“Coup? Countercoup? How do we know what’s real?” the general cried helplessly.
“Maybe we should give Giroldi the backup he requested, sir,” Lieutenant Cheever suggested. “We can easily block the Mountain Men by rolling a few tanks out on Avenida Fourth of July. They’ll get the message right away.”
“I’m still not convinced that this isn’t being staged for our benefit,” the general replied. His stomach was also beginning to rebel. “What wisdom can the agency bring to this, Rollins?”
“From the agency’s point of view, this is a disaster,” Rollins said. “We’d be losing our most cherished intelligence asset. Tony Noriega has been pouring gravy on our biscuits since the Eisenhower administration.”
“But our entire foreign-policy establishment has been negotiating for his removal,” said Lieutenant Cheever.
The general looked distrustfully at Rollins. “I thought the agency was working with Giroldi,” he said. “You brought him to us in the first place.”
“We just gather information, General. The old shake-and-bake days are over. You ask my opinion, and I say hands off. If Giroldi takes control, he’ll deal with us; if not, well, we haven’t lost anything.”
General Honeycutt stared out his window. He had a splendid view of the Miraflores Locks, that masterpiece of turn-of-the-century engineering. A tanker bearing oil from the North Slope of Alaska was edging through in one direction as a Norwegian cruise ship waited to go the opposite way, toward Tahiti. The general felt like a glorified transit commissar. “What are we doing in this Third World puzzle box in the first place?” he grumbled. “Guarding a goddamn ditch!”
AT FIRST, TONY mistook the sound of light artillery for thunder, since the sky was low and ready for an afternoon downpour. But then Corporal Alvaro rushed into the room and disclosed in a hushed, distressed voice that the Mountain Men had arrived and had engaged in combat with a rebel roadblock on the airport highway.
Carmen!
“But the Americans must have blocked the roads,” Giroldi said.
“Do you see them?” asked Contreras, looking out the slatted windows. “Where are they? I don’t see any American aircraft, either. You said they would be performing maneuvers.”
“You didn’t get their written guarantee, Major?” Tony asked. “I hope you didn’t just accept their word.”
Giroldi looked at Tony in annoyance.
Tony shook his head sympathetically. “Well, perhaps all is not lost. You could call the Americans and demand that they honor their commitment.”
The rebel officers looked at each other uncertainly. “For once, I agree with him,” said Contreras.
Giroldi fished in his pocket, looking for a telephone number.
“It’s eight two zero seven nine four,” said Tony. “That will get you straight to General Honeycutt’s office.”
“Thank you,” Giroldi said reluctantly as he dialed the number.
“His aide is named Henry Cheever.”
The line rang and rang.
“They must have gone to lunch,” said Tony.
“Major, let’s kill him now,” said Contreras. “Everything is falling apart. If we kill him, we have still achieved our goal.”
“No.”
“Then what do you propose?” Contreras said urgently. “Do you want a battle with the Mountain Men? We’re minutes away from it. They will bring heavy weapons—it is going to be a bloodbath.”
Giroldi turned to Tony. “Do you absolutely refuse to sign this?”
“I can’t sign it without further consultation. If you’d just let me get my lawyer on the phone . . .” In the background he could hear additional gunfire, closer this time.
“In that case we will have to deliver him to the Americans,” said Giroldi. “They say they want to put him on trial—okay, they can have him!”
“It may already be too late for that,” said Contreras. “You hear the sound of the M-60s? That is the Mountain Men. You know how small our guard is! They will be overwhelmed in no time!”
Corporal Alvaro rushed in. He couldn’t be more than twenty, Tony thought. “M-m-many of our troops have sur-surrendered,” he said in a voice that was cracking in panic. “They refuse to f-f-fight. They think we have f-f-failed.”
Contreras chambered a round, but Giroldi pushed his weapon away. “Let’s be calm,” he said. “We need to think about how our actions will be perceived in the future. We haven’t failed! After all, we still have the General. What can they do? Don’t you see that we are the ones who are in control? The only thing we have to worry about is losing our heads.”
