[Chapter Fifteen]
For once in my life, I took my time getting off an airplane. But the instant I felt that first burst of humid tropical air against my face, like a gush from a sauna, I found myself wondering what Sarah had felt the moment her feet first touched the ground of Guatemala. In fact, I'd decided to try to think like her, to better understand why she might want to come back. Truthfully I didn't have a clue.
But first things first. Not knowing whether I was being stalked by Ramos or his proxies, I decided the idea was to see and not be seen—which actually was easier than I'd expected, at least during the initial pell-mell stages. Turned out the self-centeredness of Homo sapiens blossoms under those circumstances. Ignore thy neighbor, goes the credo. I just buried myself in the crush.
When I got to "Inmigracion," I labored through the "formalities" (as all countries love to call the suspicious looks you get from their airport bureaucrats) along with all the other gringo passengers on AA Flight 377, paranoid I might be arrested on the spot for some spurious reason. The purpose of my visit, I declared, was tourism. Just a nod at my passport and a stamp, which looked exactly like the one in Sarah's. I stared at it and felt a renewed sense of purpose. In fact, the photo in my passport looked more than a little like her. Maybe, I thought, I'm getting carried away with the identity issue, but there it was.
As I emerged through the wide glass doors of the arrival area, which fronted out onto the steps leading down to the parking lots and the humidity, I spotted a black Land Rover with tinted windows right in front. Uh-oh. That was, Steve once told me, a vehicle much favored by the notorious Guatemalan G-2 military secret police, who had retired the cup for murderous human-rights abuses over the past two decades.
Then two middle-aged men with Latin mustaches and nondescript brown shirts began getting out through the door on the far side. They next walked around to the terminal side of the car and glanced up the steps in my direction, as though looking for somebody. It was a quick survey, after which they turned back and nodded to the vehicle before it sped away.
What's that about? Am I imagining things already?
By the time I reached the bottom of the steps, I was being besieged by clamoring cabbies, so it was difficult to keep an eye on the two men, who were now walking off to the side of the main commotion, toward a shady grove of palms at the end of the arrival drive, lighting cigarettes.
Get out of here. Whether you're fantasizing or not, the thing to do is grab an unsuspecting cab and get going.