It was an error and a failing to camp and eat so calmly with three detachments out and their commander not knowing precisely where any of them were. But Joaquin was among those separated, and no one else dared say anything to the comandante. Those eating around the fire trusted in the man, who, after all, had written a book on guerrilla warfare.
In truth, the entire ascent of the Ñancahuazú had been a mistake. Training should be undertaken in the sanctity of home territory and not in the presence of the enemy. Under no circumstances should one conduct lengthy practice maneuvers while surrounded by an enemy force. Yet this was precisely what Guevara had done. He had deliberately sought out difficult terrain, such as crossing the San Marcos Mountains, and this was done specifically to test men and strain resources. Eight weeks of hard marching had pushed his column to its limits. Men had suffered physically, and material had been lost. Now the column was scattered, its men were hungry, and several were sick with malnutrition. The crossing this afternoon had been a fiasco and half of the group swept away downriver. Throughout the column, clothing and equipment were in tatters. Guevara was playing hard and without a reserve. By the very nature of the conflict, the guerrilla operates against a superior force. Whether by insolence or the habits resulting from victory, Guevara was giving his adversaries little respect.
Now hammocks were hung by the banks of the rushing river and bellies filled with meat for the first time in a month. Sentries were posted, staring into the impenetrable night, and the men of the center group allowed themselves the confidence showed by their commander. If Che sleeps, the comrades thought, then we will sleep.
40
THE NEXT DAY a number of things distracted Hoyle from the confusion in his heart. The first distraction came early; the usual daredevil flight from La Paz to the airfield at Vallegrande. The course was fraught with towering clouds, and even in places where the sky was blue, the plane shook and dipped violently. Perhaps the cause was meteorological, but the pilot, a swaggering twenty-two-year-old with mirrored sunglasses, did not inspire much confidence in his passengers, Hoyle, Charlie, and Santavanes. The flight ended with a spectacular set piece of a landing, a violent, dramatic event that threatened to punch the landing gear straight up through the wings. Remarkably, passengers and cargo were put off in one piece, and Santavanes, at least, was brought closer to true religion.
Back at the casita, Hoyle set to work in the radio tent. Since the night below Maria’s window, a curious distraction had wafted after him. Occasionally, his thoughts were overwhelmed by a hollow ache, an emotion something like sorrow yet less pure, sullied by guilt and a certain expectation. It was almost as though Hoyle had anticipated being hurt. The relationship had fulfilled a subconsciously held prophecy.
Hoyle was a man who placed confidence in willpower. It was the rudder by which he steered his soul, and he tried now to will thoughts of Maria away. He tried to think of anything but the pang he’d suffered at Maria’s window, and the widening hole jabbed in his heart. He had known from the beginning that Maria was being kept by someone else. He should feel nothing. For only the second time in his life, Hoyle was left to puzzle his own feelings and those he had placed in another. He cursed himself and shuffled the papers stacked on the rickety desk in front of him.
Overhead, the dark, hot cloth of the tent fluttered in the wind and called him to duty. Armed with the communication plan and the codes from Diminov, Hoyle drafted a series of counterfeit radio transmissions to be sent to the Ñancahuazú. The messages, purporting to be from Havana, promised a supply drop at the junction of the Ñancahuazú and the Iripiti in seventy-two hours—more than adequate time for Tania and her passengers to reach Guevara. The location was to be confirmed in person by Tania.
The promised supply drop was described in simple noun-verb-object sentences, the universal tone of operationalese, and although the bland third-person pitch was nearly the same across all languages, Hoyle carefully studied a dozen legitimate messages sent to Guevara from Havana, decoded and written out in Spanish and English. He concentrated on the originals, meticulously crafting his language to match as closely as possible the tone and diction of the previous communications. It was vital that his messages seem as authentic as possible, especially as they called for an extraordinary thing: the movement of a unit in the field.
