Max filed the fragment with care, and as the moon rose over the marsh, he slipped one or two accessories into his pockets and headed for the creek. First out was a tiny but powerful flashlight that showed him the way; he was mindful of the canebrake rattlesnake coiled incognito in the grass. He crossed the lawn, tensely navigated a short shadowed path through bog myrtles and pines, and settled into a weathered garden bench under an oak at the edge of the marsh. He turned off the light. Next out were an iPod and a JamBox. A few clicks later, D’Arienzo’s staccato bandoneon and wistful violin set the stage for a survey of the stars, the playful juxtaposition of Venus and Mars, trajectories of flashing five-mile-high jets, and moonlight animating the marsh. The music reclaimed his attention, and he turned onto the walkway that led to the dock.

The tide was in full flood as he strode across a vast lake that precisely reflected the distant forest and the skies above. D’Arienzo’s song prompted weightless steps first to the right and then to the left, interspersed with crisp cruzadas, all carefully aligned with the edge of the walkway. He came at last to the dock and practiced step sequences from class, assimilating them gradually as reflexes. The music alone elicited the steps, and for moments on end, his heart and mind were at ease. But he knew that tango is capricious when danced with another. Like him she is impelled by something more than a beautifully interpretive set of perfect steps.

That something remained elusive. After a while, watching Mars and Venus set in the northwest, and feeling the late-night chill creeping in, Max considered again tango’s insistent hold over him. He recalled Ignatio Quiroga’s remarks one evening on tango, while mixing yet another Manhattan for a lady whose capacity for cocktails was surpassed only by her elegance on the dance-floor.
“In Tango, as in chess, opposites with strictly-defined moves meet on a limited field. The encounter offers boundless possibilities. Strengths and weaknesses are carefully probed and acted upon. But in contrast to chess, in the end, for something like a second, Tango melds the opposites and sets them free.”

Dolores thought of Felix’s predecessor whose intimate encounters had almost lost him the Presidency. Felix was a bachelor, of course, and so his secret was somewhat less alarming. Given the times, though, she was mindful and correct teaching Tango on the mirrored parquet of the Oval Office. Her ID badge said Dolores Ferreyra, Cultural Affairs Attaché, and she had 30 minute access every Tuesday at 7 pm. This was their last class before Felix’s visit to Buenos Aires, where he would waltz with Mademoiselle Quiroga, the President of Argentina, at her Inaugural State Ball.

The scarlet satin dress and gilded stilettos folded into Dolores’s purse tripped no alarms. She was shown into the Oval Office by Amancio, a fresh-faced presidential aide, whose discreet glances spoke of devoted puppy love. Felix was on the phone, tie askew, his feet propped on the desk. He stood and kissed her cheek.
“Good to see you, Dolores,” he said.
She changed in the little powder room off the Oval Office, and dabbed Provocatif on her earlobes. As she came out, Felix glanced at her golden heels.
“I love your…,” he said, and he paused, looking for the next best word.
“Mr. President, did you just say you love me?”
He smiled and reached into his briefcase propped against the leg of the Presidential desk. He drew out an iPhone and a JamBox.
“What do you think? Di Sarli or Pugliese?” he said.

Dolores loved this man who set aside affairs of state for her. But Felix was caught in the insidious grip of Tango. He changed his polished wing tips for soft felt-soled dance shoes. As a Pugliese waltz filled the Oval Office, Felix embraced her intently and led her, her eyes closed, attentive to the slightest move, into the gathering delirium of “Desde el Alma”. They came to a halt precisely on the final beat, and his hand on her back traced a wistful caress that spoke of lives they’d never live, whose expression was best and most safely left to Tango. His phone pinged. Felix pulled away and listened gravely.
“Brief me at 7:00 am,” he said.
He smiled, she re-cued the music, and they danced once again the set of steps that painted every nuance of Pugliese’s waltz. A tap on the door announced the next item on the agenda. Felix grazed his lips across hers.
“Later,” he said.

