Honor Bound

"Thank you."

"It is my pleasure," el Coronel said. "And now, to restore my relationship with Se?ora Carzino-Cormano, may I suggest we go see her?"

“Restoreyour relationship?”

"Se?ora Carzino-Cormano told me that unless I made my peace with you before you left today, she would never forgive me. I think she meant it."

"Your relationship with Claudia is important to you?"

"Obviously."

"Then why don't you marry her?"

"Why I don't marry her is none of your business. How dare you ask a question like that?"

"Because I'm concerned with your welfare," Clete said.

"Are you indeed?" el Coronel replied, and marched out of the room.

Chapter Nineteen

[ONE]

4730 Avenida Libertador

Buenos Aires

1330 24 December 1942

A thunderstorm that threatened most of the way on the drive to Buenos Aires struck minutes before Clete and Enrico arrived at Uncle Guillermo' s house. The rain drummed on the Buick's canvas roof and almost overwhelmed the windshield wipers; the thunder and lightning were as awesome as they were in West Texas.

Attired in undershorts and Sullivan's boots, Clete lay with his back propped up against the elaborately carved headboard of Granduncle Guillermo's bed. As he watched the lightning flash on the River Plate, he sipped an early Christmas Eve beer, or a pre-luncheon beer, whatever you want to call it.

He remembered that he also had had a Christmas Eve, pre-luncheon beer the year before, aboard USS Saratoga. It had also been raining heavily, he recalled, a sudden rain squall that had come up quickly, and from which he had found shelter under the wing of one of the F2A-3 Brewster Buffaloes lashed to the Saratoga's flight deck.

Schultz, Second Lieutenant Charles A., USMCR, inevitably called "Dutch," had suddenly appeared beside him, his khakis drenched by the rain. He was clutching something lumpy wrapped in a flight suit to his chest, and happily proclaimed, "Who says there's no Santa Claus?"

The lumps turned out to be two quart bottles of Budweiser beer, smuggled aboard at Pearl Harbor in defiance of Navy regulations.

"Merry Christmas, Clete," Dutch had said, handing him one of the bottles. They had pried the tops off on the undercarriage of the Buffalo.

But it was beer, and even warm, proof that there was indeed a Santa Claus, for those who really believed.

"Next year," Dutch had said, raising his bottle in a toast, "Cold beer, at home!"

It didn't turn out that way, did it, Dutch ?

The next day, Christmas Day, we flew those outdated goddamned Buffaloes off theSaratoga onto Midway Island. And then we flew them against the Japs. A Buffalo was no match against a Zero. Every goddamned one of us was shot down.

You never will get to go home, will you, Dutch? I got picked up, and you didn't.The Secretary of the Navy regrets to inform YOU THAT YOUR SON, SECOND LIEUTENANT CHARLES A. SCHULTZ, USMCR...

And the circumstances under which I am “at home” are not quite the ones we had in mind when we had that fantasy, are they, Dutch?

But this beer is cold, and this is a marvelously comfortable bed with clean sheets, and when, in the inevitable course of human events, I will have to let the beer out, it will be into a porcelain fixture in a marble floored bathroom, not into a foul smelling opening in a stinking compartment labeled, probably with unintentional humor, "Officer's Head."

And I am alive, and in one piece, and there is a good deal to be said for that.

At least, so far, I am alive and in one piece.

And, in the sense that I am going to have a little Christmas Eve supper with my father, I am home-That little supper will probably consist of no more than eight or nine courses, served on fine china and dissected with monogrammed sterling silver. Last year, it was sort of turkey chop-suey, eaten off a stainless steel tray, with cranberry sauce atop the mashed potatoes. Or was it mashed potatoes dumped over the cranberry sauce?

And if that sounds awful, I wonder what the boys on the 'Canal are having for Christmas this year?

Stop being maudlin, Clete, thingsare getting better.

Without much effort, he thought of two prime examples:

On the way to Buenos Aires, Enrico, literally riding shotgun beside him in the front seat of the Buick, worked out how to meet Pelosi and Ettinger without broadcasting everything they said to one another to Internal Security or the Germans.

"Your problem, mi Teniente, is keeping the clowns and the Germans from hearing you. The clowns will of course be following you, and them, and they will have telephone surveillance on your line and theirs."

"So what do I do?"

"Mi Teniente, you take them for a ride in your automobile. The clowns will not be able to hear what you say, and it will embarrass them to have to be so obvious about following you."

"Just telephone them and say I'll pick them up?"

"No. Just set a time and place to meet them. The man who brings daily deliveries of agua mineral, vegetables, and meat to the house is a friend. He will carry messages safely past the clowns."

"When does he make his next delivery?"

"Starting at three o'clock this afternoon. Three times a day."

"This is Christmas Eve."

"People need food and agua mineral on Christmas Eve," Enrico said with a shrug.

"You've got everything laid out, right? You're pretty good at this, Enrico."

"I have learned much from your father, mi Teniente."

And then Clete himself worked out a temporary, partial solution to the problem of the Virgin Princess: At Clete's suggestion, his father agreed to invite the Mallins and their children to dinner at the big house on Avenida Coronel Diaz in Palermo.

"After Christmas, of course, and before New Year's. As an expression of my gratitude to them for their hospitality when you first arrived."

"Thank you."

"You will be able to see Dorotea before you go to Miami."

"It's nothing like that, Dad," Clete said, aware that he didn't sound at all convincing. "They were just very kind to me."

"I understand completely," his father said, and winked at him, man-to-man. "Get one young, and train her right."

Somehow—he wasn't sure how—he would take the Virgin Princess aside for a few minutes and talk to her. He wasn't sure yet what exactly he would say, but the gist of his words would be that there was a great difference in their ages, that she was really too young to know her own emotions, that while he held her in the highest possible regard, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

He would at least have a chance to be with her one last time before he left. That was very important to him.

He was considering that the real, as opposed to the wishful thinking, chances were that somewhere down the pike.. .If I even come back to Argentina at all, if I survive the war, if she doesn't just dismiss me from her mind when I'm away from Argentina, I might be able tell her how I really feel about her—

Christ, ask her to marry me! . . .when he heard the whine of the elevator motor, and then the sound of the door sliding open.

He didn't even turn to see who it was. The bad guys stood little chance of getting past Enrico, who had stationed himself and his Remington in an armchair in the foyer. And in any event, bad guys would not take the elevator. It was either Enrico checking on him, or one of the maids, here to clean the bath, make the bed, or do something else useful.

It was much more pleasant to fantasize about the Virgin Princess in a white dress in a church somewhere smiling at him as he lifted her veil and the priest saying, “You may now kiss the bride."

"You bah-stud!" the Virgin Princess said loudly, indignantly, and quite clearly, in perfect Oxford English.

He jerked his head toward the elevator. The Virgin Princess was walking angrily across the room toward him. She was rain-soaked. Her hair hung wetly down her cheeks. Her blouse and skirt were plastered to her body.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in! Been out in the rain, have you, Princess?"

"You despicable bah-stud! I utterly loathe you!"

Clete laughed.

"I have been out of my mind with worry about you!"

And then she was on him. He quickly put his hand up to thwart her obvious intention, which was to slap him. He missed her wrist, and she punched him in the face.

Or, precisely, she connected with his nose.

"Hey, Jesus Christ! Take it easy! That hurt!"

She then slapped him, open-handed, on the head. The blow landed on his ear. It hurt even more than the punch in the nose. When he put his hand to his ear, she punched him in the face again.

