THE ASSASSINS KEEPER
By
John McClements
©John McClements – all rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced without author’s permission
Published in London, December 2015
Prologue
He scanned the street for the slightest evidence that anything was out of place. All was as it should be, but still something was gnawing at him. There was no time for hesitation here. Pedro drew his Beretta and slowly began to place pressure on the brass door handle with his gloved hand. It wouldn’t do to leave any evidence. He moved it from the three o’clock position down to five, and then it released without so much as a click. Pedro pulled the door toward him and swung it flat against the side of the building. In the silence of the room, Pedro’s eyes darted to the jumbled pile of papers on the table which were preaching anti-government propaganda. He knew that the communists were about to put their revolutionary plans into action.
His orders were to arrest the family who lived at the address. He cast his eyes around the dark kitchen. It looked like an ordinary family home, but then they always did. Family homes could be hotbeds of dissidents. Children made the most effective soldiers: no one expected them to have guns or explosives. No one stopped them joining crowds. There could be no mercy.
Pedro heard a noise in the back. They must have been tipped off. Maria Zaffaroni and her ten-year old boy got out just in time and hid in the alleyway behind the house. Her husband Jorge escaped, evaporating into the night. Pedro saw her in the shadows, pulling the collar of her black coat around her neck to ward off the bite of the cold evening.
“They’re coming,” the boy beside her hissed, almost inaudibly.
She looked as tough as they came, but Maria was finding it very difficult to walk. She was heavily pregnant – she looked like she might go into labour at any time. That part of Pedro that was still human frowned. This was no place for a woman or child. At that moment, all hell broke loose: lights flashed on and off, shouts and crashes emanated from every point of the alley.
The boy had made a run for it. Maria whirled, finding herself face to face with Pedro and a large group of armed police.
“No! No!” she screamed, desperately. “He’s just a boy!”
It was too late. Astiz would later congratulate his men on their efficiency. Her son was shot in the back of his head. Maria watched him fall, dropping to her knees in time with him, unable to stop the scream that forced its way out of her throat. Pedro saw her stare wildly around, pale and terrified, blinking blindly into their flashlights. He almost reached out to her, to offer some comfort, but he stopped himself. It wasn’t his place. Leave comfort for the men who still had souls.
“Please, please – my baby,” she pleaded.
Astiz stepped forward and pulled Maria up from the ground. He said to another officer, “Put the filth in the van with the others.”
“Where are you taking them?” Pedro asked, catching a glimpse of Maria’s terrified, grief-stricken face as she was pushed past him.
“They’re going to Batallón de Inteligencia for questioning; if they are innocent they will be free to go,” Astiz barked. “As you will see, it’s my job to rid the country of this scum. Now get out of my way!”
He slammed the van doors shut and banged the back of it, waving the driver away. The woman and her unborn child were as good as dead. Pedro knew that once they were in that place, they would never get out. It had become a detention centre for dissidents and suspected terrorists. For them, it had become the end of the world.
***
Uneasy, unpleasant feelings lingered in the air. Some of it was her own fear, but some of it was just part of the room, as if so much pain and cruelty had happened inside it that it had infused into the walls; become a part of the atmosphere. She licked her dry lips, struggling to know what to do. If it weren’t for the child growing in her stomach Maria would have killed herself there and then. The cold, creeping fingers of despair had closed around her heart.
Her husband had been captured trying to board a ship. He, too, had been sent to the Batallón de Inteligencia. Knowing that he was here, somewhere in this dreadful maze of cells, had almost broken her – which was exactly why they had told her.
She was taken from her cell roughly. The corridor beyond the stairwell door was long and featureless. Spaced at regular intervals were numbered doors, each with a spy hole. The guard pulled open one of the cell doors and motioned Maria inside: sitting at one side of the table was Jorge. Her heart leapt – he was alive. A moment later, her joy evaporated. In this place, in this room, simply being alive wasn’t enough. Neither of them would leave this complex alive. She bit back a sob. Jorge met her eyes, the same desperate conflict written across his face.
He motioned for her to sit down. The guard locked the door, leaving them together for a moment. Aware that they were probably under surveillance, they did not speak, only pressed one another’s hands. They were alive in this moment, but in this place it would only be a matter of time. Would they be tortured in front of one another, the better to extract information? Maria couldn’t tell. She clung to her husband’s fingers like a lifeline, unable to express the depth of her despair. He whispered the name of their son, and she knew that they had told him. Maria closed her eyes, momentarily surrendering to the depth of her despair. They snapped open again as the door opened.
An officer walked in and sat in front of them, glancing between them. His uniform was prim and perfect, a credit to the Inteligencia. The rest of him, however; his mouth looked dry from smoking too many cigarettes. The officer started to explain that his role was to help select people to become sleeper agents and hide them across the world until they were needed. Zaffaroni, the person in question, worried increasingly about Marie’s safety. Maria laughed – a lonely, hollow sound. They had killed her boy for this? No. To leave here with Jorge and her unborn child she would agree to anything that kept them safe and living. She was determined – almost recklessly so.
