Exocet - Jack Higgins [24]
'I'll do my best, General. May I have permission to visit my mother before I leave?'
'But of course. Give Donna Elena my humble duty. And now, I'll detain you no longer.'
He shook hands again and Montera and Lami Dozo departed. When they had gone, Galtieri flicked the intercom and told Martinez to come in.
The young captain presented himself and Galtieri passed across the report from Garcia in Paris. 'This one is highly sensitive, Martinez. Get your book and I'll dictate a brief account of the affair so far, my discussion with General Dozo and the action we have taken.'
'Copies for General Dozo and Admiral Anaya, General, as usual?'
Galtieri shook his head. 'General Dozo knows already and the Admiral doesn't deserve to know. One copy for my personal file.'
'Very well, General.'
* * *
Carmela Balbuena was a formidable lady in her fifties. Her husband, an army captain, had been killed seven years previously during the so-called dirty war waged between the government and the back-country guerrillas. She had been on the staff at the Presidential Palace ever since and was now senior secretary.
The report on the Exocet affair was handed over to her by Martinez personally. 'I think you'd better do this one yourself, then straight into his personal file, no copy,' he said.
She took a pride in her work, typing it out meticulously on three sheets of paper, making one carbon copy in spite of what Martinez had said. She took the report and showed it to him.
'Excellent, senora, you've excelled yourself. You can file it later when he's out.'
'I'll put it into the office safe until morning,' she said. 'May I go now? I don't think there's anything else.'
'Of course. See you tomorrow.'
She went back into the other room, tidied her desk, took the copies of the three sheets she had made, folded them neatly and put them into her handbag. Then she left, closing the door behind her.
* * *
Carmela Balbuena had never been able to have children and had lavished all her affection on her nephew, son of her only brother. A socialist in her ideas, but no communist, she disliked Galtieri and the military regime that kept him in power, disliked a government that had caused so much repression and had been instrumental in bringing about the disappearance of so many thousands of ordinary people. Like her nephew, for example, who appeared to have been wiped off the face of the earth since his arrest at a student rally three years previously.
And then she'd gone to a cultural evening at the French Embassy and had met Jack Daley, a fresh-faced young American who reminded her so much of her nephew. Daley had been more than attentive, taking her to concerts, the theatre, gradually drawing her out, encouraging her to talk of her work at the Palace.
By the time she discovered he was a Commercial Attache at the American Embassy and probably much more, she didn't really care. Anything he wanted she gave him, which included any information of value from the office.
She phoned him at the Embassy from the first public phone box she came to on her way home and met him an hour later in the Plaza de Mayo where Juan Peron had been so fond of speech making in the old days.
They sat on a bench in one of the gardens and she passed him a newspaper containing the copy of the report.
'I won't hold you,' she said. 'I've read that thing and it's dynamite. I'll see you again.'
Jack Daley, who was in reality an agent of the CIA, hurried back to the Embassy to read the report in peace. Having read it, he didn't waste any time. Twenty minutes later it was being encoded and forwarded to Washington. Within two hours of being received there, it was passed on to Brigadier Charles Ferguson in London by order of the Director of the CIA himself.
7
Raul Montera moved out on to the terrace of the house at Vicente Lopez Floreda and took in the gardens below with a conscious pleasure. Palm trees waved in the slight breeze, water gurgled in the conduits and fountains, and the scent of mimosa was heavy on the air. Beyond the perimeter wall the River Plate sparkled