The Infinity Tattoo (15 page)

It was obvious this was an oft-repeated argument. The sister had her rhetoric down pat. And Meg couldn’t argue with her sentiments. The vast majority of Honduras’ people were very poor. It was the former president’s methods that she found questionable.

The hour passed quickly, bringing them to the outskirts of Catacamas, and the end of the highway. It was a wholly unattractive town with a hodgepodge of single- and two-story commercial buildings in shades of browns and pastels stuck together in a string along the main street. Large groups of electrical wires ran from poles planted every so often in the rough sidewalk, frequently crossing over the main highway.

They’d barely entered the town before they went left. Soon they exited the town proper, and the pavement gave way to dirt.

The road began to wind and twist towards the foothills leading to tall majestic mountains. The range provided a natural barrier between Olancho and La Mosquitia, a region of tropical rain forest accessible only by boat and plane, an area so primitive as to be ideal for drug running planes to land and take off with impunity.

Potholes and large rocks lurked around every corner, threatening damage to both the suspension and the oil pan. Meg was reminded of the roads she and Jack had taken in Arizona. But unlike Arizona, that vegetation here was lush, consisting of pine-oak forests and verdant broad leaf bushes.

At the first sign of habitation, a small house and a couple of outbuildings, Sister Reina, stopped the truck and got out. Meg and Jack watched as she spoke to a middle-aged man who pointed at the road ahead and nodded.

“We’re nearly there,” she said, climbing back in and putting the truck in gear. A few more minutes of bumping along the dirt road brought them to a very small village. It consisted of a few dozen houses painted in soft pastel colors with tin roofs. Dogs and chickens and pigs wandered the roads and pathways.

“Wait here. I’ll go see if the padre is home,” Sister Reina said and hopped out of the truck. A little boy and two emaciated dogs with matted fur approached her. She spoke briefly to the boy. He led her to a small house fifty feet away. Like the rest of the village, it had a tin roof, but it was painted white. A short wall overgrown with scruffy bushes ran along the front.

They watched Sister Reina disappear inside. As they waited, a little crowd of people gathered around the truck and stared unabashedly at the two occupants.

“I guess we have an audience,” Meg said.

“So it would seem,” Jack replied.

Meg could see that he was a bit uncomfortable, but for Meg this was normal. She couldn’t remember when she had travelled in the countryside, be it Africa or Asia or Latin America, without drawing attention from the locals. She knew that they meant no harm, but it never seemed to occur to them that their blatant curiosity might be construed as rude.

It was a good half an hour before the nun emerged from the little house. She was followed by a very small man with a full head of snowy white hair and dark, leathery skin. Sister Reina waved them out of the car and they got out to greet the padre.

“Padre Guillermo, these are my colleagues, Jack Cunningham and Meg Goodwin,” she said in a loud, clear voice.

He held out a gnarled hand in greeting. Sparkling dark eyes, peering out from a face creased with age, regarded them intently.

“Padre Guillermo is a little hard of hearing. I have explained our mission and he is very willing to assist you if he can. Shall we step inside?”

Although Meg was fluent in Spanish and Jack spoke it passably, they let Sister Reina do the talking. She explained to him why they were there and what they were looking for. Padre Guillermo nodded as Sister Reina spoke.

When she got to the part about Colonel Parker, she asked Meg to show him the picture. He gazed at the photo and shook his head. He didn’t recognize Parker.

Meg felt her heart sink. Surely they hadn’t traveled all this way for nothing.

He spoke in a soft, scratchy voice. “I don’t recognize him. But I sure know the other guy. That’s Augusto, a member of the death squads. He was an evil man, if ever there was one. But there were few gringos that fraternized with the members of the death squads. There was Mr. Bill, of course. He frequented the detention centers from time to time, but this is not Mr. Bill.”

Meg had heard of “Mr. Bill.” He was reportedly a former member of the US Army Special Forces, and the head CIA trainer of the battalion.

The padre thought for a moment, “I remember a story of another man, a gringo, who got involved for a short time. There was some kind of testimonial from a witness, a young woman, I think. Where did I hear this?” Then he shook his head. “My memory is not what it used to be. Do you have dates when he was here in Honduras?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “He came here fresh out of boot camp in August, 1985. He was stationed at Soto Cano for a period of two years before going back to the States.”

The padre slow stood up. “Come,” he said. “Let’s see what I have in the archives.”

They followed him through a simple kitchen. There were just a couple of metal cabinets, an extremely worn kitchen table with two wooden chairs, a small gas cook stove, and a tiny refrigerator.

Outside, he led them along a barely discernible path overgrown with brush. As they began a steep ascent, Meg wondered exactly where they were going. But Padre Guillermo continued plodding up the hill sure-footedly, so she followed gamely on.

Eventually they reached a large bank of bushes and sprawling vines. Undaunted, the padre parted a section mostly covered with vines, and disappeared. A moment later, he came back out. He stepped to one side and gestured them to enter. Sister Reina went first. Jack followed. The opening was low to the ground and he had to crouch to fit in. Meg brought up the rear.

Beneath the dense foliage was a small cinderblock building. Thick walls guarded against extremes of weather. The tin roof was mounted on sturdy beams. The outer beams were sealed tightly to the walls so that no rain could find its way in. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with wooden shelves packed with documents. The floor was made of ceramic tile. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling. A table with four chairs occupied the center of the room.

“The padre had this building constructed about twenty years ago,” Sister Reina explained. “He needed a place to protect his documents from those who would seek to destroy them, as well as from the elements, of course.”

