of the question anyway. I thought the screaming monkeys were at it again, and then I realized that all along it had been the unfamiliar ring of the satellite phone I’d rented for this trip. If I’d been insistent on going to Nicaragua, Alex had been equally insistent that I be reachable anywhere at any time, just in case of an emergency.

I answered with trepidation, fearful of what an “emergency” might mean in my family these days.

“Nick, I’m so glad I got you.” It was Jenna. She was one of three people who had the satellite number, along with Mom and Alex.

“Is everything okay?”

“Don’t worry. It’s only some legal maneuvering. I just got out of a hearing.”

It seemed early for court, but then I realized that she was two time zones ahead of me. “What happened?”

“I’ve been trying to keep the pressure on the insurance company while you’re away. I got in front of the judge this morning and forced them to produce a company rep who will tell us exactly why your father’s coverage was denied.”

“That’s great.”

“The bad news is that Quality Insurance is a Bermuda-based company. Duncan Fitz convinced the judge that we have to go there if we want to take the deposition.”

“When is it?”

“That’s why I’m calling. It’s tomorrow.”

“Yikes.”

“It’s the old adage: Be careful what you wish for. I told the judge we wanted to move as quickly as possible for your father’s sake.”

“You did exactly the right thing. Unfortunately, I’m literally in the middle of nowhere right now.”

“You want me to try to postpone it?”

“No. I’ll do what I have to do to get home tonight.”

“Anything I can do here to help?”

“Buy me a pair of knee socks and Bermuda shorts?”

“With those knees? Forget it.”

I laughed, then said, “You’re coming to Bermuda with me, right?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Well, I’m up against my old firm. It’s such short notice. We’ll practically have to prepare on the plane as it is. I mean-”

“Nick, I just asked a question: Do you want me to go?”

She wasn’t being testy. She was just bringing me back to the only thing that mattered. “Yes. I want you to go.”

“Then I’ll go.”

I smiled. “I’ll call you tonight, okay?”

“Sure. Have a safe flight.”

As I switched off the phone, I felt upbeat that the deposition was set and that Jenna was coming with me. But the part we’d left unspoken was more than a little awkward, even ironic.

Bermuda was the place we’d planned to go for our honeymoon.