[ONE]
4730 Avenida Libertador
Buenos Aires
1735 26 December 1942
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Clete said, thirty-five minutes later, as he walked into the kitchen.
Chief Schultz held up both hands in a “no explanation necessary; I know how it is” gesture.
“It’s OK, Mr. Frade,” he said. He winked, and then offered Clete the bottle of beer he had been in the process of opening.
“No, thank you,” Clete said. “Enrico, would you take the Señorita to the Belgrano Athletic Club, please?”
“Sí, mi Teniente.”
“Honey!” Clete called.
The Princess marched through the kitchen and out the door to the garage without looking left or right. Enrico followed her.
“Maybe you’d want to rub your neck, Clete,” Lieutenant Pelosi said. “Up under the chin.”
Clete took out his handkerchief and rubbed his neck, up under the chin. He was not surprised when the handkerchief showed a red smear.
“I didn’t think you guys would still be here,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Well,” Chief Schultz replied, pausing to take a pull at the neck of his beer bottle, “when we went aboard the Thomas, the Skipper was waiting for me. The local chiefs are throwing a reception for the chiefs at the Escuela de Guerra Naval”—the School of Naval Warfare—“and he thought it would look strange if I didn’t go. I’m the senior chief aboard; they would wonder where I was. So the Skipper and Mr. Pelosi talked it over, and I put on my dress whites, and at half past seven I’m gonna be at the reception.”
“What’s this about Dave not being able to take code?”
“That’s one of the two problems we have, Mr. Frade: Dave here, and Mr. Pelosi, which is why I come here.”
“Tell me about Dave first,” Clete said.
“I’m not very good at Morse code,” Ettinger confessed. “I can send maybe ten or twelve words a minute, and I’m even worse at taking it.”
“Christ, you are supposed to be a radio expert!” Clete said.
He remembered his own experience with Morse Code training. It was a required course in ground school, and he had a hell of a time acquiring the absolute minimum proficiency: sending and receiving twelve words a minute, with a ninety-percent accuracy.
“He knows radios,” Chief Schultz came to Ettinger’s defense. “With the fixes we worked out, he could probably set up the transmitter without a damn bit of trouble. But working the Thomas and the Devil Fish? With his hand? Forget it.”
“Explain that to me,” Clete said.
“You’ll be using one of the Contingency Codes,” Chief Schultz said. “There’s maybe a dozen of them in the Captain’s safe. Just for some screwy operation like this one. They’re all numbers. Numbers, for somebody like Dave, is the hardest to transmit and receive. And you get a couple of numbers wrong, maybe just one number wrong, you’re all fucked up. The codes are numerical nonrandom sequential, you know what I mean? There’s phase shift built in…”
Clete held up his hand.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Chief.”
Chief Schultz did not seem at all surprised.
“Take my word for it, Mr. Frade,” he said. “What you need with codes like this is an operator with a pretty good hand, thirty-five, forty words a minute, with a zero error rate.”
“Like you, for example, Chief?”
“That’s what I was thinking, Mr. Frade,” Schultz said. “I wouldn’t be the first sailor in the history of the Navy to get hooked up with some local lollypop and miss his ship…” He stopped. “I didn’t mean nothing by that, Mr. Frade. I could tell right off that the one you had in here was a nice girl.”
“No offense taken, Chief,” Clete said.
“And, Dave told me something about the walkie-talkies he’s been working on,” Chief Schultz went on quickly, obviously relieved that he had gotten himself off the lollypop hook. “I think we can probably rig them, work on them a little more, so that we can have our own air-to-ground link.”
“What?” Clete interrupted.
“You use the aircraft radios, Mr. Frade,” Chief Schultz explained patiently. “There’s sure to be someone monitoring those frequencies. And you’ll be using voice…”
“I didn’t think of that,” Clete said.
“And as far as communicating with the submarine, Clete,” Ettinger interjected, “the longer we’re on the air, the more time the Argentines will have to triangulate the transmitter. We’ll be on three or four times as long if I try to key code than if the Chief does it.”
“How does that work?” Clete asked.
“Two, preferably three receivers with directional antennae,” Ettinger explained. “They know their precise location on a map. They get a bearing on the transmitter from their receivers. They draw straight lines. Where the lines intercept, there’s the transmitter. Very simple. We need the Chief.”
“What happens to a sailor, Chief, who gets hooked up with a local lollypop and misses his ship?”
“In the States, or someplace like Cavite in the Philippines, Guantánamo, someplace where there’s a Navy shore installation, they toss them in the brig with lost time.”
“What’s lost time?”
“They count from the time you miss the ship until you get back aboard as lost time. You don’t get paid for it, they add it to the end of your enlistment, and the next time you get paid, they deduct the cost of your rations. Depending on the skipper, you get captain’s mast or a court-martial.”
“You really wouldn’t be jumping ship,” Clete said. “That would be for public consumption, that’s all.”
“I figured that.”
“When this is over, you could be placed in the custody of the Naval Attaché, maybe, until we could get you back to your ship,” Clete said. “Let me think about this, Chief. I’ll have to ask my boss, too.”
“We don’t have much time, Mr. Frade.”
“I know. Now tell me about this Ordnanceman—Chief Daniels, you said?”
“Well, he don’t know shit about what’s going on here. All he knows is that I brung Mr. Pelosi on board. And I told him that this guy that’s wearing butcher clothes with blood all over them is an Army officer, and that he needs to know about taking a five-inch illuminating-round shell apart, and to keep his mouth shut.”
“I didn’t know how much I was authorized to tell him about why I needed the flares and parachutes,” Tony Pelosi explained.
