The Argentine Triangle: A Craig Page Thriller (22 page)

She handed him a key. “Come and use my house any time you need to. Or any time you think I can help you. I’ll alert the staff.”

“And the Dobermans,” he said smiling. “Them too.”

She instructed one of her guards to drive him back to the Alvear.

About four blocks from the American embassy, they hit gridlock. Craig jumped out to cover the rest of the way on foot. It was slow going. Protestors, carrying signs and placards demanding American help, filled the streets. Milling in the crowd, he had no doubt that it was all carefully orchestrated. Estrada and his people had been ready for the Brazilian attack.

Craig tried to tread his way through the mob to get to the main front gate of the embassy, but people were packing the street and sidewalks. Without any warning, one of the demonstrators smashed a sign against the side of Craig’s head. He would have fallen, and he might have been trampled, but a set of powerful arms grabbed him. The man who caught him had a friend who turned on Craig’s assailant with the sign. “What’s wrong with you,” he shouted. “This is supposed to be peaceful.” The assailant moved away taking refuge in the crowd. Must be another one of Schiller’s goons, Craig decided.

His head ached, but he had recovered his footing. He felt a warm liquid oozing down his right cheek. He reached up, touched it, and saw the blood on his fingers.
Shit, they must have had a nail on the board.

From a distance of twenty yards, he stared at the gate of the Embassy through the crowd. Half a dozen armed American soldiers stood in front, but the crowd stopped ten feet from them. Those who had organized this demonstration had done a good job.

Craig desperately wanted to get inside the embassy to call Betty on a secure phone, but it was too risky to go up to the gate. If one of Schiller’s people spotted him, like the man who smashed the sign against his head, all of his credibility would be lost with Estrada. He’d have to find another way.

He turned around and walked swiftly away from the embassy. When he had walked for about thirty minutes, he was in a high-rent area, with luxury apartment buildings where the streets were deserted. The buildings were dark. The upper class was in bed asleep, or at least hiding in their homes with the lights off. He was certain no one had followed him.

He found a pay phone on the corner and dialed the American Embassy. “Please connect me with B. J. Walker,” he said, following Betty’s instructions.

“This is B. J.,” a man announced a few seconds later, in a gruff sounding voice. “Who’s calling?”

“It’s Jimmy Carr. I want to come home.”

“Where are you?”

Craig gave his location.

“I’ll have a car there in ten minutes. Longer if we have difficulty getting out of the embassy. Look for a black Cadillac sedan. License 5147.”

Craig checked his watch. Twelve minutes later, a car pulled up and stopped. A young man with a blond crew cut, powerfully built like a football lineman, jumped out on the passenger side. He opened the trunk. “Get in,” he said tersely.

“Will I be able to breathe?”

“It’s ventilated and bullet proof. Everything except a mini bar.”

Craig disliked dark enclosed spaces. The last time he had been forced to hide in a car trunk was in Beijing with Elizabeth. He hated it then; he hated it now.

After they drove for several minutes, the Cadillac came to a stop. Craig heard pounding on the outside of the trunk. They must be in the demonstration area, he decided.

The car began to rock. It can’t possibly be fireproof. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.

They began moving again. Minutes later, the car stopped and the trunk opened.

They were inside the embassy garage. The blond crew cut helped Craig out. “I’m B. J. Walker,” he said. “And you’ve got a nasty cut on your head. I’ll get one of the nurses to clean it up.”

The antiseptic stung like hell, but the nurse said it was no big deal. She put on a bandage and gave him a bottle of antibiotics in case it became infected. B. J. led Craig down to a basement communications room, then departed.

He glanced at his watch. This would be the second time in three nights he was calling Betty in the middle of the night.

“I’m sorry to call at this hour, but …”

“I was hoping you’d call. I’m at the office with two of my aides watching video feed from Buenos Aires about what’s happening with Brazil. I assume you’re on a secure phone.”

“Yes. In the embassy.”

“Good. I’ll put you on the speaker. Tell us what the hell’s going on.”

