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By Root 1291 0

He could hear them breathing: Antonio Imbert, in long, quiet inhalations as he clutched the wheel; Antonio de la Maza, panting rapidly, did not take his eyes from the road; and, beside him, the regular, deep breathing of Amadito, whose face was turned as well toward Ciudad Trujillo. His three friends probably held their weapons in their hands, as he did. Turk felt the butt of the Smith & Wesson .38, bought some time ago at a friend’s hardware store in Santiago. Amadito, in addition to his .45 pistol, was carrying an M-1 rifle—part of the ludicrous Yankee contribution to the conspiracy—and, like Antonio, one of the two 12-gauge Browning shotguns, the barrels cut down by a Spaniard, Miguel Ángel Bissié, a friend of Antonio de la Maza, in his workshop. They were loaded with special projectiles that another Spanish friend of Antonio’s, Manuel de Ovín Filpo, a former artillery officer, had prepared for them with the assurance that each shell had enough killing power to pulverize an elephant. God willing. It was Salvador who proposed that the CIA’s carbines be used by Lieutenant García Guerrero and Antonio de la Maza, and that they occupy the right-hand seats next to the windows. They were the best shots, they should be the first to shoot at the closest distance. But would he come, would he come?

Salvador Estrella Sadhalá’s gratitude and admiration for Monsignor Zanini increased when, a few weeks after their conversation in the nunciature, he learned that the Sisters of Mercy had decided to transfer Gisela, his sister who was a nun—Sor Paulina—from Santiago to Puerto Rico. Gisela, his pampered little sister, Salvador’s favorite. Even more so since she had embraced the religious life. On the day she made her vows and adopted Mama Paulina’s name, huge tears ran down Turk’s cheeks. Whenever he could spend time with Sor Paulina, he felt redeemed, comforted, more spiritual, touched by the serenity and joy emanating from his beloved sister, the tranquil certainty with which she lived her life of service to God. Had Father Fortín told the nuncio how frightened he was about what might happen to his sister if the regime discovered that he was conspiring? Not for a moment did he believe that the transfer of Sor Paulina to Puerto Rico was coincidental. It was a wise and generous decision by the Church of Christ to place a pure, innocent young woman, whom Johnny Abbes’s killers would devour, beyond the reach of the Beast. It was one of the regime’s customs that most angered Salvador: venting its wrath on the families of those it wanted to punish, on their parents, children, brothers and sisters, confiscating all they had, imprisoning them, taking away their jobs. If the plan failed, the reprisals against his sisters and brothers would be implacable. Not even his father, General Piro Estrella, the Benefactor’s good friend, who gave banquets in Trujillo’s honor at his ranch in Las Lavas, would be excused. He had weighed all of this, over and over again. He had made his decision. And it was a relief to know that criminal hands could not touch Sor Paulina in her convent in Puerto Rico. From time to time she sent him a letter filled with affection and good humor, written in her clear, upright hand.

In spite of his religious devotion, it had never occurred to Salvador to do what Giselita had done and enter an order. It was a vocation he admired and envied, but one from which the Lord had excluded him. He never would have been able to keep the vows, especially the one of chastity. God had made him too earthbound, too willing to surrender to the instincts that a shepherd of Christ had to annihilate in order to fulfill his mission. He had always liked women; even now, when he led a life of marital fidelity with only occasional slips that tore at his conscience for a long time afterward, the presence of a brunette with a narrow waist and rounded hips, a sensual mouth and flashing eyes—the typical Dominican beauty with mischief in her glance, her walk, her talk, the movements of her hands—aroused Salvador and inflamed him with fantasies and desires.