We walked down to the lakeshore. I tossed the VW keys into the water. Gonzalo was pensive. “It’s a beautiful lake,” he commented wistfully. Then he added, “Lake Erie doesn’t really measure up!”
In fact, it was not much more than thirty minutes later that two ANSEB agents arrived. Señor Quispe welcomed them. No, he had not seen two escapees. Nor had he noticed a Volkswagen on the road, although lots of traffic went by and such a car could easily have passed without his seeing it. “In fact, I probably would not have noticed it,” he added. “Would you like to look around?”
“Not necessary,” one of them said, and they drove on. I noted that they were looking for the blue VW, not our green Datsun. I hoped that Rosemary or the man who had taken the VW that we had abandoned in Obrajes would get it hidden away soon, so that they would continue to look for it.
We had a dinner of chicharrón, oca, and choclo (pork rind, an Andean tuber, and corn). Señor Quispe brought out some beer, which we enjoyed. We talked for a while, explaining Gonzalo’s situation without saying that he was an American spy. Our host did not ask the nature of Gonzalo’s transgressions. The sun set over the lake. We wrapped ourselves in the proffered blankets for the night. Safe and hidden, we thought.
Not yet asleep, we heard the ANSEB men again talking with Quispe. They had evidently returned and were questioning him. “No, no car is here,” he said. “Would you like to look around?” They decided they should, and soon they came into the barn. This may be it, I thought to myself. Gonzalo and I buried ourselves as best we could in the straw. The two agents looked in. One of them swung the beam of a flashlight around the dark room. Fortunately he missed us.
20
At breakfast of rice and beans, bread, and cheese, we discussed our options. “If they believe we are headed for Peru,” said Gonzalo, “and they probably do, then they’ll expect us to drive to Puno and catch the train. We’d have had trouble getting the train yesterday, but we could have reached Puno yesterday, spent the night there, and be ready to take the train today. I suppose they will be there at the station waiting for us today and maybe again tomorrow. And they may check out hotels in Puno.”
“Puno is in Peru, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, we would clear immigration at Desaguadero—and find out how well our new passports work.”
Señor Quispe looked puzzled. “New passports?”
“Don’t ask. You should not know if they come back,” said Gonzalo.
“I would be pretty sure ANSEB will have agents looking for us at immigration,” I said.
“Yes, and that will be true wherever and whenever we leave Bolivia.”
“So what other option do we have?” I asked. “We can’t stay here in Bolivia.”
“I suggest we stay on this side of the lake and drive to Copacabana. We can cross the lake by ferry at the Strait of Tiquina. Then,” Gonzalo suggested, “we head to Copacabana. We should be able to get there today, probably by noon. We’ll have time for you to see the place, maybe go to the Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun). I expect that they’ll have alerted someone at the ferry, but they still think we’re driving a VW. Our chances there are pretty good, I think. Better than at Desaguadero, anyway. Then tomorrow we can head to Puno, entering Peru at Yunguyo, a sleepy place, an entry point not used much, I think—I hope. I think that would be the least risky place to go through immigration.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “A good plan, actually. Let’s do it.”
And so we did. We retrieved the Datsun, said goodbye with profuse thanks to the Quispes, and drove off for Tiquina. I drove, thinking that somehow that might be better if we were stopped and questioned. The road was not heavily traveled. The Altiplano looked sterile to me, as it always had when we lived in La Paz. Tubers—yucca and oca, antecedents of potatoes—grew there, but not much else. We saw llamas and alpacas and a few scrawny cattle. I remembered that the hamburger meat we purchased during our year living in Bolivia needed grease in the fry pan. Better done on an outdoor grill, but few drippings then. We passed two women walking barefoot along the road. One was spinning, using a drop spindle.
“Gonzalo,” I said, “there are a couple of things we have to think about and be alert to. I think we should assume that our followers will catch up with us in Copacabana. Maybe not, but we should not relax our guard. Obviously we’ll have to find places to stay and to eat. But remember, we’re supposed to be American tourists, so we should do touristy things.”
