"They were getting into that in Texas and Oklahoma, too," Clete said.
If my father has a Beech stagger-wing, he'll probably let me fly it.
"We considered, of course, that you might not find your father to be the ogre Mr. Howell paints him to be. And in time, that you might manage to get close to him. We didn't think it would happen so quickly.
"Do you think he'll turn out to be useful to us?"
"How do you mean, useful?"
"Tilt this country toward us, and away from Mr. Hitler and Company."
"My initial impression of my father is that he's a strong, in-telligent man, who will tilt the way he decides to tilt, completely unaffected by his son's nationality, or by what his son thinks or asks him to do. Incidentally, I'm quite sure he's figured out that I'm not down here to make sure Mallin isn't diverting crude to the Germans."
"What makes you think so?"
"He as much as told me. It was by shading, innuendo, not in so many words."
"What were the circumstances?"
"There was an Internal Security officer. A lieutenant colonel named Martin..."
"Not just 'an Internal Security officer,' Clete," Nestor inter-rupted him. "Colonel Martin is Chief of the Ethical Standards Office of the Bureau of Internal Security. He reports only to the Chief of Internal Security, an admiral named de Montoya. A very competent, and thus dangerous, man."
"My father said he'd been to see him, asking about me. As a matter of fact, he said that's how he learned I was in Argentina."
"That was quick work on Martin's part," Nestor said admir-ingly. "They apparently made the connection between you and your father more quickly than we thought they would. Go on."
"Anyway, this Colonel Martin was in the Alvear Palace when I met my father." *
"Possibly surveilling your father. But that's unlikely. He's too important for something like that."
"My father introduced us," Clete went on, aware he was grow-ing annoyed at Nestor's frequent interruptions. "Later he told me who Martin was. And this is the innuendo I meant: He told me that I have nothing to worry about since I'm down here only for Howell Petroleum-to make sure Mallin is not diverting petro-leum products."
Nestor grunted.
"And does Mallin have any idea that you're not down here to do that?"
"No. Or at least he didn't. My father said Martin would prob-ably go to see him. And that would arouse his suspicions."
"Worst possible scenario: You will be expelled from Argentina despite your father, or possibly because your father will arrange it. You would probably have time to go underground, but that would be sticky."
I can think of a worse scenario: The same thing will happen to me, to all three of us, that happened to the last OSS team.
"Alternative scenario," Nestor went on. "Even if Martin has questions about your cover, he won't connect you with the re-plenishment-ship problem yet, and you will not be expelled from Argentina." He paused a moment, then finished that thought. "Both Martin and Admiral de Montoya are obviously reluctant to anger your father. But he will keep you under surveillance."
"I understand."
"You will have to be extra careful when you go to Uruguay. Which brings us to that."
"Uruguay?"
"How soon do you think you can tear yourself away to go to Uruguay?"
"What will I do in Uruguay?"
"You and Pelosi are going to Montevideo, where you will hire a car and drive to Punta del Este. It is a rather charming little town on the Atlantic coast, quite popular with Argentineans es-caping the heat of Buenos Aires. After you take the sun on the beach at Punta for a day or two, you will drive north-I'll furnish a map-to near the Brazilian border. A quantity of explosives and detonators will be air-dropped to you there."
"Air-dropped from where?"
"Prom Brazil, onto a rice field we have used before."
"How do I get the explosives past Argentine customs when we come back? Or past Uruguayan customs leaving Uruguay?"
"The explosives themselves should pose no problem. They have been molded into a substance that looks exactly like wood, and precut to form the parts of a wooden crate. You will assemble the crates-there will be two of them, with a total weight of just over twenty-two pounds-and fill them with souvenirs of your holiday... not too heavy souvenirs; the explosives only look like wood and don't have wood's strength. They make some rather attractive doodads of straw, in the shape of chickens, horses, cows, et cetera. These would be ideal. You will quite openly carry the crates onto and off the ferry and through Argentine customs."
