To Save the Nation Page 5

  A sand beach and swimming area lay beyond the pool, with a break wall and inlet to the sea. They had choices: Freshwater or salt water, sandy beach or cement deck. In each place there were lounge chairs and beach umbrellas, and palm trees provided shade.

  Beyond the sandy beach was a walkway to the motor launch to Sonesta Island, a private island just a short ten-minute boat ride from the resort. The sign at the dock indicated the launch would leave every fifteen minutes throughout the day. The island was exclusively for guests at Sonesta Suites and the Sonesta Hotel and Beach Resort, across the street.

  “DAVID, LET’S HIT THE POOL.” Eve pulled her one-piece swimsuit out of their luggage and tossed him a pair of swimming trunks. “We can unpack later!”

  Within minutes, they were swimming in the refreshing waters of the hotel’s pool, surrounded by a tropical garden, as the heat, humidity, and frustrations of travel melted behind them.

  Following a poolside nap, they had a light dinner at the hotel restaurant, then turned in early for a night of romance.

  Neither had any idea how the events of the next day would change their lives.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE NEXT MORNING, Winkler and Eve leisurely ate a tropical breakfast on the terrace outside their room: Slices of ripe mango and pineapple and chunks of papaya and watermelon were all beautifully arranged on a plate. Yogurt and granola, croissants and jam, and a pot of freshly brewed coffee completed the meal.

  By ten they were ready to venture out and decided to try the beach on the hotel’s private island.

  The hotel’s shuttle boat carried only six passengers, and three women, two probably in their thirties, one who seemed a little older, all Spanish speaking, had already taken their seats. As the launch pulled away from the dock, the lawyer and his wife each silently began to create their own imaginary background for their co-passengers.

  Eve noticed the cut of their bathing suits was relatively modest and their cover-ups were drop-dead gorgeous, definitely from top designers. The same for their leather trimmed straw beach bags and leather sandals. They wore tasteful jewelry, not overdone, and none of them had wedding bands. She imagined they were all single, upper class, probably professionals, living somewhere in Latin America, on a girls’ vacation in Aruba.

  Winkler, who knew some Spanish, tried to listen in on their conversation, but the noise of the engine made it almost impossible for him to understand. The younger ones, who were much darker than the third, seemed to be bantering on about the private island and a decision they had to make when they landed. The third seemed aloof and stared off into the blue sea ahead, letting the wind blow through her long black hair.

  Each of them had an open beach bag stuffed with beach towels, bottles of water, suntan lotion, and reading material. The two younger ones had Spanish language magazines. The older, quiet one had a small book at the top of her bag.

  Winkler leaned over to try to see the title of the book. Surprisingly, it was one he read decades ago: Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number, in the original Spanish version, Preso Sin Nombre, Celda Sin Numero. He was stymied. Why would anyone on vacation be reading a 1970s first-person account of torture in Argentina during that country’s dark period, known as “The Dirty War”? Hardly a light read for the beach.

  He imagined she was a university professor, teaching Latin American history and using this as course material. She couldn’t possibly have any other reason for reading this sordid account of electroshock and other atrocities—or could she?

  He gently tugged on Eve’s arm and quietly pointed out the book as the boat pulled up to the dock and the three women stepped out first. Winkler and Eve followed them in the direction indicated by a sign marked “Beaches,” which led to a path passing through a beautiful botanical garden. After walking two minutes there was a fork in the path with a sign in English: To the right, “Adult Beach.” To the left, “Family Beach/Restaurant/Workout Room.”

  They stopped behind the women, who were chatting and laughing about which way to go.

  Winkler decided to risk making a fool of himself and pulled together some basic Spanish. “¿Saben ustedes cuál es la diferencia entre las dos playas? Do you know the difference between the two beaches?” he asked.

  “We theenk the playa para adultos—the beach for adults—ees a nude beach,” said one of the younger women. “Ustedes van par allá? Are you going there?” she asked, smiling.

