Chapter 1
A miracle. That’s what people call it. Twenty years ago today, the battle for San Miguel was won not with guns but with iPhones falling from the sky and Chevys rolling in from the sea. Such an audacious reinvention of warfare the world has never seen. And it was all because of Señor Bermudez. He freed us from the communists with an armada paid for out of his own pocket. Old news, I know, but very much alive on this the Day of Liberation. Even now, at this early hour, the parade is starting. People are gathering. Can you hear the drums? The voices singing as one?
Here in Concepción the celebration is special. Concepción sits at the tip of a peninsula aimed at Florida ninety miles to the north. It was from here that Señor Bermudez escaped to America on a raft when he was fifteen. It was here that he’d returned at the age of forty with his armada. The supertanker Angelica led the assault from the sea while high above, his planes blocked out the sun. The planes and their parachutes are long gone, but the Angelica still rests where she was run aground, her rusting bow buried deep in the wide, flat beach haloing Concepcion. Drive the northcoast road west to the capital and you’ll see forty supertankers just like her spaced every mile for forty miles, each one run aground twenty years ago today. From their converted bowels came not oil but Chevys and Toyotas, and every consumer product imaginable: Brazilian coffee, Swiss watches, Nikes, La-Z-Boys, Nutella, Omaha steaks, Irish sweaters, Belgium beer and Korean tires. And not a gun among them.
Since then, the people have turned each ship into a shrine with bow crosses bearing the name Bermudez. And yes, those are American servicemen moving among the revelers. The naval base at San Cristabol is home to the U.S. Tenth Fleet. Warships steam by my window like buses passing on a street while fighter jets rattle the rooftops, their arrogant roars reminding Miguelans that despite our joy, we are still not free.
Sadly, Señor Bermudez will not join the celebration. Late on the day of liberation, when all was going as planned, his helicopter crashed at sea. His body was never found.
To die at the height of glory has been the fate of many a great man. That’s what the politicians will say when they remember Señor Bermudez this day. The people will weep and curse cruel fate for robbing them of their savior. The priests will claim that God had a higher calling for Gabriel Santa Maria Bermudez, as He had for his only son. They’ll say that Señor Bermudez opened the door to freedom and left it in our hands to walk through it and finish the work he’d started. The priests and the politicians will say many things—and they will all be lies.
Is Señor Bermudez a saint, as many claim? I’m not one to judge. But I do know this: the government has petitioned the Vatican many times requesting that he be canonized. As of this writing, the Holy See has yet to reply. Rare is the capitalist who wears a halo. Rarer still is the saint who was so blind.
As for me, I’ll join the party, but first I must tell you what really happened this day so long ago. I must put these words down, for I am not getting any younger. And yes, I lied when I said that no one died. Many died that day, I among them.
Let’s begin.