He even asked her if she was sure she wanted to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder – without a moment’s hesitation she said ‘yes’. She knew that she and Jorge would die unless they agreed – and with one son dead they had to think of the baby. There was really only one avenue open to them. By the end of the day, a deal had been made which would assure their freedom. They swore a solemn oath and would stick by it, not letting anyone or anything to get in their way. Fulfilling their final obligation was all that mattered now.
Jorge Zaffaroni had been a member of the Uruguayan resistance group, known as OPR-33. A trained foot soldier, and a trained killer. He was tall, but no giant, a man somewhere in his mid-thirties. The only notable thing about him was his slight limp – a war injury – and he favoured his right leg over the left. This was the path he and Maria had chosen. The officer walked them back to their cells to wait for transport, much more gently this time.
Maria sat alone, unobserved, in the darkness of her cell. Finally, she allowed herself to grieve for her son, the sobs wracking her swollen body until the first streaks of silver were staining the eastern sky, just visible through the grill that served as a window. She scrubbed the tears from her face, then, and washed in the water they had given her once she agreed to work for them. Free or not, she would not allow them to see her pain.
They were together again at first light. A car whisked them off to Essen, the Argentine intelligence agency that was the equivalent of America’s CIA. It all happened so quickly. Within a day, Jorge and Maria had a new identity and a new life, sworn and indebted to the organisation. They would travel – as far as the organisation needed them to. They could be anywhere, wanting and wa
iting to unleash mayhem on the enemy. Coming from obscurity to threaten the very foundation of their enemies. They would go to any lengths to protect their identities.
Chapter 1
Buenos Aires, 1975
The morning was cold and dark, the approaching dawn only beginning to tinge the eastern sky with colour. Pedro Garcia was in the heart of Buenos Aires, in the midst of a neighbourhood of narrow avenues and twisting side streets. The alleyway was dark – there were no overlooking windows – but Pedro still took a moment to check that nobody had observed him. He was waiting for the drop, standing still as a statue in the shadows of a doorway. When it finally arrived – and Pedro was satisfied he was alone – he squatted down. Using his left hand, he unzipped the leather case and pulled out a long envelope embossed with the seal of the Battallón de Inteligencia. As expected, the contents instructed him only to answer to Alfredo Astiz and no one else. He smiled grimly to himself: everything was beginning to fall into place. He vanished back into the shadows and hurried home, ready to slip back into his everyday life – his cover, now.
In the usual way, a message materialized – passed by hands unseen: an order to attend a secret meeting that night. Pedro burned the paper when he had a chance, feeling that strange mixture of excitement and fear that kept him coming back for more. At the appointed time he slipped a jacket over his clothes and made his way outside. As expected, there was a car waiting for him. The men in the car acted as though he didn’t exist, and he stared out of the window as they drove through the gathering darkness. They knew the drill, these men of darkness. It was as if they felt that if they didn’t look at him they could pretend never to have seen him, should they be questioned.
He ran over things in his mind: the endless rounding up of dissenters, the black work he carried out for the Inteligencia, the restless nights where people’s pleading voices chased slumber away. Pedro was a man committed to the cause, fervent and inviolate in his belief, but he had begun his life as a man. These days he wasn’t sure what he was anymore. You couldn’t get to be the legend he was in the secret police without losing some of yourself. If it furthered the cause he was prepared to continue; real lives were for civilians. Some days, Pedro was almost human.
He looked up at the building – the crumbling confection of bureaucratic architecture from the days of an older regime. It seemed appropriate that this should be the place. Pedro climbed out of the car without a word or second glance at the driver and ran through the cold rain up the stone steps of the building. Inside, three anonymous looking men sat in the round, marble foyer of the building, waiting. Pedro dropped the envelope on the desk, pulled off his damp jacket and slung it over his arm. The rusty hinges on the inner door squealed as it was pushed open, the sound making all four men wince. Pedro took a series of deep breaths, confident that the other men wouldn’t see him, pulling air into the very bottom of his lungs and holding it to a count of four before exhaling. He needed to be calm tonight. He needed to focus.
Astiz stood in the doorway. As usual, he was dressed smartly in his officer’s uniform. His hair was cut short and neat, like his personality. Casting his deep-set eyes across the waiting men, Astiz marched up and down the room, flapping the long vicuña overcoat, cracking the bones of his knuckles and displaying that kind of restless energy that some claim was part of his process of reasoning. Now his face was taut with anger. When he spoke, his voice sounded loud, vulgar and obtrusive.
“Today’s meeting pertains to national secrets of the highest order,” he declared. “And so I must insist that you all raise your right hand and swear that, for the rest of your lives, you will never divulge what you are about to learn – not to your wives, fellow soldiers, nor your children.”
The words were powerful and the emotions high as Astiz’s voice increased in volume.
