The Pretender Page 29
As a temporary legal attaché in Paris (twice) and Madrid (a thirty-day stint in late 1998, right before starting at Safeguard), my relations with the local officials had always been clear-cut, the exchange of information following established patterns. At my office in the embassy in Buenos Aires, it didn’t take long to realize that performing the identical tasks throughout the southern half of South America was akin to finding one’s way in a thick fog. A fog of politics and intrigue, a subtext that ran through all exchanges. All of the local officials were functioning in a complex environment, where their professional survival often depended on forces well beyond what we in the United States were used to. Admired as the institution may be, the initials FBI also often carry a political overtone. For certain locals, being identified as having close ties with the FBI could be of uncertain value. The initial task, for me, was to evaluate the degree of integrity and goodwill of the various officials, and proceed accordingly. It made for a fascinating and absorbing work environment, sufficiently challenging to fill the void left by UC operations and Safeguard.
The Legat himself, Augie Rodriguez, was an odd duck, not unlike an insurance salesman: he liked to talk incessantly and without interruption to people who didn’t want to listen and weren’t paying attention. While there was no love lost between us, we managed to maintain a relatively functional working relationship. That’s where matters between us stood on March 25, 2003 (a year before the shootout). I was sitting at my desk one afternoon when Augie walked in. You’re going to need to fly out to Asunción on the next flight. There’s been a kidnapping, high profile. The Ambassador wants the FBI on the scene. Right away. He handed me a fax from the Asunción RSO, the State Department’s Regional Security Officer responsible for embassy security. It was a clipping from a local tabloid. Mariángela Martínez, former Miss Paraguay—twenty years former—had been jogging in a secluded park that morning when she was abducted. And that was it.
During the three-hour flight on TAM, I reflected on my experience handling kidnapping cases. Overall, the Bureau is particularly well renowned for expertise in this area, but as for me—my reflection was a short one. One time I had acted as Spanish interpreter at the victim’s family home, monitoring phone calls from the drug-dealer kidnapper to the drug-dealer father of the victim.
More worthy of reflection: Why was I on this flight, and not the Legat? His decision to pass up an opportunity for high-level praise could not have been taken lightly. Unless … there was significant potential for high-level condemnation instead. Success in this mission would be followed by discreet exit as the major local players took all the credit to demonstrate their astute use of all useful resources. Maybe there would be a side note that an FBI agent had been present. Failure, on the other hand, would be entirely the fault of the FBI agent on the ground. Me. We shouldn’t have listened to him … our plan was to … but he was FBI …
TAM’s touchdown in Asunción was close to 10:00 p.m. Two marked police cars were waiting for the flight, then sirens and flashing lights as we sped to the ancient building housing the Ministry of the Interior. The uniformed officer ushered me into a large, reception-hall-size office, with high ceilings to match, fans above slowly circulating. The room was full. My entrance noted, the loud buzz of conversation came to an instant stop. Total silence. All eyes turned to me. I got the picture loud and clear. I—the FBI—was the cavalry.
Victorino Fernandez, Deputy Minister of the Interior and former Chief of the Policia Nacional de Paraguay (PNP), strode forward, introduced himself, and then introduced me to the principal attendees: the Minister of the Interior, the Attorney General, the Director of the PNP, the Director of the Departamento de Investigaciones (their FBI), the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and several Justices, senior legislators from the Congreso Nacional and Camara de Diputados, and some also-rans. All looking intently at Marc Ruskin, former FBI UC turned very visible savior (if not publicly acknowledged) … or scapegoat.
Projecting (I hoped) the air of calm self-assurance expected from the representative of the world’s preeminent national police, I made my first contribution: Have you set up a command post? The Minister turned and barked orders. My next contribution: We’ll need a bank of dedicated phone lines, manned twenty-four hours a day. Do we have investigators at the victim’s home? More barking. Drawing further on my vast expertise on kidnapping from watching movies and TV shows, I provided sufficient fodder to get everyone started. And had myself thoroughly briefed. Finally installed for the duration at the Granados Plaza (where the doorman carried a double-barreled shotgun), I made a late call to the duty agent at JEH in D.C. Could he patch me through to Chris Voss? Chris was the Bureau’s top expert on kidnappings. I knew of his exceptional skills from mutual friends at Quantico, though we had never met. He spent the next couple of hours educating me and recommending the next logical steps to take, warning me of the potential pitfalls. Chris was to be my new best friend, holding my hand telephonically for the next couple of weeks.
Paraguay had its own standard of “normal” whose parameters were just short of bedlam. Which may account, in large measure, for why I felt a deep affection for the country and its highly eccentric populace. This was not my first voyage here. For the past two years in Buenos Aires, I had been assigned the “road trip” to Asunción, with primary responsibility for liaison. (The Legat himself handled the road trip to Montevideo, Uruguay, a forty-minute flight from his office, though it was not unusual for either one of us to cover for the other. We maintained overlapping networks of contacts in both countries.)
