Thomas Hoover - Life blood

"Yeah, well, something heavy's come up for tomorrow. I'm afraid it's gotta be now or forget it for at least a week."

Unrefined bullshit. But somebody knew how badly I wanted to go.

"Look, there's something I need to check out first. I just learned about a place here in town I want to at least see. It's also called Ninos del Mundo."

"No shit." He paused. "Okay, we'll talk about it. Get the address and maybe we can cruise by if there's time. Thing is, we don't have all that much leeway here."

"One last question." I thought I'd give him a final shot at the truth. "Just tell me honestly why it has to be today. The real story."

"Like I said everything's changed." He wasn't budging. "So if we're doing this, I've got to pick you up now and get us on our merry way."

He was too cheerful by half, which definitely told me he was lying.

"All right, but I really need to make at least one phone call first." I wanted Steve to know where I was. "And if I walk out of here with a bag, I've got to let the desk know I'm not skipping on the bill."

"Forget the phone call. No time. Do it after we get back. Just be out front in exactly nineteen minutes. This is not a dry run. The train is leaving. I'm outta here now."

There was a click and he was gone.

I sat there a moment staring at the floor. What was I getting into?

Well, there's one way to find out. Play their game and beat them. There's no better way to get inside what's going on.

The first thing I did was call Steve's hotel in Belize City. Of course he wasn't there, but I left a long message to the effect that I was taking a "sightseeing" trip up to the Peten with Alan Dupre today because of unforeseen new circumstances. The reasons were complicated, but I'd watch out for myself and therefore he shouldn't worry.

That out of the way, I looked around the room. It was a disaster, but I quickly began cramming things into the small folding backpack I always took on trips. Then I rang the kitchen and told them to make up a quadruple egg sandwich (quatro huevos, por favor) to go, along with a large bottle of distilled water.

By the time I got to the reception desk and explained I wasn't actually checking out for good, Alan Dupre was already waiting outside in his battered green Jeep, cleaning his scratchy shades and leaning on the horn.

Let him wait. I wrote out a long note to Steve, on the chance he might come looking for me. Then with deliberate slowness, I wandered out to where Alan's Jeep was parked and tossed my backpack behind the seat.

"First things first." I climbed in and handed him the address of Ninos del Mundo I'd copied onto some hotel stationery. "This is where we've got to go."

He stared at it a moment, puzzling, and then seemed to figure out where it was.

"Upscale part of this beautiful oasis." He shifted into gear. "But it's more or less on the way." He glanced up nervously at the sky. "We just don't have all day."

Off we headed toward the suburbs, through a ganglia of downtown streets laced with pizza joints and frying-meat vendors, till we eventually ended up on a tree-lined avenue that looked as genteel as Oyster Bay. When we got to the address, I told him to park across the way, and just sat a moment staring.

The building itself was a windowless compound surrounded by trees and a high wall of white stucco, with a guardhouse and wide iron gate (not unusual for Guatemala) protecting a long walkway. The whole thing looked like a fortress, except the view through the gate was a pastoral vista of neat flower beds and a pristine lawn. The guardhouse itself had a dozing teenager, undoubtedly with an Uzi resting across his lap.

"Okay, Alan," I said "time to get with the program. How's your Spanish?"

"Depends on who I'm trying to BS." He shrugged and began cleaning his sunglasses again.

"Well, why don't you see if you can talk us past that guard."

He stared at the entrance a moment. "Be a waste of our precious time. Tell you right now, kids like that only answer to one boss, the jefe, the big guy, whoever he is. That's how they retain their employment. A joint locked down this tight don't give Sunday tours."

"Well, I think he's asleep. So I'm going to be creative and see if there's a back entrance of some kind. Maybe a service area that'll give me some idea of what's going on here."

"Do what you want, but make it fast," he said, leaning back in the seat. "And try not to get shot."

I carefully got out and walked down the empty street a way, then followed the stucco wall/fence-the building covered an entire city block-until I came across an alley entrance, with another large iron gate, padlocked shut.

I peered up the driveway, shrouded in overhanging trees, but there was nothing in the parking lot except a couple of Army Jeeps. And a black Land Rover.

Well, Barry Morton really wanted me to see this. But why? Is there a connection to the place in the Peten? And what are the Army vehicles all about?

I sighed and made my way back to the street. When I reached the Jeep, Alan was gone, but then I realized he was over talking to the young guard, offering him a cigarette. A few moments later he waved good-bye and casually ambled back.

"Okay." He settled in and hit the ignition. "Here's the official deal. This place is some kind of hospice for unwed mothers. They also take in orphans, or so he thinks. According to him, no American women have ever had anything to do with the place, which is probably why I'd never heard of it." He glanced at me as we sped off. "You happy now? Debriefing young Army dudes is a specialty of mine, so I think that's probably the straight scoop."

"Did you ask if it's connected with something in the Peten?" I was still hoping. In any case, whatever it was, I was collecting more pieces of the puzzle.

"Hey, give me a break." He shifted up, gaining speed. "I know when to push, and this wasn't the precise moment. The kid was itchy enough as it was. Like, who the fuck are you, gringo, and what are you doing here? I got all I could get without a cold cerveza." He glanced over. "You ask me, a little gratitude wouldn't be entirely out of place."

"Okay. Muchas gracias, amigo. Happy now?"

"Ecstatic."

The Jeep was open and I checked out the sky, which was growing darker and more threatening by the minute. The promised foul weather still seemed to be just that, promised but it was definitely on the way. Alan Dupre must really be scared. Finally I leaned back in the torn plastic seat and closed my eyes.

Was this Ninos del Mundo the Latin branch of Children of Light? The place where Alex Goddard's babies came from? Considering the interest Colonel Ramos had in my movie, the Army Jeeps could be a tip-off. Also, there seemed to be an even chance that Barry Morton was involved somehow. But it was all still guesswork. And anyway, this wasn't the place Sarah had put on her landing card. That Ninos del Mundo was somewhere up north, hidden in the rain forest.

Ready or not, Sar, hang on.

"What did he say?" I asked, not quite catching the burst of rapid-fire Spanish from the cockpit. The explosion of expletives had included the word navegacion. Something about malfunction.

God help us.

Alan Dupre's helicopter reminded me of the disintegrating taxis on Guatemala City's potholed streets. The vibration in the passenger compartment was so violent it made my teeth chatter. My stomach felt like it was in a cocktail shaker, and the deafening roar could have been the voice of Hell.

I was staring out the smudgy plastic window, where less than three hundred meters below I could just make out the top of the Peten rain forest of northwest Guatemala sweeping by beneath us. So this was what it looked like. Dense and impenetrable, it was a yawning, deciduous carpet enveloping the earth as far as the eye could see-if something ten stories high could be called carpet. I'd been in the forests of India's Kerala and seen some of the denser growth in southern Mexico, but this was like another planet.