Confronting the Enemy

The Road to Bolivia - Part 1

Régis Debray was awakened from a dream he did not want to leave. The French writer had been enjoying “a summer picnic beside a mountain torrent in the Pyrenees, with pretty women and friends.” His slumber was interrupted by a non-commissioned officer (NCO) kicking his mattress. In contrast to his pleasant dream, he was in actuality a prisoner in Bolivian barracks. It was April 1967 and Debray had been imprisoned by the Bolivian government for two days. The night before his captors had informed him that he was to be put up against a wall and shot. Now he was being prodded in the back by the NCO with a firearm. Debray got up, staggering, barely managing to pry his eyelids open, with an “intense desire to piss.” Debray thought the recruits surrounding him looked as scared as he felt. No one really knows how to behave on these occasions, he later thought. He was handcuffed and shoved out into the courtyard, where six officers lined up, carrying rifles. As anticipated, he was placed against the wall for his execution. A sergeant ordered the soldiers to take aim. He waited to hear the final order to fire but after thirty seconds, the NCO walked away. Still in a stupor from his suspended dream, the experience for Debray was “a gratuitous event, nothing to do with me, dream-like but neither nightmarish nor ecstatic.” This was only a simulated execution; the real decision on what to do with him would have to wait until the Bolivians had factored in other considerations.

Dictators

After Nazi Germany had surrendered in May 1945, Erhard Dabringhaus of the U.S. Army watched as the deaths continued in front of his eyes. With the surrender came an overwhelming influx of German soldiers and civilians seeking to surrender to U.S. forces at a makeshift prisoner-of-war camp at the Cheb airfield in Czechoslovakia. Initially set up to hold thousands of troops, the camp quickly swelled to well over capacity as Germans fleeing the Soviet advance rushed to enter American custody, fearing brutal treatment by the Russians. One day, the orders came to cease accepting additional German prisoners of war. Brigadier General William E. Waters ordered machine guns placed on access roads and had warning shots fired over incoming crowds. Dabringhaus watched in horror as some German soldiers took out their pistols and shot themselves in the head rather than be placed under Soviet control. “This was perhaps the first time in history when machine guns were used to keep prisoners from getting in rather than getting out,” he remarked.

Dabringhaus also watched that month U.S. Brigadier General George A. Taylor in Loket, Czechoslovakia accept the formal surrender of German troops under General Herbert Osterkamp. The ceremony took place at a tavern in town, known to the Germans as Elbogen, and the surrendered troops were sent to a nearby airfield repurposed as a prisoner-of-war camp. Dabringhaus could speak German and acted as translator between the two sides. During the signing, Osterkamp tried to delay proceedings by disputing the location’s designation: “To my knowledge,” Osterkamp said, “This is Elbogen, Sudetenland.” Dabringhaus translated this for General Taylor, who was determine to restore the names that existed prior to the Nazi takeover. He turned red and yelled, “You tell him that there is no such God damned place as Sudetenland! We are here in Czechoslovakia and that’s the way the document will read.” Dabringhaus tried his best to translate these words to “retain their flavor.” Osterkamp signed the document immediately and the surrender was complete.

A German commander, who had surrendered earlier to U.S. forces, warned that the Soviets could not be trusted and suggested the Americans would eventually have to fight them: “Let’s turn around,” he urged, “and go to Moscow together…Sooner or later you’re going to have to fight them anyway because they cannot be trusted.” Dabringhaus later believed that “it would have been to our advantage in 1945 to tell the Russians to go to hell. Unfortunately, we were too busy basking in the glory of our victory to distinguish between two brutal systems of dictatorship.” As the United States turned its attention to targeting the Soviet Union, the moral dilemma for Dabringhaus only deepened in his role working for the U.S. Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). As he put it himself decades later: “If you’re an intelligence officer, you work with the devil.”

Meeting the Devil

In August 1946, Dabringhaus returned to the U.S. from Europe with his wife and infant daughter after serving as a U.S. Army major. However, due to his wife's homesickness, the family moved back to Belgium. Following Dabringhaus’ failed business ventures in postwar Europe, in February 1948 he secured a civilian position with the U.S. Army’s 970th CIC detachment in Frankfurt, Germany, due to his fluency in German and French.