Hoyle counted on several factors to sell his trap. The guerrillas were known to be short of supplies, and the raid on the farmhouse was certain to have been a blow to their logistics. The first transmission would offer boots, mosquito netting, ammo, and clothing. Hoyle did his best to make the shopping list irresistible, adding medicines, in particular medications for Guevara’s asthma. The list offered practical items and a few small luxuries: canned milk and sardines. It might easily have been more modest. The circumstances in which the guerrillas found themselves were far worse than Hoyle could know. The promise of a supply drop, when it came, would be an attractive proposition indeed.
The last and most important part of the charade would be human. If the trap were to work, Tania would have to persuade Guevara to believe.
Hoyle worked through several drafts in plain language, writing in Spanish, as this was now the language in which he thought. As he worked on the text, the Green Berets put together an improvised directional antenna aimed into the center of the Ñancahuazú. The radio was tuned precisely to the frequency used by Havana, and the power of the closer transmitter ensured that the spurious messages would blot out any authentic traffic. The first transmission was scheduled for ten o’clock this evening.
As he finished the encode, the tent fluttered; it was three in the afternoon, the height of daylight, and Hoyle’s eyes pained him as he walked past the tents and into the wavering heat of the afternoon. Wanting no company, he sat under a tree behind the casita, pulled his legs into the small patch of shade, and stared out over the red-dirt airfield. A cheerless wind came down from the hills; it was not enough to trouble the flies and barely enough to stir dust from the runway. Above the valley, a skein of interwoven clouds covered the dome of the sky, white on gray. From intermediate height, individual clouds put down patches of shadow across the hills, but the sun burned through most, giving the sky a milky glare.
The afternoon had made itself tedious, and Hoyle wished it were dark. He wished he were asleep and that his mind could be turned off. Now that his messages were done, there was little to do except try not to think of Maria. At this he failed with every beat of his pulse and felt miserable and stupid for it.
The wind gusted unconvincingly, and the sun surrendered a few more inches in the sky. Sunlight made the code numbers fall one by one from Hoyle’s brain. There was nothing else to think of now that the numbers were gone, and the images of her came on in waves, fading, then waxing. Jesus, he thought, don’t be so self-pitying. Hoyle tried consciously not to allow her name into his thoughts, but he remembered making love to her, drinking her in, becoming lost in her. Now his thoughts tumbled through what he knew of her life in Cuba and his life after first seeing her.
What was he to her? The answer had barbs in it. He could be only an irrelevant thing. It pained him to think that his part in Maria’s life was so small. He wished he were drunk and then thought better. It would be worse to be heart-thumped and drunk: the twangy stuff of cowboy songs.
The clouds were rolling by, outrageously fast, and watching them, he was finally for a moment able to forget. Hoyle let his mind loose among the several shades of white and gray above the broken red ground at the end of the runway. A dozen shades of green mottled the hills beyond.
Guevara was there. Out there in the vastness, kept safe by it.
The guerrillas had struck three times and each time had come off victorious. By virtue of their stealth, the more timid of their enemies granted them ubiquity. They were everywhere because the army could not find them anywhere. But Hoyle knew better.
He walked toward the operations tent and could feel a peculiar tug, a flutter in his chest betwe
en his heart and stomach. He tried to ignore it, as he had for weeks ignored the gradually lessening pain from his ribs. The flip in his stomach was replaced by a grinding sensation, a buzzing in his head like static across a radio band.
Maria. And Maria again.
He sat down at a field desk, reading again the messages for Guevara, doing his best to ignore the pain behind his eyes. It was all simply heartache, made into physical symptoms because its victim was doing everything in his power to deny it.
41
UNDER THE CAVERNOUS roof of La Paz’s main bus station,
Rene D’Esperey and Carlos Sandoval sat at opposite ends of the platform and scrupulously ignored each other. Above them, finches and pigeons flitted among the girders and the afternoon sun slanted down through open spaces in the ceiling and the large half-circled ends of the building. Though the express bus from La Paz to the city of Sucre was scheduled to depart at three-thirty P.M., that hour approached and passed with no sign of the driver.
