The Argentine Triangle: A Craig Page Thriller (21 page)

He raised his eyebrows. “Very short. How do you know that?”

“You may be surprised to learn that we have the Internet even down here in Argentina, and I follow the news.”

She sure had a sharp tongue. “I left the espionage game and was racing cars in Europe.”

“Which explains your driving this evening.”

“Well, anyhow, the director, Betty Richards, wanted me back for this project. Ted Dunn was my friend. That’s why I agreed.”

She pulled back and stared at him. “You don’t look like the pictures of Craig Page I saw.”

“I decided to have my face touched up a bit. I had made enemies with some nasty people. Now tell me what happened.”

She lit another cigarette, then began in a soft, melancholy voice. “I was working in the office of my father’s shoe factory in those days. The last rule of the generals. It was June of 1979. I had just finished at the university. A young woman worked in the payroll department. Maria was her name. Sweet girl. Smart. Good worker. Her husband worked for us too. He was a leather cutter. He was also a leader in the labor union. Not a troublemaker, but vocal. My father didn’t mind him or the union, but it was a good way to make enemies.”

“So what happened?”

Nicole swallowed hard. “One day, Maria came to me and asked if she could talk to my father. She needed his help, she pleaded with me. The woman was in tears. Her eyes were bloodshot. I had never seen her like this. So I took her in to see my father. I stayed and listened.”

Nicole picked up a napkin and wiped her eyes. “Jesus, I’m going to start crying myself just thinking about it.”

“What happened?” Craig repeated.

“Maria had three little kids, girls age five and three and a six-month-old boy named Benito. Her mother took care of them during the day when she and her husband worked. The night before, when her husband was out at a union meeting, General Estrada, who was then a captain, barged into her house with three soldiers. Her mother lived at her own house with Maria’s father. So it was just Maria and the three children at home.”

Craig thought about the rape and murder of Antonia’s mother. The hackles rose on his neck. “What did they do to her?”

“To her, nothing. That would have been much kinder. Estrada ordered one of the soldiers to reach into the crib and take her son.”

“Kidnap him?”

Nicole nodded. “Here, as in any society, we have people who can’t have children or want another one without going through the discomfort of a pregnancy. So the military regime supplied babies to people who helped them or were in the government or the armed forces. When pregnant women were arrested, the military waited for the child to be born, then took the baby and killed the mother.”

While Craig had read about kidnappings during the Dirty War, it was still chilling to hear the details about a specific incident.

Nicole continued in a somber voice. “Nobody knows how many babies like Benito were taken. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Unlike the Nazis in Germany, our thugs didn’t keep records of their crimes. You may have noticed we’re not a very methodical people. It’s both our strength and our weakness. They tried to justify it by claiming they were taking babies from people who were Communists and enemies of the State. Whatever that meant. It certainly didn’t fit Maria.”

“You made a very serious charge against Estrada. Can you be sure he was directing the kidnapping of Maria’s baby?”

“Maria told me that the leader of this gang had a scar above his right eyebrow. Also, the three of them got into an argument.”

“About what?”

“One of the soldiers wasn’t content just stealing Maria’s baby. He wanted to take her in the bedroom and rape her. Estrada told him he couldn’t do that. So the soldier shouted, ‘What’s wrong with you Captain Estrada? You can’t feel sorry for these people.’ Those were his exact words. I’ll never forget them … I’ll never forget anything Maria said that day.”

“How did Estrada respond to the soldier?”

Nicole’s voice rose to a shrill, high, angry pitch. “He slapped him in the face and said, ‘We don’t have time for your games. You were there with Gimo. You heard him say that we had to take six babies tonight. That means five more.’”

“Six.” Craig was incredulous. “Six babies?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Good God. So Maria’s son, Benito, wasn’t the only baby Estrada and his goons stole for this Gimo.”