Amancio was waiting outside. He consulted his Blackberry, tapped the little screen twice, and strode off down the corridor. Dolores hurried after him.
“TuTu Tango, right?” he called over his shoulder.
A limousine took her to TuTu’s, where she nursed a Malbec and listened to the elderly bandoneonista and his meditative violinist. Around 10 a flurry of suits appeared at the bar, and Felix sat down beside her. He caught the bartender’s eye, indicated her glass, and took her hand.
“Dolores,” he said, “I love Tango. But tell me: how do I distill the message of Tango from the beautiful messenger?”
“You tell me, Mr. President.” She touched her glass to his. “You’re the leader of the free world. Lead me.”
They stepped onto the tiny dance floor, and the violinist smiled. As the music enveloped them, Felix and Dolores merged into the safe primal embrace of a man and a woman moving as one to Tango’s hypnotic invitation.

She pined for Felix when he was gone. The first night she sat at a secluded table in TuTu’s, her phone close at hand. Men mostly steered clear of her, somehow aware of the protective veils of surveillance enclosing her. Willis, a little coil of wire in his ear, sat at the bar, deeply bored with his assignment. Every few minutes, like a beach lifeguard, he scanned the room methodically and murmured a word or two into his cuff. The tiny orchestra played a set of rhythmic tangos by Enrique Rodrigues. Fabio, the bandoneonista, was nostalgically convincing as he channeled Roberto Flores and his fluid songs of heartbreak. Maurice, the violinist, was thoughtful, flying high on fine Sensimilla he’d smoked an hour before in the mens’ room. Dolores had turned him down politely when he’d offered to turn her on. She was thinking of Felix, or so she thought. But Mademoiselle Quiroga was the one who danced before her inner eye.

She reached for her glass of Malbec. On her phone she googled this re-incarnation of Eva Peron, whose beauty was the toast of Argentina, from balmy Buenos Aires and arid Patagonian deserts to frozen Andean heights. While she sat in TuTu’s listening to Fabio, Mademoiselle Quiroga was waltzing with her Felix, the President. She moved as one with him, her silken body taut but compliant. He leaned intently into her embrace, leading her like the free world that she was. All eyes were upon her, and her eyes were closed against his cheek. Dolores touched Felix’s emerald brooch on her breast, sipped her wine, and succumbed to the violin’s sinuous embrace. A calm familiar voice whispered in her ear.

“Dolores?” Amancio, his Blackberry gone, offered his hand. His eyes caught hers momentarily, then rested on the crimson arc of her lips.

He’d read her perfectly, of course, and led her into a finely calibrated circuit of the dance floor. Her phone uttered a presidential ping as they passed her little table. Willis by the bar stiffened and touched his ear, and she danced on, settling into Amancio’s careful comfortable embrace. A second authoritative ping sounded from her phone, and Fabio, no fool, nodded almost imperceptibly as she passed by. Willis, now on full alert, tried to catch her eye, but he was no tanguero, just Secret Service. Eyes closed, she danced on, attuned to Amancio’s take on the music as he led her body into pleasing rhythmic alignment with his own. The third ping was piqued and insistent.

Amancio led Dolores to her table, his hand on her back. Her phone awaited her on high alert. She picked up, and he retreated to the bar. Ignatio raised an eyebrow in male complicity and poured him a brandy. Dolores stood by her table, toying with the emerald at her breast, a latter-day Botticelli Venus lacking only a scallop shell. She glanced at Fabio and Willis, then glanced at Amancio and smiled. A small, huge consolation.
“Yes, Mr. President,” she said.
“Dolores,” he said, “What do you think? I know she looks good, but in the fourth bar of “Desde el Alma”, where we switch from parallel to cross steps, she lost me.” He fell silent.
“Felix…?”
“Dolores, ask Amancio to get you to Reagan National; a jet to BA is waiting for you.”
Dolores tucked away her phone, smoothed her serpentine silk dress, and leaned back in the banquette. She inclined her head slightly towards Amancio. The cock had crowed three times, and she had not folded. She twirled her glass, smiled at Willis and Fabio and Maurice, and considered her options.

