Thomas Hoover - Life blood

God, I thought. Why didn't she come home to us, to Lou and me? We loved her. I felt my guilt go out to her all over again.

"She next declared she wanted to come here to Baalum, to the place of miracles. I told her that, yes, miracles can sometimes transpire here, but only at a great price. We would need to have an agreement and she would have to keep it no matter what."

"What do you mean, an agree-?"

"Truthfully, though," he went on, ignoring me, "I immediately regretted the offer, since I realized she was far too unstable for this… environment. Finally I forbade her to come, but just before my next scheduled trip she found out and booked herself on the same flight. There was literally nothing I could do to stop her."

"She put Ninos del Mundo on her landing card." I was growing sick to my stomach at the rehearsed way he was recounting her story. "That's this place, right? Baalum."

"My clinic here is known by that name. The village itself is called Baalum." He was easily meeting my eye, holding his own in our battle of wills. "Sarah was, I have to say, a very impressionable young person. Once here, she forgot all about her purpose for coming. She should have stayed up the hill there"-he was pointing off to the south-"where I could care for her, but instead she moved down here, into the compounds. Then she discovered a hallucinogenic substance they have here, began using it heavily, and I think it tipped her into a form of dementia."

So, she was doing drugs, something I'd always secretly feared. Well, maybe she was still having flashbacks of some kind; maybe that explained why she was off in another world when she came out of her coma.

"What… kind of 'hallucinogenic substance'?"

He sighed then shrugged and answered. "Here in the rain forest there's an ugly three-pound toad the Bufo marinus-you'll see them around, near sunset-that has glands down its back that excrete a milky white poison."

I knew about them. They were migrating north now, even into Florida. They were huge and looked like Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars. I hate toads of all varieties, but the thought of those monsters made me shudder.

"My God, isn't their toxin lethal?" Was Sarah trying to destroy herself? Was that why her mind was so blitzed? "I've heard-"

"Yes, it can kill you, but it can also-if processed correctly, with fermented honey-give you truly supernatural visions. The classical Maya used it for ceremonial purposes. I'd managed to reconstruct how they prepared it, and-something I now deeply regret-I showed the shamans here how to replicate the procedure. At the time it was just a minor part of my research into traditional pharmacology, but she heard about it and persuaded them to give her a vial. Then more and more."

That did sound like Sarah. Always out on the edge, testing new realities. But then I thought a moment about what he'd actually said. Some of the people here in his "place of miracles" were doing heavy drugs, and she'd got caught up in it.

"But why didn't you stop her?" You unfeeling bastard.

"I tried, believe me. But I'm afraid she was far past listening to me. By then she was learning the Kekchi Maya dialect, becoming totally immersed in their world. She began having episodes of complete non-rationality, and then one day she told the women in her compound she was going over to Palenque, the Maya ruins in Mexico. It's where the classical Maya held their last kingship ceremony. Before anyone realized she was serious, she stole one of their cayucos, their mahogany dugout canoes, and headed down the Rio Tigre." His eyes had turned completely dark, the way he used to blank them out. "She just went missing. Everyone here was devastated. We all loved her."

I stood there weighing his story. It didn't ring true. I supposed she was capable of something that crazy, but would she have actually done it? I didn't think so.

Then I remembered something else he'd said.

"You said you proposed an 'agreement.' What was that about?"

He stared at me. "It's nothing that need concern us. Suffice to say I kept my part. Anyway, it's over and past now."

Why wouldn't he tell me? Did she make some bargain with the Devil?

"But regarding Sarah," he went on, "I only just learned she'd been found and brought to New York in a coma. Wanting to do what I could, I immediately called the hospital and, out of professional courtesy, they told me she'd shown early stages of coming out of it, but she appeared to be hallucinating. It was exactly what I'd feared…" His voice trailed off. "I hope I did the right thing, but when I learned she'd been released, I arranged for her to be brought back here, where perhaps I can do something for her."

"What?"

"In rare cases, the hallucinogen she took permanently alters critical synapses in the brain. I'm fearful she may have abused it to the extent something like that could have occurred. No one in the U.S. would have the slightest idea what to do, but I think I may know of an herbal antidote they turned to in ancient times that can repair at least part of the damage. I also knew that getting her back here through normal channels would be impossible."

"So you had Colonel Ramos and a bunch of his Guatemalan thugs just break in and take her?" I didn't know which part of the story horrified, and angered, me the most.

"I have the misfortune to know him reasonably well, and I explained it was very important to me, and he agreed to assist. I honestly didn't know where else to turn. I understand there may have been some violence, for which I apologize, but these people have their own way of doing things." He rose and came over and put his hand on my shoulder. "I hope you'll understand."

The son of a bitch was coming on oily and contrite, when he'd just subcontracted an outright kidnapping. I wanted to kill him.

Finally I walked away, trying to get a grip on my anger.

"You know, that bastard also broke into my apartment and stole a reel of a picture I'm shooting." I turned back. "I've also got a strong feeling he's the one who just threatened one of the women I filmed."

"Well, if that happened, then let me say welcome to the paranoid harassment of the Guatemalan high command." He sighed against the morning sound of birds chirping all around us. "Unfortunately, I gather they've assumed you're documenting the operations of Children of Light in some way, doing a movie." His eyes drifted off into space, as though seeking a refuge. "You see, my project up here in the Peten is to carry out pharmaceutical research with as few distractions as possible. But in Guatemala City, I have what is, in effect, a hospice for girls in trouble-which is also called Niiios del Mundo, by the way-that's connected with my U.S. adoption service, Children of Light. However, any time Niiios del Mundo takes in an orphaned or abandoned infant and tries to provide it with a loving home through adoption in the States, the government here always threatens to hold up the paperwork if I don't give a bribe, what they call an 'expediting fee.' So if you were to probe too deeply… Let me just say it's not something they'd care to see lead off 60 Minutes."

It sounded like more BS, but I couldn't prove that. Yet.

"Well, why don't you just clear that up, and then I'll take Sarah and-"

"But I've only now initiated her treatment. Surely you want to give it a chance."

I looked out at the rain forest. This was the place she'd come to once, and-though I'd never admit it to Alex Goddard-it was the place she'd announced she wanted to return to. But something devastating had happened to her mind here. What should I do?

The fact was, I didn't trust Alex Goddard any farther than I could throw him. I had to get Sarah and get us both out of here as soon as possible, though that meant I'd have to neutralize him and the Army, and then use my limited American dollars to try to buy our way back to Guatemala City.