“So you told him nothing?” Clete asked.
Tony nodded.
“So what happened?”
“Chief Daniels,” Chief Schultz answered for him, “said Mr. Pelosi is going to blow hisself up if he tries taking one of them rounds apart.”
“Tony?”
“I know explosives. No problem.”
“With respect, Mr. Pelosi,” Chief Schultz said, “you don’t know diddly-shit about Naval Ordnance.”
Clete looked at Schultz. The old Chief was obviously right.
“Chief, do you think Chief Daniels could be talked into missing the ship too?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Frade. Maybe, if he knew what this screwy operation is supposed to be all about.”
“You think you or Mr. Pelosi should have told him?”
“No. He’s not cleared. Shit, the Skipper had ants in his pants when he told me about it, and I already knew, ’cause I decoded the Direction of the President order. That’s a pretty heavy security classification.”
“When are you going to see Chief Daniels?”
“At the Chief’s Reception.”
“You have my authority, Chief, to inform Chief Daniels of the nature of this mission, and then to ask him if that changes his mind, under the circumstances, about the risk of Lieutenant Pelosi working on the five-inch rounds. If he still thinks Mr. Pelosi can’t handle it, approach him about missing the ship. Tell him not to worry about any real charges being placed against him.”
“You have that kind of authority, Mr. Frade?”
Do I?
“Tell the Captain that we will require as many five-inch illuminating rounds as Mr. Pelosi thinks we’ll need, plus some spares for testing,” Clete said, hoping his voice reflected more confidence than he felt. “When Enrico comes back, we’ll decide how to get them, and you, and maybe Chief Daniels from here to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Chief Schultz said.
[TWO]
Bureau of Internal Security
Ministry of Defense
Edificio Libertador
Avenida Paseo Colón
Buenos Aires
0905 28 December 1942
“The American battleship Thomas sailed at three-thirty P.M. yesterday, mi Coronel,” el Comandante Carlos Habanzo reported, reading from a manila folder. “It dropped the Armada Argentine pilot—”
“A question of precise terminology, Habanzo,” el Teniente Coronel Bernardo Martín interrupted.
“¿Sí, mi Coronel?”
“While the Thomas is in fact a battleship, a warship, it is not a battleship, but a destroyer. A battleship is much larger. You remember the Graf Spee?”
“Of course, mi Coronel.”
“The Graf Spee was much larger than the American destroyer Thomas, no?”
“It was enormous, mi Coronel.”
“The Graf Spee, Habanzo, was a battleship. It was a warship and a battleship.”
“I understand, mi Coronel.”
“Actually, it was a ‘pocket battleship,’” Martín said, “implying that it was not quite as large or as powerful as other warships called battleships.”
“I see, mi Coronel.”
“For your general fund of naval information, Habanzo, there are ‘battleships’; then, somewhat smaller, ‘cruisers’; then, smaller still, ‘destroyers’; and finally, generally speaking, ‘corvettes,’ which are even smaller than destroyers. The vessel you are talking about, Habanzo, is a United States warship, the destroyer Thomas.”
“I understand the distinction now, mi Coronel,” Habanzo said. “Thank you.”
“Proceed.”
“The American destroyer, the Thomas, sailed at three-thirty P.M. yesterday, dropped the Armada Argentina pilot immediately outside the port, then proceeded down the Río de la Plata accompanied by the Armada Argentina battleship—” He stopped and quickly corrected himself: “Warship, the corvette San Martín. Upon entering the upper limits of Samborombón Bay, the destroyer engaged in a series of slow-speed maneuvers; the purpose of which is not clear…”
I don’t suppose the notion that they were taking soundings of the Bay ever entered your mind; but since I am not in a mood to deliver another lecture, “The Importance of Accurate Charts to Naval Operations,” I will let that pass without comment.
“…these maneuvers lasting until the lower limits of Samborombón Bay, and thus Argentinean waters, were reached. Whereupon, the American destroyer headed on a due east course into the Atlantic Ocean at a high rate of speed. The corvette San Martín lost sight of her approximately thirty minutes later.”
Which means what? That the American Captain wanted to rub in the face of the Captain of the San Martín the overall technical superiority of a U.S. Navy destroyer over an Armada Argentina corvette? Or that he didn’t wish the San Martín to guess which course he assumed when he reached the Atlantic Ocean? Or that he had a schedule to keep, a rendezvous with another vessel?
“Habanzo, I presume the Armada was monitoring the radio frequencies the American warship was likely to use?”
“Of course, mi Coronel.”
“And did the American warship use its radios?”
“Twice, mi Coronel. First, there was a message to the Captain of the San Martín, just before he left Argentinean waters. I have it here.”
He handed Martín a sheet of typewriter paper:
FROM: CAPTAIN USS ALFRED THOMAS DD-107
TO: CAPTAIN ARMADA ARGENTINA VESSEL SAN MARTIN
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE, COURTESY AND COOPERATION.
COME SEE US SOMETIME
JERNIGAN, LIEUTENANT COMMANDER, USN
“And shortly after they began to move at a high rate of speed, there was another message,” Habanzo reported, handing Martín another sheet of typewriter paper.
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
FROM: USS ALFRED THOMAS DD-107
TO: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS WASHDC ALL RECEIVING USN VESSELS AND SHORE STATIONS TO RELAY
USS ALFRED THOMAS DD-107 LEFT ARGENTINE WATERS 0125 GREENWICH 28DEC42. RECEIVED COMPLETE COOPERATION IN ARGENTINA.
PROCEEDING.