As she spoke, the old man slowly made his way along the shelves, pulling out files here and there and then returning them with a shake of his head. Then he seemed to have found what he was looking for. He turned and motioned his guests over to him.

“Records from 1985 start here,” he pointed to the shelf.

Meg grabbed a file. She leafed through it with Jack looking over her shoulder. In it was every kind of document imaginable: photos of young men and women, letters from parents to the Catholic Church concerning a son or daughter who had disappeared, newspaper articles from Honduran and international sources, handwritten testimonials, cables, and more.

She looked at the padre, who just shook his head. “I am only the keeper of the evidence. Long ago, I quit trying to put things in order. They are stored according to the date of incident as near as possible. You need to look for a letter or a testimonial.”

Jack and Meg looked at Sister Reina for an explanation. “You see,” she told them, “many of those who were tortured and lived to tell about it provided testimonials to groups like us or human rights organizations.”

The padre took the file and brought it over to the table. “You are welcome to stay as long as you wish,” he said, beckoning them to take a seat. Meg, Jack, and Sister Reina sat down. Then the padre returned to the shelf and pulled out the next file.

“Sister Reina,” Meg said, “you don’t have to do this. You have already helped us so much.”

“It is my cause as much as yours,” she said. “I will help.” They each started to comb through a file.

The padre placed a large battery-operated lantern in the middle of the table. “Sometimes, the electricity goes off,” he explained. “Good luck,” he said and closed the door behind him.

“Any idea where to begin?” Jack said, flicking through the file in front of him.

“Well, I think we can eliminate any of the official-looking documents. The padre seemed to think we would find what we needed in something like this,” Meg held up a yellowed piece of paper with the words, “Testimonial of Carlos Sánchez,” on it.

“So we skip cables and reports, newspaper clippings, that kind of thing?”

“Yes. Unless it’s from a human rights group. There’s a risk we’ll miss something, but,” Meg waved her hand around the room, “well, there’s just too much here.”

“Assuming that Parker was involved in anything, what are the odds that we’ll find it?”

“I don’t know,” Meg sighed. “But we need real proof. Do you have any better ideas?”

“No,” he said. “It’s like looking in a haystack,” he mumbled under his breath.

They searched for most of the day. Most of the papers they looked at were handwritten, the ink fading on the yellowed paper. It was a tedious process. Since the building had no windows, they lost track of time. At some point, the padre returned with three plates of rice and beans.

Meg was staring at yet another paper when suddenly the place was thrown into pitch darkness.

“Where’s that lantern?” she said.

“Hang on, I got it,” Jack said. He flicked the switch and light poured into the darkness. But they soon discovered that the lantern was too dim for reading.

“I think we need to call it a day,” Meg said

“But we haven’t found anything,” Jack said.

Meg walked over to the shelf where the files were stored. “By my reckoning, we are about one third of the way through these documents.”

“We’re going to have to stay the night,” Sister Reina said.

“Where exactly are you thinking of?” Jack asked.

“I imagine we can find something in Catacamus.”

* * *

By the time they had located a hotel and checked in, the electricity, which had been out for the entire town, had come back on. The hotel room was very basic. It had a double bed made of a simple wooden frame with a thin mattress. The curtain that billowed at the single window provided a modicum of privacy, but would never block out the sun or light. The bathroom boasted a shower which produced a tepid trickle.

There was a small café down the street. Jack and Meg met Sister Reina at the hotel’s front desk, and they walked over to it. The menu was limited, and they all opted for chicken with rice and beans.

As they were very aware of the possibility people listening in on them, they limited their conversation. Sister Reina asked a little about places they had travelled to and what they liked to do in their spare time. They asked her where she grew up and where she went to school. She told them that she was with the Sisters of Notre Dame, which was a teaching order in Yoro, an agricultural area in the middle of the country. She went to school at the Universidad Pedogogica in the capital, but left teaching to run a shelter for abused girls in one of the poor areas surrounding the city.

The three travelers finished their meal and returned to their hotel. Meg and Jack settled as best they could on the thin mattress and hard pillows. Jack was glad when they sun came up and they could get on with things.

* * *

The next morning, after a breakfast of rice, beans, tortillas and scrambled eggs, the trio returned to Padre Guillermo’s house.

By the time the padre brought them lunch, Jack was ready to explode. Sitting in a cramped room on a hard wooden chair trying to decipher letters and other hand-written documents was beginning to seem more and more futile. He stood up abruptly, bumping the table.

“I need some air,” he said. As he stepped out the door and was about to push the concealing bushes aside, he overheard part of a conversation coming from below. He recognized the padre’s scratchy voice and then heard another man’s voice.

“Are you sure your visitors are gone?”

“I told you, they came this morning. They stayed for an hour, then they left. Do you doubt my word?” the padre retorted.

Jack smiled at the padre’s blatant fabrication.

“No, no. Of course not. I wasn’t implying such a thing. May I ask what they wanted?”

“They wanted what many visitors want these days. Information about a loved one who has disappeared.”

“Were you able to help them?”

“No, unfortunately.”

“Do you mind if we have a look around?”

“Please, be my guest.”

Jack ducked back inside. He gently closed the door. “I think we may have trouble,” he whispered to the two women sitting at the table. “Someone knows we are here.”

“I was afraid of that,” said Sister Reina. “Two gringos spending the night in a small town was bound to cause talk.”

“What should we do?” Meg asked.

“I think we are safe for the moment. This place is well concealed. But we will have to leave this afternoon.”

“Then we’ll just have to hope we find what we are looking for by then,” Meg said.