The camouflage helmet feels like a metal ring around her head, and the rifle, slung over her left shoulder, keeps bumping up against it, making the space behind her eyes reverberate with pain. The cheap Russian boots pinch her feet as she trudges, the last of a single file of would-be guerrillas, up the intolerably fragrant mountainside. “Let’s talk in green,” her son would have told her, trying to distract her from her misery. “Vámonos, vámonos!” a petite mulatta roars ten yards ahead of Felicia. Lieutenant Xiomara Rojas has an undershot jaw, and her jumble of yellowish teeth is visible when she shouts. “El Líder never slowed down in these mountains! For him it was a matter of life and death, not a Sunday outing! Keep moving!” Felicia looks down at the trail of moist trampled grasses. Her face is flushed and sweaty, and she can’t tell whether the salt in her eyes is from perspiration or involuntary tears. Lieutenant Rojas is from these parts, Felicia thinks, that’s why she doesn’t sweat.
