Inti spoke Quechua and not much Guaraní, but he arranged to purchase some corn, pumpkins, and one of the pigs. The lure of money did not quite overcome the couple’s fears, and the man seemed glum when it started to rain and Guevara announced that they would slaughter the pig and remain for the rest of the day.
Guevara sat on a log and had Willy bring him the transistor radio. He tuned to the local station in Santa Cruz and listened to music as he waited for the news. It was reported that up to twenty-five hundred Bolivian soldiers were encircling the Ñancahuazú, and that the guerrillas were digging in. The reports mentioned again the clash in the ravine and gave accurate facts reflecting the army’s losses. The army claimed four confirmed guerrillas dead, “two of them foreigners,” but gave no names or nationalities. The report also stated that U.S. Army advisers had established a training camp at Santa Cruz. Miguel was standing close when Guevara heard this and saw him smile. Guevara wanted more than anything to internationalize the Bolivian struggle. Now, in-country, there were Green Berets training Bolivian Rangers. He considered this an encouraging development. The facts increasingly supported his thesis, that the United States would prop up the thug regime of Barrientos, first with military advisers, and then, as the insurgency widened, with marines. This was good news, and with it, Guevara’s mood lightened and his asthma lessened its grip. He was still exhausted. His legs were numb and his arms hurt. For the rest of the morning, he sat on the log and listened to the radio, and the comrades knew not to disturb him.
In the afternoon the sentries came in, and with them some children from El Meson. Prodded along in front of the sentries was a man with dark wavy hair and a full, drooping mustache. He had a strong jaw and cleft chin. He was dressed in sturdy hiking boots, chinos, and a white collared shirt rolled up to his elbows. Over his shoulder, he wore one strap of a large blue backpack. Guevara noticed him looking about and smiling when he saw the guerrillas. Guevara thought this odd, because the man was obviously under guard and seemed a bit too happy to be a prisoner. In any case, Guevara sized him up immediately as a city dweller, not a peasant. His boots and pack alone were worth several hundred dollars—a year’s hard toil for a campesino.
Guevara watched as the man with the backpack was made to sit next to the pigsty. He lowered his pack and sat on it, and Willy leaned against a tree ten feet away and watched him.
“Who’s this?” Guevara asked as Coco came on.
“A journalist.” Coco smiled. He stopped short when he saw the look on Guevara’s face.
Guevara was instantly furious. He held his tongue chiefly because he did not wish to reveal himself as the leader in front of this person, whoever he was. The men around him saw Guevara stiffen and clench a fist. He had been sitting on a log next to the house, and he came to his feet slowly. It was like watching a storm cloud billow up in a summer sky.
“Go get Miguel and Inti.”
Coco stammered, “We checked his papers—he’s legitimate.”
“Get them. Now.”
Coco scurried away. Guevara gestured to Pombo, who came over. D’Esperey followed him closely. “Find out who this guy is.”
Pombo walked over to the pigsty, and D’Esperey put his hands in his pockets. “This might not be all bad,” D’Esperey said.
Guevara ignored him and walked into the shack. He pulled up a chair and angled it at the corner of the table, the only other piece of furniture in the room. Coco came back with Inti and Miguel. Miguel had been sharp enough to talk to the sentries who’d brought in the man, and had taken up his papers and wallet. Miguel put the passport and wallet on the table. Guevara’s head swam with exhaustion; his breathing was still labored, and the effort continued to wring him out.
“Fucking shit-eaters,” he said quietly. “How did this person come here?”
“Kids from Bella Vista. He paid them to guide him to us,” Miguel said. He waited for a tirade, but one did not come. Inti stood by the door and looked back at the man sitting by the pigsty.
“Did it occur to anyone on guard to send word or fucking ask before this clown was brought into the main camp?”
Miguel shifted on his feet. “I’ll deal with that, Comandante.”