Tantalizing moments passed as Fabio and Maurice played tangos that sang of passionate lives and fruitless love. At last Dolores eased onto the barstool next to Amancio and whispered in his ear.
“How about a red-eye to Buenos Aires?”
He rested his eyes on hers, contemplated the perfect symmetry of her face, and thought fast. Willis had left his post at the other end of the bar, and was coming towards them.
“Of course,” he said, “we’ll lift the rugs in the cabin and stream Di Sarli to the speakers.”
Dolores threw her hands to her face and gasped in glee.
“Amancio, you’re ridiculous!” she cried.
Willis stood before them, listening to voices in his ear, his eyes watchful.
“I need to check with State…” he said in a tolerant tone.
Dolores took Amancio’s hand, blew Fabio a kiss, and made for the door. She called over her beautiful bare shoulder.
“The President has spoken, his wish is my command, to hear is to obey.” She laughed, and her blond curls danced around her face like an angel’s halo.

Amancio made some calls while a soundless limousine sped them to Reagan National. In the dead of night, the federal bureaucracy stirred, schedules were re-arranged, and authorizations were signed. Their sleek Gulfstream IV accelerated smoothly, lifted off and climbed, tilting gracefully toward southern constellations. Dolores sipped ice-cold champagne and swayed in his embrace to Di Sarli’s dramatic tangos. Later, dozing through the stratospheric moonlit night, he dreamed of long-limbed cranes flying south in elegant V-formations. In his mind’s eye, hummingbirds, yellow wagtails, and small sparrows nestled in the warm down of the cranes’ backs and relieved the tedium of migration with exuberant birdsong.

He crashed in the Sofitel Buenos Aires, and was sleeping off the songbirds when a text alert sounded. The moon was waning in the west, feathery clouds raced across the horizon, and a cool dawn approached. He stirred and slowly focused. “Staff meeting at 7 am, Four Seasons.” He left a voicemail for Dolores, and shaved while musing over their spellbound tangos at TuTu’s. He summoned a car from the Chief of Staff motor pool, and snoozed as they sped through the leafy boulevards of Buenos Aires to the Presidential suite in Recoleta. He strode through security to the elevators. The lobby breakfast buffet was in redolent full swing and he paused for a cappuccino and two Panuelitos de Grasa. A Presidential aide appeared and escorted him to the penthouse suite, where the Chief of Staff paced back and forth, frowning into his hand-held. The aide’s murmured introduction elicited a bright smile from the Chief of Staff.

“The dramatic tangos of Di Sarli!” he said. “I’m told the Gulfstream surfed the stratosphere with great poise.”
Birds chirped in the atrium beneath his window.
“Yes, sir. A good trip, uneventful.”
Amancio waited, Blackberry in hand, for instructions. Dolores was probably up by now, but hadn’t called.
“Good,” the Chief of Staff said, “keep Dolly busy and happy till morning, then get her back to Washington.”
“Yes, sir,” said Amancio, “and if the President asks for her…?”
The Chief of Staff contemplated a sparrow flitting through the palm fronds in the lobby.
“Be there to bring her home.”
At the back of his mind Amancio heard the lyrical cadences of Canaro’s “Poema” and saw himself dancing again with Dolores, her brow resting against his cheek as their bodies sought stratospheric synchrony.
“Yes, sir,” he said.

As he turned to go, the President strolled into the room, relaxed and urbane, and their eyes met. He put an arm across Amancio’s shoulder and drew him aside.
“Amancio. Good to see you,” he said quietly. “What do you know about the Hotel Fakir?”
Amancio thought for a moment. “Mr. President, the Hotel Fakir was a tango salon in Charleston, South Carolina, destroyed by arson some months ago. Dolores was a dance instructor down there; we met at the Hotel Fakir.”
“Yes,” said the President, “Mademoiselle Quiroga told me her father tended bar at the Fakir. He died in the blaze. The FBI and State are on the case, now reporting through you. You will tell me what’s going on. And Amancio,” he added, lowering his voice, “Like you, I like Dolores. Keep her out of this if you can.”
Amancio nodded, and his phone buzzed as the President moved on. The screen said Dolores. Amancio thought for a moment, and by the time he picked up, she was gone. He texted “6 pm, Four Seasons.” First thing next morning, back on the Gulfstream, songbirds paid off, Charleston would be front and center. He was on the case.

