Killing Che

by Chuck Pfarrer

  The major unlocked Santavanes’s handcuffs and appeared contrite. “This was nothing personal,” he said.

  Santavanes rubbed his wrists. Already they were red and swollen from the handcuffs. He said, “No es una problema.”

  For Santavanes, the mock arrest and interrogation had been simply business. As they stood together in the back room, they could hear shouted questions echoing from inside the police station; for Sandoval and D’Esperey, the business was of a different sort. For them, a very real nightmare was just beginning. On the long walk to town, Santavanes had not even suggested that they rehearse a story. D’Esperey and Sandoval should have known better. They had counted too much on their documents and the kindness of a stranger.

  “Did Valdéz get out?” Santavantes asked.

  “He was extracted yesterday,” Smith said. “You’re the one who hit the jackpot.”

  “We don’t have much time,” Hoyle said.

  Smith unrolled a topographic map on the desk. “Give us the locations first.”

  Hoyle handed Santavanes a pencil, and he peered down at the map, orienting himself and recalling the terrain, figuring it against the swirled lines of contour and elevation splashed across the map. He pointed and circled and drew arrows. “They found me here. At the second set of falls on the Tichucha River. The place I was held was here. A farmhouse about two clicks away.”

  Charlie handed him a wet cloth, and he pressed this against the cut on his forehead. He looked at the blood adhering to the cloth. “Fucking owie,” he said.

  “Have they established a new base camp?” Smith asked.

  “No. I got the feeling this was just a rest stop. The farmers were scared shitless. An old man and woman—they tried to get rid of the G’s as soon as they could.”

  “How many shooters?”

  “They had patrols out, but I counted twenty-eight.”

  “Mortars?” Smith asked.

  “Didn’t see any. Just small arms. They had a thirty-cal machine gun. They were moving with a mule. They had about five pack animals.” Santavanes stopped. His eyes flicked almost imperceptibly to the major, who sat sort of awestruck. It amazed him that the Americans had managed to put a man into the valley and count the guerrillas. Smith understood the significance of Santavanes’s gesture.

  “The major is written in,” Smith said. At this attention, the officer from the DIC positively beamed, and Charlie noticed a thick gold tooth on the right side of his mouth. For some reason, this made Charlie think of cannibals.

  “I saw Guevara,” Santavanes said evenly.

  “Are you sure?” Hoyle asked.

  “Definitely. He let someone else give me an interview—a Bolivian pretending to be in command. But this guy was riding a horse, and everybody kissed his ass. I’m sure it was him.”

  “What about the woman?” Hoyle asked.

  “I didn’t see her. I heard them talking about rejoining the second column. North, somewhere, but no one ever said the location. I’m pretty sure the main column was headed back up the valley after they dropped us at the road.”

  “Tell us about your friends.”

  “The tall one’s a Frenchman. Some sort of intellectual, an author or something. Wrote a book that sucks up to the Cuban’s rural-based revolutionary shit. He’s working as a courier.”

  “Not a journalist?”

  “No way. He’s a player. Guevara gave him letters to carry out.”

  “And the other guy?”

  “Argentine. Some kind of Communist organizer. He seemed to have pretty good access to Guevara. I’d say he’s the cutout to operations back in Buenos Aires.”

  “Is he a journalist?”

  “Neither of these guys is on the level. They were both already at the farmhouse when I was brought in. Both walked around without being under guard. It was the French guy’s idea to come out with me. I agreed because I didn’t know how long my cover would hold. He seemed to be in a goddamn hurry to get out. They both did.”

  Hoyle looked down at the map. “They released you here.” His fingers touched a spot on the road to Tichucha.

  “Around there. It was about three in the morning when they finally let us go. The guerrilla column turned north after they dropped us, I’m sure of that.”

  Hoyle looked at the map. He could not believe that Guevara had divided his forces. More astoundingly, he seemed to be moving along the water courses. It was almost lazy. The training of the Ranger battalion had been widely advertised on the radio. Did he just not think they really existed? Did he have that much contempt for the Bolivian army?