The phone rang. Tony and Giroldi both reached for it.
“Hello,” said Tony. He listened a moment, then a smile came over his face. “It’s for you,” he said, handing the phone to Contreras.
“Me?” Contreras looked confused. “Who knows I am here? I told no one.” He took the phone from Tony’s hand. “Lucia?” he said in disbelief. “Where are you?”
As Contreras listened, the blood drained from his face. “The police have my family,” he said when he had hung up. “Even my mother.”
“My God,” said Giroldi.
Carmen!
“There are other family members being held as well,” said Contreras to the other officers in the room.
Tony waited until all the eyes in the room had turned toward him. “What happens to me, happens to them,” he said simply.
Just as he spoke, an explosion shook the room. The rebels instinctively ducked, but Tony sat calmly at his desk. “How much time do you have, Major? You know the situation better than I. How many troops can you count on? What are their capabilities? Can you rely on the other divisions?”
Giroldi couldn’t speak. All the power had been sucked out of him.
Tony turned to Contreras. “If you value your family, put your weapon on my desk.”
Contreras hesitated only a second, then did as he was told. Tony did not even bother to pick it up. Most of the other officers in the room did the same. Corporal Alvaro hurled his weapon on the desk and stared at Tony with pure contempt.
The sound of the battle intensified. Tony could hear small-arms fire now and the cries of the frightened soldiers on the battlements. “It’s over for you, Giroldi,” he said.
Giroldi began dialing the number of the American general again.
Tony shook his head. “This is your moment of decision, Major. Kill me or kill yourself.”
The phone rang and rang. Giroldi hung up and stared vacantly into space. Tony stood up and began walking toward him. “Kill me or kill yourself, Major! Your choice!”
“Don’t make me do it, General!” Giroldi said, pointing his weapon at Tony but taking a step backward.
“Personally, I propose that you kill yourself,” said Tony. “It is the only honorable exit from this farce.”
“It’s against my religion.”
“All right, I respect that. In that case, give me your weapon and place your fate in God’s hands.” The two men began to circle each other, separated only by Giroldi’s M-16, which rested on Tony’s chest. Gunfire now echoed in the corridor. Time slowed deliciously. The other rebel officers began to weep and pray, but Tony’s senses unfolded like blossoms. He could smell the fear in the room. Then the gunfire ceased, and Tony could hear the Mountain Men running through the corridor to his rescue. It was almost as if he were out of his body, running along with them, participating in their excitement. Every movement, every sound was subdivided into a thousand comprehensible shards of revelation. Tony radiated power and happiness, knowing that for this moment he was experiencing what it would be like to be God.
But Giroldi still stood in the middle of the room with his M-16 pointed at Tony’s chest. Tony danced around him like an angel of death. “Of course, you could still kill me, but you can’t do that either, can you, Major?”
Giroldi’s finger quivered on the trigger.
“General?” cried a voice in the hallway. “We’re coming
in!”
Tony seemed oblivious to the gunfire that blew out the lock on his door. He continued to dance with Giroldi. “You don’t have the balls for it, do you, Major? What are you going to do? Kill me? Act! Act now!”
The door burst open and a dozen Mountain Men rushed into the room. Like a man breaking out of a trance, Giroldi dropped his weapon and raised his hands.
“Are you all right, General?” asked a captain who had led the assault.
Tony nodded without looking at him. “You should have taken my advice, Moisés,” he said gently.
Giroldi’s eyes fell away from Tony’s stare.
“Is the compound secure?” Tony asked the captain.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m tired of all this shit!” Tony suddenly cried. He picked up Giroldi’s weapon and fired it into the face of Corporal Alvaro. The top of the young man’s head disappeared.
Tony threw the weapon back on the desk. He looked into Giroldi’s weeping eyes. “Can you believe this?” Tony asked him. “Is this luck? I should be dead! I should be lying there with my head blown off like that poor whore’s son!”