He grabbed her. It took much more effort than he expected to hold her hands, then pin her to the bed. During this defensive tactic, she managed to kick his legs, his ankles, and his lower abdomen. She missed the symbol of his gender by no more than an inch.

But finally she was immobile under him.

"You didn't even call me to tell me you weren't dead!" the Virgin Princess said, and tears started down her cheeks. "On Christmas Eve, goddamn you!"

And then he was kissing her.

A minute later, when he felt her go limp, he rolled off her onto his back, breathing very heavily. After a moment he looked at her. Her nipples were clearly visible, standing erect against her rain-sodden blouse and thin brassiere.

He raised his eyes to hers. She was also breathing heavily. Eyes locked with his, she put her hand to her blouse, tore the buttons open, then freed her breasts from the confinement of the brassiere.

He put his mouth on the one closest to him.

"Cletus!" she said. "Oh, Cletus!"

"You were a virgin," he said.

"I wasn't aware it was a sin to be a virgin."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Princess."

" 'Oh, for Christ's sake, Princess,' " she mocked him, then rolled over on top of him.

"Princess!"

"I wanted to kill you," she said. "I have never been so furious with anyone in my life."

"Princess..."

"I thought the first time would be dreadful," she said. "It was actually rather nice."

" 'Rather nice'?"

"Was it nice for you too?"

"Oh, Jesus Christ!"

"Was it?"

"What do you think?" he asked. His hand seemed to find her breast as if it had a mind of its own.

"I don't know what to think, having no experience in this sort of thing to speak of."

He kissed the top of her head and said, "It was very nice, Princess."

"I'm glad," she said.

And then he was kissing her forehead and her eyes and then her mouth again.

The elevator whined.

"Somebody pushed the elevator button."

"So?" she asked, pulling his face to hers again.

"That means somebody is coming up here."

"Don't let them! Not now, Cletus!"

He freed himself, stepped out of the bed, and walked naked to the elevator.

Christ, I didn't even take my boots off!

He looked back at the bed. She was propped up on one elbow.

That has to be the most beautiful female in the world.

"Pull the sheet over you," he ordered.

"Oh, my!" she said, and reached for the sheet.

It was Enrico.

"I didn't think the lady posed a threat, mi Teniente," Enrico said, his eyes carefully raised to the ceiling, "so I let her up."

"What the hell do you want?"

"There is a Norteamericano downstairs, mi Teniente. A coronel."

"A colonel?"

“S?, mi Teniente."

Who the hell can that be? ANorteamericano colonel?

"I'll be right down, Enrico."

He walked to the bed. She was prone under a sheet.

"I have to go downstairs a minute."

"I heard. Damn!"

"I'll be right back. We have to talk."

She sat up. The sheet was dislodged.

He kissed her forehead, then walked to the wardrobe, took out his bathrobe and put it on, and walked to the elevator.

"Cletus, if you're wearing that, what am I to wear? My clothing is soaked!" the no-longer-Virgin Princess demanded indignantly from the bed.

"Take one of my shirts," Clete said. "They're in the wardrobe."

He stepped into the elevator beside Enrico. As it started to descend, she was walking naked to the wardrobe.

When he opened the elevator door, he saw the Norteamericano coronel sitting in one of the armchairs in the foyer. He was in civilian clothing. He rose and smiled at Clete.

"Merry Christmas, Tex," Colonel A. F. Graham said, then asked, "Did you really threaten to punch Nestor into next week?"

"What are you doing here?" Clete asked coldly.

"Right now, I'm hoping that you will tell your friend to point that shotgun in another direction."

"I should tell him to blow your ass away with it," Clete said. "You sent me down here hoping that I'd be killed."

Graham stopped smiling.

"That was one of the scenarios, Clete," he said. "But it wasn't mine."

"Bullshit!"

"If were I in your shoes, I suppose I wouldn't believe me either."

"Why the hell should I?"

"Because it happens to be the truth, Clete," Graham said.

Why do I believe him?

"What are you doing down here?" Clete asked.

"Despite the reports to the contrary I've been getting, when I heard the Germans tried to kill you, I decided you must be doing something right, so I decided to come see for myself what's going on down here. I mentioned this at lunch to Newton-Haddle, and he somewhat—"

"Newton-Haddle?" Clete interrupted.

"Colonel Baxter F. Newton-Haddle. That's right. You never met him, did you? He's the Army Colonel who ran the Country Club."

"I don't know him," Clete said coldly.

"Anyway, when I told Newton-Haddle I was coming down here, he told me, in the strictest confidence, that that would interfere with the scenario he and General Donovan were running. And he more or less politely told me to butt out. I went to Donovan to find out what that scenario was. And he had never heard of it, Clete. It was a solo operation cooked up by Newton-Haddle and Nestor."

"You expect me to swallow that whole?"

Graham did not respond directly. "I have my own most likely scenario about how this happened,” he said.

"I'll bet you do."

"Nestor got close to Newton-Haddle when he went through the Country Club."

"Nestor went through the Country Club?" Clete interrupted incredulously. It was difficult to imagine the banker running around the woods of Virginia with his face painted black, learning fine points of hand-to-hand combat and throat cutting.

Graham nodded. "And the two Brahmins of course found each other," he said. "Nestor saw in Newton-Haddle a powerful spy-master with access to Donovan—an obvious avenue to enhancing his own career. Newton-Haddle saw in Nestor a chance to prove he could do something more worthy of his talents than teaching people how to stab each other with daggers. When Nestor discovered that your father had an American son, he thought he hit his payload. He would be the man responsible for getting Argentina into the war. So he went to Newton-Haddle with his scenario; and Newton-Haddle thought it was a splendid idea. It wasn't difficult for him to find out where you were, and he managed to bring that information to my attention."

"We're back to question one," Clete said. "Why should I believe that?"

"We're back to answer one," Graham said. "Because it's the truth. If it makes you feel any better, Newton-Haddle is now at Fort Benning, Georgia, teaching knife fighting to parachutists; and Jasper Nestor has by now received a radiogram from the Bank of Boston ordering him home by the first ship. Donovan recruited him from the Bank of Boston. I don't think he'll send him back with a glowing letter of recommendation and appreciation. He— both of them—violated the First and Great Commandment of the OSS: Thou Shalt Not Deceive the Director."

Despite himself, Clete was aware that he was smiling.

"That's the truth, Clete," Graham said. "And essentially all of it."

" 'Essentially all of it'? What's the rest of it?"

"Donovan sent me down here to salvage what can be salvaged. I think he expects me to see that the Reine de la Mer is taken out of action."

"She's anchored twenty, twenty-five miles offshore, in the Bay of Samborombon," Clete said. "She's equipped with searchlights, heavy machine guns, almost certainly a couple of 20-mm Bofors automatic cannon, and probably has a five-inch cannon concealed in her superstructure. There's no way anybody can get near her."

He was surprised when he sensed Graham accepting his assessment without question.

"If you were God, how would you take her out?" Graham asked.

"With a B-17 from Brazil. But I'll settle for a TBF from Brazil."

"Both ideas went on the table and were shot down. Politically impossible."

"Colonel, if you can find me a TBF in Brazil, I can refuel it in Uruguay. That'll give me enough range to make the Bay of Samboromb?n. And then, after I put a torpedo in the Reine de la Mer, I'll have enough range to fly over my father's estancia. I'll put the TBF on a heading that will take her out over the Atlantic and bail out." He paused for a moment, thoughtful. Then he went on, "I could also take her back to Uruguay and refuel there again, if people want the TBF back."

"You can fly a TBF? That wasn't in your records."

"And it's official doctrine that a TBF needs a paved runway. And I've flown one a dozen times off Henderson Field, which is a lot rougher than the dirt road we used as a drop zone in Uruguay."

