The Destroyer - 33 - The Destroyer 033 - Voodoo Die by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Action
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-03-19T14:53:26+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Ma­jor Manuel Estra­da broke re­la­tions with Amer­ica as well as he could. But first he had to get rid of the En­glish­man’s body, then get one of the clean­ing peo­ple to clean up the blood in the Gen­er­alis­si­mo’s re­ceiv­ing room, then find some peo­ple to bury the body, and, of course, to share the knowl­edge of these heavy bur­dens with his friends at the canti­na.

Some­how the canti­na got in­to the work mix be­fore some of the oth­er du­ties, and when he left the canti­na, it was dark and some­one was ly­ing drunk in the mid­dle of Route 1. Estra­da kicked the man.

“Get up, drunk­en man,” said Estra­da. “You fool­ish drunk­en thing. Do you not have things to do? Fool­ish drunk­en man.”

Estra­da tripped over him from a stand­ing po­si­tion. Then he felt the man’s face. It was cold. The man of course was dead.”Estra­da apol­ogized to the man for call­ing him a drunk­ard. Then Estra­da no­ticed the blue blaz­er and the head wound. It was Dr. Jame­son, the En­glish­man.

Estra­da pushed his hands at air. While oth­ers might not un­der­stand what this meant, Estra­da did. He was aban­don­ing this job for now. He had more im­por­tant things to do.

Let the dead bury the dead, some­one had once said. He knew that man who said that was a pret­ty smart man. It was Je­sus in the Bible. And Je­sus was God. There­fore, it would be a sin for Ma­jor Manuel Estra­da, the liv­ing, to bury the dead. It would be a sin against Je­sus. And it was not good to be a sin­ful man.

So let Dr. Jame­son lie.

The Amer­ican Em­bassy was a mod­ern sprawl­ing alu­minum and con­crete struc­ture that some­one once told Ma­jor Estra­da rep­re­sent­ed an In­di­an prayer in tan­gi­ble form. It was to show Amer­ica’s and Baqia’s com­mon In­di­an her­itage. Two peo­ples, one fu­ture.

Now Manuel Estra­da might not be the smartest man on the is­land. But he knew that when some­one told you that you and he had some­thing in com­mon, he want­ed some­thing.

Estra­da was al­ways wait­ing for the Amer­icans to ask for some­thing. He did not trust their gen­eros­ity. Nev­er had. They nev­er asked for any­thing, so he re­sent­ed them. That re­sent­ment was go­ing to make the evening’s job eas­ier.

He ca­reened to the front door of the em­bassy and banged on it. A well-​dressed Amer­ican ma­rine in for­mal blue pants and kha­ki shirt fes­tooned with medals opened the door.

Estra­da de­mand­ed to see the am­bas­sador. He had a mes­sage from El Pres­idente, Gen­er­alis­si­mo Sac­risto Cora­zon him­self, for the am­bas­sador him­self. The am­bas­sador rushed to the door.

The am­bas­sador, no slouch at is­land pol­itics, had mon­itored the Rus­sian buildup. He knew they had made some sort of deal with Cora­zon.

“You,” said Estra­da.

“Yes?” said the am­bas­sador. He was in his bathrobe and slip­pers.

“Get out this coun­try now. Get out here. Go. We no like you. This breaks the sex.”

“What?” asked the am­bas­sador. “Oh, you mean break re­la­tions.”

“Yeah. That’s the thing. Do it and go. Now. Good. Thank you. Very much thank you,” said Estra­da. “That’s the word.

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