Adrian D'Hage - The Maya codex

Ariel Weizman gripped the rails of the pulpit of the cavernous white-washed church that stood over San Pedro and the lake. His dark curly hair had long turned grey and his face was gently lined with the wisdom and heartache of the years. Some of the villagers shifted nervously in the big wooden pews, their dark eyes fearful and alert.

‘As we celebrate mass here in San Pedro today, we remember in our prayers Archbishop Oscar Romero,’ Ariel began. ‘It’s two years to the day since Archbishop Romero was brutally gunned down while celebrating the Holy Mass, just across the border in El Salvador. Archbishop Romero’s “crime” was to demand an end to the torture, rape and murder of his people. The leader of San Salvador’s death squads, Major Roberto D’Aubuisson, has never been brought to justice. “Blowtorch Bob” was a nickname D’Aubuisson earned from his favourite form of torture, and he was also known for throwing babies into the air and shooting them for target practice. Yet D’Aubuisson is an honoured guest whenever he visits Washington.’ Ariel glanced at his family sitting in the front pew. The twin boys were restless, but little Aleta was looking at him, her big brown eyes as inquisitive as ever, her dark shiny hair tied back in a ponytail. Misha, Ariel’s wife of fifteen years, scolded the twins softly, a tender smile on her face.

‘In Central and South America, the United States is supporting brutal regimes that are systematically murdering the local populations. The Sixth Commandment is very clear,’ he continued, ‘and in Exodus, and in Deuteronomy, God has spoken, yet in Chile, the United States has supported the overthrow of the democratically elected Salvador Allende, and replaced him with Augusto Pinochet, a murderous thug. With the support of the CIA, Pinochet’s men are torturing and murdering tens of thousands of Chileans opposed to his brutal regime. The United States of America is fond of preaching democracy, but only if it gets the results it wants.’ Ariel paused. The campesinos, the simple folk of San Pedro who eked out a subsistence living amongst the coffee plantations and maize farms, were nervous; but Ariel knew that unless someone spoke out on their behalf, the killing would continue.

On the other side of the town square Howard Wiley was standing next to a dilapidated store – Cristo viene! Christ is coming! painted in red on the wooden walls. Wiley scanned the courtyard of the San Pedro church. Appointed as the CIA’s chief of station at the US Embassy in Guatemala City two years previously, at thirty-one he was one of the Agency’s youngest field commanders. Wiley turned to Major Ramales, the Guatemalan Army officer commanding the death squads assigned to put down the growing insurrection around Lake Atitlan.

‘Everything is ready, Comandante?’

Ramales fingered his trimmed black moustache. ‘ Si. You only have to give the word.’

Wiley adjusted his earpiece. Ariel Weizman’s homily was coming through loud and clear.

‘Here in Guatemala, President Reagan is supporting General Montt, another ruthless thug trained by the Americans at their School of the Americas at Fort Benning in Georgia. This is not the first time the United States has put a government of its choosing in power in Guatemala,’ Ariel reminded his congregation. ‘Many of you will recall that the Eisenhower administration and the CIA toppled the democratically elected President Arbenz and replaced him with another of their puppets, Colonel Armas. I appeal today to General Montt: send your soldiers back to their barracks, where they will no longer be able to rape and murder our women and children -’

Ariel’s sermon was interrupted by soldiers in camouflage uniforms shouldering open the heavy doors of the church, crashing them back against the white-washed stone masonry. More soldiers stormed into the church and immediately opened up with machine guns and automatic rifles in a deafening burst of fire. Bullets ricocheted off the stone walls and shattered the ornate glass windows. The old stone church was rent by the screams of the congregation, many dying where they sat. Ariel clutched his chest, the bloodstain on his shirt spreading as he slumped forward onto the pulpit railing. Aleta screamed as her mother’s lifeless form toppled into the aisle. Blood spurted below Misha’s neck from a ruptured aorta. The twins, who had been standing on the pew seat, were cut down together as the soldiers repeatedly raked the villagers with bursts of fire. Tears running down her cheeks, Aleta crawled between the pews and out through a side door of the church.

Some time later, numb with shock and horror, Aleta peered through the bushes in the church garden as the soldiers threw the last of the bodies onto the big trucks drawn up outside the church. A young boy moaned and stirred amongst the corpses and a soldier jumped up onto the truck. In a series of brutal swipes with a razor-sharp machete, he hacked off the boy’s head. In the distance, on the foothills of Volcan San Pedro, more soldiers were unloading their grisly cargo, throwing the bodies of the villagers into a deep pit dug the previous day.

Aleta could not have known that while most of the campesinos were dead, some, including one of her brothers, were still alive. Explosions rocked the volcanic hillside. Whenever there was movement in the pit, a soldier would yell ‘Granada!’ and hurl a hand grenade at the bodies. Tears continued to stream down Aleta’s cheeks as she watched the truck drive away, leaving just the officers in the town square, laughing and joking with a short white man wearing a fawn safari suit. He had a pale, freckly face and spiky red hair. Eventually the white man and an officer got into a staff car and drove down towards the little dock at the bottom of the hill.

The container vessel shouldered her way through another massive wave, the crest curling angrily over her bow. ‘I am terribly, terribly sorry,’ O’Connor said simply. ‘The CIA has made some unconscionable mistakes over the years, and the campaigns in the Americas were amongst the worst. But thank you for telling me. It couldn’t have been easy.’

‘Time is a great healer, Curtis… but you never forget.’

‘Would you know the man with the red hair if you saw him again?’

‘Oh, yes. Even though it was years ago, that’s one face that’s indelibly seared on my memory. Why do you ask?’

‘Howard Wiley, the man who’s trying to kill us, is now in charge of all the CIA’s spy rings and overseas operations. In 1982 he was chief of station in Guatemala City – and his most striking physical attribute, apart from his lack of height, is his spiky red hair.’

Aleta’s eyes widened. ‘Short?’

‘Around five-foot four. Quite vertically challenged, is our DDO. I think this explains why he wants you out of the way.’

‘And it explains something else. Papa was asked to preach that day because Father Hernandez was supposedly going to be away in Guatemala City. But how could Wiley know I was there?’

‘The CIA have a file on anyone, anyone they think might pose a threat, either to their operations overseas, or to America itself. When you wrote that article in The Mayan Archaeologist linking the School of the Americas to the training of death squads in Central America, it would have rung alarm bells for Wiley. He can’t be certain you were at the church on that day, but he knows you were born in San Marcos and that Ariel was your father. People like Wiley don’t leave anything to luck. If he suspects there is the slightest chance you can link him to the killings, he won’t hesitate.’

‘So he’ll get me in the end… ’ Aleta shuddered.

‘Not while I’m around.’

Trust this man with your life. Aleta sipped her riesling, pondering the shaman’s words. ‘What I don’t understand is if Wiley is now running the CIA’s spy ring, why have you stayed so long?’