"That may be interesting information for the future. But using a TBF—or any warplane—has been decided against. The political price is considered too high."

"What are the Argentines going to do, bomb Miami?"

“No, but if we bombed a neutral ship in Argentine waters, that would blow your father's chances of becoming President of Argentina out of the water. The President says we can't do that."

"The President?" Clete asked incredulously. "President Roosevelt?"

Graham nodded. "Newton-Haddle went to him—they were at Harvard together—and complained about being relieved. The President called Donovan in for an explanation. The result was a compromise. They sent Newton-Haddle to Fort Benning instead of home, and Donovan was ordered to take out the replenishment ship by any means short of overt act of war. For this mission, an overt act of war has been defined as the use of military aircraft."

"What about the destroyer that's ..."

“The Alfred Thomas? Same answer. No overt act of war within Argentine waters, and no board-and-search of neutral vessels on the high seas."

"Then what?" Clete asked in frustration. "We're ordered to do something; and in the next breath we're told we can't carry out the orders. We're told we can't use anything that would actually get the job done."

“The President is the Commander in Chief,” Graham said. “He gives the orders, we obey them. And the only thing he'll let us use now is a submarine, but how we'd use it God only knows ..."

"I thought submarines were on the forbidden-to-use list too. I asked Nestor why they didn't sink the Reine de la Mer in the middle of the Atlantic, and—"

"In the middle of the Atlantic," Graham interrupted, "the Reine de la Mer was a peaceful merchant ship flying the flag of a neutral country. It's not against international law for a neutral ship to carry anything it wants to—fuel, torpedoes, anything. It is only when it uses its cargo to the benefit of a belligerent power that it loses its neutral status."

"I don't quite follow that."

"We routinely intercept radio messages between U-boats and the Oberkommando of the Kriegsmarine," Graham explained. "Not without difficulty—a lot of difficulty, I was there—Donovan managed to convince the President that the Reine de la Mer has already begun to replenish German U-boats, and in so doing has lost its neutral protection."

"The President says the Navy can send a submarine?"

"Yes. But don't get your hopes up high. We are still forbidden to attack replenishment vessels until we have convincing proof they have supplied at least one submarine, which means they can't be sunk on the high seas on the way here. And so far as sinking the Reine de la Mer in Samborombon Bay is concerned, the Navy says submarines can't operate in Samborombon Bay. It's too shallow."

"Submarines operated in some pretty shallow waters off Guadalcanal," Clete thought aloud. "Without any charts."

"That's what Admiral Leahy said," Graham said.

"Who?"

"The President's Chief of Staff," Graham said. "I think what we should do now, Clete, is go take a look at the charts."

"Where are we going to get charts?"

"According to the Navy, the Alfred Thomas has the most recent charts available."

"She was supposed to arrive here today," Clete said.

"She arrived at 0500 this morning," Graham said.

Clete's eyebrows rose, but he didn't say anything.

"She has, under the Geneva Convention, seventy-two hours to refuel and leave Argentinean waters. If she leaves slowly, maybe she can take soundings of the Bay of Samborombon that will answer the question of whether we can bring a submarine in there or not. A submarine is on the way."

"Jesus!"

"Is there any reason you can't come with me to the Alfred Thomas?”

"Give me ten minutes to get dressed."

His conversation with Colonel A. J. Graham, USMCR, so distracted First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, that he completely forgot the visitor in his apartment. When he returned to his apartment and found the visitor—clad only in one of his shirts, mostly unbuttoned—sitting on his bed combing her hair, he thereupon became so distracted that he completely forgot Colonel Graham was in the foyer, expecting his momentary return. Consequently, Colonel Graham was forced to cool his heels for thirty-five minutes before Lieutenant Frade returned to the foyer, neatly dressed, though bearing on his neck what looked to Colonel Graham like the teeth marks of another human being. This is sometimes called a "love hickey."

[TWO]

D?rsena "B"

Puerto de Buenos Aires

1715 24 December 1942

Getting past the Armada Argentina and Polic?a Federal guards to D?rsena "B"—Wharf "B"—where the USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107, was docked proved considerably easier than getting past the two U.S. Marines, in dress uniform, stationed on the wharf barring access to her gangplank.

"I'm sorry, Se?ores," the Marine buck sergeant said, politely but firmly, in not bad Spanish, "but the vessel is not open to visitors."

"It's all right, son," Graham said, producing an ID card. "I'm Colonel Graham, and this is Lieutenant Frade."

"Sir, I'm sorry, but my orders are that no visitors are allowed aboard."

"Your orders from whom, Sergeant?"

"From the officer of the deck, Sir," the Marine said, nodding his head toward an ensign in dress whites standing by the gangway.

"Son, you think about this. Who would you rather have pissed at you? A wet-behind-the-ears ensign or a Marine colonel?''

"If the Colonel will tell the sergeant where he wishes to go aboard the vessel, Sir, the sergeant will be happy to escort him.''

"We're here to see the Captain, Sergeant."

"If the Colonel will follow me, Sir? The Captain is on the bridge, Sir."

The Marine walked up the gangplank. An ensign in dress whites and a sailor stood by a table.

"Sir," the Marine barked, "a colonel, United States Marine Corps, and a lieutenant, United States Marine Corps, request permission to come aboard, Sir."

The Ensign looked baffled, and made no reply.

"You're not considering withholding that permission, are you, Mister?" Graham asked.

By God,Clete thought admiringly, that sounded like a Marine colonel.

"No, Sir. Permission granted."

Graham stepped onto the deck. The Ensign saluted him. Graham returned the salute, then faced aft and saluted the national colors.

I don't think you're supposed to do that in civilian clothing,Clete thought. But what the hell!

He stepped aboard, saluted the Ensign, and then, facing aft, the national colors. He was surprised at his emotional reaction.

"How may I help the Colonel, Sir?"

"We want to see the Captain," Graham said.

"Sir, the Captain is on the bridge. I will escort you. You may return to your post, Sergeant."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

The Ensign led them to the bridge. A lieutenant commander, in a sleeveless white shirt and shorts, was seated in a nicely upholstered chair mounted on a pedestal, drinking a cup of coffee.

"Sir," the Ensign said, "these officers wish to see you."

"Good morning, Captain. I am Colonel A. F. Graham, USMC," Graham said.

The Captain got out of his chair. "I'm Commander Jernigan," the Captain said. "How may I help you, Sir?"

"Captain, as I understand your orders, you were, Direction of the President, ordered to proceed to Buenos Aires at maximum speed consistent with fuel exhaustion, there to hold yourself prepared to receive further orders, to be delivered by an individual who would identify himself by uttering a certain phrase."

“The Colonel will understand that I cannot comment on a classified order."

"Complete cooperation, Captain."

The Captain smiled.

"That's the phrase. I'm at your disposal, Colonel. What can the Alfred Thomas do for you?"

"I chose the phrase." Graham smiled back. "I thought it would remove any possible misunderstanding."

"The orders, Sir, would be hard to misunderstand. What you want, you get."

"Captain, this is Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR. He flew Buffaloes at Midway and Wildcats from Guadalcanal. He is down here on a mission of great importance, and our mission is to help him accomplish this. Do you understand?"

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"Is there somewhere we can talk?"

"My cabin, Sir. But in this weather, may I suggest the chart room? My cabin is stifling."

"The chart room is fine," Graham said.

"Let me recap all this," Graham said. "You can, Captain, as you exit the Rio de la Plata estuary, take soundings of Samborombon Bay. But, in your professional judgment, these won't be of much use to the skipper of the ... What's the name again?"

