Crown Jewel: The Battle for the Falklands

by Bleichert, Peter von

  “When we are in private, you may address me as, ‘Father,’” the King said.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” Albert’s reply was distant and monotone.

  King Edward huffed with frustration. His first born son, Henry, had been killed during a stag hunt at the Royal Hunting Reserve at Balmoral Castle. It had been the King who found his son’s body with a hole in his chest, slumped over a rock by the River Dee. At his son’s feet was the dropped and discharged rifle, a lick of blue smoke wafting from its bore.

  Albert had always been the King’s afterthought, second place to Henry’s accomplishments and talents. Now he was heir to all the empire and kingdom. Although he always loved Albert, the King felt let down by his younger boy. After all, a King’s progeny should not exhibit the frailties of other common folk; he must be hard, strong, and adhere to a timeless preordained model. When Albert’s musings of art and literature had replaced business, hunting, and warfare as preferred loves, the King concluded that he and Albert were not cut from the same jib. A butting of heads and stubborn wills consumed their relationship ever since. The boy had decided his path, and the King found every flaw as an excuse to stab at the heart of the one he was meant to nurture. What the King would never know, never realize, is that he too had become just like his own father.

  Once, King Edward had had his own spark of desire within; a desire to live his own life and walk his own path. This spark had been readily snuffed. The once young Prince Edward had longed for the embrace and acceptance of his own father. However, he had been pushed away, frozen cold by pretense and appearances, forever corrupted with a centuries-old attitude that had broken many a royal son.

  Even when in the same room, Albert and his father might as well have been a million miles apart. Although his father knew nothing of the incident at Jugroom Fort, Albert’s return home—simply a matter of security—was viewed by King Edward as a failure of sorts, a retreat; a defeat on the field of battle.

  The King did not see the medals on his son’s chest, the badge of the army air corps, nor his pilot’s insignia, or the blood on his hands. He saw only that his son had been forced home. Albert’s warm, dark, brown eyes—the eyes of his mother—looked deep into the blue eyes of his father, the Germanic eyes inherited from the royal bloodline of Europe. Looking into the cold pools, Albert realized his father would have preferred him to come home in a flag-draped coffin, preferred it to his running from a cadre of sheep-herding rifle-toting peasants. At that moment, Albert also realized that his father would have preferred it, had he been the one to die that day by the River Dee.

  Albert was about to say it was not his choice to return from Afghanistan. However, like many explanations before, Albert knew his words would be futile, would float in the still air of the palace’s grandeur, and echo softly among the frescos and ornate ceilings before fading to silence. He adjusted his tight collar.

  The scratchy confines of Albert’s uniform became a symbol of his bondage; bondage to a life for which he did not ask, a life he would trade for nearly any other. In that moment, Albert wished he could see his mother once more. He wanted to be a little boy again, held in her comforting arms, crying over the injustices that kept a free spirit bound, the hell of a life that sucked animus until one was a beaten shell of the child that once was, a zombie that shambled through day-to-day tortures with a forced smile painted on wrinkled skin. Albert felt the worst of the human condition: hopelessness. However, such feelings ran counter to all he had been taught as an Englishman—stiff upper-lip and all—Albert wanted to embrace this hopelessness. He wanted to run, to fly, to hide at the ends of the Earth. He wanted to trade places with that little girl. He wanted to be dead.

  “Albert, you will go to Stanley in the Falklands,” King Edward said to the floor. Really, the King did not care where it was he was sending his son, so long as it is from his sight.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Albert replied with a sigh.

  2: DOGO

  “No one becomes depraved all at once.”—Juvenal

  There was a building in the heart of downtown Buenos Aires, on a street not far from the main square in the Monserrat neighborhood of the central capital. Constructed in 1929, the neo-classic building included a collection of antennae that jutted from its mansard roof, but was, to all outward appearances, otherwise stuck in time. Twenty-odd stories in height, pedestrians tended to quicken their pace as they passed it by.