JERNIGAN, LTCOM USN COMMANDING
This was sent in the clear. As a courtesy? Or because they wanted to lull us into thinking that they have no other intentions in this area?
“Was there anything else of interest, Habanzo?”
El Teniente Coronel Habanzo smiled.
“Some of the destroyer’s men found Argentina, or perhaps Argentinean woman, impossible to leave, mi Coronel.”
“What, precisely, does that mean, Habanzo?”
“Several of the destroyer’s sailors missed the sailing of their ship, mi Coronel,” Habanzo said. “Just before the pilot left the vessel, the Captain gave their names to the pilot, together with a letter to the American Ambassador, asking him to inform the proper Argentine authorities, and to arrange for the men to be held in custody when they finally turn up.”
“Let’s see the names,” Martín said.
There were three names on the list: Chief Radioman Oscar J. Schultz, USN; Chief Ordnanceman Kenneth B. Daniels, USN; and Seaman Second Class Horace K. Williams, USNR.
“We have no idea where these people are?”
“I have checked with the various police agencies, mi Coronel. No.”
“No idea at all?”
“The Chief Petty Officers attended a reception given for them at the Escuela de Guerra Naval, mi Coronel. They were last seen there entering a taxi, presumably to return to their ship.”
Martín turned in his chair and took out his English-Spanish dictionary and looked up the word “ordnance.” He found what he expected to find, but it never hurt to be sure.
“Habanzo, I want you to meet with el Coronel Savia-Gonzalez and tell him that I consider this a matter of the greatest importance. I want the Policía Federal to find these sailors, if it means they have to visit every brothel in Buenos Aires, every bar, and the residence of every woman who has a reputation for not keeping her knees together in the presence of an American dollar bill.”
“Sí, mi Coronel. You suspect they missed their ship on purpose, mi Coronel?”
“I do not know that, of course, Habanzo, but I think we should err on the side of caution, don’t you?”
“Of course, mi Coronel.”
“Assign as many of our men as you think appropriate to assist the Policía Federal, Habanzo.”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“And I am to be notified, no matter the hour, when any one of them is located.”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
By now, Martín thought, all three of these American sailors are at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, doing for young Frade and his men whatever they are unable to do by themselves.
And Señor A. F. Graham will doubtless be there too. That “Vice-President of Howell Petroleum”—according to his visa and passport—who has not once visited the offices of Sociedad Mercantil de Importación Productos Petrolíferos. But who has visited both the American Embassy and the Destroyer Thomas, where he was saluted by the Officer of the Deck as he went aboard. And who was last seen in el Coronel Frade’s Buick station wagon on the road to Pila and Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.
But no one will be able to accuse me of closing my eyes if the sailors who “missed their ship” are caught trying to sink the Reine de la Mer—possibly by affixing a mine to her hull; a chief ordnanceman works with explosives—or if they disappear after doing something else in violation of Argentine neutrality; or if such an act causes one or more of their bodies to wash up on the beach. I might be looking in the wrong direction, possibly, but not closing my eyes.
“That will be all, Habanzo. The sooner we find these sailors, and find out what they’re up to, the better.”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
[THREE]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
1315 29 December 1942
Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, CE, AUS, was alone when he drove a Ford Model T pickup truck up to the ranch house.
First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, Colonel A. J. Graham, USMCR, Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodríguez, Argentine Cavalry, Retired, and Staff Sergeant David G. Ettinger, USAR, were sitting on the verandah.
“That truck is older than he is,” Colonel Graham observed.
“Where’s Chief Daniels?” Clete asked when Tony walked onto the verandah.
“Taking five-inch rounds apart.”
“Still? How many flare assemblies will we need?” Clete asked.
“Twenty-four,” Tony replied, his tone of voice suggesting he was puzzled by the question. That number was agreed to after much discussion and a few practical experiments, and Clete knew that.
“How many do we have? Now?”
“We had eighteen, maybe nineteen this morning, that we can trust.”
“How long does it take to take five or six more apart?”
“That depends on who’s doing it. Chief Daniels is taking his time. He doesn’t like the look of the explosive charge,” Tony said. “The goddamned shells were loaded in 1935, can you believe that?”
“The powder’s old?” Graham asked.
“Yeah, and it’s sort of like TNT, which is trinitrotoluene. It gets unstable if it settles—the nitro sort of leaks out of the fuller’s earth—and then you’ve got nitroglycerin, which is unstable as hell.”
“Out of the what?” Clete asked.
“Think of dirt mixed with sand,” Tony explained. “This is special stuff. I don’t know what the Navy calls theirs; but in commercial TNT, it’s fuller’s earth. It’s uniformly porous, so it absorbs the nitroglycerin evenly. You understand?”
Clete nodded.
“OK. That makes it stable. And when it burns, it burns uniformly. So when it’s improperly stored—in too much heat, for example; or for too long, like these shells, loaded seven years ago—the nitro seeps out, and you have nitroglycerin again.”
“And you didn’t think you could help Chief Daniels?” Colonel Graham asked.
Tony didn’t like the question.
“Yes, Sir, I could have helped him. But he said there was no point in both of us getting blown up; and he ran me off.”
“You’re an officer,” Graham said, not pleasantly. “Daniels is a chief.”
“Just a minute, Colonel!” Clete protested angrily. “You’re talking to somebody who was willing to make his own magnetic mine and stick it on the goddamned Reine de la Mer.”
Graham looked coldly at Clete, then said, “No offense, Pelosi.”
Pelosi, perhaps encouraged by Clete’s defense, had a reply of his own.
