25
crimson
WARA WAS TRYING TO MUSTER THE WILL to raise herself from sprawled on the truck floor in handcuffs to sitting, when a little window at the front of the truck slid open with a whoosh. “Don’t move, Wara,” Alejo’s voice ordered. “You’re gonna be alright.” Then, just as quickly, the little door closed again, followed by two slamming vibrations of the truck as Gabriel and Alejo apparently left it and shut the doors.
Her mouth was left hanging open, never having the chance to respond to Alejo’s hurried instructions. His words rang in her head and she let her mouth snap shut, trying to relax and not make a sound from where she lay sideways, arms twisted behind her in the cuffs. Wara could make out the sound of male voices outside, but they were muted and the sound didn’t carry well through the metal truck. She ignored the burning in her arms, watching the dented white metal door. She expected the men to come bursting in any second, this time to kill her for sure.
The truth was, at the moment the whole idea didn’t scare her as it should. Wara had just come from Noah’s funeral, where she had seen his parents weeping over his coffin; she was too numb to resist.
The voices died away, followed by a few electronic beeps. Something that sounded like rusting metal scraped painfully across both of the doors, and then a crack of daylight breached the darkened interior of the truck. Squinting, Wara made out Gabriel’s narrow face, framed by a halo of light. He climbed into the truck, pulled the door mostly closed behind him and marched towards Wara. She cringed, but Gabriel just squatted on the truck bed next to her and put a finger to his lips.
“Ssssshhhhh!” he cautioned, throwing her a warning look. Then the bombshell: “I’m letting you go.”
Immediately on his feet again, Gabriel strode to the back of the truck and grabbed a black duffel bag, which he unzipped. Wara blinked at him, wondering if he was serious. She twisted her head to follow Gabriel’s movement and then froze as she saw him yank a gun out of the bag. Hands steady, he lifted a handful of oblong bullets from one pant pocket and began stuffing them into the gun.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered, then whirled the gun’s chamber shut. Gabriel bent down next to her again, glanced at the truck door, then whispered crossly, “I told them I already killed you, so don’t make any noise unless you want me—and of course, you--- to be blown away like poor Alejo is about to be.”
Wara’s head spun and unexplained panic filled her chest.
“I’ll be back pretty soon, I assume. When we come back, hide under those tarps over there if you want to live. I have to leave the door open or they might suspect.” He grabbed Wara’s wrists and unlocked her handcuffs.
“Th-thank you,” she stammered.
Gabriel looked down at her from where he stood, face slick with sweat. “Don’t thank me. Alejo is in charge, but I’m the one who put the explosives on the bus. Alejo doesn’t know how to do that stuff.”
Lifting his chin, Gabriel turned his back on her and stomped back to the door of the truck, causing the whole vehicle to sway. Wara felt sick, watching him go out of the corner of her eye. Gabriel left only a small crack of light shining into the truck, and with the doors no longer tightly sealed, she could make out the voices from outside, louder and more intense. Wara crawled at a snail’s pace over to the crack of light and pressed her nose gingerly against it, trying to judge how far away she was from the other men. The truck seemed to be parked under a bunch of trees, and through the leafy branches she could make out a group of four men standing maybe fifty feet away. She recognized the three with guns from before---Stalin, Benjamin, and Gabriel, who had just shocked her by saying he was not going to kill her. Lázaro was nowhere in sight.
Alejo, in the center of them all, was the target of all of the guns’ aim.
Sitting peacefully on a bench in the beautiful garden of Pairumani sat the older guy with salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a navy cardigan sweater and pressed khaki pants, like the perfect gentleman.
What are we doing at Pairumani? Aren’t there any tourists around?
She had been here a few times on the weekend with friends, once with Noah. The little Wara could see of the pristine garden surrounding the mansion was empty, except for the small group of Muslim men.
She realized that she felt relief the Martirs were out of the country, away from all this danger. But then her joy tempered as she thought, If they kill Alejo, who will make sure these guys don’t find Nazaret’s family?
Wara blinked and everything in front of her shimmered.