After training, he was assigned to occupied Germany’s Region IV in Munich. His background in interrogation and military intelligence made him well-suited for handling German informants. As the only German speaker in a 15-person team, he played a key role in interrogating individuals—especially those crossing from the Soviet zone. Many were turned over to U.S. criminal investigators for black market activities or lack of identification.

In the middle of 1948, Captain George Spiller informed Dabringhaus that he was to begin a special assignment. He was to take over a secret network of German informants who had been successfully working for the CIC for over a year. Without knowing the full details, Dabringhaus was sent to Memmingen to receive further instructions. Upon arrival, he was met by an American in civilian clothes who directed him instead to Kempten. The man provided the names of Klaus Barbie and Kurt Merk along with their address, Schillerstrasse 7, and instructed him to “take them to Augsburg, where you will be working with them.” Dabringhaus did not have difficulty finding the location and rang the doorball. A round-faced burly man opened the door and Dabringhaus asked if Klaus Barbie lived there. “Come on in,” he replied. “I am Klaus Barbie. You must be Mr. Dabringhaus. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Barbie, a former captain of the Nazi SS intelligence agency known as SD, quickly asserted dominance over his new CIC handler, Dabringhaus, who felt had he had received no proper briefing or support from his superiors. Barbie appeared well-informed about CIC operations, having worked with the Americans for over a year, and was eager to resume activity after months in detention. He boasted about his success infiltrating the French Resistance and seemed to be leading the operation, with Dabringhaus feeling reduced to an errand boy. “I’ve been doing the same work for the Americans for over a year,” he informed his new handler. “With your help we’ll do even better.”

Dabringhaus also met Merk, a former Abwehr (German military intelligence) officer, and his French mistress, Andrée Simone Rivez, who had worked as an informant during the German occupation of France. Dabringhaus felt more comfortable with him due to his non-SS background. Merk and Barbie had known each other from their intelligence work in France. Dabringhaus found the presence of Rivez, whom he called “attractive and statuesque,” in the war-ravaged nation of Germany surprising. Merk insisted she had to flee France to avoid execution for treason due to her collaboration with the Germans. Dabringhaus assumed that CIC headquarters was aware of and approved this arrangement.

After arriving in Augsburg, the network of informants, including Barbie, Merk, and Rivez, settled into a spacious house at Mozartstrasse 10. Although only three people were intended to live there, the house frequently hosted additional guests, including members of their families. None of the informants were under American military surveillance and were free to travel, receiving substantial financial support and protection from the U.S. Army. To add professionalism to the operation, Dabringhaus arranged for office space near the municipal swimming pool. Soon after, Merk and Barbie hired a secretary, “an attractive, blond woman” who was a former SS widow and helped to type up intelligence reports, which Dabringhaus translated and forwarded to his superior in Munich.

Merk was assigned to monitor illegal Soviet activities and French intelligence in the French-occupied zone, while Barbie was tasked with infiltrating the communist party in Bavaria. Both missions yielded results, with the network becoming one of Region IV’s most productive sources. To aid in their infiltration of the Bavarian communist movement, Barbie identified a former concentration camp inmate and communist who had once informed for the SS to protect his family. During an interrogation, the man admitted to a past attempt to bomb a town hall and described his coerced collaboration with the Nazis. Using this leverage, the Americans persuaded him to introduce Barbie and the officer as fellow communists at local party meetings, advancing U.S. efforts to penetrate and surveil communist circles.

To better infiltrate the communist party in Augsburg, Dabringhaus adopted the alias Richard Holthof, obtaining a German-style suit and an official ID card showing he was “denazified” and born in Essen, matching his accent. Klaus Barbie also secured a new ID under the name Klaus Holzer with the required denazification stamp to avoid suspicion. On July 20, 1948, they attended their first communist meeting at a beer garden, introduced as comrades from out of town. Welcomed warmly, they joined discussions focused on labor strikes, including ongoing efforts to expand a strike at the Augsburg gas works. Dabringhaus was nervous during the undercover operation and absent-mindedly put out his cigarette in an ashtray. Barbie poked him in his ribs and glanced at the cigarette butt still smoldering in the tray. Dabringhaus had forgotten that “Germany was still on a cigarette-butt economy” and retrieved his cigarette, rubbed out the end of it, and put it in his coat pocket as everyone else had done. He managed to maintain his cover and the meeting ended without incident. Their communist informant continued to provide updates on the cell’s activities and plans.

