[ONE]
La Boca
Buenos Aires
1630 3 December 1942
Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, Corps of Engineers, Army of the United States, wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and dark-blue cotton trousers, was wet with sweat when the bus finally arrived in La Boca. The bus was old, battered, noisy, and as crowded as the El at the Loop during rush hour—more crowded; I feel like a goddamned sardine.
Lieutenant Frade had ordered him to spend as much time as possible riding the buses, “to get an idea of the terrain.” The mentors in New Orleans had suggested the idea, and it was a good one, but Pelosi couldn’t help but notice that Frade wasn’t riding around in fucking buses himself; he was either getting chauffeured in one of Mallín’s cars or catching cabs.
Pelosi stepped off the bus, took half a dozen steps, and then pulled the sweat-soaked shirt away from his chest and back.
Lieutenant Frade had also ordered him to start “laying in whatever you think you’re going to need to blow a hole in a ship. No explosives, no detonators, they’ll be provided. Everything else.”
What the fuck is everything else? You need five things to blow something: explosives, detonators, wire, damping material—sandbags are usually best—and a source of juice to blow the detonators. A proper magneto controller is best. You hook up the wires, give it a crank, and boom!
I’m not as dumb as Lieutenant Frade—and for that matter, Ettinger—think I am. Laying in everything else does not mean I should find some engineer supply store and walk in and announce, “Hola! I’m interested in a good high-explosives controller. A Matson and Hardy Model Seven would be nice. What am I going to do with it? Why, I’m going to blow the bottom out of a ship in your harbor, that’s what I’m going to do.”
I don’t really need a controller. I can get by with a couple of six-volt dry-cell batteries; Christ knows I’ve done that often enough. So what I’m doing here is looking for wire and a half-dozen dry-cell batteries. Big fucking deal.
What I really need is a magnet, a great big fucking magnet, so I can make something like the thing Lieutenant Greene, Chief Norton, and Bo’sun Leech showed me at the shipyard in Mississippi.
That device really impressed Tony. It was designed to pierce armored steel, like on a tank; and it was improvised from a limpet mine the Navy had gotten from the English, Chief Norton told him. It was constructed of magnetized steel. Its bottom was flat and was attached to the steel of a ship’s hull. The top was of much thicker steel, and dome-shaped. The explosive went inside the dome; but the dome also served as a damper, directing the explosive force inward. Even better, the charge itself was molded—Chief Norton called it a “shaped charge”—so that it really directed all the force inward.
Tony could think of a lot of uses for shaped charges in the business. Blowing concrete-sheathed structural steel, for example. And if you put a bunch of small shaped charges around the base of a smokestack, you could really drop the sonofabitch in on itself.
The only thing Tony found wrong with the limpets was that you could hardly put a couple of them in your luggage and board the airplane in Miami.
He didn’t think now that he would be able to lay his hands on a dome-shaped piece of steel, even make one himself. But he could probably weld together a box—thin steel on the bottom, heavier on the sides and top—which would be maybe nearly as good as a dome. He would have to figure out some way to magnetize it. And he would try to mold some explosive himself into a shaped charge. If he could do that—he thought he could, with a big pot of boiling water—then he would have something just about as good as what the Navy showed him.
The one thing Tony could absolutely not figure out—with people around like Lieutenant Greene, Chief Norton, and Bo’sun Leech, who knew all about explosives and ships—was why they weren’t down here, instead of a Gyrene fly-boy, Ettinger, and him. When Ettinger came to his apartment, he talked to him about that. Ettinger thought it was probably because Frade had connections in Argentina, and he and Ettinger spoke Spanish.
That was true, maybe. But Ettinger was supposed to be the communications sergeant of the team, and so far they didn’t even have a telephone, much less a radio.
This is really one fucked-up operation!
He walked to the edge of the water and bought an ice cream and a Coke from a street vendor. The ice cream was all right, but the Coke was room temperature. And the bottle was in shitty shape. When Tony was in the eighth grade at St. Teresa’s, they took them on a tour of the Coke place. Half a dozen women there did nothing all day but sit at a conveyor belt and push off bottles that had chipped tops, or just looked bad. He wondered then what they did with all the bad bottles.
Now I know. They load them on ships and bring them down here.
He found an old-timey ship—it had both masts for sails and a smokestack—tied up at the stone wharf. Tony could read enough of the sign on the wharf to find out that the ship had sailed to Antarctica. He gave in to the impulse and bought a ticket and went on board.
A guy in what looked like some kind of Navy uniform guided him around. Tony scarcely understood what he was saying; but the map he pointed out showed that the boat had gone to the Antarctic not once, but half a dozen times.
Whoever sailed down there on this little thing really had balls. But what the hell, so did Columbus.
The guy kept talking too fast for Tony to understand much of what he said; but Tony nodded and shook his head and said “sí” a lot, and he had the idea when the tour was finished that the guy really didn’t suspect that he was an American.
He gave him some money, and from the way the guy beamed, suspected he had given him way too much.