Distinguishing Paraguay from all other countries in both Americas is the fact that everyone is bilingual, speaking fluent Guarani, the true native tongue, and Spanish, the colonial language. It was not uncommon for officials to switch languages when discussing a point they preferred for me not to be aware of. The extent to which the native Guarani Indian culture makes up a part of the modern Paraguayan culture is a matter of unsupported speculation for a non-anthropologist such as myself, but it is clearly significant. The vitriolic and warlike nature of the political debate may be an example, with figurative throat slashing and backstabbing having replaced the physical utensils. The women are generally beautiful, a blend of Spanish and native Indian, slender, raven-haired, with almond-shaped eyes. One was a Policia Nacional sergeant, Sofia Oviedo, with whom I had developed an acquaintance of sorts, but it was difficult to maintain, because Paraguay had perhaps the worst communications infrastructure in Latin America, always on the point of collapse.
The first morning in Asunción, and every subsequent morning, the Deputy Minister would fetch me at the hotel. Victorino Fernandez—almost everyone’s name being a subtle variation from the common usage—became a friend. On future trips to Asunción, Victorino would always be at the airport. Later, I would be a frequent visitor at his farm in Coronel Oviedo, situated in the rural, desert-like eastern district. Since he was a grizzled bear of a man in his early fifties, I had anticipated a matronly plump grandmother for a wife. How presumptuous of me. Maria Helena was about thirty years old and a woman of average looks for Paraguay. That is to say, stunning.
On the way to the hotel, in the marked police car, Victorino handed me a large-frame, fully loaded .38 caliber Colt revolver for use during my stay. Not official, by any means, on his part or mine. Had the U.S. ambassador known that an FBI agent was traipsing around the wilds of Paraguay, armed, without any authorization … I would probably have been PNG’d posthaste. (That’s Persona Non Grata’d, officially ejected, with a one-way ticket home.) The revolver, clandestine as it might be, served a real purpose. In the most economically advanced First World countries, the work of a Legat is formalized and rigidly limited, with requests for assistance—and reports on results—exchanged on paper and through formal meetings. Would Scotland Yard be so kind as to locate and apprehend John Smith, wanted in the Eastern District of New York for the crime of mortgage fraud? But the greater the distance
from First Worldism, the more operational the Legat. In the field, with a gun, taking risks. Jefe, we’re looking for a fugitive, Juan Esmith, we think he may be hiding out with his family at a ranch in the Triple Frontera. That’s the border area where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet, divided by the narrow Parana River and a true “badlands,” as we will see. No problem … take Inspector Santana with you. (In the old days, with respect to our border with Mexico, “extradition” might have consisted of a shove by the Mexican police official, with the fugitive falling directly into the arms of awaiting federal agents. He would then be arrested while attempting to surreptitiously enter the United States.)
In Paraguay, in 2003, the seismic reaction to the abduction of Mariángela Martínez cannot be overstated. Subsequent to her reign as the beauty queen, she had advanced to become the wife or lover of every major politician and magnate in the country (and many out of the country, according to Zeta, a local news magazine). She was a major celebrity, and she had better be rescued pronto.
Directing the investigation on the ground for the Paraguayans should have been Comisario Principal Aristedes Cabral, Jefe del Departamento de Investigaciones de Delitos. Cabral had come up through the ranks and was, as I quickly perceived, remarkably well qualified for the job. But he was restrained from doing so because Minister of the Interior Osvaldo Benitez, the politico in charge of the police, with no relevant experience, took the reins of the operation and micromanaged every step. Young for the role, midthirties, thin, with heavy mustache and dark hair, Benitez projected to his subordinates the generosity of spirit exhibited by a famished falcon cruising intently for prey.
The intrigue in Asunción was so thick and so layered it could have been cut with a knife. Really. As I worked my way through interviews with whomever I could, generally in the chilling presence of Benitez, I was beginning to wonder who, in fact, was the victim here—not at all clear—and what the real crime was—not all that clear, either. The facts, as they stood on the first day: Mariángela had been kidnapped during her daily caminata (power walk) around Parque Ñu Guazú at 10:30 in the morning. Forty-five minutes later, her ex-boyfriend, handsome and wealthy politician Juan Ernesto Villamayor, received a cell phone ransom demand for $300,000. An hour and a half after that demand was made, Mariángela’s thirty-year-old eldest son, Hugo Talavera Martínez, made a public statement offering to switch places with his mom and rejecting any assistance from the police.
I immediately interviewed Villamayor and found him surprisingly charismatic and frank, not the least bit arrogant. He told me he would consider paying the ransom. Someone would have to, because Mariángela was broke, in large part because her son Hugo had been swindled out of $500,000 of her money (nearly all she had) in a fraudulent investment scheme. I was pretty convinced—and my co-investigator Cabral privately agreed—that in all likelihood this purported kidnapping was primarily an extortion, with the victim being the ex-boyfriend.
Was Mariángela also a victim, or was she one of the extortionists, maybe even the mastermind? And her son, who had volunteered to take her place? Hugo was lying low and wouldn’t speak with me.
After three or four exhausting days and nights, I turned off the light at midnight. Finally a full night’s sleep … The phone rang. Minister of the Interior Osvaldo Benitez.
“Hugo is willing to talk to you. Since you’re FBI.”
