Robert Stone - A Flag for Sunrise

Egan did not answer her. He finished combing and took a net shopping bag from beneath his bed in which there was a Bible. Then he took the rum from where Justin had laid it and put it in the bag.

She followed him out into the office.

“Is Campos killing those children, Charles?”

“I thought,” Egan said, “you suspected me of it.”

“No,” she said. “Campos.”

“Well, it isn’t me,” he said. “You’re right about that. I don’t kill. I can’t imagine any circumstances in which I’d kill anyone ever.”

She watched him look off toward the hillside until she thought he had forgotten where he was.

“I thought it was Campos,” he said after a while. “I was fairly sure it was. But it’s not.”

She felt weak, almost unable to breathe.

“Then I know who it is,” she said. “It’s that …”

“It’s the Mennonite kid,” Egan said. “He came in over the border from Nicaragua. The police are looking for him there. Grew up on one of their farmsteads down there and lost his mind. Religious. Hears voices.”

“You’re hiding him.”

“That’s about it.”

She walked up to him and seized him by the arm, trying to keep calm.

“You can’t do that, you fool! He’s killing little children.” She was crying unawares, tears spilled down her cheeks, gathering at her chin.

“Not since he came to me. I’m talking him down. When I give him the pills Mary Joe gave me he doesn’t hear the voices. And I’m going to replace his voices with mine.”

Justin wiped her face with a handkerchief. “I was sure it was Campos.”

“I was too,” Egan said. “But no.”

“What fools we are,” Justin said. “This place just beat the shit out of us.”

“They all will,” Egan said. “All of ’em. Every time.”

“The thing about that boy,” she said, “he doesn’t look real to me. He doesn’t look human.”

“You’re getting the idea now, aren’t you? Well, he’s as real as it gets, Justin. Here or anywhere else.”

“All right,” she said. “All right.” She began to pace up and down. Egan sat down at the desk beside the transmitter and looked at the matted floor.

“We’re getting out in a hurry,” Justin said. “While we do, we’ll get that kid locked up and sent back to Nicaragua. I mean it’s tough, but it’s got to be done. Maybe the Mennonites can get him proper care.”

One was not a child, she thought. One was not a hysteric, one was trained to deal with the world as it came. There were three things — to see that the Movement did not ruin itself trying to use the mission, to get the insane young person out of circulation, to get herself and Egan back to the States.

I’m not going to be afraid, she told herself. I’m going to do what I have to and if I louse it up I’ll carry the weight. She was, she thought, not just anybody.

“There’s a message for you,” Egan told her. “Your friend Laura brought it. It seems she’s a Latinist.”

“I see,” Justin said evenly. “And where is it, please?”

She watched Egan go into his trouser pocket and bring forth a crumpled piece of paper which he carefully straightened out against his thigh. Steady, she told herself. She felt, for the moment, strangely calm.

The message was indeed in Latin, hand-printed on bonded stationery.

NOLI RESPONDERE NI NECESSE SIT. APPARA, ET LUMINES CUSTODI. NOLI TIME.

“No response unless necessary. Prepare and remember the lights. Don’t be afraid.”

Justin read it over several times, using every fraction of her strength to keep hold of the suspect calm she had achieved. The lights, of course, meant an incoming boat or plane. No problem there unless they were disposed to set down right at French Harbor. If that was their plan then everyone involved in the business would be killed outright, the President could proclaim a national holiday and Campos would get a medal. That was what was bound to happen, she thought, unless she reached them in time. They had to stay away — there could be no question of them using the dispensary. At the same time it seemed as though events had overtaken her and, unfortunately, Egan with her. Campos, as the priest had observed, was after her and she saw no point in letting him get her without a fight. With things so far along and gone, being of some use to the Movement was the only way she could accomplish anything more life-affirming in Tecan than to successfully run away from it. And she wanted to fight, wanted to desperately — in spite of her terror, perhaps because of it. It was just possible that she might have it both ways — fight and run. More folly perhaps, but her chances were not the best now either way and that was not entirely her doing. If she could get a message through that would both warn them away and arrange a quick meeting, they might have other work for her, worthwhile work. With things as they were, she would probably be told to drop out of it — then she could get Egan away and be free herself with a good conscience. And even warning them off would be a valuable service.

Hope, sweet and green, came to her in the midst of their ruin.

She shooed him away from the chair and with one of his dictionaries sat down to compose her own Latin message.

UTI HOC LOCO NON POSSE EST IN CONSILIO. CONGREDI DEBEMUS. GRAVIS EST.

“This place should not be used in the plan. Necessary to meet. Urgent.”

She wrote it out on the sheet on which she had been composing the radio message to Sister Mary Joe. She would hold the radio messages a day, until after the meeting. If there could be one. The light in which she wrote had the red cast of sunset. She would have to keep the dock lights on, all the same.

“I wish I could pray,” she said to Egan. “How I wish I could.”

“There’s really no need,” he told her. “Everything’s all right. In spite of what seems.”

“Hell,” she said. “No wonder you’ve got yourself a following.”

The angle of the sun came aslant the peak of his baseball cap and lit him from another shallow sleep. Since Serrano he had been drifting into this dozing, a reptile suspension of awareness that was impervious to speed. He rose, sunburned and sweating, and went down to his quarters in the lazaret to draw a change of clothes.

From his pockets, he was able to salvage three whole Benzedrine tablets and one that was nearly crushed to powder. Immediately, he swallowed two of them. Perhaps the Callahans would have more. Yes, certainly they would. Pablo believed there was always more. He left the diamond where it was, in his soiled work shirt.

When he climbed on deck, the engines were turning over and the anchor chain winding itself around the windlass. He stood by the hatchway and watched the forepeak swing round until the mountainous coast and the declining sun lay westward. Then he went to the rail and leaned on it, looking at the weakening sunlight on the blue water, letting the bennie spin. There was a diamond in his pocket.

He blew a spot of crushed cigarette ash from the white tee shirt that he held rolled and folded in his handful of clean clothes. Things turned up if you kept your eyes on the moment. For a few minutes, with his Benzedrine and his clean clothes, Pablo was a happy man. But he was certainly in danger now; no question. It would be utter dumbness to dismiss this fact and of utter dumbness he felt himself incapable. He was all right. He was better than all right. The Coast Guard turkeys at Berry’s Point were so many peons, so many stooges compared to him. His was the life of adventure. As he walked into the wheelhouse he was thinking that what he would buy next was a tuxedo. A white one that you wore a black tie with. For hot countries.

Negus was at the helm in the cockpit, Mr. Callahan leaned on his chart table and looked toward the coast.