His Own Man (12 page)

Max’s revelation seemed to represent a tribute to me, a proof of trust. It was, at heart, a final demonstration of friendship. In a matter of minutes, we were going to go our separate ways. And many years might pass before we spoke again. Whenever it was we next met up, he would be
another person
. A brand-new Max, brilliant and shining.
The Max of my younger days
, I thought, overcome by sadness. The Socialist Max who had joined the office of the country’s last progressive foreign minister. If I met him again at this new stage, and closed my eyes, who knows? Maybe I would see him as he had once been.

I felt a little dizzy from the liquor and from certain verses running through my head that we used to recite at Itamaraty, while strolling in the shade beneath the imperial palms of the old palace, circling the reflecting pool where swans glided:

Perhaps Eliot would open the way for our reconciliation? All I had to do was forget the current Max and concentrate on the former one, who had just been reborn in front of me. Just as the country was preparing to do: to rescue the future from the past. I noticed that one of the porch doors at the house had opened, casting an intense yellow beam across the lawn. This was soon filled by a shadow, which, after a brief pause, had taken on contours and become a silhouette. The shape began to move toward us, with such languidness that identifying its sex was unnecessary. Max slowly rose from his chair.

“Goodbye,” I whispered.

“Goodbye,” he replied.

My conversations with Marina and Max, just months apart, led me to address at last my misgivings concerning my old companion’s contradictions. Since no one holds on to a friendship poisoned by doubt, I decided to shake off my lethargy — which, at this stage, was bordering on complicity. I began to give greater credence to the rumors circulating about Max and recalled some of the ambiguous comments he had made during our past discussions.

Over the years, I investigated various sources in piecing together the puzzle that was Max. And in 1993, I came across what I later realized was the most damning one, an article in
Foreign Diplomatic Review
titled “Operation Condor.” The report had been written based on the dreaded secret organization’s archives unearthed in Paraguay by one of the operation’s victims. “
Prisoners thrown from airplanes into the sea
,” blared the headlines. “
Thrown alive … Bound or stuffed into burlap sacks. Still conscious
,
hurled from five to eight thousand meters up …
” And this was merely
one
aspect of the famed operation, whose name derived from a bird that fed off dead flesh. It was all there: the monthly frequency of the missions, the number of prisoners loaded onto each flight, the drugs administered to the victims before departure “
to sedate them without their losing awareness of what was happening
.”

But the report didn’t end there. On a list topped by Argentina’s notorious Angel of Death, and followed by references to
the infamous DINA gang — the Chilean National Intelligence Directorate, with its chief, Contreras, up front — the names of Brazilian torturers and agents figured prominently. Among them was Colonel Cordeiro, in thirty-seventh place, just below his near namesake, the Uruguayan Manuel Cordero.

Although shaken by the piece, I didn’t associate it with my friend — despite his connection with the man from the Coffee Institute. For me, the article merely represented an extreme example of the macabre shroud that had been lowered over the region for thirty years. I filed it away, but it stayed in the back of my mind.

Two years later, though, whatever had seemed vague or incoherent acquired an unexpected shape and gained a sense of urgency. It all happened thanks to a colonel from Rio I met in Vienna — a man with whom I forged a strange and short-lived friendship. His name was João Vaz.

It was 1995, and more than a decade had elapsed since the end of the dictatorship. The colonel and I were part of a delegation in charge of drafting a convention on international crime at a dull UN meeting. Already retired by then, he had been included in the group as an adviser. One night, we wound up having dinner together. The colonel was much older than I, and in his burliness and gait reminded me of an old circus bear, the kind that develops a gentle temperament with age. One of the most disturbing novelties of those years of political transition was, for me, at any rate, the sudden humbleness and congeniality that military personnel of nearly all ranks now tried to project when in contact with civilians, as if their constant smiling indicated that none of them had been at all involved with the terror the country had gone through.

That night, however, this thought didn’t even cross my mind. I was simply happy not to be dining alone yet again. As is fitting in Viennese restaurants in the wintertime, my companion and I exchanged pleasantries in front of the fireplace.
We spoke of family first. And soon afterward, of our travels, of the countries in which we’d lived. Remembering the years he had worked at our embassy in Uruguay, the colonel casually brought up Max’s name. He asked if I knew him. I said yes but without going into detail.

“What a character,” murmured the colonel, without shifting his gaze from the flames in the fireplace.

I instinctively straightened up in my chair and, for the first time, faced the colonel with my full attention. I awaited some other sign from him, slight as it may have been, something that would better explain the strange look in his eyes.

“He worked for the British,” remarked the colonel, as though addressing the fireplace.

“For the
British
?” I couldn’t help but exclaim, letting out a surprised laugh.

“
That’s right
, MI6,” continued the colonel. “
He was working for the British secret service. Working
may be an overstatement. Let’s say he was
cooperating
with them. The ones who alerted us were our friends in” — he tapped my arm with a familiarity that boded well — “Washington! We at the SNI
were informed by the CIA
! Isn’t that something?”

“Unbelievable!” I cried out.

“You knew, at the ministry, that he was part of the
system
, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” I answered without hesitation, adding in the same tone, “But this story about MI6 … To my knowledge, no one at the ministry ever knew
that
.”

“It took us two years to find out. And when I think that we even played poker twice a week at my house …”

“
Poker!?
” My attempt at nonchalance barely hid my surprise. It was a miracle I hadn’t choked on my wine.

“Max was the only diplomat at our table. He almost always lost, but he was a good loser. At any rate, we didn’t play high stakes. A hundred dollars or so was the most he’d wager per night.
At the time, that was still real money, considering that we played twice a week.” He frowned. “Sometimes he did win.” Then an almost heartfelt admission: “But I never caught him bluffing!”