Well, fuck it! Lieutenant Frade gave me two hundred bucks for miscellaneous expenses. This is a miscellaneous expense. I’m looking at ships.
When he went back on the wharf, he was tempted to have another ice cream, but remembering the room-temperature Coke, decided that wasn’t such a hot idea.
Maybe I can find a restaurant with some Italian food, and something cold to drink. Then I will go buy some fucking wire. If they ask me what I want it for, I’ll tell them I’m putting in a telephone extension.
He found what he was looking for: Ristorante Napoli. It was three blocks down a narrow cobblestone street, on the ground floor of a run-down building with light-blue shutters. The shutters were painted with what looked like watercolor paint that didn’t cover the wood underneath all the way.
Every other Italian restaurant in Chicago is called Ristorante Napoli.
Inside, it was a dump. A small room and eight rickety tables covered with oilcloth. He walked in and looked down at one of the tables, not pleased with the cheap tableware and the battered glass, into which was rolled a thin paper napkin. But then the smell of basil, garlic, and fennel came to his nostrils, and he sat down.
A waiter, or maybe the owner, a none-too-clean white apron around his waist, walked into the room.
“Buenas tardes, Señor.”
“Parli Italiano?”
“Of course. You are Italian?”
“Yes.”
“From the North,” the man said, and then tapped his ear. “I myself am from Napoli, but I can hear the North.”
Actually, I’m from Cicero, Illinois. I don’t think I should tell you that, so if you think I am from the North of Italy, fine.
“Where?”
Shit! I know as much about Italy as I do about Argentina. Zero. Zilch.
“Far north. Up by the border.”
“Perhaps near Santa del Moreno?”
“Not far,” Tony said. He tapped his ear. “You have a fine ear, Señor.”
“It is something like a hobby for me,” the man said. “I am told that I am very good at it.”
“You’re amazing.”
“And how may I help you, Señor?”
“I would like something cold to drink, and then I would like to eat.”
“We have the Coca-Cola, and agua con gas.”
“Coca-Cola.”
“And have you considered what you would like to eat?”
Tony heard his father’s voice in his ear:
“This only works in a little restaurant,” he said. “But if the guy running it is pushing something, take it. It’s one of two things: He personally made it and he’s proud of it. Or they made it yesterday and he’s trying to get rid of it. You can always send it back.”
“You surprise me,” Tony said.
“I will try to please. And a wine.”
“You surprise me.”
The first thing that appeared was the Coke and the wine. The Coke was cold, and Tony drained it and burped.
“Excuse me.”
“It is nothing.”
There was a whole bottle of wine.
All I wanted was a glass, but what the hell.
The man went through the wine-tasting ritual.
In a joint like this? But what the hell, he’s trying.
“Very nice,” Tony said. The man beamed and filled Tony’s glass.
“What do you call it?”
“Vino tinto Rincón Famoso. It is Argentine. I would not want my mother to hear me say this, but I prefer it to the Italian.”
“Very nice,” Tony said, meaning it, even if it wasn’t the Chianti he had hoped for.
Next came prosciutto—damned good prosciutto—on a plate with french fries.
“What do you call this in Spanish?”
“Jamón cocido con papas fritas.”
“Jamón cocido con papas fritas,” Tony repeated. “Jamón cocido con papas fritas.”
“Fine,” the man said. “In no time you will learn Spanish. It is not that different from Italian.”
“I hope,” Tony said.
Yeah, it won’t be long. I’ll speak Spanish in a couple of months. If I’m still alive in a couple of months.
Next came a small plate of vermicelli with a tomato-and-pepper sauce. Washed down with a couple of glasses of vino tinto, it wasn’t at all bad; but Tony was disappointed. He could have eaten two, three times as much.
The small portion was explained with the delivery of some kind of chicken.
“What’s this?”
“Suprema à la Maryland.”
“Maryland?”
The man shrugged. “It is something my mother taught me. The sauce is from bananas and corn. Perhaps it is Argentinean, not Italian.”
You bet your ass it’s not Italian. Grandma told me the first banana she ever saw was in Chicago, and that she tried to eat the peel, it looked so good.
Washed down with the rest of the bottle of vino tinto, the Suprema à la Maryland wasn’t half as bad as he thought it would be.
Tony declined another bottle of wine—the last thing I can afford to do is get shitfaced—and dessert. He was full up.
“Magnifico,” he declared, and asked for the bill. It was a hell of a lot cheaper than the last meal he’d had downtown.
“Do you know someplace I can buy some telephone wire?”
“Right around the corner,” the man told him.
Tony consulted his pocket-sized Spanish-English/English-Spanish dictionary before entering the hardware store.
“Cable para el teléfono, por favor?”
What looked like a hundred-foot roll of multistrand 16-gauge steel wire was produced. He would have preferred copper, but this would do.
And, hey, look at me, I’m speaking Spanish!
“How much?”
“How many meters will Señor require?”
“All of it.”
“This is all I have.”
So what?
“I will require all of it. Where I wish to place the telephone is a long way from the wall.”