“Well, the main thing, the thing Bolivians do, is a visit to the cathedral. There’s a dark wood carved virgin there—La Virgen Morena del Lago—and some Bolivians make pilgrimages to light a candle for her. And there’s a hill with the Stations of the Cross as you climb up. But unless you’re more of a church-goer than I am, I would skip it.”
“Let’s skip it.”
“We can stroll around the plaza and look at religious souvenirs for sale in front of the cathedral. And really, about the only other thing tourists might do would be to hire a boat and go out to the Isla del Sol. You know, that’s where the original Inca came from before moving to Cuzco.”
“Okay. I think that would be interesting to do. But we’ll have to see how the time goes.”
“And we’ll have to see if any of my followers show up,” said Gonzalo.
We were nearing Tiquina, and the traffic slowed, soon becoming stop-and-go. “Are they stopping cars? Looking for us?” I asked.
“No, no,” Gonzalo said. “It’s always like this. The ferry is nothing more than a raft. It can take one truck or maybe two cars at a time. But the strait is no more than a hundred meters or so across. Just wait, be patient. We’ll get there.”
But it was not to be so easy. Two uniformed agents approached our car. “May we see your papers, please?” They were courteous, but obviously interested in us. We passed over our American passports and Gonzalo retrieved the bogus Hertz rental agreement from the glove box. “Step out of the car, please.” We did so, and were patted down. One of them carefully examined the rental agreement. He pulled out a cell phone from a pocket and made a call, walking away so that we could not hear the conversation. The other man stayed with us while we waited. The agent on the phone opened our passports while he talked. Probably passing on the passport numbers, I thought. I wondered if Bolivia had a centralized, computerized registry that would track passports of visitors. And if so, were our phony passports in it? He paused with the phone at his ear, then nodded and came back to us. He gave us back our passports.
“¿Que pasa?” I asked in my halting Spanish. “My friend doesn’t speak Spanish,” I added.
“We are looking for two dangerous criminals. Two men traveling together.”
“But we are just American tourists on our way to Copacabana,” I said.
“Why are you going to Copacabana?”
“Just to see it. The travel agent in La Paz said it is a beautiful place.”
“And this car?”
“We rented it in La Paz. We’ll go back and turn it in again tomorrow.”
“Have you seen a Volkswagen on the road?”
“I don’t think so, but I haven’t paid much attention to other cars. In fact, there hasn’t been a lot of traffic.”
The two men stepped aside and conferred with one another. Gonzalo looked worried. I was also worried, but I tried not to show it. They handed our passports and the vehicle papers back to us. “Have a good visit in Copacabana.”
“Whew,” I said. “We passed. But I was on edge.”
“You were on edge,” Gonzalo said. “I was terrified.”
We approached the strait, and the ferry—such as it was—came into view. So also, docked there and ready for our inspection, was the Bolivian navy. The largest ship—there appeared to be three, all together—was, I thought, a World War II American navy PT boat. “Yep,” Gonzalo responded to my query. “It was disassembled at Antofagasta, brought here by train, and put back together here. It’s the flagship of our navy.”
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“Why in the world does Bolivia need a navy?” I asked.
“Why so that we can have admirals who can wear uniforms and draw salaries.”
“And drive around in those boats.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be too sure of that. It might be asking a lot of them.”
Ultimately it was our turn. We crossed the strait on the ferry-raft and headed up to the right on the road as it paralleled the lakeshore. Then on to Copacabana.
21
We entered Copacabana, Gonzalo driving, passing through the central plaza and turning away from the lakefront to look for a quiet and inconspicuous place to spend the night. We agreed that here, in Copacabana, Gonzalo would speak only English and that I would do my best in fragmentary, tourist Spanish. We would adopt the new personas that Rosemary had given us. We were American tourists.