"The Devil Fish, Sir."

"... of the submarine Devil Fish, because the bay is so enormous, and the Reine de la Mer can be expected to move every day or so. So we won't know where she is."

"Yes, Sir. I'm sorry, but that's the way I see it. If I had a couple of weeks, I could take soundings of the whole damned bay and come up with some decent charts. But I'll have no more than six or eight hours, and if I start maneuvering all over the bay, it will be damned obvious what I'm doing."

"Sir," Clete asked, "can you find someplace out there, within, say, a fifty-mile circle of the last known sighting of the Reine de la Mer —someplace that the sub could more or less easily find, deep enough for her to lie on the bottom?"

"Frade, you probably know more about submarines than I do."

"I know nothing about submarines, Captain, except that I'm glad I don't have to serve on one."

"What are you thinking, Clete?" Graham asked.

"If the Captain can find such a place, and give its location to the skipper of the submarine—“

"That won't be a problem. I've made rendezvous at sea with the Devil Fish before," the Captain interrupted.

“Then the sub could move close to the Reine de la Mer,” Clete went on, "lie on the bottom, and surface, periscope depth only, at a specified time. If we can establish radio contact with the sub—"

"And we don't know that we can," Graham interrupted.

“If we can get a decent transmitter and a decent receiver from Captain Jernigan, and get it off the ship and to my father's estancia, Ettinger will be able to talk to the submarine. All he'll need is the frequency and the schedule."

"My orders are to give you whatever you ask for," Captain Jernigan said. "But—and this is probably none of my business— how are you going to operate a transmitter without being caught at it? The minute we entered Samboromb?n Bay, la Armada Argentina came aboard from a pilot boat and sealed our radios. I'm sure they monitor the frequencies you'll have to use, and they'll start looking for the transmitter. What do they call it, 'triangulation'?"

"We'll keep moving the transmitter," Clete said. "Ettinger will know how to deal with that. OK, for the sake of argument. We find someplace the sub can hide on the bottom. Captain Jernigan gives the sub the precise location, plus the frequencies, the times, and the codes, when he makes the rendezvous at sea. The sub comes into Samboromb?n Bay, finds the place it can hide, hides, and then, at the scheduled time, surfaces to periscope depth and tells us she's arrived.

"The next night, I go find the Reine de la Mer, radio its position to Ettinger, who relays that position to the sub. The sub goes after the Reine de la Mer either submerged or on the surface."

"Again, I don't know a hell of a lot about submarines," Captain Jernigan protested, "but I don't think it's as easy as they make it in the movies for a submarine to hit a ship at night. I think they need more to aim at than running lights."

"It has to be at night," Graham said. "During the day the Argentine Coast Guard patrols the Bay, and the Air Service of the Argentine Army routinely overflies it."

"Ships don't enter the Bay at night?" Captain Jernigan asked.

"The channel-marking buoys are not illuminated," Graham said. "I don't know what they do in an emergency."

"Put a Coast Guardsman on the buoys with a lantern?" Jernigan asked facetiously.

"So I'll get them to light it up, turn their floodlights on," Clete said.

"How?"

"I'll buzz the Reine de la Mer," Clete said. "That'll make them turn their lights on to look for me."

"Or off," Graham said softly. "How about it, Captain? If you were anchored out there and heard an airplane engine, what about the lights?"

"Off," Captain Jernigan said without hesitation. "If they can't see you they can't bomb you."

"Sir, what if you were attacked by an airplane, strafed by a light airplane?" Clete asked. "Even strafed ineffectually," he added.

"What do you mean, 'ineffectually'?" Graham asked.

"Say with a .30-caliber Browning. That's about all I could get into the Beechcraft."

"One plane, even a fighter plane?" Jernigan said. "I'd try to fight. The natural instinct would be to fight."

"And to turn on good floodlights, if you had them, right?"

"Yes," Jernigan agreed.

"OK," Clete said.

"It's occurred to you, no doubt," Graham said, "that if they put their floodlights on you, they will get the Bofors on you seconds later?"

"And if they have their floodlights on, the submarine will have a better target than running lights."

There was no response from anyone.

"Has anybody got a better idea?" Clete said.

"I'm not sure if it's a better idea," Graham said, "but it's another idea. What about a boat? If there was a boat, I'm talking about a small boat, say, twenty-five feet, running around out there."

"The last three guys who tried that disappeared," Clete said. "No way. They would just blow it out of the water. I'll find the ship with the airplane and get them to turn their lights on."

There was silence for a moment, then Graham said, “OK. The first priority is to take the transmitter and the receiver ashore. I'll go to the U.S. Embassy and have them bring them ashore under diplomatic immunity."

"That should be no problem, Sir," Commander Jernigan said. "I have some crates for the Embassy. I'll just crate up some radios and send them ashore with the other diplomatic cargo."

"Clete, what about putting Captain Jernigan's communications officer together with Sergeant Ettinger?"

"That would depend on the communications officer," Clete said without thinking, then added, "Sir, no disrespect intended. But does your communications officer know radios, or is he just filling the billet?"

"I've got a chief radioman who knows all there is to know about radios," Captain Jernigan said.

"Then he's the man, Sir, who should get together with Sergeant Ettinger," Clete said.

"Then that's our first order of business," Graham said. "Getting the Chief in here, telling him what we need, and then getting him ashore to meet Ettinger."

"I think our first order of business is to see my father," Clete said.

Captain Jernigan's eyebrows rose in question, but he didn't put the question in words.

"Do you know where he is?" Graham asked.

"By now, he should be at his house, here in Buenos Aires." "OK. We'll go face the lion in his den," Graham said. "Captain, you have my authority to make your Chief privy to your orders. When I visit the Embassy, I'll arrange for him to call on the Naval attach?."

[THREE]

1728 Avenidct Coronel Diaz

Buenos Aires

2005 24 December 1942

"I will listen to your plans, Colonel," el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade said to Colonel A. F. Graham, USMCR, "and you have my word as an officer that they will not go further than this room. But I must tell you, Sir, that I do not share my son's confidence that you are now telling him, or me, the truth."

They were seated around a large table in the library. A silver coffee service had just been delivered, together with a walnut cigar humidor. Having dismissed the servants, el Coronel Frade ceremoniously served the coffee and offered the cigars.

Frade was seated at the head of the table, with Clete and Graham facing each other across it. Enrico had pulled a chair up from another table, and was sitting with the Remington in his lap, five feet behind el Coronel Frade. He had declined coffee, but he now held a large, thick, black cigar in his teeth.

"If I were in your position, mi Coronel, I would feel exactly the same way," Graham said calmly, lighting a cigar. !

Frade nodded. "Proceed, Colonel. I will listen."

"A United States submarine, the Devil Fish, which has been on patrol off the coast of Africa, has been ordered, at best speed, to rendezvous with the destroyer Alfred Thomas, which is here in Buenos Aires. The rendezvous will take place at a point one hundred nautical miles off Punta del Este, Uruguay. Her estimated time of arrival..."

Frade held up his hand. Graham stopped.

"Two things, Colonel Graham."

"Sir?"

"I hope you are providing exact details, not details altered sufficiently to be useless in case you don't trust me to keep them within this room."

"You have my word as an officer, mi Coronel, that I am giving you the facts exactly as I know them."

"Then please proceed in Spanish, mi Coronel, so that Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez may hear what you have to say. He has a nose for—to use the delightful phrase I have learned from my son—bullshit."

