In the morning the porter brought coffee and Salteñas, and the girl ate and washed herself in the sink, and when breakfast was finished, the porter again tapped on the door and took the plates and the girl away.
Santavanes checked out of the hotel and was picked up by a white Land Cruiser. Behind the wheel was a sturdy-looking Guaraní Indian who introduced himself as Charlie. Also in the vehicle was a tall, muscular-looking Latin man who introduced himself as Eduardo Valdéz. Santavanes shook his hand, and as he did, he introduced himself as Felix. Names might change, and often did, during the course of an assignment, but they would begin with Eduardo and Felix. Unless operational factors made disclosure necessary, it was not essential or even desirable to know much more.
As they drove away from the hotel, Santavanes asked in English, “So, where are we going?”
Charlie answered in English. “We have a safe house in Vallegrande. You’re going to base out of there.”
“What happened to Camiri?” Santavanes asked.
“Bombed,” Valdéz answered, as though commenting on the weather.
“Everything go okay on the border crossing?”
“Fine, no problems.”
Valdéz guessed his new colleague was Cubano, like himself, but he did not make his observation a point of discussion. Santavanes was indeed a countryman, a Guantanemero, and a veteran of a dozen CIA assignments. For most of Santavanes’s deployments, he had been infiltrated as an illegal, in many of them he had operated solo, and all of his situations had been what the community called “direct action”—killing.
Mr. Valdéz and Mr. Santavanes were peers.
Valdéz gestured at the suitcases piled into the cargo compartment. “I brought you a standard load-out.”
“What did you get me?”
“An FN rifle. They told me you liked the range.”
The weapon was familiar to Santavanes, an implement as basic and necessary as a hammer to a carpenter.
“How about a pistol?”
“A .45 Browning. Four magazines.”
“That’s fine,” Santavanes said.
Charlie drove on for a while, the truck shifting gears and starting the long climb out of La Paz. In the front seat, Santavanes absently touched his wrist and thought, Goddamm it, I forgot my watch.
10
THE SUN SLIPPED out of the sky, and dusk lowered over the city like a cupped hand. In a dinner jacket and cummerbund, Hoyle made his way across the Plaza Murillo, approaching the monument and scattering a flock of listless pigeons. On either side of the square, floodlights pushed sharp beams against the president’s house and the congress building, each glowing a citrus shade of yellow.
As Hoyle continued into the square, the buildings on either side seemed somehow to recede. This was not merely a trick of the light. Although the plaza itself was level, the street fronting the congress, Ayacucho Bolívar, dropped slightly as it exited to the north. The result was that the right side of the congress building seemed to be sinking. A similar wrinkle of topography vexed the presidential palace, and as Hoyle came closer, it, too, gave the impression of a wounded ship.
Shouldered against a doughty Spanish cathedral, the house of Bolivia’s president had about it an expectant, almost fretful air. Assaulted many times, pocked by bullets, and repaired contritely, the president’s house was known throughout Bolivia as Palacio Quemado, the burnt palace. Twenty years before, almost to this very night, Bolivia’s most unfortunate head of state, Gualberto Villarroel, had been seized by a mob, thrown from a balcony, then hanged in the square. A martyr to extemporaneous democracy.
In spite of this grim anniversary—perhaps because of it—the palace would tonight be the scene of a grand cotillion. As the beau monde of La Paz converged on the Plaza Murillo, the army flattered them with a daunting show of force. Watched over by a squad of paratroopers, arriving guests passed first through a barricade of sawhorses and barbed wire. As Hoyle joined the crowd, he noticed that the paratroopers concentrated their attention on the people in line, not on the plaza or adjoining streets. If an attack should come, the paras would be as surprised as everyone else.
In the portico, Hoyle passed a pair of Bolivian ceremonial guards, red-coated infantrymen exactly like a matched set of tin soldiers. A liveried servant presented a silver tray upon which Hoyle laid his engraved invitation; a second butler smiled back, gesturing Hoyle toward the sound of conversation and the jingle of crystal. The party and the courtyard then opened around him.