There were five other rebels in the room besides Giroldi. Now they shrank back against the wall, ashen with fear and shaking like trees in a storm. Giroldi dropped to the floor and began pounding his head against the linoleum tiles.
“It’s a miracle!” said Tony, “a fucking miracle! Do you believe in miracles, Giroldi?”
Giroldi sobbed and continued to beat his head against the floor.
“You’re a religious man, I assume you do.” Tony reached for a ceremonial machete above the couch. It had been given to him by the president of Venezuela, who told him that it had once belonged to Simón Bolivar. It was one of Tony’s most cherished trinkets. He felt the edge of the blade.
“Kneel down,” he said to Contreras.
Contreras dropped to his knees.
“Love is a miracle,” Tony continued. “Until now, I never felt its force. But I have been saved by the love of a woman and by the grace of God. It’s amazing, isn’t it? What did I do to deserve it? I can’t think of anything, can you?”
Giroldi appeared to be going completely mad.
“I don’t know where I get this power,” said Tony. “Somebody up there is taking care of me.” He looked again at Contreras. “Stretch your hands out on the desk.”
Contreras looked up at him, his eyes pleading, but Tony stared back with a gay implacability. Then the wavy-haired lieutenant placed his trembling hands on Tony’s desk. Everyone in the room was silent and agog.
“You pushed me, remember?” asked Tony. “That was rude.” He looked out the window where the Mountain Men were now commanding the walls. He waved his arms over his head and grinned as they cheered. Then, with a movement so rapid and powerful it was difficult to see, Tony brought the machete down across Contreras’s wrists, slashing cleanly through the bones. Contreras withdrew the stumps of his arms and stared wordlessly at the arterial blood gushing out of them like firehoses. On the desk, his severed hands twitched eerily.
Several of the Mountain Men began to retch.
“I want a little more respect around here!” Tony shouted.
“Oh, God, please stop this!” Giroldi prayed. “Kill me! Kill me! Somebody kill me now!”
“Oh, Major, that would be so disappointing. Stand up,” he said. Giroldi struggled to his feet and looked in Tony’s eyes. Tony brushed the bloody machete against Giroldi’s cheek, then rested it on his neck. It was so tempting. But then Tony turned to the captain of the Mountain Men. “Major Giroldi says he wants to die, but I don’t think he wants it enough. Besides, we have a few questions to ask him. Then we’ll consider his request.”
Tony took a handkerchief out of his pocket and meticulously wiped the blood from Giroldi’s face. “Moisés, you were my friend,” he said. Then he kissed Giroldi on the lips—a long, furious kiss. He could feel Giroldi’s soul disappearing.
“Just don’t kill him,” Tony told the captain. “Everything else.”
CHAPTER 20
TO-NY! TO-NY! TO-NY!”
Tony stood before the cheering crowd and waved the bloody machete over his head. In his other hand he held a carved icon of Christ. The worshipful crowd in the little provincial town of Santiago de Veraguas swelled the square and choked up the streets and alleyways. They reached out their hands to Tony, their eyes filled with tears, their mouths filled with the sound of his name. Somehow he had found the key to their love. They knew now that he was blessed.
“Thank you, my friends!” Tony cried. He waved the machete, then he waved Christ, and then he basked in the roar of their response.
“What do you think about Tony Noriega now?” he said.
The deafening cry of their love embraced him. Even Torrijos never had a moment like this, he thought. He was everything to them.
He waved for silence now. Reluctantly, the crowd subsided. “First, a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to the just and merciful God of the universe, whom we may call Jehovah, or we may call Allah, or Yahweh, or Buddha, or the Universal Conscience of the cathedral of our souls. To him, to this God of the rich and poor, of whites and blacks: We beseech you to bring your presence here today. We ask that all Panamanians overcome their differences and aid us in the mighty struggle ahead. Amen.”
