88

 

 

Half an hour later, her input given for the sake of her cover, Gwen walked from the office, out into the gray November afternoon toward the Cupcake. It was empty, save Narissa and Luke.

“Late lunch. Gimme anything, please,” said Gwen. She ran her hands over her face. Low blood sugar and a feeling that she could not go on like this gave her the slightest of trembles.

She sat, wondering how much all the farmers who would so gratefully sell their land to Gabriel Messenger would be shortchanged. Zeus would change the economics of their land totally. Zeus could have kept the land in the hands of the family who had owned it for generations. But Zeus was a private tool for making money, not an instrument of public good. The metrics of moneymaking. The metrics of morality had no room there. Gwen felt sick.

Her cell phone rang. Joaquin.

“Hey, flaco. What’s up?” she asked, injecting some lightness into her voice.

“Hell has come to Punta Sal!” declared Joaquin theatrically. “Seriously, it’s like an inferno and we’re getting rain like it’s the end of the world. All over Peru. Five villages in Huaraz have been swept away by landslides, over four thousand people killed, just washed away in an ocean of mud. There’ve been three fatal shark attacks in the last ten days. No food. Water’s too hot. The upwelling’s dead and the nutrients are all stuck deep in the thermocline. The food chain’s going to hell and the sharks are going after humans, anything. Two kids, just down the coast, then a surfer a day later,” he announced, voice sorrow-tinged.

“Shit,” murmured Gwen.

“Yeah, shit covers it.”

“It’s a mega-Niño, Joaquin,” Gwen said softly. “We always knew it would be ugly. They always have blood on their hands,” she added.

“There’s numerous outbreaks of typhoid and cholera,” continued Joaquin, “caused by all the flooding, the stagnant waters.”

“All we can do is what we’re doing,” Gwen replied with lame comfort. “Report and warn.”

Only that was the hell of it, thought Gwen. She wasn’t allowed to report and warn. Her information was too valuable. Everyone knew now it was a mega-Niño, but not two months ago. Back then, flood defenses could have been prepared, sandbags ordered, terracing fences dug into mountainsides above villages. But none of that had been done because Gabriel Messenger wanted to make money. And because she was on a mission to prove him guilty of murder. And because she was employed by him? Because she had taken the thirty pieces of silver? To the tune of first, ten million dollars. Now another million sat burning a hole in her pocket book.… How much blood is on your own hands, Gwen? she asked herself.