“The way it works when you’re fucking around with high explosives, Colonel, when you have a fuck-up like this one, is make the guy responsible fix it. The Navy fucked these shells up, let a sailor fix them. If he blows himself up, don’t worry. If I have to, I can go into those ancient shells and get out what I need, and I know I won’t blow myself up.”
“Señor Cletus,” the housekeeper announced behind him. “If it is convenient, luncheon is served.”
“Saved by the bell, Colonel,” Clete said.
“You look as if you belong there, Clete,” Colonel Graham said a minute or so after they took their seats at the dining room table.
“Excuse me?”
“At the head of the table, in the Royal Chair, approving the wine.”
What is he trying to do, charm me?
“Do I?”
“Have you ever considered that it will be yours one day—the Royal Chair, the whole estancia?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t.”
“The law is quite clear. Unless your father marries, when he dies, it’s yours—lock, stock, and barrel.”
“Is that so?”
“You’re the only child. They consider you an Argentine national. That’s it.”
“How will that Argentine national business affect me if they find out I helped sink the Reine de la Mer?”
“Interesting question,” Graham said matter-of-factly. “I don’t know.” He looked at Clete and smiled. “Don’t get caught.”
The housekeeper brought in a telephone, set it on the table beside Clete, and then plugged it into the wall. She then took the handset from the cradle, handed it to Clete, and announced, “El Coronel, Señor Cletus.”
“Cletus? This is your father.”
“Hola, Papá,” Clete said, smiling.
“Papá?” el Coronel repeated incredulously, then went on: “The reason I called, Cletus, is about tonight.”
Tonight? What the hell is he talking about?
“I wanted to make sure you asked Señor Graham to join us, in case you have not already done so.”
Jesus, I asked him to have the Princess and her family to dinner. And that’s tonight.
“I just about forgot about tonight, to tell you the truth.”
There was ample justification for forgetting a dinner. A hell of a lot was going on at the estancia. There was far more involved in setting things up—secretly—than Clete expected when he started.
Setting up a high-powered radio transmitter and receiving station, Clete learned, was not simply a matter of erecting a couple of towers and stringing a piece of wire between them.
To begin with, there was no topographical map of the estancia and its surrounding areas, something that Chief Schultz considered a necessity for locating the transmitter site.
In the absence of a good map, finding a transmitter site entailed several hour-long flights in the Beechcraft, mostly at fifty feet off the ground, so that Schultz could find suitable high ground. They found several possibilities, but these had to be narrowed down, taking into account that the site had to be easily accessible to transport. That was because the material to erect the towers, a gasoline generator to power the radios, the radios themselves, and a small building to house everything had to be transported there. And then there had to be an emergency exit route to move the radios quickly away, in case of an invasion by Argentines who had triangulated the antenna location.
They’d have ample warning of such an invasion. There already was an in-place system of what the Marine Corps would call perimeter patrols. Every possible access route to the interior of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo was watched around the clock by gauchos working (and sleeping) on the pampas, or else by the proprietors of small cantinas (small general stores which also serve food) and pulperías (male-only bars). These businesses operated at the pleasure of el Coronel Frade; they were happy to keep him advised of strangers.
The warning system had to do with Clete’s father’s involvement with the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, which in turn had something to do with what his father said about deposing the current President of Argentina. His father and his G.O.U. associates obviously didn’t want people snooping around Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. Hence the in-place perimeter security operation.
There was no way to avoid, however, having the takeoffs and landings of the Beechcraft witnessed by a very curious el Capitán Gonzalo Delgano, Argentine Army Air Service, Retired, and other members of what Clete came to think of as the San Pedro y San Pablo Air Force. In addition to the Beechcraft, there were five Piper Cubs based at the estancia. Three belonged to el Coronel, and two to Señora Carzino-Cormano. These were for use on her estancia, but they were based for convenience at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.
Delgano and the other pilots lived on the estancia in what amounted to a small village not far from the ranch house. The village housed the estancia’s professional staff: the estancia manager; a doctor; a veterinarian; the schoolmaster; a resident engineer, and so on.
“They are my people; they can be trusted to do what they are told without asking questions,” Clete’s father told him when that question came up during a meeting with Graham.
Apparently operating on the theory that if orders came via Suboficial Mayor Rodríguez they came from el Coronel, the estancia manager and the resident engineer provided anything asked of them without argument or question. Delgano was not so agreeable. Probably because he regarded the Beechcraft as his personal property before the arrival of el Coronel’s son from the Estados Unidos, he was visibly petulant when Clete politely told him he would not need his services to fly the Beech.
But when the petulance was replaced by a suspicious anxiety to be as helpful as possible, Clete and Graham decided that whether Delgano could be completely trusted or not, a little deception seemed called for when it came time to make the in-flight tests of Tony’s and Chief Daniels’s flares.
The tests were conducted in two phases: First they used inert charges (the magnesium of the flares replaced with sand)—to test the opening of the parachute and the timing of Tony’s homemade detonating devices. And finally they tried fully functioning flares.
Dropping them required removing the door of the Beechcraft. Unfortunately, this could not be done in flight. And it couldn’t be done at the estancia’s airstrip, either: Clete and Graham knew that Delgano’s curiosity—as would their own, in similar circumstances—would shift into high gear if he saw them taking the door off, loading mysterious packages into the plane, and then taking off.
The solution they came up with was to use a landing strip—a straight stretch of dirt road with a wind sock—in a remote corner of Señora Carzino-Cormano’s Estancia Santa Catharina. They sent Tony there in the Buick with the flares. Then they flew the Beech there with Chief Daniels as a passenger. They took off the door, loaded the flares, went up and dropped them, landed on the dirt strip to drop Tony off and put the door back on, and then flew back to the field at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
When they were in the air over Estancia Santa Catharina, Capitán Delgano twice “happened” to be making a routine flight in one of the estancia’s Piper Cubs. But the Beechcraft was so much faster than a Cub, losing him was no problem.
