The village snaked along a piece of land where the jungle met the sea, sweltering long after thick morning mists climbed up through jungle growth to join the sky. Boats went their way while that happened, sputtering as they left docks as Jason crawled off from his hotel bed, cleaned up, and made his way downstairs in a building that brought to mind old villages in the south of Spain—hardy, resilient, and elegant in its own right. And in sharp contrast to sidewalks bordering similar structures. Street vendors were selling everything from street food to bootleg everything alongside a road congested with beat-up cars, trucks, and motorcycles grafted onto elaborately chromed and painted wagons whose drivers charged less than taxis.

Jason bought fried bread crammed full of meat and vegetables and downed it in one of those wagons on the ride to what he hoped the driver understood was the junkyard. He had to give props to the driver—he raced like a drunk through a bender in a brother through streets that transitioned from oil-sprayed dirt to naked dust. The driver deposited Jason outside a brick wall crowned by barbed wire, painted over in Rouvenman murals denouncing America and the West. Jason walked along the wall until he found a chain-link gate and garnered the surprise of faces within the junkyard.

This is it. Jason told himself as a guard sauntered out, carrying his machine gun lazy the way a punk rocker might sling her six-string down low around her hips.

“Wit man wants?” The guard barked.

A true believer. Jason thought. ‘Wit’ was Rouvenman pidgin for white. When a Rouvenman referred to a man that way, it meant they were in deep with the obnoxious rhetoric of revolutions that left their country a cesspool.

“I’ve an appointment with Immaculate.”

The guard shook his head, stroked the stock of his gun.

“Immaculate. He’ll be very upset if I am delayed.”

“Hurry on.” The guard decided as he unlocked the gate and let Jason into the junkyard.

The guard wasn’t kidding. They moved fast past wood frame structures topped by sheet metal where rocket boosters were brought in to be dissected. For all Jason knew, the guard could’ve been marching him to a trench latrine where he’d be gunned down, and left to rot.

“You joy fruit?” The guard asked.

“Pardon?”

“You’re still hungover wit.” The guard laughed as he fished durian from his pocket and handed one to Jason. “Me too. This help me you both no?”

Jason emulated the guard, digging his fingers into the durian’s hide and then consuming as much of it as he could, hoping he wouldn’t end up with dysentery later—if there was a later.

The guard motioned for Jason to halt and others to stand down outside a shipping container repurposed as an office. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his t-shirt, gestured at the office, and declared, “Immaculate,” before walking away.

Jason stood frozen for a moment in the heat, stink of welders torches and machinery, and the nagging feeling that the wall and its barbed wire might not be there just to keep people out of the junkyard.

“Jason?” A voice called from the office. “Come in please.”

Jason had read everything he could find on Immaculate, but it wasn’t enough to prepare him from stepping inside the office to find tattooed skin and bones topped by a bristle of gray stubble.

“You came to talk about a deal? I’m not interested.”

Jason wasn’t about to be played like that. He took a seat in a plastic chair across from Immaculate, seated behind a sheet metal desk in a worn out sofa.

“We agreed to talk about things before I made it here to Rouvenma.”

Immaculate’s face turned hard. “We also agreed this would be a conversation between me and you. Did you tell me Americans would be here? You did not.”

Americans? Jason wondered, then tried, “Look, I don’t know what you mean by that but I’ve got a direct line to a couple million euros. It’s yours if I get what I want out of the deal.”

Immaculate shuffled papers on his desk until he found a page at Jason. “I can make that kind of money on my own.”

“In a fiscal quarter.” Jason shoved it back. “I’m talking two million euros, clear and free, to you and you alone Immaculate.”

“We never talked about what’s in it for you.” Immaculate challenged.

Jason shrugged. “My client’s agreed to compensate me well for my travel and results. That makes this a win win, doesn’t it?”

Immaculate’s face turned into a snarl. “Then why are American soldiers here, right now!”

“I don’t know anything about…”

Immaculate interrupted, “We can bury you in the latrine trench. Answer me in five, four…”

What’s he talking about?

“I have no idea about American troops…”

Dammit I don’t know!

“Three…”

“…here in Rouvenma.”

Immaculate leaned back in his chair and laughed as he pulled a laser pistol from his holster and pointed it at Jason’s chest. “You like girls?”

Jason nodded.

Immaculate leaned into his desk and pulled out a stack of Rouvenman money. “You go have good times today, tonight. You come back tomorrow Mr. Jason.”