The man shrugged, announced a price, and Tony paid him. The wire was neatly wrapped in an old newspaper and tied with string.
Tony returned to the street and headed back toward the waterfront. As he neared Ristorante Napoli, he saw a fine-looking female coming the other way. She looked out of place here—too well-dressed, like one of the Miñas in the hotel. He wondered what she was doing in this neighborhood.
They met near the door to Ristorante Napoli. Tony smiled at her. She didn’t respond, although he was sure she saw him smiling at her.
She looked right through me. Well, what the hell, the way I’m dressed, she probably decided I don’t have any money. Or maybe she’s not a Miña after all. She looks like a nice girl. Nice girls, nice Italian girls, always play hard to get.
And then she pushed open the door to the Ristorante Napoli and went in.
I’ll be damned. That gives me two reasons to come back here.
He reached the waterfront and started toward the bus stop.
He saw a taxi.
Fuck the bus. Lieutenant Pelosi has made all the sacrifices in the service of his country he intends to today.
He flagged the taxi down and told the driver to take him to the Alvear Palace Hotel.
Jesus, that was a good-looking woman!
[TWO]
Aboard MV Colonia
Río de la Plata
0115 8 December 1942
“What do you say we go on deck and take the evening breeze?” First Lieutenant Cletus Howell Frade, USMCR, said to Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, CE, USAR, as the waiter cleared their table.
“All right,” Tony replied.
Clete stood up, peeled a couple of bills from a thick wad and tossed them casually on the table, then walked out of the dining room onto the deck.
The dining room, like their cabin, was on the bridge deck. There were benches along the bulkheads, and a dozen or so deck chairs. All the deck chairs were occupied, and people were scattered along the benches.
Clete looked aft. There was a glow on the horizon, obviously the lights of Buenos Aires. He estimated they were twenty-five, maybe thirty miles into the river. It was about a hundred twenty-five miles from Buenos Aires to Montevideo. The Colonia looked like a miniature ocean liner, and carried probably two hundred people. It sailed from Buenos Aires just after midnight, and would arrive in Montevideo at about nine in the morning. There were cabins, a dining room, a lounge, and a bar. You came aboard, had a drink and dinner, and then went to bed. When you woke up, you were in Uruguay. A couple of times Clete took the overnight boat from New York to Boston with his grandfather, when the Old Man had business with the Bank of Boston that had to be handled in person. The Colonia reminded him of that.
He led Pelosi forward, then down a ladder, then forward again, and down another ladder to the main deck. They stepped over a chain, with a sign in Spanish, “No Entry—Crew Only,” hanging from it, and walked forward to the bow.
“That sign meant ‘off limits,’ didn’t it?” Tony asked.
“Well, if somebody comes, we’re just a couple of dumb Norteamericanos who don’t speak Spanish. Besides, what they’re worried about is a bunch of people out here lighting cigarettes, which will keep the helmsman and the officers on the bridge from seeing. No lights forward, in other words.”
“No shit?”
“Would you like one of these?” extending to him a leather cigar case.
Tony considered the offer for a moment…He gives me a speech about no cigarettes up here, and then pulls out cigars… and then took a long, thin, black cigar.
“Thank you,” he said.
“A fine conclusion to a splendid meal,” Clete said.
“If you like eating at midnight.”
“I wonder what they were serving at the O Club at Fort Bragg tonight? Three’ll get you five it wasn’t what we had.”
“Jesus, their food is good, isn’t it?” Tony said. “First-class steak!”
Clete handed him a gold cigarette lighter.
“You have to flip the top up first, and then spin the wheel,” Clete explained. “I have the feeling that was made sometime around World War One.”
Pelosi lit his cigar, then, hefting it, handed the lighter back.
“Heavy. Gold?”
“I’m sure it is. Nothing was too good for my uncle Bill.”
“Excuse me?”
“My granduncle Guillermo. That was probably his. I found it and the cigar case in a drawer in his—now my—bedroom. I decided that if he had known what a splendid fellow I am, he would have left me both in his will, so I took possession.”
Tony had to smile. He was glad it was too dark out here for the Pride of the Marine Corps to see his face.
“And the house, too?”
“The house belongs to my father. Uncle Bill lost it betting on the horses.”
“No shit?”
“Uncle Bill was a man after my own heart. According to my father, he spent his life drinking good whiskey, laying all the women in Buenos Aires, gambling on horse races, and playing polo. I have decided I want to be just like him.”
“You know how to play polo?”
“We used to play it at A and M. We called it polo, and I guess it was. But we did it on cow ponies, using brooms and a basketball.”
“What’s A and M? For that matter, what’s a cow pony?”
“A and M, you ignorant city slicker, is the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical Institute. You really never heard of A and M?”
“Yeah. Now I know what it is. You went there?”
“For two years. I finished up at Tulane in New Orleans.”
“So what’s a cow pony?”