Now this is more like Errol Flynn battling the Dirty Nazis. The problem is, although I know Nestor is dead serious, I'm having trouble believing that I am about to go to some field near the Brazilian border and have explosives air-dropped to me.
"The detonators will pose a problem. There will be a dozen of them. They're quite sensitive. Probably the best way is for one of you to tape them to your body. Argentine Customs is very unlikely to submit you to a body search." He paused and smiled. "Or perhaps you could wear your cowboy boots. I'm sure you could conceal them in your boots."
And blow my goddamned leg off!
"Is there any way I could take Ettinger instead of Pelosi?" Clete asked. "Pelosi is young. Excitable. And doesn't speak Spanish well."
"But knows about explosives and airdrops," Nestor said, shak-ing his head no. "Besides, I want Ettinger to continue what he's doing with the Hebrew community here."
"We've discussed that. He knew only one family on that list of names, and they told him to bug off."
"He's going to have to go back to Klausner and try again."
"He's convinced me that would be a waste of time, and that Klausner would very possibly turn him in. Or at least report to Internal Security that Ettinger has contacted him."
"He'll have to go back."
"You tell him."
"I have information that may change Klausner's attitude," Nestor answered, ignoring Clete's last remark.
He took what looked like several sheets of folded yellow paper from the inside pocket of his seersucker jacket and handed them to Clete. When Clete started to unfold them, he saw it was really one long sheet of paper, and recognized the carbon copy from a radio-teletype machine.
"This will be released to the Argentinean press in the morning. Even if they run it, Herr Klausner might not see it," Nestor said as Clete started to read it.
FROM SECSTATE WASHINGTON 0645 28 NOVEMBER 1942
VIA PANAMA TO ALL AMEMBASSIES SOUTHAMERICA FOR IMMEDIATE PERSONAL ATTENTION AMBASSA-DORS
(1) SECSTATE DESIRES IMMEDIATE TRANSMTTTAL AT AMBASSADORIAL LEVEL TO HIGHEST POSSIBLE LEVEL HOST GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL, FOLLOWED BY WIDEST POSSIBLE DISSEMI¥ATION TO ALL CHAN-NELS OF PUBLIC INFORMATION.
DECLARATION BEGINS:
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE
WASHINGTON, DC
28 NOVEMBER 1942
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; HIS MAJESTY GEORGE VI, KING OF ENGLAND AND EMPEROR OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE; JOSEF STALIN, CHAIRMAN OF THE SUPREME SOVIET OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SO-CIALIST REPUBLICS; AND GENERAL CHARLES DE GAULLE, CHAIRMAN OF THE FRENCH NATIONAL COM-MITTEE, ON BEHALF OF THEIR GOVERNMENTS, AND IN THE NAME OF THEIR PEOPLE, HEREWITH DE-CLARE :
THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT, NOT CONTENT WITH DE-NYING TO PERSONS OF JEWISH RACE IN ALL THE TERRITORIES OVER WHICH THEIR BARBAROUS RULE HAS BEEN EXTENDED THE MOST ELEMENTARY HUMAN RIGHTS, ARE NOW CARRYING INTO EFFECT HI-TLER'S OFT-REPEATED INTENTION TO EXTERMI¥ATE THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN EUROPE.
FROM ALL THE OCCUPIED COUNTRIES, JEWS ARE BEING TRANSPORTED, IN CONDITIONS OF APPALLING HORROR AND BRUTALITY, TO EASTERN EUROPE. IN POLAND, WHICH HAS BEEN MADE THE PRINCIPAL NAZI SLAUGHTERHOUSE, THE GHETTOS ESTAB-LISHED BY THE GERMAN INVADERS ARE BEING SYS-TEMATICALLY EMPTIED OF ALL JEWS EXCEPT A FEW HIGHLY SKILLED WORKERS REQUIRED FOR WAR IN-DUSTRIES.