Guevara opened the passport—Argentinean. It came to him that he had not been to his own country in almost eight years. He looked over the document, checking the photograph and looking for tampered seals. The man’s name was unusual for an Argentine, George Andrew Roth, but the passport looked genuine, and it was without doubt the man’s photograph. Anglo names were not unknown in Argentina; Guevara’s own middle name was Lynch. There were other things in the wallet: an organizer’s card from the Argentinean teachers’ union, a checkbook from the Banco Rio de la Plata, SA. There was also a press credential issued from the Bolivian Ministry of Information, number 1397, dated three weeks earlier. George Andrew Roth was accredited to no newspaper or magazine but was listed as independiente.
“If you think he is a spy, we’ll shoot him,” Miguel said.
“I don’t know what I think.”
Pombo stepped into the shack, ducking under the main doorway. Sandoval followed him in, as did D’Esperey. It was getting a little crowded, and this, too, annoyed Guevara, but he kept his temper in check. It occurred to him again that he was worn out. As he exhaled, there was a low, whistling growl in his chest.
“Anything?” he asked Sandoval.
“Whoever he is, he’s pretty well informed. He knows the disposition of the enemy between us and Vallegrande. He named the companies and battalions by number.”
“He could know that from the radio,” Miguel said.
“He knows Buenos Aires. And his papers look real,” Sandoval said.
“What are the chances that a journalist just stumbles through a war zone and lands in our lap, looking for an interview?” Pombo asked.
“It happened to Fidel.”
“Yeah, it did,” Guevara said. He looked through the door at the pigsty. “Intrepid motherfucker.”
D’Esperey spoke. “May I make a suggestion, Comandante?” Other men would have known to be silent, but D’Esperey continued. “Maybe we should grant him an interview—I mean with Inti, pretending to be you.”
“Go on.”
“You could release a statement. And this man could then guide Sandoval and me out of the combat zone to Samaipata or Muyupampa—we could catch a bus back to La Paz. I have press credentials. We could say we were traveling together.”
Silence.
Miguel was not the only one who felt a twinge of embarrassment for D’Esperey, who nakedly wanted out of the valley the quickest way possible.
“We’re trying to judge if this man is really a journalist,” D’Esperey went on. “As a gesture of good faith, we could see if he would be willing to escort us out of the war zone.”
“You seem eager to leave us, Monsieur D’Esperey.”
“I am not a soldier, Comandante. I know that I slow the column,” D’Esperey said. This was blunt and true enough. Though they had started the march with the forward detachment, Sandoval and D’Esperey had been among the last to reach the cornfield.
“I’ll think about it.” Guevara returned to the passport, and D’Esperey slumped out the door. Sandoval walked out with him.
“Maybe that’s not a bad idea,” Pombo said. “That guy leads them out, and we can turn north to join Joaquin. We’d reunite the column in half the time.”
“I think that little pato just wants to go home,” Miguel said.
“And we need to get them out.” Guevara sat for a minute, not exactly in thought but distracted by his painful, shallow breathing. Then he gathered up the passport and wallet and walked out toward the pigsty.
Santavanes sat on the blue backpack and made his expression neutral. This was possible because he had an ability, a professional’s attribute, to delay fear. This he did by separating cause from consequence; he was acutely aware that his papers were being examined and that the guerrillas would make a life-or-de
ath decision based on their conclusions. Santavanes knew that if he was thought to be a spy, he would be shot immediately. He allowed his expression to betray only the amount of fear that would be felt by a normal journalist under the circumstances. He did not act like a man likely to be executed—he acted like a man waiting for an appointment. His act was impeccable.
Santavanes had seen Miguel carry his papers into the house, and as he waited judgment, he lit a cigarette and offered one to Willy. As they smoked, Santavanes looked around the farm. He avoided making small talk and counted the number of men, twenty-eight. He noted the number and type of their weapons, which were clean and in good repair. He was surprised that he did not see anyone carrying a radio—either a longer-range, high-frequency set, or smaller intersquad radios. He counted the number of pack animals and how they were loaded. That the men were gaunt and ate ravenously was also filed in his brain.
Inti granted an interview in his capacity as “commander” of the ELN, but Santavanes continued to note the deference paid to Guevara and wondered at a leader who kept hidden his office but not his authority.
