A Golden Legend

Chapter 34

“The named Ovidio”  began Escobar “ is in fact Rodrigo Oyarzun Quispe, born in the Department of Piura, former student of the University of San Marcos in Lima. After leaving the University, he returned to his region and there joined the core of the Sendero Luminoso, that is the Shining Path, in which he was the head of a task force. They committed numerous murders of peasants and military until his cell was ambushed and massacred in Cajamarca. He was one of the two survivors and from there on his trail is lost only to reappear farther north linked to groups of drug traffickers. Summing up, a dangerous man.

“Oh God! The risks to which I have exposed  my people to”  said dismayed McPherson.

“Professor, don´t blame yourself. This whole story has been buried for years and now they are not even looking for him”  said Mayorga.

“Referring Huacman” continued Escobar – “if my memory does not fail he actually was a farmer, also born in Ayacucho. His family was massacred along with much of the rest of his village by The Shining Path, after which he joined the peasant rounds in the Piura, who fought terrorists in areas remote and therefore devoid of action by the State. This man has therefore been in the same area, but on the opposite side to Ovidio” said looking significantly to the others. Finally he extracted Rangel´s file “ with respect to this man we don't have information”  after which handed over the file to Jaramillo, who had remained silent until then. He examined the photo carefully.

“He is actually Tomas Rangel Hernandez “ said with a soft but clearly not Peruvian accent “ aka Tomás Cienfuegos or the crazy Tomás. A Venezuelan terrorist born in Maracaibo, trained in Cuba and with subsequent performance in several African countries. He was young when the Berlin Wall fell, and since then he has been connected with insurgent groups in general related to drug trafficking, including the FARC in Colombia. In short”  he concluded “ he's now a mercenary."

Jaramillo´s participation in the talk with such a degree of information increased McPherson curiosity about who he really was and what was the reason for his presence at the meeting

“And this man has been my right hand as far as security and logistics” sighed McPherson “ and has been virtually aware of all our decisions. Moreover, he has taken several of them.”

“I repeat you must not blame yourself. You could not guess who the people surrounding you really were” added Mayorga.

“These are all just pawns, minor pieces or a larger game” added Gutierrez “  We still don't know the most important issue, who has recruited them? for all of them are hired triggers, so who moves their threads and what is his purpose? By what you tell us”“ he added addressing  McPherson “ Rangel joined his expedition in Mexico.

“So it was”  replied the American.

“This means that there was the intention  to infiltrate the expedition right from the beginning, that this is not something due to chance factors or opportunity. Tell me  Professor, who in Mexico were aware of the organization of the research? Was it something that had much advertising?”

“No, no, quite the opposite. We tried to organize the expedition in a quiet way, I invited personally each of the members, who were already in my knowledge. This procedure was intended to avoid that other groups, whether archaeologists or hunters of ruins and artifacts, called looters in their country, would arrive ahead of us.”

“Can you rule out that other archaeologists would steal your idea? This means that there are competitions between members of your profession?”

“No doubt there are rivalries, but are of academic type between the researchers and the entities sponsoring them, in general universities or museums. I rule out that any of them was going to resort to murder.”

“ And are there other groups interested in finds of this type?”

“Unfortunately yes; groups that work to sell their finds to private collectors and even museums of few scruples, which sometimes pay fortunes for unique objects of great value.”

“And these groups tend to be well organized to plan the infiltration of your project?”

“ Once again my answer is unfortunately yes. They have great financial means at their disposal.”

“Well, Professor, I ask to please think who might have been aware of your activities when it was still in the organizational stage. It is evident that they have been following you since then.”

McPherson was plunged into his own reflections. He was involved in a fight that was not his own, to which he and his people had been taken by the events. He noted their present partners: hard men of police or military counterinsurgency, as for example the so-called Jaramillo, certainly a member of the Colombian intelligence. These men were hardened in countless clashes against their counterparts, former guerrilla members, sometimes associated with bands of drug traffickers, sheaves of kidnappers and possibly ruins looters. McPherson had sympathetically supported a long time before the adventures of the zapatistas in Chiapas, but since then he had lost his romantic illusions since he now saw them sharply: violent men against violent men, whichever the alleged causes were.