NONE OF THOSE TAKEN ARE EVER HEARD OF AGAIN. THE
ABLE-BODIED ARE SLOWLY WORKED TO DEATH IN LAROR CAMPS. THE-INFIRM APE LEFT TO DIE OF EXPOSURE AND STARVATION, OR ARE DELIBERATELY MASSACRED IN MASS EXECUTIONS.
THE NUMBER OF VICTIMS OF THESE BLOODY CRUEL-TIES IS RECKONED IN MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF ENTIRELY INNOCENT MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMER-ICA; THE KINGDOM OF ENGLAND AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE; THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS; AND THE FRENCH NATIONAL COMMITTEE CONDEMN IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS THIS BESTIAL POLICY OF COLD-BLOODED EXTERMI¥A-TION.
DECLARATION ENDS.
(2) SECSTATE DESIRES NOTIFICATION BY MOST EXPEDITIOUS MEANS OF COMPLIANCE, TO INCLUDE NAME AND TITLE OF FOREIGN OFFICIAL TO WHOM DECLARATION DELIVERED, AND DATE AND TIME.
CORDELL HULL SECRETARY OF STATE
"Jesus H. Christ!" Clete said.
"Rather nauseating, isn't it?" Nestor said.
"Hundreds of thousands of people murdered?" Clete asked incredulously.
"The ambassador said he's been led to believe it's many more than that," Nestor said evenly. "He thinks there was probably quite a discussion in Foggy Bottom..."
"What?"
"... at the Department of State," Nestor explained somewhat condescendingly. "They call it 'Foggy Bottom' in Washington. The ambassador thinks there was probably quite a discussion- with the decision made at the highest levels, perhaps by the Sec-retary himself-before they came up with the 'hundreds of thousands' language. Even that boggles credulity. One's mind can accept the death of one person, a hundred persons, even a thou-sand. Credulity is strained at tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. The death, much less the murder, of millions is sim-ply-beyond human comprehension."
"In other words, you believe this?"
"We know it to be a fact; our people have seen the death camps."
"Jesus!"
"Give me a call when you return from Punta del Este. Have a good time. I've been there. The women on the beach are stunning; made me wish I was a bachelor."
He put his beer bottle down on the banister.
"I can find my way out," he said.
Chapter Eleven
[ONE]
La Boca
Buenos Aires
1630 3 December 1942
Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, Corps of Engineers, Army of the United States, wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and dark-blue cotton trousers, was wet with sweat when the bus finally arrived in La Boca. The bus was old, battered, noisy, and as crowded as the El at the Loop during rush hour-more crowded; I feel like a goddamned sardine.
Lieutenant Frade had ordered him to spend as much time as possible riding the buses, "to get an idea of the terrain." The mentors in New Orleans had suggested the idea, and it was a good one, but Pelosi couldn't help but notice that Frade wasn't riding around in fucking buses himself; he was either getting chauffeured in one of Mallin's cars or catching cabs.
Pelosi stepped off the bus, took half a dozen steps, and then pulled the sweat-soaked shirt away from his chest and back.
Lieutenant Frade had also ordered him to start "laying in what-ever you think you're going to need to blow a hole in a ship. No explosives, no detonators, they'll be provided. Everything else."
What the fuck is everything else? You need five things to blow something: explosives, detonators, wire, damping material-sand-bags are usually best-and a source of juice to blow the deto-nators. A proper magneto controller is best. You hook up the wires, give it a crank, and boom!
I'm not as dumb as Lieutenant Frade-and for that matter, Ettinger-think I am. Laying in everything else does not mean I should find some engineer supply store and walk in and an-nounce, "Hola! I'm interested in a good high-explosives con-troller. A Matson and Hardy Model Seven would be nice. What am I going to do with it? Why, I'm going to blow the bottom out of a ship in your harbor, that's what I'm going to do."
I don't really need a controller. I can get by with a couple of six-volt dry-cell batteries; Christ knows I've done that often enough. So what I'm doing here is looking for wire and a half-dozen dry-cell batteries. Big fucking deal.
