The Argentine Triangle: A Craig Page Thriller

by Allan Topol

  “We don’t have to mention that she works for your father. Or anything else to identify her. Tell her that, and I’ll do my best to have Gina reassure her before we begin.” It was easy to say. He wasn’t sure how he’d deliver.

  “One other thing,” Nicole said. “When you were in the United States, I found a soldier who told me that the so-called Brazilian attack was all bogus. Schiller put convicts from Argentine jails in Brazilian uniforms, shot them, and placed their bodies next to the observation post. They were photographed with weapons at their sides. Pretty horrible, isn’t it?”

  “Did you get a written statement from the soldier?”

  She shook her head. “He was too frightened for that.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Craig said irritably. “Without it, we don’t have a damn thing. Didn’t your soldier friend realize what’s at stake?”

  She shot him a severe look. “Have some sensitivity. These are ordinary people. They’re scared to death for themselves and their families. And with good reason. They didn’t join the CIA the way you did.”

  His eyes blinked. “Point well taken. I’m sorry. I guess it’s up to Gina to carry us the whole way.”

  They heard the sound of Gina coming down the stairs. “Showtime,” Craig muttered.

  Nicole led Gina and Craig into the den—the same room where he and Nicole had drunk grappa after their high-speed car chase. To him, that seemed ages ago. Gina was sitting primly on the sofa in front of the wooden coffee table. Craig and Nicole were straight across from her on each side. An empty chair facing Gina awaited Maria.

  “You can get Maria now,” he said.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something, Craig?” Nicole asked.

  Gina glanced at him with a bewildered look. “It’s strange hearing her call you that. I think of you as Barry Gorman.” Then she stared at Nicole and added, “I guess I was the only one who didn’t know.”

  “Except for her,” he said, pointing to Nicole. “Everybody in Argentina thinks I’m Barry Gorman.”

  “Is she a spy too?”

  Nicole broke in with vehemence. “I’m a citizen of this wonderful country who cares deeply about Argentina and its people. I’ll do whatever it takes to preserve our democracy.”

  Craig had no doubt that Nicole’s words and the way she said them made an impression on Gina.

  “I brought you here,” he told Gina, in a somber voice, “to listen to a woman who wants to tell you what happened to her the last time the generals ruled. Maria’s her name. She’s absolutely terrified of talking to you. She wanted to speak from another room or with a mask over her face, but I assured her that you were a religious person, as she is, a teacher of young girls. Someone who would listen to her and think about what she said. And whether you decided to act on it or not, you would never mention this to anyone.”

  Gina sat up straight, startled by the gravity of his words. “No, of course not.”

  “Good.” He turned to Nicole. “Will you tell Maria that?”

  “Absolutely,” Nicole said. Then she went into the kitchen.

  A few minutes later, she returned, leading by the hand a diminutive woman dressed entirely in black with a long skirt that reached practically to her ankles. Around her neck, she wore a large wooden cross. In her hands, she held rosary beads. Her skin was gray and wrinkled, suggesting someone who rarely was out in the sun. Her hair was mostly gray with occasional strips of deep black that suggested it must have been beautiful a long time ago. On her face was permanently etched the pain that she had suffered. Looking at her brought to mind Nicole’s description of Maria when she had told him the story—“a woman in perpetual mourning.”

  Craig watched Gina as she watched Maria. Without even a word being spoken, he realized that Gina felt compassion for this broken shell of a woman.

  Maria was trembling so much that Craig thought she might miss the chair and fall onto the floor as she sat down. Gina didn’t need any prompting. “Whatever you tell me will never pass through my lips.”

  “God bless you,” Maria said.

  “Will you tell her what happened?” Nicole said.

  She began speaking in a halting, tentative voice. “The date was December 5th, 1980. I’ll never forget that. A little past nine in the evening. I was at home with my three children. The older two, girls, five and three, were asleep in their beds. I had just finished breastfeeding Benito, my six-month-old boy, and laid him down in his crib. My husband was out at a union meeting.

