- Consul Phil Putnam: Please try to understand. There are so many cases. They're all so important, and this isn't the only one we're working on.
- Ed Horman: It's the only one I care about.
- Consul Phil Putnam: You and a lot of other people. Listen, I've never seen so many cables from Washington. What kind of pull do you have up there anyway?
- Ed Horman: I'm an American citizen.
- Ed Horman: [voiceover] Ed Horman filed suit charging eleven government officials, including Henry A. Kissinger, with complicity and negligence in the death of his son. The body was not returned home until seven months later, making an accurate autopsy impossible. After years of litigation, the information necessary to prove or disprove complicity remained classified as secrets of state. The suit was dismissed.
- Ed Horman: This past week I've felt like, erm, my heart has been torn out of me.
- Beth Horman: It's okay.
- Ed Horman: I feel very guilty.
- Beth Horman: Hey, Charlie always says guilt is like fear. It's given to us for survival, not destruction.
- Ed Horman: Oh. Beth, for what it's worth, I think you are one of the most courageous people I have ever met.
- Ed Horman: He, he seems so innocent. Almost deliberately naive.
- Beth Horman: Is that so bad?
- Ed Horman: Is that so good?
- Beth Horman: You raised him.
- U.S. Ambassador: We're not involved, Mr Horman. Our position has been completely neutral.
- Ed Horman: That is a bald face lie, sir. How can you say a thing like that when you have army colonels, you have naval engineers, they're all over Viña Del Mar!
- U.S. Ambassador: Please sit down. Look, it's very obvious you're harbouring some misconception regarding our role here.
- Ed Horman: What is your role here? Besides inducing a regime that murders thousands of human beings?
- U.S. Ambassador: Let's level with each other, sir. If you hadn't been personally involved in this unfortunate incident, you'd be sitting at home complacent and more or less oblivious to all of this. This mission is pledged to protect American interests, our interests.
- Ed Horman: Well, they're not mine.
- U.S. Ambassador: There are over three thousand US firms doing business down here. And those are American interests. In other words, your interests. I am concerned with the preservation of a way of life.
- Capt. Ray Tower, USN: And a damned good one.
- Ed Horman: [Staring out the window] Maybe that's why there's nobody out there.
- U.S. Ambassador: You can't have it both ways.
- Capt. Ray Tower, USN: I don't know what happened to your kid, Ed. But I understand he was a bit of a snoop. Poked his nose around in a lot of dangerous places where he didn't really belong. Now, suppose I went up to your town, New York, and I started messing around with the Mafia. I wind up dead in the East River. And my wife or my father complains to the police because they didn't protect me. They really wouldn't have much of a case, would they? You play with fire, you get burned.
- Consul Phil Putnam: Listen, Mr Horman, I wish there was something we could say or do.
- Ed Horman: Well, there's something I'm going to do. I'm going to sue you, Phil. And Tower and the Ambassador and everybody who let that boy die. We're going to make it so hot for you you'll wish you were stationed in the Antarctic.
- Consul Phil Putnam: Well, I guess that's your privilege.
- Ed Horman: No, that's my right! I just thank God we live in a country where we can still put people like you in jail.
- Beth Horman: And what are the basics? God, country and Wall Street?
- Ed Horman: You know what I mean.
- Beth Horman: I know, I know. God bless our way of life!
- Ed Horman: Oh, a very good way of life it is, young lady, no matter how much people like you and Charles try to tear it down with your sloppy idealism. I can no longer abide the young people of our country who live off their parents and the fat of the land and then they find nothing better to do than whine and complain.
- Kate Newman: What we need to know is, can they order an American to "disappear" without consulting the Americans first?
- Paris: No, they wouldn't dare.
- Ed Horman: How can I verify that?
- Paris: You can't.
- Capt. Ray Tower, USN: If he falls behind the power curve and something happens, then it's adiós. You gotta stay ahead of the power curve, kid.
- Ed Horman: Now, erm, I owe you an apology.
- Beth Horman: No, you don't.
- Ed Horman: No, no, no. Well, for a long time now I've sold you short. Both of you. I don't really know why. Unless it's because I'm getting old. And I'm very stubborn.
- Ed Horman: Why aren't you cooperating with them?
- Beth Horman: I am cooperating with them. I've been cooperating for two weeks, Ed! I'm sick and tired of getting fucked around by these people, that's why!
- U.S. Ambassador: So, you see, Mr. Horman, the hiding theory seems to be the most viable, at least for the present.
- Beth Horman: That's dumb. If he were in hiding, he'd call me and let me know he was all right.
- Colonel Clay: Maybe he can't. There have been a lot of civilian accidents and injuries.
- Beth Horman: No shit, Sherlock.
- [first lines]
- Ed Horman: [narrating] This film is based on a true story. The incidents and facts are documented. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent and also to protect the film.
- Capt. Ray Tower: Where do you live, Terry?
- Charles Horman: Why?