Neither Graham nor Clete was happy with el Coronel’s confidence in el Capitán Delgano, but there was nothing they could do about it.
“And if you forgot dinner with the Mallíns,” el Coronel said, sounding annoyed, “it would follow that you forgot to ask Señor Graham for the pleasure of his company. I think that good manners requires that you—we—do so.”
Why is it important to my father that Graham come to dinner? Because he wants a report of our activities out here, and he wants to be able to look at Graham’s face when he delivers the report.
“Señor Graham is here with me. We’re having lunch. Hold on a minute and I’ll ask him if he is free to accept your kind invitation.”
“Tell him that I would consider it a great favor.”
Clete put his hand over the telephone receiver, then changed his mind.
“It is my father, mi Coronel,” he said in Spanish, loudly enough for his father to hear. “My father asks me to tell you that he would consider it a great favor if you would take dinner with us tonight in Buenos Aires.”
Also in Spanish, Graham replied, loud enough to be heard over the telephone: “Please tell your father that I would be delighted to accept his kind invitation.”
“Papá,” Clete said, “Señor Graham says he would be honored to accept your kind invitation.”
“I heard, and I don’t think you are amusing,” el Coronel Frade said. Then he added, “Early. Nine-thirty,” and hung up.
“Mi Coronel,” Clete said. “Mi Papá, el Coronel…”
“I heard, and I don’t think you’re amusing either. What’s this dinner all about?”
“He’s having the Mallíns to dinner, to thank them for putting me up when I first got here.”
“Mallín, as in Sociedad Mercantil de Importación de Productos Petrolíferos?”
Clete nodded.
“I should have gone to see Mallín, and I didn’t,” Graham said. “There might be questions about that. Do you think your father thought of that?”
“I think Papá wants to know what’s been going on out here.”
“That, too, certainly. Well, I suggest we finish our lunch, then go see Chief Schultz, tell him we’re going into town, and then go.”
“Dinner isn’t until nine-thirty.”
“I will pay a call on Señor Mallín before I meet him socially tonight,” Graham said.
“Schultz is at the transmitter site. We’ll have to drive a Model T out there—the Buick would get stuck—and then come back here for the Buick.”
“OK,” Graham said. “I just want to make sure that Schultz is on schedule.”
Chief Radioman Oscar J. Schultz walked up to the Model T sedan at the transmitter site. He was wearing the familiar strained smile of a Chief who knows what he’s doing when he sees the brass, who cannot find their asses with both hands, coming to inspect his work.
As they bounced over the pampas in the Model T, it was difficult to pick him out from among the twenty-odd gauchos working in the area. He was dressed as they were, in a flowing shirt, billowing black trousers drawn together at the tops of his boots, a wide leather belt around his waist (complete to a menacing-looking knife with a foot-long blade), and a large, floppy beret on his head.
“You really ought to learn how to ride, Chief,” Graham said. “You’re already in uniform.”
“The Colonel, Sir, is dressed as if he and Mr. Frade are going somewhere,” Schultz replied, not amused.
He and Chief Daniels had arrived at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo in their dress-white uniforms. The gauchos’ clothing was the only solution to the clothing problem. Chief Schultz didn’t mind much—Clete observed him examining himself in a mirror with approval. But Chief Daniels was uncomfortable in the gaucho costume; he was in fact heard mentioning to Chief Schultz that they both looked like Mexican pimps.
On the other hand, while there were only a few actions that Chief Radioman Oscar J. Schultz, USN, was unwilling to undertake in the service of his country, high on that short list was approaching closer to large animals—such as horses or cattle—than was absolutely necessary. That he might actually climb on a horse and use it as a means of transportation was absolutely out of the question.
Enrico solved that problem by obtaining for him the keys to one of the estancia’s dozen or so ancient, but perfectly maintained Model T pickups from the estancia manager. They were nearly as good off-the-road, or through-the-mud, as a jeep.
“We’re going into Buenos Aires for dinner, Chief,” Graham said to Schultz. “We’ll be back in the morning. You have things under control here? You need anything from the city?”
“I’m going to hang the antennae in the morning,” Schultz answered. “We’ve got everything we need. Maybe, with a little luck, we can get on the air tomorrow afternoon. What’s going on in Buenos Aires?”
“I think Mr. Frade’s father wants to know what we’re doing out here,” Graham said.
“With you two gone, that’ll mean only Ettinger and me are left who speak Spanish,” Chief Schultz said.
“That’ll pose a problem?”
“It will if Enrico goes with you.”
“He and Mr. Frade are like Siamese twins, but if you think it’s important, Chief…”
“He’s the only guy around here who knows how to make these people jump, Colonel.”
Ten minutes later, a visibly reluctant Suboficial Mayor Rodríguez—having been convinced that he could contribute to killing Germans by remaining at the estancia to help Chiefs Daniels and Schultz and Staff Sergeant Ettinger—handed his Remington Model 11 to Colonel A. F. Graham.
“With respect, mi Coronel, be very alert.”
“You have my word of honor, Suboficial Mayor,” Graham replied solemnly.
“I will pray for God to protect you.”
When they returned to the ranch house to pick up the Buick, el Capitán Delgano, attired in a natty suit, was waiting for them on the verandah with a suitcase. So was Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, wearing a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His seersucker jacket was lying on the verandah rail.