  Charlie turned his wrist against the lantern on the desk and barely whispered, “It’s time.”

  “Okay,” Smith said to Santavanes. “We have to get you back into custody.”

  Santavanes stood, and the major tossed him the handcuffs. Santavanes blandly clicked them onto his wrists. “How long am I in for?” he asked.

  “Sixty days,” said Smith. “We have to sell your status as a legitimate correspondent. We used a journalist cover on you, and we have to make your treatment look equitable. That’s going to require at least the impression that you’re being processed along with the other captures.”

  “They haven’t made me?”

  “They don’t have a goddamn clue,” Hoyle said. He had been careful to make sure both Sandoval and D’Esperey had seen Santavanes being beaten.

  “Now that you have confirmed that they are simpatico, their stays will not be pleasant.” The major smiled.

  Charlie was aware, if the major was not, that one of the reasons Santavanes was being so visibly played was to make sure the Bolivians did not murder Sandoval and D’Esperey. CIA wanted them interrogated thoroughly. That meant that they had to be kept alive. The conspicuous ruse had served two purposes.

  “You’re going to be transferred to the military prison in Camiri,” Smith said to Santavanes. “You’ll spend the first thirty days visible. But we’ll keep you out of direct contact with the other prisoners. You’ll be charged publicly, same as they are. Thirty days after that, you’ll be moved to La Paz and quietly released.”

  “Per diem?”

  Charlie was amazed at Santavanes’s sangfroid. He faced two months in a Bolivian army jail. Even for a sham prisoner, this could not be easy, and all he seemed to be worried about was his pay.

  “You’ll be on full allowances for your entire visit. Station personnel will handle your exfil back to Langley.”

  “Money for nothing.”

  Hoyle shrugged. “Five grand for a rest cure.”

  The rice sack was placed back over his head, and Santavanes was led back into the police station. As the door opened to the small courtyard, Hoyle could hear questions being shouted, and a thumping noise like a hollow object being beaten on a wall.

  50

  AT THREE-THIRTY in the afternoon, promptly, Minister Alameda arrived at Colonel Arquero’s office in the Palace of Justice. He was scrupulously on time, something of a reverse insult in a country that was very casual about appointments. Arquero’s newly assigned aide-de-camp was a fresh-faced captain named Javier Pacheco; he had replaced Lieutenant Castañeda, who was transferred suddenly to the Paraguayan border. The captain clicked to attention as Alameda entered, but managed to seem inhospitable even as he offered coffee. Alameda declined, and the captain scurried into the inner office. Three or four minutes later—the interval seemed just long enough to snub—the captain emerged and held open the door.

  Arquero stood and bowed slightly as Alameda came in. The men disliked each other but did so without rancor. They were like opposing parts in a complicated machine, one pushing, the other pulling. The spheres of their influence overlapped slightly. Alameda trafficked in varying shades of truth, propaganda, chiefly, but also in the remedy and suppression of facts contrary to the government’s line. The facts Arquero dealt in were mostly outside the public eye—matters of military and police intelligence and the personal lives of the president’s opponents. They w
ere quite different physically. Arquero was a gangly scarecrow of a man, neat about his person but with a disaffected, almost priestly demeanor. Alameda was outgoing and charismatic, a darling of the press. These qualities contributed to Arquero’s detestation of the minister, as did a tinge of jealousy, though the colonel thought himself quite above such base sentiments.

  “Thank you for coming to see me, Minister,” Arquero said. His grating voice was a reminder that he had summoned Alameda.

  The colonel gestured at a chair in front of his sarcophagus-sized desk. “I thought it might be best if we spoke in my office. There is a confidential matter, and I thought perhaps you might help me get to the bottom of it.”

  The clock in the colonel’s office clicked off the seconds it took for Alameda to find a seat and say, “I’ll do what I can.”

