Patriots Play

By Virginia Sampson

In this exciting and fast-moving novel, PATRIOTS PLAY, four Uruguayan college students become involved in the brutal operations of the Tupamaro guerrilla movement that is trying to overthrow Uruguays democratic government in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Frico, the son of a wealthy family, is inspired to devote his life to the Tupamaro cause by a communist high school teacher. Trying to keep his love, his girl friend, Mariana, takes part with him in bank robberies and a kidnapping. Fricos close cousin, Jorge, whose family owns vast ranches, and his fiancee, Lea, also join the Tupamaros because of Frico. An American high school girl living at the time in Montevideo plays a crucial part in the story. These young people meet death, violence and betrayal and have their lives changed forever by the political upheaval in Uruguay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 9, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462840465

Virginia Sampson

As an American diplomat’s wife, Virginia Sampson lived in Chile, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, and Mexico. She has published short stories and travel articles and taught creative writing. She now lives in Chapel Hill, N.C. with her husband where she leads a writers’ workshop.

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Copyright © 2000 by Virginia Sampson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

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or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

PROLOGUE

1

1969

2

A NEW APPROACH TO GUERRILLA WARFARE IN URUGUAY

3

4

URUGUAY ASSIGNS HIGH PRIORITY TO BATTLE GUERRILLAS

5

6

REBELS CONCENTRATE STRUGGLE IN NATION’S CAPITOL

7

8

9

10

GUERRILLA LEADERS HOLD KEY POSITIONS

11

American Diplomat Missing

12

13

MASS MOVEMENT HOPED FOR BY REBELS

14

15

POLITICAL PRISONERS TORTURED

16

17

1970

ARMY THREATENS TO TAKE OVER DEMOCRATIC URUGUAY

18

19

20

1973

21

Dictatorship Cripples Uruguay

The author wishes to thank the following people for their help and encouragement in writing this book: Richard Sampson, Kristina Aaronson, P.B. Parris, Dershie McDevitt, Elizabeth Squire, Flo Wallen, Geraldine Powell and Robert Nelson.

Although the historical and geographical background in this story is authentic, all its characters and events are fictitious.

PROLOGUE

From 1840, when Uruguay was founded as a buffer state between warring Argentina and Brazil, to 1903, when reformist José Batlle y Ordonez became president, assassinations, civil wars and armed revolts were the way of its government. Batlle, a political genius who dominated Uruguay until 1929, changed all that.

He established one of the world’s first welfare states before World War 1. By the time of his death, a democratic Uruguay had free medical care, unemployment and accident insurance, state pensions, an eight hour day and a forty-four hour work week. The government had established good public education, government operated public utilities, a fishing fleet, radio stations, chemical plants and an airline. Uruguay by 1950 was enjoying the highest standard of living in South America.

Unfortunately Batlle’s innovations were for the urban worker and middle class, not for the basis of Uruguay’s economy, its agriculture. The great ranches were badly run. After 1953, Uruguay lost its wool and beef markets. Little industry developed. Soon the generous welfare state could not pay its way.

The terrorist Tupamaros grew out of agricultural labor unrest. In the Sixties they moved to Montevideo and became an urban guerrilla force joined by middle class students, professionals and dissatisfied bureaucrats.

1

1969

A SMALL ELITE REBEL BAND HARASSES URUGUAYAN REGIME

Montevideo, Uruguay, September 15—Little doubt remains in the minds of experts that Uruguay, with a population of 2.5 million, has become the home of a well-disciplined and potentially effective guerrilla movement of about 1,000 men and women that includes members of the nation’s elite. They call themselves the Tupamaros and appear to have extensive ties in other Latin American countries, including Cuba. Their scores of bank robberies have funded the purchase of weapons.

Mariana ran into the Banco de República. The Kalashnikov AK-47 swung from its shoulder strap, bumping her chest. She kept close to Frico. The others were ahead. Through her black stocking mask, the high-ceilinged bank lobby was shadowy confusion. Screams, sobbing.

Frico and the Chief running to the vaults. Lea whirling, gun raised, stepping cat-like backward. Jorge shouting.