God, are they really going to kill him?
Her hands shook and she kept them away from the open door, eyes glued to the scene unfolding outside. The man with the grandfather face—Ishmael—was speaking accented Spanish.
“Stalin has been trying to tell me that this was a case of youthful indiscretion, that you were attracted to this girl?”
Alejo shrugged, appearing no more concerned then if they were discussing what color to paint the foyer. “It could have been true, but that’s not what happened.” His strong voice carried across the garden. “I just didn’t think it was right to kill her when God obviously let her survive. It wasn’t what God wanted. I caused something, and I’m willing to pay the penalty for it. I had to do what’s right and try to help her.”
“Well, now that’s all useless anyway, since the end result is that she is dead and the rest of us have all been quite inconvenienced. Ah, Alejo!” Ishmael’s voice sounded sad and he stood up, walking to stand directly in front of Nazaret’s brother. Wara saw that the flash of metal in Ishmael’s hand was a gun. “You were a nephew to me, my own family! I took you in…” The older man’s voice cut off as he glanced away, dramatically. “In my life I have seen so much betrayal, so many that I could not trust. How can I stand this, that I can’t even trust you, who have been like my own nephew? You must tell me the truth, son.” Ishmael sighed audibly. “Have you really betrayed us? Have you told others about the Prism? About my work?”
“I haven’t told anyone anything the least bit useful to them at all, Ishmael,” Alejo replied calmly, as if trying to reason with the other men. “You are all like family to me. I don’t want anything to happen to any of you. All I did was try to take the girl away so you wouldn’t kill her. I simply saw a situation where I had to do what I thought was right.”
This seemed to make Ishmael very happy, and he raised both arms in the air, a smile plastered on his face. “Excellent! I don’t know why I should believe you, but I have known you since you were almost a child, Alejo. I believe you. So then, even now, we could talk, we could find a way to bring you back. You know all the ways of Islam. Allah will forgive you.”
Then Gabriel stepped forward, both hands steadying the gun Wara had seen him take from the truck. His pale face was twisted but his eyes narrowed with determination. “He’s an apostate, Ishmael. He told me himself. He can’t come back.”
The change was astonishing. Wara watched as Ishmael’s face crumpled, then darkened, until he was left glaring at Alejo with fury. Whirling around, he grabbed an object from a bench nearby and the sound of ripping pages knifed through the air.
A book.
Wara squinted to see better, then realized it was the same Arabic Bible she had seen in Alejo’s tent that night. The onion-skin pages were fluttering to the grass, torn by Ishmael’s furious hand.
“Is that necessary?” Alejo asked grimly. “You would destroy a book that even the Quran calls holy?”
Ishmael tossed the destroyed book over his shoulder and glowered at Alejo, breathing heavily. “When I heard you say you didn’t mean us any harm, I assumed that my suspicions about you leaving our religion couldn’t be true. We found this in your tent, but I told the others that it couldn’t mean anything.” The older man’s voice was hurt and angry. “I won’t believe it until I hear it from your own lips. Are you a Christian?”
“I believe Jesus is the son of God, the savior,” Alejo said.
Stalin looked up at the sky, as if in defeat, and Benjamin shook his head. Gabriel kept his grip tightly on his gun, staring at Alejo, pallid.
Ishmael Khan took three clipped steps forward and rammed the gun he held against Alejo’s forehead with an echoing click. “Even with this betrayal, I wanted to take you back, Alejo Martir. Say the word, and I’ll take you back again, to be one of us. Say you will leave this blasphemy, that God has a son. Say you will return to Islam and no longer follow Jesus.”
Alejo looked back at him for a moment and then loudly said, “No.”
Wara had never seen one moment pass so quickly. Alejo was on the ground seemingly before the shot even roared. Wara stared in horror at the sickly crimson mist that hung over his body, crumpled on the grass. Ishmael hadn’t even had time to lower the gun, and Alejo was gone.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Wara looked one way, then the other, whispering frantically. She forced herself to focus on the scene outside again.
Alejo Martir was still sprawled on grass that was a deep crimson.
