excerpt
When he was within speaking distance he said, “My name Franco Barbagallo.
I from Italy. I follow you, yes?”
“Who the hell are you?” Ken asked.
“I’m a photojournalist. I follow you, yes? I make you famous.”
“Really? You’re sure of that?”
“Yes. People in Europe want to know about you.”
“What people? How do you know about me? How do you know about
this?”
“I am watching. There is media in Europe and I think your story very
interesting. I need to know your story. I follow you.”
“I am not running a cult and I’m not looking for followers,” Ken said.
“Bad plan! Bad attitude! I tell your story.”
“How?” Ken asked. “Through pictures?”
“Yes – pictures and Italian words.”
“And then what?”
“Then German words.”
“You speak German?”
“No – I have translator. And, I tell story in English, and French, and
Portuguese. You grow up in Portugal, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Okay – I write in Portuguese.”
“How about Greek?”
“Yes, Greek too.”
“How about Russian?”
“Yes, Russian too.”
“Fine,” he said. The Arctic had always presented him with the unexpected
– why should anything have changed in the last twenty years?
An hour passed, and a sudden roar of engines announced the arrival
of a Honda all-terrain quad heading a small procession of all-terrain
vehicles. Riding the lead machine was Keith Sharp, sporting a luxuriant
growth of facial hair and weighing in at about three hundred pounds.
Their landing site was surrounded by water, so they and their gear had
to be transferred into boats and then onto another set of quads on the
far shore. Keith and his crew flung the luggage into the trailers they were
towing and set off over the rise
Ken asked Keith about the Italian photojournalist.
“He’s been here for about four days,” Keith said.
“He has? What for?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me? He says he’s going to follow me around.”
“Apparently so.”
“He says he’s going to make me famous.”
“Make you famous? Make you infamous, maybe.
Libros Libertad 