Some remote part of Mariana took decisive strides, pointed the unwieldy gun, herded the lines of silhouettes at the tellers’ windows against a wall. Then she was out on stage with no idea of her lines, only vaguely remembering the play. The leaden gun in her arms, balanced on her thin hip, jabbed a throbbing pain in her side. Her lungs ached. She gagged on her moist breath trapped in her mask. Her heart pounded in her ears. One finger kept tracing the trigger’s smooth little metal circle, wavering in and out.

A shriek. A woman fainted, sliding down the wall, sitting half propped up, her skirt above her fat knees. Satin garters, trimmed with lace rosettes, cut deep into puffy gray flesh. Someone bent to help. Mariana’s quick gun nosed him back.

For a few long moments the dark lobby was silent. Jorge’s tall jeaned legs loped back and forth. He began whistling the tango Media Luz. Then stopped.

No you don’t, his cry rang, echoing over the spatter of gunfire and breaking glass. Screams crescendoed, then died down in breathless horror as the bank guard, reaching for an alarm, slumped to the floor.

Arms that didn’t seem to be hers raised Mariana’s heavy gun. Her probing finger touched the trigger. Warning bullets sprayed across a high wall, tearing up the sepia mural of General Artigas on horseback, leading his soldiers against the Spaniards. Her finger straightened. With a jerk, the gun hung loose on its strap over her shoulder.

Shadows of Frico and the Chief were flying out the bank doors, their arms hugging canvas bags. Lea ran past her. Jorge came back and grabbed her hand and yanked her along. Unaware of her legs and feet, Mariana fled with the others, out into the chilly spring sunshine, the Kalashnikov flopping.

Vaguely she saw the afternoon traffic whiz by and Frico racing to the pick-up across the street. Someone boosted her into the garbage truck that was waiting for them. She scrambled back on the slippery metal floor with Lea and Jorge, out of the way of the packer as it came clanging down. The truck roared up, heavy gears shifting. It turned, tipping Mariana to the side in the dark choking stench. She heard Jorge’s voice, Lea giggling, the Chief telling them to shut up, the truck pausing. Sirens screamed nearby. The putrid stink stung her eyes through her mask, hurt her nostrils. The taste of livid rot was in her mouth. There was no air. She pulled off her mask, letting her long hair loose. Now it was worse, like putting her face down into festering warm garbage. She gagged, took shallow breaths.

In the half dark of the noisy rocking truck, she could see Jorge with his arm around Lea and his other arm still holding the assault rifle. His mask off, his sweaty hair stood up. His squirrel-cheeked white face was smudged on the forehead like a frown. Lea’s short curls were in her eyes, her mouth near Jorge’s ear. The Chief squatted over the money bags, holding on to the side, his Indian face grim. Mariana’s chin trembled, her teeth chattered. One leg jerked and jumped. She drew her legs under her, hugging herself, her chin on her chest. The truck lurched. The side of her head bumped a metal strut. She only dimly felt the hot throbbing of her ear.

The truck slowed. The garbage packer went up a few feet. The Chief, fat and wheezing, climbed roughly over Mariana, his heavy hand hurting her shoulder. He bent under, jumped down. Jorge pushed the money bags out. The truck thundered into gear and raced on. The packer slammed back down.

All Mariana’s pain and fright drew into a pulsing headache. She tried to breathe as little as possible, bracing her feet against the slimy metal in the dark, swaying with the rocking truck. The ride lasted forever.

It was a few seconds before she realized the truck’s jouncing had stopped. The packer was up. Jorge slipped the rifle strap off her shoulder, stacking her gun with his and Lea’s. She remembered they were to leave the guns in the truck. Frico had planned that. She climbed down from the truck after Jorge and Lea. The truck turned around and rumbled away.

It was quiet in the soft evening light and fresh air. They were somewhere on the edge of Montevideo on a deserted lane near a city dump, surrounded by winter-browned fields, derelict shacks and distant factories.

Taking quick breaths, Mariana pulled her hair back with both hands behind her ears. Unaware her mouth still trembled, she tried for bravado. ‘You whistling that tango. Whistling in the middle of everything. I thought I’d die."

Lea leaned against Jorge, one arm around him. Did I do all right? She looked up at him, small mouth grinning, sharp little nose tilted with confidence.

Jorge took her arm away. Off you go. He was nervously searching the lane. Get a bus over there and go to Buceo and double back.

‘You look so funny." Lea reached up to smooth his hair.