In dress and demeanor, D’Esperey and Sandoval stood out as foreigners. D’Esperey was twenty-seven years old and was of fair complexion and regular features. His sandy-blond hair was slightly shorter than shoulder-length, and he sported a drooping mustache. Wearing a turtleneck sweater and khakis, he might have been mistaken for a hippie gringo. His Spanish was good, rapid and idiomatic, but one could easily note in it a Gallic lilt; his French accent had been antidote to any bias against North Americans, and he was able to charm when he needed it.
Across the waiting crowd, Carlos Sandoval was much less conspicuous but still did not pass for Boliviano. He was also close to thirty, slightly built, with a high, bald forehead. Sandoval was Argentine and had about him the blank look of a department-store clerk. He was dressed in an open-collared shirt, jacket, and trousers. His hands were notable, his fingers long and tapered, betraying a sensitive, creative disposition. Sandoval was by training an artist, though an unvarying, circumspect temper prepared him well for clandestine work. Like all good agents, Sandoval shared with D’Esperey the ability to remain self-contained and outwardly calm. Both could chat readily with casual acquaintances; both had stories, immanently plausible reasons why they were visiting Sucre; and both had suitcases and backpacks and kept their luggage close about them.
A pair of soldiers walked down the platform, surveying the waiting passengers with rapacious stares. As they passed, D’Esperey ignored them, and Sandoval appeared to do some hard thinking. Both were relieved when the troopers began to question and then search passengers waiting for another bus; this task was sufficiently interesting to keep the soldiers occupied for half an hour.
During this time, the driver of the Sucre bus appeared, opened the locked door, and climbed aboard. He closed the door after himself, and the crowd watched as he conducted some unknown activity in the driver’s seat. This went on for ten minutes, and then he threw open the doors, unbolted the baggage compartment, and began to take tickets. As the crowd moved forward, Sandoval caught D’Esperey’s eye. They had expected to meet Tania on the platform; the trip to Sucre was just the first leg of the journey to Guevara’s base camp in the Ñancahuazú.
D’Esperey sat on his luggage, watching the crowd load baggage and jostle onto the bus. As long as he remained still, Sandoval did, too. It was then almost 4:25, and D’Esperey sought out Sandoval with a glance. When their eyes met, the Frenchman shrugged almost imperceptibly. There was a decision to be made—whether to begin the journey or return to the safe house. D’Esperey watched the soldiers, happily unpacking suitcases and bundles on the next platform, and he knew that there were plainclothed policemen about.
Any of a dozen things might have delayed Tania. Some of them were minor, and some of them deadly serious. D’Esperey weighed the options: One of them was walking away with his luggage. He decided that it would be less conspicuous to board the bus, make the trip to Sucre, and try to find out what had happened from there.
He stood and lugged his pack and suitcase toward the rapidly filling luggage compartment. Sandoval waited a discreet amount of time and then followed. After stowing his luggage, Sandoval sought out a vacant seat at the rear of the coach. D’Esperey found a spot in the middle and opened a newspaper he’d found on the seat beside him.
After a few moments, the engine kicked over, the air brakes hissed, and the flota lurched out of the station. It turned off the Avenida Peru, then left, into the traffic streaming down Avenida Montes. As the bus lurched by the cathedral, a blue and white taxi overtook it, horn bleating loudly. D’Esperey paid little notice until the cab angled in front of the bus and slowed. The bus driver cursed and leaned on his horn, like any sane Bolivian, but the cab stopped. The bus halted behind it, both drivers gesticulating and punching at their horns.
D’Esperey, Sandoval, and all the passengers stared as a woman opened the taxi’s back door and heaved two suitcases onto the pavement. At this act of impudence, the bus driver jerked the bus out of gear, and as the air brakes chuffed, he jumped down onto the street, cursing in a stream almost too rapid to comprehend.