Graham smiled, and went on in Spanish. "The estimated time of arrival of the Devil Fish is 0900 29 December. A U.S. Navy fleet tanker has been ordered from Panama to rendezvous as quickly as possible with the Devil Fish on her course from the African coast. Once that rendezvous has been made, and there is some question when or if this can be accomplished, the submarine can proceed without consideration of fuel exhaustion—at full speed, in other words. So her estimated time of arrival may be as much as twenty-four hours sooner. The tanker is faster than the submarine; it will accompany her to Punta del Este and refuel her again there."

"And if the rendezvous proves impossible?" "Then we fall back to the 0900 29 December arrival time. The submarine can make that time with available fuel on board, and be refueled by the Alfred Thomas.''

"You are confident you can accomplish this without the Germans becoming aware of it?''

"So far as we know, mi Coronel, our communications are secure."

"As far as you know," Frade said. "Have you considered, mi Coronel, that vessels of the Armada Argentina will almost certainly accompany your destroyer, for several hundred miles at least, when she sails from Buenos Aires?"

"The Thomas will engage in certain maneuvers, mi Coronel, to 'test her engines and steering apparatus,' while she is passing through the Bay of Samboromb?n."

"Taking soundings?"

"Yes. Following these maneuvers, she will then test her engines in a high-speed run. She is capable of making at least thirty-five knots. The fastest vessel in the Armada Argentina, the Corvette San Martin, has a top speed of twenty-four, for limited periods. It will be difficult for the Armada Argentina to accompany the Thomas very far."

"I am impressed with your intimate knowledge of the capabilities—or should I say limitations?—of our Armada, mi Coronel." El Coronel Frade nodded, and there was the suggestion of a smile.

"Insofar as getting the radio equipment off your destroyer, mi Coronel," Frade said. "The vessel will be taking aboard foodstuffs, fresh meat, vegetables?"

"Yes, I'm sure it will," Graham said.

"The contract to victual foreign warships has been granted to Servicios de Proveedores Asociados by the Armada Argentina. I doubt very much if the Armada Argentina would question what the people from S.P.A. took off your destroyer after they had delivered the victuals. Or if the S.P.A. refrigerator truck went from the wharf to the Frigorifico del Norte slaughterhouse. And there certainly would be nothing suspicious about a Frigorifico del Norte truck going to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo."

"Can you arrange that?" Graham asked. "That would be more efficient than funneling the equipment through the Embassy."

"Enrico?" el Coronel asked in turn.

"No problem, mi Coronel. It is done."

"That was easy," Graham said.

"I own S.P.A. and Frigorifico del Norte," Frade said, "and Enrico has many trustworthy friends."

There was a knock at the door, and then it opened. A maid, looking more than a little nervous, stepped inside.

"We require nothing," Frade snapped.

"Mi Coronel, there is a telephone call for Se?or Cletus."

Christ! The Virgin Princess. Worried about me.

"It is a Comandante von Wachtstein, Se?or Cletus."

Frade looked at Clete, his eyebrows raised in question.

"I'll take it, thank you," Clete said.

Curiosity overwhelmed El Coronel Frade. "The German officer? What does he want?"

"I'm about to find out," Clete said, rising to go to the telephone.

"He is a Luftwaffe officer," he heard his father explain to Colonel Graham. "He accompanied the remains of my nephew, who was killed at Stalingrad, here for burial."

"He's also the fellow who warned me those bastards were going to try to kill me," Clete said as he picked up the telephone.

"^Hola?"

"Se?or Frade? This is el Comandante von Wachtstein."

“Comandante ?”

"Yes. Somewhat belatedly recognizing my extraordinary talents, the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe has promoted me."

"How wise of them. And how nice to hear your voice, mi Comandante.”

"How nice to hear yours, Se?or Frade, especially after your unfortunate encounter, which I read about in the newspaper. I called to let you know how pleased I was to hear that you're all right."

"Unfortunately, mi Comandante, Se?ora Pellano is not all right."

"The world seems to be full of vicious bastards, doesn't it, Se?or Frade?"

"It certainly does."

"But life goes on, Se?or Frade. I had another reason to call."

"And what was that, mi Comandante?"

"The day after Christmas, I am having luncheon at the Centro Naval. The Officers' Club, downtown. They have honored me with a guest membership."

"How nice for you, mi Comandante."

"It's a pity you are no longer a serving officer, Se?or Frade. Perhaps, if you were, your father could arrange such a membership for you. It's a lovely place."

"My father is an amazing man, mi Comandante. Perhaps he can arrange a membership for me anyway. Do I understand you are inviting me to lunch?"

"Actually, it was Se?orita Carzino-Cormano's idea. And with your approval, she suggests we ask Se?orita Mallin to make it a foursome."

Clete saw that El Coronel Frade and Colonel Graham were shamelessly eavesdropping on the conversation. He smiled warmly at both.

"Under that circumstance, mi Comandante, I gratefully accept your kind invitation."

"Splendid. We will look forward to seeing you at two at the Centro Naval."

"I'll be there, mi Comandante," Clete said, and hung up.

"Isn't your friend sticking his neck way out having lunch with you?" Graham asked.

"Whatever he is, Peter von Wachtstein is no fool," Clete said.

"And don't turn your imagination on, Colonel," Clete continued. "Don't even start to dream up one of your goddamned scenarios if it involves von Wachtstein."

Graham held his hands up in innocence.

"It never entered my mind, Clete."

"Bullshit, Colonel. Just forget it."

"Dorotea?" his father asked.

"Our relationship has changed, Dad."

"Now, Cletus? Under these circumstances?"

"Why not? And anyway, it's out of my control."

His father met his eyes, then smiled and shrugged.

"Shall we continue with the business at hand?" he asked.

[FOUR]

4730 Avenida Libertador

Buenos Aires

1205 25 December 1942

When Chief Radioman Oscar J. Schultz, USN, arrived at the Guest House in the back of a truck, wearing civilian work clothes and carrying a case of mineral water, he looked more than a little dubious about the whole operation.

He set the case of mineral water on the kitchen table and glanced around.

"Mr. Frade?"

Clete nodded.

"I'm Chief Schultz."

"This is Lieutenant Pelosi and Staff Sergeant Ettinger."

"Who's the character with the shotgun? Is he in on this?"

"Se?or?" Enrico asked.

"Chief Schultz, this is Suboficial Mayor—Sergeant Major— Rodriguez, Argentine Cavalry, Retired," Clete said.

"No shit?" Chief Schultz replied, examined Enrico more carefully, and then offered his hand to him.

"Chief Radioman Schultz, Suboficial Mayor," he said in Spanish. "I'm damned glad to see you here. I was afraid I was going to be the only professional involved in this nutty business."

"Where'd you learn to speak Spanish, Chief?" Clete asked.

"I did two hitches at Cavite, in the Philippines," Schultz replied, winked, and added, "I had what we called a sleeping dictionary."

"Perhaps you would like a beer?" Enrico asked.

"I've never been known to turn one down," Chief Schultz said.

Three bottles of cerveza and a perfectly cooked T-bone steak later, Chief Schultz turned to Staff Sergeant Ettinger.

"You're the radio guy, Sergeant, right?"

Ettinger nodded.

"What do you know about nighttime radiation in the twenty-meter band?"

"A little."

"I don't suppose you've ever heard of a Collins Model Six?"

"I had a look at the schematics," Ettinger said. "It has a very interesting secondary exciter."

"How 'interesting'?"

"The theory is interesting," Ettinger said. "But I wondered about harmonic synchronization before crystal temperature stabilization."

