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off the route."

Marta then went on to describe details that had been concealed from the public at the time. The site had been sealed off immediately after the crash; local police had been kept out; only Ecuadorian and U.S. military personnel were allowed in. Two key witnesses had been killed in car accidents before they were supposed to testify in hearings concerning the cause of the crash.

One of the plane's engines had been sent to a Swiss laboratory and tests there indicated that it had stopped before it "hit the mountain." Marta was only seventeen on the day of the tragedy.

Both her parents had died in that crash. She had been devastated, and for years unable to take action. Then when she turned fortyone she realized that she had reached her father's last year; it was time to act.

"You talk in your book," she continued, "about the impact my father's death had on Omar Torrijos. I know that to be true too. I married Omar's nephew; he's the father of my ten-year-old daughter. My dad's assassination haunted Omar. He told my husband and many others that he expected to be killed just like my dad was. He said he was ready to die because he had succeeded, he had put the Canal in Panamanian hands and had thrown the School of the Americas out of his country."

Omar Torrijos died in a plane crash a little more than two months after Jaime Roldos, on July 31,1981.

After returning home from that meeting with Marta I typed the 152A HISTORY OF ASSASSINATIONS above record of our conversation. I ran it by Jessica, sat on it for a week, reviewed it again, and then when I believed Marta was back in Ecuador e-mailed it to her. I did not hear back from