被预言的谋杀（2）

Rosenberg warned family and friends that the Musa murders would never be properly investigated. The criminal networks would either block the investigation or destroy the evidence, and if a probe somehow proceeded they would frame a scapegoat; finally, if all else failed, the gangsters would threaten to kill members of the judiciary system, who would bury the case. The Musas’ deaths, he predicted, would become just another statistic. Nevertheless, Rosenberg could not let the matter go: Why, he asked, had an honorable man like Musa been “put down like a dog”? And what had Marjorie, an exemplary daughter, done to deserve this?

　　罗森博格告诫家人与朋友，穆萨凶杀案永远都得不到妥善调查。犯罪网络要么阻止调查，要么毁灭证据，就算调查取得进展，他们也会找到替罪羊；万一最后这些都不奏效，这帮匪徒还会向司法系统中办理此案的人员发出死亡通牒。他推测，穆萨父女之死只不过是又一统计数据罢了。无论怎样，罗森博格都不会善罢甘休：他叩问，为什么像穆萨这样德高望重的人会“像只狗一样被杀掉”？而且，马约莉这样的乖女儿，究竟造了什么孽会遭此下场？

Mendizábal, the longtime friend, says that after the funeral Rosenberg asked him for help, vowing to “go all the way to find out who killed the Musas.” Mendizábal was the one person Rosenberg knew who could help him take on the parallel powers that dominated Guatemala. A genteel-looking grandfather, with a silver mustache and birdlike eyes, he was known for making business deals, sometimes with the government, and he owned a clothing shop, in Guatemala City, that catered to a wealthy male clientele. But Mendizábal was no mere entrepreneur. It was whispered that, as in a John le Carré novel, the boutique also served as a meeting place for military-intelligence officers, coup plotters, and death-squad leaders.

　　老友蒙迪扎巴尔说，葬礼之后，罗森博格曾请求他伸出援手，发誓“要不惜一切代价找出杀害穆萨父女的凶手。”罗森博格明白，蒙迪扎巴尔能助他与控制危地马拉的黑道势力较量。蒙迪扎巴尔老爷子长相斯文，银色的胡须，鸟一般的眼睛，他在危地马拉城开了一家服装店，专门服务于有钱的男性顾客。不过蒙迪扎巴尔可不仅是生意人。据密传，正如约翰·勒·卡雷（John le Carré）在一部小说里描述的，时装店也是军方情报官员、政变策划者和行刑队头目的聚会场所。

Mendizábal was Guatemala’s most notorious spy. Relying on an extensive network of orejas, or “ears,” he regularly compiled intelligence dossiers, vacuuming up even the most vaporous rumors and searching for patterns in the chaos of information. A former high-ranking U.N. official, who spent years investigating crimes in the country, told me, “Mendizábal has probably records on everyone in Guatemala. He knows everything: who is the lover of whom, who has money in the Cayman Islands, who has committed a murder. Everything.” Such information placed Mendizábal in great demand, and he had served as an adviser to several Guatemalan Presidents, including, for a while, Colom. Mendizábal presented himself as a fanatical anti-Communist, but his ideology, apparently, was flexible when it came to business: according to the newspaper El Periódico, he had once been caught smuggling weapons to Communist guerrillas in El Salvador. Mendizábal told me that he had never played both sides of Central America’s civil conflicts, but he seemed to embrace a Machiavellian persona: “The one who has the knowledge has the power. That’s why some people are afraid of the stuff that I do.”

　　蒙迪扎巴尔是危地马拉最臭名昭著的间谍。依靠“耳朵”这个无孔不入的网络，他定期汇编情报档案，甚至是最捕风捉影的传闻都收录在内，并在各色信息中搜索匹配项。一位花费数年时间调查该国犯罪的前联合国高级官员对我说，“蒙迪扎巴尔或许有危地马拉每个人的记录。他无所不知：谁是谁的爱人，谁在开曼群岛存了钱，谁参与了谋杀。任何事情都逃不过他法眼。”这些信息让蒙迪扎巴尔炙手可热，他出任了几届危地马拉总统的顾问，包括也为科罗姆干过一段。蒙迪扎巴尔自陈是狂热的反共分子，但是，若涉及生意，他的意识形态显然是灵活多变的：据报纸《El Periódico》披露，他一度因私运武器给萨尔瓦多的共产主义游击队而被捕。蒙迪扎巴尔告诉我，在中美洲内战冲突中，他从未扮演过两面派，但他貌似信奉马基维利主义【译注：一种为达目的不择手段的政治权术理论】：“谁掌握信息，谁就握有权力。这就是有些人害怕我那些材料的原因。”