“AMEN!”
“Now it is time to be serious,” Tony continued. “I will tell you what transpired on this amazing day. The traitors conspired with the gringos! They asked me to resign, to hand over my country. I said never—never will I leave my beloved country!”
“Never! Never!” the frenzied crowd responded.
“You will have to kill me before I give away my country! It will never happen!”
“Never! Never!”
“Do you know what occurred? They were such cowards they couldn’t kill me! Even the mighty United States was too frightened of Tony Noriega!”
The cheers drowned him out. Tony danced around the stage for a moment, then motioned again for silence. “In my heart, I pity the traitors. They trusted the monster of the north, and they themselves were betrayed. Just like the Bay of Pigs, they were left to die. So we learn a lesson. We learn that we cannot trust those who do not love us, who only want to use us. We must put our faith in ourselves. We must learn to be vigilant. Yes, we are surrounded. The enemy is everywhere! He is even inside us, like the worm of death. It’s time for the patriots to stand up. You know who the traitors are. You know who celebrated when they thought Tony Noriega was dead. I want their names! I want their names!”
“Names! Names! Names!”
Tony waved them into silence again. They were like a sea of children—his children. “We will cleanse our country of traitors. We will run the American imperialists out of our sacred Canal Zone! We will purge the spies that infest our military institution! We will throw out the seditious foreign priests who are stirring up the malcontents! We will make Panama our country again!”
They loved it. They were crazy for him.
“Good men died today,” Tony said, “soldiers in the courageous Mountain Men division, strong and patriotic warriors. But their blood will not be lost! They have spilled it on their country’s soil, and we will grow strong from it. We will become hard and resolute from the blood of the patriots! From now on, our policy will be a bullet for our enemies, a club for the undecided, and money for our friends!”
The friends in the audience cheered.
“We can no longer play the game of democracy while we are dealing with this enemy from within. I stand here today to declare myself your maximum leader for national liberation.”
More cheers as he eliminated the façade of democratic rule.
“You know me! I’m Tony Noriega! A man of peace! A man of patience! But my patience is at an end. Once again the United States has threatened the peace and tranquillity of our country. Once again we have been equal to the task. But I say enough! Enough! Enough! From this moment on, a state of
war—”
The cheering stumbled to a confused halt.
“A state of war exists between the peace-loving republic of Panama and the monster of the north! We will stand on the banks of the canal and watch the bodies of our enemies float by! War! War!” he cried jubilantly into the abrupt stunned silence.
IN THE FOLLOWING DAYS, the Nuncio received reports of American troops arriving in Panama to reinforce the already massive garrisons. Every night the air swarmed with American helicopters, and during the day jets traced cloudy lines in the sky. It would seem suicidal for General Noriega to attempt any attack on the American bases or personnel, and yet soon after the infamous war speech a campaign of harassment against Americans stationed in Panama began in earnest.
Lieutenant Cheever awakened General Honeycutt with the news that a U.S. Army private had been beaten and locked in the trunk of his car while PDF officers raped his wife. “Not only that, sir, but three American officers have been locked up on trumped-up charges. We’ve already filed a protest, for whatever good that might do.” For the next several nights American military personnel were roughed up by Panamanian police, who appeared to be under orders to provoke an incident. Meanwhile, a small-scale guerrilla war targeted U.S. bases in the zone. In his top-secret report to the Pentagon, General Honeycutt disclosed that American marines had engaged a squadron of commandos attempting to blow up the fuel tanks at Howard Air Force Base. Several of the commandos were killed, some others wounded, but the Americans covered up the incident when they learned that the guerrillas were Cubans. The provocation could easily have escalated into war with Castro, but for whatever reason, the Americans declined the opportunity. The atmosphere was electric and ready to ignite, but still the affronts continued. All this was taking place during the Christmas season, when the city was lining itself with lights and the streets were filled with posadas instead of demonstrators. Five thousand children had been brought from the interior to view the parades.