The quadrangle was overlooked by galleries, and a fountain bubbled in its center. The balconies were turned out in luminaria and a profusion of Bolivian flags. In a corner, a fifteen-piece orchestra crooned Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade.” The crowd was a thoroughgoing cross-section of Bolivian plutocracy: politicians, generals, oil merchants, the owners of tin mines and smelters, the scions of landed families, newly wealthy coca barons, grand dames, concubines, journalists, and the merely beautiful. The courtyard swirled with ladies in evening gowns. The dresses were decidedly European, since the rich in this country, like the women of the diplomatic corps, could afford clothes from Paris.
Hoyle plucked a glass from a passing tray, settled into a corner, and took in the crowd. It had been almost six years since his previous posting in La Paz, and he was not recognized. This allowed him to study every face, and even for a man of his profession, Hoyle was thought to have a keen eye for faces. He had the unique talent of drawing into himself and blending seamlessly with a background; this skill enabled him to see and not be seen, to watch and not be noticed. As dancers sailed past, conversations drifted to him. Hoyle affected a disinterested smile but attended as much as his ear could sort out. He noted in particular the conduct of the great ladies as lesser mortals passed them. A quick cut of their eyes or a whispered comment told more than an inch of dossier.
Hoyle took it all in, as he had been trained to do, adding faces to names, names to innuendo, and all of it condensed and stowed away with an idea toward furthering his goals in Bolivia. This was the only reason he had come. He was here on an open-ended mission, part reconnaissance, part recruitment survey. Hoyle knew that any of the embassies of a dozen other nations—Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy—had intelligence officers here to do the same thing. Only absent were the Soviets. Following the Cuban missile crisis, the government of Bolivia had acceded to a U.S. suggestion that they break off relations with Cuba. The Bolivians went one better and kicked out the Russians as well. Across town, the Soviet embassy was shuttered, and their espionage activities had been farmed out to the less urbane but equally ruthless Bulgarians.
Hoyle drank a second champagne without the slightest sensation of irony. There were a million places in the world where the rich danced while the poor starved. Hoyle had been around the world, and it had beaten sense into him. He knew that injustice was a phenomenon as irresistible and inescapable as gravity. The privileged always danced and drank champagne. They did so in Saigon, in Johannesburg, in Havana; it could not be different here.
Hoyle was not cruel, but he was not an empathetic man. He looked at the crowd with narrowed eyes and thought, It’s coming for you. It did not matter that Hoyle was here to stop that day of reckoning, or at least to forestall it. In that mission, he took no joy beyond a certain dark pride in his work. His was an assignment, not a personal aspiration. There remained the very real possibility that Bolivia would succumb to revolution. If it came, the people around him would be swept away, perhaps even liquidated as a class. Hoyle did not pity them. In plain truth, he hardly cared for them at all.
Hoyle was attached to no nation except the United States, and that attachment, though deep, was more intellectual than conventionally patriotic. His profession involved the surgical application of violence to produce a political result. If his assignment had been to sow revolution rather than suppress it, Hoyle would now happily be in the hills building bombs and plotting assassinations. He did not bestow a sense of right or wrong on the j
obs he did. He was a professional, and his conscience allowed him to stand in the courtyard of a palace, in the presence of people he despised, sipping champagne and smiling like a man who wished them well.
The band played another song from the 1940s, “I’m Gettin’ Sentimental Over You” by Tommy Dorsey. The combination of the music and couture put forward an awkwardly nostalgic air. Sprinkled in the crowd were Bolivian officers in peaked caps, Sam Browne belts, and jodhpurs. The uniforms were jarringly familiar. For decades, the Bolivian army had been advised by the Germans on matters of both tactics and fashion.
“Ever feel like you stepped into the wrong war?”
Hoyle turned, the English at first puzzling him. It was a bigger surprise to see Cosmo Zeebus standing in a trendy evening jacket. Before Hoyle could think of a pithy comment, Zeebus stopped a waiter and plucked a glass from his tray. “I thought you avoided flagpoles.”