“A horse, most often what they call a quarterhorse, a small one, trained to work cattle. When we played ‘polo,’ the cow ponies made it clear they thought we were insane. We had them running up and down a field, and we were yelling and making a lot of noise, and there wasn’t a cow in sight.”
Pelosi chuckled.
“But you never played real polo?”
“No. I’ve been wondering if I could. Maybe. Christ knows, I grew up on a horse.”
“Really?”
“On a ranch in West Texas. I was raised by my aunt and uncle.”
“So those cowboy boots are for real? I thought maybe you thought they just looked good.”
“They feel good. When I went in the Corps and had to wear what they call ‘low quarter’ shoes—do they call them that in the Army?—I felt like I was running around barefooted.”
“Yeah, they do. When I went in the Army, the goddamned boots killed me. I was blisters all over. Then I got used to them, and then I got to wear jump boots, and they’re really comfortable, and I felt the same way, barefoot, when I had to start wearing civilian shoes again.”
“Well, keep your fingers crossed, and maybe pretty soon you can put your jump boots on again and get back to jumping out of perfectly functioning airplanes.”
“Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it,” Tony said. “I like parachuting.”
“I don’t,” Clete said. “I tried it once and hated it.”
“How come you tried it?”
“There was a Japanese pilot who was much better than me,” Clete said.
“No shit? You were shot down?”
“They warned us that the Japanese liked to shoot at people in parachutes, and that the thing to do was not pull the handle…” He made a pulling gesture across his chest.
“The ‘D Ring,’” Tony furnished.
“…until you were close to the ground. Or in my case, the water. So there I was,” he gestured with his hands, “doing somersaults in the air, and every time I turned around—which seemed like twice a second—I looked at the water and tried to decide how close I was. Finally, I figured fuck it, and pulled the handle…”
Tony, chuckling, corrected him again: “The D Ring.”
“…and all of a sudden, it goes ‘bloop,’ jars the living shit out of me—I was sore between the legs for weeks—and then there’s the water. Water is not always soft. And have you ever tried to swim wrapped in three square miles of parachute silk?”
“You didn’t have your harness tight,” Tony said. “That’s one of the first things you learn, to make the harness tight.”
“As I said, I tried it once and didn’t like it. But you have fun, Tony. Each to his own.”
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Tony thought. That’s a true story. He was out fighting the Japs and got shot down, and jumped, and fucking near killed himself not opening his ’chute in time. He may be a little stuck up, but he’s no candy-ass.
“But you came out all right.”
“They had PT boats patrolling between Guadalcanal and Tulagi. One of them saw me coming down, and they started firing at the Zero who was strafing me, chased him off, and then fished me out of the water. There was a guy—he commanded one of the other fighter squadrons, VMF-229—who went in the drink and spent twenty-four hours out there, floating around all by himself, before he was spotted and fished out. I don’t think I could have taken that.”
“Huh?”
“Waiting for the sharks. I think I would have gone nuts.”
Tony could imagine that. He felt a chill.
“You ever shoot down any Japs?”
There was a moment before Clete replied, “I got lucky a couple of times.”
“You going to tell me how many times?”
“Seven.”
“You’re an ace, then.”
“Before I was dumb enough to volunteer for this, the Marine Corps was about to put me and a dozen other aces on display on the West Coast to sucker other innocent young men into volunteering for the crotch.”
“The crotch”? What the hell is “the crotch”? Oh! He means the Marine Corps. If I called it “the crotch” he’d shit a brick.
“Was it as bad as they say on Guadalcanal?”
“It was unpleasant, Tony. Hot, humid, filthy, lousy food—much of it captured from the Japs—all kinds of bugs. And flying beat-up, shot-up, worn-out airplanes against Zeroes…a much better airplane, flown by pilots who were better than we were.”
They weren’t all better than you. Not if you shot down seven of them.
“You never talked about it before.”
Clete shrugged. “Most people, civilians especially, don’t understand.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“What are we doing here?”
“Hell, I thought you knew, Lieutenant Pelosi. Our contribution to the war effort is going to be to blow up a ship. That is, if people we must presume are far wiser than we are can make up their minds which ship, and tell us where it is, and how the hell we are supposed to blow it up.”
Tony chuckled.
“I meant, where we’re going?”
“Tomorrow morning, when we dock in Montevideo, we are going to a crude-oil terminal and make believe we know what we’re doing as we examine the pipes and tanks and look at the books. Then we are going to a gambling casino for the night.”
“A gambling casino?”
“You ever hear that line, ‘theirs not to reason why, theirs but to ride into the valley of death’? In our case, it’s walk into a gambling casino.”
“And then what?”
“The next morning, we drive a rented car to a place called Punta del Este, where we take a swim. If Nes—the man who gave me our orders wasn’t pulling my leg, the beaches of Punta del Este are crowded with good-looking women. Then, at night, we drive up to the Brazilian border, where they will air-drop your explosives to you.”
“How are they going to do that?”
“I would presume from an airplane.”
Tony chuckled.
“I meant how are we going to communicate with the drop aircraft?”