  “The soldiers came then. Four of them altogether in their brown army uniforms. The one in charge, the oldest one, in his thirties, a captain by rank, had a scar above his right eyebrow. The others were barely twenty. Two had been drinking heavily. I could smell it on their breath.

  “The captain told one of the others to go into the bedroom and get the baby. I screamed and tried to run after him, but another soldier grabbed me. He told the captain, ‘I’m going to take this wench into the bedroom and have a little fun with her. Anybody want to join me?’

  “But before he could, the captain said, ‘Leave her alone.’

  “The young soldier sneered and shouted back, ‘What’s wrong with you Captain Estrada? You can’t feel sorry for these people. They’re all enemies of the state.’

  “The captain took two steps toward the insolent soldier and slapped him hard in the face. ‘We don’t have time for your games,’ he said. ‘You were there with Gimo. You heard him say that we have to take six babies tonight. That means five more.’

  “I never saw Benito again.”

  Gina shot to her feet. “What did you just say?” she shouted at Maria, who was terrified by Gina’s reaction.

  Maria repeated her words in a quavering voice. “I never saw Benito again.”

  “No. No. Before that.”

  “‘You were there with Gimo. You heard him say that— ’”

  Once she heard the words again, Gina gave a bloodcurdling cry. “No … no … no … no …” at the top of her lungs. It was the worst sound Craig had ever heard in his life. It was the anguish of a woman whose insides were being ripped out while she remained alive, having it happen before her very eyes.

  Then she charged across the room toward Maria.

  Craig jumped to his feet, fearful Gina would strike Maria, but she stopped short, raised her hand and pointed an accusing finger. “You lied. Didn’t you, old woman. Estrada never said ‘Gimo.’ Admit it. You lied because he told you to.” The finger swung around toward Craig. “The evil scheming American told you what to say. Admit it, old woman.”

  Nicole and Maria looked puzzled. Craig mouthed the words, “Gimo was her father.”

  Maria refused to be intimidated. “I have never lied in my entire life. Surely, I would not desecrate the memory of my Benito by lying about what happened to him.”

  In anger, Gina turned on Craig. “A mistake was made. She’s telling us what she thinks she heard. She made a mistake. You’re exploiting it for your own purposes.”

  He crossed the room over to the black duffel, took out Betty’s folder, and placed it on the coffee table. “Confirmation is in these documents, but I urge you not to read them.”

  Gina moved in close to him and pounded her fists against his chest. His skin was tender. The blows hurt, but he didn’t flinch. His pain was nothing compared with hers. He hated doing this to her, but there was no other way.

  “You bastard,” she shouted, through clenched teeth on a face of agony. “How could you do this to me?”

  “I’m sorry. Truly I am.”

  “You’re not sorry at all. You’re prepared to get what you want regardless of how much it hurts me.”

  He couldn’t argue. Of course, she was right.

  She picked up the red folder and said, “I want privacy. Where can I go.”

  “Please don’t read the documents. Accept what Maria told you.”

  “You’re not telling me what to do,” she fired back.

  Nicole said, “You stay here, Gin
a. We’ll leave.”

  Nicole led them to the hallway outside, closing the door of the den behind her.

  She thanked Maria for coming. Then she had one of the men who took care of her house drive Maria home.

  Nicole turned to Craig. “How’d you know her father was called Gimo?”

  “The first time you told me the story and you mentioned Gimo, I had no idea he was Gina’s father. Then when I was back in Washington, I asked Betty to give me the files on her father. I wasn’t looking for anything specific. Just playing a hunch that he wasn’t a saint and planning to use that to gain Gina’s help. Then when I read the documents, I learned that other officers called him Gimo.”

  Nicole walked toward the kitchen with Craig trailing behind. “I need a drink,” she said.

  “It’s still morning.”

  She ignored his words and poured herself some grappa. Craig declined, opting for coffee instead.