Delgano walked off the verandah and was approaching the Buick when Clete got there.
“Señor Cletus,” he said. “I overheard the housekeeper say you and Señor Graham are going to Buenos Aires. I wondered if I could join you.”
“It would be my pleasure, mi Capitán,” Clete said.
Delgano turned and started quickly toward the verandah to retrieve his bag. Tony picked up his coat and walked to the car.
“I wonder,” Graham said softly, “what el Capitán’s plans are in Buenos Aires.”
“I couldn’t tell him no, could I?”
Graham shook his head.
“Lieutenant,” Tony said. “I checked with Daniels. He’ll have twenty-four flares and a couple of spares in an hour or so. Is there any reason I couldn’t go into Buenos Aires with you?”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, Pelosi,” Graham said.
“The condemned man wants a last meal—a last Italian meal? Peppers and sausage, maybe?” Clete replied.
“I was thinking of maybe some veal parmigiana,” Tony said, smiling shyly.
After a long moment, Graham shrugged.
“I left that damned shotgun in the Model T,” he remembered. “What do I do with it?”
“I think you better bring it with you, mi Coronel,” Clete said. “I wouldn’t want to be you if Enrico came here and found it.”
Delgano came up with his suitcase.
“Put it in the trunk, mi Capitán,” Clete said. “Get in, Tony.”
[FOUR]
Ristorante Napoli
La Boca, Buenos Aires
1815 29 December 1942
“They serve pretty good food in there, Tony?” First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, asked of Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi as Tony crawled out of the backseat of the Buick.
“As a matter of fact, it’s pretty good,” Tony replied.
“Well, eat a lot. And don’t complain about the prices. I want them to be successful. They owe me money.”
“They don’t owe you the money, I owe you the money,” Tony said, and then changed the subject. “How are we going to get together?”
“If you think you’ll be through dinner by then, I’ll pick you up at your apartment at eight in the morning.”
“Very funny,” Tony said, nodded at Graham, and walked into the restaurant.
“What’s that all about?” Graham asked as Clete pulled away from the curb.
“True love. Tony met a girl. An Italian girl. Her father owns that restaurant.”
“And the crack about the money?”
“That’s personal.”
“It would have been better if you weren’t so considerate of his love life,” Graham said. “I don’t think Internal Security is going to pick you up—or me—and take us someplace to work us over with a rubber hose, but I’m not so sure about Pelosi.”
Clete looked at him but didn’t reply.
“At least we got rid of el Capitán Delgano before we dropped him off. Unless, of course, they already know about his girlfriend.”
“They meaning Internal Security?”
“He’s either headed right for Internal Security or to someone else who’ll be grateful for a report on the interesting things we’ve been doing on your father’s estancia. I thought about blowing the sonofabitch away on the drive here. Now I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“It would have gotten blood all over my nice leather seats,” Clete said, not willing to accept that Graham was serious.
“Disposing of the body would have been the problem, and I didn’t know how you two would react.”
My God, he’s serious.
“My father doesn’t seem worried about Delgano.”
“I am,” Graham said simply.
“Well, what the hell, Colonel. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow…or a day or two later…we probably die.”
“Good God!” Graham said, his voice falling into a groan.
“Do you want me to take you to your hotel? Or the Edificio Kavanagh?”
“What’s that? Oh, Mallín’s office?”
Clete nodded.
“I better go there,” Graham said.
There was a large, sharp-pointed grain of truth in Clete’s flippant remark.
Based on his professional experience as a Naval Aviator while operating from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, was possessed of knowledge that he did not elect to share with anyone but Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, CE, AUS.
While he was confident that their system to illuminate the Reine de la Mer by means of parachute flares would probably illuminate the Reine de la Mer enough to permit whoever was firing the torpedoes from the submarine to see the sonofabitch well enough to aim accurately, the chances of the aircraft coming out of the encounter intact were practically nonexistent.
The odds of the crew of the aircraft surviving the encounter intact were somewhat less. For a number of reasons: The crew would not have parachutes, for instance. Nor would they have life belts that Clete had any confidence in. After an extensive search, he found the ones they were using in a warehouse at the estancia. They looked as if they had floated off the Lusitania when she sank and were dry-rotting away ever since.
While there was an element of risk in actually dropping the flares, that operation was simplicity itself. A chute had been constructed of wood. This fit in the door of the aircraft, and was long enough to hold six flare assemblies in a row. There was room for two rows, for a total of a dozen flares.
On the command “Get Ready,” the flare dropper—Pelosi—would elevate the interior end of the chute by propping it up with legs mounted to its sides. He would then remove a board at the exterior end of the chute, which held the rows of flares in place.
On the command “Go,” the flare dropper would simultaneously activate two detonators, each with a five-second delay, and immediately shove all twelve flares off the chute using a built-in pusher.
Five seconds later, approximately two to three seconds after leaving the aircraft, the detonators would function, in turn igniting a length of primercord (which bound the six-flare bundles together) and the detonators which would ignite the magnesium. Once freed of bundling, the flare assemblies would separate, and their parachutes would deploy, a second or two before the magnesium in each reached full burn.
It sounded like a Mickey Mouse rig, especially to Chief Daniels, but to Clete and Graham as well (especially since the primercord was locally manufactured by Lieutenant Pelosi). But it worked from the first test, and they tested it twice.
According to the plan, the flare dropper would then reload the chute with a second dozen flare assemblies and stand by for the “Get Ready” and “Go” orders in case a second run over the Reine de la Mer proved necessary.
The odds that a second run over the Reine de la Mer would not be necessary were, in Lieutenant Frade’s judgment, approximately one hundred to one.