“I was told you were the air-drop expert.”
“You need a radio to talk to the drop aircraft.”
“I wondered about that. I do know that at specified times we are to turn the headlights on and off for sixty-second intervals. Maybe that’ll be enough to let the guy flying drop the stuff to us.”
“Who gives us our orders?”
“I can’t tell you his name, Tony, sorry. But I think he knows what he’s doing,” Clete said seriously. “And I’m sure he’s right about the way they do things. If you don’t know his name, you can’t tell anybody…if, for example, we get caught and they start roasting you over a slow fire, or pulling your fingernails out.”
“Can that happen?”
“I hope not.”
“If everything goes all right, if everything works, and we blow up this fucking ship, then what? What happens to us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’ll want us out of Argentina, and maybe they’ll want us to stick around doing something else until we do get caught, or until we win the war, whichever comes first.”
“I wish to Christ I was back in the 82nd Airborne.”
“And I almost wish I was back on Guadalcanal,” Clete said. No, I don’t, he thought. There is no Virgin Princess on Guadalcanal. “For what the hell it’s worth, Tony. We had Marine paratroops on Tulagi, a battalion of them. They landed by ship, not by jumping. They got shit kicked out of them. More than ten percent killed. I think our odds are a little better than that; and in the meantime, it’s clean sheets, steaks, and with a little bit of luck, a piece of ass in Punta del Este.”
“I could use a little,” Tony said. “I saw the most beautiful girl I ever saw in my life in Buenos Aires. I get a hard-on just thinking about her.”
“Much the same thing, oddly enough, happened to me,” Clete said.
He flicked his cigar over the rail.
“What do you say we hit the sack?”
“I never slept on a boat before,” Tony confessed. “Do you get seasick in your sleep?”
“A ship,” Clete corrected him. “A boat is a vessel you can carry aboard a ship. And no, if you were going to get seasick, you would be seasick by now.”
[THREE]
El Casino de Carrasco
Montevideo, Uruguay
2000 8 December 1942
“Very nice,” Lieutenant Pelosi observed to Lieutenant Frade as he inspected their suite—two bedrooms, plus sitting room and foyer.
“Try to remember you’re an officer and a gentleman,” Clete said, “and don’t piss in the bidet.”
“Screw you, Clete!”
Pelosi went to a window and hauled on the canvas tape that raised the heavy blinds over the French doors.
“Hey, the ocean’s right out here!” Pelosi said, and then began to raise the other blinds.
“Jesus Christ, it really gets around, doesn’t it? The last time I looked, it was in Miami.”
“I mean we’re facing the ocean, wise guy,” Tony said, and opened one of the French doors. “And there’s a balcony.”
Clete followed him outside.
They were on the top floor of the ornate, stone, turn-of-the-century building. The balcony indeed faced an open body of water.
“The water’s dirty,” Tony observed.
“I think this is still the River Plate,” Clete said. “You don’t get to the Atlantic until you’re in Punta del Este. That’s up that-a-way, about a hundred miles.” He pointed.
“That breeze feels good. Jesus, I hate this hot weather. You realize it’s only a couple of weeks ’til Christmas? Sweating on Christmas!”
“Why don’t we open all the blinds—in the bedrooms, especially—and the doors, to let the breeze in. And then go down and have dinner and see what happens? Play a little roulette, maybe?”
“Jesus, I’m still recovering from lunch, and we didn’t eat that until three,” Tony replied. “I think I’ll just sit out here and watch the water go up and down.”
“I don’t think Ne—we were sent here to try our luck,” Clete said. “And if someone were trying to contact us, they’d prefer to do it in a crowd, rather than up here in the room.”
Tony considered that a moment, then said, “Let me take a leak. I’ll be right with you.”
When he came out of his bathroom, Clete handed him five fifty-dollar bills.
“What’s this for?”
“To gamble. It’s your Christmas present from the taxpayers of the United States.”
“And what if I win?”
“You will be expected, of course, to turn all your winnings over to the government.”
“In a pig’s ass I will.”
“Shame on you, Lieutenant Pelosi!”
They had a very good dinner in the dining room. It was in the center of the building, a large, somewhat dark space from whose three-story-high ceiling hung four enormous crystal chandeliers. A grand piano was at one end of the room, beside the bar, and a pianist played light classical music for most of their meal. Later it was replaced with a string quartet.
The room was full of prosperous-looking people, Clete thought; but nobody there was an aristocrat. Successful businessmen, he decided. Or ranchers in from the country for a night on the town. Moneyed, but not rich-rich like the sixteen or so people at Aunt Beatrice’s and Uncle Humberto’s dinner table.
Uncle Humberto’s guests were rich-rich; they smelled of money and privilege. And they were simply fascinated with Dear Jorge’s long-lost son. Half a dozen of them simply refused to speak Spanish with him, insisting on proving their worldliness by showing they spoke a second language as well as their native tongue.
He’d heard somewhere that in the Russian Court—before they booted the Czar out and murdered him and his family and threw their bodies down a well—the official language was French.