"The way it comes from the factory, harmonic synchronization's not worth a shit," Chief Schultz said, the tone of his voice making clear his relief at finding a peer on whom he would not be wasting his valuable time, effort, and knowledge. "Somebody get me a sheet of paper and a pencil, and I'll show you the fix I come up with."

From that point onward, Clete and Tony understood not one word of their conversation. Chief Schultz and Staff Sergeant Ettinger, talking in tongues, filled sheet after sheet of paper with esoteric schematic drawings of radio circuitry and mathematical formulae, determining among other things the optimum length and orientation of the antennae that would be erected on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

At twenty past one, one of the maids came into the kitchen and handed Clete a large, well-sealed envelope, bearing the return address of the Anglo-Argentine Bank on Calle San Martin.

"A messenger brought this for you, Se?or Frade," the maid said.

Clete opened the envelope. It contained documents, each stamped, embossed, and signed with flowing signatures in several places by various functionaries. These documents stated that the financial obligations incurred by one Se?or Francisco Manuel Alberghoni in connection with the Ristorante Napoli and associated property in the District of Boca, Buenos Aires, to the Anglo-Argentine Bank, S.A., had been satisfied in full by the transfer this date of certain funds to the Anglo-Argentine Bank, S.A., from the funds held by the Anglo-Argentine Bank, S.A., in trust for one Se?or Cletus Howell Frade, of Estancia San Pedro y San

Pablo, Pila, Province of Buenos Aires, thus relieving the original guarantor of the aforementioned financial obligations of the aforementioned Se?or Alberghoni, one Se?or Enrico Mallin, of the Sociedad Mercantil de Importacion Productos Petrolfferos, Edificio Kavanagh, Buenos Aires, of any further financial liability of any kind with regard to the Anglo-American Bank, S.A.

"I'll be damned!" Clete said.

"What is that?"

"You owe me thirteen grand, Tony," Clete said. "Your girlfriend's father is off the hook."

"Jesus, Clete," Tony said. "Thanks. Can I see that?"

Clete hesitated, then remembering Tony's very poor Spanish, handed it to him.

"I can't read this," Tony said after a moment.

"Don't bother," Clete said. "Take my word for it."

Tony looked at him curiously.

"Sometimes when you turn over a rock," Clete said, "slimy things crawl out. It's all done, Tony. All you have to do is come up with the thirteen grand to pay me back." He retrieved the stack of paper from Tony and smiled at him.

Tony looked distressed.

"Something else on your mind?" Clete asked. "Don't tell me you've had second thoughts about your lady friend?"

"No," Tony said quickly. "Nothing like that. Jesus! She's really a nice girl, Clete."

"But?"

"Lieutenant, I've been thinking," Tony said uncomfortably.

"Lieutenant"? We're back to "Lieutenant"?

"Second Lieutenants are not expected to think, Lieutenant," Clete said. "I thought you knew that."

"I don't want to sound like a wiseass."

"Out with it, Tony."

"I don't think your idea of making that fucking ship turn on its searchlights by shooting at it with a .30-caliber Browning makes a whole lot of sense, Lieutenant, is what I've been thinking."

Clete made a "come, let's have it" gesture with his hands.

"For one thing, you're going to have to get pretty close to it to hit it, and I don't know how the hell you plan to mount a machine gun in that little airplane, but it's not going to be easy."

That problem is actually Number Two, or maybe even Number One, on my list of Problems to Be Resolved.

"And you said the Reine de la Mer has .50s, and probably twenty-millimeter Bofors. All you're going to do is make a goddamned target out of us."

That thought, Lieutenant Pelosi, has run through my mind once or twice.

"Us?" Clete asked.

"I figured I'd be working the machine gun," Tony said.

Actually, I was thinking Enrico would.

Clete said that aloud: "Tony, I thought I'd take Enrico with me. I haven't figured out how to mount a machine gun in the Beechcraft. The .30 Browning may not work. We may have to use a BAR"—a Browning Automatic Rifle, a fully automatic shoulder weapon. "Enrico's a BAR expert; they've had in them in the Argentinean Army for years."

"And what am I supposed to do," Tony asked indignantly, "sit around somewhere with my thumb up my ass while you're off in the airplane?"

"I was thinking you could back up Dave," Clete said, aware that it was a lame reply. "You were going to tell me what you were thinking, Tony."

"Why do we have to fuck around making the ship illuminate herself? Why don't we illuminate the sonofabitch ourselves?"

"How?"

"I don't know. But I figured I'd ask the Chief here. Maybe they've got something like an illuminating round."

"How would we fire it?" Clete asked. "You need a cannon to fire an illuminating round."

"We have Very pistols," Chief Schultz said, turning from the table to join the conversation. Clete was surprised. He'd thought Schultz was deep in technical conversation with Ettinger.

"They're signaling devices," Clete argued. "Flares. The submarine'll need more than that kind of light."

"The five-inch rifles have an illuminating round," Chief Schultz said.

"How does it work?" Tony asked.

"Time fuse. You set it. You fire the round. So many seconds later, a charge in the projectile detonates, shattering the shell casing. That releases the flare, which is on a parachute. I don't know if the timing fuse sets off the magnesium, or what."

"Can you take one of the rounds apart?" Tony asked. "Just get me the parachute and the magnesium flare?''

"I don't see why not," Chief Schultz said. "But you would need something to light the magnesium. You're thinking of throwing it out of the airplane?"

Tony nodded.

"You'd have to figure out some way to ignite the magnesium," Chief Schultz said. “Some kind of a detonator. And it would be touchy. If a magnesium flare went off inside the airplane, you'd really be in the deep shit."

"I know about detonators," Tony said. "What I need to know is whether the temperature and duration of burn of the detonators I have would be enough to set off the magnesium. Or maybe I could somehow rig the Navy detonator, the one inside the shell ... or maybe set that off with one of my detonators."

"When I finish with Dave here," Chief Schultz said, "coming up with a list of what we need for the transmitter site, I'm going back aboard the Thomas. I could ask the Chief Ordnanceman."

"It would be better if Tony talked to him, Chief," Clete said. He looked at Enrico and switched to Spanish. "Without the clowns knowing of it, we'll either have to take el Teniente Pelosi onto and then off the American destroyer, or bring one of Chief Schultz's friends from the destroyer here and then back to the destroyer. Can you do that?"

“S?, mi Teniente."

[FIVE]

Centro Naval

Avenida Florida y Avenida Cordoba

Buenos Aires

1415 26 December 1942

Clete had to impatiently circle the block twice before he found a place to park the Buick. As he was putting the roof up, he saw the car which had followed him from Avenida Libertador drive up on the sidewalk at the next intersection. A furious policeman stalked over to it, and didn't seem to be very appeased by the documents the driver showed him.

I wonder if they will follow me into the officers' club, or just hang around outside?

He walked quickly through the entrance of the Centro Naval, then took the wide marble stairs to the second-floor dining room two at a time.

Peter von Wachtstein, Alicia Carzino-Cormano, and Dorotea Mallin were at a table at the far side of the room. Peter rose and waved his hand when he saw Clete.

The Virgin Princess smiled at him. His heart jumped.

"Ah, Se?or Frade," von Wachtstein said. "We were growing concerned."

"Sorry to be late, mi Comandante. I had trouble finding a place to park."

"Cletus, we were worried," Dorotea said.

"Nothing to worry about, Princess."

"Princess?" Alicia Carzino-Cormano said. "How sweet!"

No longer the Virgin Princess, but still the Princess,Clete thought as he kissed Dorotea's extended cheek. He walked around the table, kissed Alicia's extended cheek, then sat down beside Dorotea. Her knee immediately found his.