“American flagpoles.”
Zeebus drank down his wine in one gulp. “Where’s your asshole buddy?”
Hoyle assumed this referred to Smith, but he took a moment to answer. “He might show up.”
“Too bad about Camiri,” Zeebus said, referring without sympathy to the bombing of their base.
“We’ve moved. We’re set up in Muyupampa.” This was a lie, technically disinformation, but Zeebus was not written into Hoyle’s work, and if he didn’t know the location of the new base, it could not be leaked.
A moment passed, Zeebus breathing steadily, as large men do. “You know where he used to work? That Smith fucker?” he asked.
“He told me.”
“Yeah, well, the MACV bullshit was cover. He worked in the Parrot’s Beak. Cambodian border. Had a troop of tribesmen and a SEAL team with him. They used to go out at night and cut the heads off gooks.”
“Did someone show you the heads, Cosmo?”
“Look, I’m telling you as a friend.”
“Smith is going to cut off my head?”
“Laugh now, amigo. The guy is a menace.” It occurred to Hoyle that Zeebus was a bit drunk. “They got him out of Washington,” he went on. “They sent him down here before there could be a congressional inquiry.”
Hoyle exchanged his glass with a passing waiter. Again he found it impossible to imagine Smith in combat, let alone directing atrocities. Smith looked like an English professor.
“I’m glad you told me, Cosmo. This guy could wreck my career.”
“You don’t have a career, pal. I’m just clueing you in. They’re going to watch what he does down here. You better watch yourself, too.”
A spatter of applause spread and redoubled across the courtyard. Bedecked in the uniform of a major general, President René Barrientos Ortuño made his entrance. Behind him streamed his retinue, generals, staff officers, and a pod of their bejeweled and heavily perfumed wives. As he waded into the crowd, Barrientos conducted himself regally, acknowledging the applause with papal satisfaction.
“He looks taller on television,” Hoyle said. The applause now was unanimous. Zeebus put down his glass and joined in tepidly.
The crowd opened, and Hoyle caught sight of a woman standing to the left and behind the president. She was of medium height and had dark hair. Even across the courtyard, Hoyle could see that her eyes were a pale, unearthly shade of green.
“Who’s that?” Hoyle asked.
“Narrow it down for me, buddy.”
“The woman,” Hoyle said.
Zeebus squinted indifferently. Among the followers of the president, Maria Agular was the only woman dressed in a business suit, a skirt and jacket, not evening clothes. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, not piled in a bouffant, and it shone like onyx. Zeebus stared for a moment. “Beats the hell out of me.”
Maria was listening closely to a polished-looking gentleman of about forty. The man had quick, penetrating eyes and was dressed in a Savile Row suit.
“Who’s she talking to?”
“Alameda, minister of information. He and Barrientos came into the embassy today. Alameda whipped out the graphs and pie charts. They asked the ambassador for a fifteen-thousand-foot runway, six Phantom jets, and one hundred tons of napalm.”
Hoyle ignored Zeebus. “Is that his wife?”
Zeebus shook his head. “Uh-uh. Alameda likes sweet things. And money. Mostly money. The Company’s had him on payroll since sixty-five.”
Hoyle began to shift his gaze. He’d made the calculation that if he looked any longer, he would be noticed. It is an odd fact that a person watched closely will unconsciously turn and look right back at the onlooker. And this is what happened: Maria turned, and her eyes fell directly on Hoyle.
He did not turn away, and in every second that he looked at her, he had the distinct impression that he was making a mistake. He would think later that when he first looked at her, he’d felt the exact sensation he had when he parachuted from an airplane. It was not exhilaration, it was not fear or even the glum impression of concentration. Hoyle looked at the woman and thought, I have just done something stupid.
Zeebus’s voice was close, and Hoyle could feel his hot-sweet breath against his ear. “Shit,” Zeebus said. “See you later.”
Hoyle turned to see Smith crossing toward them. Zeebus spun on his heel, pushed into the crowd, and was gone. Hoyle felt for an instant like a man alone on a thinly frozen lake.
