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  Renaldo

  Copyright © 2006 James McCreath

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1-4196-3918-8

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  JAMES

  McCREATH

  RENALDO

  2006

  Renaldo

  For My Ladies: Annie, Kari, Carly, Christie, Coco, and Isabella.

  You Are The Sunshine Of My Life.

  Chapter One

  Córdoba, Argentina. December 5, 1977.

  The young Porteño had never been this terrified in his life. The monster

  surged from behind, almost engulfing them at times. He knew that he

  could easily outrun the deadly creature, were it not for the slower members of

  his group who stumbled and groped their way down the narrow alley.

  Gordo was the worst, far too obese to keep up the frantic pace. The red

  and black torrent was gaining on them, hurling insults along with rocks

  and bottles. The boy knew all too well what would happen should they be

  overtaken, for this monster was both human and inhuman.

  A narrow lane intercepted their path, and he could see that his amigos had

  swung off to the right. But Gordo had missed the turn and plunged straight

  ahead, knocking over several refuse cans in the process.

  It was hard to believe that just thirty minutes earlier, this same corpulent

  straggler, now panting and pallid from exertion and fear, had taunted a stadium

  full of enraged Córdobans. With cocky bravado, he had boldly questioned their

  mothers’ virtue, the size of their cojones, and worst of all, their team’s penchant

  for dull, defensive football. The first two insults the locals could dismiss from

  this fat fool, but the third, perhaps because it was bitingly true, set the mob

  upon them.

  Gordo was a well-known lawyer back in Buenos Aires, a self-important,

  larger-than-life figure with an overinflated ego. His sharp tongue had often

  gotten him into uncomfortable situations, but this was by far the most

  serious.

  Like the majority of his peers that had made the journey to Córdoba,

  Gordo was a Porteño, or ‘person of the port.’ He was an Argentine national,

  born and bred in Buenos Aires. Born and bred or not, all the men that had

  accompanied him this day were impassioned supporters of the Newton’s

  Prefects Football Club. A trainload of fans had traveled the five hundred miles

  to this quaint provincial capital for the championship game of the Argentine

  premier soccer league.

  The atmosphere had been electric as the Prefect partisans staked out

  their tiny corner of the menacing Córdoba Stadium. Deep inside the lair of

  the monster, seething with forty-five thousand rabid adversaries, the brave few

  hundred manifested their colors defiantly to the hordes on the terraces.

  JAMES McCREATH

  “Preeeeeefects! Preeeeeefects! Preeeeeefects!” was the call to battle that

  accompanied the brandishing of their inflammatory black-and-white flags,

  scarves, hats, and banners. This display summoned even louder venom-

  filled jeers, taunts, and shouts from their hosts. Gordo led the rebuttal with

  a boisterous Prefect fight song. That made him a man marked for ‘special’

  attention.

  Throughout the game, the Prefect supporters in general, and Gordo in

  particular, were subjected to bottles and smoke bombs, insults, and incendiaries.

  The visitors remained steadfast in their resolve, however, with an unflinching

  belief in the ultimate destiny of their team.

  They had waited so long in obscurity for a chance to, once again, reach the

  pinnacle. That moment was now at hand, and in the minds of each and every

  Porteño, the championship trophy belonged back in Buenos Aires, not in this

  city of peasants and farmers! Perhaps that is why the less refined Córdobans

  truly hated the arrogant, urbane boasters from the nation’s capital. They were

  so impudent in their team’s support!

  It mattered little to the hometown fanatics that the Prefect organization

  was one of the most tradition-steeped clubs in the entire nation. As a founding

  member of the Asociacion Del Futbol Argentino in 1893, the Newton’s

  Prefects Football Club was originally formed to offer a recreational outlet to

  the offspring of British scientists and investors who had played such a large part

  in developing and modernizing this vast country.

  The very first teams were made up exclusively from the graduating class

  or ‘prefects’ of the Sir Isaac Newton Academy of the Sciences. This renowned

  English language preparatory school in Buenos Aires was established in 1865

  as an old-world safe haven, intent upon salvaging a proper ‘English’ education

  for the male children of United Kingdom transplants.

  Newton’s all-British professional side was the dominant master of the

  game in the early years of formal competition. But as so often happens in

  sports, a glorious beginning eventually gave way to mediocrity, then near

  obsolescence as native-born players took to the game of football with unbridled

  Latin passion. The foreigners finally succumbed to using a sprinkling of home-

  grown Porteño talent to increase fan support and stave off bankruptcy, but by

  the 1920s, the once-proud side had been relegated to third division status, a

  place where it would remain for nearly five decades.