He was dead. She had seen a man die.
And they are coming back here, to the truck, with his body.
That next thought beat urgently against her dazed brain, and she tried to focus. Gabriel and Stalin were pulling Alejo onto a gray wool blanket. Ishmael Khan wandered off towards a more shaded part of the garden. Gabriel and Stalin began to haul the blanket slowly across the grass towards the truck. Something foul tickled the back of Wara’s throat and she choked down the urge to gag. Feeling faint, she crawled in slow motion under the canvas tarps Gabriel had pointed out and tried not to move.
But she was shaking. With every breath she felt like she was making the whole truck tremble.
The truck doors clanged open and someone grunted as the truck swayed. They were going to put his body in here.
With her.
Stalin’s voice echoed around her, crackly and breaking. “I can’t believe this. How could he be so stupid? I don’t think I can do this.”
“The worst is over,” Gabriel said, sounding quite sick as well. “It’s our job. We just do what we have to do, Stalin.”
“It’s Alejo!” Stalin hissed, tone suggesting he wanted to yell. Wara heard a fist slam against the inside wall of the truck near the door. The floor bounced as they stepped to the ground and both doors slammed shut, leaving the truck’s interior in utter darkness.
The sound of the two voices moved around the front of the truck, obviously still in heated discussion, and then the muffled sound of a door shutting and the truck roared to life. Gabriel, or whoever was at the wheel, was driving like a bat out of hell, nearly throwing Wara into the corner of the truck every time they took a skidding turn.
She supposed they were driving away to get rid of the body, and the thought was horrible. She hadn’t liked Alejo much, but he was Nazaret’s brother. Somehow, in the middle of all this mess, he had saved her life.
Her stomach churned, complicated by the wild motion of the delivery truck. She kicked the heavy tarps off her body, desperate for fresh air.
It was really dark inside the truck, and that was probably a good thing, because the thought of looking over and seeing Alejo covered in blood next to her was terrifying. But finally she couldn’t resist. She slowly turned her head to one side and made out a still form next to her. Very, very still.
They had left him there on his stomach, eyes staring at her in the darkness. His curly hair was wet and sticky and blood splattered over one ear and ran down his chin to pool on the wool blanket.
She shivered and turned her eyes back to the darkened ceiling, breathing deeply. The sound of her gasping breaths echoed in slow motion around the interior of the truck, slow and rasping. Then Wara’s skin crawled as she heard a low moan, and the tickle of breath across her cheek sent her scrambling into the corner, arms wrapped around her knees.
Was someone else here? The shallow breathing continued, shuddering in slow puffs of air around the truck, and Wara knew it wasn’t hers. She was holding her breath, heart in her throat. The truth came to her all of a sudden and she crashed forward onto her knees, palms spread out on Alejo’s back. His shoulder blades shifted upwards, then fell.
He was breathing.
She waited for what seemed like an eternity until Alejo’s back rose and fell again, a rasping, choking sound that sent millipedes racing up her back.
He’s still alive.
Wara threw herself down on her stomach next to Alejo and whispered, “Can you hear me?” No answer. She forced herself to feel for the wound on his head, but couldn’t find any place where blood seemed to be spurting, nowhere that she could put pressure on the stop the bleeding.
“Alejo, can you hear me? It’s Wara!”
She was confused to find that she was crying.
How could Alejo have survived that? I saw him shot point-blank in the head!
She had to tell the guys up front. Alejo needed a hospital.
Wara paused, imagining herself kicking the wall of the truck’s cab like a madwoman to get Gabriel’s attention.
Stalin doesn’t know I’m alive back here, and I don’t know how badly he wants me dead. And if either of them finds out Alejo is alive, they could come back here and just finish the job.
Sweat pricked Wara’s armpits. The vehicle spun to a skidding stop and two doors slammed. Wara braced herself next to Alejo, waiting like a deer caught in the headlights for the truck doors to open.
Time was up for any kind of decision; they were coming back here.
