by Len Deighton
‘So that’s your scenario?’
‘Benz needs military aid, Mr President. We have our own people to consider. Union Carbide, Kaiser Aluminum, tyre companies and sugar companies and lots more. Some big; some small, but they’d all go down if Benz went under. All good friends, Mr President; all good Americans. And if the MAMista get their greedy hands on that oil …’
‘We don’t even know there is any oil yet.’
‘Houston says we should assume there is oil. They have a lot of stuff in their computer and it’s all looking good. Next week communist leaders from all over Spanish Guiana are assembling for a meeting. Our guess is that they are finalizing plans for a concerted assault on the capital and dividing the oil revenues according to the military contribution.’
‘Now you are going too far, John.’
‘It’s only our guess, Mr President.’ John Curl’s guesses were always ‘our’ guesses – the guesses of some remote and secret think-tank – until they proved correct.
‘I’ve repaired my education since last week, John. You are talking about the May 2nd committee. They meet every year, with Dr Guizot presiding.’
‘A “front” they call it.’
‘These oil companies guard their secrets closely. If one of these Marxist outfits got word that there was oil in Silver Valley they wouldn’t be going along to a meeting to tell their buddies. They’d be working out how to get their hands on it: planning a drive along the Silver River for instance. I’d say they would try to avoid that meeting … front … or whatever they call it.’
‘That’s another way of looking at it, Mr President.’
‘We’ve got to stop that damned cocaine, John.’ He paused and thought carefully about what he was about to say; Curl sometimes took things a little too literally. ‘I don’t like these damned Marxists. And any aid I give to the Benz government will bring the opposition out in a rash.’
‘But if the Benz government says it needs the guns and stuff to control the coca traffic you’ll be in hot water for not supplying them,’ said Curl.
‘The oil is a wild card, John and …’ He lowered his voice as he realized how disloyal he was being to old friends. ‘I hope the hell it turns out to be dry.’
Curl stole a glance at his wrist-watch as he calculated how long he had before the President would take the elevator down to the State Floor for his regular 9 am meeting with his chief of staff. Curl brought a buff-coloured card to the top of the pack. It was easily distinguished from the others which were white. This one was headed: acción confluencia. Curl flicked the card with his fingernail, making a sharp sound. The President turned to look at him quizzically. ‘It might all solve itself,’ Curl said.
The President touched the tiny piece of dried tissue on his chin. He couldn’t go downstairs with that on his face. One of the staff photographers would snap him, then there would be the business of making sure the picture was withheld. But if he removed the tissue he might start bleeding again. ‘Let’s have it,’ the President said.
‘The meeting of the Spanish Guiana communist leaders next week; Benz and his security people have a tip-off about the location. If they handle it right, it might solve their problems – and our problems – overnight.’
‘What are they going to try now, for God’s sake? After that business with human rights people last month I would have thought they’d be treading softly.’
‘The front will bring every Red, every anarchist and troublemaker under one roof. It’s a great opportunity for anyone who is prepared to be as ruthless as the commies are.’
The President looked at him. Then said, ‘Make sure none of our people are there, John. I mean it. Don’t come along next week and tell me that a company of Special Forces just happened to be on vacation down there at the same time.’
Curl had hoped the President would see this as a wonderful opportunity to solve the whole problem. He had expected him to ask for the usual assurances that there would be no Americans involved, but now he could see that the President really meant it. No Americans. Literally no Americans. Curl said, ‘This is strictly their own bag, Mr President. Spanish Guiana; internal security. The CIA station head only came upon this item because he’s on good personal terms with the Minister of Justice in Tepilo. They play tennis.’
The President said, ‘Well just make sure they stick to tennis.’
Curl folded the card, creased it with his thumbnail and put it into his pocket. He continued with the next item, which was a part of the same touchy business. ‘You asked me about that newspaper story – the kidnapped CIA man.’
The President used the wetted end of a towel to get the dried blood from his chin without reopening the cut. ‘Ummmm.’
Curl raised his voice. ‘The story originated in one of those damned private newsletters here in town. It was picked up by some out-of-town newspapers, including one in Caracas. Benz censored it. I’d say that story will now just die a natural death.’
‘I asked you if there was any truth in it.’
‘State put a NIACT cable to the ambassador but he knows nothing.’
‘You dragged him out of bed in the night to ask him if the CIA are putting agents into the hinterland of Spanish Guiana?’ He touched his face and his finger came away bloody. ‘They are not going to leave a memo on his desk are they?’ he shouted angrily.
John Curl had learned how to face such wrath with silent equanimity. He knew it was only because the President kept touching that damned nick on his chin.
The President said, ‘I’m asking you, John: is this one of your little capers?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Just some political pundit’s fancy imagination. Is that it?’
‘Could be, Mr President.’
‘Because I don’t want any more of your damned spooks in there goosing this Spanish Guiana situation. It’s too damned delicate.’
‘I understand, sir.’
The President was to some extent mollified by Curl’s sincere tone. ‘This is not going to be like that other administration we both know about. Those guys across the river can forget all their fun and games. I’ll not be used like a rubber stamp.’