“Thought you’d be here,” Smith said. He looked after the departing fat man. “I guess he’s still a little sore.”
“Yeah, he is,” Hoyle answered.
Smith looked at a passing waiter but did not summon him. “How’s the wine?”
“Not very good.” Hoyle looked over his shoulder. President Barrientos was now speaking with Alameda. Hoyle no longer saw the woman.
Smith was the first to notice a tall, unpleasant-looking colonel approaching from the presidential retinue. He wore pince-nez spectacles and the pompous uniform of a Bolivian staff officer. Behind him trailed Lieutenant Castañeda. Heels clicking on flagstone, the two officers walked across the courtyard, dancers and partygoers opening before them. Hoyle first saw Castañeda, his companion from Señor Lempira’s office, then the taller officer.
“Who’s the scarecrow?” Smith asked.
“Colonel Arquero. Director of intelligence.” Hoyle continued softly, “He was a major during my first tour. He assigned a national police officer to help me find the bodies in Tarija.”
Smith watched Arquero and Castañeda come on. Arquero was well over six feet and seemed almost cadaverous, a man who rarely ventured out in daylight. His promotion to colonel had come for providing indispensable, if unspeakable, services to the coup plotters who had brought Barrientos to power.
“He doesn’t look like a leg breaker,” Smith said.
“That’s not his worst habit,” Hoyle answered, quickly emptying his glass. “Ce que le colonel aime vraiment sont les petis fils.”
Two steps ahead of Arquero, Lieutenant Castañeda stopped and put his heels together in the grating manner of a Prussian officer. “Mr. Hoyle,” he said. “It is a pleasure to see you.” He crisply did a half left and gestured to Arquero. “May I present—”
“Mr. Hoyle.” The colonel offered three fingers and stood with the corners of his mouth pulled back.
Hoyle took what part of Arquero’s hand that he could and shook it warily. “A pleasure to see you again, Colonel,” he said, his expression perfectly concealing an incalculable reservoir of contempt.
Castañeda stood by, somewhat deflated, introductions being one of his reasons for living. To Castañeda, Hoyle said, “The colonel and I are well acquainted.” Hoyle moved his head without taking his eyes off Arquero—exactly what he would have done had he been in a room with a viper.
“Colonel, may I present my colleague Mr. Smith?”
This time Arquero did not offer his hand, but tilted his head back slightly, examining Smith through the bottoms of his pince-nez.
“Good evening, Mr. Smith.” The colonel
’s tone was entirely bland, an effect accentuated by the baritone of his voice and the slow timbre of his speech.
“Mucho gusto, Colonel,” Smith said.
Hoyle noticed two perfect red depressions where the glasses clamped the colonel’s nose.
“Mr. Hoyle, I was relieved to hear you were not injured in the Camiri bombing. I understand you lost some windows?”
Hoyle suspected that Arquero had ordered the bombing. He contented himself by saying simply: “We were lucky the bomb was placed a safe distance from our building.”
“Yes. That was fortunate. Wasn’t it?”
Defeated in his introductions, Castañeda now did his best to be affable. “Mr. Smith,” he chirped, “I understand you were out to survey the site of the ambush in Muyupampa?”
“Major Buran was kind enough to explain the engagement to us.”
“Major Buran has been reassigned.” Arquero sniffed. “I think you’ll find the next time Bolivian forces meet the enemy, things will be different.”
“The army has not made an announcement about the ambush,” Smith said. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Your Voice of America reported the story fully,” Arquero said.
“But the army said nothing,” Smith answered. “Tell the truth,” he went on. “Give accurate casualty figures. Say exactly what happened.”
“I think you may have misapprehended the gravity of our defeat.”
Smith did not share Hoyle’s affinity for Latin obfuscation. Truth be told, Smith was somewhat of a blunt man, a true Rhode Islander, and he came at the subject directly. “It’ll happen again before the situation turns around. Guerrilla propaganda expects the government to lie. What they don’t know how to handle are facts.”
Killing Che Page 9