Merk and Barbie frequently complained about insufficient funding, insisting they needed $2,000 to $2,500 ($33,000 today) per month to run the network effectively. Barbie preferred American dollars over local currency or ration cards because some informants lived outside Germany and only accepted greenbacks. He often had to sell supplies on the black market to get dollars, which wasted time. Payment logistics were managed by CIC specialists, but disputes over money division between Merk and Barbie were common. Barbie claimed he deserved more money to support his informants. Meanwhile, Dabringhaus discovered Barbie sometimes filled reports with newspaper articles instead of fresh intelligence, justifying it as a response to pressure for constant updates. He once listened to Barbie read from a German newspaper as his secretary took dictation. “You do not have to pad your reports with newspaper articles,” Dabringhaus chastised him. “I can read them myself.”

Merk took Dabringhaus aside one day and revealed serious concerns about Barbie’s character and actions. He told Dabringhaus that Barbie’s recent intelligence work was overrated and that Merk and his informants were doing the real work. Merk calmly added: “Barbie would work for nothing if you Americans ever found out what he did in France while he was in charge of an SD (Sicherheitsdienst or security service) special commando in Lyons.” Dabringhaus pressed him for details, offering the following assumption: “I suspect that Barbie was a brutal interrogator. The SD was known to use force and beat prisoners who wouldn’t talk.” At that remark, Merk exclaimed: “That doesn’t even scratch the surface! He is high on the wanted list in France for murder. If the French ever find the mass graves for which Barbie is responsible, you will be forced to turn him over to them.” He later added how he witnessed “with my own eyes some 200 resistance fighters that Barbie had ordered strung up by their thumbs in the Gestapo Headquarters in…Montluc [prison]. In spite of being tortured, they had all refused to collaborate. Barbie gave orders for them to hang there until they were dead.” In addition, Merk cautioned Dabringhaus to be discreet: “Barbie has strong supporters in your CIC headquarters. Should he ever be confronted with information about these atrocities, he will know immediately that I have talked to you.”

The dislike Dabringhaus had felt towards Barbie suddenly turned to abhorrence as he pondered the implications of the stories Barbie had told him of working on “some high-level intelligence operations in France.” On the other hand, he felt that this information could be valuable to himself personally as a CIC officer. He vowed to report Barbie’s war criminal history and expected that a reward from his superiors was sure to follow: “I thought I was going to get a promotion. I thought that was a big picture of a deal I had here,” he later explained. Dabringhaus would take the risk of reporting Barbie, who perceived his character as feeble: “Barbie always told Merk that I was too weak. ‘When you've got an enemy in your hands,’ he would say to Merk, ‘you’ve got to crush him.’”

Make It Believable

The rise of General René Barrientos in Bolivia—who led the 1964 coup against President Paz Estenssoro—was backed by the CIA and Pentagon. In 1964, the CIA recorded optimism on the part of the mining interests with regard to the Barrientos Revolution. “The most questionable element,” they wrote, “is General Rene Barrientos himself.” He was later characterized as “crude, tactless and earthy” in the eyes of senior military officials in the country. “They distrust him because they think he is devious and insincere, and his word cannot be relied upon. They also question his judgment.”

On November 4, 1964, the CIA reported that Barrientos was “anxious to cooperate with the United States government, and stressed that the armed forces were capable of governing forcibly and in a manner consistent with the desires of the United States government.” After seizing power, Barrientos cracked down on Bolivia’s tin miners, slashing wages by 50%, exiling union leaders like Juan Lechín, banning major labor confederations, and forcing all unions to reorganize under a new depoliticized framework—crushing labor resistance and consolidating military control.

The U.S. Embassy in Bolivia sent a telegram to State Department headquarters on March 29, 1965 reporting that following an assassination attempt Barrientos was “in apparent good health...not suffering much pain from [the] wound.” They were “reasonably” certain that the “wound [was] not self-inflicted, though many politicians choose to believe it was.” Barrientos promised to take a “tough line” domestically: “if miners give [us] trouble, [the Government of Bolivia] will go in and seize [the] mines. [The] Army is now in [the] process [of] taking over refineries in [the] face of [the] [Bolivian National Oilfields] strike.” The communists actively “sabotaging [the] economy” would be dealt with “forcefully,” with Juan Lechin as one of the “first targets for neutralization.” Lechin, the former Vice-President of Bolivia from 1960 to 1964, was forced into exile.

