Retribution Road by Jon Coon (e reader comics .TXT) 📕

“Our children are starving. Our people don’t have clean water to drink or bathrooms to bathe. They can’t read, and the US, with all its wealth, turns its back on us. Why should we care what happens to your children when our own are dying?”

“Lareina—if I may call you by your beautiful name—you and I can stop this. Won’t you hear me out? Please?”

Lareina hesitated. Her own hatred had built a wall so high, so thick, it was nearly impossible for her to hear anything coming from the other side of it.

Carol pleaded. “Please, Lareina. For God’s sake, for the sake of your children and mine as well, please hear me out.”

“All right, I’m listening.”

“You and your husband have been buying land in the Lacandon Jungle, is that right?

“Yes.”

“And you know there is oil there. A huge pool of oil.”

“Yes. We think that’s true, but we bought it to protect what’s left of the jungle, not to plant oil wells for you or any other capitalist pigs.”

“Lareina, it’s possible to have oil, make enough money to feed the starving kids you care about, and still protect the jungle. New technologies have proven that over and over again. My father’s friend, Senator Benson, owns one of the largest oil companies in Texas. He understands that without jobs, without food, drugs are your only lifeline. That’s why he and some of his friends are willing to build your oil fields, then you can hire your own people and give them decent lives and fair wages. There’s enough oil here to make Chiapas the wealthiest state in Mexico. And we can stop the killing.”

Lareina tilted her head and said nothing. Suddenly, the veranda doors burst open, and her twin daughters ran laughing into her arms. Dripping wet in swimsuits, they cried, “Come back to the pool! Come back to the pool!”

“In a minute, my darlings. Mami has business with these friends. Go back to Elenora. I’ll be there shortly.”

She watched the girls retreat, then turned back to Carol and Gabe. “It was very brave of you to come here, but am I to assume that your CIA or DEA is on its way also? Will you blow up this house the way you did our others?”

“I think that depends on the agreements we make today,” Gabe said. “You and your husband have a reputation of charity for your people. If you can stop the drugs and stop whatever it is the Zapatistas are planning, I think our governments will be kind.”

“It appears the choices you give us are not really choices at all.” There was still a hard edge to her words.

Carol was silent, so Gabe answered. “Oh, I’m sure you could go into hiding, rebuild your empire, go back to this endless, meaningless war, but you know how that will end. Juan will be killed and then your sons, and unless you are very lucky, you and your girls as well. Then someone worse, someone who cares only about the power and the money, will take your place. And the people, the children you care about, will have nothing, and they will die as well. But there is a better way. There has to be.”

She nodded slowly. She knew he was speaking truth.

“Please, Señora Caldera, listen to Carol,” Gabe continued. “This road we’re on, it has no good end. You know that. Let’s choose a better one.”

She softened and stepped back, nearly falling into a chair. She blotted tears and said softly, “I’ve prayed so hard for a way for this to end. I never imagined it could until we destroyed you or you destroyed us. All we’ve ever gotten from you is hatred and death. Why should I trust you? Can I trust you? Are you really going to help us?”

Carol moved closer and took her hand. “This is real, Lareina. I promise with all my heart.”

Lareina didn’t pull away. She looked deeply into Carol’s eyes, looking for truth. It was so hard to tear down that wall. It went against everything she believed to be true.

But the woman who held her hand had risked everything coming here. Could she be, after all the years, a messenger of peace? Mother Mary, please help me.

After a long silence, Lareina folded her other hand over Carol’s and said, “In God’s name and for the sake of my—no, our children—I will trust you. What do you need from me?”

“Señora, where is Juan? Is he planning another attack?” Gabe asked.

“Bendita Virgen, Blessed Virgin,” she said and crossed herself. She dropped her head into her hands sobbing. “You ruined us. He’s going to destroy Miami.”

Chapter 43

CALDERA HID THE SUB IN the mangroves on the west shore of Totten Key, just south of Key Largo on the eastern rim of Biscayne Bay. The sub, which drew less than two feet with all the ballast dumped, had come easily through the cut between Adams and Rubicon Keys, and by the dark of the moon, was now camouflaged with mangrove cuttings. From the air undetectable. From the sides, the light-green hull blended into the vegetation, and as there was little traffic on this side of the bay. Caldera got his first decent night’s sleep of the past week.

He needed to paint the hull black. Black as night, black as the dark shadows the sub would hide in at the end of its voyage. He left the sub, walked the shallows out to a bridge, and then the Overseas Highway, Florida Route 1, where he caught a ride to a hardware store in North Key Largo. He found lunch, brushes and paint, everything his project would require, including a six-pack of cold beer. Using fake ID he rented a car and drove back to Rubicon Key, all in less than four hours. Back at the sub, he cleared small areas of the fiberglass hull and prepared the hull for its coat of black. Black like the night. Black like the pit of hell. Black like