  Alameda sat and looked over Arquero’s shoulder to the large American-made file safe behind him. The drawers were steel, and the cabinet itself was made of reinforced concrete. It had been a gift from the American ambassador, a standard CIA office item used for the storage of classified material. There was a large combination dial set in the center of the top drawer. Alameda suspected, correctly, that his own dossier was kept among these files. The cabinet sat hugely in the otherwise Victorian office, out of place and yet organic to the man and his occupation. The safe was the nexus of the colonel’s empire—the documents within were the source of his power and the key to his survival. Colonel Arquero remained very close to Presidente Barrientos despite persistent rumors of private depravity. Arquero’s services during the 1964 coup were still whispered about. Alameda, too, owed his career to Presidente Barrientos, who’d personally elevated him from warrant officer to major, then from major to minister. The colonel and the minister served at the pleasure of the president; both men knew themselves to be safe in their appointments. There was only so far this discussion could go.

  Arquero placed his hands on a stack of papers squared neatly on his blotter. “May I be direct?”

  “You may.”

  “I am aware of your contacts with members of the Bolivian Communist Party.”

  “And I am aware of the arms deal you brokered in Mexico City.”

  Arquero pursed his lips. They both had secrets to keep, and Arquero could always do business with a man who had secrets. Arquero’s arms deal and Alameda’s meetings with the PCB were just the tips of two enormous, sordid icebergs. Their opening cards had been laid; both men held trumps.

  “I’m sure you can appreciate that my dealings in Mexico were a matter of national security.”

  “And commerce.”

  “We both do business.” Arquero smiled. “I meant to say that my business in no way relates to my personal politics.”

  “Of course not,” Alameda said. The minister did not reveal that his own affairs were not strictly commercial.

  “Then I may get quickly to the point,” the colonel said. “As you are aware, the mercenaries who were captured in Muyupampa entered the country under alias. Their documents, I must say, were quite convincing.”

  “Sandoval and D’Esperey.”

  “And the third man as well.”

  Alameda tried not to show surprise. Most of the attention of the media and the interrogators had been focused on the others. “What about him?”

  “The name on his documents is George Andrew Roth,” Arquero said. “He claims to be Anglo-Argentine. He is actually a Cuban exile. His name is Felix Santavanes. Or rather, that is another alias. Santavanes is employed by the CIA. He entered the country illegally and is assigned to anti-guerrilla work with Mr. Hoyle and Mr. Smith.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I have a source within their group,” Arquero said.

  Alameda crossed his legs, doing his best not to seem impressed. “You are certain Santavanes is a CIA agent?”

  Arquero nodded. “This is also confirmed by the fact that he has been segregated from the other prisoners. The Americans are overseeing the interrogations. This man Santavanes has been housed comfortably and is not being questioned.”

  “You’ve told this to the president?” Alameda asked.

  “I’ve prepared a finding.” Arquero caressed the papers on his blotter. “It might be better if you informed him.”

  It was unlikely that Arquero wanted to share credit for this information. Why didn’t he tell the president himself? Alameda took a moment to consider the angles. “This man was traveling with two known collaborators? How did he gain their trust?” Alameda asked.

  “That is the reason I wanted to speak to you before I reported to the president.”

  Alameda became impatient straightaway. “Let’s not play games, Colonel.”

  “As you wish. Santavanes entered the Ñancahuazú Valley posing as a journalist.”

  Alameda frowned. “A journalist?”

  “You did not know he carried press identification?”

  “From whom?”

  “From your office, Minister. Santavanes carried Bolivian press credentials.”

  “That’s not possible. I issue those documents personally.”

  Arquero conjured a shiny paper from the stack on his desk. “This is a photocopy of his document: number 1397. The original was examined by my people in Muyupampa. It has since been destroyed by the Americans. Your signature was apparently forged, but the credential was real.”

  Alameda looked at the picture and did not conceal his bafflement. The face of the man was blurred slightly; it was a photograph of a photograph. Alameda did not recognize the individual.

  “Did the Americans ask you to provide Santavanes with cover?” Arquero asked.

  “No.”

  “Then how did an American agent receive a press credential from your office?”