She nodded. “I heard from reliable sources that lots of money was paid for these babies. No doubt much of it ended up in Estrada’s pocket to finance his gambling and whoring. He was frequently seen in the casinos of the resorts in Punta del Este in those days and ever since. Now he wants to run our country.”

He had Estrada pegged as militant, corrupt, responsible for Dunn’s and Pascual’s murders, and willing to do anything to get control of the country, but direct involvement in atrocities like this made the man even more evil.

Before he could respond, Nicole added, “And if Estrada does take over the presidency, he’d better have bodyguards around the clock because there are plenty of mothers like Maria who’d like to kill him.”

“What did your father do when he heard Maria’s story?”

“Papa was beside himself with anguish. Rumors about these kidnappings had been circulating, but it’s another thing to hear about it firsthand. That it happened to somebody you know. He made calls as soon as Maria left his office. He went to see everybody he knew in the military regime. He realized he was one small man. He couldn’t stop the practice in general. All he tried to do was to get back Benito for Maria.”

“And?”

“He came up empty. Blank stares. No one ever heard anything about Benito again. A group was organized called Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo who vowed to track down and locate these kidnapped infants, but they got nowhere. As for me, I was so devastated that I left the country for the next couple of years. I went to London and New York. I spent time with the émigré communities there—others who had fled the country because they were being pursued or repulsed by what was happening. We spoke to anyone who would listen to us—government people, writers, journalists, anybody who could raise their voice to broadcast to the world what was happening. We wrote plays and articles. Some people listened, but the issue never moved the American people sufficiently to urge your government to act. Even worse, a couple of years ago, documents were released from the American archives which established that your government secretly supported the military regime. And they knew about their crimes.”

“I won’t try to defend what we did in the past,” he said, “but now my government sent Dunn, and they sent me. Some people in Washington are trying to stop Estrada.”

She paused and shook her head. Her expression showed anger and contempt. “I gave up after a couple of years and came home at Papa’s urging. I went back to work at his company and remained passive politically. But now that Estrada and these hoodlums, like Schiller, want to take over again, I can’t let that happen.”

“What happened to Maria?”

“She never saw Benito again or heard about him. She never had another child. A part of her died that night. She became a woman in perpetual mourning, always in black, who aged prematurely. She keeps a picture of Benito on her desk and in every room of her house.”

“Does she still work for your father’s company?”

“Even now. In the office, her work’s not good, but Papa pays her as if nothing were wrong.”

Nicole’s eyes were blazing with intensity as she continued. “History will repeat itself if we don’t stop Estrada. I don’t want that to happen.”

She crossed the room and refilled her glass, then offered some more grappa to Craig, who declined. He could only handle one of those in an evening. He was impressed that she was still drinking.

She placed her glass down on a table and pointed a finger at him. “What were you doing in the United States when I was hearing Maria’s story? Playing baseball with your friends and trying to get into girls’ pants?”

He shifted awkwardly. “Yes. The accident of birth. But still, I’ve had my own sadness. I joined the CIA. It was to do some good, to make a difference in the world, not just for the game. Along the way, my wife died when she was living with me in the Middle East. My daughter, my only child, was killed by a venal rogue Chinese general who later became their president. So don’t judge me on insufficient information,” he said angrily.

“I hope you killed Zhou in Moscow to avenge your daughter’s death.”

“You must spend a lot of time in front of the computer.”

“When you live in a place like Argentina, it’s the only way to be informed. I want you to know that I never believed that heart attack story about Zhou in Moscow.”

Before he could respond, the telephone rang. Why this late, Craig thought with trepidation. It had to be bad news. Perhaps they were about to be arrested, and it was a warning. He heard a staccato series of “Yes … yes … yes,” from Nicole. Then she hung up the phone and turned on the television set.

