“The message came? You’re sure?” Juan Carlos asked. His bowels suddenly felt loose.
“Just half an hour ago,” Eugenio said. “We leave tonight at ten, and strike at one.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Juan Carlos demanded. It was he who should have taken the message. He was the field commander here.
“Take it easy, Juan,” Teva said, reaching up for his hand and pulling him down. She gave him her half-smoked cigarette, and Eugenio poured him a cup of very black, very bitter coffee.
“We wanted to let you sleep as long as you needed to. All of us will need our strength, but especially you,” Eugenio said. He was smiling, and for just a moment Juan Carlos wondered if his old friend wasn’t being sarcastic. But then the moment passed.
“It is only eight-thirty,” Teva said. “We still have an hour and a half before we have to move out. There is plenty of time.”
“The others are still asleep?” Juan Carlos asked, looking over his shoulder.
Teva nodded.
“Good. We will let them sleep for another half-hour,” Juan Carlos said, somewhat mollified. At least he hadn’t been the last to find out that this would be the night of action. He took a deep drag on the cigarette, then sipped at the coffee.
There were seven of them here, including Juan Carlos, Teva, and Eugenio, and seven aboard the river boat that would at this moment be heading up the Parana toward the Vance-Ehrhardt estate. Two complete cells. Two fighting units, dedicated selflessly to one goaclass="underline" liberty for Argentines.
Juan Carlos smiled to himself as he thought about the political lectures and jargon. Classrooms and books were one thing, but this now — action in the field — was what it was really all about.
Teva and Eugenio were both looking at him when he glanced up out of his thoughts. He grinned. “It is a good thing we are doing tonight… striking a blow for liberty.”
“The fucking pigs will run in fear when we are done.” Teva spat out the words, her eyes locked suddenly into Juan Carlos’.
He knew the look, and he nodded as he stubbed out the cigarette and put his coffee down.
Without a word he and Teva got to their feet and went back to his tent, where they crawled inside. Juan Carlos zipped the flap.
Teva was breathing hard. Her nostrils flared as she pulled off her fatigue jacket and then her olive-drab T-shirt, exposing her small, firm breasts.
“Hurry, Juan,” she said urgently as he began tearing off his clothing. “Jesus and Mary, I need you. Now!”
When they were both nude, they fell into each other’s arms on the sleeping bag, and she went crazy, kissing him all over his body, taking him in her mouth, running her tongue around his testicles until he was almost ready to come.
He pushed her over on her back, and bit hard on her breasts as she held his head between her hands, and then he was inside her, penetrating deeper than ever before, her legs up very high, her knees up under his armpits.
He reached under her and grabbed her buttocks, pulling them up to meet his thrusts; faster and harder until her body went rigid, and she let out a stifled scream at the same moment he came, the pleasure coursing through him in waves that seemed as if they’d never end.
When they were finished, they lay in each other’s arms, sharing a cigarette. Their coupling had always been harsh and very quick, but afterward they would be tender with each other.
“Juan,” she said, “do you ever think about dying?”
He looked at her. “All the time,” he said softly. “I know that I won’t live to be an old man and have grandchildren and sit in the sun at the park.”
“That doesn’t really bother me,” she said after a moment or two of reflection, “even though I know it is probably true.” She raised herself on one elbow, her breasts rising and falling as she breathed. “But if something should happen to either or both of us tonight, I want you to know that I love you.”
Juan Carlos smiled. “Nothing will happen to us, Teva, not tonight. But when it does, I want you to know that I love you, too.”
“Thank you,” she said, lying back.
They headed out at 10:00 P.M. sharp, after dismantling the tents and heaters, and burying them away from the camp in the forest. They would no longer be needing them.
Each of them carried an Israeli Uzi submachine gun with its folding stock and several extra forty-round clips of ammunition, plus four F31 American fragmentation grenades. They were dressed in British commando camouflage fatigues and wore American jungle-combat boots.
Juan Carlos, carrying the two-channel radio the little man had supplied them, took the lead. Within fifteen minutes they had settled into a quiet, distance-consuming pace, roughly parallel to and a mile up from the river.
As they marched, he reviewed each step of their penetration of the Vance-Ehrhardt estate. At their second meeting, the little man had produced a scale model of the estate, pointing out the routes in and out, Jorge Vance-Ehrhardt’s private quarters, and the relationship of the main house to the other buildings, the river, and the airstrip to the north.
There were armed guards on the grounds and within the main house itself, he had told them, but fourteen trained soldiers, armed with grenades and automatic weapons, would cut through them with little or no trouble.
“The difficulty in this assignment is getting to Vance-Ehrhardt without harming him,” the little man had said. “If he is killed, his value to you as a hostage will of course be ruined.”
“We’re not going to let him live,” Juan Carlos had protested.
“Of course not,” the little man had replied. “But we must get him out alive in order to make the recordings of his pleas for mercy. Afterward, when he has served his purpose, he will be disposed of.”
They had all smiled at such brilliant logic and looked forward to setting their plans into motion. That time had come at last, and Juan Carlos could feel the old combination of fear and pride marching with him.
Around 11:00 P.M., they stopped for their last cigarette and something to eat, as an airliner from Buenos Aires roared far overhead on its way north, probably to Miami.
Before too long now, Juan Carlos thought, he and Teva would be on such an airplane. Only they would be traveling to Libya, to safety, to a heroes’ welcome.
He could almost taste that welcome now, the anticipation was so intense within him. Afterward, after a long vacation, they would receive more training, and they would be given another assignment. Possibly back in Argentina, but possibly in another part of the world.
“You must always remember, Juan Carlos,” his Libyan instructor had told him, “that liberty is not exclusively an Argentine word. It is the international battle cry.”
After this evening, then, he and Teva and possibly Eugenio would be joining the international fraternity of terrorists. The prospect filled Juan Carlos with a huge sense of importance.
“Are we ready?” Eugenio asked at his shoulder, and he looked up, then nodded and got to his feet.
“From this point on there will be absolutely no noise, he said to the group.”No talking, no noise whatsoever. Each of you knows his or her job. The strike begins at one o’clock A.M. By one-thirty, we should be well away, and by three-thirty back to our camp for the rendezvous with the helicopter.”
“Libertad,” Teva said softly after a moment of silence.
“Libertad,” they all repeated, and Juan Carlos headed out, Teva directly behind him, Eugenio bringing up the rear.
It was nearly one in the morning, and although Jorgé Vance-Ehrhardt was tired, he had not been able to sleep all night. For the past hour or so, he had been sitting out on the south veranda, smoking and sipping a light red Portuguese wine.