“When?”
“Now. We’re in the lobby.”
Hazy as my sleepy brain was, I didn’t at first grasp the significance here, but by the time I reached the lobby, I had. The swindled son had not changed his mind about and arranged to meet specifically with the FBI agent—and with no Paraguayan police present—in order to exchange late-night pleasantries. This could be a break in the case. For the next couple of hours, I interviewed Hugo, my short questions answered with long, rambling, free-form stream of consciousness replies. When I returned to my room, I believed to a moral certainty that he was a participant in the crime—extortion—and would in fact be getting a cut of the $300,000 ransom. The next day, accompanied by Cabral, I went to see Mariángela’s house, get a feel for the staff, inspect the equipment and personnel set up by the PNP to monitor any calls from the kidnappers. It was one of the smaller houses in a high-end gated community. A smiling female officer standing in the diminutive front yard greeted us. In the techno-modern living room, Hugo introduced us to his kid brother, Chachito, and his nanny, the maids, and cook. There were no cops anywhere inside. In his loft bedroom, Hugo proudly displayed the large-frame 9mm pistol he kept under his pillow. Mariángela’s ne’er-do-well son clearly had several screws loose. A heavy cocaine user, Cabral later confirmed.
The only PNP officer present, therefore presumably the one charged with monitoring calls from the kidnappers, was standing outside in the front garden. What was going on here? I turned to Cabral, who was somewhat discomforted even before I framed my question. Hugo assured me that the policewoman could enter the house at any time. To use the bathroom, even the kitchen. It had been arranged—with Minister of the Interior Benitez. The selective implementation of my recommendations—such as having an officer inside the house, monitoring all incoming communications—inspired in very large part by Chris Voss at Quantico, and by my own observations and interviews, left me with a growing sense of being manipulated to serve ulterior motives. This was beginning to irk.
By late in the first week of the affair, we had (at my insistence) recorded roughly a half-dozen ransom demands delivered over the phone to the house in the gated community. Efforts to triangulate those calls, made from cell phones, pointed to their origination in Los Bañados de Asunción, one of the city’s large, run-down barrios. Late one evening, an informant working for one of Cabral’s men relayed bodega gossip concerning an odd new customer from a nearby rental, a dilapidated one-story shack, typical of the homes in the area. Speeding in an unmarked car through the darkened, poorly lit (of course), potholed backstreets of Asunción, accompanied by other unmarked cars, Victorino’s revolver in my waistband—well, undercover work Stateside had been exciting indeed, but this wasn’t a poor substitute by any means. The targeted house was desolate and empty, but only recently so: the mattresses on the floor, littered food containers, cigarette butt-brimming milk-carton ashtrays were all the indicia of a makeshift hideout. Even an old FBI undercover agent turned diplomat, working beyond his area of expertise, could put that two and two together.
The next morning, heavy-handed busybody Osvaldo Benitez called a meeting at his Interior Ministry. Exactly two weeks to the day from the abduction date. Most of the players previously introduced were on hand. Benitez announced that the extortionists, bending to reality, had modified—lowered—their demand to two-thirds the original amount. Ex-lover Villamayor had agreed to pay the $200,000. I had no idea why. No explanation was provided. The drop-off instructions, seemingly inspired by Hollywood, were to be followed meticulously, on pain of death for Mariángela. Her son, the ne’er-do-well Hugo—and only Hugo, the abductors insisted—would drive the delivery car, alone. Perhaps they believed this would assure no double-cross.
That evening, around 9:00 p.m., we were all assembled in the command post of a high-tech private security firm, at Villamayor’s insistence. It was his money and his confidence in the public authorities was limited. Hugo was given an additional cell phone. He would keep this line open for communication with the command post. We watched him drive away in his BMW (no surprise in his choice of automobile) with the $200,000 in a shopping bag by his side. He did not have any kind of “loose” tail. A botched surveillance would have been fatal for Mariángela.
The first call from the extortionists, made to Hugo’s personal cell, instructed him to proceed to a large mall after removing the batteries from any other cell phones in the car. He did this, even though he didn’t have to … how would they know? Again, no surprise … but was his compliance an indication of complicity? Regardless, the command post was now deaf, though we still traced h
is location by triangulating his personal cell. Arriving at the mall, Hugo received a second call. He was told to pick up a small KFC paper bag from a stall in the men’s room. This bag contained a new cell phone, with a note. He was to throw his own phone in the garbage, with the battery not removed. Any electronic babysitters would therefore believe Hugo was still in the mall. The kidnappers hadn’t missed any angles.
After a couple of tense hours of radio silence, with the large crowd of investigators, politicians, and hangers-on waiting anxiously, Hugo called the command post. From his home. Claiming that he had followed a series of instructions received on the new cell, driving from one Asunción destination to another, here to there and all around, before finally being instructed to toss the bag with the money off an overpass by a dark and deserted stretch of road on the fringes of the city.
A few more hours later, shortly after dawn, a disheveled Mariángela, wearing the same jogging suit as on the morning of her abduction more than two weeks earlier, waved down a pickup truck and was soon back home—and back in a brighter limelight than ever.