His reasoning was that even with the Reine de la Mer in plain sight, permitting a perfect overtarget run, he would have absolutely no idea, when they began their descent, how the slipstream and other factors like winds aloft would affect the flares’ position in relation to the Reine de la Mer, and thus how they were illuminating it.
The illumination pattern could of course be perfect for the torpedo aimer in the submarine. This was highly unlikely, but possible.
At this point, there entered another messy question: Would the submarine be in position to fire its torpedoes once the target was bathed in the light of the magnesium flares?
Submarines firing torpedoes are not like warships firing their cannon, or hunters shooting ducks. Cannons can be traversed, moved from side to side, just as a hunter can turn to move his shotgun. But torpedoes fire in a straight line in the direction the submarine is pointed. While it is possible to adjust the course of a torpedo—turning it left or right off a dead-ahead course—that can only be adjusted so much.
Presuming the submarine got a good look at the Reine de la Mer in the light of the first flare run, it was very probable that it would be necessary to move the direction of her bow ten, twenty, maybe thirty degrees to the right or left.
But when the flare run began, the Devil Fish would not be moving. Or if it was moving, it would only be just fast enough to maintain steering way. Turning would take time, more time than the duration of the flare burn.
And after the first flare run, meanwhile, the crew of the Reine de la Mer would not only be alerted but would have time to man the heavy machine guns and the Bofors cannon—if they weren’t already manned.
And there would be enough light from the first-run flares to illuminate the Beechcraft. When the second flare run started, the Reine de la Mer would be prepared for it.
It was unpleasant enough to dwell upon what heavy machine bullets would do to the fuselage, wings, and gas tanks of the Beechcraft without considering what would happen inside the aircraft if 40-mm exploding projectiles struck it and sympathetically detonated Tony’s homemade (quarter-inch cotton rope impregnated with nitroglycerine) primercord, and thus set off a dozen flares.
“Well, what the hell, Clete,” Tony said. “It will be a spectacular way to go.”
[FIVE]
Maria-Teresa’s father almost ran to greet Tony when he stepped inside the Ristorante Napoli; and he treated Tony like royalty when he bowed and scraped him to a table.
“I’m profoundly sorry, Señor Pelosi, that Maria-Teresa is away at the moment,” Señor Alberghoni announced in a rush to Tony, once he was seated. “She certainly would have been here for you if she had known you were coming. But she has gone to confession at the Church of San Juan Evangelista. That’s not far away, as you know. She’ll certainly return shortly, and she’ll be delighted to see you. And remorseful that she was not here when you were kind enough to call at the restaurant.
“In the meantime, would Señor Pelosi like a glass of wine and a little something to eat?”
The “Señor Pelosi” business made Tony uncomfortable, and so did the bowing and the scraping, but that wasn’t as bad as when Maria-Teresa’s father wept and kissed his hands after Maria-Teresa gave him the paid-off mortgage.
“Grazie,” Tony said. “I’d like a glass of wine.”
Half a bottle of vino tinto and a huge platter of vermicelli with a mushroom-tomato sauce later, Maria-Teresa still hadn’t shown up. So Tony decided to walk over to San Juan Evangelista and wait for her. He didn’t want to say what he had to say to her with her father hanging over him anyway. Maybe he would meet her on the street.
But he didn’t meet her on the street. And when he went inside the baroque church, he didn’t see her there either. Maybe she took a back alley or something on her way back to the ristorante.
A priest was sitting outside one of the confession stalls. It wasn’t that way at home. When you went to confession there, you couldn’t see the priest. Maybe you could recognize his voice, or he could recognize yours; but you couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see you.
What the hell, he doesn’t know who I am.
He entered the confession stall and dropped to his knees.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“Habla español? Italiano?”
Tony switched to Italian.
Aside from not going to mass, the only sin he could think of was one that had been troubling him since he was thirteen years old.
“Father, I have been having impure thoughts. About a specific girl.”
Priestly interrogation brought out that he had also been guilty of the sin of Onanism in connection with his impure thoughts about the specific girl. He received a brief lecture on forcing impure thoughts from his mind and the harm that self-abuse inflicts on the body and the soul; and then he was given absolution and a relatively minor penance.
He left the confession stall and dropped to his knees before a larger than life-size statue of Saint John the Baptist, lit a votive candle, and asked God to make it easy for his mother and his father and his brothers to understand if he didn’t come through the business with the Reine de la Mer. And he asked Him not to let them mourn so badly. And then he stood up.
When he turned around, he saw Maria-Teresa standing by one of the enormous pillars. Her head was covered with a shawl.
Jesus Christ, she’s beautiful!
“I saw you come in,” she said.
“I was looking for you.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I told you, I was looking for you. Then I went to confession.”
“I thought you would come,” Maria-Teresa said. “But not here.”
“Excuse me?”
“What do you want, Anthony?”
“I want to talk to you for a minute. Can we go get a cup of coffee or something?”
“To the ristorante?”
“Not to the ristorante.”
“There is a café near here.”
He took her arm on the street. She didn’t shrug it away, but she didn’t seem to like it much, either.
They took a tiny table in a small, crowded café, and a waiter came and took their order. Tony was going to order coffee, but changed his mind and asked for a glass of vino tinto. He asked Maria-Teresa if she wanted a cake or a dish of ice cream or something, but she said no thank you, all she wanted was coffee.
“Do you want me to come with you, Anthony?” Maria-Teresa asked.
“Come with me where?”
She shrugged. He understood.
“Jesus Christ, no! Nothing like that.”
