20. Execute Them!
4:45 a.m. It seems as though Rodríguez Moreno is trying to buy more time. He probably doesn’t think of killing ten or fifteen unlucky saps as a very pleasant way to spend his evening. He is personally convinced that more than half of them have nothing to do with anything. And he even has doubts about the rest. He has a tense exchange with the Chief of Police, who has already arrived in La Plata. The orders are strict: execute them. The alternative: be subject to martial law himself. It sounds like they are even talking about sending him an envoy with troops.
At 4:47 a.m., they broadcast Communiqué No. 3 from the Office of the Vice President of the Republic:
“Campo de Mayo has surrendered. La Plata is practically contained. In Santa Rosa, the cavalry regiment has been enlisted to defeat the last rebel group. Eighteen civilian rebels who tried to attack a precinct in Lanús have been executed.”
The Marine Corps and the Police Academy lift the siege on Police Headquarters. The rebels disperse. Fernández Suárez arrives at the Government House, where Colonel Bonnecarrere has had no choice but to listen to the nearby shooting all night long, and they walk together toward Police Headquarters. They are walking up the wide staircase that looks onto Rivadavia Square when Fernández Suárez turns to a subordinate and, so that everyone can hear him, gives the order:
—Those prisoners in San Martín should be taken out to a field and executed!
Apparently that’s not enough. Fernández Suárez has to take the radio transmitter into his own hands.
Rodríguez Moreno receives the command. It is incontestable. So he makes his decision.
21. “He Felt He was Committing a Sin”
At the last minute, three of them get lucky: the night watchman, “the man who went to have dinner,” and “the man who was saying goodnight to his girlfriend.” They are pulled aside, given back their identity papers and personal items, and set free.
Rodríguez Moreno will later say that they had been included in the order for execution but he released them “of his own accord.”
They make the rest of them go outside. An assault car is parked in front of the Department, one of those blue trucks that are open on both sides and have wooden seats that cut across the middle. A police van waits a few meters back. Next to it, a small man in a raincoat is nervously rubbing his hands together. It’s Captain Cuello.
The prisoners receive the order to get on the truck. There is still one who asks again:
—Where are they taking us?
—Don’t worry —is the cunning response.— We’re transferring you to La Plata.
Nearly everyone has gotten on. Just then a strange scene comes to pass: it’s Cuello who impulsively shouts out of the blue:
—Mister Giunta!
Giunta turns around, surprised, and walks toward him.
There is an almost pleading tone to Cuello’s deep, steady voice now.
—But, Mr. Giunta . . . —he moves his arms a bit, his hands clenched— but you . . . you were in that house? You really were?
Giunta realizes all of a sudden that he is asking him to say no. He just needs a syllable to let him go, to fix the situation somehow. Cuello’s face surprises him: it’s tense, he’s squinting a little, and a muscle twitches uncontrollably in one of his cheeks (“He knew I was innocent. He felt he was committing a sin by sending me to my death,” Giunta will later say, in his typically striking language).
But Giunta can’t lie. Or rather: he doesn’t know why he has to lie.
—Yes, I was there.