‘‘When do you have to see this person?’’
‘‘Whenever I can.’’
‘‘You know where to find this person?’’
‘‘Yes, I do. I’ll need a car.’’
Delgano looked at el Coronel Porterman, who nodded.
‘‘Not an Army car,’’ Clete said.
‘‘Of course not an Army car,’’ Delgano said. ‘‘When can you see this person?’’
‘‘Now.’’
‘‘You will see him, and then return here?’’
‘‘If possible.’’
‘‘You believe he will have instructions for you? How to travel to Pôrto Alegre?’’
‘‘I thought you were going to get me across the border?’’
‘‘We are prepared to do that,’’ el Coronel Porterman said.
‘‘Where is Suboficial Mayor Rodríguez?’’
‘‘At the suboficiales’ mess.’’
‘‘Where’s the car?’’
‘‘I will borrow a car from one of my officers,’’ el Coronel Porterman said. ‘‘You wish Rodríguez to drive you?’’
‘‘No. I don’t want to take him with me. Now, or when I cross the border. That may pose problems.’’
‘‘I will deal with Suboficial Mayor Rodríguez,’’ el Coronel Porterman said. ‘‘It will not be a problem.’’
‘‘Would you get me a car, please?’’
[FIVE] The Automobile Club of Argentina Hotel Santo Tomé, Corrientes Province 1430 15 April 1943
Finding the Automobile Club Hotel was simply a matter of asking an old woman walking along the side of the road to Santo Tomé where it was. Feeling somewhat foolish, he took the borrowed car—a 1939 Ford Fordor—on a trip up and down the streets of Santo Tomé until he was sure he wasn’t being followed, then drove to the hotel.
It wasn’t what he expected. The name had suggested an Argentine version of a motel built on the side of a road, with both economy and easy automobile parking as the design criteria. This was a new building on the outskirts of town, overlooking a sweeping curve of the Río Uruguay. It was surrounded by a large lawn studded with tall palm trees. It looked, more than anything else, like one of the small, exclusive, oceanfront resorts north of Miami.
It had two wings extending from a central core housing a restaurant and bar. Each was two stories tall, with a palm-shaded parking lot. To the right were tennis courts, and when he entered the lobby, he saw that on the far side a large swimming pool surrounded by umbrella-shaded tables sat overlooking another gardenlike area extending down a slope to the river.
His eye was caught by a statuesque olive-skinned woman whose more than ample breasts and rear end were barely concealed beneath a bathing suit whose brevity would have certainly caused her arrest in the United States.
He took a chance that Ashton was using his own name, and asked the desk clerk for the room number of Señor Maxwell Ashton.
Señor Ashton and Party, the desk clerk told him, were in Apartment 121.
‘‘And Party’’? What the hell is that all about? Delojo said he was alone.
Clete found 121—what looked like a three-room suite, with a private patio, overlooking the swimming pool— without difficulty; but there was no answer to his knock. He knocked louder, and when that failed to get a response, looked around for someone who might be an OSS agent.
There was no one at the pool except a diminutive mustachioed cigar-smoking Latin in bathing trunks and a flowered shirt who was unabashedly watching the statuesque olive-skinned woman in the scant bathing costume climb the diving board ladder.
Neither was there anyone who remotely looked like an American among the half-dozen men he saw in the restaurant, bar, or on the tennis courts. Just to be safe, he asked a dour-faced man in his late forties if his name happened to be Ashton, and received a curt ‘‘No, Señor’’ in reply.
What the hell do I do now? Where the hell could he be? If he has his team with him, where the hell are they?
He made one more sweep of the place, then returned to the borrowed 1939 Ford sedan.
The diminutive mustachioed Latin who had shared his fascination with the statuesque lady in the revealing swimming costume walked up to the car as Clete was unlocking it.
‘‘Why do I have this feeling that you are looking for me?’’ he asked in English.
Clete stared at him in utter surprise.