Not far from the plaza we entered what appeared to be a residential area. Gonzalo drove slowly. We spotted a house with a placard in the window. Habitaciones (rooms). I went in to investigate while Gonzalo stayed in the car. A woman I judged to be about fifty or fifty-five greeted me. I explained in my best broken Spanish with English words mixed in that we were two American tourists in Copacabana for the day and one night before returning to La Paz the next day. We needed a room for the night. Yes, she had a room with two beds on the second floor. Her only other room was occupied by a young tourist couple from Argentina. The bathroom was shared and down the hall from the two rooms.
I waved Gonzalo in, and he walked up to the house carrying both of our packs. She asked for our passports, and then entered us into her registry. “Welcome to Copacabana, Mr. Masterson, and you also, Mr. Morrison. I am sure you will enjoy your visit.” She handed me the room key and returned our passports.
“Where can we leave our car,” I asked. “Will it be safe on the street?”
“It would be better if you would pull into the drive beside the house and put it in back,” she replied.
I liked that option, although I hoped we were still thought to be driving a Volkswagen. “Good. We’ll do that.”
“What time do you want breakfast?” she asked.
“Well,” I said, “we like to get going early.” I did not know what time the train we planned to catch to Cuzco left from Puno. It couldn’t be much of a drive to get there, but we would have immigration to deal with. And also, I thought, if we are going to face the risk of meeting Bolivian security forces, it might well be at an immigration checkpoint.
“Six o’clock?” she queried.
“Yes, good.”
“I think the Argentinean couple also wants an early breakfast,” she commented. “I’ll check with them when they return. They’re taking a boat out to the Isla del Sol at this time. That’s something you should do.”
“Do we have to book a tour?” I asked.
“No, just go down to the waterfront and talk to one of the boatmen there. Be sure to bargain. They should come down at least twenty-five percent from their asking price. And be sure you visit the cathedral. It is very famous. Many pilgrims come here to pray to the dark virgin.
“You will be eating dinner at a restaurant?” our hostess asked.
“Yes.”
“Get the trucha. The trout. it should be fresh from the lake. Excellent. I would not order carne. Not when you are here on the lake.”
We thanked our hostess, put our packs in our room, parked the car behind the house, and walked into town. We found a restaurant on the plaza and enjoyed lunch. During lunch Gonzalo told me that many years ago someone introduced rainbow trout into Lake Titicaca. The trout did well there, and are now fished commercially.
“Let’s go first to the cathedral,” Gonzalo suggested. “We should pray there. Are you Catholic?”
“No, not at all.”
“Well I guess I am, or was,” Gonzalo said, “but I’m not much of anything now. However, if we are going to keep up the tourist act, I think we should light candles and do the proper cathedral thing.”
We walked across the plaza to the cathedral. It was surrounded by a fence with a gate that was open. Clustered in the plaza near the gate were half a dozen stalls offering medals, cards, and various other religious items. We each purchased a candle. In the cathedral we lit our candles, tipping their wicks into other candles to light them, and then set them beside the many candles already in place. Gonzalo walked down the center aisle, crossed himself, and genuflected before the altar, then took a seat in the front row. He knelt and appeared to pray. I found a side chapel.
Gonzalo returned to join me. He took my arm and steered me to a quiet corner at the back of the sanctuary. We sat in a pew. We were essentially alone. There was only one worshipper present, an elderly woman in a pew near the front. “Now, then,” Gonzalo said, “there are some things I have to tell you.” Things I didn’t already know, I wondered. “Bolivian politics are always complicated, and Morales’s election has made them more so.”
“Yes, I know that, I understand that. What I don’t understand is how and why you got involved in this espionage business. How did you become an American spy?”
“Well, there’s a lot about that that you don’t know. And I think now you should. Confession time, I guess, which sort of seems right in this cathedral.
