Blood of Paradise A Novel David Corbett CONTENTS Glossary of Terms PART I: WHATEVER BECAME OF THE LAUGH MASTERS? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 PART II: CANDYMAN 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 PART III: SINCE I MET THE DEVIL 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 PART IV: THE ONE LOST SHEEP 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 PART V: FACELESS American Business Consultant Murdered in El Salvador 41 42 43 PART VI: CLARA 44 Author’s Note Acknowledgements From Troy to Baghdad this book is dedicated to the memory of José Gilberto Soto, an American citizen and union organizer murdered in El Salvador on November 5, 2004. The crime remains unsolved. The template for Iraq today is not Vietnam, with which it has often been compared, but El Salvador. —Peter Maass, “The Way of the Commandos,” The New York Times Magazine, May 1, 2005 GLOSSARY OF TERMS ARENA Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, the major right-wing political party in El Salvador areneros supporters of ARENA CAFTA Central American Free Trade Agreement catorce familias the “fourteen families,” an extended group of related Salvadoran families of particular wealth, power, and social prominence caudillo a large property holder, military leader, or other “strongman” Chávez, Hugo Leftist president of Venezuela; the current bête noir of American foreign policy in Latin America efemelenistas supporters of the FMLN FMLN Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, the major left- wing political party in El Salvador, formerly the unified guerrilla opposition Fuerza Aérea the Salvadoran air force LEGAT legal attaché, the head of an overseas FBI office Los Patrióticos a war-era death squad consisting of middle-and upper-class professionals operating out of the First Brigade’s civil defense training program Los Soldados de San Miguel a (fictional) death squad operating in eastern El Salvador maquila a factory that assembles imported components for export mara a Central American gang Mara Dieciocho the smaller of the two main Salvadoran gangs, an outgrowth of the Eighteenth Street gang (Calle 18) in Los Angeles Mara Salvatrucha the larger of the two main Salvadoran gangs, originally formed by Salvadoran refugees in Los Angeles as protection against Mexican gangs, specifically the Eighteenth Street Gang—members are called salvatruchos marero a Salvadoran gang member Mercado Nacional de Artesanías artisans’ market, where native crafts can be purchased ODIC the Overseas Development Insurance Corporation—a (fictional) export credit agency funding and insuring American investment in international development projects placa a hand signal denoting gang affiliation PNC Policía Nacional Civil, the national police force formed after the UN Peace Accords to supplant military involvement in routine police work remesas remittances—i.e., money sent back to El Salvador from migrants abroad SOUTHCOM Southern Command, the U.S. military’s regional command structure for Latin America PART I WHATEVER BECAME OF THE LAUGH MASTERS? It’s only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose. —Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands