[ONE]
Bureau of Internal Security
Ministry of Defense
Edificio Libertador
Avenida Paseo Colón
Buenos Aires
1905 29 December 1942
“Would you wait outside, please, gentlemen, to give Coronel Martín and myself a word alone?” el Almirante Francisco de Montoya, Chief of the Bureau of Internal Security, Ministry of National Defense, said to el Comandante Carlos Habanzo, of the Bureau of National Security, and el Capitán Gonzalo Delgano, Air Service, Argentine Army, Retired, who stood before his desk, their hands folded on the smalls of their backs. El Teniente Coronel Bernardo Martín sat slumped on a leather couch at one side of the room.
The two left the office, wearing looks of self-approval. After they were gone, Martín leaned forward, picked up a small cup of coffee, and took a sip. When he set it down, he saw that el Almirante de Montoya had left his desk and assumed what Martín thought of as his Deep-In-Thought position: He was standing in front of his window, staring out over the Río de la Plata. His hands were behind his back, his fingers were moving nervously, and he was rocking slightly from side to side.
Finally, he snorted and turned to face Martín.
“I am curious, Martín, why I was not aware until just now that you had this man Delgano reporting on el Coronel Frade.”
“I was aware, mi Almirante, of your friendship with el Coronel Frade…”
“Friendship is not the point, Martín. Friendship is friendship; information is information.”
“…and if Delgano went to Frade and informed him of his relationship with me, I wished to leave you in a position where you could truthfully tell el Coronel Frade that you knew nothing about that…that you stopped the surveillance the instant you did hear about it; and that you are dealing harshly with the man who ordered it.”
“I am touched by your loyalty to me, and your willingness to sacrifice your career to protect me,” de Montoya said.
“I am loyal to you, mi Almirante,” Martín said. “And I feel I can serve you best by not sacrificing my career unless absolutely necessary.”
El Almirante de Montoya looked at Martín with a frown, then he slowly smiled.
“El Comandante Habanzo is the officer who put his career at risk by enlisting Delgano,” Martín said.
“You are a devious fellow, Bernardo,” el Almirante de Montoya said approvingly. “I’m sure this was a painful decision for you to make.”
“At first, it was. And then I began to develop suspicions about el Comandante Habanzo.”
“And have these suspicions been confirmed?”
“Let me say this, mi Almirante: If sacrificing el Comandante Habanzo’s career for the greater good of the BIS becomes necessary, I will not consider it a particularly heavy loss.”
“There is such a thing as being too discreet, Bernardo.”
“Nevertheless, I am not completely sure of my facts. It seemed odd to me, however, after I personally charged Habanzo to surveil young Frade, and to use any assets and personnel he considered necessary, that the men who tried to kill young Frade, and who murdered that poor housekeeper, were able to gain access to the house without being seen.”
“But you did not pursue this line of thought?”
“Young Frade made that impossible, mi Almirante. It’s difficult to interrogate dead men.”
“Yes, you’re right, Bernardo,” el Almirante said thoughtfully. “Curious. And what do you conclude?”
“That it’s quite likely that Habanzo has a relationship with the Germans.”
“Quite possible,” el Almirante said, pausing for a moment to stare out over the river. Then he went on, “Let me say, Bernardo, ex post facto, that you handled the situation at el Coronel Frade’s guest house as I would have handled it myself. That required both imagination and a willingness to assume responsibility.”
“Thank you, mi Almirante. I did what I thought you would want me to do in those circumstances.”
De Montoya smiled and nodded: “So then we must consider the motives of the Germans, mustn’t we? Is this replenishment vessel of theirs so important to their submarine operations that they would be willing to alienate a man who may well become President of Argentina to preserve it?”
“If you would permit me to express my thoughts—not conclusions—about that, and then tell me where I may have gone wrong?”
“Please do.”
“Possibility One is that their replenishment vessel is in fact so important that they would be willing to pay any price to ensure that it remains operational—even if that means earning el Coronel Frade’s hatred by killing his son…and/or the embarrassment of being caught by us.”
El Almirante de Montoya grunted, accepting that theory.
“Possibility Two,” Martín went on, “is that they wished to demonstrate both to the Americans, and in particular to el Coronel Frade—and the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos—that they are so powerful that they can do whatever they wish with impunity. They caused the disappearance of the first OSS team that was sent here to deal with the replenishment vessel. By eliminating the head of the second OSS team—”
“Let me interrupt for a moment,” de Montoya said. “What about young Frade? Is he a professional intelligence officer, or was he sent down here because he is his father’s son?”
“I at first thought the latter,” Martín replied. “Now I am having second thoughts. It seems certain that the OSS sent him here to deal with the Reine de la Mer.”
“You think they can sink her?”
“No, Sir. I don’t think that will happen. The man I had on the pilot’s boat when the Reine de la Mer entered our waters reported—I sent you his report, mi Almirante—that she is heavily armed for a merchant vessel, with what we believe are two dual forty-millimeter Bofors cannon, plus heavy machine guns, and what is very likely a radar antenna.”
“A what?”
“A device that uses radio waves to detect other vessels, or boats, within a ten-to-twenty-mile range.”
“I’ve heard that both the Germans and the English have such devices, but I was not aware they were commonly available.”
“The replenishment vessel is tremendously important to the Germans. It would follow she would have the best available equipment.”
“So young Frade’s mission is doomed to failure?”
“That is my belief, mi Almirante. If we are to believe everything Delgano said about the current activities at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, Frade intends to bomb the Reine de la Mer with incendiary devices, apparently designed to explode her fuel tanks, or at least set them on fire. And all he has to do this with is his father’s airplane, which is, as you know…”
“I know,” de Montoya said impatiently. “I’ve flown in it. It is not a warplane.”
“As I was saying a moment ago, mi Almirante, my second theory vis-à-vis the motives of the Germans is that killing young Frade would send the message that they have the better intelligence operation; that they are so powerful that they don’t care if they enrage a possible President of Argentina; and, as a secondary benefit, they protect the Reine de la Mer.”
“In either case, young Frade dies?”
“I’m afraid so, mi Almirante.”
“Pity. It will be difficult for his father personally, and difficult for us, my friend, if we have a President who hates the Germans.”
“I don’t see how it can be avoided. The Americans are apparently determined to make the attempt against the odds.”
“And what, in your opinion, should our course of action be?”
“What I have been thinking—what I would like to present for your concurrence, mi Almirante—is that we do nothing, simply let happen what happens.”
“Based on what reasoning?”
“We are a neutral power. We don’t know that the Reine de la Mer is in fact a replenishment vessel in our waters, thus violating our neutrality; and we don’t know that young Frade is in fact an OSS agent sent here to sink her, thus violating our neutrality. Consequently, however the attempt to sink the Reine de la Mer turns out, we can express surprise, regret, anger, whatever would be appropriate. But to repeat, I think young Frade will fail.”
“And die in the attempt?”
“Regrettably, mi Almirante.”
“If your suspicions that that fool Habanzo has been dealing with the Germans are justified, they will know within a half hour of his leaving this building—if they don’t already know—everything that’s going on at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.”
“Delgano came directly here to report to Habanzo,” Martín said. “And I haven’t let either of them out of my sight since Habanzo brought Delgano to me. I don’t think Delgano knows Habanzo has a German connection. And in any event, I don’t think that even Habanzo would be fool enough to try to telephone the Germans from this building. So I am assuming that the Germans know nothing about the activities at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.”
El Almirante de Montoya grunted again, accepting that.
“How will you deal with those two?” he asked after a moment.
“With your concurrence, mi Almirante, I’ll have Habanzo send Delgano back to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, with orders to keep his mouth shut and his eyes open until he hears from Habanzo. And then I’ll send Habanzo to Uruguay with several men—including a young Capitán, Oswaldo Storrer, in whom I have complete confidence. His orders will be to detect and interrupt the American supply line from Brazil through Uruguay to Argentina. Storrer’s orders will be to not let Habanzo out of his sight or near a telephone.”
“And then?”
“When this whole business is over, mi Almirante, I suggest that you approach el Coronel Frade and tell him that you have just learned from me that an officer in the BIS—whom you have transferred from BIS to an obscure post—had the effrontery to recruit el Capitán Delgano.”
De Montoya thought about that for a long moment.
“He knows, of course, that you cleaned up the mess at his Guest House, so he will trust you. But of course, Martín, that means that you have chosen sides—and he will know it.”
“I see no alternative, mi Almirante. El Coronel Frade has reached the stage where anyone who does not support him is against him.”
El Almirante de Montoya grunted again, turned to his window, and assumed his Deep-In-Thought position, and remained in it for over a minute.
Finally he turned.
“When the opportunity presents itself, I will have a word with el Coronel Frade. And, in the meantime, you will keep me informed?”
“Of course, mi Almirante.”
“For the present, do what you think should be done about those two,” el Almirante said, gesturing toward the closed door.
“Sí, mi Almirante,” Martín replied. “Con permiso, mi Almirante?”
With an impatient gesture of his hand, el Almirante de Montoya dismissed him.
[TWO]
1728 Avenida Coronel Díaz
Buenos Aires
1925 29 December 1942
Like Tony Pelosi, Clete Frade also decided to write farewell letters—to his grandfather and his aunt Martha, and to Señorita Dorotea Mallín.
He spent the better part of an hour at the desk in Granduncle Guillermo’s playroom working on them, with absolutely no success. With regard to his grandfather and aunt Martha, he finally concluded that letters would be counterproductive. They would arrive several weeks after the notification of his death, and would only tear away the scab from that emotional wound.
He was glad that he told Martha at Uncle Jim’s grave that he loved her. And he was sorry he had not put the same thought in words to the Old Man.
Who probably would have responded by announcing something like “people who can’t handle alcohol should leave it alone,” or “only fools and drunks wear their emotions on their sleeve.”
So far as the No-Longer-Virgin Princess was concerned, perhaps there would be time tonight at the en famille dinner to have a private word with her—a private one-way word; I certainly can’t let her know that I think I’m about to get my ass blown away—during which he could try again to point out that she was much too young to know what love was all about, and that she had an exciting period of her life before her, during which she would meet a number of young men.
The problem of farewell letters resolved, it occurred to him that he hadn’t had anything to eat lately. He could, of course, push the call button and have them rustle up something in the kitchen.
What I really want—God knows what the Old Man will serve tonight, but it certainly won’t be simple—is a hot dog with onions and a beer. And there’s a place a couple of blocks down Libertador where I can get one.
He was in his underwear, because of the heat. He went to the wardrobe, took out a red polo shirt, a pair of khaki pants, a cotton blazer, and Sullivan’s boots. When dressed, he examined himself in the mirror and was satisfied that he was wearing the right thing—that he actually looked rather spiffy—for an en famille dinner.
Then he went down and backed the Buick out of the basement, drove half a dozen blocks down Avenida Libertador until he found the small sidewalk restaurant he was looking for, and went in.
He had a private chat with the man tending the carbón parrilla (a wood-fired barbecue grill), finally convincing him that he really wanted the hot dogs grilled and not boiled, and served with chopped raw onions on French bread. Then he took a table, ordered cervezas, and watched the people walk by.
Three grilled hot dogs with raw onion and a pair of liter bottles of beer later, he glanced at his watch. It was nine o’clock. He would just have time to drive to the house on Avenida Coronel Díaz and arrive at the socially accepted time—fifteen minutes late.
[THREE]
1728 Avenida Coronel Díaz
Buenos Aires
2115 29 December 1942
A butler in a tailcoat opened the door to his knock.
“Buenas noches, Señor Frade,” he said, straight-faced. “El Coronel and his guests are in the first-floor reception room.”
The first floor, the way the Argentines count, is really the second floor, Clete was pleased to remember.
He went up the curving, wide staircase two steps at a time, in happy anticipation of seeing the No-Longer-Virgin Princess, only halfway up remembering that if the opportunity presented itself to kiss her, he would reek of beer and raw onions.
He entered the reception room. The first person he saw was Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, resplendent in a white Luftwaffe summer uniform, with his Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross dangling over his chest. He was chatting with Señorita Alicia Carzino-Cormano, who was in a floor-length white dress cut so that not only a strand of pearls but a wide expanse of bosom—both magnificent—were on prominent display.
Also present in the room were Señorita Carzino-Cormano’s mother and sister, also wearing shades of white; Uncle Humberto and Aunt Beatrice, she in a floor-length black gown, he in a white dinner jacket; half a dozen other people, including an Argentine admiral and the fat colonel of the Husares de Pueyrredón in mess dress; and their ladies; Señor A. F. Graham, in a white dinner jacket; and of course the Mallín family, Mamá, Papá, the No-Longer-Virgin Princess, and even Little Enrico, all done up in a dinner jacket.
Plus, of course, the host, el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade, in a white dinner jacket.