  The team’s fortunes began to change for the better with aggressive new

  ownership in the mid 1970s. The purse strings were opened to acquire more

  highly skilled players. This rekindled the long dormant interest and affection

  for the ‘Black and White.’ The signing of two world-class professionals at the

  start of the 1977 campaign, striker Ruben Gitares from the River Plate Club,

  and defender Jorge Calderone from the Boca Juniors, turned out to be just the

  2

  RENALDO

  tonic needed to raise the efforts of the team’s supporting cast to their highest

  levels.

  The Prefects had finished fourth in the premier division standings, then

  upset the highly favored first place Independiente club in a brutally rugged

  semifinal fixture that saw several people killed in its acrimonious aftermath.

  The victory over Independiente set the stage for this pilgrimage to Córdoba,

  whose heroes had disposed of River Plate in the other semifinal game.

  Now, with the ultimate prize beckoning, the event set to take place inside

  this boiling concrete cauldron was far more than just the playing of a football

  game. This was blood sport! The blood of your ancestors and family against

  the invaders. Pride and passion. And so it would be on this beautiful afternoon

  in Córdoba.

  The home team, Talleres F.C. of Córdoba, clad in their all-red strip with

  black numerals, showed a stubborn willingness to defend their honor and their

  goal with great spirit and courage. For a while, the ‘Reds’ did manage to bring

  the Córdoba
ns to their feet, but it was all in the realm of the negative . . .

  defense!

  Little by little, the tension in the ranks of the red defenders grew. Their

  goalkeeper, a gangly, mustached custodian named ‘Puente,’ made several

  inspired saves, but he was also quick to chastise his cohorts. The finger-pointing

  and verbal dressing-downs escalated with every Prefect sortie into Córdoban

  territory. Puente pleaded for some offense from his teammates, but the best the

  Reds could do was to clear the ball either out of play or far upfield, yielding

  possession to the waiting Prefect midfielders.

  Finally, in the twenty-first minute, Gitares, the brilliant Prefect striker,

  was sent through on a pinpoint pass from Calderone. One-on-one with the

  keeper, he feinted to his left, then sure-footed the ball into the top right corner

  of the net from twenty yards out. The spirit of the huge crowd seemed to

  deflate en masse, except for that tiny corner filled with the now even more vocal

  visitors. There, Gordo was waving his monstrous all-black flag while shouting

  insults at his enemies just beyond the eight foot high, barbed wire topped

  barriers.

  Three more Prefect goals followed in the second forty-five minute half,

  sending the majority of the local patrons on their not-so-merry way before the

  conclusion of regulation time. Not the Newton’s Prefect supporters though!

  They remained on the terraces to soak up every blissful moment. At the final

  whistle, Gordo managed to avoid the disinterested security forces standing

  idly on the warning track and marched onto the pitch, his huge flag waving

  defiantly to and fro above him.

  His Newton’s Prefects were the champions of Argentina, and the

  celebrating would start right now! Taking the fat man’s lead, more and more

  3

  JAMES McCREATH

  Prefect supporters converged on their victorious heroes at midfield, singing,

  hugging, dancing, and scavenging pieces of the lush green carpet.

  From where he stood on the terrace, Renaldo De Seta could see the trouble

  coming. In the far corner of the stadium, a mob of vocal, young Córdobans

  was also making its way onto the pitch, angered at the insult of having these

  buffoons on their sacred turf. The security forces remained stationary on the

  perimeter of the field, allowing the Córdobans to swiftly set upon the still

  reveling visitors.

  In an instant, elation became hysteria. An incendiary flare exploded in the

  midst of the Prefect supporters, and the screams of the burnt victims could be

  heard by Renaldo fifty yards away. He could barely see the mêlée through the

  thick, maroon smoke, but he knew that his compatriots were in serious trouble.

  The observer quickly looked for the nearest escape route, then leapt into action.

  Gliding over the barriers, he soon reached what looked to be a senior officer in

  the National Guard.

  “Why do you stand here and do nothing? People are going to get

  hurt! Surely you have eyes, you must be able to see that yourself! Please do

  something!”

  The officer looked at Renaldo with disinterest and disdain, shrugged his

  shoulders, then started to turn away. The commotion on the field was getting

  louder by the second, and it was only the report of several gunshots that startled

  the officer into action.

  “Please help them get out of the stadium,” Renaldo pleaded.

  There was a fire in the young man’s eyes that the officer could not ignore.

  He looked past the youth out onto the pitch. At that very moment, a Prefect

  supporter staggered out of the smoke bleeding profusely from a gash to his

  head.

  The visitor is right! the officer thought. If he didn’t save these rabble-rousers

  it could ruin his career, and they certainly weren’t worth that.

  A piercing blast of the military man’s whistle brought several subordinates

  running to his side. Renaldo stepped back as the uniformed group held a brief

  conference. A lieutenant screamed into his walkie-talkie as the officer turned

  to Renaldo.

