Ready to Kill

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Pastor Tobias awoke to the sound of metal rattling. He was a light sleeper — it didn’t take much to rouse him. He pulled the insect netting aside and hurried over to the window. On the road below, a column of four pickup trucks approached the one-lane bridge at the south entrance to the valley, the truck beds clanging over the rutted road and the headlights bouncing. The pickups negotiated the final hairpin turn and began crossing the wooden bridge. Tobias’s small home, more like a tin shack, overlooked one of the most remote areas of northern Nicaragua. He looked at his watch—2:00 am. No one should be arriving in the middle of the night.

This wasn’t good; he’d seen it before.

Across the valley, lights flicked on as other people heard the caravan of trucks. Most of Santavilla’s fifteen hundred residents remained asleep, but that would change soon enough.

Tobias threw on some clothes, grabbed his flashlight, and started down the path. Several hundred feet below, the trucks rolled past his position. Being careful with his footing, he picked up his pace. Although in his midseventies, Tobias kept himself in good physical shape. Still, a misstep on this trail could be fatal — the mountainside angled sharply away, creating a fall he’d never survive. He adjusted the focus on his flashlight to make the beam wider.

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