Curl picked the President’s clean white shirt off the hanger and held it for him while he put his arms through the sleeves, craning his neck to be sure no specks of blood got near his collar. He tucked his shirt into his trousers and then picked a tie from the rack inside his closet door. It was a dark blue club tie with black and grey stripes. The President’s voice was soft and conciliatory when next he spoke. ‘We will just wait and see, John. Maybe we’ll give Benz time to make a deal with the oil people. That will stave off any demands for devaluation until the new field is producing.’ The President tied his tie and tightened it in a gesture that might have been self-punishing.
‘I don’t think so,’ Curl said. The President raised an eyebrow. Curl went on, ‘No oil company will go in there while the guerrillas are as strong as they are. And you can be sure that no company will lay bread on the line in advance.’
‘You talked with them?’ the President was fumbling with his cuff-links, but Curl by this time had learned to watch out for these trick questions.
‘Of course not, Mr President. But we see the minutes from the boardrooms of every oil company in the world. We put that stuff on our games table to see what kind of decision they would come to.’
‘And it was negative?’
Curl held the President’s waistcoat for him and then his jacket. ‘Very negative. Negative all the way down the line, Mr President.’
On the table the valet had arranged his silver pen, notebook, keys and handkerchief. Beside them a small vase of freshly cut flowers stood next to a copy of the Wall Street Journal. While he put his things away in his pockets, the President looked at a small sheet of memo paper his personal secretary had prepared. It listed the day’s appointments. After a meeting with the chief of staff in the Oval Office at nine there was the 9.30 security briefing where Curl – wi
thout revealing anything about this early get-together – would go through other, less touchy, developments with selected senior staff. Then there was a brief conference with the speech writers, a photo opportunity with the leader of Belgium’s opposition party, a plaque presentation for outstanding personnel of the ‘Say No to Drugs’ campaign, and then a champagne reception for California party workers. With that consigned to his excellent memory, he screwed up the memo and threw it away. Then he looked at himself in the full-length mirror.
That was the wrong tie! He needed something optimistic and youthful. The California party workers would be in a fidgety mood listening to his schedule for the visit to their home state next month. Some constituents always had to be disappointed. There would be questions about the new aerospace cutbacks. He chose a floral pattern: green leaves with large white asters. He changed the tie and waited for Curl to make some polite comment. When none came he said, ‘Okay, John. Let Benz read the IMF report; that will sober him up a little. Forget any idea of giving him military aid: the liberals would roast me alive and the anti-narcotics lobby would join in. Right now I can’t afford to give my enemies a common cause.’
He intended this as a joke, but Curl did not acknowledge it as one. The President said, ‘We’ll just have to wait and see if Dr Guizot rises from the dead to attend that front meeting next week.’
The President plucked at the Wall Street Journal for only as long as it took to read the Dow Jones. It was down again. ‘And don’t forget what I said about that Saint Valentine’s Day your boys were planning for the frente. No sale!’
‘It’s solely an internal security matter for Spanish Guiana,’ Curl said solemnly.
The President tucked in his tie, buttoned his vest and suddenly worried in case they were planning to serve French champagne this morning. With the present mood in California he’d need no more than that to have the wine lobby join in the howl for his blood.
The fine red dust of Spanish Guiana is what visitors remember long after the palm-lined beaches, the casino and the Blue Lady waterfalls. Great pink clouds of it greet the incoming airliners and follow the take-offs, reaching after each departing plane for a hundred feet into the air and remaining suspended across the airfield until the plane is out of sight.
A Cessna O-2A, a small twin-boom aircraft, took off in such a dust cloud. It climbed steeply, banked and then headed out over the sea. The machine was painted khaki, so the dust did not leave a mark upon its paintwork. The same dull matte finish was on every surface and, unlike all the other planes lined up at Tepilo, this one had no markings nor even a serial number.
The doors had been removed. The three men inside had an unobstructed view of the sea and then of the jungle, as, still banking, the Cessna turned and crossed the coast again to head due south. Two of the men inside were members of the PSS, the secret police force that reported to Papa Cisneros. The third man occupied the right-hand seat up-front, the seat normally used by the co-pilot. It was Chori. He was huddled in pain and breathing heavily due to internal injuries. His feet and wrists were bound. Looking out he could see the traffic on the highway as they flew along at one thousand feet.
In the basement of the Police Wing of the Ramparts building Chori had been confronted with his father, who was also beaten. At that time Chori agreed to identify the place where the frente was to hold its meeting this weekend. He would have done anything to stop the pain for himself and for his beloved father. Now perhaps he should have been regretting his weakness. He should have been throwing himself to death through the open door. Instead he was too weak, physically and psychologically, to do anything but relish the flow of cool air, hug himself and thank God for a few minutes’ respite from his torturers.
Chori had told them to fly south along the big highway far beyond both mountain ranges. They might have to refuel. It would take hours yet and he was comforted by that thought. Perhaps when they neared the residencia he would be able to summon some of his former courage and strength and defy these men. Meanwhile he would rest his body. All along he had played for time. He had convinced his interrogators that he couldn’t understand maps or read the place-names printed on them. Because he couldn’t describe the place where the frente would meet they had been forced to depend upon his recognition of it from the air. After flying steadily for half an hour or so the PSS men also relaxed somewhat. Confident of Chori’s cooperation, they even gave him a cigarette.