The No-Longer-Virgin Princess, when she saw him in the red polo shirt and blue blazer, smiled warmly and then giggled. Though they didn’t giggle, Señor Graham’s and Major Freiherr von Wachtstein’s faces reflected a certain amusement at Clete’s discomfort, and then at the sight of his father stalking across the room to greet him.
“At least you managed to arrive,” Clete’s father said as he took his arm and led him out of the room, “at the dinner I gave at your request. I suppose that’s something.”
“What I had in mind was just the Mallíns,” Clete said. “Sorry.”
“You should be glad that didn’t happen.”
“Excuse me?”
“Mallín came early,” his father said as he led him down a wide corridor and then through a double door. “I have some clothing in here that should fit you.”
“I don’t think so,” Clete said. His father was forty pounds heavier than he was. “Mallín came early and…?”
“I bought much of this when I was your age,” his father said, throwing open a closet that looked like a rack in a formal clothing store. “There’s a dinner jacket in here from Close and Marsh in London that should do.”
He found what he was looking for and thrust it at Clete.
“I don’t know about a shirt,” he said. “But there’s a drawer of them over there, and you’ll find studs and so on on my dresser. And now, the entertainment of the evening finished, I will return to your guests.”
Clete put his hand on his father’s arm and stopped him.
“Answer the question. Mallín was here, and…?”
“He wished to talk to me privately, man-to-man, as one father to another,” Frade said. “About your relationship with his daughter. While he assured me that he felt you were a fine young man of sterling character, who would never take advantage of an innocent young girl, as men of the world, we both knew that when two young people fancy themselves in love…et cetera, et cetera…and that he hoped I would be good enough to have a word with you. I told him that you are a man, and that I have no control over your romantic life.”
“That’s it?”
“I also told him that I rather understood your interest in his innocent young daughter. I suggested that you perhaps acquired your interest in young girls in the bar at the Plaza Hotel, watching middle-aged men fawning over Minas young enough to be their daughters.”
“You didn’t!”
Frade nodded. “And I also told him that he should be glad that you are both my son and an officer and a gentleman, who therefore can be expected to do the right thing by his innocent daughter, rather than one of the middle-aged men in the Plaza bar who behave despicably toward their young women.”
“He took this?”
“He seemed rather discomfited,” Frade said, obviously pleased with himself. Then his tone changed. “Cletus, I looked at Dorotea tonight for the first time as a young woman, not as a girl.”
“I’m in love with her, Dad.”
“To look at your faces when you greeted one another, I would never have guessed,” Frade said. “But the way you said that makes the other things I intended to say to you unnecessary.” He paused. “You will be taking Dorotea into dinner—sitting with her. I had the butler rearrange the seating arrangements.”
Frade looked at his watch.
“Dress quickly; your odd Norteamericano notion of appropriate dinner dress is delaying the serving of dinner.”
“Sorry about that.”
“You should be,” Clete’s father said, and walked out of the room.
Clete was at the bathroom mirror tying his bow tie, when he heard the door to his father’s apartment creak open. He’d had his choice among dress shirts—too large or too small. He opted for a loose collar. After he adjusted the tie as best he could, he returned to the bedroom, expecting to see his father, or maybe the butler, sent to help him dress.
He found instead Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, leaning on the closed door, holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other. Peter held out the glasses to him.
“Hold these,” he ordered, “while I open the bottle.”
“I’m grateful, mi Comandante, especially since this act of Christian charity obviously tore you away from the magnificent Alicia…and her magnificent…” He made a curving motion above his chest to indicate what he meant.
Peter popped the cork.
“If you were a real officer and gentleman, which fortunately you are not,” Peter said as he poured the champagne, “I would be forced to challenge you to a duel for insulting the lady with whom I intend to share my life.”
“I’ll be goddamned, you sound serious.”
“The duel, no. The lady, possibly. She has, certainly, a splendid body. But she also has qualities I’ve never encountered before.”
“I’ll be damned,” Clete said.
Peter raised his glass.
“Fighter pilots,” he said.
“Fighter pilots,” Clete replied, tapping Peter’s glass with his. “And their ladies.”
“Since I am an officer and a gentleman, I will refrain from commenting that yours has a rather attractive mammary development herself, even if she is so recently out of the cradle.”
“Go fuck yourself, Peter.”
“I had an ulterior motive in bringing the wine to you,” Peter said. “Actually, several of them.”
Now he wants the favor.
“I’m not surprised.”
“Oberst Grüner called me into his office this afternoon.”
“The military attaché?”
Peter nodded. “He wanted to make sure that everyone here tonight sees that we have become friends…”
“And the champagne is intended to do that?”
“…because he has good reason to believe you will not be among us much longer.”
“Really?”
What the hell is this all about?
“He has learned from a reliable source in Internal Security that you are about to engage in a very foolish, amateurish operation…and that it is doomed to failure.”
“I can’t imagine what he’s talking about.”
“If his information is correct, you are about to use your father’s airplane to make a bombing run on a neutral ship in the Bay of Samborombón, with the hope of igniting her fuel tanks with homemade incendiary bombs.”
Shit, if Oberst Whatsisname knows, they’ll be waiting for us.
That miserable sonofabitch Delgano!
What is this “homemade incendiary bomb” bullshit?
Christ, they mean the flares. Which means they haven’t thought of a submarine!
“I think your Oberst Whatsisname has been at the schnapps,” Clete said.
“Oberst Grüner went on to say that the ship, the Reine de la Mer, is armed with two dual forty-millimeter Bofors and some heavy machine guns. It will have no trouble at all shooting you down.”
Clete met Peter’s eyes but said nothing.
“Now I personally felt that the Oberst’s information was wrong,” Peter went on. “For one thing, a pilot with your experience would know that if the pilot on such a mission were actually lucky enough to hit the ship with an incendiary bomb, the only thing the bomb would do is lie around on thick steel plates and burn itself out.”
“I never gave the subject much thought,” Clete said. “But now that you mention it, I think you’re right.”
“I did not offer my opinion on the subject to Oberst Grüner,” Peter said. “I suppose that I should have. And I daresay in some quarters that my failure to do so would constitute treason.”
“Why are you telling me all this, Peter?” Clete asked.
“Treason is a subject I’ve given a good deal of thought to, lately,” Peter said.
“Where are we going with this conversation?” Clete asked.
“That remains to be seen,” Peter said. “Did you mean what you said?”
“Said about what?”
“You said, if memory serves, that I have ‘a blank check’ with you.”
“As long as it has nothing to do with the…idiotic notion your Oberst Whatsisname has, you do.”
“I need your help.”
“Anything I can do, you’ve got it.”