Clete thought of that after noticing that just about everybody had a pronounced loathing for the Russians, with a lesser but concomitant sympathy for the Germans.
Dear Beatrice’s Poor Jorge had been murdered by the filthy communists, not killed in battle in Russia while accompanying an invading army. The Germans did not shoot their aristocracy, and they were engaged in fighting the filthy, godless communists. Thus, they could not be all bad.
This talk bothered him; but he managed to resist a growing temptation to mention the Germans’ murder of several hundred thousand Jews—he was not sure if he believed Nestor’s several millions figure; he didn’t want to. But he didn’t want to get in an argument with anybody either, not when Aunt Beatrice was liable to pop up at his side at any moment, and tell him again how much he looked like his mother and Poor Dear Jorge, both of them now together and with God and all the blessed angels…and how they took baths together and splashed and laughed and were so happy when they were infants.
Aunt Beatrice was out of her mind; there was no question about that. But Uncle Humberto was worse. He was not floating around on a drug-induced cloud. He was in the here and now and knew what was going on. Humberto kept looking at Clete out of big, dark, immensely sad eyes—How is it that you are alive, and my Jorge is dead?—until he saw Clete looking back. Then he put on a wide, toothy, absolutely phony smile and gave him a thumbs-up sign.
The Mallíns were there, of course. Not only were they part of that social circle, but it would be unthinkable not to invite them after they were so kind to Dear Cletus when he arrived.
The Mallíns, less the Virgin Princess. Aunt Beatrice’s dinner to meet Dear Jorge’s son had been a grown-ups’ party; children not welcome. Clete wasn’t sure at first if he was relieved or disappointed, but soon admitted he was goddamned disappointed.
At least I could have looked at her every once in a while.
All things considered, it was a lousy evening at Aunt Beatrice’s and Uncle Humberto’s.
No one tried to speak to Clete or Tony at dinner, and there wasn’t even any eye contact from the other diners.
Nor was there anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention to them in the casino, except when Tony delivered a loud Cicero, Illinois, “Oh, shit!” when he drew a king to a pair of fives and a two at the Vingt-et-Une table and dropped almost a thousand dollars.
By then it was midnight, and Clete decided he had been wrong about a possible contact in the casino. Nestor told him to spend the night here, he decided, because that’s what an American in Uruguay on business would be expected to do.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said to a sad Tony Pelosi as he counted what was left of his money.
Tony was sad, but without good reason.
“I’m up six hundred over the two fifty you gave me,” he announced in the elevator. “And if I hadn’t gotten that fucking king!”
“Don’t be greedy. Greedy gamblers always lose.”
“My father says that all the time,” Tony agreed. “You say that too?”
“I thought I made it up,” Clete said, straight-faced.
Pelosi was in his room less than two minutes when Clete heard him call, excitedly, “Hey, Frade! Come in here.”
Clete walked across the sitting room. Tony was in his underwear, and he was holding what looked like an oversized telephone to his ear.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a walkie-talkie.”
“A what?”
“A radio. A two-way radio!”
“That little thing?”
“I seen them demonstrated at Bragg. They’re new. Not yet issued.”
Pelosi pointed to a small leather bag on the bed, not much larger than a woman’s purse.
“That was on the rack at the foot of the bed when I came in,” Pelosi said. “With this inside.”
He handed Clete a three-by-five-inch filing card—obviously American—on which was typewritten:
(1) Speak English
(2) Your call sign is “Hunter.”
(3) You will contact “Mallard.”
(4) You have 45 mins possible, 1 hr stretching it, battery power. (90 mins, 2 hrs, using spare set)
(5) Leave walkie-talkies in Wardrobe Punta de E. on departure.
Clete took the radio from Tony and examined it dubiously.
There was a nameplate on it: AN/PRC-6 MOTOROLA CORP. CHICAGO, ILL.
“These things really work?”
“Yeah. Well, now we know how we talk to the drop plane.”
Clete put the walkie-talkie to his ear and heard a hiss.
“There’s two of them?” he asked.
“Yeah. Take that one into your room, and we’ll see if they work.”
Clete went back to his room, examined the walkie-talkie again, pulled out an antenna that looked as if it should be mounted on a car fender, put the radio to his ear, and depressed a two-inch-long lever marked PRESS TO TALK.
“Dr. Watson, can you hear me?”
“Yeah. You’re coming in five by five.”
“I will be damned. Dr. Watson, over and out.”
He walked back to Tony’s room.
“What’s the range of these things?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Tony replied, thinking about it. “Maybe a mile. Maybe longer if we’re talking to an airplane.”
“Start thinking about how we can get these into Argentina,” Clete said.
“We’re supposed to leave them in the hotel in…Where we going? Punta someplace?”
“Punta del Este. Fuck ’em. The first thing a Marine learns, Tony, is that when he puts his hands on a piece of equipment that works, he keeps it.”
