Power and Empire

The newly formed Buenos Aires city police looked to be playing second fiddle to the beret-wearing Grupo Alacrán, the elite Scorpion Group of the Gendarmería Nacional Argentina. Dour-looking men with H&K MP5 submachine guns and Steyr AUG assault rifles deployed from two four-door Volkswagen Amarok pickups and a white Mercedes-Benz communications van on either side of the restaurant door.

Right-wing death squads during Argentina’s “Dirty War” of the 1970s and 1980s left the population suspicious of the military — or anything that resembled it. The Army was not allowed to take part in civilian affairs, but the government got around this by describing the GNA as a “civilian security force of a military nature.” The Scorpion Group looked about as military as they came, but then they had to be. While other squads within the Gendarmería provided Argentina with border security, Grupo Alacrán was tasked with the mission of combating terrorism and often assisted with the protection of Argentine and visiting dignitaries.

These new arrivals set up the wooden barricades quickly, forcing pedestrians to cross Avenida Santa Fe in order to go east or west rather than walk in front of the restaurant. Ryan and Midas quickly found themselves outside the perimeter, half a block from the restaurant.

The presence of men with machine guns upped the feel of the operational tempo, putting Ryan and Midas on their toes. Buenos Aires had seen more than its share of domestic terror, with a recent bombing in front of a Gendarmería building. Members of the Scorpion Group eyed people in the passing crowd as if they were food, their mean-mug looks sending people across the street as surely as the wooden barricades. A dog handler with a visage as fierce as that of his Belgian Malinois stood at parade rest to the right of the restaurant doors.

None of these guys were on a mobile phone.

In an effort to remain inconspicuous, Ryan and Midas had looked through the window of every shop for three blocks on either side of the restaurant up and down Avenida Santa Fe, some of them twice. Midas was able to work his way up to a vacant seventh-floor balcony above a restaurant called La Madeleine at the end of the block. Ryan claimed a vacant window seat at the McDonald’s almost directly across the street from the dinner meeting venue. He was pretending to surf on his cell when Adara called. He relayed her message to Midas over the radio a moment later.

“Chen’s moving.”

“About time,” Midas said. “I stopped to gawk at that shoe store down there so many times I was about to have to break down and buy me a new pair of Pumas whether I need them or not. They coming this way?”

“She didn’t know yet,” Jack said. “Don’t you get shot up there, brother. These Gendarmería guys look a little jumpy if you ask me.”

“Yes, Mom,” Midas said.

Across Santa Fe, a caravan of dark sedans, each much larger than the bulk of the vehicles in Buenos Aires, began to arrive in front of Parrilla Aires Criollos. Men in dark suits dismounted from the front to hold the doors for more important men in more expensive suits as they exited the rear seats. Uniformed Buenos Aires city police officers moved wooden barricades while Grupo Alacrán operators stood by and glared over their SMGs.

Little of this would be for the agricultural delegations. The foreign minister of China was definitely on his way.

Personal security was minimal for secretaries and ministers of agriculture, but it wasn’t nonexistent. Express kidnappings — impromptu abductions of people who looked like they had money — were all too common in South America. To make matters worse, the respective countries of each of these delegations had advertised their attendance well in advance. Some governments, like Japan, sent a security man; other officials, like the Swiss minister of agriculture, were wealthy enough to hire someone on their own to watch their back.

Jack made a mental note of each delegation as it arrived. So far, he’d seen representatives from six countries: Argentina, India, Japan, Switzerland, Thailand, and the Netherlands. Each minister had at least one security man, and between three and five assistants. The Gendarmería had closed the restaurant to regular customers, but it was a relatively small space, and the private function would come close to filling at least half the seats.

Ryan looked at his watch — six twenty-three. Another hour and it would be dark. It was still far too early for most Argentines to eat dinner, but many of the visiting ministers would be more in the mood for breakfast. Seven p.m. in Buenos Aires was midnight in Amsterdam and six a.m. in Beijing — so concessions for the time differences were made in the spirit of good diplomacy. Ryan’s North American stomach was on D.C. time. Six-thirty was just about right for dinner. He loved a good steak, but eating one every night after nine o’clock seemed like a recipe for bad dreams and blood with the consistency of 30 weight motor oil.