"I took the liberty of ordering champagne," von Wachtstein said. "But perhaps you would prefer corn whiskey?"

"Champagne will be fine, mi Comandante," Clete said.

"I heard Americans prefer corn whiskey to everything else," Peter said.

"And I heard that Germans preferred peppermint schnapps to all else," Clete replied with an equally broad smile.

"You are, I hope, fully recovered from your injuries?" Peter asked. But before Clete could reply, a waiter appeared with a bottle of champagne in a cooler.

"I was not aware that Germans drink champagne in the middle of the day," Clete said. "I would have thought beer."

"Only fighter pilots," Peter said. "Bomber pilots and other lesser mortals drink beer. Or peppermint schnapps."

"Ah ha!"

"I have the feeling that you two are about to say something rude to each other that will ruin our lunch," Alicia said.

"You have no cause for concern, my dear Alicia," Peter said. "I am here under orders to be charming to Se?or Frade."

"Under orders, did you say, mi Comandante?" Clete asked.

"The orders of my superior, el Coronel Gr?ner, the Military Attache1, Se?or Frade."

"How extraordinary!" Clete replied as the waiter finished pouring the wine. "I can't imagine why he would do that, mi Comandante."

"I think he wants to make the point that we Germans had nothing to do with the unfortunate business at your home," Peter said.

Clete felt a shoe push against his. He moved his foot. A moment later he felt Dorotea's leg pressing against the back of his calf. He looked at her, then decided that he did not want to look at her.

"Apparently, your Colonel has not read Shakespeare, mi Comandante."

"Shakespeare?"

" 'Methinks thy Colonel dost protest too much,' " Clete quoted.

"There is another line, Se?or Frade," Peter said. "I don't know who wrote it, some Englishman probably. It had to do with the charge of the light brigade at Balaclava: 'Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to ride...' et cetera."

"I believe it ends, 'into the valley of death,' mi Comandante," Clete said.

"I don't like this conversation at all," Alicia said.

"Neither do I," the Princess said.

"This is a friendly conversation, with literary overtones, between friends. Isn't that right, Se?or Frade?"

"Absolutely, mi Comandante."

"If you're friends," the Princess said with surprising firmness, "then you should stop that ridiculous 'mi Comandante' and 'Se?or Frade' business."

"Princess, there is nothing that makes a brand-new comandante happier than to hear himself called 'Comandante,' " Clete said, laughing.

Alicia gave him a dirty look. Peter laughed.

"We have a saying in the Luftwaffe that there is nothing faster than a brand-new Unterfeldwebel—I think you say 'Corporal'— rushing to his first noncommissioned officers' meeting," Peter said. "But may I suggest we indulge the ladies? May I call you 'Cletus'?"

"You may call me 'Clete,' my friend. It's 'Hans-Peter,' right? Do I call you 'Hans' or 'Peter'?"

"Peter, if you please," von Wachtstein said.

"Tell me, Peter," Clete asked mischievously, "when you were a little boy, did they call you 'Hansel'?"

"Hansel?" the Princess asked.

"As in Hansel and Gretel," Clete explained. "The fairy tale."

"Oh, yes," the Princess said. "Of course."

"Yes, they did," Peter said. "My parents called me Hansel until... I guess until I went off to the university. And sometimes afterward."

There was something in his tone, something artificially bright, that made Clete look at him. And then he saw that his eyes were very thoughtful. Sadly thoughtful.

Well, what the hell. He's a long way from home, too, and it's the day after Christmas. And home for him is not somewhere safe like the States. We 're bombing hell out of Germany.

"Clete," Peter said, "before I forget it. I don't want to bore the ladies with business, but I need a service, a favor. Could I call on you?"

"I owe you," Clete said. "You've got a blank check, Peter."

"Excuse me?"

"You name it, you've got it, my friend."

"Thank you," Peter said. "I understand."

The Princess's hand patted Clete's leg under the table.

"That's much nicer," she said. "Thank you."

If she doesn't take that hand away, I'm going to get a hard-on to end all hard-ons.

She didn't, and he did. And she moved her hand so there could be absolutely no doubt in his mind that she was aware of his physiological transformation and had a possessive interest in it.

He looked at her face. Total innocence.

"What are you thinking, Clete?" the Princess asked.

"I was thinking we should drink to Peter's promotion," Clete

said.

"Oh, yes," the Princess said, and after sort of a farewell squeeze, removed her hand from beneath the table and picked up her champagne glass.

[SIX]

The Embassy of the German Reich

Avenue Cordoba

Buenos Aires. Argentina

1630 26 December 1942

Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein took a long, effusive time to thank Se?or Cletus H. Frade and the ladies for the pleasure of their company at luncheon.

He's doing that,Clete reasoned, so he will be seen. I wonder what the hell kind of a favor he wants? Or whether he is the one who wants the favor, or his Colonel, with some scenario a la Graham and company in mind?

"And we will be in touch soon, Se?or Frade?"

"Like I said, Hansel, anything but my toothbrush or my girl."

"You should stop calling him that," Alicia protested. "He is not a child."

"My friends can call me Hansel," Peter said. "You may call me Hansel, Alicia, if you like."

"All right," Alicia said. "I think I will. I like 'Hansel.' "

Peter shook Clete's hand a second time, then walked through the gate in the fence onto the embassy grounds. A large, brilliant red flag with the Nazi swastika hung limply from a flagpole on the lawn.

"Can we drop you at my father's place, Alicia?" Clete asked, turning to face her in the backseat. "Please," she said.

"This is not the way to your house," the Princess accused ten minutes later, somewhat indignantly turning on the seat of the Buick to look at him.

"This is the way to your house," Clete said.

"We are not going to your house?"

"No."

"I have somehow offended you?"

"I have some stuff to do."

"I thought you would like my little caress," the Princess said. "All the boys here beg me to do that to them."

"And do you?"

"All the time," she said. "But I will never do it again to you if you don't like it. And besides, we can't go to my house. Mother thinks I am having luncheon and then bridge at the Belgrano Athletic Club. I can't go home before eight-thirty."

"What if your mother finds out you were with me?"

"Mother would understand, I think," she said. "My father. .."

"He will find out," Clete said. "Then what?"

"I'll tell him we are in love," she said. "But I would rather not face that today. Is there some reason I can't wait at your house, while you do—what was it you said—your 'stuff?"

"Why don't I drop you at the Belgrano Club?"

"If you did that, my parents would hear about it within the hour. You'll have to think of something else."

I already have. I put you in a taxi and send you to the Club. That would solve the problem neatly.

What the hell. There's nobody in the house.

You're thinking with your dick, pal.

You look for the first taxi and put her in it.

"My father's having you, your whole family, to dinner on Tuesday," he said.

The Princess shrugged.

"I didn't say I didn't like it," he said. "Jesus, I loved it."

The Princess shrugged again.

"If you liked it, we would be going to your house."

The Buick entered a wide, sweeping, tires-screaming U-turn.

"If you think I am going to move next to you and do it now, you are mistaken."

"How about when we get to the house?"

"Perhaps," the Princess said. "Perhaps not."

She resolved her indecision in the affirmative the moment they were in the basement garage of Granduncle Guillermo's house.

First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, was therefore in an understandable state of excitement when—his arm around the Princess, her arm around him, his face smeared with her lipstick—he walked into the kitchen and found Chief Radioman Oscar J. Schultz, USN, in full dress-white uniform, gold hash marks from sleeve cuff to elbow, gleaming, full-sized medals dangling from his breast, sitting at the table drinking a beer with Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, Argentine Cavalry, Retired; Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, CE, USAR; and Staff Sergeant David G. Ettinger, AUS, all of whom were in civilian clothing.