“When I give you this, I’m putting my father’s and several other people’s lives in your hands,” Peter said. He took his father’s letter from his pocket and handed it to him.
Clete glanced at it.
“I don’t speak German, Peter. You’re going to have to translate this.”
“Yes, of course, I didn’t think about that,” Peter said, and took the letter back and read it aloud, translating it with some effort into Spanish.
Toward the end, through eyes themselves bleared with tears, Clete saw that Peter’s eyes, too, were teary. And his voice was breaking.
“I think I need a little more champagne,” Clete said, picking up the bottle and filling their glasses.
“Can you help me?” Peter asked.
“I can’t help you,” Clete said. “I’ll have to go to my father. He’ll have to hear what this letter says.”
Peter nodded.
Clete went to the bedside and pushed the servant call button.
“You’re doing what?” Peter asked.
“I’m sending for my father.”
“I didn’t mean tonight.”
“That’s all the time we have.”
“Grüner was right?”
There was a knock at the door, so quickly that Clete was surprised. It was a maid.
“Señor Cletus?”
“How did you get here so quickly?”
“El Coronel told me to wait in the upstairs pantry in case you needed something, Señor Cletus.”
“Please tell el Coronel that I need him here immediately; that it is something you can’t do for me.”
“Sí, Señor,” the maid said, and quickly left the room.
“Grüner was right?” Peter repeated. “Clete, you don’t stand a chance.”
“I am not going to bomb anything with incendiary bombs, OK? Now leave that alone, Peter, for Christ’s sake!”
Peter met Clete’s eyes again.
“As you wish, my friend,” he said.
“What now?” el Coronel demanded as he came in the room. “Your guests will start eating the furniture.”
He saw the look on Clete’s face and stopped.
“What is it?”
“You know I owe Peter my life,” Clete said. “It’s payback time. Or partial payback time.”
“A debt of honor?” Frade asked. “What is it?”
“Peter has a letter from his father. It’s in German. He’ll have to translate it for you.”
“Let’s have the letter. I speak German. Among other things you don’t know about me, I’m a graduate of the Kriegsschule.”
Peter handed Clete’s father the letter.
When he finished reading the letter, it took el Coronel Frade a long moment before he trusted his voice enough to speak.
“I can only hope, my friend,” he said finally, “that one day my son will have reason to be half as proud of me as you must be of your father.”
“Danke schön, Herr Oberst.”
“Perhaps you will be able to find time in your busy schedule to spend a few days at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo in the very near future. I will ask my brother-in-law, who is Managing Director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank, to join us for a private conversation.”
“That’s very kind of you, Herr Oberst.”
“That business concluded, can we finally join Cletus’s guests?”
The No-Longer-Virgin Princess’ knee found Clete’s knee within thirty seconds of their taking their seats at the dinner table. Her hand followed a moment later.
Anticipating this move, Clete caught it with his own hand and held it.
She turned to him in surprise.
“You look very nice in your dinner jacket,” she said innocently.
“And you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life,” Clete said.
[FOUR]
Radio Room
USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107
100 Nautical Miles Due East of Punta del Este,
Uruguay
0615 30 December 1942
Ensign Richard C. Lacey, USNR, the Communications Officer of the Thomas, a short, somewhat pudgy twenty-two-year-old, had spent most of the night trying to familiarize himself with the intricacies of the ship’s cryptographic machine. Though all of his effort had resulted in virtually no success, he was hoping he’d be able to muddle through when he had to.
When Chief Schultz was still aboard, he politely suggested more than once that while only the supervision of shipboard cryptographic activity was among the communication officer’s duties, not the actual operation of the equipment, it might be a good idea for him to show Mr. Lacey how the equipment actually worked.
Lacey declined the Chief’s offer, thinking that as long as the Chief was aboard, the Chief could handle the decryption operations. And he would of course supervise them.
Captain Jernigan himself made it crystal clear that Chief Schultz would remain aboard. “When you get a good chief, Mr. Lacey,” Captain Jernigan said, “any good chief, but in particular a good Chief Radioman, you do what you can to keep him. Chief Schultz will leave the Thomas only over my dead body.”
Captain Jernigan was still alive. But Chief Schultz was gone, replaced by Radioman First Class Henry Clatterman, who was younger than Ensign Lacey. Clatterman promptly announced that he really didn’t know diddly-shit about the cryptographic machine when he came aboard, and that despite Chief Schultz’s on-the-job training on the voyage, he was still baffled by most of what he was supposed to do.
With a little bit of luck, however, Mr. Lacey felt that the professional inadequacies of the communications section might not be brought to Captain Jernigan’s attention. Or at least delayed: The first attempt to communicate with the Devil Fish was scheduled for 0615. At this hour, the Captain, following his routine inspection of the ship after rising, normally took his breakfast.
At 0612, Captain Jernigan entered the radio room.
“We all set up, Mr. Lacey?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Clatterman?”
“We’re ready, Sir.”
Precisely at 0615, Clatterman started pounding his key in an attempt to communicate with the US submarine Devil Fish, which was somewhere on the high seas between the coast of Africa and the coast of South America.
There was no reply after three attempts.
Mr. Lacey was enormously relieved. They would try again, according to the schedule, at six-hour intervals hereafter—at 1215, 1815, 0015, and 0615. Eventually communication would be established. Between each try, there would be an additional six hours for him to learn how to operate the cryptographic machine.
“Clatterman, try to contact the Nantucket,” Captain Jernigan ordered. “They should be monitoring the frequency. If you reach them, send Contingency Code Six in the clear, and then stand by for a crypted reply.”
“The Nantucket, Sir?”
“The Devil Fish, I hope, has by now made a rendezvous with, and is being accompanied by, a fleet tanker,” the Captain explained. “I only know the names of two fleet tankers operating out of Panama, the Nantucket and the Biloxi. We’ll try both of them; a fleet tanker will have better communications than a submarine. What have we got to lose?”
“The call sign, Sir?”
“It’s in the book,” Captain Jernigan said, a touch of annoyance in his voice. “You mean you don’t have the book out?”
“No, Sir,” Clatterman replied. “Mr. Lacey didn’t tell me to, Sir.”
“My God, Lacey!” Captain Jernigan said, went to the safe, worked the combination, opened the safe, and removed a notebook.
He looked at Mr. Lacey.
“You did remember to take the contingency codes out of the safe, Mr. Lacey?”
“I thought I would wait until we established contact with the Devil Fish, Sir. I don’t like TOP SECRET material lying around the radio room.”
“Mr. Lacey, go find the Exec. Tell him I’ll be here for a while, and would he please remain on the bridge. And then see if you can make yourself useful to him.”
“Aye, aye, Sir. Do you mean you don’t want me to return here?”
“That is correct, Mr. Lacey,” Captain Jernigan said. He turned to Radioman First Class Clatterman. “GHR, Clatterman. See if you can raise them, please.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Clatterman put his hand on his key.
GHR, DSI, GHR, DSI.
There was no response from the Fleet Tanker Nantucket, call sign GHR.
“Try HJI,” Captain Jernigan ordered. “That’s the Biloxi.”
Clatterman turned to his key.
This time there was a reply:
GHR, HJI, GA GHR, HJI, GA.
“Send them, in the clear, Contingency Code Six,” Captain Jernigan ordered, and headed for the cryptographic machine.
Radioman First Class Clatterman heard the Captain mutter, “Now if I can only remember how to operate this sonofabitch.”
Twenty minutes later, Captain Jernigan examined a decrypted message from the Fleet Tanker USS Biloxi, which advised that she and the Devil Fish were proceeding according to orders, and that they expected to reach Point J at 0345 Greenwich time 1 January.
“Send them in the clear: “We will maintain established radio schedule and will monitor frequency,’” Captain Jernigan ordered.
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Clatterman responded.
The Captain waited until there was acknowledgment from the Biloxi, then ordered: “Now try HKG. If they respond, send Contingency Code Six, and if they reply, relay the Biloxi’s radio to us.”
There was no response in four tries from HKG.
“Try HKG at hourly intervals,” Captain Jernigan ordered. “If they respond, send them Contingency Code Six, then relay the last radio from the Biloxi. Notify me at any hour when you establish contact.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Captain Jernigan then left the radio room for the bridge, where he asked Mr. Lacey to join him in the chart room. He delivered there a five-minute lecture to Mr. Lacey, whom he caused to stand to attention. During the lecture Mr. Lacey was advised that his performance of duty in the radio room half an hour before was below his expectations of his communications officer, and that if Mr. Lacey did not wish to spend the balance of the war serving as a permanent ensign and a venereal-disease-control officer aboard a yard tug operating in the Aleutian Islands, it would well behoove him to learn how to do what was expected of him, and then to demonstrate his ability to perform his duties when called upon to do so.
[FIVE]
Radio Room
USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107
100 Nautical Miles Due East of Punta del Este,
Uruguay
2220 30 December 1942
“What have you got, Sparks?” Captain Jernigan inquired as he entered the radio room. He was attired in his underwear, his bathrobe, and the somewhat battered brimmed cap with its somewhat moldy insignia and gold strap he customarily wore at sea.
Radioman First Class Clatterman was at the radio console. Ensign Lacey, in a crisp cotton uniform, showing evidence that he had recently shaved and was in need of sleep, sat before the cryptographic machine.
“HKG, Captain,” Ensign Lacey replied. “We have…”
“I was speaking to Clatterman, Mr. Lacey, if you don’t mind. Sparks?”
“HKG, Sir. They’re coming in five-by-five. It’s Chief Schultz, Captain. I recognize his hand.”
“Did you relay the Biloxi’s last radio?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Send, ‘Well done,’ Sparks,” Captain Jernigan ordered. “And then advise HKG that we will be monitoring the frequency.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
“I’ll be in my cabin. Call me if we hear from anyone.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
[SIX]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
0740 1 January 1943
The chief operator of Navy Radio Station HKG tore the sheet of paper from the typewriter on his makeshift desk and turned around, taking off his headset as he did so.
“That has to be the oldest fucking typewriter in the world,” he announced.
“Beggars, Chief Schultz,” First Lieutenant C. H. Frade, USMCR, replied, somewhat unctuously, “cannot be choosers.”
“Up yours, Mr. Frade,” Chief Schultz said, adding, “it’ll take me fifteen, twenty minutes to decode this; without a machine, it’s a pain in the ass. Whatever it is, it’s not just one of them ‘standing by’ messages. It’s too long for that, and they said switch to Contingency Code Eleven.”
“I don’t have anyplace to go, Chief.”
“You want to hand me one of them beers? It’s hotter than hell in here.”
Eighteen minutes later, Chief Schultz handed Lieutenant Frade a sheet of typewriter paper.
“It’s two messages, Mr. Frade,” he said.
Clete read the messages, then passed the sheet of paper to Second Lieutenant Pelosi, who read it and handed it to Staff Sergeant Ettinger.
TOP SECRET
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
FROM: ALFRED THOMAS DD107 0320 GREENWICH 1JAN43
TO: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS WASH DC
ALL USNAVY VESSELS AND SHORE STATIONS RELAY
1. RENDEZVOUS WITH BILOXI AND DEVIL FISH MADE AT POINT J 0310 1JAN43.
2. REFUELING WILL TAKE PLACE AT FIRST LIGHT.
3. IN CONTACT WITH PETER.
4. PROCEEDING ACCORDING TO ORDERS.
JERNIGAN, LTCOM USN COMMANDING.
FROM THOMAS TO PETER
REF OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE FROM THOMAS TO CNO 0320 GREENWICH 1JAN43.
1. ESTIMATE COMPLETION REFUELING 0930 GREENWICH 1JAN43.
2. ESTIMATE ARRIVAL DEVILFISH POINT M REPEAT POINT M 2300 GREENWICH 1JAN43.
3. ESTIMATE DEPARTURE DEVILFISH POINT M REPEAT POINT M 0200 GREENWICH 2JAN43. SHE WILL ATTEMPT ADVISE ACTUAL DEPARTURE TIME PRIOR DEPARTURE.
4. ESTIMATE ARRIVAL DEVILFISH POINT 0 REPEAT POINT 0 0400 GREENWICH 2JAN43. SHE WILL REPORT ACTUAL ARRIVAL TIME.
5. GODSPEED AND GOOD LUCK.
JERNIGAN, LTCOM USN COMMANDING
“Chief,” Clete said, “since you’re dealing with a bunch of amateur sailors, maybe you’d better translate all that for us.”
“You mean that, Mr. Frade?” Chief Schultz asked.
“Each tiny little detail, each tiny little step,” Clete said.
“OK,” Schultz said. “OK. For openers, all these times are Greenwich times, which is a place in England. There’s four hours’ difference. When it’s noon here, it’s four in the afternoon there. Got it?” He looked at his wristwatch. “It’s quarter after eight. That’s 1215 Greenwich. Got it?”
Clete nodded.
Tony said, “Got it, Chief.”