  Known as the home of Argentina’s National Directorate of Strategic Military Intelligence, the building hid a long, dark history that the bright lights flooding its façade could not wash away. Its upper floors held the aroma of wooden shelves and old books. Below street level, however, the thick air of its basement reeked of sweat, urine, and blood. It was here that shadows lived; shadows of the past that still crept along hallways and stopped to listen at doorways. Among these shadows was a stooped, wheel chair-bound form.

  Doctor Amsel sat huddled in one of the building’s antechambers, staring at a flickering black & white video screen. Since Valeria was not around to scold him, he was smoking again. As he took a long draw on the crackling American tobacco, he watched one of his best at work, listening to the proceedings through a wall-mounted speaker.

  Major Ezequiel Vargas, of the elite 601 Commando Company, struck the prisoner. Caught near a military facility, the bloodied Chilean man was quickly labeled a spy and taken into custody. Albeit just an innocent tourist, the prisoner would never see his children, wife, or homeland again.

  Argentina had never forgotten Chile’s support of the British during the Falklands War, and Vargas would make sure to properly remind this man of the fact. In the middle of the dark damp interrogation room, beneath the lifeless stare of the ceiling-mounted camera, the Chilean slouched naked and bound to a cold metal chair, his face swollen and cracked from repeated punches. Vargas landed another, knocking the Chilean from semi-consciousness into blackness. The victim awakened several minutes later when Vargas poured ice water over his head.

  “Bueno, mi amigo,” Vargas said. He raised one of his favorite motivational instruments: a power drill. He revved its electric motor, spun its bit, pointed it at the Chilean’s hand, and slowly pushed it closer to flesh. Even though the prisoner could hear the tool and he saw it approaching, he was unable to utter a word. Instead, he gurgled. And then, he screamed.

  The bellow passed through the thick stone walls as if they were made of paper. Amsel pushed a button on his control panel.

  The interrogation room speaker crackled with Amsel’s familiar German-accented Spanish. Vargas had been summoned.

  Although proud to be favored—giving him purpose and justification for his methodology—Vargas still had to hide his annoyance at the disturbance. Splattered with blood, Vargas dutifully went to his superior and mentor.

  “I have an important job for you,” Amsel said. Vargas nodded, saluted, and said: “Entiendo, jefe.”

  ◊◊◊◊

  Cerro General Belgrano loomed the tallest peak among the Sierra de Famatina Mountains of Argentina. Snow-capped and jagged, this alp stood surrounded by smaller crags. The mount, named for an Argentine economist, lawyer, politician, and military leader who had taken part in the Argentine Wars of Independence and had created the new nation’s flag, stood surrounded by young peaks, not yet rounded by time, rain, and wind. The smaller peaks surrounded the tallest, most majestic one, sitting about it in a circle, as though eager to hear a riveting story.

  Vargas sat there too, on an outcropping that perched inconsequentially partway up that big rock, overlooking the valley town of Chilecito, a small city surrounded by rock and farm fields that seemed out of place among the dry heights.

  Vargas looked up at Belgrano’s heights with awe and inspiration. The wind at its peak grabbed and pulled the snow, forming a white plume that feathered into the atmosphere. At the snow line, where the stark rock became ice-covered, were the ore fields of La Mejicana. Vargas took a deep, refreshing breath that tasted of new
snow. Light-headed from the altitude, Vargas felt good. He knelt to inspect a purple flower growing from among cracks in the rock.

  He knelt beside it and watched the plant sway in the breeze. Vargas’s bruised knuckles closed about the flower’s delicate stem. If not for the clanking of the Cable Carril—an antique wire ropeway that climbed into the heights—he would be surrounded by dead silence.

  Although the Cable Carril once transported rich ore from the towering heights down to the railroad located in the steep valley floor, the old system was now relegated to moving batches of tourists to a trailhead located at the ropeway’s first station. Vargas watched a gondola approaching. As he waited for it to arrive, he thought about his wife.

