Page 14 of Cutter’s Lady

“I don’t see any reason to. I wouldn’t think your husband’s still in the area. San Cristóbal doesn’t have urban terrorists. They occupy mostly the wild mountain and jungle region.” He waved his thumb over the mountainous spine of the country, carefully avoiding the screen so he didn’t move the focus of the map. “Avery said three groups claimed responsibility, but one of them is mostly an online organization—a few university students with a website, printing leaflets in a basement, that sort of thing. I can’t see them being either organized or brave enough to pull off something like that. There are only three groups of any real military value. One is a group made up primarily of the members of the previous government who were not killed when the new junta took over.”

“When was that?”

“About two years ago. That group’s headquarters are in the southern jungle. They didn’t claim responsibility for the kidnapping, and it’s not their style, so they’re out. The other two groups have their headquarters in the northern mountainous region. The NLF is somewhat more extremist and violent; I’m hoping they aren’t the ones who have him. The other group is known as the Moristas, after the leader, Vicente Mora. I know him.”

“You know him?” Leslie repeated, her eyes rounding.

“Yeah. We’ve had a few dealings with each other.”

Then she remembered that Avery had said something like that. Cutter had obviously been selling arms to him. Leslie stiffened slightly. “Oh. Of course.”

She looked at him as if he’d turned into a snake, Cutter thought. Because he knew a guerrilla leader? You’d think it would please her for him to be on speaking terms with Mora; it would make getting her husband out much easier.

“Mora’s usually in this area,” he moved the focus area of the map and drew an imaginary circle above a section of mountains and jungle with his finger.

“Don’t you know exactly where?” Leslie asked doubtfully. How was he going to find them if he didn’t even know their location?

“Nobody ever does. It’s the way they stay alive. They’re constantly on the move. If the army locates one of their camps, they bomb it immediately.”

“Oh.” Leslie’s voice was barely above a whisper. The violence frightened her. Somehow it seemed even more horrible being stated in Cutter’s matter-of-fact voice. She glanced at his expressionless face, and resentment flooded her, turning her cheeks pink and her voice scornful. “This is normal to you, isn’t it?”

He returned her gaze steadily. She looked beautiful this way, her face lighted with emotion. This trip was going to turn out to be hellacious in more ways than one if she didn’t back out of it. Purposely he made his voice devoid of sympathy. “Those are the facts of life in San Cristóbal. If you want to run around down there, you’ll have to get used to it. They spend most of their time trying to figure out how to kill each other. The army’s after the guerrillas, the guerrillas are after the army, and all the guerrillas are after each other.”

Leslie stared at him in horror. “I don’t understand. Why?”

“Because it’s the only solution they have to their problems. The wealthy and powerful are trying to preserve what they have; the poor and powerless are trying to better their lot. Fighting’s the only way they know how to do it. There isn’t such a thing as free elections there. There’s little justice. Going to a San Cristóbalian jail is the worst hell a man could be in, so they’d rather die than be arrested; it makes for desperate fighters. And it makes them feel they’re solving the problems that plague them. They can forget for a while that they’re hungry, or that two of their children were born dead and two more have died since, or that they can’t scrabble out enough food to live on their rocky little farms, which they have to tear out of the jungle. To them, fighting makes a man a man, not a captive, even if they never win a damn thing they’re fighting for.”

Cutter leaned back in his chair, moving away from her. He wished he hadn’t said that, afraid that he’d revealed too much about himself. He didn’t want this woman to know him. It was better if she thought he hadn’t a drop of emotion in him.

“So that’s what you do in San Cristóbal,” he finished dryly. “You find a cause and gather a few discontented friends around you, and you start a revolution. That’s why it’s no place for you to go.”

“You’re going.”

“I know something about it.”

“Fighting?” Leslie asked.

“Yes.”

“Were you a mercenary?”

He looked at her oddly, then said, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“What would you say?”

“I’d say you’re heading into a mine field and you’d better get out.”

“Still trying to scare me off?” Leslie tilted her head as if studying him. “Now, why, I wonder?”

Cutter clenched his teeth. “For your own good, that’s why.”

After her initial reaction of horror, Leslie had the distinct impression that Cutter was trying to frighten her. He didn’t want her to come, so he was probably making things sound worse than they were. It irritated her that he was that eager to get rid of her. “I didn’t know you were so concerned about my welfare.”

Cutter’s eyes narrowed, then he smiled, not at all pleasantly. “Why, of course I’m concerned about you. Anything happens to you, how’ll I get the other half of my money?”

***

After that, Leslie gave up all attempts at conversation. It was obviously impossible to be friendly with the man. She would have to resign herself to spending a large amount of time with a rude, thoroughly disagreeable person. Well, she could manage it.