  Eve squeezed her husband’s hand, and they both agreed they were heading for the family beach. The three women likewise headed in that direction. Winkler would have to leave the adult beach to his imagination.

  AS THEY LAID OUT THEIR TOWELS ON THE BEACH, Winkler and Eve compared notes on their observations of the three women.

  “You know, Eve, we do this all the time, and we never know if we’re right or one thousand percent wrong. The three of them could all be cops from Caracas, beauticians from Bogota, or pediatricians from Puerto Vallarta.”

  “Why are you so interested? The truth is probably a lot less fascinating than whatever our minds could conjure up,” replied Eve. “Anyhow, what about that book you pointed out?”

  “Did you notice what people were reading at the pool? Magazines. Novels. Generally easy stuff. But the book that woman had doesn’t qualify as beach reading.

  “I read it years ago, just after it was written, to get a feeling of what was going on in Argentina at the time. I had a client mixed up in that situation. You remember, the so-called ‘Dirty War,’ when the U.S. government supported a right-wing military dictatorship in opposing anyone who even smelled left-wing, like students, academics, and the intelligentsia.

  “The book is a first-hand account by a newspaper publisher, Jacobo Timerman, who was held in captivity and tortured. If you want to know what it was like, just read that book. Definitely not something I’d pick for the beach.”

  “David, I think that book has got you going. Why don’t you be direct and ask her about it? I don’t think she’ll mind.”

  “Maybe later,” said Winkler as a beach waiter clad in white shorts and a T-shirt stopped by their area.

  “Ready for drinks, my friends?” said the waiter.

  “Two piña coladas, please, with double rum,” replied Winkler.

  “David, it’s not even eleven. I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

  “Those are for me,” he said, smiling at the waiter. “And a cappuccino for the lady.”

  THE RESTAURANT at the island beach was relatively small, and the tables were set quite close together.

  Around noon, the three women got up to go to lunch at the restaurant, and Winkler and Eve decided to follow them, seating themselves at the next table. The woman with the book had brought it to lunch with her and continued to read intently while waiting to order.

  Encouraged by Eve, Winkler decided to make his move and walked over to their table.

  “Excuse me,” he said, addressing the oldest of the three women, “but I couldn’t help noticing the book you’re reading. I read it many years ago, when all the disappearances and torture were going on in Argentina. It’s a terrible part of history.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Please excuse my bad English. I haven’t spoken in many years, since the high school. I am just learning about this period for the first time. I grew up in Uruguay; we didn’t learn about Argentine history.”

  “Your English is much better than my Spanish! So, I’m curious—why are you interested in it now? It’s not your typical vacation reading...and you’re not even from Argentina.”

  “Yes and no. Actually, it’s a long story, and really strange. Maybe we should pull the two tables together, and I can tell you over lunch if you are really interested.”

  Winkler helped the women move their table over a few feet, making a combined table large enough for all of them. Introductions followed.

  “I am Maria Theresa Romero, and these are my friends, Alejandra and Carmen.”

  “Pleased to meet you. My
name is David Winkler, and this is my wife, Eve.”

  They agreed to order lunch first. Then, after a few minutes of small talk about the beauty of the island and laughing about the fact that they all chose the family beach, Maria Theresa continued.

  “So I see that you have a particular interest in the period of Argentine history which I am just now learning about, David.”

  “Yes, while all that was going on, in the mid to late seventies, I had friends in Buenos Aires who would call each other at the end of each day to see if they were still there. Some of their friends were picked up by men driving Ford Falcons and never seen again. Something like 30,000 people disappeared during this time. I’m a lawyer and had an Argentine client at the time who was involved in a financial scandal, a rather complicated story. An Argentine lawyer I dealt with—the client’s right-hand man—actually died under torture.”