[FOUR]
La Posta de la Congrejo Hotel
Punta del Este, Uruguay
0005 10 December 1942
“You want to put the top down?” Lieutenant Frade inquired of Lieutenant Pelosi as they prepared to get in their rental car.
“Why not? We could see better.”
The car was a 1937 Ford convertible sedan. They had a good deal of difficulty pulling the top down.
“The President probably has people who do this for him,” Clete observed.
“What?”
“I said, Roosevelt probably has people who do this for him.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“President Roosevelt has a car just like this. I don’t think he could put the top down himself; he probably has an official top-putter-upper-and-downer.”
“He’s crippled. Polio. How the hell can he drive a car?”
“It has levers on the steering wheel. You never saw it in the newsreels?”
“Yeah, now that you mention it.”
“How far is this place?”
“A hundred and twenty-five miles,” Clete said. “According to the map, the road’s a highway. I figure we can make forty miles an hour; that’s three hours to get there. We have an hour, an hour and a half’s, cushion.”
“You figuring this in miles or kilometers?”
“Miles. You know how to convert?”
“Sure,” Tony said.
Bullshit. You don’t know, but don’t want to admit it.
“To get miles from kilometers, you divide the kilometers by eight, then multiply by five. Two hundred kilometers divided by eight is twenty-five. Times five is one twenty-five.”
“Yeah, right. You want me to drive?”
“I’ll drive. You work the map. I wish to hell we had a flashlight. Flashlights, plural.”
“I got one,” Tony said. “In the bag with the walkie-talkies.”
“Good for you! You bring it with you?”
“No. But when I figured we would need one, I went to that little store on the main drag and said, ‘Señora, una linterna, por favor,’ and she sold me one.”
“You should have bought two.”
“I did, Lieutenant, Sir. I knew I had to take care of you.”
“Insolence does not become you, Lieutenant.”
The first fifty miles were on a macadam road on which they met few cars but a large number of open-bodied trucks of all sizes. In the direction of Montevideo, most of these were heavily laden with everything from firewood to cattle; but they were mostly empty headed north. Clete was not surprised when they reached the city of Rocha to find an all-night truck stop. He pulled in, gassed the car, and then he and Tony ate brochettes of beef, peppers, and onions cooked on an open fire. The beef was so tender, it had to be filet mignon.
A few miles out of Rocha, the pavement stopped abruptly, and they found themselves on a gravel road.
Christ, I should have thought about that! Clete realized, angry with himself. This is Uruguay, not Louisiana.
His concern proved unnecessary. The gravel road was wide and smooth and well cared for. Twice, the headlights picked up Caterpillar Road Graders and tractors with grading blades parked by the side of the road, which explained it.
Forty miles farther along, they came to a small town called Castillos, dark except for the bright lights of another all-night truck stop. Thirty-five miles past that they came to a still-smaller town, La Corinilla. They were almost at their destination. Finding it proved far easier than Clete thought it would be. Nestor’s map was right on the money.
Three point seven miles past La Corinilla’s Abierto Las 24 Horas truck stop, they turned right, drove 2.1 miles down a slightly more narrow, but equally well cared for gravel road, and then .6 miles down that, turned right again onto another fairly narrow road, drove .3 miles, and stopped.
In front of the car, as far as the headlights permitted him to see, the road was straight and level. On either side of the road there appeared to be swamp, but Clete finally realized these were rice fields.
He made a note of the odometer reading so he could return to this spot. And then they drove down the road. He went exactly a mile and stopped. The road and the rice fields stretched on, apparently to infinity. He looked at his watch, the Hamilton chronograph. It was two forty-five—0245. Even stopping for the brochettes and gas, they’d made much better time than he thought they would. And they weren’t supposed to start flashing the headlights until 0400. They had an hour and fifteen minutes.
He turned the Ford around and headed back toward La Corinilla.
“Where are we going?” Tony asked.
“We have more than an hour. I don’t think it’s a good idea to just sit here. It might make somebody curious.”
Do I mean that, or do I want a beer at that all-night truck stop?
“Shit, there’s nobody out here. We haven’t seen a car—or a light, for that matter—since we left that village.”
“OK. You wait here, and I’ll go back to the truck stop for a beer.”
“The hell I will.”
“I’ve been thinking about those whores,” Tony announced as a plump woman in a dirty apron poured from their second liter bottle of cerveza.
Three minutes after they had put the walkie-talkies away, there was a knock at their door in the casino. Two very attractive, well-dressed women stood outside, in the corridor. The taller of the two—she had luxuriant reddish-brown hair—wondered if they might be interested in some companionship, if they hadn’t lost all their money in the casino. Clete replied that would be a delightful experience, but unfortunately, he was waiting for his wife.
“First of all, they weren’t whores, they were prostitutes; there’s a difference. And secondly, shame on you.”
“You weren’t interested?” Tony asked. “Christ, they were really good-looking!”
“Well, I have this problem, Tony. I have the honor of the Marine Corps to think of. Marine officers don’t pay women; it’s the other way around.”
“Oh, shit,” Tony groaned.