  As he sipped it, he picked up a copy of the morning issue of La Nación to see what statements Estrada was issuing to the press, to try and gauge how soon he would be launching an attack. But he couldn’t concentrate on the newspapers. The heart-wrenching sobs, the continual crying coming from Gina through the closed door as she read documents that described her father’s crimes, were too much.

  When Schiller called, Estrada was at his headquarters at Iguazu making final arrangements for the battle to be launched the following morning.

  “We have to talk,” Schiller told Estrada. “It’s a matter of extreme importance.”

  “I’ll be back in my office in Buenos Aires at six this afternoon. I think we better wait till then.”

  With information Schiller had described as sensitive, Estrada was afraid to talk by phone. Though it was his country, not theirs, the CIA might have installed its own listening devices.

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” Schiller said.

  An hour after Gina had closeted herself in the den with the documents, Craig saw her emerge, red-faced with bloodshot eyes and disheveled clothes.

  “Bathroom,” she muttered, and went upstairs.

  He heard water running.

  Minutes later, she came down, a small towel in her hand, wiping her damp face. She said crisply to Craig, “Call Nicole. You won. I’ll help you.”

  “Believe me, you’re the only one who can stop Estrada. If I had another way, do you think I—”

  “That’s enough,” she said, waving a hand at him for emphasis. “I know that the generals can’t come to power again. Tell me what I have to do.”

  The three of them returned to the den. Gina was drinking water. “My throat’s sore,” she had said. Both women were looking at Craig. It was his show.

  “Let’s start with what you know,” he said to Gina.

  She began in a soft voice. “Alfredo arranged for me to have a job at La Nación, and he directed them to send me to Washington. He told me that I was to get close to Edward Bryce. He would tell me from time to time what I was to learn from Bryce or convince him to do.”

  She gave him a sharp look. “Since you bugged my phone and my bedroom, you know all of that.”

  He turned his eyes away from her and looked down at the floor.

  “This was all part of a grand plan of Alfredo’s to take over the government and restore Argentina to a position of grandeur. Periodically, he flew me back from Washington to Buenos Aires to explain what he needed. Usually, I came out to his country house on a weekend for those discussions.”

  She coughed, clearing her throat, and sipped some water before continuing. “From these discussions, I learned that Alfredo was planning to launch a major attack on Brazil.”

  “Do you know when?”

  She shook her head. “The exact date. No. Just that it will happen soon. And he’s going to do it for the diamonds because he says that the new wealth for our country will be the driver to sweep him into power.”

  Craig remembered her waving her finger at him in the tango joint and singing the song from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: “Tell me about the diamonds.”

  “A week or so before I met you in Washington, I was staying at Alfredo’s country estate. He wanted to talk to me about what I was doing with Bryce and how important it was. Late that night, he had a meeting with Schiller and some of his other generals. I was sleeping upstairs, but the sound of loud voices woke me. My room was near the top of the stairs. So I quietly opened up the door and strained my ears to listen.” She looked awkward. “I don’t usually do this, but I wanted to know where my work with Bryce fit into his plans.”

  Craig and Nicole were both at the edge of their chairs as she continued.

  “I heard Alfredo say, ‘The diamonds in Rio Grande do Sul are ours for the taking. The Brazilian commanders in the area will tell their troops not to resist when we attack. They made that commitment to me at Bariloche. We can slice off the southeast portion of Brazil and make it part of Argentina. When we do that, we’ll have control of the diamonds.’”

  So that’s why they murdered Dunn and Pascual, Craig realized. The diamonds are in Brazil. Not Argentina. Estrada couldn’t let anyone find out about the clandestine meeting he’d had with Brazilian military leaders from Porte Allegro. In some ways, it wasn’t surprising. That region of Brazil had a history of being fiercely autonomous and resentful of the Central Brazilian government. He remembered reading that Garibaldi fought with the residents of Rio Grande do Sul in a war for independence from Brazil before Garibaldi returned to Italy to help unify it. In addition to a promise of autonomy, Estrada probably offered those Brazilian military leaders a cut of the diamond wealth. “Did Estrada say any more about Bariloche?” he asked.

