opened, the car left the embassy grounds, and the demonstrators began to do their thing.
No real damage was done, but the thumping on the roof of the BMW was unnerving, and so were the hateful faces of some of the demonstrators. Only some. From what Masterson could see, most of the demonstrators just seemed to be having a good time.
In a minute or so, they were through the demonstrators and, finding a hole in the fast-moving traffic, headed for Avenida Libertador.
Alex Darby gestured in the general direction of the Residence—the ambassador’s home, a huge stone mansion—which faced on Avenida Libertador about five hundred yards from the embassy.
Masterson looked and saw a pack of demonstrators running from the embassy to the residence.
“No wonder he’s taking his time getting back on the Busquebus,” Darby said. “If he’d been at the embassy, he’d have had to run the gauntlet twice, once to get out of the embassy, and again to get in the residence.”
A hundred yards past the residence, there was no sign whatever of the howling mob at the embassy. There was a large park on their right, with joggers and people walking dogs, and rows of elegant apartment buildings on their left until they came to the railroad bridge. On the far side of the bridge they had the Army’s polo fields to their left, and the racetrack, the Hipódromo, on their right. There was nothing going on at the polo fields, but the horse fanciers were already lining up for the evening’s races.
Then there were more rows of tall apartment buildings on both sides of the street.
They passed under an elevated highway, which meant they were passing from the City of Buenos Aires into the Province of Buenos Aires. The City of Buenos Aires, Masterson often thought, was like the District of Columbia, and the province a state, like Maryland or Virginia.
“It looks like traffic’s not so bad,” Alex said.
Masterson leaned forward to look out the windshield.
They were passing a Carrefour, a French-owned supermarket chain. Masterson, who had served a tour as a junior consular officer in the Paris embassy, and thought he had learned something of the French, refused to shop there.
“You’re right,” Masterson said, just as the driver laid heavily on the horn.
There came a violent push to the side of the BMW, immediately followed by the sound of tearing and crushing metal. The impact threw Darby and Masterson violently against their seat belts.
There came another crash, this one from the rear, and again they felt the painful pressure of the restraints.
The driver swore in rapid-fire Spanish.
“Jesus Christ!” Masterson exploded, as he tried to sit straight in his seat.
“You all right, Jack?” Darby asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Masterson said. “Jesus Christ! Again! These goddamn crazy Argentine drivers!”
“Take it easy,” Darby said, quickly scanning the situation outside their windows with the practiced eye of a spook.
Masterson tried to open the door. It wouldn’t budge.
“We’ll have to get out your side, Alex,” he said.
“That’s not going to be easy,” Darby said, gesturing toward the flow of traffic on the street.
The driver got out of the car, stepped into the flow of traffic, and held up his hand like a policeman. Masterson thought idly that the driver had probably started his career as a traffic cop.
A policeman ran up. The driver snapped something at him, and the policeman took over the job of directing traffic. The driver came back to the car, and Darby and Masterson got out.
Masterson saw the pickup that had first struck them was backing away from them. It was a four-door Ford F-250 pickup with a massive set of stainless steel tubes mounted in front of the radiator. He thought first that the tubes—which were common on pickup trucks to push other vehicles out of the mud on country roads— were probably going to have a minor scratch or two and the BMW was probably going to need a new door and a new rear body panel.
Then he saw the car, a Volkswagen Golf, that had hit them from the rear. The right side of the windshield was shattered. He went quickly to the passenger door and pulled it open. A young man, well-dressed, was sitting there, looking dazed, holding his fingers to his bloody forehead.
Masterson had an unkind thought: If you didn’t think seat belts were for sissies, you macho sonofabitch, your head wouldn’t have tried to go through the windshield.
He waved his fingers before the man’s eyes. The man looked at him with mingled curiosity