Lion Resurgent (59 page)

“Please, my men will take you to a hospital for treatment.” Caceras was shocked when his words, intending to be comforting, caused a renewed outburst of misery. He looked around, confused, then picked one woman who seemed to less distressed than the rest. “What is the problem? We are here to help you.”

“When our time comes and we are taken to hospital, we never come back.” The woman spoke in very poor Spanish that made her words difficult to understand.

For a moment, Caceras assumed that he hadn’t heard what she had said correctly. Then the implications of the words sank in. He tried to control his anger. To buy time while he did so, he spoke to the woman. “You are not Argentine?”

“Italian.”

“We will call the Italian Embassy and they will take care of you. Are there any other foreign women here?” A couple reluctantly raised their hands. “We will call your embassies as well and they will come here and look after you. Sergeant, get through to the Italian and other embassies, as soon as possible. That means now. And call the Swiss Embassy; get them down here to take care of these woman. They don’t trust us and I don’t blame them. The rest of you, if you have families or friends who can look after you, we will help you call them.”

Caceras had his temper under control by then and turned back to the Italian woman. “You are with child? How far along?”

“I think six months.”

“And you have been held here for how long?”

“Eight months.”

That confirmed what Caceras had known in his heart. “Very well. At some point please write out all that has happened to you as a statement. Your embassy legal department will make sure it is properly notarized as an affidavit. The people responsible for this atrocity will pay for it. That I promise you.”

Conference Room, White House, Washington D.C.

“Over the last few hours, the situation has broken wide open. Mister President, the Argentine armed forces on the Falklands surrendered overnight. Stanley went down first, Teal Inlet followed a couple of hours later. When news got back to Argentina, it brought down the government there. Not so much a coup; that would imply organization. There were mass demonstrations all over Buenos Aires and the security forces joined them. Parts of the armed forces that tried to stay loyal were attacked and disarmed by the rest. Ex-President Galtieri tried to make a run for it, but his private jet taxied out on to the runway, then stopped and waited there until somebody came to collect him.”

Director of Central Intelligence Richard McColl paused and shuffled his papers. He had a string of reports from the various civilian and military intelligence agencies. It had long been established that the needs of gaining good intelligence were best served by numerous competing agencies whose varying viewpoints and priorities made for a more rounded and comprehensive picture. This time though, the intelligence data was remarkably consistent.

“So, who is in charge there?” President Reagan sounded confused.

“The truth is that we have no real idea at the moment. Nor, I think does anybody else including the Argentines. The Argentine armed forces appear to be the only organized group capable of maintaining order so no change there. Seer, I don’t envy you trying to make head or tail of this situation at the next Friday Follies.”

The Seer shook his head. “Something will shake down out of this, Rick. I’ve got three days to think of some profound-sounding things to say. Fortunately, it’s not something that greatly affects us. We have few strategic interests down there and our attitude towards governments is that we deal with the ones we approve of and don’t have anything to do with those we find abhorrent. Regime change is not our job unless somebody actually threatens us or our friends.”

“I think you two are missing the point.” President Reagan sounded both thoughtful and reproving. “The people who are removing the Galtieri regime are the very ones we would have slaughtered if we had bombed Argentina. There is a contradiction here.”

“It’s one that’s been at the heart of our national policy ever since The Big One, Sir.” The Seer was also thoughtful, although it was an issue he had considered before. “We don’t do war any more.   We simply destroy those who threaten us.  That was a strategy that evolved during the era of total warfare when the civilian population was an essential part of a country’s ability to make war. Even then though, we never actually targeted the civilian population. We took out industry, transportation, fuel supplies and so on. The problem always was that by the time we did that, there wasn’t much left. When we took out The Caliphate’s biological warfare facilities fifteen years ago, by the time we had finished, there wasn’t much left in the target areas.” The Seer became aware that Reagan was staring at him curiously. “Family history, Sir.”

“Of course. Carry on please.”

“We’ve never really wanted to consider the possibility that something short of a full-scale war may exist. To do so would mean we would have to consider a drawn-out conventional war and that is something the American people will not tolerate. The specter of the Russian Front and more than a million American boys dead in the snow still haunts us. So, even our ‘limited response’ options are basically full-scale assaults on limited objectives. We still don’t target the population, of course, but. . . .”

“That makes little difference.” Reagan finished the phrase off for him. “We’re still holding the bulk of the population hostage against the acts of their government. Forgive me if I find that unsettling.”

“But, if the population of a country are not responsible for the acts of their government, then who is?” McColl asked the question, knowing that its implications could keep philosophers arguing for decades. “Somebody has to be held accountable for what governments do.”

“Our strategic position comes out of the Second World War.” The Seer picked up the thought. “If the German population had done in 1933 what the Argentine people have done today, we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion. Or if the British people had done the same to Halifax in 1940, come to that.”

“Yet Halifax did get into power.” Reagan sighed. “How long has it taken Britain to recover? And what impact does that have on us?”

“Over forty years.” The Seer knew it was a rhetorical question but he couldn’t help putting the number on it. “What this means for us is that Europe has become important again. We’ve essentially ignored them for most of that time; primarily because they were too weak and damaged after World War Two to be of any account. That’s changed now. They’re back. Algeria showed that for the French and now this South Atlantic War does the same for the British. We’re going to have to pay attention to what they say now. A little attention, anyway.”

“Not a bad thing all considered. Look into these questions, come up with answers that I can live with. We need a fundamental rethink and now is a good time for one.”

Naval Attaché’s Office, Australian Embassy, Santiago, Chile.

“A visitor for us, Garry.” Captain Lachlan Shearston was grinning broadly. “An officer from the Argentine Embassy.”

