"I told you, Mister, we don't want to talk to you again," said the woman through the screen door.
Duo struggled to be respectful and patient while his entire body jittered with anxiety. "Please, Miss… We only have a few more questions for your mother."
"Do you honestly want her to relive all that?"
He took the smallest step closer to the door. "No. I don't. But I also don't want anyone to experience the kind of attack that your mother was fortunate to survive. That is why we have come. To get to the bottom of this, so it won't happen again."
"You're not do-gooders, you're reporters."
Duo threw a look over his shoulder at his partner. Heero wasn't being of any help, already well on his way to regretting his decision to fly down to Costa Rica with him in pursuit of this insane story. He put on a stern face. "Miss, I'm sorry to say this, but: the 'do-gooders' don't come until after the reporters. Because without us, they don't know where their help is needed."
Her mouth tightened but the fact that she let silence exist between the two of them for the first time since the journalists had knocked on her door, meant she was finally considering letting them in. She took a deep breath and then swung the screen door open outward.
Duo stepped back so the door could open fully.
"I don't think she'll talk to you," she said.
Duo nodded but his philosophy had always been that if he could get through the door, he could get to the truth. Under the watchful gaze of the young woman, they stepped into the house.
It was a wooden cabin, at the end of a dirt road that led away from Puerto Carillo. It was raised on stilts. The ground surrounding it was muddy from flood water. The stench of rotting wood hung around. Inside it was just as hot and humid as outside, but with fewer mosquitos buzzing around their heads, tempted by their blood, but repelled by the strong smell of lemon eucalyptus oil – in constant battle with themselves. The interior was dimly lit. It was morning, but the shadow that the surrounding trees cast was dark. The air inside was stale and the scent of food so thick that Duo could taste it in his mouth.
The young woman gestured for them to follow the narrow hallway to a tiny living room in the back.
Seated by the only window, staring at drawn curtains, was the small, elderly lady that Duo had met in the hospital two weeks ago. She was just as pale as she was then. She wore a long-sleeved, floral dress, with bandages peeking out from underneath. There was a plate of food on the table right by her side. It was within her reach, but she clearly hadn't touched it.
Heero spoke Spanish so it was his turn to take the lead. However, when the woman didn't even acknowledge their presence after the man had introduced them, Duo touched a hand to Heero's shoulder and whispered to him: "Let the daughter translate." It would be a way for them to show that the daughter was on their side and Duo was confident the woman would be more receptive to the questions they meant to ask when she heard them from her own daughter's mouth. Subconsciously, the young woman would phrase the words in the way she knew would get through to her mother.
Heero made up a bullshit lie that an introduction was the only Spanish he knew and the daughter agreed to be their translator. The strategy, however, didn't work. They asked a few questions and the daughter dutifully translated with a soft, careful tone. Even kneeling by her mother and touching her frail hand. The woman didn't respond until suddenly she burst out angrily and threw a dark look up at the two men. The daughter reeled back and told them:
"She says there is nothing to talk about. She is sick of you asking questions about something that didn't happen."
"Didn't happen?" Duo raised his eyebrows and he pointed at the bandages he could see on her wrist and he knew from seeing her in the hospital earlier that both her arms were entirely wrapped. "How did she end up wounded, then?"
The daughter sighed, knowing it was futile, but she translated for them anyway. The answer was short.
"She said she fell," the daughter told them.
Duo looked at Heero again, desperate and in a mild panic.
Heero was calm, probably because he hadn't been all that invested in the story yet to begin with. And he wasn't about to be fired on the spot when they returned to the States. Heero asked the woman a question directly, his Spanish impeccable, blowing his cover. Duo could hardly keep up, he only knew it was something about the hospital.
The woman glared at him for the betrayal and she gave another short response.
Heero asked her another question and Duo only recognized the word for 'house'.
Both mother and daughter looked perplexed and Duo became hopeful until the elderly lady narrowed her eyes at the Japanese man and started yelling again, at which point the daughter urgently ushered them out of the house.
The screen door slammed shut behind them.
"What the fuck did you say?"
Heero sighed and started down the steps. In the mud his footfalls made wet sounds as he trudged back to their rented Jeep. Duo followed. "I first asked her who paid for her hospitals bills."
"Obviously InGen did. To get her to shut up."
"Then I asked her if they had also offered to buy her a new house and, if not, that we could."
"Oh."
"I thought it would work. Apparently not." He climbed behind the wheel.
"Who knows what kind of promises InGen made her to keep her quiet." He jumped into the passenger seat and knocked his boots together to get some of the mud off before pulling his feet up into the car and shutting the door. "Dammit." The attack on her had been the last, they discovered shortly after arriving at Puerto Carillo. No attacks had occurred since then and the 'gringos' had left town without a trace. The woman had been a valuable lead and her story would have been compelling to base the article around, but without her cooperation they needed to rethink their approach.
As if reading his mind, Heero supplied: "We have bigger problems than the wasted potential of a witness."
"What's that?"
The car bounced along the road as they drove back to town.
"You supposed that InGen was responsible for these mysterious deaths to protect their secret. According to your story, she should be dead. Instead, they paid her off."
"It still proves they have something to hide. Something dark."
"Yeah, but Duo… mercenaries killing witnesses to protect corporate secrets is a Pullitzer story. Businesses bribing people to sign an NDA is the kind of thing you can read in any local newspaper."
Duo scoffed. "I misjudged you. I knew you were ambitious enough to care about awards, but I didn't know it is the only thing you care about."
Heero took one hand off the wheel to punch his shoulder and not in a playful way; it was painful. "Fuck you. I'm not just in this for the awards. What I'm saying is: if this is the kind of story it is devolving into, we can have a bigger impact elsewhere."
"There are still the seven mysterious deaths Heero. Bodies buried without an autopsy. A small army of geneticists and lab personnel based in Playa Santa Teresa. And an eccentric Scottish capitalist who has no business purchasing an island from a questionable government. If that seems more like the foundation of an article for The Aberdeen Times than The New York Times, I was wrong for admiring your journalism all these years."
There was a long, tense silence between them, which was maintained until they reached the small hotel where they had decided to base their investigation out of. Heero parked the car in front, but neither got out of the vehicle.
Finally, the Japanese man asked with easily detectable tones of resignation: "So how do we proceed?"
Duo's relief lasted only a second, then he ransacked his brain for a new plan. "We should go down to Santa Teresa and get chummy with those scientists…"
"We'd be blown out of the water before we'd find someone willing to talk to us – if we'd even find anyone at all. These people moved thousands of miles away from their homes, their friends, their families… Either they did so willingly, meaning they are devoted to their cause. Or InGen forced them, meaning the company has a power over them that we can't possibly overrule."
"You're right. There's only one thing we can do." Duo unbuckled his seatbelt and twisted in the car seat to face Heero. He waited until the other man looked at him. "We need to get onto that island."