He stepped away. Get going. And Mari, you know the plan. He ran then, cutting across a field through a tangle of weeds.

Mariana went ahead of Lea. Can you believe we did that? Were you scared?

Terrified. I think I got my period right in the middle of it. Don’t you love my Jorge? He’s so...

But Mariana was far ahead now, treading her boots down hard with her heels in a long stride. A bus was coming. She ran for it, not waiting for Lea.

Mariana rode through the suburbs of Montevideo, holding on with both hands to the pole by the first seat. She didn’t notice the other passengers. The stench of the garbage truck was in her nose, her mouth, her mind. When the bus slammed to a stop, she tasted acid vomit in her mouth and rushed off the bus, not caring where she was.

Unaware of the open shops, the people passing her on the wide sidewalk, the curbside trees, bending in the spring wind, Mariana hurried along in her smelly jeans and boots. She was still trembling inside, still feeling the weight of the assault rifle in her arms. Passing a park with benches by its neglected flower beds, she longed to sit there until she felt better, but made herself keep walking.

When she had fired at the mural of Artigas, the trigger was so easy. She had barely touched it. With one tiny move of her finger, she could have killed the whole row of dim figures along that wall, mowed them down, toppling them on each other like a fan of cards across the gray marble floor. She could see them sprawled like the woman who had fainted, sliding down against the wall.

From a phone booth outside a farmacia, Mariana called her mother’s shop. It was something she never did. She was so overwhelmed with relief at hearing her mother’s familiar modulated voice connecting her to all that was normal, she couldn’t say anything for a moment. The honking cars, rumbling buses, the real-life smells of diesel and meat roasting and flowers in an open stall by the phone booth suddenly assailed her. It took all her effort not to cry.

Concentrating on sounding casual, she began fabricating a lie to her mother, as she so often did. I won’t be able to go and see Nina at the hospital, she said. "We’ve got a visiting lecturer on campus. Dr. Paula Bronsky. She’s giving this special seminar, and it’s going on all afternoon. It’s very good. No, I’m fine. I just ran to the phone. It’s break time. But I’ll be home for dinner. Of course, mama. There’s a whole group of us. I’ll get a ride home. Don’t worry."

Inserting another coin, Mariana phoned a cousin. Cristina? It’s me, Mari. Are you and Guillermo having people or anything? Are you sure? Could I stop by? The stench of her clothes in the phone booth

was making her sick again. Thanks. I’ll be over. She hung up quickly.

In the pick-up truck, Frico, following orders to mislead the police, swerved out into the traffic, racing off up Colonia past the Plaza and through the gate of the Old City. Gloves off, he wiped one sweaty hand at a time on his jacket and pulled off his mask, jamming it in his pocket as he wove in and out of cars, buses and trucks, somehow

hitting green lights all the way along the wide avenue that led to Parque José Batlle. Suddenly sirens came from all directions. His wiry body alert, he hunched forward, at one with the rattling little truck, riding it like a horse, his even-featured face tense and white, his dark eyes squinting.

Police cars raced down the other side of the flower-filled park in the middle of the avenue, their on-off bleat stopping traffic. Frico circled the Estadio and swerved into the side street Carapé and back south in and out on the streets that crossed Simon Bolivar.

This was a lousy car to make a getaway in, awkward to steer, slow to shift, hard to keep from stalling. If the Chief was testing him, Frico thought scornfully, he’d show that old Cuban he could jump any hurdle he set up for him. And more. No, by God, he was leading the police cars, keeping them off the track. He felt exhilarated now and sure. After this, the Tupamaros would have to give him something big.

He handled the truck skillfully through the back streets of Pocitos, half shaded by new-leafed stubby plane trees. Few cars passed the quiet houses and apartment buildings here. He was almost home free.

Now to get across Bulevar Artigas. But something was happening ahead. A road block? Oh, Jesus. Sirens screeched close by. Ahead was Parque Rodo with its deserted amusement rides, still carousel and closed kiosks. On impulse, he shifted, turned into a park entrance, jounced over a curb, around a gate and out the back of a parking lot, then down Luis Piera.

He had done it.