  “Until recently, I had no idea that anything like that ever happened,” said Maria Theresa. “I grew up in Montevideo, Uruguay, the only daughter of an Uruguayan businessman and his wife, a schoolteacher. My father died several years ago. My mother died two weeks ago.”

  “So what connection is there to Argentina?” asked Winkler.

  “In my mother’s papers, which I saw after she died, she told me that she was not really my mother...and that my father wasn’t always an Uruguayan businessman. Both of them were Argentinians, and my father had been in the Argentine military during the Dirty War. My real mother was a prisoner and was pregnant with me at the time. I was taken from her by Caesarian section, and she was told that I died during the delivery. My parents—those people I knew as my parents my entire life—adopted me and left the country.

  “Here, she says it all in this letter she left for me, to be found only after she died.” Maria Theresa pulled out several sheets of folded paper from her purse, holding back tears. “As you can imagine, it was very hard for me to learn this, after so many years. I had absolutely no idea.”

  “It must have been a terrific shock. First, you lose your mother, then you find out she wasn’t your mother and your parents had been living a lie all that time,” said Winkler, shaking his head.

  “So, now I am trying to understand a little about that period, to get some appreciation of my roots. That is why I bought this book,” said Maria Theresa. “All the disappearances, torture, and killings. Anyone who opposed the regime was at risk. Even those who did not actively oppose but were merely suspected. It was a very frightening, terrible time.”

  Winkler asked if he could see the letter, and she passed it over to him. His eyes scanned the handwritten text, just a little over two pages for such a significant confession. Maria Theresa explained that most of it was her mother’s regrets and apologies for not telling her the truth during her lifetime, but she was so ashamed of what had happened and hoped Maria Theresa would forgive her.

  “There’s something here at the very end. Do you know what she’s saying here?” He pointed to the last paragraph and passed the letter back to her.

  “She wasn’t sure about my real mother’s name. She says my father mentioned that there was a banking scandal in Argentina and a rich banker died in a plane crash and his banks failed with lots of money missing. The banker’s wife was pregnant and was interrogated to find the money, and they took me from her. My mother had the impression that the banker was my father. The man I knew as my father was involved in the interrogation. My mother thought that the banker’s wife—my real mother—was killed.

  “At the very end, my mother says that she was always told that by adopting me, they were saving me, but I cannot see it as a good deed to steal a baby from its mother. This is all so terrible and confusing.”

  Winkler turned white, then clasped his hands tightly and looked at Eve, then at Maria Theresa.

  “If your mother was right about this, you are the daughter of an infamous man, and our meeting is either an amazing coincidence or some sort of divine intervention.”

  THEY CONTINUED TO TALK THROUGH LUNCH, as Winkler described his connection to the banker, the man who may well have been Maria Theresa’s father.

  “I never actually met Ricardo Guttmann, but he and his organizations were clients of mine back in the seventies. I worked with his senior management and Argentine advisors. We were helping him buy banks around the world and set up companies for him. I even negotiated some of the bank deals.

  “Then out of the blue one day, we got a telex saying his charter jet had crashed on a trip from New York City to Acapulco. And within a few weeks, all the banks in the group failed, and banking examiners on four continents were scratching their heads. Apparently, there were a number of phony transactions—something about which we were absolutely unaware—and hundreds of millions of dollars were missing!

  “We weren’t close enough to the situation to know what really happened. We learned mostly from the press that his body had been burned beyond recognition in the crash, then cremated. Yet some people speculated it wasn’t really him. Lawsuits brought against him because of the bank failures were eventually dismissed because he’d been declared dead. And like Elvis, there were even reports that he’d been seen alive after the crash.”

  “So you really don’t know if he survived or not, or whether he was responsible for the bank failures?” asked Maria Theresa.

  “Personally, I don’t know one way or the other. In the last articles I remember after his reported death, the Argentine government had confiscated millions of dollars of the family’s properties. But that was decades ago, and I really don’t know how the story ended.”

  “David, tell her about how you met the Brussels branch manager in the States a few years ago,” said Eve.

