396
PARTISAN REVIEW
abduction at about three p.m. The domestic news agency had moni–
tored the Federal Police's radio frequency as the news was being
reported to police headquarters. The first flash announced that the old
man's flat had been raided by unidentified armed men. The second
flash added the useless information that the family had been at lunch
inside the flat when the door to their apartment was almost thrown off
its hinges by the raiders. The third flash said that the old man had been
shot and wounded as he was dragged down four flights of stairs and the
next cable said that the son-in-law, a twenty-five-year-old engineer, had
been shot dead on the sidewalk while trying to pull the old man away
from his captors. The old man's wife had been hit several times with
the bUll of a gun and had been knocked out as she too joined the
struggle. The only one who could still stand at the end of the allack
was the daughter, by then a widow.
The old lawyer had been bundled into a car waiting at the door of
the apartment building, while armed men had taken position behind
two large plane trees on the opposite sidewalk. Two cars, one at each
end of the block, closed the street to all traffic. None of the three cars
had license plates. Uniformed members of the Federal Police, posted
two blocks away, had not been called or had stayed away from the street
of the raid.
As the story took shape, a free-lance photographer called the paper
and asked if I would join him in a spot-check in the Ezeiza woods in
case the story ended there. I said that I preferred not to go. I argued that
I was busy; I could not leave the paper at that time; I had a cocktail
party that night. As I put the telephone down, our own photographer
carne from the wire room wondering aloud if we should go to Ezeiza.
Curiosity took over. Guilt and curiosity really. We called the free–
lancer, who had a van, and he came to fetch us.
As the van nosed through the afternoon traffic to get to the
Avenida Riccieri which led to the airport, we talked about the attack
with what news we had. The old man had been a lawyer for the
guerrillas: everybody knew that. Some time later it would be learned
that he had kept detailed records of their lives and deaths. He had
stored the records in a safe deposit box which had been accidentally
searched by investigators following a robbery. One folder revealed the
eyewitness account by an imprisoned guerrilla of the deaths of some of
his comrades who had been pushed out of a helicopter by their captors
in revenge for the murder of several army officers by guerrillas.
A police prowl car with its siren at full scream overtook us but
none of the four uniformed men spent a glance our way. Our driver
I
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