‘‘Excuse me, Señor,’’ the little man said in Spanish. ‘‘I obviously have made a mistake.’’
‘‘You’re Ashton?’’ Clete asked.
‘‘Major Frade?’’
Clete nodded.
‘‘Why don’t we have a beer by the pool?’’ Ashton said. ‘‘I don’t think I’m being watched, but you may be.’’
Clete followed him to one of the umbrella-shaded tables by the pool.
Clete had no sooner settled himself in one of the chairs than the statuesque lady, smiling invitingly, walked up and sat down.
‘‘Consuelo,’’ Maxwell Ashton said in Spanish, ‘‘this is Señor Smith, the business associate I told you I would probably meet.’’
‘‘I’m very happy to know you, Señor,’’ Consuelo said, almost coming out of the bathing suit as she leaned over to offer Clete her hand.
‘‘The pleasure is entirely mine, Señorita,’’ Clete said.
‘‘Why don’t you go take another dive, Consuelo,’’ Maxwell Ashton said, ‘‘while Señor Smith and I transact our business?’’
She smiled and stood up and strolled toward the diving board. As she walked, she rearranged as well as she could her bathing costume over her left buttock, which had escaped.
‘‘Fantastic ass,’’ Maxwell Ashton said, switching to English. ‘‘And all muscle!’’
A waiter appeared, and Ashton ordered beer in Spanish.
‘‘You’re not what I expected, frankly,’’ Ashton said. ‘‘You don’t look old enough to be either a major or a hot-shot pilot.’’
‘‘You’re not what I expected, either,’’ Clete said. ‘‘Is she the ‘party,’ as in ‘Senõr Ashton and Party’?’’
‘‘You have a problem with that, mi Mayor?’’
‘‘I thought maybe you had your team here.’’
‘‘They’re in the transient officers’ BOQ in Pôrto Alegre, unless Colonel Wallace has confirmed his suspicions that three of them are enlisted swine and he has them in his stockade awaiting trial for impersonating officers and gentlemen. ’’
‘‘I somehow don’t think you’re kidding.’’
‘‘You know el Coronel Wallace?’’
‘‘I know who he is. He’s my contact at Pôrto Alegre.’’
‘‘You’re a pilot, right? When you’re wearing a uniform, do you carry a riding crop?’’
‘‘No,’’ Clete said, chuckling.
‘‘Wallace does. Getting the picture? Regular Army. Very starchy. He made it very clear to me he wishes he’d never heard of the OSS. He can’t find any regulation in his book on how to deal with us.’’
‘‘You told him everybody on your team was an officer?’’
‘‘He somehow got that impression, after he told me that the officers would be billeted in a hotel off the base, and the enlisted swine in barracks on the base.’’
‘‘How many enlisted swine?’’ Clete asked, chuckling.
‘‘Three. Good guys. One’s a German Jew. Seigfried Stein. Buck Sergeant. He’s my explosives expert. Tech Sergeant Bill Ferris is our weapons and parachute guy, and Staff Sergeant Jerry O’Sullivan is the radar operator. Plus, of course, the gorilla. My executive officer. First Lieutenant Madison R. Sawyer the Third. He went to the parachute school at Fort Benning before he came to OSS. At Benning, they tell people that parachutists are tougher than anybody else, and being a Yalie, Sawyer believes it.’’
Ashton looked at Clete, saw that Clete was smiling, and went on.
‘‘Truth to tell, mi Mayor, you’ve been wondering what somebody who looks like me is doing wit
h a name like Maxwell Ashton, haven’t you?’’
‘‘You look more like a Pedro type,’’ Clete said. ‘‘Or maybe a Pablo.’’
‘‘Actually, it’s Maxwell Ashton the Third, Captain, Signal Corps, Army of the United States. What’s your date of rank, Major?
‘‘Two months ago.’’