  “Not Alfredo. But Schiller told the generals, ‘You must keep this information extremely confidential. The Americans sent an agent to spy on our meeting in Bariloche. Fortunately, we found out and killed him before he obtained any information.’ Then someone asked, ‘Won’t the Americans stop us if we attack first?’ and Estrada replied, ‘I have plans for dealing with that. We’ll fake a small incident and make them seem like the aggressors. We have the president’s key advisor in our pocket. It’ll work.’”

  Bryce should go to jail for life for this, Craig thought. “What about the diamonds? What else was said about them?”

  “One of the other generals asked Alfredo if he was certain they were really there in such large quantities.”

  “How did he respond?”

  “Alfredo became angry. He doesn’t like to be questioned. He called the man a fool and told him everyone knows this area of Brazil is rich in minerals. Oil and iron ore. All sorts of things. Alfredo said he wanted to find out just how much value there is in the area. So he asked a friend of his, a professor at the University in Buenos Aires, to recommend one of the world’s top experts in mineral exploration. The man recommended was a well-known English geologist by the name of Jeremy Barker, an Oxford University professor.”

  She paused to take a breath. “Well anyhow, Alfredo said that he hired Dr. Barker to spend the month of July this year in the area, doing research and exploratory work that was kept secret by paying bribes to local officials. That was when Dr. Barker made the discovery, but he hasn’t told anyone or written any articles.

  “Instead, he came to Alfredo and disclosed the information in return for money and a promise to be a consultant on the diamond field development. Alfredo also said that he had Dr. Barker’s information checked by an Argentine geologist, whose name I couldn’t hear and who was sworn to secrecy. That seemed to satisfy the other generals because someone made a toast, ‘First the diamonds. Then the presidential palace, Casa Rosada.’ Somebody else shouted, ‘To Alfredo Estrada, the next president of Argentina.’ Then the meeting broke up, I quietly closed my door so Alfredo wouldn’t get suspicious. That’s all I know.”

  “It’s plenty,” Nicole said, trying to lend encouragement to Gina. “You’ve been incredibly helpful.”

  Craig had his head in his hands thinking. “What we
need now is hard evidence that the Brazilian attack last week was bogus, and when the large attack will take place. With that, I can go to Washington and turn around Treadwell’s decision.”

  “I’ll get the information,” Gina said. “Tell me how.”

  “The only way I can think of would be for you to set a meeting with Alfredo, go in wearing a tiny hidden microphone, and—”

  Nicole interrupted. “Don’t you dare suggest that. It’s too dangerous. If they find out, they’ll torture her. All it’ll do is get her killed. Find another way.”

  “There is no other way,” he said stubbornly.

  “Haven’t you done enough to this girl?”

  Gina’s head was turning back and forth between the two of them, as if she were at a tennis match, while they were discussing her as if she weren’t there.

  “I’ll do it,” Gina said.

  “No you won’t,” Nicole fired back.

  Gina turned on her. “Don’t tell me what I’ll do. Everybody else has been manipulating me for the last six months. Now I want to take charge of my own life. I’m doing it, and that’s final.”

  Nicole said to Craig, “C’mon outside. I want to talk to you alone.”

  “I want to hear this,” Gina said stubbornly. “You can say what you want in front of me.”

  “Okay,” Nicole replied. She was glaring at him. “You really are despicable.”

  “Let her do it. She wants to make up for her father’s crimes.”

  Nicole stared at him hard. “Come on, Craig, you can’t expose Gina to this danger. She’s suffered enough. Where’s your compassion. Leave her alone.”

  Wide-eyed and with an intensely serious expression on her face, Gina said, “I’m the only one who can do this.”

  He weighed in his mind Nicole’s apprehension. In the end, he said, “Okay, Gina. You can do it. Stay here with Nicole, for a couple of hours. I have to go downtown to see a man about a wire. When I get back, I’ll tell you what to do. Then you can call Estrada to arrange a meeting.”