Killing Che – Chuck Pfarrer (1)

“As do you. That is why I propose a trade.” Diminov exhaled though his nose. “Arquero is your stooge, is he not? Pay him money and have Fräulein Vünke released.” “What’s in it for me?” “Che Guevara, as you say, on a platter.” “What makes you think we don’t already know where he is?”

“Because he’s alive. You know some of the places he has been. And you suspect some of the places he may go in the future. But you have not located him. If you had, it would be a simple thing to drop napalm on him.” “You want this woman released, I get more than a circle drawn on a map.” “What else do you need, Mr. Hoyle?”

“I want his radio frequencies and his communication plan with Havana.” Diminov put down the fruit. “How do you expect me—” “I’m not done. We know there’s going to be a rendezvous. Two more men are being sent to the guerrillas. I get this fräulein of yours released, and she guides them in direct to the main camp.”

Hoyle stood. Sergev kept the pistol aimed. “That’s preposterous.” “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.” “She is released—alive—and we will continue our discussion.” Diminov wiped his hands on the tablecloth. “Since it is I who have found you, if you wish contact, place an ad in the classified section of La Paz Tiempo. Perhaps asking Saint Jude to help you find lost love.” The religious allusion made Diminov smile. “I will contact you here at this hotel.

You seem to like this place.” Diminov nodded, and Sergev and the man with the truncheon walked out. “You burn me, and I’ll make sure she disappears.” “Don’t do anything rash, Mr. Hoyle,” Diminov said. “We don’t have to be enemies on this one.” The fat man pulled the door closed behind him. OceanofPDF.com LIGHT SLANTED THROUGH the windows in Colonel Arquero’s grand office. The clock ticked slowly, and Lieutenant Castañeda stood by the door, as immobile and unthinking as a piece of furniture. Hoyle and Smith watched the colonel frown over the folder placed before him.

He examined each of the three photographic prints, holding them close to his shiny pince- nez spectacles, then checking each photograph against a typed transcript of the microdot. This he did with deliberate and self-conscious care, and the clock ticked through diligence to insolence and finally to absurdity. It was a blessing when Arquero’s small hands pushed the photos and papers back into the folder and he squinted up from the blotter. “This is obviously a ruse,” he said. “A provocation.

What follows is a novel. Some of its characters are real, and some are not. As a courtesy to the living, a few names have been altered; the names of others I have not changed, out of respect for their heroism. I have drawn liberally from Che Guevara’s own campaign diary, as well as the notes, letters, and accounts of the comrades who lived, fought, and perished along with him and his dream.

They alone know what really happened. The rest of us are left to marvel. OceanofPDF.com OceanofPDF.com OceanofPDF.com 1 THE PLACE WAS not perfect. This was not where he’d wanted to fight, not on this road, and not on this hillside, which was mostly barren and lit fully by the afternoon sun. Che Guevara had not wished to ambush the truck in the first place, but the soldiers in it had seen the forward element as they were drawing water from the stream next to the road, and the engagement was sharp and fast.

Guevara had cursed when the lead column blundered close to the road, and he was furious when he heard the pop pop pop of rifles firing ahead of him. Guevara trotted past the burning truck, and the reek of flaming tires wafted over him, sharp and acrid. Some of the smoke was white, but most of it was black and rising in a dense, greasy pillar above the mountain road and into a vividly cloudless sky. By the time Guevara reached the place where the stream cut under the road, he guessed that perhaps a hundred bullets had been fired into the cab alone—a quarter blasted through the windshield—and as the driver lost control, the truck had lurched off the turn, smashing over a low guardrail but somehow remaining upright.

Guevara had splashed out of the culvert in time to see the bodies of the driver and the passenger dragged from the cab. Their heads lolled, and the heels of their boots made white marks across the road as the corpses were hidden next to the stream.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 3aae67d58ca52789
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,923,653 bytes (2.788 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 580
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 815.8 minutes
• Total Words: 163,160
• Total Characters: 926,786
• Average Words per Page: 281.31
• Average Characters per Page: 1597.91

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