As Inti continued his interview, Guevara put together a long letter to Castro, informing him of recent events. This was given to Arturo to encode and then write in invisible ink.
As Guevara assembled the messages, D’Esperey and Sandoval sauntered over. The Frenchman began a monologue about how useful he could be once he was back in Europe. Now that he had seen the guerrilla column in action, he could be an eloquent spokesman for the cause. Guevara listened, his mind roaming, sinking in and out of contempt. He had many factors to consider. It was vital that communication be reestablished with La Paz and Havana. He did not trust the journalist completely, and D’Esperey’s plan to be smuggled out seemed a bit injudicious. It required that they place their faith in a man totally unknown. But Guevara was tired, and he’d had enough of this mincing and yapping.
“You want out?”
D’Esperey looked at Sandoval and started to speak slowly. “We both have things to do, Comandante. Important things. This might be the best opportunity—”
Guevara cut him off. “I’m washing my hands of it. You want this man to try to get you past the army? Go ahead and try.” He got up and walked away.
D’Esperey looked about; all had seen Guevara’s exasperation. D’Esperey felt a prickle of shame, but he did want out of the valley and out of combat. He consoled himself with the thought that there were things to do. Important things—for the revolution.
“We need to get back,” Sandoval said.
“Che understands that,” D’Esperey answered quietly. “He’s just under pressure, that’s all.”
“Sure,” Sandoval said. “That’s all it is.”
The words drifted away between the two, vain consolation, for they both knew that they had aggravated Guevara. D’Esperey had at least gotten what he desired—permission to leave, if not approval.
Across camp, Santavanes sat with Inti, close to the fire. He’d watched the two men speak to Guevara and had seen the comandante stand suddenly and stalk away from them. Santavanes poked at a notebook in his lap, scribbling down what Inti said, things about justice and equality. Under his brows, he watched the two men come toward him; he saw that besides him, they were the only men in the camp who did not wear olive green.
“Señor Roth,” D’Esperey said, holding out his hand. “We have a proposition to make you.”
49
HOYLE AND CHARLIE drove first to El Meson, and then backtracked to the flyblown pueblo of Tichucha. It did not unduly alarm them that Santavanes had missed the first two of his scheduled pickups. One more day passed without the signal of the empty Coke can at the side of the road. Valdéz had a similar arrangement on the north end of the valley. His signal was found by Smith and Major Holland, and his extraction was carried out by helicopter from a field between the Rio Grande and the highway town of Tatarenda. On the fourth morning, Hoyle and Charlie returned to the south of the valley and stopped the Land Cruiser on a rise two kilometers north of the Tichucha rendezvous.
Hoyle was not unduly worried but he was concerned. If this last extract window passed without a sign, Santavanes would be expected to communicate and get out on his own. Hoyle had inserted Santavanes; it was his business, and his duty, to extract him safely. An accident could not be ruled out, nor could something more sinister, but Santavanes was a resourceful and capable operator. Hoyle knew the man well and had worked with him on two continents. He’d turn up.
In midafternoon Hoyle caught sight of a blue fleck on top of a ridge. He swung his binoculars and zoomed them as much as he could; about a mile away, he saw a man carrying a blue backpack. With him were two others. Both these men also carried packs. Hoyle could see that one of Santavanes’s companions was fair-headed and the other balding; both looked European. None carried weapons, and not one of them looked up the valley to the promontory where Charlie and Hoyle sat and watched.
Hoyle handed the glasses to Charlie, who followed with the binoculars as Santavanes again took the lead. The two other men trailed as they scuffed off through the brush and moved steadily downslope.
“Who’s he with?”
“I don’t know,” Hoyle said. He remained on the hood, watching the slope below them with his bare eyes; the men were small dots moving down an undulating, grassy crest. Charlie handed back the field glasses and Hoyle watched as the men converged steadily on the road leading to Muyupampa. They slid down the embankment and traversed the dirt track in a place where a small spring had leached across the cut in the hillside. They crossed the road perpendicularly and then scrambled down the bank on the other side. Hoyle watched as Santavanes tossed a can back up onto the road, then went back downhill after the two men.