Swathed in Egyptian cotton and goose down in her Buenos Aires hotel suite, Dolores woke to a snippet of Di Sarli’s “Don Juan”. Could only be Amancio. She stretched languidly, and must have dozed off, because her thoughts were hijacked by flights of geese descending through low-lying mists over a Carolina sea-marsh. They glided easily on widespread wings and then flared and alighted with barely a splash on a warm tidal lagoon. Without surprise, she saw that Felix, so eager to get things right, alert to the slightest misstep, and Amancio, ensnared and enraptured, had flown in just behind her. What more did she need? She paused at the edge of the marsh grass and gazed fondly upon her fine ganders paddling dutifully in her wake, avoiding each other. Insistent chirps from her phone awakened her, and the dream dissolved into irretrievable wisps. For some minutes she studied the lazy rotation of the ceiling fan, and then got going.

She texted Amancio while sipping a cappuccino under a palm tree in the atrium. A sparrow perched for a second on the edge of the glass-topped table. She noticed Bruce a few tables over with an open newspaper, watching over everything. He ignored her little wave and resumed reading. The sparrow shot her a petulant glance and took off. Further back, by the breakfast buffet, men in dark glasses inspected the silver warming platters, baskets of fresh-baked bagels, and freezing jugs of exotic juices. Their ears, like Bruce’s, sprouted tiny wires. She smiled, and they looked away. Amancio replied with the opening bars of Calo’s “Milonga Antigua”. He was a quick study, her Amancio; he knew that tango exerts a narcotic grip. She finished her cappuccino, then rose and stepped out, as if invited to dance.

Behind her crisp linen napkins were cast aside and chairs scraped back on the patio paving. A liveried doorman waved down a cab as she emerged from the revolving door. Waiting, she gazed across the boulevard to a small park where ducks dabbled in a pond shaded by Tipa trees. Her sketchy entourage caught up with her and stared into the middle distance, feigning anonymity. A limo turned onto the concourse and stopped beside her. Bruce, right there, opened the door, took her arm and steered her gently into the back seat. He told the driver Recoleta Cemetery and they accelerated into bright sunlight and fast-moving traffic on Posadas. Bruce touched the wire in his ear. “Sorry, ma’am. The President needs a few minutes with you.”

On Avenida del Libertador, the limo slowed and stopped momentarily, caught in gridlock. Ragged boys wielding squeegees darted in and out of traffic. Dolores felt something grate against the limo and then an explosive concussion blew open her door. Someone grabbed her arm. Coughing and choking on acrid smoke, her eyes streaming, she was dragged out of the limo onto a motorcycle and trussed to the hunched rider with loops of bungee cord. His black mirrored crash helmet sported a hooded cobra tattoo. They took off with a shrill high-powered snarl, weaving across lanes of stalled cars. Behind them were blaring horns, confused shouts and apocalyptic roiling clouds of smoke. No protective ganders…

Charlotte Quiroga, President of Argentina, listened as her Cabinet discussed the kidnapping. The Minister of Security said that Dolores’s abduction was simply drug cartel extortion. The Minister of Foreign Affairs proposed a program of crisis management endorsed by the U.S. government. Charlotte, a general’s daughter, knew all about crisis, and realized that her self-important ministers were floundering. She tuned them out and recalled moments of fine connection with the President two nights before. She may have mis-stepped here and there in “Desde el Alma”, but Felix, well-trained by Dolores, had gracefully adapted. Dolores was key; Felix would suffer if she were harmed.

Charlotte’s father, Ignatio Quiroga, was also key. Back in the 70s, as an officer in the Argentine army, he’d fallen in love with the wife of a subordinate officer. She had borne his child, Charlotte. A decade later, Ignatio was commanding an infantry brigade fighting British occupation of the Falkland Islands. Fatefully, his adjudant was the same officer, secretly surveilling leftist officers in the 7th regiment. The adjutant was obsessed with revenge against Ignatio.

As casualties mounted, Ignatio Quiroga was arrested on spurious charges of treasonous conspiracy. A summary court martial sentenced him to death by firing squad. Before dawn, loyal 7th Infantry commandos overpowered Ignatio’s guards and smuggled him to the mainland on a military transport. He sought asylum in the United States, and eventually founded the Hotel Fakir in Charleston. He decorated the transom over the hotel’s black-lacquered door with an etched-glass hooded cobra, mascot of the 7th Infantry. And now he was dead, victim of an unsolved arson in downtown Charleston.