‘‘If I were a betting man—and unfortunately, betting’s another of my serious vices—I would lay five to one I outranked you before you got promoted. You got promoted, right, because of that John Wayne-type stunt you pulled on the first submarine-supply ship?’’
‘‘I was promoted because I am an absolutely perfect of ficer,’’ Clete said, chuckling. ‘‘They wanted to make me a general, but I am also modest to a fault and declined. Is who ranks who going to be a problem between us?’’
‘‘Not unless you start giving me or anybody on my team orders to do something like you and that Army paratrooper did. Heroism is not my strong suit. I want you to understand that.’’
‘‘Mine either,’’ Clete said.
‘‘Bullshit,’’ Ashton said. ‘‘I got into your file at the National Institutes of Health, and I know all about you. Most of what I read scares me, frankly.’’
‘‘Why?’’
‘‘So far you’ve been shot down twice in the Pacific and once here,’’ Ashton said. ‘‘And the Germans tried to kill you—and damned near did—in Buenos Aires. And your father was killed. Assassinated. Graham told me. It looks to me like you’re a dangerous man to be around. I don’t want to be an innocent bystander.’’
‘‘My middle name is Coward, all right?’’ Clete said, and added, ‘‘You don’t look old enough to be a captain yourself. ’’
‘‘I’m twenty-nine,’’ Ashton replied, ‘‘which I know is considerably older than you. But let’s get this personal history business out of the way. Tit for tat.’’
‘‘Why not?’’ Clete said.
‘‘I’m half Cuban and half American. Educated in the States. Choate and then MIT, where I took a degree in electrical engineering. Good schools, and people were very kind there to the poor mixed-blood kid from Cuba—’’
‘‘You don’t have to tell me all this!’’
‘‘I think I do. I think it’s important that we understand one another. Anyway, with the draft board breathing down my neck, I applied for a commission. I was working for Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, and that was good enough to get a captain’s commission. I thought I would spend the war at Fort Monmouth, doing what I was doing at Bell Labs.’’ The Army’s Signal Corps Center was at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
‘‘Which was?’’
‘‘Radar. You know what radar is?’’
‘‘Yeah, we had radar on Guadalcanal. It usually didn’t work.’’
‘‘The stuff you had in the Pacific was garbage, probably designed by the Limeys,’’ Ashton said. ‘‘The stuff we have now is a hell of a lot better.’’
‘‘That’s encouraging,’’ Clete said. ‘‘Presumably, you have one of the good ones with you?’’
‘‘Por favor, mi Mayor, don’t interrupt me when I’m talking. ’’
‘‘I am overwhelmed with remorse for my bad manners.’’
‘‘You should be,’’ Ashton said. ‘‘As I was saying, two bad things happened to me at Fort Monmouth. The first was that my wife left me. She didn’t want to live on what they pay captains. I really couldn’t blame her.’’
‘‘And the second bad thing?’’
‘‘A Navy guy came to see me. A lieutenant commander. A fellow Latino. By the name of Frederico Delojo.’’
‘‘I know the gentleman,’’ Clete said.
‘‘I figured if you can’t trust a fellow Latino, who the hell can you trust, right?’’
‘‘Right,’’ Clete said.
The waiter delivered three large bottles of beer.
Ashton poured beer into their glasses.
‘‘You can handle a beer, right? You’re not going to start doing something heroic? And/or start making eyes at Consuelo? ’’
‘‘I will do my best to control myself,’’ Clete said.
‘‘So Delojo hands me this line of bullshit, in Spanish, of course: His ‘organization,’ about which he can’t talk but which is in Washington, has been looking for someone just like me, an electrical engineer at the cutting edge of radar technology, who also speaks Spanish. I can make significant contributions to the war effort, et cetera, et cetera. So I volunteer, which was about the dumbest thing I have ever done.’’
‘‘Why was that?’’