“There wasn’t time, and I didn’t think it was such a good idea,” Clete explained.
Not for the sake of the efficient execution of my assigned mission, he thought, but because the dark and innocent eyes of the Virgin Princess seemed to be looking at me.
“Well, I don’t mind telling you I was tempted. I haven’t had any in a long time. You bastards didn’t give me any time in New Orleans…”
“We bastards?”
“…and when I was on leave at home, my brothers insisted on showing me a good time; they never left me alone.”
“Your brothers don’t like women?”
“One of them is a priest.”
“Oh. Tough luck. Well, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting the wick dipped in B.A., Tony. There’s women all over.”
“I’m working on a little something,” Tony said. He was thinking of the girl he had seen go in the Ristorante Napoli in La Boca.
I’m going back there and just hang around and look for her, he thought. That is, if we get back, and don’t get stood against some wall and shot for trying to smuggle twenty pounds of molded Composition C4 and walkie-talkies into Argentina.
He picked up his beer glass.
“Isn’t it about time we started back?”
“Jesus Christ, it’s dark out here,” Tony said. “There’s not a goddamned light anywhere!”
“Shut up!” Clete ordered abruptly.
He thought he had heard the sound of an aircraft engine, a little one, probably a Lycoming. And then he was sure.
“Get on the horn,” he ordered as he reached for the headlight switch.
“It’s not 0400,” Tony protested.
“Goddamn it, do what you’re told.”
“Mallard, Mallard,” Tony complied. “This is Hunter, Hunter. Over.”
There was an immediate reply.
“Hunter, Mallard,” an American voice said. “How do you read? Over.”
“Five by five. Over.”
“Hunter, leave your lights on.”
“Mallard, roger your lights on,” Tony said, and then repeated the order to Clete.
“Roger, I have you in sight. Is the road clear? How do you estimate the wind?”
“He wants to know if the road is clear and about the wind,” Tony relayed.
Clete stuck his index finger in his mouth and then extended his arm over his head. Then he took the walkie-talkie from Tony and pressed the PRESS-TO-TALK switch.
I think that crazy sonofabitch is about to try to put it down! Why else would he ask about the road being clear?
“Mallard, winds from the north negligible, I say again, negligible. The road is paved with gravel and clear. I say again, paved with gravel and clear.”
“OK, Hunter, here we go.”
Without realizing they had done so, both Tony and Clete had gotten to their feet, and they were now standing on the seat of the Ford, their waists about at the level of the top of the windshield. They could hear the sound of the aircraft engine, but all they could see of it was the orange glow of the engine exhaust, and there was no way to judge from that where the aircraft was. And then the exhaust glow disappeared.
Suddenly, blinding them, a landing light came on, and the sound of the engine changed as the pilot retarded the throttle. The landing light lined up with the road, and dropped lower and lower. It was impossible to see the airplane against the brilliance of its landing light, but Clete heard a chirp of wheels and then a rumble as it touched down. The landing light died into an orange glow, but it took their eyes some time to readjust.
And then there was an orange Piper Cub taxiing up to the grille of the Ford.
“I will be a sonofabitch!” Tony said as he jumped over the side of the Ford. Clete went over the other door and followed Tony to the airplane as the pilot, in a summer-weight flying suit, got out.
“God bless the Army Air Corps,” Clete said to the pilot as he put out his hand.
“Actually, I’m an Engineer officer,” the pilot said. “I’m an Army Liaison Pilot, teaching the Brazilians to direct artillery fire.”
“Corps of Engineers?” Tony said delightedly. “Me too.”
“I thought you guys were in the OSS,” the pilot said.
“Never believe what anybody over the grade of captain tells you,” Clete said, “as we say in the Marine Corps.”
“Marine Aviator? You sounded like a pilot, on the horn.”
“Fighter pilot, way out of his element,” Clete said. “I thought you were supposed to air-drop this stuff.”
“The Air Corps wanted to. They were going to make a big deal of this, come in with a C-47, drop some pathfinder in first, then drop this stuff with a great big fucking cargo parachute, you know how they are. I figured, shit, this stuff doesn’t weigh fifty pounds altogether, I can put it in the backseat. So I came over—lost, of course—here yesterday, and took a look, and here I am. What is that stuff, anyway? It looks like boards.”
“It’s supposed to,” Tony said. “It’s Composition C4. They molded it to look like wood boards.”
“Then that explains what your guy meant when he said ‘be damned careful with these.’ Detonators, right?”
Tony took the small package the pilot extended to him and opened it.
“Right,” he said. “I hope you didn’t have this near the explosives.”
“I had it on my lap.”
“Jesus!” Tony said.
“Let’s get me unloaded and out of here,” the pilot said. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I really don’t want to know what you guys are going to do with that stuff, and I don’t want to spend the war in a Uruguayan jail.”
Three minutes later, he was gone.
When Clete got behind the wheel of the Ford and pressed the starter, the battery was dead. Tony, sweating and swearing, had to push the car to get it started. But in another three minutes, they too were gone.