Charlotte had politically engaged with the mothers of the Desaparecidos, students who had defied the military junta back in the 80s. Thousands had been arrested, drugged, loaded onto Air Force transports, and thrown out 10,000 feet over the Rio de la Plata. Truly disappeared. Ever since, bereaved mothers had clamored for justice in the Plaza de Mayo, together with leftist veterans of the Falklands War and activists with the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons. Entrenched elites obstructed all investigation.

An old acquaintance of her father had told Charlotte that Dolores’s kidnappers would show no mercy. And so, as she adjourned the Cabinet meeting, Charlotte was well prepared when her phone delivered a few bars of Pugliese’s “Manos Adoradas”, followed by a concise text. “No mailed fingers if the arson investigation stops now.”

Amancio, entrusted with Dolores’s care and safety, was the last to know. He was strolling back to the Sofitel, taking a circuitous route past the Obelisk and the Malvinas War Memorial, when his Blackberry went into serial spasms of vibration. Willis’s ID flashed onto the screen. While he was keying a reply, another text peremptorily ordered him back to the Four Seasons. And then Dolores messaged him: “Black Ducati, Cobra helmet”. Confused, and feeling the first gropings of alarm in his gut, Amancio sent Dolores an interrogative question mark. Gathering his scattered thoughts, he saw smoke rising beyond the office towers out towards the Recoleta Cemetery. Minutes passed; Dolores’s phone was dead. Two black-and-white police cruisers shot past him, sirens shrieking, riot lights ablaze. Amancio waved down a cab, and saw a new text from Willis: “Dolores taken; motorbike northbound on Libertador.”

Leaning forward in the cab, Amancio keyed ID codes into his phone and shrank inwardly as he remembered the President’s admonition: “Keep her out of this.” He forwarded Dolores’s message to Willis, and moments later, for the second time that day, he was striding through the Four Seasons lobby to the elevators. Before him, tight-skirted young women holding furry mikes shouted questions. Behind them, stepping steadily backwards, were silent shaven-head men, TV cameras propped on their shoulders, red LEDs blinking. Amancio pushed past them, smiling politely. Green and yellow parakeets argued noisily in the palm fronds overhead, and sparrows foraged among the starched-linen lunch tables.

In the penthouse operations suite, the President and his advisors were watching a giant plasma screen. A high-zoom view of stalled traffic on Avenida del Libertador was dominated by smoke towering into a crystalline blue sky.
“Where were you, Amancio?” said the Chief of Staff, “There are maybe 15,000 Ducatis in Buenos Aires; how many are black we don’t know, not yet. What about the cobra?”
Startled by the rebuke, Amancio contemplated the blemished digital skies of Buenos Aires and feigned professional poise.
“It’s unclear, sir. I was asked to arrange some Tango lessons for the White House. Online searches detected unusual Tango fervor in Charleston, South Carolina, focused in the Hotel Fakir, which happened to have an etched-glass cobra over the door. I met Dolores there; she was a skilled tanguera, she checked out well, and we made her a temporary Cultural Attaché.”
The President had been listening intently, hands under his chin.
“How is it,” he now said, “just when I’m visiting BA, we suddenly learn that the Hotel Fakir was run by the Argentine President’s father, commander of the Malvinas 7th Infantry, exiled conscience of the Argentine people, and recently mysteriously deceased? Not to mention the ubiquitous cobra? What next, Amancio?”

“That’s an accurate summary, Mr. President,” said Amancio. “I assume her phone has been reset or destroyed, and we’re probably already asking for check-points on every major highway leaving BA. The cobra tattoo on the bike helmet implicates the 7th infantry. We can get details of veteran political activities from Mme. Quiroga’s office. Google and the NSA will give us everything else; location, names, addresses…”

Amancio paused, imagining the integration of all these data. Knowledge is power, he thought, and an image of Dolores folding into his embrace came to mind. A stab of anxiety ran through him, rousing again the crippling fear that Dolores was in terrible danger. Some phrases of Piazzolla’s “Regreso al Amor” drifted across his thoughts, and he saw in a flash that the answer lay in Tango; everyone was listening to Tango’s invitation.

