Andrew Klavan - If We Survive

He caught his breath, steadied himself. Glanced at Palmer quickly as if he were afraid the pilot would get angry and attack him. But Palmer just went on leaning against the wall and watched Jim, smiling. Jim continued speaking more quietly.

“Look. This country has been the victim of foreign conquest and corporate greed for nearly five hundred years. All the land and wealth are in the hands of a few people. Thirty years ago, a man—a great man—named General Benitez tried to take power and change all that. But the United States claimed that it was all some kind of Soviet plot and we sent agents and soldiers down here to overthrow him. Kill him. That’s why Mendoza’s so angry at us. That’s why they’re all so angry at us and treating us the way they are. What? Don’t laugh!”

This last part of Jim’s speech was to Palmer, who stood pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers as he shook his head and chuckled quietly to himself. After a moment, Palmer looked up, still smiling.

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m kind of starved for entertainment.”

Containing his anger, Jim appealed to the rest of us. “These people—they’re not just some… bunch of bloodthirsty savages from some primitive country, like he seems to think. These are committed men trying to bring justice to their people. If we reason with them… If we can explain that we understand their fight, that we… we sympathize… they’re not going to just… kill us. Like animals. Why would they?”

Pastor Ron took a deep breath. He looked at Palmer. “He’s right, Palmer. What reason do they have to kill us? How does it benefit them? We haven’t done anything to them—we specifically, I mean.”

Palmer only answered him with another shrug. “Hey, do what you gotta do, Padre,” he said. And with drawling sarcasm he added, “You go right on downstairs and tell Mendoza you sympathize with his great cause. And don’t forget to mention you read Cobar’s op-eds in the newspaper.”

“We will,” said Jim defiantly. “That’s exactly what we’ll do.” But I noticed he didn’t move an inch.

Pastor Ron nodded. “Well, it is better than just sitting here, isn’t it? Just waiting here for them all to get drunk and do something crazy.” He looked around at the rest of us—Nicki and Meredith and me. I could tell he was trying to convince himself. “I mean, Jim’s right, these people aren’t monsters. They’re human beings, right? They’ll listen to reason.”

Palmer sighed. “That’s one theory,” he muttered.

He came off the wall and stepped back out onto the balcony, looking down at the plaza below. We heard another shuddering round of gunfire from down there. We heard some women screaming. Another ragged round of shouts and cheering.

Pastor Ron looked around at us. “They’re just getting drunker and drunker down there. Which means the situation is just getting more and more dangerous. I think someone has to go down and talk to them sooner rather than later, before they’re too far gone to listen.” He glanced over at Jim for support.

“I think you’re right,” Jim said. “I’m telling you: these are principled people. The way they’ve been treated—the way our country has treated them—they have every right to be angry. But that doesn’t mean we can’t appeal to their sense of justice. It’s a hunger for justice that made them rise up in the first place.”

Pastor Ron nodded as Jim talked, but when he turned my way I could see he was still undecided. His wavering gaze came to rest on Meredith.

“What do you think, Meredith?” he asked her. “What do you think we should do?”

She was sitting beside me on the edge of the bed. I turned to her, to her profile. She wasn’t looking at Pastor Ron. She was looking past him, at the balcony, at Palmer.

“Palmer,” she said.

He turned to look at her over his shoulder.

“You think they’re going to kill us, don’t you?”

He nodded slowly. “Seems the most likely outcome, yeah.”

“You don’t strike me as the sort of man who’s just going to stand by and wait for that to happen.”

He turned around, leaning back against the balcony railing. He gave an easy, casual smile. “Well, now, that’s interesting. Just what sort of man do I strike you as?”

There was a long silence. I watched Meredith as she studied him. But she didn’t answer. She shifted her gaze instead to Pastor Ron.

“I think it might be best to wait, Pastor.”

Pastor Ron lifted his hands from his sides. “Wait for what? Listen to them. Listen to what’s happening out there.”

As I sat watching her, I saw Meredith’s eyes shift—from Pastor Ron to Palmer on the balcony and back to Pastor Ron again.

“If these men are as sadistic and murderous as Palmer says they are—”

“They’re not,” Jim insisted.

“If they are, trying to reason with them would be the worst thing you could do.”

The pastor seemed confused by this. “How can it ever be wrong to try to reason with people, Meredith?”

“It’s just human nature,” she said. “When people are full of that sort of anger and”—she searched for the word—“ wickedness , the sound of reason strikes them as an accusation. You’ll only make Mendoza angrier still—especially if he’s been drinking.”

“It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous,” said Jim. “I’m telling you, if you’d read Cobar’s book as I have…”

“Well then, why don’t you go?” I said to him. I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut. But, to be honest, Jim was beginning to annoy me. I’d seen Mendoza—we’d all seen him with our own eyes. Murdering Carlos in cold blood. Abusing Meredith. Threatening everyone. Maybe it was true there’d been injustice in his country—I didn’t know. Maybe his friend Cobar wrote great articles in the newspaper. I hadn’t read them. All I knew for sure was what I’d seen for myself—and if Mendoza was some kind of rebel saint, well, I was Spider-Man. “If you’re so sure Mendoza’s a freedom fighter who’ll listen to reason, why don’t you be the one to go talk to him?” I said to Jim.

Jim’s mouth opened and closed once or twice before he answered me. But then he said, “All right, I will. I will.”

But—lucky for him—before he could even take a step to the door, Pastor Ron put a hand on his arm to stop him.

“No,” he said. “That’s absurd. Jim’s sixteen. I’m responsible here. I’m responsible for all of you. I’ll go.”

“Pastor…,” said Meredith.

“I’ll just… I’ll just talk to him, that’s all. I promise I won’t make him angry, Meredith. I’ll just explain that we’re not his enemies and that, you know, if he lets us go, it’ll show everyone how merciful and just he is. It will help the rebel cause.”

Behind him, I saw Palmer shake his head and turn around, back toward the balcony rail. He had stopped paying attention to us and was studying the plaza again.

Pastor Ron stood where he was another second. He looked around at all of us—as if he was hoping maybe one of us would talk him out of his idea. No one did. Finally, he walked to the door.

Meredith stood up and watched him go. “Pastor Ron— really—Palmer’s right—don’t,” she said.

“C’mon, Pastor,” I said. “Really. We saw what Mendoza did. These guys are nuts. It’s too dangerous.”

“They’re not nuts,” Jim said grumpily.

But Pastor Ron didn’t respond to any of us. He took a deep breath, gathering his courage. Then he knocked on the door. A gruff voice barked at him from the other side. Pastor Ron murmured softly through the door in Spanish.

Meredith looked back at Palmer on the balcony. “Palmer,” she said. “Don’t let him do this. Stop him.”