* * *
Two men meet at a newsstand in the lobby of the Hotel Méridien in Dakar. They greet each other effusively, hugging and kissing and clasping hands. “T’as l’air super bien, mon ami!” “Non, non, c’est toi qui a l’air bien!” They step outside, walk arm in arm. The plaza they cross hums and bustles on this clear and balmy late afternoon. City workers in white coveralls crawl all over a gigantic bronze statue of Lady Liberty astride a stallion in full gallop. They are festooning her with ribbons and garlands of green and yellow and red. Bunting streams from the spear she holds aloft. In the distance, the pock of fireworks. The city of Dakar anticipates a celebration — Senegal’s Independence Day. April 4, 1980.
The two men order Nescafés at a makeshift bistro. In their brief stroll from the hotel — down a narrow street off the boulevard and into an arterial maze of dark alleys — the neighborhood has shifted from upscale to dicey. Alone, the men are much less effusive. In low and perfunctory tones, arrangements are made, and money changes hands — a fat manila envelope tucked into the folds of Le Soleil, pushed across the table.
Six weeks later, a freighter under Bahamian flag sails west from the Port of Dakar into the Atlantic, bound for Colombia and laden with phosphate ore, peanuts, cotton, millet, salted fish. Among its unregistered cargo: raw heroin, duffel bags of marijuana, and a small but heavy wooden crate labeled TRACTOR PARTS, containing sixteen Chinese B-50 rocket grenades, four Soviet RPG-7 launchers, and four boxes of percussion caps.
By mid-August, the crate sits unclaimed in a warehouse in Bogotá. One moonless evening two Lincoln Continentals filled with men arrive. Money changes hands — currency stacked, plastic-wrapped, and duct-taped into two tidy bricks. The crate is cracked open. Three launchers and twelve rockets are removed and transferred to the trunks of the vehicles. The rest is repackaged into a smaller crate, labeled HOSPITAL SUPPLIES. Some ancillary business is then transacted — two of the men are shot in the head, dismembered, and sealed into steel drums filled with used motor oil.
A week later, the crate is loaded onto a van and driven to a municipal airport in Quito, where it is relabeled TOOL & DIE and flown to Sucre. At the port of entry, a tightly rubber-banded wad of bills the size of a shotgun cartridge is slipped into the palm of a customs official. The crate is released and transferred onto a steam packet heading down the mighty, muddy Río Pilcomayo. It arrives in Asunción by the end of the month, in the last cool days of August, when the rains have subsided and the city has been washed clean for the last time. The crate is opened by three men and two women in the basement of a rented house on the corner of Avenida España and Calle America. It has been securely sealed, and with no pry bar they all struggle to get the box open, working methodically, quietly, so as not to alert the neighbors. They use screwdrivers and claw hammers, a fire poker, and the blade edge of a shovel. They lift out the rockets and the launcher and the percussion caps. They hug and kiss. They stash their booty in a crawl space behind the furnace and go upstairs and toast each other with cans of Bud and Coca-Cola. They drink to truth and beauty, to Marx and Darío, to justice and the death of tyrants. They put the hi-fi on low, mambo to Pérez Prado, slow dance to Iglesias. A bottle of rum has been pulled out, and Osvaldo plays bartender, pours drinks all around. He mixes a stiff one for Analisa. He will make the move on her tonight. She is three months pregnant, by Ramón, their compa just over the border in Argentina. But what the hell. She is incandescent tonight, flirtatious and shy, and Osvaldo is charming and clever. And these are auspicious times.
* * *
The Presidente-in-Exile is taking a leak.
It’s a good one, the kind you remember for the rest of your life — a bladder dump, one of those butt-puckering gushers that makes the eyes flutter and elicits a rapturous “Ahhh!” The night is cool, and steam rises where he misses the wall he’s aiming for. Where he doesn’t miss, the cataract lays black washes onto the sand-colored stone. He chokes off, downshifts to intermittent trickles. He leans forward and settles his cheek onto the nubby granite wall, murmurs sweetly into the stone, “Fuck you.” Over and over, like a lover’s entreaty: “Fuck you fuck you fuck you…”
Gallardo waits a few yards away, beyond the hedgerow, pacing next to the Mercedes, which is parked at the curb on this quiet street. The entrance to the compound is on the main boulevard, up on Avenida Mariscal López. A twenty-foot-high stone wall topped with iron pikes runs along the length of the street. Gallardo paces, smoking a cigarette. He has just gotten the Presidente-in-Exile from Bolsi. No matter what, he was told, get me out of there before midnight. And they were heading home, until the señor directed him here. Gallardo hates this detour. It is embarrassing for him, having to explain to whoever may come upon them. For the most part, the guards here don’t seem to mind, which puzzles him. But what if they come across a guard who does, some greenhorn coming at him with guns blazing? This is not how he wants to die, on lookout while his boss pees on U.S. property.
Gallardo sucks on his cigarette, drags deeply. Up ahead, a figure appears from around the corner, backlit by streetlights from Mariscal López. Gallardo watches the figure see him, see the car, watches the guard draw his M16 and move briskly toward him. He drops his butt and with his arms outstretched walks slowly toward the advancing guard, putting distance between him and the Mercedes. “Está bien, está bien,” he calls out. “Is okay.” Although he still holds his arms wide, hands in plain view, Gallardo relaxes a bit. He recognizes this marine, this negro americano.
“Is okay.” When he hears the voice, gets a better look at the car, the marine guard stands down. It’s that tin-pot dictator, pissing in the bushes. He sighs, shoulders his weapon, greets the driver. “How you doing?” He takes a cigarette from behind his left ear, where he’d tucked it for this little break. “Is good, is good,” the driver responds. The marine lights up, and the driver makes the international hand gestures for bumming a smoke. The marine gives him one, watches him slip it into a shirt pocket. “For later,” the driver tells him. Both men hear a sharp metallic rapping. They turn to see the dictator finish pounding on the roof of the car and climb into the backseat. The driver rolls his eyes, smiles sheepishly.