“Argentine?” Graeme Gavin was genuinely shocked. There had been an Argentine Embassy in Chile throughout the recent unpleasantness, but for obvious reasons they had kept a very low profile. “What does he want?”

“We’re about to find out I think.” An Argentine naval officer in civilian clothes was being ushered in. Gavin took a quick look around the office to make sure everything confidential, classified or embarrassing was hidden. It was, the office was in fit state to receive visitors.

“Gentlemen, I am Captain Roberto Brown of the Argentine Naval Attaché’s Office. Officially, I am here to thank you on behalf of our Navy for the work carried out by your submarine in rescuing our ditched pilots. We are not unaware of the risks your submarine accepted by carrying out this mission of mercy in an active war zone.”

“Thank you, Captain. We will pass your words through to the submarine’s commander and crew.” The fact that nobody had mentioned the submarine’s name was not an accident.

“There is another matter, one that is deeply embarrassing to me personally. You may have heard that there are major political disruptions in our country. These, I must tell you, are of such significance that it is questionable who presently constitutes the established government. Various elements of the armed forces are fighting. Some support the existing government but most aid those who would see it removed from power. As part of the conflict, a force of Argentine Marines occupied the Swimmer-Commando base in Puerto Belgrano and freed a large number of political prisoners held there. What they found was infamous.”

Brown handed over a thick file, filled with documents and pictures. “The women rescued by the Marines have been placed in the hands of the Swiss Embassy until they can be properly protected. Australia’s care for the pilots who would otherwise surely have died sets an example for us all and leads us to ask another such act from you. Please, circulate these files amongst your allies, help identify the women who died without a name and find their families. Allow them to find some peace at least.”

“And you want us to do this for purely humanitarian reasons?” Shearston sounded deeply suspicious.

“No. Not just for that. More importantly, the political situation in my country is finely balanced. If this information becomes public knowledge, if it becomes known how the present government used the state of emergency to profit from this barbarous trade, then it will become impossible for them to remain in power. They know this and are doing everything in their power to ensure the details are suppressed. In the name of common decency, I beg you to make sure they do not succeed.”

HMS
Argus,
Helicopter Support Ship, Off The Falkland Islands

Once again, HMS
Argus
knew the sound of a Rotodyne powering down as it unloaded another group of Argentine prisoners. With the airfield at Stanley destroyed by naval gunfire, the survivors of the Argentine garrison were being airlifted by Rotodyne to
Argus
where they were processed and then transferred onwards to the internment facilities in Uruguay. Listening to the noise, Lieutenant Harold Dunwoody wondered how the world could possibly have survived without the ubiquitous Fairey Rotodyne. As the noise level dropped, he returned his attention to the officer sitting in front of him.

“So, you are Grigorio Mazza, and your rank is Major. Serial number 4665352. Your next of kin is your wife, Antonella Mazza, and your address is as given here? Is this correct?”

Mazza sipped his tea, savoring the strong shot of rum it contained. “That is all correct, yes.”

“We will be advising the Red Cross of your detention so that Madam Mazza may be informed of your safety.”

Dunwoody picked up Major Mazza’s wallet to return it to him. As he did so, the picture of Mazza’s family fell out on to the desk. A female officer picked up the picture to return it to him. “Your wife and son? He looks just like you.” It was a woman’s instinctive defense of a wife who might just possibly have something to hide.

Mazza laughed for the first time in weeks. “Thank you for saying so, but my son is adopted.”

Dunwoody looked sharply at the Argentine Major, noting that the woman from the Directorate of Naval Intelligence was doing the same. He took a picture out from a file. “Do you recognize this man?”

Mazza was on his guard but the strong dose of rum in his tea had lowered his inhibitions. He honestly couldn’t see why this particular piece of information should be guarded. “Yes, that is Captain Alberto Astrid. Why do you ask?”

“Did he have any connection with your adoption process? Did he tell you where the baby came from?”

“He organized the adoption for us. The mother had an affair with a sailor but he was already married and she was too young to care for a baby so the Navy arranged for an adoption. We had to pay for the mother’s medical care of course and give her a year’s salary for her support while she looked for work after the delivery but that was a small price to pay for completing our family.” Mazza looked around and felt his stomach congeal into a solid, ice-cold lump. “Why, what has happened?”

Dunwoody looked at the DNI officer who gave a tiny nod. “Major, I am deeply sorry to tell you this. There is currently a state of major political disruption in Argentina. There is widespread fighting between parts of the armed forces who support the existing government and those who wish to see it removed from power. As part of that conflict, the Swimmer-Commando base in Puerto Belgrano was overrun by Argentine Marines. They discovered a number of young women held as political prisoners on the base, many of whom were in various stages of pregnancy.

“It appears that you and Madam Mazza have been cruelly mislead and cheated. We are reasonably sure that the mother of the child you adopted was a female political prisoner who was raped and impregnated. She was then killed immediately after delivering the child. This appears to have been part of a ‘business’ run by Captain Astrid. That man has many other crimes to answer for, but this is probably the most shameful. Your Marines have freed surviving prisoners held there and released them to the custody of either their embassies or to the Swiss Embassy for protection. The Marines have also arrested the staff at the Puerto Belgrano naval hospital who were complicit in this business. The authorities are trying to piece together what happened now but you and your lady should prepare yourselves accordingly. We’ll try and get you home as soon as we can so you can be with her before the storm breaks.”

“I do not believe you.” Mazza’s voice was a wail of angry and desperate protest.

The intelligence officer produced another file, one that had arrived a few minutes before from the Australian Embassy in Santiago. “Major Mazza, read this file. You will note that it comes from Australia, a neutral country whose only stake in this conflict has been the purely humanitarian act of rescuing shot-down pilots from both our nations. They have no reason to take part in a fraud; they have nothing to gain and, indeed, they would only suffer from so doing.