From the shoals of restless thoughts that swam through Dolores’s mind in the far corner of the dank cellar where she’d been for the last six hours, Tango rose slowly to the surface. By the cellar door, Federico sipped a glass of wine, involuntarily tapped his feet, and swayed gently to Anibal Troilo’s “Sonar y Nada Mas” on the radio. The rope that bound her hands was poorly knotted; she had already loosened her wrists and was massaging them in readiness for the next step. Federico was no older than nineteen, his slender body barely filling his grey T-shirt and jeans, his face earnest and focused, outlined by straight black eyebrows and a sharply trimmed beard. His eyes were large, brown, and meditative, and every now and again he turned towards her, regarding her with forthright interest and tacit understanding that all the initiative lay with others; he was simply her temporary jailer, and anything beyond that was unimaginable.

Nevertheless, Federico listened attentively to the staccato bandoneon and mournful violins diffusing from the radio, and thought of close embrace with Dolores and of intuitive steps that would paint his sense of the music. He glanced at his watch, and then at Dolores. She caught his eye, and her invitation was unmistakable; he was reminded of cabeceos in Buenos Aires milongas, and before he knew it, he was on his feet and crossing the damp flagstones to her side.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked politely, “I’m sorry you’re so miserable, but I’m sure it’s only temporary, and in any case, it’s probably all a terrible mistake.”
Dolores regarded him intently, then cast her eyes downwards, despairingly, shrugging off the obvious inconvenience of her tied hands, and letting a tear flow down her cheek.
“Perhaps you could loosen the rope a little,” she said, “The music’s so lovely, time passes more quickly. What’s your name?”
Federico thought momentarily of the elderly grey army veterans around his father, who together had contrived his own recruitment to the cause, whatever that was, and the improbable abduction of Dolores. He knew all this related to ancient betrayals that lived on and sullied the life of everyone they touched.

“My name is Federico,” he said, “I like Troilo, my favorites are Di Sarli and Pugliese, and best of all is Piazzolla’s “Regreso al Amor.”
Dolores was intrigued. “What about D’Arienzo? Don’t you love his songs?”
Their eyes met as he knelt before her to adjust the cord that bound her wrists. Federico remembered, too late, advice he’d read in a Dear Abby column in the Buenos Aires Tribune: if a woman desires to be kissed, she will come close, and then a little closer, and then just wait; within seconds a man will sense the inevitable, let his tongue touch her ear lobe, murmur a word or two, and seek her slightly parted lips. And so, kneeling before her, Federico was gently swept away on tides of desire. He caressed Dolores’s bruised wrists, brought his face close to hers, brushed her cheek with his, and murmured seductive words of consolation. Dolores saw her phone lying on the packing case by the cellar door, next to a bottle of cheap Malbec, the radio, and a guttering candle. They had probably reset the phone, but maybe not, and the camera and GPS would do the rest.
“Federico,” she said, “isn’t that Troilo on the radio? Let’s dance!”

Critical distinctions among fine tango orchestras of the 40s were interests that Charlotte and Felix shared, but these were yet to surface in their conversation. They were having lunch on the shaded South Wing terrace of the Presidential Palace. A mild breeze carried faint sounds of city traffic, and muted tango songs diffused from speakers hidden in the garden. Charlotte was composed and serene, the severity of her crisp white blouse and charcoal skirt softened by her café au lait complexion, expressive eyes, and the mother-of-pearl brooch on her breast. Felix scooped an oyster from its shell and chased it with a sip of champagne.

“Mademoiselle Quiroga,” he said, “Dolores was a tanguera at the Hotel Fakir in Charleston. She became my tango instructor, and she guides my preferences for classical orchestral tango. Dolores drilled me for our delightful Inaugural Ball dance.”
Charlotte sliced delicately into her salmon empanada.
“The pleasure was all mine. She taught you well. Desde el Alma, was it not? Osvaldo Pugliese’s. The most haunting yet joyous vals of all. But tell me, why was Dolores at the Hotel Fakir?”
“We’re not certain,” Felix replied, inclining his head respectfully. “Ignatio Quiroga opposed the military junta. Dolores acquired high value when she came to the White House to teach me tango.”
“Tango does that,” Charlotte said with a smile. “We know that Dolores was abducted by an extremist splinter group, Septima Infanteria, which agitates for indicted junta generals. We have a well-trained rescue team poised to attack as we speak.”
Felix fought down alarm. He scooped another oyster and sipped his champagne tentatively.
“I’d like to see your rescue plan,” he said.
“Of course.” Charlotte patted her perfect chignon and met Felix’s eye. “I’d prefer that we do things together.”