What I really need is a magnet, a great big fucking magnet, so I can make something like the thing Lieutenant Greene, Chief Norton, and Bo'sun Leech showed me at the shipyard in Missis-sippi.
That device really impressed Tony. It was designed to pierce armored steel, like on a tank; and it was improvised from a limpet mine the Navy had gotten from the English, Chief Norton told him. It was constructed of magnetized steel. Its bottom was flat and was attached to the steel of a ship's hull. The top was of much thicker steel, and dome-shaped. The explosive went inside the dome; but the dome also served as a damper, directing the explosive force inward. Even better, the charge itself was molded-Chief Norton called it a "shaped charge"-so that it really directed all the force inward.
Tony could think of a lot of uses for shaped charges in the business. Blowing concrete-sheathed structural steel, for example. And if you put a bunch of small shaped charges around the base of a smokestack, you could really drop the sonofabitch in on itself.
The only thing Tony found wrong with the limpets was that you could hardly put a couple of them in your luggage and board the airplane in Miami.
He didn't think now that he would be able to lay his hands on a dome-shaped piece of steel, even make one himself. But he could probably weld together a box-thin steel on the bottom, heavier on the sides and top-which would be maybe nearly as good as a dome. He would have to figure out some way to mag-netize it. And he would try to mold some explosive himself into a shaped charge. If he could do that-he thought he could, with a big pot of boiling water-then he would have something just about as good as what the Navy showed him.
The one thing Tony could absolutely not figure out-with peo-ple around like Lieutenant Greene, Chief Norton, and Bo'sun Leech, who knew all about explosives and ships-was why they weren't down here, instead of a Gyrene fly-boy, Ettinger, and him. When Ettinger came to his apartment, he talked to him about that. Ettinger thought it was probably because Frade had connec-tions in Argentina, and he and Ettinger spoke Spanish.
That was true, maybe. But Ettinger was supposed to be the communications sergeant of the team, and so far they didn't even have a telephone, much less a radio..
This is really one fucked-up operation!
He walked to the edge of the water and bought an ice cream and a Coke from a street vendor. The ice cream was all right, but the Coke was room temperature. And the bottle was in shitty shape. When Tony was in the eighth grade at St. Teresa's, they took them on a tour of the Coke place. Half a dozen women there did nothing all day but sit at a conveyor belt and push off bottles that had chipped tops, or just looked bad. He wondered then what they did with all the bad bottles.
Now I know. They load them on ships and bring them down here.
He found an old-timey ship-it had both masts for sails and a smokestack-tied up at the stone wharf. Tony could read enough of the sign on the wharf to find out that the ship had sailed to Antarctica. He gave in to the impulse and bought a ticket and went on board.
A guy in what looked like some kind of Navy uniform guided him around. Tony scarcely understood what he was saying; but the map he pointed out showed that the boat had gone to the Antarctic not once, but half a dozen times.
Whoever sailed down there on this little thing really had balls. But what the hell, so did Columbus.
The guy kept talking too fast for Tony to understand much of what he said; but Tony nodded and shook his head and said "s¡" a lot, and he had the idea when the tour was finished that the guy really didn't suspect that he was an American.
He gave him some money, and from the way the guy beamed, suspected he had given him way too much.
Well, fuck it! Lieutenant Frade gave me two hundred bucks for miscellaneous expenses. This is a miscellaneous expense. I'm looking at ships.
When he went back on the wharf, he was tempted to have another ice cream, but remembering the room-temper
ature Coke, decided that wasn't such a hot idea.
Maybe I can find a restaurant with some Italian food, and something cold to drink. Then I will go buy some fucking wire. If they ask me what I want it for, I'll tell them I'm putting in a telephone extension.
He found what he was looking for: Ristorante Napoli. It was three blocks down a narrow cobblestone street, on the ground floor of a run-down building with light-blue shutters. The shutters were painted with what looked like watercolor paint that didn't cover the wood underneath all the way.
W E B Griffin - Honor 1 - Honor Bound Page 32