The Big Breach Read Online Free

outer lane of the autopista. The journey from the airport to downtown Buenos Aires was proving an uncomfortable baptism. As we passed a huge blue-and-white billboard bearing the slogan `LAS MALVINAS SON ARGENTINAS' the beetle-browed driver, who had been glaring at me in the rearview mirror for several kilometres, took a long draw on his cigarette and flicked it out of the window into the darkness. `De donde es, usted?' he asked, suspiciously.
     
    For a moment it occurred to me to lie. It was only a few years after the Falklands war and I was not sure how a British visitor would be received. But curious to see his reaction, I cautiously answered, `Soy Britannico.' He glanced in his mirror again, as if he hadn't heard. `Britannico ... Inglaterra,' I said, this time a bit louder.
     
    He fixed me with his glare again and I wondered if my answer might have been undiplomatic. `Senora Thatcher,' he replied, his dark eyes flashing under his eyebrow, `She is good woman. I wish she come here - make better.' He gesticulated with a sweeping motion of his hand, and broke into a gold-toothed smile.
     
    That was typical of the reaction of many Argentines during the coming year. The bitter memories of the Falklands war were fresh in their minds, but their antipathy was tempered by the long-standing cultural and commercial links with Britain.
     
    That evening, after finding a room in a modest hotel, I met up for dinner with Schuyler, an American student of the same age who had also won a Rotary prize. He had majored in Latin American studies at Stanford and was amusing and laid-back. The next day we rented a flat together in central Buenos Aires.
     
    The main objective of the Rotary prize was to get to know a different culture through travel and friendships, but we were also expected to follow a course of study. Schuyler and I enrolled in a postgraduate political science course, held in evening classes at the University of Buenos Aires. Our fellow students - senior military officers, left-wing journalists, aspiring politicians and a Peronista Catholic priest - were a microcosm of the powers in Argentine society. Democracy, under Raul Alfons¡n's Radical party, was still in fragile infancy after years of tyrannical rule by the discredited military junta. As representatives of the imperialist `Yanquis' and `Britannicos', the other students spared us no quarter in the spirited and occasionally fierce classroom debates. Schuyler was soon embroiled in political activity, attending rallies, demonstrations and student meetings. When Alfons¡n's government nearly fell to a military coup on Easter Sunday, 1987, we went together to the Casa Rosada to see the passionate Argentine crowds rallying to support democracy.
     
    But most days, I left Schuyler to his own activities. I wanted to start flying again and one of the Air Force officers in my class put me in touch with an instructor, Rodolfo Sieger, who operated out of San Fernando airfield, a couple of hours by `Colectivo' bus from central Buenos Aires. A German immigrant, Sieger fought in the Luftwaffe during the Second World War, flying Messerschmitt Me109s in the Battle of Britain. After the war, his own family wiped out in the Dresden fireball, he emigrated to Argentina, becoming a civilian pilot, and retired as a senior pilot in Aerolineas Argentinas. Needing to supplement his pension, he bought a 1930s vintage Luscombe Silvaire, a sort of aerial Citroen 2CV, and set up as a flying instructor. It was not the safest machine in which to take the Argentine pilot's licence exam, but it was cheap to hire and it was appealing to learn from a man who may have been one of Flight Lieutenant Witchall's aerial adversaries.
     
    Over the next few weeks, preparing for my practical tests and theory exams, I learned of another aspect of Rodolfo's business. At the time there were very heavy duties on consumer electronics in Argentina, whereas in Paraguay, only a few hundred kilometres away, there were none.