Hoyle considered what he had seen—Santavanes was no prisoner. He’d marked his extract and crossed the road in a conspicuous place. He knew that anyone checking on the extract signal would find the Coke can in the mud and also three sets of tracks. Santavanes surely knew that Hoyle was watching, yet he was leading the two men steadily away, down the valley toward the small town of Muyupampa. Obviously, he did not want to be taken from the field just yet.
Hoyle sat with the binoculars in his lap and thought. Tania had led two men into the guerrilla zone, and it now appeared that Santavanes was leading them out. Hoyle did not know why, but why didn’t matter yet. Santavanes was alive and had declined to be extracted.
Charlie shifted against the bumper. “You want to go to the rendezvous site?”
“No. Not yet.”
Still a mile distant, Hoyle and Charlie watched as Santavanes flagged down a truck belonging to the Bolivian National Oil Company. The three men climbed up into the back. The road was dry in the mouth of the valley, and a long tail of dust followed the vehicle as it rumbled ten miles through curve and hill into the small town of Muyupampa.
“Let’s go,” Hoyle said.
Entering town five or ten minutes behind the truck, Hoyle and Charlie passed down the narrow dirt streets under the eaves of red-tiled roofs. It had been market day, and the place was busy; oil tankers and cammiones passed mules and horses drawing carts of merchandise. Around the plaza, shopkeepers and vendors went in all directions, carrying goods and dismantling their stalls. Hoyle inched the Land Cruiser through the throng and passed close to where the oil truck had parked. Santavanes placed his left hand in the pocket of his chinos, their surveillance signal for “keep back,” and Hoyle rolled slowly across the plaza toward the police station at the other end of the square.
Hoyle had now seen Santavanes’s companions at close range. Both of his new friends seemed at ease, even happy. As they carried their packs to a small café off the plaza, they seemed to congratulate each other. Hoyle watched in the rearview mirror as Santavanes followed, his expression showing little. He kept his hand in his pocket until the group sat down at a table, lumping their packs beside them, then ordering beer and Salteñas.
Fifteen minutes lat
er, they were arrested.
They had ample funds to pay a bribe, but Santavanes was careful to make sure the amount offered was insultingly low. A single sallow-faced police captain remained very courteous until he was sure there was nothing in this for him, and then he whistled for his men. Soon half a dozen armed officers stood around the table and the mood began to sour. Sandoval and D’Esperey became increasingly glum, but the encounter went exactly as Santavanes had intended. In a short while, they were handcuffed and led to the police station. When a major from the Departamento Investigacíon Criminal showed up, they were tossed into different cells with rice sacks over their heads. Though each of them had papers that were roughly in order, beatings commenced almost immediately. Foreigners were known to be operating with the guerrillas, and that was reason enough for a rigorous interrogation. In a very short while, their stories began to diverge. Sandoval and D’Esperey claimed to have come from the Ñancahuazú Valley, but neither told the same tale of the route they had taken, or whether they had spoken to the guerrillas. D’Esperey bravely insisted that he had talked to no one, while two rooms away, Santavanes provocatively revealed that they had been at a major encampment and spoken to the guerrilla commander. Sandoval was found to have a large quantity of cash sewn into the lining of his jacket, and the captain who’d arrested them in the plaza was left to wonder why they had not acquiesced to his modest request for a bribe. He could only hope that his career would be enriched, as his wallet had not been.
Two hours passed before Santavanes was dragged into a room behind the police station and the bag pulled off his head. He blinked back the gloom as he tried to make out who stood around him. Hoyle, Smith, and Charlie were gathered in a small, low-windowed room with a desk and roughly made wooden chairs. With them was a major from the DIC, who had assumed control of the prisoners from the locals.
“You okay?” Hoyle asked.
“Took you fucking long enough,” Santavanes griped. There was a cut above his eye; it had bled gratifyingly and served as testimony to his treatment.
Killing Che Page 39