Guy Devereaux seemed to be all right as he climbed aboard with his two Delta teammates. As soon as Dawkins crammed his section into the Gazelle, the rotors were revved for the flight back to the base camp.
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WHEN the helicopters were only dots above the far horizon, Sargento Antonio Muller kicked off his camouflage cape and stood up. He spat in anger as he reached for his RMAM radio to contact Fuerte Franco.
Chapter 12
SANTIAGO, CHILE
28 DECEMBER
AS soon as the journalist Miguel Hennicke returned from Bolivia to Chile, he rushed to the offices of his newspaper, El Conquistador. His story of the massacre in the Gran Chaco was immediately put into production. His managing editor was almost giddy with delight when he saw the photos of the bloodied innocents. This situation would be a big score for all the anti-American movements in South America, whether they be rightists or leftists.
The images were prepared to be featured on a special page while a team of rewrite men were put to work scribbling provoking captions. Both the editorial department and pressroom worked late to print this special issue.
As soon as the edition hit the streets, they were bought up by the eager readership, and a second printing for local consumption had to be run off immediately. When that one was finished and headed for the streets, yet a third issue was printed that went to Valparaiso, Talcahuano, Valdiva, Osorno and other urban centers of the Chilean Republic. From that point on the presses rolled for thirty-six straight hours as other issues were dispatched to all points of South America. By New Year's Day, the article and photographs had been widely read and circulated, enraging the entire Latin American public, no matter what their political views.
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Crimen de "Green Berets"
!MATANZA HORROROSA DE PUEBLERINOS
BRASILENOS EN EL GRAN CHACO!
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Bolivian Federal Police officers have uncovered an unspeakable atrocity in which an entire village of people was massacred by members of the notorious American Green Berets. The crime was discovered during routine patrol duties in the Gran Chaco in the southeastern part of the nation. The investigation confirmed that more than a hundred Brazilian immigrants had been herded together and machine gunned in droves. Men, women and children died in the outrage. Nothing as horrible as this has been seen since the Stalinist era in the USSR.
One survivor was discovered hiding in a nearby gulley. His name was MaurIcio Castanho, a thirty-five-year-old cattleman who had lived in the village with his wife and five children. His entire family perished under the hails of bullets fired at them.
Senor Castanho stated that the killers wore United States Army uniforms and green berets. They came in a half-dozen helicopters and landed just at dawn while everyone was still asleep.
"They woke us all up and made everybody come outside," Castanho said. "They made us all stand with our hands over our heads. Even the women and children. Then they began taking some of the prettier girls aside, making them go back into the huts. We could hear their cries of pain and fear as the norteamericanos repeatedly raped them."
When the lecherous Green Berets had finished their sport, they dragged the shamed young women out naked and weeping, forcing them to join the others. Then the norteamericanos herded the entire population of the small community to a spot in an open field. At that point they began firing their submachine guns into the cringing crowd of innocents.
"Everyone was falling down," Castanho said. "I dove to the ground and two fellows fell on top of me. I lay still, acting as if I was dead. Then the Green Berets walked among the fallen people. If anyone moved or moaned, they put a pistol bullet in their heads.
"When they were sure there were no survivors they looted the village and got back on their helicopters and flew away. I got up and looked for my family. They were all dead. When the Bolivian Federal Police arrived I hid at first, but when I saw they were not Green Berets, I came out."
NOTE: Pictures of the massacre's victims can be found on page 2. See the Editorial Page for further commentary by the staff of El Conquistador.
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Anti-American demonstrations broke out in all the major urban areas of South America. Leftist organizations marched in protest through Buenos Aires, Santiago, Bogota, La Paz, Caracas and other capital cities. In some cases the police lost control of the demonstrators, and full-scale riots broke out in which American embassies and counselor offices were stoned. The members of the Falangist movement were highly amused that these left-wing radicals were unknowingly aiding a fascist cause.
Condemnations of the crime were voiced in the General Assembly of the United Nations and even some elements in Congress were calling for special hearings on Capitol Hill. Talk shows on both radio and television buzzed with opinions both in belief and disbelief of the killings. Both the left and right spectrums of American politics were all heard in full voice. Shock jocks, Hollywood stars, television personalities and journalists with agendas voiced their opinions and assessments of all aspects of who had killed the poor people of Novida so far away in the Gran Chaco region of Bolivia. During an interview, a well-known actress who supported radical causes spoke tearfully and passionately of the murdered people. However, when questioned further by the interviewer, she could not accurately give the locale of the Gran Chaco or even Bolivia.
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FUERTE FRANCO CONVICT CAMP
2200 HOURS LOCAL
THE convict bivouac behind the barbed wire enclosure was quiet. But all the men were wide-awake and gathered in a meeting in which business was conducted in low voices to avoid being overheard by the guards or passersby. The man presiding over the get-together was Gordo Pullini. He was the one who had stepped forward first when Coronel Jeronimo Busch called for volunteers to fight for the Falangist cause. The others had been watching him for his reaction, and as soon as he made a move, they did the same. Now these followers listened intently as Pullini explained some important matters to them.
"You tipos keep one thing in mind," he cautioned them. "These fucking Falangistas aren't to be trusted, comprenden? The main thing we must concentrate on is biding our time and make a careful study of what we must do to escape from these locos. The opportunity will depend on timing. But the first thing we must figure out is just where the hell this place is. Without that knowledge, we don't know which direction to go after we break out of here. Going the wrong way means ending up running straight back into the arms of the law. That is a one-way trip back to the penitentiary in Patagonia?'
"For those who aren't executed," one man added bitterly.
WHEN Capitan Roberto Argento arranged to have the twenty-four convicts released into the custody of the Falangists, he was unaware that instead of a random selection being made from the overall prison population, all two dozen were members of a well-organized prison gang called the Cofradia. The name translated into English as "guild," a group of like persons or even a religious brotherhood. In a way, the Cofredia was all these things rolled into one.
They were one of a dozen gangs in the penitentiary. The great majority of convicts joined these organizations. A man alone would perish amid the convicts who were part of society's worst outcasts. None had anything to lose, and life was cheap. But when a prisoner was accepted into a gang, he had moral support, friends and a feeling of worth. Most of all, he had protection. In exchange for this he was expected to give his gang blind support even to the point of sacrificing his own life for the good of the others. If he found himself in such a situation, he might as well go ahead and take it all the way. If he failed or refused a suicide mission, his former pals would turn on him, and he would end up dead anyway. His mutilated body would be found in a remote corner of the penal facility by the guard staff.