Mendizábal agreed to help Rosenberg, and they began investigating the case. Shortly after Marjorie’s funeral, Rosenberg obtained a copy of a security video that documented the scene outside the Musas’ textile factory on the day of the murders. Mendizábal, who watched it with him on a computer at the clothing shop, said that Rosenberg played the video over and over, searching for clues. Unlike the escapist movies that Rosenberg had seen at his father’s cinemas, the grainy black-and-white images had the blunt force of unscripted narrative. They showed a truck parked in front of the Musas’ factory. The driver kept getting in and out of his vehicle, peering down the road. Mendizábal told Rosenberg that the man was clearly acting as a lookout.

　　蒙迪扎巴尔同意帮助罗森博格，他们开始调查此案。马约莉葬礼举行之后不久，罗森博格获得了一份监控录像的副本，这记录了凶案发生当日穆萨纺织厂外的场景。蒙迪扎巴尔与罗森博格一起在服装店里的电脑上看了录像，他说，罗森博格反复播放这段录像，搜寻着蛛丝马迹。不同于罗森博格在他父亲影院中看过的那些逃避现实的影片，这些颗粒状的黑白图像可是直击人心、没有剧本的叙事。它们显示，在穆萨工厂前停着一辆卡车。司机在汽车里出出进进，眼睛瞟着路面。蒙迪扎巴尔告诉罗森博格，这家伙显然是在望风。

Rosenberg stared helplessly at the implacable sequence that came next. A silhouette appeared in the corner of the screen: Marjorie, getting into her car. Rosenberg touched the television screen—she was there but not there. As Marjorie drove onto the street, with her father at her side, the car with the assassin raced up behind them, followed by the driver on the motorcycle. (The hit men were obeying a new law banning two people from travelling on a motorcycle—a law that was supposed to curb assassinations, since so many were carried out by hit men riding on back seats.) Rosenberg braced himself. After a flash, Marjorie vanished from the frame.

　　罗森博格无助地盯着接踵而来的那幕令人激愤难平的场景。一个身影出现在屏幕一角：马约莉上车了。罗森博格抚摸着电脑屏幕——她在那，却又不在那。马约莉驱车出发了，身边坐着她的父亲，杀手的车紧跟在他们后面，再接着是那辆摩托车。（杀手倒是遵守了新法律，没有两人骑在一辆摩托车上——该法律本是为了遏制暗杀的，因为许多情况下都是坐在后座的人下手。）罗森博格鼓起勇气往下看。一片闪光之后，马约莉便从图像中消失了。

The hit squad had displayed military precision, raising the prospect that the crime was carried out by the state’s security apparatus. The ballistics report indicated that Khalil Musa was hardly a random victim. He had been shot nine times. The bullet that killed Marjorie was a stray—it had apparently passed through Musa’s body before piercing hers.

　　杀手小组下手之精准有如军人，由此来看，此次犯罪由国家安全机构实施的可能性挺大。弹道报告表明，穆萨并非随机的被害者，他身中九弹。杀死马约莉的则是一颗流弹——显然，它穿透了穆萨的身体，射中了她。

In Guatemala, impunity has created a bewildering swirl of competing stories and rumors, allowing powerful interests not only to cloak history but also to fabricate it. As Francisco Goldman describes in his incisive 2007 book, “The Art of Political Murder,” about the assassination of Bishop Gerardi, the military and its intelligence operators concocted evidence and witnesses to generate endless hypotheses—it was a robbery, it was a crime of passion—in order to conceal the simple truth that they had murdered him. “So much would be made to seem to connect,” Goldman writes.

　　在危地马拉，有罪不罚曾制造出众多纷纷扰扰、令人迷惑、自相矛盾的故事与谣言，使得那些强大的利益集团不仅可以掩盖历史，还可以篡改历史。正如弗朗西斯科·高曼（Francisco Goldman）在其一针见血的书《政治谋杀术》中的描述，对于杰拉尔迪主教被害一案，军方及其情报人员捏造证据和证人，给出的假设没完没了——是抢劫，是激情犯罪——目的就是要掩盖“他们谋杀了他”这个简单事实。“能扯上关系的真可谓无所不有，”高曼写道。

Guatemalans often cite the proverb “In a country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Fighting his way through the political fog, Rosenberg searched for a motive, stubbornly insisting that, if two people were assassinated, then somebody had a reason to kill them. In notes he kept about the case, he reported that authorities had initially suggested the shootings stemmed from a dispute over a fired factory worker. But, by all accounts, Musa had treated his workers well. Were the police and authorities trying to cover something up, spinning another web of disinformation?