  Vargas had loved her even more than he loved Argentina. The day she died in a fiery car crash, his unborn child nestled in her creamy-white belly, Vargas had changed, become different, a much darker man. No longer was he a simple soldier. Instead, Vargas became a killer driven by vicious anger at a seemingly uncaring God. Yes, he had been raised as part of a devoutly Catholic family, but when the coroner had pulled back the fluid-stained sheet from his wife’s corpse, exposing her crisp and blackened face, Vargas felt an electric shock within and experienced a black epiphany: There was no God, and the universe was a cold, neutral, indifferent place. Vargas had killed shamelessly ever since, daring the supposed deity to prove His existence by taking and punishing a once-pious man. As always, during peaceful moments, when surrounded by the beauty of the land, Vargas longed for the man he once was, to be good and forthright again. He shoved these thoughts quickly shoved away, caught by the breeze, and supplanted by a question: Was it a daughter or son that had died in his wife’s womb, starved of blood and oxygen, squirming as its newly developing organs shut down? Vargas wanted to simultaneously cry with sadness and scream with anger. He was convinced that, if their child had been a girl, she would have been as beautiful as his wife. And, if a boy, he would be strong and focused like his dad. Somewhere in his soul, Vargas knew it was a little girl that had died with his wife that day, and this knowledge made him all the angrier. What more, after all, is a father meant to do but protect a sweet, innocent little girl? There can be no divine being, he concluded. Vargas was convinced of this. For no such supernatural spirit of good could let such things happen. And, if there was no God, no Heaven, or Hell, Vargas could do as his nature told him, and as those with a better understanding of the world ordered him to do. The sound of the old wire ropeway jarred Vargas from his troubled thoughts.

  Among the Cable Carril’s load of tourists was a man Vargas recognized, a face he had studied; memorized, a member of the Argentine National Congress. He was an outspoken member who openly criticized the administration of President Valeria Alonso. While most other Argentinians wished to forget, this man had pushed for more information, information on those that had disappeared in the time of La Junta. The wire ropeway slowed, and the station attendant glided the gondola and its load of tourists into the station. The riders disembarked.

  They milled about in clumps and inspected the old engineering work. The tourists dispersed, spreading out over the outcropping and drifting toward the natural beauty beyond. They shot pictures with cameras and they gawked at the wondrous view. One oblivious woman had her face buried in a smartphone. Her thumbs typed another meaningless message. An older couple spoke about the days when the town of Chilecito rode the crest of a mining boom. The old Cable Carril had hauled load after load of copper, gold, and silver from the mines of La Mejicana, and delivered them to steaming trains on the valley floor.

  The crowd of tourists thinned. Some headed to the trail while others wandered toward a field of grass and wildflowers that danced in the breeze.

  Vargas nodded hello to a young woman who had noticed his Latin good looks but then, seeing the scar just beneath his close cropped hair, she winced. Vargas’s smile widened. The taught lips revealed one gold-capped tooth. Then Vargas flicked his tongue at her. Her flirtatious interest suddenly became uncomfortable recoil, and she turned and walked away. Vargas saw the congressman again, now alone and wandering about.

  The congressman’s domain was La Rioja Province. Despite rabblerousing, he was free of care or concern as he began his weekly constitutional: a brisk hike along the old road that snaked along the path of the ropeway. Like a stalking cat, Vargas trailed, not far behind.

  The congressman stopped beneath an iron tower perched precariously next to a steep drop. It held the wire rope up high, stringing it toward its next support. Wary of his footing on the eroded narrow road, the congressman took in the panorama. Vargas emerged from behind a large rock. Despite wishing to be alone and undisturbed, the congressman smiled nonetheless at a potential supporter/voter. When he recognized the look on Vargas’s face and the danger it implied, his smile faded, replaced by a grimace.

  The congressman fumbled with his jacket, an amateurish attempt to draw the pistol holstered in the small of his back. Vargas was upon him quickly, long before the congressman felt the weapon’s curved grip, long before he could undo the leather holster’s snap. The shove Vargas delivered was hard enough to knock the wind from the congressman’s lungs, and certainly hard enough to start him over the precipice.

  Vargas savored the shock in his victim’s eyes. He saw the spark of realization there, the realization that he would soon be dead. Vargas had seen this look before. He watched as the glaze of coming death replaced the moistness of life. The congressman’s sprawled figure became smaller and smaller as it fell, and, when he impacted the sharp rocks, his skull burst. A wet crown of red splattered on the beige dusty stones.