The room was quiet in the wake of the oath. It seemed that each man was consumed by his own thoughts, united in contemplation of what they might learn and how these details could change their lives. Pedro watched the faces of his fellows. They were gaunt, focused. He wasn’t totally sure of their methods, though he recognized their features from the files, but he was certain of their allegiance to the cause. Like him, when the time came, they would get the job done – whatever the job turned out to be.
The lantern light was extinguished with a rush of silence and someone at the back of the room started the projector. As it began whirring, Astiz gestured sternly for them to stop jabbering. There was a feral look in his slightly crossed eyes, and it warned the men not to mess with him tonight. Pedro leaned on the table, gazing at the screen.
They sat, quiet and attentive, smoking with a fierce kind of concentration. Ten minutes into the film, Pedro understood why they had been instructed to conceal the information they were receiving. If something of this magnitude got out, all hell would break loose. As the film drew to a close, it became clear that the present course of action included a long-term plan to hide operatives around the world until they were needed. Pedro knew, without asking, that he would be one to pave the way, and when the time is right, he will ensure they inflict as much damage as possible. He would be leaving everything he knew behind. He felt a glimmer of reluctance. His loyalty to the cause was born out of his love for his country, after all, and leaving wasn’t a thing he would ever take lightly. He compressed his lips, thoughtfully. He would do what it took. They all would.
Astiz paced around the table. Pedro could tell by his posture that he wanted to say something meaningful, something that would have a lasting impact on his men. He was wound like a spring tonight; this operation was his baby. Nothing could be allowed to jeopardise it. He spread his arms out wide in a strangely inclusive gesture, trying to make his point.
“We need a commensurate attack to show our commitment to killing those who have caused our people such long-lasting pain.”
Pedro glances at his fellow guests. They were all trained killers. Both he and Astiz knew they could pull off such an operation with relative ease. Gustavo, the leader of the three, grunted, and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray in the middle of the table.
“I am tired of sitting around here, doing nothing,” he complained.
Astiz let out a sigh and held up his hand to stop him talking. Pedro knew that he liked his fierce determination and commitment to the cause, but his intrinsic lack of patience was not good for the purposes of morale or planning. The other two men said nothing. They were afraid to make eye contact with Astiz, let alone speak. Neither offered any indication, any body language or facial tells, that might tell the others how they felt.
Pedro watched them, calmly. One of them glanced up at him and then looked away again, just as afraid of making eye contact with him as he was with Astiz. Pedro kept his gaze on him, exploiting the man’s anxiety. With a little more time he would be able to make the man – who had assassinated more than his share of marks – sweat like a schoolboy who’d forgotten his books. It was childish, perhaps, but the temptation to use his position for a little harmless entertainment was sometimes overwhelming. Besides, if he was going to be giving up the life of privilege and respect he had carved for himself, he might as well have a bit of fun before he left.
The contract killer fingered his collar in a rare show of discomfort. Pedro smiled quietly to himself and looked away. Power was the consolation for his line of work. They lived in a world that had been broken by corruption.
Corruption led to situations that would attract power, but this was something that some of the secret police aspired to: announcing the discovery of incriminating files, ‘proving’ that the communists were on the brink of a long-planned revolution. Women and children were sent in front of the terrorist groups.
It scarcely mattered that there was no proof of such allegations. Suspects were rounded up in military-style trucks. The last barrier had been broken, and now anything might happen to anyone, at any time. The people felt it. No one wasted time on goodbyes that no longer had any me
aning. There was no longer any need for pockets, or large suitcases, or fashionable clothing. They had given up.
Surveillance was crucial: people wanted order. The threat of violence or simple non-compliance always lurked in the background, threatening the life of one brittle government after another.
Today was no ordinary day: it was the culmination of five years of planning. Pedro watched his superior carefully. They had worked together before, and Pedro respected the man, but there was something in his defiant intensity that irked him. Astiz was the kind of man, he felt, whose zeal would have found a home in whatever cause had presented itself. He reminded him of that particular kind of revolutionary that had cast themselves upon the barricades of Paris in centuries past. There was an edge to him: sharp and unforgiving. Pedro gained satisfaction from knowing that he was making the world a better place, fashioning it in the shape of the cause. He had a shrewd suspicion that Astiz got his satisfaction in other ways.
Keeping one eye on Astiz, he asked him, “Have you read the file?”
“Yes… and would you care to know how you ended up on that list?”
Pedro nodded.
“I put you there. I told Milan you are a man we can trust to get the job done.”
Astiz reached across the desk and took the envelope. He removed two typewritten pages and two photographs, and slid them across the desk.
“Have a look.”
Pedro inhaled sharply and straightened his back. He examined the photographs: one was of a young man and the other a pregnant woman. His eyes widened in astonishment – he recognized that face. For a split second he didn’t know what to say.
He had thought that she was dead.
Only two weeks previously, Pedro had led the police squad to a safe house in the city.
The Assassin's Keeper Page 1