　　危地马拉人时常引用一句谚语“盲人之国，独眼为王”。罗森博格欲以自己的方式冲破政治迷雾，他寻找着动机，他坚持认为，如果两人被暗杀，那一定是有人为着什么去杀他们。他在关于此案留下的笔记里记述道，当局起初暗示枪杀起因于和一个被解雇工人的争执。不过，大家都说穆萨对工人不错。是否警方和当局意图掩盖什么，是否他们又在编织一张假情报之网?

Finally, a lead emerged. Mendizábal advised Rosenberg to look into the murky business surrounding two government positions for which Khalil Musa had been nominated in the months before his assassination. The nominations were for seats on the boards of directors of two institutions with strong ties to the state—most notably, the Rural Development Bank, known as Banrural. President Colom has called Banrural “our Administration’s financial arm,” and has relied on it to fund major social-welfare programs for the poor. These programs were administered by Guatemala’s First Lady, Sandra de Colom, a powerful politician who is often compared to Eva Perón, and who aspires to succeed her husband.

　　终于，一条线索浮出水面。穆萨在遭暗杀前数月曾被提名过两个政府位置，蒙迪扎巴尔建议罗森博格去调查下有关这两职位的黑暗交易。所提名的是两家机构的董事会席位，而这些机构与政府颇有渊源——最有名的是农村发展银行，又称农村银行（Banrural）。科罗姆总统曾称农村银行是“我们政府部门的财政支柱”，并靠它来为面向穷人的主要社会福利计划筹集资金。而这些计划交由危地马拉第一夫人桑德拉·科罗姆（Sandra de Colom）管理，科罗姆夫人是一位经常与贝隆夫人相提并论的强权政治家，她志在接她丈夫的班。

Before Musa died, he had talked to Rosenberg about whether to accept the positions. Rosenberg considered entering Guatemalan politics a folly. With friends from law school, he had once started a conservative political party, but he had quit after it joined forces with traditional corrupt hands. Rosenberg told Musa, “Truthfully, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Musa, hoping to help the country, accepted the offers anyway.

　　穆萨生前曾与罗森博格谈及是否接受这些位置。罗森博格认为进入危地马拉政坛是愚蠢的。他与法律学院的友人一起，曾经组建过一个保守派政党，但在该党与传统腐败势力同流合污之后，他就退出了。罗森博格对穆萨说，“实话实说，我认为这不是个好主意。”穆萨希望帮助这个国家，总之他还是接受了这些提名。

But the nominations, mysteriously, had never gone through. Rosenberg learned from Mendizábal that there had been a fierce struggle over control of the two boards, which, together, manage enormous financial resources. According to Mendizábal, Musa’s uncompromising ethics posed a threat to parties with stakes in these institutions. Indeed, Marjorie’s sister, Aziza, told Rosenberg that, after her father was offered the nominations, he had attended a lunch where officials connected to the institutions discouraged Musa from taking the posts, and even insulted him. Afterward, Aziza recalled, her father sent letters to some of these officials, saying, “You won’t tell me what to do.” Musa soon received threatening text messages and calls, including one noting that the farm of a meddling government official had been torched.

　　但诡秘的是，这些提名一直都未获批准。罗森博格从蒙迪扎巴尔那儿了解到，这两大董事会的控制权之争异常激烈，因为它们共同掌管着巨量金融资源。据蒙迪扎巴尔说，穆萨毫不妥协的为人对那些参股两家机构的党派而言无疑是一大威胁。的确，马约莉的姐姐阿齐萨也告诉罗森博格，她父亲被提名之后曾出席过一场午宴，席上，与这些机构有关的官员劝阻穆萨放弃这些位置，甚至对他出言不逊。后来，据阿齐萨回忆，她父亲发信给其中一些官员说，“你休想指挥我该做什么。”穆萨很快就接到了威胁短信和电话，其中一个口气强硬，说是一位从中作梗的政府官员的农场就曾遭纵火。

Rosenberg eventually ferreted out from Musa’s papers several documents concerning the appointments. One was a copy of a letter Musa had sent to the head of a group of small coffee growers that had a stake in the direction of Banrural. Musa said that he would not tolerate messages embedded with “double meanings,” adding, “I protect myself from my enemies.”

　　罗森博格最终从穆萨的文件里查获了一些有关这些任命的文档。其中一份是穆萨发给一个小咖啡种植者组织负责人信件的副本，该组织与农村银行的管理存在利害关系。穆萨表示他不会容忍那些嵌入“双重含义”的消息，并补充道，“我会保护自己，免遭敌人所害。”

Aziza said of her father, “He always says the truth and I think that is why he was murdered.”