D’Esperey craned his neck at the window, and what he saw puzzled and then startled him. The passenger alighting from the cab was Tania. Her dark hair hung close about her face, and it looked wet. Her strong jaw was set in an expression that was hard to read—determination, intense concentration, or perhaps unhappiness. Her gaze seemed fixed, and the muscles of her face were frozen like a mask. Traffic behind the bus immediately began to pile up, and the street became a symphony of car horns. Tania handed a folded wad of Bolivianos to the bus driver. From the window, D’Esperey could see the man’s demeanor change in an instant; he smiled and nodded, took up both of Tania’s suitcases, and heaved them up the stairs behind the folding doors. After Tania climbed the steps into the bus, the driver shooed a child from a seat and tossed her luggage onto the bundled possessions of a somber chola in a dark green bowler hat. The old Indian’s goods were smashed flat beneath Tania’s suitcases. The old woman did not protest, and the driver made no gesture of repentance. The people on the bus watched silently as the driver slipped back behind the wheel and pulled the lever to close the door.
Tania’s eyes searched the passengers, finding first Sandoval and then D’Esperey. The two men drew and held breath. Her eyes passed over them; to D’Esperey, Tania seemed in this moment like a woman unhinged. She had a wild, vacant look about her, an unknowable expression that seemed equal parts ferocious and void.
D’Esperey was too stunned to react. Tania had materialized out of nowhere, halting the bus on a city street and audaciously snarling the busy afternoon traffic behind them.
D’Esperey was surprised, but Sandoval was livid. Slumped in the back of the bus, he averted his eyes in fury. The three of them were the only non-Bolivians among the passengers, a fact patently obvious to all, and as Tania found her seat and the bus drudged back into gear, Sandoval felt a burning sensation behind his ears. He was embarrassed and irate. Their journey was to be clandestine, and secrecy rested on discretion. What had made Tania so thoughtless? She was experienced enough to know what she had done. Her stunt had violated every rule of tradecraft and deportment.
Sandoval could see D’Esperey looking deliberately and intently out the window. His disbelief had given way to stunned resentment. Tania’s stunt might have garnered the attention of the police. Sandoval had traveled from Buenos Aires under an alias, as had D’Esperey. Neither wanted close scrutiny of their papers. It was incredible that the traffic police had not swarmed them.
Grievance stirred within Sandoval, anger and bewildered indignation in D’Esperey. They both watched as Tania took out a shawl, wrapped it around herself, and settled into her seat to sleep. Sleep!
Lurching, bumping, the bus groped through the city, and as night fell, it rolled onto the dusty highway through brown scrub to Patacamaya and southeast, always southeast, toward Ouro. The road gradually descended toward the eastern desert, across several north-south mountain ranges and narrow v
alleys cut by rivers invariably running east. The city of Ouro passed, doused in the hours before dawn. At half a dozen trancas along the road, the bus would groan to a stop, and the highway police would board and slash around with a flashlight. These stops passed without incident. In fifteen hours, not one word was spoken among D’Esperey, Sandoval, or Tania, and then the bus arrived in Sucre.
DAWN CAME IN red and gold, slanted from a torrid crimson sky. The bus passed down green hills and into the city of Sucre, a jumble of red-roofed whitewashed buildings. The former capital of Bolivia, Sucre clung stubbornly to a self-important colonial charm. At the bus terminal, passengers were disgorged, stiff and bleary-eyed. Sandoval, D’Esperey, and Tania kept ridiculously apart, separately dragging their luggage to the front of the terminal to the taxi ranks. No one from the bus seemed to cling to them, and they garnered no attention from the soldiers loitering by the ticket booths.
As they stood together on the curb, Sandoval spoke to Tania, keeping the tone of his voice pleasant but scarcely disguising his smoldering anger. “What the hell was that about?”
Tania blinked. “What?”
At this D’Esperey spoke up. “The taxi.”
“Were you followed?” Tania asked blandly.
The men hesitated. Tania let the question rankle for a moment. “I wasn’t, either,” she said. “So don’t worry about it.”
Sandoval and D’Esperey shared a pointless look. Tania’s attitude seemed blasé and above the mundane concerns of security. She stepped forward to the first taxi in the rank. The driver took her bags and then the bags of the others. Tania ordered him to drive to the Hostal Colonial, overlooking the Plaza 25 de Mayo. She paid for the trip and strode inside.
Killing Che Page 32