Breaking Lorca Read Free

him.
    “It’s one o’clock,” he said. “Bring in Labredo.”

THREE
    O NLY TWO MONTHS PREVIOUSLY , Victor had been in a jail rather than guarding one. Being from a military family and having a high school diploma had made him prime officer material when he enlisted. And as Lieutenant Peña, he had several good months under his belt, running supplies along a coastal route considered only medium risk. Then one night, in a stunningly swift and brutal raid, the guerrillas slaughtered more than half the men in his command.
    His sergeant had turned to yell something when his head exploded. Blood and brain matter blew into Victor’s face. He fell choking into a pit slick with blood, firing blindly into the trees, and surely would have been killed with all his men had it not been for the purely accidental arrival of a helicopter gunship thrown off course by faulty electronics. The pilot had plucked Victor and his remaining men to safety.
    Victor had posted three guards, the right number by the book, but “clearly insufficient for conditions,” his superiors decided. Thus Lieutenant Peña was busted down to corporal. And that was not the end of his humiliation.
    That night, that raid, undid him. Terror—at least in the field—became his mode of existence. The mere sound of automatic gunfire made him want to cry. And when, six months later, it came time to overrun a northern village suspected of harbouring rebels, Victor managed to charge smack into a guy wire, and spent the rest of the manoeuvre in a sheltering ditch, bleeding from a scalp wound. The resulting court martial sentenced him to death by firing squad.
    His cell in the military jail had been much better than those in the little school, and he had not been abused by anyone. No, his torment had been simply to count down the hours to his certain death. After his sentence was pronounced, he had ten days to appeal, which was a joke, because in wartime there was no court of appeal. Victor wanted desperately to sleep through those ten days, but found he could not manage more than three or four hours a night, and even those were racked by savage dreams. His waking hours were consumed by an endless inner movie, rich with close-ups, of his own execution.
    He had heard stories about firing squads. The worst was that all five men, none wanting to be the one to fire a lethal shot, would aim slightly away from the heart. The result, in more than one case, was that they blew off the condemned man’s arms.
    Then, one damp, grey afternoon, his uncle, Captain Peña, had appeared before him like an angel of deliverance.
    “You remember me, little Victor?”
    “I remember you,” Victor said, staring at his uncle, who stood before him with a cowed-looking guard. “But you’re dead, I thought. They said you were killed in San Vicente.”
    “So I was, as far as the press is concerned. That was just public relations. They had to lower my profile, so to speak, after all the noise about Sumpul.”
    The Sumpul River had been the site of a massacre. Refugees had been driven by the Captain and his men toward the border with Honduras. The Honduran army had swept down with American helicopters and the refugees had been caught between the two forces. The army called it a great victory, announcing the death of six hundred rebels. But the American ambassador had made noises of discomfort when the bodies of women and children continued to wash up on the shores for weeks afterwards.
    “Well, it looks like they’re going to kill me, uncle.”
    “Lucky for you I came back from the dead. Casarossa said he wouldn’t protest if I removed you from his command and made you disappear. You’re the family shame, Victor. A blot on the name of Peña. But if you’re not ready to die just yet, you can come and work for me. One ghost working for another, eh?”
    “You mean they’re not going to shoot me?”
    “You’re coming with me—unless, of course, you’d rather die.”
    Which was how Victor