First, he reported on his discussion about diamonds with Estrada on the plane. He described what he had heard on television from Estrada, and what the protests were like, spinning out the possible scenarios he and Nicole had articulated. Then he asked, “What are the Brazilians saying?”

“They refuse to talk to us,” she responded. “They claim we’re responsible for all of this because we’ve been funneling arms to Argentina and we didn’t listen to what they told us. It’s now a matter of machismo for them. They don’t want or need help from Uncle Sam, the UN, the OAS, or anybody else. Once they’ve moved their troops into place, they’ll ‘destroy Estrada and his army,’ was what the Brazilian Ambassador in Washington said on CNN before he left to fly home.”

A man with Betty broke in. “Very diplomatic language.”

“Did you get my transcripts?” Craig asked.

“Everything was as you represented. They’re now in my office safe.”

“What’s your next move in Washington?” Craig asked anxiously.

One of the men with Betty said, “The choices are paralysis or confusion.”

On Betty’s end they all laughed.

“Sorry, Craig,” she said. “Too much pizza out of a box and too little sleep is making us all crazy. We have a meeting of the national security team at the White House in about three hours. My proposal will be that Treadwell send down a high level delegation to visit the area and meet with Estrada and other Argentine leaders. I’d also like them to go to Brazil if the Brazilians will meet with us. As I envision it, the objective of the mission will not only be fact finding, but hopefully to quiet down emotions. What do you think?”

Craig rubbed his tired eyes while he evaluated Betty’s proposal. “I like the idea,” he said.

“Good. Before the meeting, I’ll float it with the secretary of state and hope he likes it enough to pass it off as his own.”

“You don’t want to let Edward Bryce hijack the delegation. Even better, keep him off it altogether.”

“Though we’re not as smart as you are,” Betty said, “I figured that out. The president will have the final word.”

With breakfast in his suite at the Alvear, Craig was reading the morning issue of
La Nación
. The newspaper’s story of the border incident was consistent with what Estrada had said on television. The Argentine stock market was expected to take a nosedive as a result of the war. In a few minutes, he planned to leave for Iguazu. Then the telephone rang. It was Estrada.

“Sorry to have split from you so abruptly at the airport on Monday,” the general said.

“You don’t have to apologize. When I heard the news last evening, I understood why you had to rush off.”

“By the time we landed, our troops had confirmed the movement of a Brazilian unit toward the border. It was a question of making certain we were ready. Our men fought with courage. Though we killed all of them, there were casualties on our side.”

Craig was wondering why Estrada had decided to call now. As if reading his mind, the general continued. “I’m well aware that investors shy away from unstable situations so I want to reassure you that we have the matter under complete control. If I were you, I would stick with your plan, remain in Buenos Aires, and stay the course. The opportunity we spoke about on the plane is still viable.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” Craig replied. “I am concerned, but I’m not going anywhere. From my experience, those who panic almost always lose out.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Estrada was obviously pleased.

Craig decided that the call presented an opportunity. Following the old adage, when you throw rocks into the air, sometimes you get apples, he decided to pump Estrada for information.

“What prompted Brazil to attack?”

There was a long pause. Finally, Estrada responded, “Most of my advisers think it’s an effort by the Brazilians to divert attention from their own economic problems. This argument that their land was improperly taken by us at the end of the Paraguayan war is total and utter bullshit.”

“Is it also possible,” Craig asked gingerly, “that the Brazilians found out about the diamonds we discussed on the plane, and they’re trying to grab the land on which they are located?”

“That thought occurred to me, but security about the discovery has been super tight.”

“In my experience, scientists always talk to other scientists.”

“Perhaps,” Estrada sounded troubled. “But regardless, if they attack again, we’ll be ready for them. Thanks to the arms your country has sent us, those Brazilians won’t get a kilometer of our territory.”

“Please keep me informed?” Craig said, trying to sound like a concerned investor.

“Absolutely. I’m personally directing our military movements, and I view you as my business partner.”