Fortunately, the UN conference would go on for eight more days. During that time, to the growing satisfaction of the colonel, who had found in me a friend always willing to listen to the recounting of his adventures, we dined together on three other occasions. The Max I discovered thanks to my dinner companion turned out to be a far more complex figure than the one with whom I had developed a fine friendship early in my career. He had split his personality in 1964 and, apparently unsatisfied with that particular accomplishment, had subdivided it further in Montevideo, as though trying to progressively reduce his individuality into less and less visible niches.

But when I raised this theory with the colonel on our last night — when we’d drunk champagne as well and our tongues were wagging loosely — my companion managed to briefly set aside the effects of the alcohol he’d consumed and threw me a bitter look. “Could be,” the colonel admitted, “but, from what I knew, he never lost sight of his own objectives. He never played fair with his bosses; his peers; us; the Brazilians, exiled or not; the Uruguayans; or even the Brits. And he didn’t toy with the Americans, because he sensed that’s where he would get burned. That bunch was too powerful to mess with. His actions were …” He paused, in search of the expression that would best convey his thought. “His actions were those of a strategist
with a personal agenda
. Max’s team had only one player: himself. Our friend realized very early on that his superiors, within and outside the ministry, would come and go and lose power and prestige, gradually disappearing, whether from age or ill-formed alliances, while he advanced in his career. So he used them strictly for his own needs. No more, no less. He gave each an amount of attention proportional to his potential usefulness. And he knew better than anyone how to buy low and sell high.”

After signaling to the waiter for some water, he asked, “Did you know him well?”

“Yes … and no …”

“Funny, you sounded just like him then. Depending on the subject of discussion, that’s how Max would often reply. In that regard, he reminded me of an American I got to know pretty well in Montevideo. A true friend I still keep in touch with these days. Whenever I asked him about certain topics, he would almost always respond, ‘
Yes
 …,’ then pause and add with a sly grin, ‘
and no …
’
”

The colonel hesitated, staring at me somberly through the haze of whiskey, wine, and now champagne, as if weighing the pros and cons of continuing. Then he shrugged. All things considered, he was much closer to the end of his life than to its beginning and no longer feared anyone.

He leaned forward. “Eric Friedkin, that was my friend’s name. We remained in touch, even after we were retired. Our girls attended the same school. A very expensive American school, I might add.”

He lifted the champagne bottle from the bucket and, after glancing over at my glass, which was still full, topped off his own.

“He was the agricultural attaché at the American embassy. Actually, as I quickly surmised and eventually confirmed as we became better friends, he worked for the CIA.”

I greeted the new topic of conversation with a generous gulp of champagne.

“Eric headed the CIA office for all of South America. In other words, the supposed agricultural attaché at the US embassy reported directly to
James Pyne
in Washington, the same guy who had alerted Kennedy about the existence of Soviet warheads in Cuba during the missile crisis. And just as I’m doing with you now, here in Vienna, although without this beautiful fireplace —”

“And without the champagne …”

“Without the champagne,” he echoed, before taking another brief pause. “I remember we were in a bar when Eric spoke to me for the first time about Max. Among other things, he told me that he spent countless hours discussing with his colleague from MI6 which of the two secret services should approach Max, the Americans or the British. That’s how highly Max ranked in everyone’s eyes.”

“Approach Max?” I asked, unable to contain my disbelief. “But for
what
?”

“Easy, my friend,” laughed the colonel. “Take it easy. It’s a funny story. And a good one at that.”

He was right: now that we’d plunged into the past, I needed to let him speak freely, without voicing my own concerns.

“Despite Max’s understated position in the embassy’s hierarchy, he was soon noticed by the secret services of both countries, the US
and
Britain, which had bugged several foreign missions, ours among them — ‘a regional power to be reckoned with,’ in Eric’s words. Max’s intellectual brilliance stood out in the recordings.”

The colonel again turned to the bucket, retrieved the bottle, and this time stopped at my glass before pouring into his. “I don’t know how well you knew Max. As I learned from Eric, he was cold and calculating above all, traits that are greatly appreciated in this field. He also had a rare quality valued by the foreigners who were watching his moves closely: he was
extremely adaptable
. Depending on who he was talking to, he could just as handily swing to the left as embrace the right. The guy was an artist!”

I kept my mouth shut, other than to take another sip of champagne.

“Max’s words had
intellectual clout
. That was how Eric put it. He could hold his own in serious conversation with professors, journalists, politicians, and supporters of the most diverse causes. Even with militants connected to the Tupamaros, during the lead-up to the military coup in Uruguay …”

As the colonel spoke, I noted how naturally he had resorted to the term
coup
. In which he had been involved up to his eyeballs, albeit in a secondary role.

“Max was worth his weight in gold,” my dinner companion went on. “He was brilliant, subtle, discreet. A natural. No one compared to him, and everyone coveted him.”

Just then a curious notion took hold of me. That the former head of the CIA in South America was now a peaceful retired man, probably on a bowling team and helping to raise his grandchildren. But he had once been a protagonist in events that had affected the fate of several countries in our region — not to mention the unhappy destiny of some of their inhabitants. I wondered if Eric Friedkin and Max had ever met.

It didn’t occur to me to ask — nor did it seem important to know. But that same night I learned other things. Among them, that the CIA had come to the conclusion that its police and military training center wasn’t achieving optimal results with the Uruguayans and Chileans. Due to “cultural differences,” Friedkin had told the colonel. The CIA had then decided to ask Brazil for help, suggesting that former Brazilian trainees who had completed the program go on to lend “technical assistance” to the Uruguayan and Chilean police forces. “But not to the Argentineans,” he had emphasized, “because they had learned everything they knew from the French mercenaries, people who trained during the fall of Indochina and honed their skills during the Algerian War.”