“My sister is married to General Alberto Suarez. Remember him? We worked with him during our studies—he was a colonel then—and I think my sister may have met him during that time. Anyway, they’re married and have a couple of kids. Two or three times a month, I have dinner with them. Discussions often turn to Bolivian politics, and I keep my ears open. Even now, even after Morales’s election, the army is a major political force. Despite Morales, all Bolivian politics involve the army—always have, still do, and probably always will. Don’t forget, the army has forced changes in Bolivian governments many times. It can never be discounted, although you Americans seem to have trouble accepting that—”
“Yes, I know,” I interrupted. “I do accept the role of the Bolivian army in national politics, but then I have lived here.”
“Suarez tells his wife and the word gets to me that he is a nobody in the army. Just another man who likes to wear a uniform and be paid a general’s salary. But I have overheard enough to know that he is a king-maker, that behind the scenes he is a major player. Moreover, he seems to be able to keep everyone happy, both his fellow army generals and Morales’s campesino lieutenants.
“So, in the course of dinner-time conversations at my sister’s house, I have learned things. Much—most—of what I learned I reported to Rosa Maria. But some I didn’t. Maybe I thought that what I heard was too indefinite, too vague, for Americans to worry about. Sometimes I thought it might be too damaging. Or even dangerous to her. Moreover, I thought my information might provoke American reactions that would be bad for Bolivia. Maybe it wasn’t my place to make such decisions, but I did. I am, after all, a Bolivian, and proud of it.
“Much of what I kept to myself focused on Bolivia’s growing alliances with China—secret alliances. Venezuelan money has bankrolled Morales. But Morales is smart enough not to put all his eggs in that basket. I’m worried about that. The U.S. knows about it, but they don’t know details. I have heard my brother-in-law make remarks that might provide insights, but sometimes they seemed too speculative for me to pass on. Maybe that was wrong, but that’s what I did. Maybe I should have tried to pass on everything.”
“Okay,” I said, “but how did you get involved with the CIA in the first place?”
“You know,” Gonzalo said, “it’s clear to me now, but I almost didn’t know it was happening at the time. I met Rosa Maria, probably not by accident, looking back on it. She’s American and I had spent a year in Cleveland with you. We met in a park in Sopacache, I think. Soon, I started dating her. We had lunch together, once I think. I liked her. So I went to the Europa bar a couple of times, and then one thing led to another.
“Before long she had recruited me. I guess it was easy. Morales had
not yet been elected, but I was pretty certain that someone like him would be. And that, I believed—still believe—would not be good for Bolivia. And then, there was the money, lots of it, more than I could imagine, and in American dollars. I’m a rich man!”
“Stashed away some place safe, I hope.”
“Oh yes,” Gonzalo replied. “In a bank account in Grand Cayman. You know that there is a cambio, a money changing office, just around the corner from the U.S. embassy. Next to a bookstore.”
“Yes.”
“Upstairs, over the cambio and bookstore is the office of Señor Francisco. He has a last name, I guess, but he doesn’t give it to his clients. He is a money changer. He owns all of the cambios in La Paz and changes foreign currency for the hotels. For a commission he will set up a numbered, anonymous bank account in Grand Cayman, or elsewhere if you prefer.”
“Your ‘rainy day’ fund,” I said.
“Right, and I’m in good company. I am certain that General Suarez has such an account somewhere. So also, I would guess, does Evo Morales. All Bolivian politicians have retirement plans outside of Bolivia, often in Argentina, sometimes in Spain. And they all have funds secreted that will let them enjoy retirement.
“Well, the point that matters now is that the Bolivian security people know I was, still am, I guess, a spy. But they don’t know what I know and what I don’t know, much less what I might have passed on. That’s why they want me alive. They want to take me back to La Paz, put me in prison, and then torture me until I tell them all I know. And where I have been getting my information. If they find out, it will not only be bad for me, but also bad for my sister and her husband, General Suarez.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, confession time. I’m glad you told me that. Now I will tell you what more I know that you may not know. The CIA is the American intelligence agency. Rosa Maria is the CIA agent in Bolivia.”
Escape Through the Andes Page 10