Free 17 Stone Angels by Stuart Archer Cohen Page B

month, in that long, bad year of1976 when martial law came down and the army slapped Argentina senseless with a hard, flat hand. Then they offered him a different sort of work.
    Sub-Comisario Bianco called him into his office. “Miguel, we’re going to pinch one of the subversives tonight at his house. Why don’t you come and lend a hand?”
    The Communists were everywhere in those days. Not only with guns, but, equally dangerously, in the labor unions and the university. They liked to hide behind the democratic institutions, talking of exploitation and class war, but now the military had decided to tear away the Constitution and show them what war was all about.
    The target that night was a member of the autoworkers syndicate at the Ford factory. The factory manager, as a patriotic service, had identified him as a persistent troublemaker in labor matters and “probably a Communist.” This was explained to Fortunato in a few sentences by Sub-Comisario Bianco, at that time with jet-black hair and a crisp military manner. The operation was to go to the house at three in the morning and grab him in his bed. “You just follow along,” Bianco explained. “Nothing’s going to happen. He’ll go quietly. He’s got three children there.”
    The subversive lived in a small apartment behind his parents’ house, much like Fortunato’s. Fortunato rode over with Bianco and three other agents in a Ford Falcon. It was summer, but they were wearing suits. They stopped outside the door and lined up, two of the men on either side of the door with submachine guns, while the rest of them drew their pistols and stood back and to the side.
    Bianco stepped up to the door and pounded on it three times with all his strength. “Open up!” he screamed. “Police!” There was a sound of rustling inside, and a baby started crying. Bianco pounded again. “Open it! Open it!” He stepped back, summoning his energies, and Fortunato thought he heard a timid voice say, “I’m coming!”
    Too late. Bianco fired a round into the lock and then hurled himself against the panel. The door burst open right into the face of the wife, knocking her down and bringing a gout of blood from her nose. Bianco was already beside himself. “Whore! I said open it!” The other plainclothes men came flowing through after him, into the darkened bedroom with their guns drawn, shouting. They found two children cowering in the bed, along with the crying baby. The husband wasn’t there.
    â€œWhere is he?” Bianco screamed.
    The woman was crying. “I don’t know. He went to watch a football game with some friends!”
    Bianco grabbed her by her hair and pulled her to her feet. “Talk to me straight, whore, or you’re all going in.” She stuck to her story, cowering, despite the blows and the threats and the gathering intensity of Bianco’s fury. For the love of God he went to a football game! Finally Bianco lost his temper completely. “Bring me the boy!” A soldier brought out a little boy, perhaps six years old, and Bianco grabbed his arm, making him cry out. “Where is your father? Where?” He beat the child across the face with the flat of his hand and then gave him such a blow to the head that he went sprawling across the floor. Next he demanded the girl, a bit younger, and beat her as she cried out without comprehension. By now the woman was hysterical, but nonetheless seemed to know nothing about her husband’s whereabouts. “No?” Bianco demanded, beside himself. “No?” He grabbed the baby from the woman’s arms and held it upside down by its feet, swaying it back and forth slightly and delivering sharp slaps across its back. The baby, only a few weeks old, was screaming in its tiny hoarse voice, so far gone that it could no longer catch its breath. “Where is he?” he asked, slapping the baby