　　关于父亲，阿齐萨评价道，“他总喜欢讲真话，我看，这就是他被害的原因所在。”

As Rosenberg dug deeper into the subterranean world of Guatemalan politics, he told friends that he had begun receiving threats himself. One day, Mendizábal says, Rosenberg gave him a phone number to write down—it was the number that showed up on his caller I.D. when he received the threats.

　　随着罗森博格对危地马拉政坛的地下世界挖掘得更深，他告诉好友说，自己也开始收到威胁了。蒙迪扎巴尔说，有一天，罗森博格给了他一个电话号码并要他记下来——接到威胁时，来电显示里正是这个号码。

Rosenberg told friends that his apartment was under surveillance, and that he was being followed. “Whenever he got into the car, he was looking over his shoulder,” his son Eduardo recalled. From his apartment window, Rosenberg could look across the street and see an office where Gustavo Alejos, President Colom’s private secretary, often worked. Rosenberg told Mendizábal that Alejos had called him and warned him to stop investigating the Musas’ murders, or else the same thing might happen to him. Speaking to Musa’s business manager, Rosenberg said of the powerful people he was investigating, “They are going to kill me.” He had a will drawn up.

　　罗森博格告诉朋友，他的公寓处于监视之中，有人跟踪了他。“每次钻进汽车时，他都会四下瞧瞧，”他儿子爱德华多回忆道。由公寓的窗口，罗森博格能俯瞰街道，他看到了一家办事处，总统科罗姆的私人秘书古斯塔沃·阿莱霍斯常在此办公。罗森博格告诉蒙迪扎巴尔，阿莱霍斯曾打电话给他，警告他停止调查穆萨父女谋杀案，否则同样的事情也会落到他头上。在与穆萨的商务经理的谈话中，罗森博格提及了他正在调查的强权人物，“他们将要杀了我。”他还拟定了一份遗嘱。

Mendizábal says that on Friday, May 8, 2009, he advised Rosenberg to leave the country. Rosenberg promised that he would, but not yet. He felt that he was on the verge of identifying who had ordered the hit on the Musas, and was collecting irrefutable proof, which he intended to present at the International Criminal Court. On Saturday evening, Rosenberg called Marjorie’s sister and told her that he planned to go for a bicycle ride the next morning, to clear his mind. On Sunday, just after 8 A.M., he pedalled away from his apartment building, listening to his iPod. After a few hundred yards, Rosenberg turned onto a service road. A gunman approached quickly, running across a grassy median toward him. No one saw the assassin as he pointed a 9-mm. pistol at Rosenberg’s head and repeatedly pulled the trigger.

　　2009年5月8日星期五，蒙迪扎巴尔建议罗森博格离开这个国家。罗森博格许诺会离开，但现在还不是时候。他感觉就快要找出袭击穆萨父女的幕后元凶了，他正在搜集无可辩驳的证据，并打算向国际刑事法庭呈交这些证据。星期六晚，罗森博格打电话给马约莉的姐姐，说他打算明早去骑会自行车，清醒一下头脑。星期日，8点刚过，他就从居住的公寓楼里蹬着车出来了，一边听着iPod。骑行几百码之后，他拐上一条便道。一名枪手迅速靠近，穿过一块绿色隔离带，直朝他奔去。无人目击这场谋杀，枪手用9mm手枪指着罗森博格的头，不断扣响着扳机。

Not long afterward, Rosenberg’s chauffeur was on his way to Rosenberg’s apartment when he saw his boss lying on the ground, surrounded by paramedics and police officers. He phoned Eduardo Rosenberg. “He told me I had to go near my dad’s house, about a block away,” Eduardo recalled. “He didn’t want to say what had happened. He just told me that I had to go there. So I hung up the phone. I started panicking, trying to get dressed. I picked up the phone again and called the driver. And I demanded to know what had happened. He still didn’t want to say. So I asked him, ‘Is my dad dead?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ ”

　　没多久，罗森博格的司机前往罗森博格的寓所，途中，他见到老板躺在地上，四周围着护理人员和警官。他打电话给爱德华多。“他告诉我，我得赶紧去我爸那，我们大约就相隔了一个街区，”爱德华多回忆道。“他不想说发生了什么。只是说我必须赶到那。这样我就挂了电话。我惊慌失措起来，连衣服都穿不好了。我再次拿起电话打给司机。我要求知道所发生的一切。他还是什么也不说。因此我问他，‘是不是我爸爸死了？’他说，‘是的。’”