  Alameda handed back the paper. There could be only one answer. “It was stolen.”

  Arquero leaned back in his chair, grinning like a reptile. “Now, who might have done that?”

  51

  ON THE AIRSTRIP at Vallegrande, Hoyle received a note from Charlie, who appeared somber and even more inscrutable than usual. Charlie had just come from La Paz, and the airplane that had brought him stood on the runway, one engine feathered, one chugging. Charlie’s expression was difficult to read, but he seemed worried when he shouted over the noise of the engine, “This is from Mr. Zeebus. He says that it is very urgent.”

  Hoyle opened the envelope and read:

  YOUR PRESENCE IN LA PAZ (SOLO) REQUESTED IMMEDIATELY. COME AT ONCE NO. 172 AVE 16 DE JULIO.

  The note was typed, which seemed odd for something urgent, and under Zeebus’s scrawled signature was the alphanumeric N-357. This had been Hoyle’s operator designator in Laos and was there by way of a bona fide. No one but Zeebus would have known it.

  “Where did you run into Zeebus?”

  “He came to the safe house at Plaza España,” Charlie said.

  Whatever the problem was, it had been important enough for Zeebus to commit a breach of security. The operations of La Paz station were supposed to be totally firewalled. It wasn’t a surprise that Zeebus knew of the safe house at Plaza España—he didn’t miss much—but it was highly irregular that he would actually go there looking for Hoyle.

  “He didn’t tell you what it was about?”

  Charlie shook his head, looking even more serious.

  Hoyle walked back to the casita and tried to figure what set of circumstances had combined to require his presence in La Paz. He anticipated a tirade from Zeebus. He returned to his small room and gathered up some clothing. He told Charlie that he would be reachable in the morning at Plaza España, and that he would be back as soon as possible.

  “What should I tell Mr. Smith?” Charlie asked.

  “Tell him it’s politics,” Hoyle said.

  IT WAS AFTER midnight when Hoyle arrived at No. 172, a walk-up apartment off the Avenida 16 de Julio. Zeebus’s note had not specified an apartment number. Hoyle scanned the mailboxes and rang the bell of a strang
er on the third floor whose light was on. There was a buzz, and the door popped open. Hoyle unbuttoned his jacket and touched his pistol as he climbed the stairs to the third floor. There was silence behind the doors on each of the landings and only the whisper of passing taxis from the street. On the uppermost landing, a light shone from under the crack of a door; Hoyle looked down the stairs to make certain he had not been followed, then knocked softly.

  The door opened, and Hoyle recognized the embassy doctor, the same man who’d treated him for his shattered ribs. The doctor had a drink in his hand. “Come in,” he said.

  Hoyle entered a small, neatly ordered living room. A couch, a pair of easy chairs, a lamp, and an open wardrobe crowded the space. The floor lamp next to the couch was putting down a murky pool of light. Hoyle could see a kitchen and a pair of bedrooms off a short hallway. It seemed a pretty standard safe house. Cosmo Zeebus sat on the couch with his arms crossed over his belly and his head back. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be asleep. His tie was undone, and his jacket was laid over the back of the couch beside him. His shirtsleeves were turned up, and Hoyle noticed that there were small spatters of blood on his arms and the front of his shirt.

  The doctor pulled the front door closed, and Zeebus opened his eyes and took a few seconds to regain consciousness. Hoyle noticed a physician’s black leather bag sitting on the coffee table. It was open, and beside it were a few white squares of gauze and a pair of latex gloves turned inside out. Next to them were a scalpel, forceps, a curved surgical needle, and a tangle of catgut sutures.

  “What’s the matter?” Hoyle said.

  Zeebus came to his feet by pulling his knees together, moving his legs to the side, and pushing heavily off the arm of the sofa. “I need you to ID somebody,” he mumbled.

  “Who?”

  The doctor stood with his drink, looking down the hallway. Hoyle noticed for the first time that the doctor was dressed in duck trousers, sneakers, and a tennis sweater. There was blood spattered on him as well. He had obviously been called to duty from the tennis courts.