  Vargas sighed. Even though his feet remained on terra firma, he too was falling fast.

  3: KELPERS

  “'Tis very true, my grief lies all within; And these external manners of laments. Are merely shadows to the unseen grief. That swells with silence in the tortured soul...”—William Shakespeare

  Prince Albert was jostled awake by turbulence. He looked around the cabin of the chartered British Airways jetliner’s cabin. A Special Air Service commando named Major Scott Fagan peered back at Albert with concern. Besides the seat occupied by this hyper-aware bodyguard, the rest of the jetliner’s first class cabin was empty. Albert smiled thinly, a signal to Fagan that he was fine. A curtain separated the front of the aircraft from the rest of the cabin.

  Beyond this partition sat the others in Albert’s entourage, mostly well-connected journalists and government officials. Despite Albert’s request, the rest of his army unit suffered the confines and slung canvas seats of a Royal Air Force C-17 Globemaster III, so the jetliner was mainly empty. Albert detected the smell of fresh brewed coffee.

  His ears were clogged. As people began fishing carry-ons from overhead compartments, the clicks of the latches sounded distant to him, and the background drone of the airplane’s engines was muffled. In an attempt to clear his ears, Albert pinched his nose and puffed up his cheeks. Then he felt a change in air pressure. The aircraft had begun its initial descent. We must be close to our destination, Albert surmised. He lifted the window shade, the blinding sun making him wince. It reminded him he had drunk too much the night before. The wispy clouds parted, and the green outline of an island appeared upon the vast blue ocean.

  ‘Speedbird 926’—the air traffic control call-sign of the Prince’s flight—emerged from a thick cloud bank that had settled over North Falkland Sound. The flight crossed the north coast of West Falkland at Pebble Island. Passengers pressed faces to the small, oval portals to survey the peak of Mount Adam and the town in its shadow: Hill Cove. Turning east over King George Bay, Speedbird 926 stepped down in altitude. It then banked over the scrubby island and broke over Falkland Sound, the waterway that separated the two main islands. Squinting through his headache, Albert recognized the geography of East Falkland, as well as locales from the Falklands War: Fanning Head, where 3 Special Boat Service had cleared Argentine positions; and, Goose Green and Darwin, where 2nd Batta
lion, Parachute Regiment had retaken the area from a large and well-equipped Argentine task force.

  The aircraft banked low over Grantham Sound and along the Sussex Mountains, then pointed its nose at distant Mount Challenger and flew past Top Malo where a skirmish had been fought between elements of 3 Commando Brigade and determined Argentine Special Forces. On the horizon was Stanley—the capital of the Falkland Islands—and the airport where the Prince’s flight would land. He heard the distinctive whine of extending flaps, and a bang and suction as the landing gear lowered.

  The British Airways jet floated in over Stanley Harbour. Albert saw the crossed runways that comprised Royal Air Force Base Mount Pleasant. Eurofighter Typhoons—sleek twin-engined, canard-delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft—were parked at the military airfield. There were Apache helicopters as well, one of which belonged to Donnan and Albert. This made Albert think of his mate who was being shuttled along with others aboard the giant military transport. ‘Flying steerage class,’ is what Donnan had called it. Albert missed the verdant British Isles—especially after the desolation of Afghanistan—so, even the grasslands of the Falklands felt welcoming. Vortices streamed off the wingtips of Speedbird 926 as it lined up with the single east-west runway of Port Stanley Airport.

  The ground reached up. The airliner flared before gently settling upon the black asphalt. The tires screeched. The occupants heard the muffled scream of reversing turbo-jets followed by the squeal of brakes. The jetliner slowed and taxied toward the terminal.

  Cabin pressure equalized with sea level and the flight crew opened the cockpit windows and poked two flags out: that of the United Kingdom—the ‘Union Jack’—and the Prince’s coat-of-arms. When they stopped rolling and the engines shutdown, Albert stood and straightened his tired body.