“This is a hardened command post,” Stewart told Jeffrey. “The geology here is ideal. They built it four or five years ago, after that war scare in Asia. Aboveground they have laser sparklers and dazzler strobes to throw off homing smart bombs.”
Jeffrey nodded — since Axis hackers distorted the Global Positioning System signals too, underground bunkers regained some real protection against nonnuclear ground penetrator rounds.
Waiting at the bottom when the elevator door slid open was a man in a purple sport jacket, orange suede slacks, and scuffed leather loafers. His shirt was lime green, and his polyester tie had red and yellow polka dots. Jeffrey figured nobody in their right mind would dress that way except on purpose — as some sort of distraction from his face, or as a disguise by its very conspicuousness. It was working, too: the man’s clothing clashed so badly it was almost painful to look at him.
He nodded to Jeffrey and Stewart. “You can call me Mr. Jones. They’re ready for us.” He was obviously American.
Things were moving a little too fast. “Who are you, or should I say what are you, Mr. Jones?”
“I work for Langley.” Langley, Virginia — CIA headquarters. “Come. We can’t keep these people waiting.”
“Mr. Jones” led Jeffrey and Colonel Stewart into a conference room. The furnishings were bare and functional, except for the video and communications equipment, which were state-of-the-art.
Two Brazilian generals and an admiral jumped to attention when Jeffrey entered the room. The generals snapped him salutes.
Jeffrey braced to attention, in acknowledgment. This was standard courtesy. Even senior officers saluted someone junior who wore the Medal of Honor. And the U.S. Navy never saluted indoors. The proper etiquette for Jeffrey was to brace to attention instead of saluting someone from a different branch of the services — American or foreign.
I don’t need a protocol officer to tell me that much.
The Brazilian top officers welcomed Jeffrey. They all spoke English fluently. Colonel Stewart murmured to one side with Mr. Jones, who nodded. Stewart told Jeffrey the room was secure.
“Come,” the most senior of the Brazilians, an army general, said. He guided Jeffrey to a chair at one end of the table. Stewart and Jones sat on Jeffrey’s left and right. The Brazilians also took seats. The chair at the other end of the table was empty.
The tabletop was spotless and bare: no writing tablets, no pitcher of water, no coffee service, nothing. Jeffrey wondered what this might signal in the language of diplomacy.
“We want to show you something,” the general said.
The Brazilian admiral turned on a digital video player, and a flat-screen TV monitor on the wall came alive. Jeffrey shifted his chair for a more comfortable view; he was stiff and achy from the pounding ride in the speedboat and the rough ride in the M-113.
“This is infrared,” the general said, “from one of our reconnaissance drones.”
At first Jeffrey saw nothing.
“The altitude is three thousand meters. The location is about fifty miles outside the Rio de la Plata estuary.” The la Plata estuary, Jeffrey knew, was a wide bay and tidal basin, a sharp indentation of the South American coast, between southern Uruguay and northern Argentina. Outside its mouth, on one side, stood Mar del Plata, an Argentine beach resort and Argentina’s primary naval base. At the inner end of the estuary, where major rivers met the sea, stood Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital….
Jeffrey saw an aircraft enter the picture. It looked like an old transport plane, a DC-9 or something.
“The aircraft is Argentine.”
“When was this taken?” Jeffrey asked.
“Last night,” Mr. Jones said.
“With respect, how do we know this is genuine?”
“Good question, Captain,” Jones said. “President da Gama gave permission for an AWACS to make overflights of Brazil. For purely humanitarian reasons, of course. To supervise the evacuation of Americans into Peru… None of us want to see a planeful of women and children fly into a mountain in the Andes in the clouds.”
“The AWACS held radar contact on this?” Jeffrey pointed at the plane on the TV.
Jones nodded. “From takeoff to landing, at an airfield near Buenos Aires. Just watch.”
A door in the side of the Argentine plane popped open. Objects began to drop out, over the ocean from high altitude in the dark.
The recon-drone camera zoomed in.
The objects were people, and they were being thrown out.
Jeffrey watched in horror, his heart pounding. One by one twenty victims cartwheeled and flailed in the air as they fell from the transport plane. It seemed to take forever before each made a gigantic splash in the sea.
Jeffrey was grateful when the recording stopped.
“This has been going on almost every night for most of a month,” the Brazilian general said.
Jeffrey took a deep breath. He made eye contact with Stewart and then Jones. “Okay. Who were they killing?”
“Mostly journalists and teachers,” Jones said. “Clergy too, priests, nuns, rabbis, ministers, anyone who is speaking out for peace in Argentina, against fascism and the Axis.”
“So it’s another Dirty War.”
Everyone in the room nodded.
Jeffrey turned and stared at the now-blank TV screen. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” a new voice said.
Jeffrey glanced over his shoulder, startled. A stout, bearded, dark-skinned man had just entered the room. Jeffrey recognized President Getulio da Gama — older than last time they’d met, but then Jeffrey must seem older to da Gama too. The Brazilian president wore a gray pinstripe business suit.
Everybody jumped to attention again. Jeffrey joined them.
Da Gama came up to Jeffrey and shook his hand very hard. “It’s good to see you again, Captain. Thank you for coming.”
“Yes, sir,” was all Jeffrey could think to say.
“Sit, everyone, please.” Da Gama took the seat at the other end of the table, facing Jeffrey. Everyone else sat only after the president did.
“This is why you insisted on me coming here, isn’t it, Mr. President?” Jeffrey said. He gestured at the video player.
“I wanted you to judge for yourself who the true aggressors are.” Da Gama’s English was impeccable.
“I thought it was you who wished to be convinced of certain things.”
“That too, Captain. Your presence already has me largely convinced of your sincerity. But I had another selfish agenda. Do you see it?”
“Sir?” Jeffrey noticed Stewart and Jones were keeping quiet, as were the Brazilian brass. This exchange was strictly between Jeffrey and da Gama.
An exchange, or a face-off?
“What did you think of Rio, Captain?”
“A beautiful city, Mr. President.”
“A city is nothing but buildings and roads. I speak of the people, the citizens. They are the true heart of Rio.”
“Friendly, happy, thriving, from what I could tell.”
“That described most of my country, until a short while ago.”
“I understand, sir. I wish I didn’t have to be here.”
“I wanted, needed you to be here. To see some things for yourself, in flesh and blood. So they would not remain as mere abstractions, but could come alive in front of your eyes, to compel you to perform the work you must do with the utmost skill… Including what the fascists are already doing to those who oppose them in Argentina. The new wave of disappearances.”