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“Indeed?” Perón interrupted. “And where is that going to be?”
Martín ignored the question.
“Parked outside, next to the building,” Martín went on, “is a staff car in which are two officers, both senior to you. There is also a truck with a platoon of riflemen of the Patricios Infantry Regiment in it. One option is that I send for the officers and place you in their custody. They would then take you out of the building, visibly under arrest, and transport you to your place of confinement.
“The second option is that you give General Ramos and myself your parole. If you do that, you, General Ramos, and Capitán Montenegro can walk out the front door of this building and get into General Ramos’s staff car, giving the impression, I would suggest, that you are all going to lunch.”
“You would not, under your second option, be joining us for lunch?”
“Colonel, my orders from the president are to see you safely to your place of confinement.”
“My mysterious place of confinement, you mean?”
“For Christ’s sake, Juan Domingo,” Ramos flared. “Martín is going far out of his way to spare you the humiliation of being taken from here under arrest. If I have to tell you this—that would be all over the front pages of La Prensa and La Nacíon!”
“Forgive me, General Martín,” Perón said sarcastically.
Martín ignored him again.
“And to do that,” Martín went on, “under Option Two, my car, the staff car containing the two officers senior to you, and the truck with the mountain troops will follow, at a discreet distance, General Ramos’s staff car to our destination. It is my intention to put Montenegro in my car, and I will ride with General Ramos and you.”
“Very well,” Perón said, his tone suggesting he was granting, rather than receiving, a favor.
“As I said, Colonel,” Martín said calmly, “I will require your parole, under the Code of Honor of the officer corps of the Ejército Argentino.”
“Very well,” Perón said. “You have it.”
—
The cars and trucks trying to follow General Ramos’s staff car in the heavy traffic lost it before they reached the Colón Opera House, which was about halfway down Avenida 9 Julio.
“Pull over and wait until they catch up with us,” Martín ordered.
That maneuver was repeated when the trailing vehicles again lost Ramos’s car near the end of Avenida 9 Julio, by the French embassy.
“Turn left on Libertador,” Martín ordered this time. “And stop there to wait for them.”
“I gather my mysterious place of confinement is not to be the Circulo Militar,” el Coronel Perón said.
The central officers’ club of the Ejército Argentino, which overlooked the Plaza San Martín, was the former mansion of the Paz family, which owned La Prensa newspaper. It was one of the most beautiful buildings in Argentina.
If they had been going there, they had just missed the turn.
“I’m afraid not, el Coronel,” Martín said.
When the trailing vehicles finally caught up, Ramos’s staff car led the convoy all the way down Avenida Libertador, past the polo fields and racetrack, and out of the City of Buenos Aires proper, into the Province of Buenos Aires.
“Now I’m really curious where you’re taking me,” Perón said.
No one replied.
They eventually arrived in Tigre, often described as Venice without the buildings. It was a large area of small islands in the Parana River Delta. The center had been developed around the turn of the century, and ornate Victorian mansions—some of them housing the English, French, Italian, and Swiss rowing clubs—lined branches of the Parana River.
There was also a commercial area, where boats plying the Parana brought fruits, vegetables, and firewood from upriver.
The Ramos convoy headed for the wharfs of the fruit market and disappeared into one of the warehouses.
“Now I demand to know where I’m being taken!” Perón announced.