  “Right, that was bizarre. We were at a wedding reception, and a fellow came up to me and greeted me by name.

  I didn’t have a clue who he was, and he introduced himself as Pierre de Neville, the former branch manager of the Brussels bank Guttmann had owned. Back in the seventies, de Neville was my client, and I was his lawyer.

  “That chance meeting was about five years ago. I asked him if he had any sense of what really happened—whether Guttmann really died in the crash, and whether he was responsible for the missing millions. He told me those were very strange times, that they often received a cable saying they should expect a courier to arrive with a briefcase full of cash, to be used to fund wire transfers to pay ransoms in Argentina.

  “I then asked if he’d met Guttmann, because I always dealt through intermediaries and never met the man. I also pressed him as to whether he thought Guttmann was in the plane or not. I remember he didn’t reply directly. Instead, he said something I’ll never forget. He told me Guttmann was relatively short and stocky, with a very thick beard, and if he lost a lot of weight and shaved his beard, you’d never recognize him!

  “I’m really sorry that I can’t be more helpful,” continued Winkler. “Actually, I know very little about this. I have a sort of fascination for this part of history, but no current information. For all I know, there could have been important developments right after I moved back to the States. So many years have passed.”

  “I understand, David, but I really need to have someone start where you left off, so to speak. I’ve been thinking about this, but do not know where to turn. At a minimum, I would like to know the final, official story and see if anyone has any theories that could be pursued. Assuming that my mother was correct—that Ricardo Guttmann was my real father—I would like to get a copy of the Mexican report on the crash. If his properties were taken by the Argentine government, I would like to know if they were ever returned. I would like to know for sure that my real mother did not survive. I am sure more questions will come up as we get into this. I do not have a lot of money to pay—”

  “David, do you think your firm could take this on some kind of pro bono basis?” asked Eve.

  “I seriously doubt it. Everyone is too busy looking at the bottom line,” said Winkler. In his heart, he wante
d to take the case, but his brain told him he’d get endless pushback from the Management Committee. And yet he felt a strange connection to Maria Theresa and her story.

  “David, I don’t know where else to turn.” She was desperate and not about to take no for an answer. “I cannot fund your expenses without limit, but I inherited some money and could give you that to work with. It is about fifty thousand U.S. Dollars. What if you put that on the account, do what you can to find answers to these questions, and when the money is used up, you stop working? Would that make any sense?”

  As tough as Winkler could be in a business negotiation, he was unable to resist her plea. “Maybe I can present it as contingent fee case,” he replied, “where we only get paid out of a monetary recovery and take a percentage, with you bearing all the expenses. That might fly. And we’ll keep it a very short-term engagement so we limit our own exposure in terms of hours. Let me see if the waiter has some paper, and I’ll rough out an agreement to make sure there’s no misunderstanding.”

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, Winkler had the essence of a contingent fee agreement handwritten on the back of several sheets of the resort’s stationery, which he read aloud:

  Contingent Fee Agreement

  Legal/Investigative Services

  1. Engagement and Scope of Services. Maria Theresa Romero (the “Client”) hereby engages the law firm of Kelly, Friedman & Green (“KF&G”) to undertake an investigation into the apparent death of Ricardo Guttmann (“Guttmann”) in an air crash in Mexico in 1976, and the following related matters:

  A. Locate copies of any reports of the crash prepared by Mexican or other governmental or non-governmental agencies;

  B. Determine if Guttmann survived the crash and is still alive and, if so, his whereabouts;

  C. Determine whether any cause of action exists against the charter air carrier or its employees, officers or directors, if Guttmann died in the crash and, if so, whether any applicable statutes of limitations have expired; and

  D. Determine if any properties of Guttmann, members of his family, or business organizations owned by him seized by the government of Argentina were returned to the Guttmann family or the family’s business organizations and, if so, whether those properties have since been sold or, if not, in whose name title currently appears.