"The Freedom Fighters have been employed in an effort to interdict arms smuggling to the communist guerrillas in El Salvador, as well as to halt any destabilization efforts against the democratically elected governments of Central America and the Caribbean. We favor a toughening of U.S. policy in the region, including, but not limited to, an escalation of military pressure of all kinds, using overflights, various naval interdictions, and lots of military exercises."

-Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States of America

Alex Ferraro wanted to breathe.  Inhaling the rancid-bloom fragrance of jungle swept in by the Caribbean trade winds, the healing oxygen soothed him. Dunes rose behind like creeping iguanas clinging to this sun-baked, wind-blown, rain-soaked paradise.  Foamy waves splashed into sand, the humid haze slowed scraggly-bearded Alex, trudging in black boots and khakis to meet with his employer-benefactor, Johanna Blakemore.  As well, he had to enquire about cargo boats to get down the Honduran coast to La Moskitia.

Scanning the coastal ridge of mountains: did the guanacaste trees resemble wild beasts ready to attack?  Did the giant black clouds looming over the horizon look like angry monsters stalking him?  Squawking black birds thronging the beach coconut palms kept him on edge.  He exchanged a glance with a pelican perched on a palm stump.  It flew away, strafing the lapping waves, and soared beyond.  The cocos swayed over open-air thatched champa huts where fried fish and beer were peddled to tourists. He entered the biggest one, gringo-owned champa, looking past the stuffed marlin and a stretched jaguar pelt prominently displayed on bamboo poles. Ms. Blakemore in rumpled linen relaxed under the palm-frond roof shading lounge chairs and hammocks. The beat of reggaeton thumped from a juke box. He could do this jungle anarchy.

"Johanna, hello."

Johanna Blakemore, mid-fifties and not-quite-personal-trainer-sculpted, turned from her wooden recline, self-fanning, having a Flor de Cana rum and Coke with a twist. In the middle of a word with the restaurant proprietor, she motioned for Alex to wait. "Do you want to eat?" she asked and he shook his head. The view stretched eastward along the Bay of Triunfo, a serene green-blue terminanting at the peninsula of Puerto de la Plata, where Columbus said the first mass on Central American soil in 1502.  Last night's deluge left the air so sparkling one might see clear across the Caribbean to New Orleans, but the Dole port built by the US military blocked the view, where a Polish container ship loaded banana, pineapple, and African palm oil.

The proprietor stepped into the kitchen with her order and Ms. Blakemore, controller of a Providence family real estate concern, without so much as a hello, handed Alex a check.  "If you do your job right, we will open up the entire coast of La Moskitia for ecotourism, for seekers to learn and study with the Miskitu.  It's exciting..."

Paranoid Alex glanced around to ensure no one watched. Just down the hill from the oldest town in Honduras, no ancient buildings remained as pirates sacked and burned the grandiose visions the Spaniards had for a new society.  They even shot the freebooter William Walker here, leaving his dream of a new gringo colony to the red soil worms of the Triunfiano cemetery.  Why did Alex have to accept the job?  He came to Central America to escape the life-debacle back home in Boston, good-bye to suit-wearing, train-riding, clack-a-clack-a-clack. After six months of unemployment and weeks on the road since Mexico, he only wanted to find a small village and learn to live without.  How long can someone subsist on no money?  Not long: ecotourism sounded like something he could do.

"I don't know about this..." Alex said to Ms. Blakemore.