The next step for Barrientos involved legitimizing his position through an election in Bolivia. It was previously known that the CIA had played a role in the election campaign, but the full extent had remained a secret until now. Bolivia ranked in the middle of the pack in terms of Western Hemisphere CIA spending, totaling $303,210 in 1961 ($3.26 million today). The CIA submitted its proposal to the 303 Committee in January 1965, calling Barrientos “a long standing friend of the United States” who deserved to be funded while he stepped down from the junta to run for the presidency in accordance with the constitution: “It is important that he have a strong organizational base in order to bring in with him a Congress which would be cooperative.”

To ensure Barrientos got elected in 1966, the Agency had to mount a “credible” campaign, according a later CIA history of the time period. At some moments, it appeared that the election may not happen at all. The local CIA Station in La Paz spent $585,000 ($5.8 million today) to “persuade the armed forces to clamp down on the leftists,” encourage Barrientos’ candidacy, bribe General Alfredo Ovanda who had significant military support to not interfere, and pay other opposition parties to make the election seem “plausible.” CIA Chief of Station Lawrence M. Sternfield pulled off what the Agency internally referred to as a “genuine tour de force,” fooling Organization of American States (OAS) observers into believing that the 1966 election was “democratic and honest.” The UPI press report indicated through Barrientos that “the returns verified what he had been sure of all along—that he would win easily in what he called the freest elections in Bolivian history.” The election results were fed to the CIA by the electoral tribunal “four days before the election.”

A National Security Council memo lauded the effort, noting that the “money and covert guidance” provided to the different parties “changed the political climate from a volatile, conspiratorial atmosphere with little discussion of peaceful resolution through elections to a full fledged electoral atmosphere with the traditional violence and conspiracy thrust into the background.” Sternfield later boasted that during this era, “nothing happened in Bolivia without our involvement.” Gulf Oil Corporation, encouraged by the CIA, donated $200,000 to campaign and gifted Barrientos a helicopter, later admitting to nearly $460,000 in total payments between 1966 and 1969 in exchange for favorable economic concessions.

Black Sheep

CIA officer David Atlee Phillips had a memorable encounter with Che Guevara in Havana, Cuba, during the late 1950s. While entertaining a visitor, Phillips wound up at a popular Cuban coffee house. Guevara, then a charismatic revolutionary figure recently aligned with Fidel Castro, entered the room with a commanding presence despite his small stature and asthma. Unable to pass up the opportunity to speak with him, Phillips asked him what he planned to do next and Guevara replied: “First, I plan to get out of the sugar business. Then, I will travel and take the revolution with me.”

Guevara launched into a passionate speech about the plight of the underprivileged and the fight against imperialism, casting the revolution as a global moral struggle. Although Phillips noted the clichés and theatrical delivery of Guevara’s speech, he was struck by Guevara’s magnetism and how the crowd was enthralled by his presence. Guevara spoke for over an hour, occasionally interrupted only to sip añejo or catch his breath due to his asthma. “In the eerie light,” Phillips recalled, “the locks of curly hair hanging over his forehead along with the panache of a single star—insignia of a comandante in Castro’s army—glittering on his beret gave him the dash and romantic aura of a Latin American Robin Hood.”

Phillips, despite political opposition to Guevara’s ideology, admitted to being impressed by his conviction and foresaw his potential to become the most successful revolutionary of his time. “I admired him,” he wrote. “That early morning encounter in the coffee house helped me understand the aspirations and convictions of men with whom I disagreed and, on occasions in the future, would treat as adversaries.”

Working as a case officer for the CIA in Argentina in the early 1960s, Joseph Burkholder Smith was relieved to be working with the local Navy Captain Eduardo Lynch. He was not fascist in his views in contrast to many of his colleagues, and he had a range of contacts to draw from, including one extremely relevant to the Agency’s Cuban operation: Ernesto “Che” Guevara. “You want me to work against my nephew Ernie, is that it?” Lynch mused. “He’s the black sheep of the family, all right.” Lynch provided details on Guevara’s early life that seemed to please headquarters, which was building a psychological profile of him and similar figures “in order to recommend the best means of dealing with them.” Smith sent in information regarding Guevara’s acute asthma with some hesitation, worrying that one day he might “hear Guevara had mysteriously choked to death.”