He found the garage open. No one was around. He coasted gently in, parked at the back, closed the doors and took an elevator to the top floor of the apartment building. Then he remembered finger prints. Taking the elevator to the garage, he ran to the pick-up, unzipping his tan jacket as he went. He used it to wipe the steering wheel and door handles, slammed the truck door and stepped back in the elevator. His heart was pounding. He rode to the third floor, took a stairway down to the apartment entrance and casually walked out of the building.

Frico looked like any ordinary university student in jeans and jacket, short and thin, with his Spanish ancestors’ white skin and dark hair. When three police cars passed him without stopping, he had a wild urge to clown with his crazy crippled walk or do ballet leaps along the wide sidewalk. He’d completely baffled the stupid police!

It wasn’t until Frico sat drinking a cortado in a deserted corner bar on Ibiray that the fact that Jorge had shot a bank guard came home to him. Racing out of the bank, he had kicked the guard’s cap, seeing the staring amber eyes, the curly grey hair, the widening puddle of blood under the old man. Now he took long breaths, holding both hands around the warm little glass of frothy espresso coffee and milk to stop their trembling. Jorge, his closet cousin, a brother to him, had killed a man.

In a kind of elated panic, he set his glass down and began to peel the paper from sugar cubes and munch them. Now the Tupamaros would get headlines that were serious. This shooting and more to come would scare some action. It was the hype they needed. Jorge was in big trouble, but he couldn’t help him. Their cause came first. Santana said family and friends were luxuries a terrorist didn’t want. Right. If he were going to get to the top in the Tupamaros, and he was certain he would, it meant going it alone.

Until now, his cell had played Robin Hood pranks to embarrass the government jefes and raise funds for arms. They had made sure the waiters got their tips back from the haul they took for the Tupamaros from the Casino in Punta del Este. It had been hilarious fun to rescue a quarantined circus dog from the vet’s so the German woman, Millie, who was a friend of their cause, could go on with her trained dog act. Broadcasting the fraud of the government’s latest tax scam with a catchy song they managed to get played on every local radio station was a laugh.

Killing a bank guard was different.

Frico thought of the summers on Jorge’s father’s estancia when, as

kids, they had played war with toy guns down by the river, banging away at each other, whooping and yelling as they galloped their ponies on the pampas, pretending to be courageous patriots fighting the Spanish.

The fight they were in now was no game.

Mariana’s cousin’s apartment was in a Victorian mansion in Pocitos. When she got there, streetlights were just coming on in the blue dusk of evening.

Cristina, wearing a pleated skirt and ruffled blouse, began to give Mariana the usual kiss on each cheek but pulled away. My god, what have you been into? You absolutely reek.

Mariana’s nervous giggle was half a sob. This cousin was her same age, but she seemed older to Mariana because she was married. I know. It’s awful. I can’t... I never thought. Could I have a bath and borrow some jeans? Mariana’s mouth was trembling, her face white in the harsh light of the hall.

Cristina gently shoved her toward the bathroom. "Of course. Guillermo isn’t home yet. I’ll light the cahfont. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know what you’ve been doing. She lit the water heater and left Mariana in the bathroom, calling back, Use my bath oil, my scent."

Mariana closed the door. She couldn’t make her hands work to unbutton her shirt. Trembling, she sat on the edge of the bathtub, resting her head against the sink.

My jeans will be big on you, Cristina called from down the hall. I’ll get you a shirt and panties. My bras won’t fit you, skinny.

A few minutes later, Cristina knocked on the bathroom door. Here’s everything but a bra. Are you all right? Mari?

Mariana said over the gush of bath water, ‘You know I never wear a bra. She opened the bathroom door. Could you? She stood trying to unbutton her shirt, her hair in her eyes. It’s crazy, but I can’t undo this."

Cristina gently removed her shirt and helped her off with her jeans. She turned her back and opened a cupboard. I’ve got some new shampoo. Very special. I got it in Buenos Aires. It’s really wonderful. You’ve got to try it. She put the pink plastic bottle by the tub. Anything you need, just call. She left the bathroom door ajar as she went out.

An hour later, Mariana had finished drying her long hair and started to leave. Someday I’ll be able to explain. She kissed Cristina on both cheeks. You’ve been an angel. You won’t say anything?

Cristina hugged her. I don’t want to know. Just be careful.

Throw away my clothes, will you? Mariana called back as she hurried down the short flight of stairs and out the high double doors.

2

A NEW APPROACH TO