“So, let’s talk about our time,” Chief Schultz went on: “The tanker, the Biloxi, and the Devil Fish rendezvoused-up with the Thomas off Punta del Este about eleven-ten last night. What I’m guessing is that Captain Jernigan decided there wasn’t much point in starting the refueling in the dark. If things fucked up—laying alongside another ship on the high seas isn’t easy in the first place, and at night it’s a bitch—forget the whole operation. So he waited until it was light to start the refueling.
“Only ten minutes later, he sent that Operation Immediate to the Chief of Naval Operations. That seems pretty dumb, but maybe when you’re operating DP you have to do it.”
“‘DP,’ Oscar?” Ettinger asked.
They must have a mutual admiration society, Clete thought. It would never have entered my mind to call Chief Schultz by his first name.
“It means ‘Direction of the President,’ Dave,” Schultz explained patiently. “Really big-time stuff. There’s probably six admirals sitting on their ass in the Navy Department, waiting to hear that you guys carried this off. Praying they don’t have to go to the CNO hisself and tell him he has to go to the President and tell him this got fucked up somehow.”
“Interesting,” Ettinger said.
“Anyway, to go through this, when Captain Jernigan sent that Operational Immediate at 2320 our time, it was not light.
“As soon as she’s fueled, which would be right about now, in another fifteen or twenty minutes, the Devil Fish will take off for Point J—which is probably just outside the twelve-mile line, just outside Argentine waters, off the Bay of Samborombón. She’ll try to contact us just before she leaves. We’ve been talking to the Biloxi and the Thomas, not the Devil Fish. They want to know if we can communicate with her. We’ll probably hear from her in the next couple of minutes.”
He turned around in his chair, picked up the headset, and put it on so that one speaker was on his left ear and the other was resting against his forehead.
“The Devil Fish’ll probably run on the surface for a while, but then she’ll run submerged, which is slower, to make sure nobody sees her. Then, when she’s at Point M, which she estimates at 1900 our time, she’ll surface, just far enough out of the water to get air to run her diesels and recharge her batteries, and then lay on the bottom until maybe 2300, when she will stick her antenna out of the water long enough to contact us and tell us she’s leaving.”
He turned suddenly in his chair, put both cans over his ears, and after tapping his key briefly, began to type on the typewriter. Finally he turned again.
“I’ll have to decode this to be sure, but I’ll bet—it’s short and right on time—that it’s the Devil Fish telling us she’s leaving for Río de la Plata. You want me to go on, or decode it?”
“Decode it, please, Chief,” Clete ordered.
It was in fact a message from the Devil Fish, reporting that she was departing Point J for Point M.
“Which proves our radio works,” Chief Schultz said. “Even with the shitty antennas on a submarine. Where was I?”
“The Devil Fish contacts us when she’s leaving for Point O,” Clete furnished.
“Not exactly,” Chief Schultz said. “She contacts us to find out where the Reine de la Mer is, so from the charts Captain Jernigan gave her, she can pick the best spot for her to lay on the bottom of Samborombón Bay.”
“I stand corrected,” Clete said.
“Then the Devil Fish goes submerged to Point O, sticks her antenna out of the water, and tells us where she is. Then Mr. Frade here tells her where the Reine de la Mer is, and asks when he should drop the flares.”
“And if the Reine de la Mer moves after Lieutenant Frade gives her position to the Devil Fish?” Ettinger asked.
“Then we start all over again, finding the sonofabitch, and then waiting for the Devil Fish to get close enough to her to get a shot at her.”
“Is there enough moonlight for you to find her, Lieutenant?” Ettinger pursued.
“It depends on the cloud cover, and how much light I have. But I’ll find her. I’m going to keep tabs on her all day, starting now. You want to come with me, Tony?”
“Yeah, sure.”
[SEVEN]
Samborombón Bay
0940 1 January 1943
Clete tapped Tony’s shoulder and gestured toward the water 10,000 feet below them.
“You’re sure that’s her?” Tony asked.
“Yeah, that’s her.”
He consulted his Hamilton chronograph and the compass, made some quick computations, and then marked the position of the Reine de la Mer, sixteen miles off the coast, on the chart he had in his lap.
“Now we’re going back?” Tony asked.
“Now we’re going to go back and figure out some way to rig the chute so that I can operate it from up here,” Clete said.
“It can’t be done,” Tony said. “I thought about it.”
“Think some more.”
“Hey, I’m going. First: There’s no way you can drop the flares by yourself. And second: I’m going. And anyway, even if you could drop the first dozen by yourself, you’d have no way to reload the chute for a second run.”
“I’ll be very surprised if there will be a second run,” Clete said. “They expect us down there.”
He looked at Tony, who obviously believed him. There was fear in his eyes.
“They even know about the flares,” Clete added. “They think we’re going to try to set the sonofabitch on fire.”
“How do you know that?”
“I have a reliable source of information. He also tells me there are two Bofors dual forty-millimeter cannon on board.”
“I say again, repeat, first: There’s no way you can drop the flares from up here,” Tony said. “And second: I’m going.”
“I say again, repeat, that when we get back we’re going to see if there is a way I can do this myself.”
“If they have Bofors forty-millimeters down there shooting at us, you won’t have time to even think about dropping the flares yourself. Don’t try to be a fucking hero.”
Clete looked at Tony for a moment, then said, “Put the wire out the tail, and we’ll see if the walkie-talkies work.”
“Flyey-talkies?” Tony responded. “About the only thing left of the walkie-talkies after Ettinger and the Chief finished fucking with them is the nameplate.”
“Let the wire out, Lieutenant Pelosi,” Clete said.
“Yes, Sir, Mr. Frade, Lieutenant, Sir,” Tony said.
Tony went into the now-stripped cabin of the Beechcraft and dropped to his knees near the open doorway. He put on a pair of heavy leather work gloves, then picked up a tiny parachute—a drogue chute—and carefully held the tiny chute out into the slipstream.
It was immediately snatched from his hand; and the wire it was attached to moved so quickly over the gloves that they smoked. When all the wire, which had been carefully coiled in a wooden box, was deployed outside the Beech, he carefully looked out of the door. He could see the wire, but not the drogue chute.
He smiled with satisfaction. This idea of his had worked too. When the wire was fully extended, the force exerted by moving through the air at 120 miles per hour was enough to tear off the drogue chute. Otherwise, what Chief Schultz referred to as “the straight-wire antenna” would have gyrated wildly, and would not have been a “straight wire.”
