Café Dolores
Dolores Railway Station
Dolores, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
0845 28 September 1943
When the dark green—almost black—1941 Buick Roadmaster sedan pulled into the parking area and stopped, a clean-cut young man in a business suit suddenly appeared and walked quickly to the car.
“Señor . . . ,” the driver of the Buick said, not in alarm, but warily.
“That’s Sargento Lascano, Pedro, relax,” the middle-aged, muscular, balding man in the passenger seat said as he opened the door and got out.
“Buenos días, señor,” Sargento Manuel Lascano said.
“Nice suit, Lascano,” the muscular man said. He was Inspector General Santiago Nervo, chief of the Special Investigations Division of the Gendarmería Nacional. He was de facto, if not actually de jure, Argentina’s most powerful policeman.
Sargento Lascano had spent five of his twenty-three years in the army, and almost all of that in the infantry, and almost all of that in remote provinces. Just before the coup d’état that had made General Arturo Rawson the president of Argentina, Lascano had been transferred to the Edificio Libertador headquarters of the Ejército Argentino for “special duty.”
Having been selected as the most promising among ten candidates for training as an intelligence agent, it was intended that he receive a final vetting for suitability by the then-el Teniente Coronel Alejandro Martín—the chief of the Ethical Standards Office of the Argentine Bureau of Internal Security—by “working with him” for a week or two.
The coup d’état had changed all that. Sargento Lascano had been given responsibilities during the chaos of the coup far beyond his expected capabilities and handled them remarkably well. Martín had been promoted to coronel, and Lascano had been given the credentials and authority of a BIS agent—and, although this was not made public, the promotion to warrant officer that went with them—and became officially what he had been during the coup, assistant to Martín.
“Thank you, señor,” Lascano said. “Señor, el coronel suggests you park your car in the garage over there.” He pointed. “They are expecting you.”
“Who are we hiding from, Lascano?” Nervo asked.
“Just about everybody, señor.”
“Where’s your jefe?”
“There is a room in the café.”
“Go park the car, Pedro,” Nervo said, and then asked, “Is he welcome in the café?”
“You are Subinspector General Nolasco, señor?” Lascano asked.
“You didn’t recognize him, right?” Nervo said sarcastically.
“Guilty,” the driver said.
“El coronel said Subinspector General Nolasco is welcome, sir.”
“Congratulations, Pedro,” Nervo said. “Martín trusts you. Go park the car and then join us.”
The room in the back of Café Dolores was small and crowded. The tables had been pushed together and held a number of telephones.
To take advantage, Nervo decided, of the railway telephone network.
Large maps were pinned to the walls.
There were now ten people in the room. El Coronel Alejandro Martín and “Suboficial Mayor” José Cortina—Nervo knew the stocky, middle-aged man to be both a longtime BIS agent and actually a teniente coronel—were seated at the end of the pushed-together tables. Both were in civilian clothing. Lascano had followed Nervo into the room.
A half-dozen other men in civilian clothing were at the table manning the telephones and two typewriters.
And there was someone else whose presence surprised Nervo: a tall, good-looking man in his late twenties who was wearing the uniform of a capitán of cavalry, the de rigueur cavalry officer’s mustache, and the heavy golden aiguillettes of an aide-de-camp.
Nervo knew Capitán Roberto Lauffer to be the president’s aide-de-camp and more: As with Lascano, the chaos of the coup d’état had seen Lauffer given responsibilities far beyond those ordinarily given to young captains.