She gestured discreetly to an aide posted by the tall French doors opening onto the terrace.
“Nestor is my eyes and ears on Septima; he’ll cooperate fully with your people. We need to move promptly; Dolores may be a skilled tanguera, but she’s helpless in their hands.”
Her evocation of tango brought a light to Charlotte’s eye and sharpened Felix’s mind. They regarded each other forthrightly. In less dire circumstances, their thoughts may have culminated in a simple embrace fueled by tango’s complex insinuations.
“My aide Amancio oversees investigation of your father’s death,” Felix said with tact. “He’s resourceful, he knows Dolores, and his understanding of Tango may be helpful.”

A commotion at the French doors distracted them. Amancio appeared on the terrace. He conferred briefly with Nestor, and bowed in deference to Mme. Quiroga. He was flushed and breathless as he addressed the President.
“Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt. Dolores got her phone to stream us a video of her dancing with her guard Federico. We found her in a cellar on Calle Copernico in Recoleta. We blew down the door. Dolores is safe at the Four Seasons, Federico is at the Hospital Italiano; he may respond to interrogation in a day or two.”
Charlotte and Felix sat speechless. After a moment, Felix raised his glass.
“Thank you, Amancio,” he said. He turned to Charlotte, resting his fingers on the silver bracelet encircling her wrist.
“Septima has to be shut down for good, I’m sure you’ll agree. But first, let’s celebrate with your favorite vals.”
He stood, waved casually at the hidden speakers, and offered his hand to Charlotte.

Federico, no different from Amancio or Felix or many others back in the day at the Hotel Fakir, was smitten. As he surfaced from the deep somnolence of anesthesia, he gathered memories of close embrace with a beautiful creature that moved in tight synchrony with him and the melting rhythms of Troilo’s “Uruguaya”. He recalled a disorienting explosive flash and a solid concussion that threw him to his knees, and then sharp snapping cracks that pierced his shoulder and side. The image of Dolores dancing before his eyes faded as he focused on two men leaning over him. One was thoughtful and disinterested, essentially benevolent; the other radiated hostility and violence. Lying supine, staring at fluorescent ceiling lights, Federico felt restraints on his arms and feet. He slipped into trackless oblivion relieved by fleeting glimpses of Dolores, hands tied behind her.

“Is she all right?” he whispered.
“Who’s she?” someone said.
“Dolores. I danced with Dolores,” he heard himself say.
The slap was reflexive, fast and sharp, slamming Federico’s face sideways.
“We don’t need that,” said Willis, taking Nestor’s hand, “we’re just beginning.” He turned to Federico.
“Dolores is fine, she asked about you. What is all this about?”
Federico saw a drip-bag, a snaking silicone line, and a needle penetrating a vein in his forearm. Wires were draped across his chest.
“Was I shot?”
“You’ll live,” Willis said, “Who assigned you to Calle Copernico?”
“I was told to watch over her. I was listening to Radio Gardel tango and she asked me to dance.” Federico closed his eyes and thought back. “She promised to put us on YouTube; she showed me how with her phone.”
“Hijo de puta,” said Nestor, and prodded Federico’s temple with a Glock 45. “We want names.”
Willis intervened a second time. “Nestor, we find that water-boarding is more productive. Federico, your Facebook friends have told us just about everything we need to know. Can you help us wrap this up?”

Federico breathed deeply, warding off waves of nausea. “Yes. Study the video. It’s all there.”
The momentary silence was punctuated by discrete pings from a bedside instrument monitoring Federico’s vital functions, and muted FM tango from a nurses’ station down the hall. Willis and Nestor closed their files, pushed back their chairs, and left the room. Federico closed his eyes, and found himself walking onto the gleaming parquet of a tango salon, meeting the smiling eyes of Dolores who sat beneath a somber but uplifting print of a Cunard ocean-liner. A tiny tango orchestra played Troilo’s “Temblando”, and over by the bar, next to a flamboyant display of tropical gladioli, clematis and orchids, an elderly bartender cast his eye over the dancers and mixed a heady cocktail.