Following Orders

Over the next few years, the CIA grew increasingly obsessed with capturing Guevara. While internal intelligence doubted Guevara’s survival, he was in fact organizing a guerrilla campaign in rural Bolivia. However, Guevara’s efforts were flawed: he failed to connect with urban dissidents or powerful miners, and the local peasantry was too sparse and fearful to support his movement. Guevara wrote in his diary: “The inhabitants of this region are as impenetrable as rocks. You speak to them, but in the deepness of their eyes you note that they do not believe you.” His guerrilla band remained isolated and under-resourced.

In 1967, U.S. intelligence agencies debated whether Che Guevara was alive and active in Bolivia. Initial reports were conflicting, with some CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency sources suggesting he was directing guerrilla activities, while others claimed he had been executed: “Look, this can’t be Che Guevara,” Desmond FitzGerald of the CIA’s Western Hemisphere stated at the time. “We think that Che Guevara was killed in the Dominican problem and is buried in an unmarked grave. But we could think of nothing better than if Che Guevara were to be in command of this operation because he is the worst guerrilla operative that we could be up against.”

Among those in Guevara’s entourage, the French writer Régis Debray was captured in April 1967. After being mistreated by the local Bolivian forces, he confirmed one crucial fact: Guevara was in Bolivia. “Debray reports seeing him,” Walt Rostow wrote to President Johnson in June. Eventually, after Bolivian forces discovered Guevara’s base camp and identified him through photos and fingerprints, the CIA increased its efforts, sending Cuban exile agents to assist. U.S. Ambassador Douglas Henderson was consulted on the capture of Debray: “Barrientos called me the night that Debray had been captured. He didn’t know who Debray was, but said that they grabbed this guy, part of this guerrilla uprising. And I said, ‘Your excellency, what are you going to do?’ He said, ‘Execute him.’ I said, ‘Really, I think that’s not quite on. I’m not here to tell you what to do, but I can tell you what the consequences are of an action like that.’ And for several days my military personnel were telling me that the man was dead.” Debray’s interrogation transcripts proved useful to the CIA, as an agent recalled: “we spent a good deal of time studying Debray’s transcripts, as well as other interrogations made available by the Bolivians. They became our psychological road maps, giving us valuable clues about the people against whom we would operate.”

Felix Rodriguez was one of the Cuban CIA agents assigned to hunt for Guevara. He received his orders from an Agency official at a meeting in Homestead, Florida. “There’s a good possibility that Che Guevara is engaged in guerrilla activities in Bolivia,” he was told. “Your assignment would be to help the Bolivians track him down and capture him.” Rodriguez was excited at the prospect of meeting one of his “greatest enemies face to face.” His salary was doubled as an agent, rising to $800 ($7,700 today) monthly after taxes, plus expenses, which did not hurt the offer either.

After arriving in Bolivia, Rodriguez, his fellow agent Gustavo Villoldo, and the CIA Station Chief John Tilton met with President Barrientos at his residence. His home was freezing and Tilton brought him an electric blanket as a present. “Barrientos had already been briefed about our backgrounds,” Rodriguez recounted. “Nevertheless we told him about some of our operations against Castro and our fight against communism. He seemed pleased to hear our stories.”

Through the transferr of a prisoner, José “Paco” Castillo, to their custody, Rodriguez extracted useful information on the guerrilla movement. The information he provided was “golden,” according to Rodriguez, calling it “a classic example of how kindness and perseverance work better than brutality and threats.” A U.S. Special Forces captain who arrived to interrogate Castillo one day nearly ruined the endeavor. Unwilling to open up to a new officer, Castillo responded shyly and met in turn the interrogator’s wrath: “The captain accused Paco of lying and physically threatened him, really screwing things up. I set things right the same day, apologizing…telling him it was a mistake, and it wouldn’t ever happen again.” Castillo gave Rodriguez a key piece of information regarding the state of the guerrilla force and movements that led him to request the Bolivians to move on Guevara immediately: “I believe we can, for the first time,” he said to them, “predict for sure where Che Guevara will be moving his main guerrilla force.”