  “We will try to separate them and cordon off an escape route through the

  nearest tunnel. After that, you are on your own.”

  The warning track that surrounded the field was now teaming with

  guardsmen, bayonets affixed to their carbines. A corporal handed the lieutenant

  a loudspeaker, into which he screamed several commands. As one, the soldiers

  then advanced toward the smoke-obscured chaos.

  Renaldo, having done his best to get help, sprinted past the guardsmen to

  see if he could find his friends and get them started toward the escape tunnel.

  4

  RENALDO

  It was pandemonium on the field. More smoke flares had been ignited,

  and the boy could hardly distinguish the Córdobans from his own companions.

  Some groups were engaged in hand-to-hand combat, while others stood staring

  each other down, using verbal abuse as a prelude to a more physical display of

  their machismo. Renaldo had wisely discarded the black-and-white scarf that

  he had worn all afternoon, and he was able to streak through the midst of his

  would-be assailants without being detected as a Prefect invader.

  Confusion reigned supreme until miraculously, through a clearing in the

  smoke, the boy caught a glimpse of what he thought was Gordo’s huge Prefect

  flag surrounded by both friends and foes. Renaldo pushed his way further into

  the maroon mist until he found himself face-to-face with Gordo and a throng

  of his dazed blood brothers. The men had formed a tight circle around Gordo’s

  insolent object, for to lose the colors would be a great dishonor no matter what

  the outcome of the game had been.

  Gordo, although sweating profusely, had lost none of his loud, aggressive

  bearing. He continued to insult his detractors, all the while taunting them

  with his sacred cloth.

  “We must get out of the stadium now or we won’t have a chance!” implored

  Renaldo.

  “I would not give these peasants the satisfaction of driving us from this

  place. This is our field of victory!” spat the fat man defiantly.

  “It will be our field of doom if we do not leave right now!” the newcomer

  retorted.

  Gordo did not stand convinced, but just as he was about to resume his

  verbal tirade against the provincials, the first jet of water slammed into the

  group of men immediately to their left.

  “Water canon!” screamed one of the combatants.

  All at once, it seemed as if the sky had opened up and let loose a torrential

  downpour. Men were thrown to the ground or propelled into one another with

  terrifying velocity. The National Guard officer had made good on his promise

  to separate the antagonists, but he was employing a most vicious method of

  doing so.

  A water canon mounted on an armored military vehicle was randomly

  sweeping the pitch with devastating effect. The National Guardsmen had

  halted after advancing only a few paces, then formed a corridor leading to the

  escape tunnel. The officer in charge was no fool. He would not risk the safety

  of his soldiers by sending them into the smokey fray. Besides, the water canon

  m
ade for great spectacle, something to amuse his troops and take their minds

  off the sad defeat that the home team had suffered.

  Renaldo knew he had to act quickly or his friends would be separated and

  left alone to make their way to safety. In one swift motion, he grabbed the flag

  5

  JAMES McCREATH

  from Gordo’s grasp, pushed him around, and pointed in the general direction

  of the tunnel.

  “Brave amigos, follow me to glory!” he shouted.

  To think that he was leaving the field in glorious fashion was somehow

  satisfying to Gordo, and he motioned for the group to follow Renaldo and the

  fluttering standard. That was not altogether an easy task, through the jumble

  of men, the spray of the canon, and the dissipating smoke. The flag, however,

  served as their beacon, and most of the Porteños made it to the warning track

  where the guardsmen stood nervously awaiting their arrival.

  Only Prefect supporters were allowed through the corridor of soldiers

  formed where Gordo’s pennant swung proudly as a rallying point for the men

  from Buenos Aires. Many of those assembling there had been bloodied, but

  their wounds were looked upon as proud souvenirs of a great and glorious

  victory.

  When Renaldo was satisfied that a full complement of the Prefectos, as

  they called themselves, were in the narrow tunnel, he led them swiftly down

  the passage and out into the stadium concourse. From there it was an easy walk

  past the entrance gates and into an open air plaza.

  Relief swept over the rescuer as he watched his fellow Porteños file into

  the bright sunshine. It was an emotion that would be short-lived. Renaldo still

  held the giant battle colours in his right hand. As he stood surveying the ranks

  of the rescued and talking to a member of his group, the standard was suddenly

  torn from his grasp. A young street urchin clad in Córdoban colors sped away

  down the plaza into a gang of hostile ruffians. Instantly, the flag was set ablaze,

  then waved defiantly at its owners as it disintegrated into flaming pieces.

  The stunned Prefectos could only watch in silence as their colors turned

  to burning embers. But mute disbelief was soon replaced by Gordo’s booming

  voice, chiding and chastising the vile arsonists. The locals returned Gordo’s

  salutations with their own invectives, and it was all too evident that the