“Then what do you want?”
He reached inside his jacket, came up with an envelope, and handed it to her.
2nd Lt A.J. Pelosi, 0-538677, CE
Army Detachment
Office of Strategic Services
National Institutes of Health Building
Washington, D.C.
Military Attaché
U.S. Embassy
Buenos Aires
Argentina
“What’s this?”
“If you don’t see me again in a week,” Tony said, “I want you to take that to the U.S. Embassy. You know where that is?”
Maria-Teresa shook her head no.
“What is this?”
“It’s in the Bank of Boston Building,” Tony said. “There will be a Marine guard.”
“A what?”
“A Marine guard. Sort of a soldier. You tell him you want to see the Military Attaché. He’ll probably ask you why, and you tell him that it’s about an American Army officer.”
“An American Army officer?” Maria-Teresa asked, now wholly confused.
“Yeah. Look here.” He pointed at the envelope. “That’s me, up in the corner.”
“That’s you? I don’t understand.”
“Maria-Teresa, for Christ’s sake, just listen to me. You give this to the guard and tell him you want to see the Military Attaché.”
“Why don’t you just give him this letter yourself?”
“I may not be here.”
“You’re leaving Argentina?”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“And not coming back?”
“If I leave, I won’t be coming back.”
“Where are you going? Back to the United States?”
“Something like that.”
“What’s in the envelope?”
“A couple of letters.”
“What kind of letters?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. If I don’t come back, there will be some money for you. But to get the money, you have to take this letter to the Military Attaché.”
“I don’t want any more of your money. What are you talking about, giving me more money? This is crazy.”
“Goddamn it, if I go away, I won’t need any money, and I want you to have it.”
“I want to know what’s in this envelope,” Maria-Teresa said firmly.
“Help yourself. They’re in English; you won’t know what you’re reading.”
She opened the envelope and took from it two sheets of paper.
Tony was right. She couldn’t understand much of either of them.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
28 December 1942
To Whom It May Concern:
Through: The Military Attaché
U.S. Embassy
Buenos Aires, Argentina
I desire to change the beneficiary of my National Service Insurance from Mrs. Pasquale Pelosi, 818 Elm Street, Cicero, Illinois USA, to Miss Maria-Teresa Alberghoni, c/o Ristorante Napoli, Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Anthony J. Pelosi 0-538677
2nd Lieut CE, AUS
(On TDY from Army Detachment
Office of Strategic Services
National Institutes of Health Building
Washington, D.C.)
December 28, 1942
Somewhere in Argentina
PLEASE FORWARD TO:
Mr. Pasquale Pelosi
818 Elm Street
Cicero, Illinois
Dear Pop:
If you get this, I will have done what you always said I was going to do, test the detonator after I hooked up the charge.
Maybe after the war, somebody will tell you what I was doing down here, but right now it’s classified, and all I can tell you is that it was important, and I volunteered to do it.
What comes next is probably going to upset you a little.
I fell in love down here. Her name is Maria-Teresa Alberghoni, and she is a nice Italian girl whose family comes from around Naples someplace. Pop, she and her family don’t have a dime. They work hard, but they’re really poor.
So what I’ve done is make her the beneficiary of the ten thousand dollar GI insurance policy I get from the Army, and I want you to somehow arrange to get her the money I inherited from Grandpa, less thirteen thousand dollars I owe First Lieutenant C.H. Frade, USMCR, c/o OSS. If he doesn’t come through this either, the OSS can get you the name of his family in New Orleans.
Since I can’t use it, I think Grandpa would like what I want to do with his money. If he told me once he told me a hundred times how he came from Italy with sixteen dollars and the clothes on his back. You don’t need the money and it will help Maria-Teresa get a start on life here in Argentina.
Kiss Mamma, those ugly brothers of mine, and maybe light a candle for me every once in a while.
Love, your son
Anthony
“This is a letter to your father?”
“Right.”
“What does it say?”
“It says that if something happens to me, I have some money I want him to send to you.”
“What’s going to happen to you?”
“Maybe nothing.”
“And maybe what?”
“Maybe I’ll get killed.”
“How?”
“I can’t tell you about that.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t tell you, that’s all.”
“It has to do with the war?”
Tony nodded.
“I thought so,” she said. “I knew you were doing something. You told me you were an American, and you told my father you were from the North of Italy. You lied.”
“I had to.”
“Are you lying to me now?”
“About what? No, I’m not lying to you.”
“Señor Mallín said you would come to me.”
“Mallín? You saw that sonofabitch? What did he want?”
“He came and said that he would forgive me if I promised not to see you again.”
“And?”
“I told him that I did not want to be with him anymore, and he said that you would come to see me, and want to be with me.”
“Not like that, I don’t want to be with you.”
“When I saw you go in the restaurant, I thought that was what you wanted.”
“Look, Maria-Teresa, just take the goddamned envelope to the U.S. Embassy if I don’t come back, all right?”
“If you wish,” she said, and stuffed it in her purse.
He drained his wineglass, looked around for the waiter to order another, changed his mind, stood up, and fished in his pocket for money.
“You’re going?”
“Right.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. To my apartment, I guess.”
Maria-Teresa stood up, and he followed her out of the café.
She stopped and waited for him, and put her hand on his arm.
“You want me to walk you back to the ristorante?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Is there anyone at your apartment?”
“No.”
“Then we will go there,” Maria-Teresa said.
“I told you, I didn’t come here for anything like that.”
“I want to go with you to your apartment.”
“Why?”
“It will be an interesting experience,” Maria-Teresa said matter-of-factly. “I have never made love before because I wanted to.”