He had also solved the problem of dealing with the wire before landing, during which it would have posed problems. After Chief Schultz and the Argentine ex-Sergeant Major spent hours trying to come up with a crank to pull it back inside, he suggested they “just cut the sonofabitch; we have plenty of wire.”
The suggestion earned him the highest possible praise from Chief Schultz: “Coming from a second lieutenant, that ain’t too dumb an idea, Mr. Pelosi.”
Tony went back through the cabin to the cockpit.
“You couldn’t put the straight wire out by yourself, either, Clete,” he said.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, Lieutenant Pelosi,” Clete replied, and picked up a microphone.
“Peter, this is Paul. How do you read? Over.”
“Paul, Peter,” Chief Schultz’s voice came back immediately. “Five-by-five.”
“Peter, Paul, out,” Clete said, set the microphone down, and turned to Tony.
“Be so good, Lieutenant Pelosi, as to cut the wire. Then we’ll go home.”
“Yes, Sir,” Tony said.
[EIGHT]
Samborombón Bay
0325 2 January 1943
“Put the wire out, Tony,” Clete ordered. “There’s just enough light for us to find the sonofabitch.”
“Ain’t we lucky?” Tony said, and got up from the co-pilot’s seat and went into the cabin.
Two minutes later he was back. He nodded at Clete, who picked up the microphone.
“Peter, Paul. How do you read?”
“Paul, Peter, five-by-five.”
“Peter clear.”
“Paul standing by.”
“That was Ettinger,” Tony observed. “I wonder where the Chief is.”
“I know where he is, he went for a cerveza.”
Tony laughed out loud, and Clete joined him. The laughter was contagious and hysterical.
A manifestation, Clete thought, of extreme stress.
He consulted his Hamilton and his chart, and then five minutes later consulted them again.
“That’s where the sonofabitch was,” Clete said. “Where did you go, you sonofabitch?”
“There it is,” Tony said, pointing downward.
Clete looked. He could make out the shape of ship. There were no running lights or other visible activity. But it was the Reine de la Mer.
“I wonder why they didn’t move,” Clete said, and the answer came, but he kept it to himself.
They didn’t move because they’re not at all afraid of a single-engine civilian aircraft about to drop incendiaries on them. Or at them.
They’re getting ready for a little target practice.
There’s probably some sonofabitch down there with binoculars looking for us. “Ach du lieber, I hope he hasn’t changed his mind and doesn’t come. I was so looking forward to a little sport!”
He picked up the microphone.
“Peter, Paul.”
“Go,” Ettinger’s voice came back immediately.
“Position unchanged.”
“Hold one.”
The holding took three minutes, before Ettinger’s voice came over the radio.
“Paul, Peter, they want fifteen minutes.”
“Understand fifteen, repeat, fifteen minutes.”
“Right.”
“Paul clear and standing by.”
Clete pushed the button on the Hamilton that started the stopwatch function.
“We have fifteen minutes,” he said.
“I heard.”
“You know what I was thinking, Clete?”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“I was thinking that maybe this would be a good place—Argentina, I mean—to live.”
“Right now, Mr. Pelosi, I am of the belief that practically anywhere would be a good place to live. Considering the alternatives, of course.”
“No. I mean it. I was thinking that they probably don’t have a good demolitions company down here.”
“You want to blow up Buenos Aires, Mr. Pelosi? Is that what you’re saying?”
“There’s a lot of old buildings here that have to come down. They probably take them down the way they put them up, one brick at a time.”
“And you could improve on that system?”
“I’m pretty good at what I do, as a matter of fact,” Tony said.
“Yes, Tony, you are.”
“What the hell, it don’t cost to dream, does it?”
“Not a dime.”
“I’m really stuck on Maria-Teresa, Clete. It’s not her fault she had to do what she did with that bastard Mallín.”
“You are speaking of my future father-in-law, Mr. Pelosi.”
“No shit? You’re really going to marry that girl?”
“That thought has been running through my mind.”
“What the hell, why not? If you love her, that’s all that really matters, right?”
“My sentiments exactly, Mr. Pelosi.”
“You be my best man, and I’ll be yours, deal?” Tony said cheerfully, and put out his hand.
Clete shook it.
“Deal.”
After a moment, Tony said, “So we’re pissing in the wind. So what?”
They did not exchange another word for another twelve minutes, when Clete said, “I think you better go get set up, Tony.”
“Yeah, right.”
The first antiaircraft weapon on the Reine de la Mer to come into action was a heavy machine gun mounted above her bridge. It was firing one-in-five tracers. These arched through the sky and then seemed to die a hundred yards or so below the Beechcraft.
After the tracer charge burns out, Clete thought, the projectile—plus, of course, the projectiles that don’t contain a tracer element, four times as many of those—continue on their trajectory.
Clete waited as long as he could after two other machine guns opened fire, and after first one and then the other of the Bofors 40-mm cannon began to fire, before calling, “GO!”
He held the Beechcraft as steady as he could for fifteen seconds, then turned to look over his shoulder at Tony.
Tony was reloading the chute with the second dozen flares.
I can’t believe we haven’t been hit!
There was a faint but perceptible yellow brightness, reflected off the underside of the upper wing, and then a much brighter glow as the magnesium of the flares ignited.
He dropped his eyes in ritual habit to the control panel. There were red lights all over it, OIL PRESSURE FAILURE being the most significant of them.
The engine coughed and died.
The wind whistling through the guy wires of the wings was eerie.
“Tony!” Clete called. “Dump the flares, we have engine failure.”
“What?”
“Dump the goddamned flares, and put your goddamned life jacket on!”
He made a shallow turn to the left, away from the Reine de la Mer and its cannon and machine guns.
The engine nacelle suddenly glowed and then there were flames licking out its rear.
Tony came and stood behind him, trying to tie the cords of the ancient, cork-filled life jacket.
“Jesus!”
“I’m going to have to put it in the water,” Clete said. “If those flames reach the fuel tanks, we’re fucked.”
He pushed the nose over and watched the airspeed indicator climb to the red mark and then beyond.
He was hoping that the rush of air would extinguish the blazing engine. It didn’t. The fuel lines were apparently ruptured and feeding the fire.
“There was a submarine down there,” Tony said.
“There was supposed to be,” Clete said.
“I mean one of theirs, alongside that fucker.”
“Go back and brace your back against my seat,” Clete ordered.
Clete brought the Beechcraft out of its dive. If the wings came off, there would be no chance for them at all. As opposed to one chance in, say, two million.
The flame from the engine now licked at the windshield, blackening it, distorting it, finally burning through in front of the co-pilot’s seat.
