"Vete ala chingada!"
They also were staring off to the south, in the same direction.
Hadn't they noticed I'd just dismantled their sick pageant? I wanted a reaction that would drive home the truth to Marcelina, to the mothers, to everyone.
"Damn it, look at me," I yelled, first at him and then at the G-2 thugs. "Mira!" But their focus still was on something beyond the square.
Finally I turned, following their gaze, and for a second I too forgot all about everything else. An intense red glow was illuminating the morning sky from the direction of the clinic, a vibrant electric rose weaving its hues in the mist. Then I saw spewing spikes of flame, orange and yellow, dancing over the top of the clinic. There was a finality about it that momentarily took my breath away.
Then it hit me. Steve's in there. It was a horror that, in my initial shock, I couldn't actually process, the thought just hovering in the recesses of my brain defying me to accept it.
Then Alex Goddard turned back, shouting at the Army men in rapid Spanish—I recognized the word for fire—that galvanized them to action. They snapped out of their mental paralysis and headed down the pyramid, toward two Land Rovers parked at the back.
Next he turned around and fixed his gaze on me. At last he knew / knew he was capable of unspeakable evil, and I knew he knew I would do everything in my power to stop him.
"All my records." His voice sounded as though it was coming from another world, and it held a sadness that touched even me. "You have no idea what's been lost."
He was distraught, but also obsessed. With his wild mane of hair, he did, finally, look like Shiva the Destroyer. He stalked over and seized the obsidian knife, then turned toward me.