They saw pictures of an angry crowd marching and shouting. Craig and Nicole moved close to the screen to see what was happening. A mob was burning Brazilian flags. Shouting people were attempting to storm the Brazilian Embassy in Buenos Aires and being repelled by soldiers. An announcer said, “If you just tuned in, I want to summarize for you what has happened this evening. Close to the town of Santo Tomé in northeastern Argentina, along the Brazilian boarder, a group of Brazilian soldiers—how many we don’t know—armed with Chinese weapons entered Argentine territory for the purpose of seizing some of our land. All of the invaders were shot and killed on Argentine soil by our brave defenders.”

Then Estrada’s face was on the screen. Craig recognized the furniture. The general was seated in his office. He looked indignant, yet calm and in control.

“What is happening is totally despicable. In the nineteenth century we fought a number of wars with Brazil over border issues. In one, our heroic army, led by the great patriot, General Rosas, stopped Brazil’s efforts at expansion and forced the creation of the independent nation of Uruguay.

“Our borders with Brazil were drawn in 1870 following a bitter war that ended Paraguay’s attempts at military conquest. At that time, both of our nations took parts of Paraguay. Now the Brazilians are claiming that they were deceived in that settlement and they are seeking to seize some of our land. This is a total falsehood. If anyone was treated unfairly in that settlement, it was Argentina. If Brazil persists, we will defeat them and make a new resolution of the border issue more favorable to Argentina. They will pay dearly for this hostile adventure.”

Estrada shifted to a reassuring voice. “There is no danger to any citizen of our Republic. The Brazilian soldiers who executed this criminal act have all paid with their lives. Those in Brazil who planned it will realize now that if they ever try anything like this again, those whom they send will meet a similar fate. I will personally make sure that happens.”

He was painting himself as the defender of his nation, Craig realized. A people being attacked by a larger, more powerful enemy.

Craig tried to sort out what was happening. The scenario that came into his mind was that the Brazilian government had found out about the diamond discovery in northern Argentina Estrada had told Craig about. Using a past border dispute as a phony excuse, the Brazilians had tried to seize the territory where the diamonds were located before the discovery was announced publicly. Then later, in possession of the territory, they could claim to have made the discovery themselves. Perhaps Estrada had known a Brazilian attack like this was on the horizon. That could have been the reason he was so desperately seeking the arms Gina was obtaining from Bryce. The visitors from Porto Alegre that Pascual picked up could have been Brazilians passing secret information to Estrada about the planned attack. With that information, the Argentine army was ready for them. That would explain why Estrada had been so intent on maintaining secrecy about the Brazilians’ visit to Bariloche.

The television went back to the demonstrations. Craig led Nicole over to the map. “Show me where this occurred.”

She pointed out the area. It was on the Argentine border with the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The military people Pascual had picked up at Bariloche Airport were from there.

He didn’t want to tell her about the diamonds and what Estrada had confided in him. “What do you make of all of this?” he asked her.

She grumbled. “It’s damn convenient. Brazil attacking now. Going to war always creates popular support. It’ll provide the perfect excuse for the military seizing power. It fits with the schedule Estrada had for taking over the country.”

Craig weighed her words. This was another possibility that had nothing to do with the diamond discovery. “So you think that Estrada put the Brazilians up to it?”

“I don’t know what to think. All we have is his version of what occurred. The man is a vicious liar. He’s capable of anything.”

“But why would the Brazilians go along with this?” Craig asked. “What do they have to gain?”

She waved her arms, dismissing his skepticism. “The military leaders in the different countries down here work together.”

Her explanation made Craig stop and think. Her thesis was consistent with the trip to Bariloche by the Brazilians. But Craig wasn’t convinced that she was right. He didn’t know what to make of the attack.

What was clear to him, though, was that a war between Argentina and Brazil would have devastating consequences for the United States. It would be difficult for Washington to avoid being drawn into the conflict even if it was only those two. And if foreign governments—China or Russia—intervened on one side or the other, then the United States’ military involvement would be a virtual certainty. South America was too close to the United States’ southern border. Inaction would not be an option. And after Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States certainly didn’t want another war.

“I better get back into the heart of the city,” he said. “And see what’s happening for myself.”