“Shit!”
The altimeter showed three hundred feet.
He pushed the nose down, watched the water approach, and praying that he had judged the distance with some accuracy, pulled the nose up and waited for it to stall.
Just as he noticed that the flames from the engine were playing less fiercely than before against the windshield, the Beechcraft stopped flying. It fell to the left, and a second later the left wingtip struck the water and the plane cartwheeled.
It stopped upside down, then started to sink by the nose.
He tore himself free of the lap belt, aware that he had cut himself somewhere, fell from the seat, and made his way back to Tony. Tony was groggy, but awake enough to be trying to make his way to the open door.
Clete followed him, deciding that wherever the Lusitania life belt he’d stored behind the co-pilot’s seat was now, he had no chance of finding it. He went through the door as the fuselage turned upward, then settled into the water.
His first thought was that he was alive, that they were alive. But this was quickly replaced by the thought that without a life belt, there was no way he could swim for much more than thirty minutes; and thirty minutes wasn’t going to get him anywhere near the shore.
He didn’t think they could both be supported by Tony’s life belt. And then he realized that, too, was a moot question. Even if they could stay afloat, they would be swept out to sea.
It would have been better, neater, easier, if the fucking thing had blown up in the air.
He saw Tony bobbing around in his life vest at the same moment Tony saw him. They started to swim—Tony to paddle awkwardly—toward one another.
There was a far-off explosion, followed by a dull flash of yellow light, and then a second explosion, and a second flash of light, and then a third.
“We got the sonofabitch!” Tony said.
“The Navy got the sonofabitch.”
“Yeah, where the fuck was the Navy before…”
There was a final explosion, a spectacular series of explosions, accompanied by brilliant fire rising high in the sky.
The light died quickly, and then all that they could see was burning fuel floating on the surface.
Then there was a series of splashes.
Christ, that blew pieces of the ship all the way over here!
And then there was silence.
“Put your life belt on,” Tony said.
“I don’t have it.”
“I’ve got it.”
With a good deal of effort—it was unbelievably difficult to manage in the water—Clete finally got the life belt on.
And now we get swept out to sea by the waters of the beautiful Río de la Plata.
“There’s a light,” Tony said.
Clete looked around. A searchlight was sweeping the sea. He could hear the sound of a marine engine.
“Over here!” he shouted.
“It may be from that fucking ship!” Tony said.
“And it may not be. I’ll take my chances.”
The spotlight found them, blinding them.
Two minutes later a boat hook caught Clete by the collar of his life jacket. He felt himself being dragged to the boat.
“Señor Cletus,” Enrico’s voice said. “If you would turn around, it would be easier to lift you in the boat.”
Clete turned and found himself facing a polished mahogany hull. A moment later, he was jerked into the boat, falling flat on his face. He raised his head and saw another familiar face, this one at the controls.
“Where’d you get the boat, Chief?”
“Same place we got everything else,” Schultz said. “From your father. Enrico and I didn’t want to say anything, but we figured you was going to go in the water, and we figured we’d be here to fish you out. You all right, Mr. Frade?”
“I’m fine. Where’s Mr. Pelosi?”
“Aft,” Schultz said, and Clete looked. Tony, dazed but smiling, was sitting in the rear cockpit of what looked to be a Chris-Craft speedboat.
“Did you see that sonofabitch blow?” Chief Schultz asked as he spun the wheel and pushed the throttle forward. “It blew pieces of that sonofabitch to Africa.”
[NINE]
Café Paris
Recoleta
Buenos Aires
1425 5 January 1943
Dorotea Mallín, wearing a pink cotton dress, removed her hand from that of First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, and smiled over his shoulder.
“Hello, Señor Graham,” she said.
“Miss Mallín,” Graham said. “How nice to see you. Clete, you’re a hard man to find.”
“Not by accident,” Clete said.
“Miss Mallín, I have a few things to say to Clete before I leave.”
“I was afraid of that,” Clete interrupted.
“Do you suppose I could have a few minutes alone with Clete?” Graham concluded.
“Princess, would you take a walk around the park, please?”
“Of course,” she said, smiling and not liking it a bit.
“Beautiful girl,” Graham said, watching Dorotea walk away.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Well, there are some choices you have to make.”
“Such as?”
“What you do next.”
“I’m being given a choice?”
“On the one hand, the Marine Corps is perfectly willing to have you back—you’re a major, by the way, congratulations.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Well, you were promoted captain the day after we met in San Francisco. I didn’t tell you because it would have started you thinking about getting your own squadron.”
“Thanks a lot, Colonel. Are you saying I can go back to the Corps and get a squadron?”
“No, I’m not. You’re not listening. You can go back to the Corps, but they won’t give you a squadron because majors don’t command squadrons. You know that.”
“What’s this major business?”
“You were promoted major as of the day the President heard of the mysterious maritime incident in the Bay of Samborombón. For exceptionally meritorious leadership of an unspecified nature.”
“I almost believe you.”
“Your second option is to remain here.”
“Doing what?”
“Ostensibly as Assistant Naval Attaché.”
“And non-ostensibly?”
“Working for us. The Naval Attaché will be advised that his only role in your regard will be to assign you no duties and to ask you no questions.”
“You want me here because of my father,” Clete said bluntly.
“Obviously. Your father thinks he lost his chance to become President. I don’t think so. But whatever his role will be down here, it will be important to us. If nothing else, you’ll have his ear.”
“How are you going to tell whose side I’m on?”
“You proved your loyalty beyond any reasonable doubt a couple of days ago.”
“And the Argentines know how. They’ll know I’m a spy, or whatever.”
“As a general rule of thumb, all military attachés are spies. Some of them are better at it than others. Think it through, Clete. It makes a good deal of sense.”
“What about Pelosi and Ettinger?”
“Ettinger came to me. He wants to stay here. He thinks he can get interesting information from the Jews coming from Europe. I don’t know about Pelosi.”
“Pelosi wants to stay.”
“No problem, we assign him as an assistant to the Army Attaché.”
“Chief Schultz?”
“I thought you might want him. Sure.”
“There’s probably a hook in here somewhere, even if I can’t see it. I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”
“Good first rule for an intelligence officer. Trust nobody. Can I take it you’ll stay?”
Clete looked out the window. The No-Longer-Virgin Princess had taken a very quick walk around the park and was now standing outside the café, smiling somewhat nervously.
“Only a fool would leave, Colonel. And I’m not a fool.”
He raised his hand to the No-Longer-Virgin Princess.
Smiling happily, she walked quickly toward him.
• • •
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