A scraping of metal, then the truck filled with shafts of light, filtered through shadowy eucalyptus branches waving over the truck outside. Wara saw that they were stopped near the side of the road, still in the countryside. The two guys peered into the truck, expressions grim.
“He’s still alive!” Wara blurted out, holding out a hand towards Alejo and realizing it was smeared with blood. She scrubbed her hand frantically on her black pants. “He’s your friend! Take him to the hospital. There’s still time!”
Gabriel regarded Alejo with pinched lips; Stalin’s mouth gaped open, taking in first Alejo lying there, then Wara next to him.
“I told Stalin that you were back here,” Gabriel clipped. “He’s a nice guy anyway, kind of a pushover. I thought maybe he would help me. He noticed that Alejo was still alive on the ground at Pairumani.”
“Thank God he’s still…we’ve got to hurry, Wara.” Stalin’s voice was heavy. “We’re taking him to Univalle Hospital—it’s close to the lake where we’re supposedly leaving him, and then the Khan is waiting for us at the airport. We’ve got to hurry, or he’ll suspect. And it’ll be too late.” Stalin blanched and turned away from the sight of his friend covered in blood.
“Wara.” Gabriel snapped his long fingers, calling her attention back. “When we get to Univalle, we can’t stay. We’re going to drop him and you and get away as fast as we can. You’ve got to run, ok? Invent something to tell the doctors, but don’t tell them the truth. If you tell anyone about us, the authorities and media will find out. And if they find out, the Khan and everyone else will know you and Alejo are not dead. You understand.”
Gabriel had been speaking quickly but concisely. He suddenly slowed down and his shoulder sagged. “Please help him. He did this for you.” Gabriel waved his hand unsteadily at Alejo’s lifeless form, then looked back at Wara once more with tortured eyes.
“Hurry up!” Stalin said loudly, and then slammed one of the doors. The other reverberated like thunder as it too was shut heavily, and then footsteps running on gravel sounded outside. With a gentle jerk, the truck sprinted back into motion, towards Cochabamba and life for Alejo.
An eternal fifteen minutes or so dragged by as Wara braced herself in the pitch darkness, trying not to be thrown on top of Alejo by the urgent driving maneuvers of his friends. She left a palm on Alejo’s back. Finally, the delivery truck careened around a last corner and came to a screeching halt, causing Wara to bang a shoulder against the metal side. Running footsteps, and then the doors to the truck were opened, letting in florescent light from an overhead street lamp. The sun had already disappeared, and the sky was deep blue.
“Univalle,” Stalin’s scratchy voice said, face etched with stress. He and Gabriel leaped into the truck and began to carefully pull the blanket with Alejo’s prostrate form towards the door. “Still breathing?” Stalin asked Wara.
She nodded and scrambled up after them, leaping out onto what she saw was the sidewalk of the hospital. She had heard of this university teaching hospital, located near the poorer south of the city. Five tan, modern-looking stories rose out of an adobe house neighborhood, and the truck had stopped right in front of the main entrance. No one was visible at this time of night, but a guard shack just inside the entrance told Wara that someone might soon appear to see what was going on in front of the hospital.
Gabriel and Stalin heaved Alejo and blanket to the ground as gently as they could, then whirled to face Wara. “Go with God,” Stalin muttered, covering his eyes with his hands. Then he dashed to the passenger side of the truck. Gabriel was already half in the driver’s side, but leaned back to whisper, “Go! Run!”
The truck pealed away in a cloud of dust, rounding the corner at the end of the short street at break-neck speed.
Alejo’s ribcage rose shakily, then he gagged and shuddered into the wool blanket. Here in the dim street light, Wara could see the blood already starting to dry, plastered along one cheek, matting his hair. His eyes had closed.
A hospital guard in a navy uniform stepped questioningly toward her from the shack, eyeing the form on the ground.
Wara ran.
“Please, help me!” she cried to the guard, then ran past him into the near-empty waiting room where she saw a door with large red letters: EMERGENCIAS. “Help, somebody help, please!”
Yelling to anyone in sight, Wara pleaded for help for the man who had caused Noah’s funeral.