In just over a week, on October 8, 1967, Rodriguez received word that a top guerrilla commander had been captured. While en route to the location in an airplane, he learned that the commander was in fact Guevara, who had been slightly wounded in his right calf. Promised by the Bolivian officers that he could accompany them to La Higuera to see Guevara, Rodriguez spent the night writing an encoded message to CIA headquarters, describing the recent events and “requesting new instructions about Che Guevara.” If Guevara was to be kept alive as per the original plan, Rodriguez suggested to the CIA Station Chief that “he should intercede quickly with the Bolivians.”

The White House was also told immediately by the Bolivian President, as recorded in a note the next day to Rostow: “Barrientos says they got Guevara in a clash yesterday…CIA…wants to check out fingerprints before saying that ‘Che’ is one of the wounded.” On the same day, the CIA sent an intelligence information cable informing various branches of the U.S. government that “the Bolivian Army is dispatching an experienced interrogator to identify ‘Che’ and to interrogate the prisoners.”

Rodriguez was brought to a mud-brick schoolhouse that day, on October 9, by Bolivian Colonel Zenteno. On the left-hand side of the dilapidated building, Zenteno pushed open a door and Rodriguez followed, entering into a dim room with a dirt floor. There on the ground, Guevara lay on his side, his arms bound behind his back and his feet tied. Near him were two corpses of two Cuban guerrillas; in an adjoining room the right, another Bolivian guerrilla was similarly tied up.

Guevara was disheveled, his clothes torn, his leg wound still bleeding. Zenteno peppered him with questions but Guevara remained silent. “The least you could do is answer my questions,” Zenteno reasoned. “After all, you are a foreigner and you have invaded my country.” Guevara was still facing away from them, his cheek remaining pressed on the cold dirt floor. Zenteno gave up and motioned to Rodriguez and they both exited the room. What Rodriguez had expected would be a momentous and exciting occasion felt like nothing of the sort; all he could think about was the work ahead. He got to work photographing Guevara’s captured goods with his two cameras, a Pentax and a Minox, careful to bring the items into focus after laying them out on a table. While this was occurring, two more captives were brought nearby: one dead and one in immense pain, having been shot in the face.

By 10:00 a.m., Rodriguez started sending out encoded radio messages. He was interrupted by a soldier who informed him that there was a phone call waiting for him from Vallegrande. A voice on the phone told him: “You are authorized by the Superior Command to conduct Operation Five Hundred and Six Hundred.” This code meant that Che Guevara was to be killed. He asked the caller to repeat the instructions; the voice repeated the same words. Rodriguez hung up the phone and waited until Zenteno returned around 11:00. He explained to Zenteno what the orders were and that U.S. instructions were to keep Guevara alive, with aircraft ready to take him to Panama for interrogation. Zenteno was disappointed with this request: “Felix, we have worked very closely, and we are grateful for all the help you have given us. But don’t ask me to do this. If I don’t comply with my orders to execute Che I will be disobeying my own president and I’ll risk a dishonorable discharge.” Zenteno looked at his watch, adding: “I know how much harm he has done to your country. It is eleven now. I will leave in the helicopter. It will be coming back and forth to Vallegrande several times over the next few hours, evacuating our dead and wounded, and bringing ammunition and C-rations. At 2:00 p.m., I will send it back. I would like your word of honor that at that time you will personally bring back the dead body of Che Guevara to Vallegrande. The manner in which you deal with Che is up to you. You can even do it yourself if you want, as I know how much harm he has brought to your country.”

“Colonel,” Rodriguez replied, “please get them to try to change their minds. But if you cannot get the counterorder, I give you my word as a man that at 2:00 p.m. I will bring you back the dead body of Che Guevara.” Rodriguez sat at a table on a hill, considering the prospect of how to transport Guevara to La Paz himself without the knowledge of the Bolivian government. He thought about going to the one telephone nearby when the helicopter arrived at 2:00 p.m., falsely tell the pilot there had been a change in plans, “that the U.S. Embassy had convinced President Barrientos to keep Che alive, and that we were to fly him back to Vallegrande immediately.” On the contrary, he also thought of the value to him of having Guevara killed; how Castro had himself been jailed and later released. And look at what we have today, in Cuba and in Latin America, he thought. He decided to place the decision in the hands of the Bolivians. If he had to conduct the assassination himself, I will put him in front of a firing squad and execute him the same way he assassinated so many of my friends at La Cabaña Fortress, he thought.

The sound of gunfire interrupted his rumination. Rodriguez rushed down the hill to the schoolhouse, from which the noise emanated. He threw open the door and Guevara looked up at him.