13
THE RESIDENCIA MEETING.
‘Do not ask a condor to fight alongside the fishes.’
It was called ‘la residencia’: a grand country mansion in the old Spanish style. Around its inner yard stretched a colonnade of ornate arches, like the ones still to be seen in Andalucía. The best rooms faced on to this courtyard, where a man was watering the potted plants. A fountain splashed into a tiled pool. Puddles of spilled water made the terracotta shine bright red.
An intricately carved wooden grille divided the cloisters from the yard. Sunlight streaming through it made sharp patterns upon the stone floor of the grand room in which the meeting was taking place. The revolutionary organizations had shared the security arrangements. There was a smartly dressed armed sentry in the corridor, one in the courtyard and others on the roofs. Big Jorge’s technicians – all Indians – manned a radio on the high ground to the west. Ramón had brought some of his best men. By common consent their platoon leader was Santos, a quiet reflective man who never smiled. Everyone called him ‘Sergeant’ Santos, despite the way in which the guerrilla armies were supposed to have abandoned such relics of the old system. He and his security unit guarded the path that led down from the house to the river. For this was a meeting of the Frente del Dos de Mayo and honour was at stake.
The revered Dr Guizot had presided at the inaugural meeting of this committee. Its name promised the post-Labour Day paradise that most of them thought was about to begin. It was pathetic now to read the agenda of that first meeting. ‘Item one: a congress of the soldier soviets’ – but the soldiers had not even joined the general strike. While Dr Guizot had been reading his proclamation over the radio, an armoured-car company had rolled down the highway to join the infantry and fight the students who’d occupied the radio station.
The frente continued to hold the annual meetings but they were no longer the big assemblies of the old days. Gone were many of the old-time trade unionists, the Trotskyists, anarchists, Castro-communists, splinter socialists and the two crackpot liberals who’d written a book about collectivized coffee-farming and tried to start a political party on the strength of it. Now there were a dozen delegates, but the real power was in the hands of only three people. Ramón – dressed today in perfectly pressed camouflage fatigues and a clean black beret – represented his armed MAMista. Big Jorge was the coffee farmers’ hero. Professor Doctor Alfonso Marti led the ‘Moscow communists’ who were doing everything they could to ignore the reality that communists in Moscow were now an endangered species.
Paradoxically this year the delegates met to discuss the sins of materialism in an impressive house. It was one of several such lovely houses owned by the Minister of Agriculture. Officially he did not know that the revolutionaries had taken over his mansion. Unofficially he gave tacit consent to such uses of his property from time to time. He considered it a concession made in order to have no guerrilla activity near his fruit estates in the western provinces. This was a land of paradox. MAMista patrols exchanged greetings with priests as they went through the villages preaching violent revolution. Guerrillas crossed themselves before throwing a bomb. A $100,000 grant from a European Church charity had paid for Ramón’s 750 second-hand Polish AK-47 rifles.
The delegates sat round the table. There were big earthenware jugs of iced water on the table but most of the men had other drinks too. Ramón had beer, Big Jorge had Spanish brandy and Professor Marti had freshly squeezed lemon juice. Ramón apologized for Dr Guizot’s absence. He was suffering from a recurrence of his malaria and had se
nt his good wishes to them all. Thus Professor Doctor Alfonso Marti accepted the chair as his rightful due as secretary-general of the communist party of Spanish Guiana. He was an august old man with a white beard and gold-rimmed glasses. For many years he had been a minor literary figure. Still he was frequently to be seen at conferences and other gatherings where publishers, and those who write intermittently, get together over food and drink. His long book on the history of Latin America, seen from the party’s point of view, was still used in Russia’s schools. He was an urban intellectual: a theoretical extremist. Well to the left of the followers of Dr Guizot, he was better able to re-fight the struggles of Bolshevik, Trotskyist and Menshevik than to take arms against a modern police force and army. Perhaps this was why he’d so readily accepted the honorary professorship, and found ways to coexist with successive right-wing governments who allowed his Latin American history book to be published (although the chapters concerning the Guianas had been discreetly edited). The regime brought him out and dusted him off to show visiting liberals how much political freedom the citizens of Spanish Guiana enjoyed.
Professor Dr Marti’s communists were permitted their comfortable trade union jobs, their orderly meetings and their glossy news-sheet. They quoted Marx with the glib ease of scholars – ‘to demand that men should abandon illusions about their conditions, is to demand that a condition that needs an illusion should itself be abandoned.’ Thus Marti’s members clung to their cherished illusions that they were the vanguard of the working-class struggle. Their concessions to the Benz regime were simply that their meetings should not recruit, their slogans be unheeded and their news-sheets too esoteric to appeal to either peasants or workers. Last year Professor Doctor Marti had infuriated Ramón by denouncing MAMista violence. It was, said Marti, ‘… inappropriate, since a revolutionary situation does not yet exist’. Said Ramón, apparently without rancour, ‘By Marti’s interpretation it never will.’