restrictions and hours when turns could be made on certain well-traveled corners. This gave them an excuse to stop vehicles and clandestinely photograph the drivers.
Ustinoviks had told him to keep an eye out for anyone who turned off the highway or any of the side streets. If anyone came here, or even slowed down while driving by, he was to rap three times on the body shop’s door. Whenever a deal was taking place, operations like this always had someone who would come out and demand that a search warrant be read to him — a right, by New York City law — while anyone inside escaped by the roof onto an adjoining building.
Not that Ustinoviks was expecting trouble. He said there had been a flurry of raids against Russian gangsters two months ago. The city didn’t like to give the appearance of targeting an individual ethnic group.
“It’s the Vietnamese’s turn,” he quipped when they arrived here from the hotel.
Barone thought he heard a sound off to the side of the building. Reaching into his windbreaker, he withdrew his automatic. He walked cautiously to the darkened alley to the north. There was a club behind a high chain-link fence.
The club was closed for the night. A dog was moving behind the fence. That must have been what he heard. Barone slid the gun back into its shoulder holster and returned to his post.
Barone pulled a hand-rolled cigarette from his breast pocket and lit it. He thought back over the past few days. Things were going well, and they’d continue to go well. He believed that. He and his four teammates had reached Spain without any problem. They split up in the event that any of them had been identified, and over the next two days, flew to the United States from Madrid. They met at a Times Square hotel. Georgiev had been the first to arrive. He had already made the connections necessary to obtain the weapons they needed. The negotiations were going on inside while Barone stood guard.
Barone drew on the cigarette. He tried to concentrate on the plan for tomorrow. He wondered about Georgiev’s other ally, the one known only to the Bulgarian. All Georgiev would tell them was that it was an American whom he had known for over ten years. That would be about the time they were in Cambodia together. Barone wondered who he could have met there and what role they could possibly be playing in tomorrow’s action.
But it was no use. Barone’s mind always went where it wanted to go, and right now, it didn’t want to think about Georgiev or the operation. It wanted to go back. It wanted to go home.
It wasn’t always that way. Though his family had no money, there was a time when Montevideo seemed like paradise. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, it’s the capital of Uruguay and home to some of the most spacious and beautiful beaches in the world. Growing up there in the early 1960s, Bernardo Barone couldn’t have been happier. When he wasn’t in school or doing his chores, he used to go to the beach with his twelve-years-older brother Eduardo. The two young men would stay there long into the night, swimming endlessly or building forts in the sand. They would light campfires when the sun set and often went to sleep beside their forts.
“We’ll rest in the stables with the magnificent horses,” Eduardo would joke. “Can you smell them?”
Bernardo could not. He could only smell the sea and the fumes from the cars and boats. But he believed that Eduardo could smell them. The young boy wanted to be able to do that when he grew up. He wanted to be like Eduardo. When Bernardo and his mother went to church every weekend, that was what he prayed for. To grow up just like his brother.
Those were Bernardo’s happiest memories. Eduardo was so patient with him, so friendly with everyone who came by to watch them build the tall, crenellated walls and moats. Girls loved the handsome young man. And they loved the handsome young man’s cute little brother, who loved them right back.
Bernardo’s beloved mother was a baker’s assistant and their father Martin was a prizefighter. Martin’s dream was to save enough to open a gym so his wife could quit her job and live like a lady. From the time Eduardo was fifteen, he spent many days and nights traveling with the elder Barone, working as his corner man. Often they’d be gone for weeks at a time, participating in the Rio de la Plata circuit. Groups of fighters traveled together by bus from Mercedes to Paysandu to Salto, boxing one another or ambitious locals. Pay was a share of the gate, less fees for the doctor who traveled with the fighters. Eduardo learned basic medical skills so they could save the price of the doctor.
It was a difficult life, and it put a terrible strain on the boys’ mother. She worked long hours over a hellishly hot brick oven, and one morning, while her husband and eldest son were away, she died in a fire at the bakery. Because the family’s credit was bad, the woman’s body was brought to the Barone apartment, and Bernardo had to sit with it until his father could be contacted and funeral arrangements could be made and paid for.
Bernardo was nine.
During his travels with their father, Eduardo had learned other things, as well. Quite by chance, in a small tavern in San Javier, he discovered the Marxist Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional-Tupamaros. The guerrilla group had been founded in 1962 by Raul Antonaccio Sendic, leader of the sugarcane workers of northern Uruguay. The government had been unable to control inflation, which went as high as 35 percent, and laborers were particularly hard hit. In the aggressive Sendic movement, Eduardo saw a means by which he could help others like his father who had lost the love of their life and the will to dream. In Eduardo, the group saw someone who could fight and administer medical treatment. It was a good fit. With his father’s blessings, Eduardo joined the MLN-T.
In 1972, the despotic Juan Maria Bordaberry Arocena was elected president. Bordaberry had the backing of the well-trained, well-armed military. And one of the first orders of business was to crush the opposition, including the MLN-T, which Eduardo had recently joined. There was a bloody shoot-out in April; by year’s end, members were in jail or in exile. Eduardo had ended up in prison, where he died of “unknown” causes. Bernardo’s father died less than two years later. He had taken a severe beating in the ring and never recovered. Bernardo always felt that his father wanted to die. He had never been the same after the loss of those who had been so precious to him.
The death of his family turned Bernardo into an angry young firebrand who hated the government of President Bordaberry. Ironically, the military also became disenchanted with the new president and staged its own coup in February 1973. They established the Consejo de Seguridad Nacional. Bernardo enlisted in 1979, hoping to become part of a new order in Uruguay.
But after twelve years of being unable to deal with economic hardship, the military simply returned rule to the people and literally faded from the political scene. The economic situation hadn’t changed markedly.
Once again, Bernardo felt betrayed by a cause. The young man remained in the military. As a tribute to his father, he had become skilled in all forms of hand-to-hand combat; he was suited for nothing else. But he never stopped hoping that he would find a way to rekindle the spirit of the MLN-T. To work for the people of Uruguay, not the leaders. Serving with the United Nations in Cambodia, Barone found a way to do just that. To raise money and get attention from the world press, all at the same time.
Barone finished his cigarette. He crushed it on the sidewalk and stood looking at the traffic on the West Side Highway. That was one difference between Montevideo and New York City. In Montevideo, except for the tourist hotels and the bars, everything shut down at sunset. Here, the roads were busy even at this hour. It had to be impossible for authorities to monitor all of it, to keep track of who was coming and going, of what was in the trucks and vans.
It was also impossible for the police to watch every plane that came into the small airstrips that surrounded the city. Airports and even open fields in upstate New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were perfect for small planes to slip in and out unnoticed. Waterways in those states were also ideal spots. A deserted bay or riverbank in the small hours of the morning. Crates quickly and quietly loaded from boat or seaplane to truck. Easy entry, and so close to New York. That, too, was lucky for the team.
An hour passed, then another. Barone had known this was going to take a while, since Downer needed time to examine each of the weapons. Though arms dealers could usually get a client what he wanted, that didn’t necessarily mean the weapons would be in perfect working order. Like refugees, a hot weapon never got to travel first class. The wait didn’t bother the Uruguayan. What mattered was that the weapon work when he aimed and