"We got a problem, Mr. Frade," Chief Schultz said. "Dave here, it turns out, can't take code worth a shit. And Chief Daniels, the Ordnanceman, says Mr. Pelosi's going to blow hisself up if he tries to take apart an illuminating round by hisself."

"What is he talking about?" the Princess asked. "Darling, who are these people?"

"Jesus, Mr. Frade, I didn't think she'd speak English," Chief Schultz said, sounding genuinely contrite.

"You didn't see the lady, understand?"

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"I'll be with you in a minute," Clete said.

"Take your time, Mr. Frade," Chief Schultz said understandingly.

Clete led the Princess from the dining room to the foyer. As he boarded the elevator, he heard Chief Schultz's somewhat gravelly voice pass on a bit of Naval lore to Lieutenant Pelosi and Staff Sergeant Ettinger.

"Them Marines are all like that. They don't let nothing get between them and their squeezes. Not a goddamn thing."

He had, Clete thought, a certain touch of admiration in his voice.

Chapter Twenty

[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 Se?orita to the Belgrano Athletic Club, please?"

“S?, 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, Guantanamo, 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 Attach?, 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 Colon

Buenos Aires

0905 28 December 1942

"The American battleship Thomas sailed at three-thirtyp.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 Martin interrupted.

"¿S?,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,' " Martin 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-thirtyp.m. yesterday, dropped the Armada Argentina pilot immediately outside the port, then proceeded down the Rio de la Plata accompanied by the Armada Argentina battleship—" He stopped and quickly corrected himself: "Warship, the corvette San Martin. Upon entering the upper limits of Samboromb?n 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 Samboromb?n 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 Martin 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 theSan Martin the overall technical superiority of a U.S. Navy destroyer over an Armada Argentina corvette? Or that he didn't wish the San Martin 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 Martin, just before he left Argentinean waters. I have it here."

He handed Martin 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 Martin 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," Martin 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."

Martin 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 Polic?a 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."

“S?, 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 Polic?a Federal, Habanzo." “S?, mi Coronel."

"And I am to be notified, no matter the hour, when any one of them is located." “S?, mi Coronel."

By now,Martin 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 Se?or A. F. Graham will doubtless be there too. That "Vice-President of Howell Petroleum"— according to his visa and passport— who hasnot once visited the offices of Sociedad Mercantil de Importacion Productos Petroliferos. 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 theReine 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." "S?, 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 Rodriguez, 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."

"Se?or 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, Se?or Cletus."

"Cletus? This is your father."

"Hola, Papa," Clete said, smiling.

"Papa?" 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 Se?or 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 pulperias (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 Capitan 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 Se?ora 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 Rodriguez 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 Se?ora 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, Capitan 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 Capitan Delgano, but there was nothing they could do about it.

"And if you forgot dinner with the Mallins," el Coronel said, sounding annoyed, "it would follow that you forgot to ask Se?or 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.

"Se?or 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."

"Papa," Clete said, "Se?or 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 Papa, el Coronel..."

"I heard, and I don't think you're amusing either. What's this dinner all about?"

"He's having the Mallins to dinner, to thank them for putting me up when I first got here."

"Mallin, as in Sociedad Mercantil de Importation de Productos Petroliferos?"

Clete nodded.

"I should have gone to see Mallin, and I didn't," Graham said. "There might be questions about that. Do you think your father thought of that?"

"I think Papa 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 Se?or Mallin 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 Rodriguez—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 Capital 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.

"Se?or Cletus," he said. "I overheard the housekeeper say you and Se?or Graham are going to Buenos Aires. I wondered if I could join you."

"It would be my pleasure, mi Capitan," 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 Capitan'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 Capitan," 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'spersonal."

"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 Capitan 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, Mallin'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, Se?or Pelosi, that Maria-Teresa is away at the moment," Se?or 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 Se?or Pelosi like a glass of wine and a little something to eat?"

The "Se?or 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 espanol? 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 caf? 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 cafe, 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.

2ndLt A.J. Pelosi, 0-538677, CE

Army Detachment

Office of Strategic Services

National Institutes of Health Building

Washington, D.C.

Military Attach?

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 Attach?. 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 Attach?"

"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 Attach?."

"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 Attach?

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."

"Se?or Mallin said you would come to me."

"Mallin? 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 cafe.

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."

Chapter Twenty-One

[ONE]

Bureau of Internal Security

Ministry of Defense

Edificio Libertador

Avenida Paseo Colon

Buenos Aires

1905 29 December 1942

"Would you wait outside, please, gentlemen, to give Coronel Martin 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 Capitan 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 Martin 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, Martin 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 Martin thought of as his Deep-In-Thought position: He was standing in front of his window, staring out over the Rio 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 Martin.

"I am curious, Martin, 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, Martin. 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," Martin said. "And 1 feel I can serve you best by not sacrificing my career unless absolutely necessary."

El Almirante de Montoya looked at Martin with a frown, then he slowly smiled.

"El Comandante Habanzo is the officer who put his career at risk by enlisting Delgano," Martin 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," Martin 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," Martin 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-a-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," Martin 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 Capitan, 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 Capitan 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, Martin, 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.

“S?, mi Almirante," Martin replied. "Con permiso, mi Almirante?"

With an impatient gesture of his hand, el Almirante de Montoya dismissed him.

[TWO]

1728 Avenida Coronel Diaz

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 Se?orita Dorotea Mallin.

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 enfamille 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 carbon 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 Diaz and arrive at the socially accepted time—fifteen minutes late.

[THREE]

1728 Avenida Coronel Diaz

Buenos Aires

2115 29 December 1942

A butler in a tailcoat opened the door to his knock.

"Buenas noches, Se?or 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 Se?orita 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 Se?orita 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 Pueyrredon in mess dress; and their ladies; Se?or A. F. Graham, in a white dinner jacket; and of course the Mallin family, Mama, Papa, 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, Se?or 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 Mallins," Clete said. "Sorry."

"You should be glad that didn't happen."

"Excuse me?"

"Mallin 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. "Mallin 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. Mallin 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 Mi?as 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 Gr?ner called me into his office this afternoon."

"The military attach??"

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 Samboromb6n, 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 Gr?ner 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 Gr?ner," 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."

"Gr?ner was right?"

There was a knock at the door, so quickly that Clete was surprised. It was a maid.

"Se?or Cletus?"

"How did you get here so quickly?"

"El Coronel told me to wait in the upstairs pantry in case you needed something, Se?or Cletus."

"Please tell el Coronel that I need him here immediately; that it is something you can't do for me."

“S?, Se?or," the maid said, and quickly left the room.

"Gr?ner 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 schon, 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 Chiefs 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

IJAN43

TO: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS WASH DC

ALL TJSNAVY 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 Samboromb?n. 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 Rio 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 Samborombon 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]

Samboromb?n 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]

Samboromb?n 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 Mallin."

"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 copilot'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 Rio 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.

"Se?or 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]

Cafe Paris

Recoleta

Buenos Aires

1425 5 January 1943

Dorotea Mallin, wearing a pink cotton dress, removed her hand from that of First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, and smiled over his shoulder.

"Hello, Se?or Graham," she said.

"Miss Mallin," Graham said. "How nice to see you. Clete, you're a hard man to find."

"Not by accident," Clete said.

"Miss Mallin, 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 Samboromb?n. 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 Attach?."

"And non-ostensibly?"

“Working for us. The Naval Attach? 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 attach?s 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 Attach?."

"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 cafe, 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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