Molina's Final Secret Liaison Mission

Molina's Final Secret Liaison Mission is presented through a surveillance report that follows Molina after his parole and ends with his death during an attempted police arrest. The document records ordinary movements—a boutique, meals, telephone calls, and a journey across the city—then turns them into signs of covert contact. Its decisive tension lies in the gap between what the officers observe and what they can prove: Molina's communications remain unidentified, the suspected meeting never becomes visible, and the report can only speculate about why he was killed.

Surveillance After Parole

The report identifies Molina as prisoner 3.018, notes that he was paroled on the 9th, and states that CISL placed him under surveillance in coordination with TISL's wiretap unit. The mission therefore takes place in a compromised interval: Molina is outside prison, but his movements are continuously recorded and interpreted by the authorities. His release does not mean that he has escaped institutional control; it relocates that control to the streets, public telephones, and the watchers' written account.

A separate exchange records suspicion that Molina is withholding information. The speakers consider whether he has gone over to the other side, perhaps because he fears reprisals from Arregui's people. This is an expressed suspicion, not confirmation of Molina's allegiance or of any agreement with Arregui's organization. The surveillance report likewise never identifies the people with whom Molina may be trying to communicate. The mission's secret character is thus conveyed less by a disclosed plan than by the authorities' uncertainty about what his movements mean.

Calls and Possible Contacts

On Tuesday the 22nd, Molina left home at 8:05 in the morning and reached the boutique close to 9, running the final two blocks. At 12:30 he went to a coffee shop on Calle Juncal, between Ayacucho and Rio Bamba, and used a public telephone. He dialed three times, hung up immediately each time, and then spoke for about three minutes. The report calls this behavior peculiar, emphasizing that a telephone was available at his workplace and that he had to wait in line to use the public one.

Investigators checked the telephones at Molina's home, the Restaurant Mallorquin, and Banco de Galicia; none was the destination of the call. The checks establish the limits of what the record could discover, not the identity of the person reached. Molina returned to work and left at 7 p.m., arriving home shortly after 8. The report transforms these details into a trace of possible clandestine communication while leaving the substance of the conversation entirely unknown.

The report also notes that TISL had raised the possibility of a hidden code in the feminine names Molina used when addressing Lalo. Its assessment is cautious: the conversations seemed bantering and highly disordered, though the matter would continue to be watched. This is an instance of surveillance converting conversational features into a hypothesis without resolving it. Neither the proposed code nor the suspected meaning of the names is established as fact.

The Watched Meeting and Arrest

On Friday the 25th, Molina again used a public telephone after dialing three times and hanging up immediately. He made the call at a pizzeria, number 2476 on Las Heras, ate alone, and left nearly all his food. After returning to work, he left at 6:40 p.m.; from Callao he took a bus to Congreso, continued by subway to José Maria Moreno station, and walked to Riglos and Formosa.

The report says the location could be watched from four different vantage points and therefore concludes that it must have been chosen by someone expert at evading police surveillance. Molina waited there for approximately thirty minutes, the interval the Central Bureau had allotted before agents would pick him up for interrogation if nobody met him. Several cars passed, but none stopped; Molina spoke to no one. The officers' account suggests that a planned contact may have been deterred by the surveillance, but it cannot verify that anyone had arranged to meet him.

Two CISL agents moved to arrest Molina. He demanded to see their credentials, and, at that moment, shots were fired from a passing automobile. Molina and agent Joaquin Perrone were both wounded and fell. The patrol unit arrived minutes later, too late to pursue the car. Molina died before first aid could be administered; Perrone survived with thigh wounds and serious contusions. The account establishes the sequence and outcome, but does not identify the attackers.

Uncertainty and the Report's Ending

The report attributes to patrol members the impression that the extremists had chosen to eliminate Molina to prevent a possible confession. It also points to his recent activities and a bank account as indications that Molina himself feared something might happen. These are competing interpretations, not settled explanations. The report further proposes two possible plans if Molina knew he was under surveillance: he might have expected to escape with the extremists, or he might have been prepared for them to eliminate him. It does not establish that he knew the full extent of the monitoring, that either plan existed, or who fired the shots.

The document's form makes this unresolved ending central to the episode. It is at once a record of specific times, routes, calls, and agents, and an official effort to infer intention from incomplete observations. Molina's death closes the possibility of interrogation, while the passing car and the suspected contacts remain beyond the report's reach. The mission is therefore legible only in fragments: a possible liaison is inferred from repeated telephone behavior and a watched rendezvous, but its purpose and participants are left undisclosed.