As Craig hung up the phone, an uneasy feeling settled into the pit of his stomach. For openers, he didn’t like being a partner with this man. But more than that, something in Estrada’s version of last evening’s border confrontation and this phone call wasn’t ringing true. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he was bothered.

One thing was certain. He had to adjust his plans and defer the trip to Iguazu. Estrada was the center of the action. Estrada was not only in Buenos Aires, but willing to talk to him.

After canceling his airplane reservation he changed into running clothes. While he jogged, his mind often unlocked complex puzzles. Perhaps he’d get some insight into what was really happening in Northern Argentina.

Washington

B
ryce sat next to Treadwell on one side of the rectangular table in the White House Situation Room. Across the table were the Secretary of Defense, Hugh Tompkins and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Forbes. At one end sat Betty; at the other the Secretary of State, Kent McIntire, and the Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, Hal West.

The president looked in the direction of the duo from Foggy Bottom.

“Kent, where are we on this South American business?” Treadwell asked his secretary of state.

Kent nodded to West, sitting in front of a laptop.

The assistant secretary took that as his cue to rev up his PowerPoint presentation. He pushed a switch on the wall lowering the screen and another one closing the curtains.

Up on the screen flashed a map of the border area between Argentina and Brazil where the battle took place. Then a series of slides showing how the territory had changed hands in the last five hundred years.

Bryce was watching the president whose eyes looked glazed over, focused away from the screen, and whose mind seemed to be wandering in a distant place.

The next slide was entitled “Argentina’s version of the events.” Set forth in a series of bullets were the claims made by Estrada on the television last night, followed by a series of photographs, showing dead Brazilian soldiers armed with Chinese weapons lying next to a stone tower at a locale identified by markers as clearly being in Argentine territory.

The following slide entitled, “
The Brazilian Version
,” contained the words “
A Pack Of Lies
.”

“That,” West said, “was what the Brazilian foreign minister told Kent in a telephone conversation about two hours ago.”

Kent piped in. “And it was all he would say because he muttered an obscenity about the weapons we’ve shipped to Argentina and hung up the phone.”

West flashed on his next slide:

“
P
ROPOSED
A
MERICAN
C
OURSE
OF
A
CTION
.

S
END
H
IGH
L
EVEL
A
MERICAN
D
ELEGATION
TO THE AREA
.”

West explained, “This is a proposal Kent and I jointly developed. We view the delegation as having a dual purpose. First, to gather facts for an understanding of what happened, and second to cool tensions between the two countries.”

West left the recommendation on the screen, opened the curtains, and sat down.

All eyes turned toward Treadwell. The buck always stopped at the president. Before Treadwell had a chance to respond, Bryce spoke up. “With all due respect Kent, if the Brazilians won’t talk to us, what’s the point of sending a delegation to the area?”

“We believe that the Brazilians will change their minds if we come to South America. They won’t let us leave hearing only one side of the story.”

Bryce shook his head in disbelief. “That’s wishful thinking.”

Betty interjected, “We can’t sit by and do nothing, Mr. President. This conflict isn’t in the Middle East. It’s in our own backyard.”

When the secretary of defense and General Forbes weighed in on Betty and Kent’s side, Bryce said, “At least, let’s keep the delegation small and have minimal press coverage. Only take a couple of journalists we can work with. So we don’t end up with egg on our face if this fails to accomplish anything.”

The secretary of state looked at West, who nodded. “We can live with that,” Kent replied.

Suddenly, Treadwell tuned back into the discussion. Facing Bryce, he said, “Edward, I want you to head up our delegation.”

“Perhaps, Mr. President,” Betty said, sounding tactful. “Our delegation might have more clout if Kent headed it.”

“Kent’s going to Paris to try and improve our relations with Europe,” Treadwell replied. “I don’t want to cancel that trip. Hal West knows the issue. He’ll be part of Edward’s delegation.”

Bryce shot her a supercilious smile. Take that, bitch, he thought.