The Big Breach Read Online Free Page A

There were therefore incentives to smuggle in such goods, though the Argentine customs service naturally did their best to combat this trade. Once a week, Rodolfo flew over the River Plate to a grass airstrip in Paraguay and loaded up the Luscombe with video recorders and televisions. The underpowered aircraft barely staggered into the air and Rodolfo flew back in the dark of night, skimming the waves to avoid detection by Argentine naval radar.
     
    One day we flew out to Mendoza, in the foothills of the Andes. Rodolfo had tracked down a much-needed and rare spare part for the old aeroplane just over the border in Chile and asked me to collect it. The tiny Luscombe was not powerful enough to fly over the Andes, so this stage of the journey would have to be done by bus.
     
    On arrival at the isolated border crossing, nestling in the shadow of Aconcagua, it dawned on me that I had a problem. My New Zealand passport was best for travelling in and out of Argentina as, unlike the British passport, it required no visa. In Chile, however, the British passport was more convenient because, unlike New Zealanders, Brits needed no visa. Rushing to pack for the trip, I had grabbed just my British passport.
     
    The two surly Argentine border police who boarded the bus at the checkpoint might not overlook it, however. Realising that my New Zealand passport with its Argentine entry stamps was in my bedside locker in Buenos Aires, there was no option but to bluff my way over the border. I claimed that my New Zealand passport had been stolen and I was going to Santiago, the only New Zealand embassy in the southern cone, to get a replacement. The elder of the two guards believed my story, but the younger got suspicious and ordered me off the bus to search me. He soon found my unstamped British passport in my rucksack and arrested me on suspicion of having entered the country illegally.
     
    They took me back to Mendoza police station, strip-searched me and dumped me in a dirty cell furnished with a damp mattress and a bucket. After a couple of boring hours they escorted me to an office where two scowling officers sat behind a steel desk. To my bafflement, they were suspicious that I was a spy and interrogated me. Details of my activities, my address, my friends were earnestly noted in little black books. After an hour, their questions seemed absurd. `What is the name of your dog?' one asked.
     
    `Jesse,' I replied, barely containing my exasperation.
     
    They held me overnight in the dirty cell and in the morning a colonel from the Argentine air force came out from Buenos Aires to interrogate me again. `What is the name of your dog?' he asked menacingly.
     
    `I told the other bloke that last night,' I replied innocently, wondering why our lakeland terrier puppy was such a threat to Argentine Skyhawks. It later dawned on me that he was testing my cover. If I really was an innocent exchange student, it would be easy to remember inconsequential details like my dog's name. But if I was a spy under cover, spontaneously and correctly answering trivial questions from one day to the next would be harder. The lesson was useful when I did become a spy.
     
    They released me later that day, though not without first making me play an impromptu game of rugby. They reasoned that any genuine New Zealander would be an excellent wing-forward, and my protests to the contrary fell on deaf ears. Mendoza is one of the main rugby-playing provinces of Argentina and some of their players were very good. They made me suffer and on returning to Buenos Aires the following day, my right eye was badly blackened. `So you met some of my Gestapo friends,' Rodolfo laughed. I wasn't sure whether he was joking.
     
    A few weeks later, a Swiss diplomat friend invited me to a barbecue at the Swiss embassy. Britain and Argentina still had not reestablished diplomatic links after the Falklands war, so British interests were looked after by a few British diplomats working inside