Chapter 49 What Things Are Worth
What Things Are Worth
Osvaldo was pleased to hear a key turning in the lighthouse door.
His call was being answered. At the same time, gripping the battery in his hand, he felt a touch of regret.
A part of him would also have loved to blow the door .
. . Maybe he’d do so anyway, he said to himself, when he’d dealt with this part.
Just then, however, there came a cry from an agitated Python.
“Chief! Look! It’s all those farmers—they’re back, and they’ve got their guns.”
Osvaldo turned to look, eyes blazing. Pouring through the main gates at the entrance to the lighthouse grounds was a group of the islanders. Grim-faced, Freires and Docampos advanced side by side.
“Hold them off!” he shouted. “And don’t let Carlito take his gun off the lovebirds for one second! If anyone makes a false move, tell him to take them out!”
“Sure thing.” Python patted the MP 40. “I can stop them by myself with this baby!”
Nonetheless, they were trapped between the lighthouse and the angry islanders, with no apparent way out.
Osvaldo rubbed his temples. The islanders had quickly found cover. Two of them, Ramón Docampo and Rosalía Freire, holding out white handkerchiefs, moved forward cautiously, looking to parlay.
“That’s far enough!” Osvaldo shouted when they were some twenty feet away. “What do you want?”
“Our children!” Ramón thundered. “Helena and Tristán!”
“Sure, once I get my money.” Osvaldo motioned to the lighthouse. “Not a second earlier.”
“We’ve heard that one before,” Rosalía said bitterly. “We don’t trust you, Osvaldo Salazar. Do what we say or you’re dead.”
Osvaldo grinned, but the look in his eyes remained frosty. “You seem to have forgotten something,” he said as Carlito appeared over the ditch, shoving Helena and Tristán ahead of him at gunpoint. “If I go down, so do those two.”
There was a moment of absolute tension, with no one willing to yield. Sweaty hands gripped guns as both sides braced themselves. One false move, one ill-judged response, was all it would take for the carnage to begin.
And at that moment, Roberto stepped through the door.
He squinted in the sun, shielding his eyes. And then, dragging his injured leg along, he started moving toward the group in the middle of the open space.
Never in his entire life, not even in terrifying war situations, had he felt so exposed. He imagined every single shooter, on both sides, watching him, fingers on their triggers, asking themselves the same question: “Whose side is he on?”
And yet in spite of that, he somehow mustered a winning smile.