- Capt. Ray Tower: So I can take you home; it's only thirty minutes until curfew.
- Charles Horman: Just drop us at the Hotel Carrera.
- Charles Horman: Seriously, Beth, is there anything to eat in this house besides a couple cockroaches?
- Terry Simon: Thanks, pal. Charlie, be careful.
- Charles Horman: Don't worry. They can't hurt us. We're *Americans*.
- Terry Simon: What did he say?
- Charles Horman: He said, "From now on, women in this country wear dresses."
- Beth Horman: [referencing Charlie] Old jokes.
- Terry Simon: I know. I've been listening to them for five days.
- Beth Horman: Try five years.
- Frank Teruggi: All of a sudden, this place is like a free-fire zone. They shoot you just for being left-handed.
- Beth Horman: Frank, what did happen to Carlos?
- Frank Teruggi: What's happening to everybody? I don't know. Look, maybe he's at an embassy as a refugee or something.
- David Holloway: Or somebody accidentally blew his brains out.
- Terry Simon: She's probably hiding in the bathtub with the duck. Laugh. It's the best thing I've said all day.
- Beth Horman: We've been through this a hundred times. You know damn well he's not in hiding. Our whole neighborhood saw him picked up by a goon squad.
- Beth Horman: They give me the same song and dance over and over again. He could be hurt or - tortured. They don't give a goddamn about him.
- Ed Horman: Oh look, really, I don't want to hear any of your anti-Establishment paranoia! I certainly get enough of that from my son.
- Congressman: What are his politics?
- Ed Horman: Liberal, I suppose.
- Congressman: Liberal, or radical?
- Ed Horman: Congressman, my son is much too wishy-washy to be a radical.
- Congressman: Are you sure?
- Ed Horman: Well, what difference does it make?
- Charles Horman: This is my friend, Terry Simon.
- Andrew Babcock: Terry, how are you?
- Terry Simon: All right.
- Andrew Babcock: Yes, you are.
- [chuckles]
- Beth Horman: We're not freaked out. We're just two normal, slightly confused people trying to be connected to the whole damn rotten enchilada!
- Andrew Babcock: [referencing a newspaper he gave to Charlie, speaking in a fake German accent] I'm afraid there isn't much news in there for someone with such big ears and such a long nose. But enjoy it.
- Ed Horman: "The Little Prince"?
- Beth Horman: That's a *great* book. When we first got married, Charlie would read me a chapter of this every night. It's about this little prince - and he meets a wild fox in the desert, and little by little, by being very gentle and kind and thoughtful, he tames the fox, so the fox tells him a secret. Let's see. "It's only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."
- Ed Horman: What *is* essential?
- Beth Horman: The stuff you can't see.
- Ed Horman: What else does Charles like to do?
- Beth Horman: Oh, I don't know. He likes to pretend he's a country-western singer in the shower. But he's got a terrible voice. And he likes to cook corned beef hash with an egg in it. And of course he's a star freak.
- Ed Horman: A what?
- Beth Horman: A star freak. He can point out every constellation up there.
- Ed Horman: I never knew that.
- Beth Horman: Yeah. And he loves to make love on Sunday mornings. In fact, he's a regular sex maniac.
- Ed Horman: I really don't want to hear about your - bedroom antics.
- Ed Horman: Look, gentlemen, I know these are bad times, it's not fun for you people. It's certainly not fun for Beth or me. Or Charles. I know you're doing your best, I have to believe that. That's our only hope. But you have all the machinery on your side. Don't you see? You have all the connections. I'm a middle-aged businessman from New York City. I don't speak one word of Spanish. Here I am. My son may have been *shot*. Maybe he was tortured. Maybe he was, oh, Lord, beaten so badly that they're keeping him until he's well enough to be released. I don't know. I don't care! Oh, really, I don't care. Because what is done - is done. I just want you to reach those people and tell them I will take Charles back in any condition. I'm not gonna make a stink. I'm not gonna go to the newspapers. You make out any kind of a release form, I will sign it. I will absolve anyone, everyone, of everything. I just want my boy back! He's the only child I have, sir. Did you hear what I said?
- Paris: Apparently he had been roughed up during interrogation.
- Beth Horman: How badly?
- Paris: I don't know. I wasn't there.
- Ed Horman: Your friend was?
- Paris: My former friend, Mr Horman. Nobody in this regime is my friend any longer.
- Ed Horman: What did you get paid - for those 18 hours?
- Beth Horman: A little gratitude, some respect.
- Ed Horman: You don't get - very many hot dogs with a little gratitude, do you?
- Paris: I have worked now for many different governments. Some, their politics I agreed with. Others, not so much. I have worked now for the Junta for two weeks, but these are Nazis. They are destroying in just a few weeks everything that was beautiful about this country.
- Andrew Babcock: Bolivia is beautiful. You'll love it.
- Terry Simon: That's what I hear.
- Andrew Babcock: So are you.