‘‘You know goddamn well why was that,’’ Ashton said. ‘‘The next thing I know, I’m at the Country Club, where a bunch of crew-cutted gorillas got their rocks off throwing me over their shoulders and bouncing me off walls and teaching me all sorts of things I didn’t want to know, like how to blow things up and stick knives in people. How the hell did you manage to escape going through the Country Club, by the way?’’
‘‘I’m a Marine. All Marines know how to stick knives in people and blow things up.’’
‘‘The pièce de résistance of all this was taking me up, not once, but five fucking times, and throwing me out of an airplane.’’
‘‘You and Lieutenant Pelosi will have a lot to talk about,’’ Clete said. ‘‘Before he found a señorita in Buenos Aires, that’s how he got his rocks off, jumping out of airplanes. ’’
‘‘Or getting shot down in one, like he did with you, right?’’
‘‘He really liked that. The first thing he said when we pulled him out of the water was ‘Jesus, that was fun! Can we do that again?’ ’’
Ashton smiled at Clete.
‘‘Then Delojo shows up and says he’s got good news for me. I have been given command of a team. And they are going to parachute us into Argentina with a radar set.’’
‘‘Did he tell you why?’’
‘‘Yeah. To find a ship that’s supplying German submarines. He told me the first team they sent down here disappeared, and that the second team got shot down while they were locating the ship for a submarine. So the next thing I know we’re on an airplane headed for Brazil, three very nice guys and the gorilla. I finally figured out what the gorilla is supposed to do. I think he has orders to shoot me the minute he sees me pissing my pants, providing I’ve got the radar up and working. You know where it goes, right?’’
‘‘Yeah, we have figured that out,’’ Clete said. ‘‘How did you get here, Ashton? I mean, to this place?’’
‘‘I came down here to see if there wasn’t some other way besides by parachute to get the radar set across the border,’’ Ashton said. ‘‘If I never jump out of an airplane again, it will be too soon.’’
‘‘By ‘other way’ you mean by rubber boat?’’
‘‘Just when I was beginning to think that maybe you weren’t as dumb as I thought, you ask a question like that,’’ Ashton said. ‘‘Come with me, por favor, mi Mayor.’’
He picked up his beer glass and led Clete to the far side of the swimming pool. From there they could look down at the Río Uruguay.
‘‘That sonofabitch is at least three-quarters of a mile wide, and the current is at least six knots,’’ Ashton said. ‘‘The radar set is broken down into four crates, each weighing two hundred pounds. Maybe the Marine Corps can paddle something like that across that river in little rubber boats, but I have no intention of trying.’’
‘‘How did you get here?’’ Clete asked.
‘‘On the ferry,’’ Ashton said.
‘‘No trouble getting across the border?’’
‘‘They gave us all phony Brazilian passports,’’ Ashton said. ‘‘No problem.’’
‘‘Tell me about Consuelo,’’ Clete said.
‘‘The Brazilian town on the other side of the river is São Borja. I went to a bar there, and in the interests of international friendship struck up a conversation with Consuelo. We had a couple of drinks, and I asked her where a poor lon
ely businessman could go for a good time. Consuelo said she knew just the place—she meant here; this is the NoTellMotel of choice for the local sportsmen on both sides of the border—but it was expensive. I asked her how expensive. You would be surprised, Major, how far the American dollar goes down here.’’
‘‘How far?’’
‘‘Twenty dollars a day for Consuelo—plus rations and quarters, of course, say another fifteen bucks—and another fifteen a day for her cousin’s Fiat.’’
‘‘That sounds like a bargain,’’ Clete said. ‘‘And aside from watching the diving demonstrations, how have you passed the time?’’
‘‘I passed the word, very discreetly, that I had four crates of tractor parts I would like to get into Argentina without anybody official noticing.’’
‘‘And?’’
‘‘The only nibble I got was from a character who might as well have had ‘Cop’ written on his forehead. You have any ideas, mi Mayor?’’
‘‘There’s an airplane waiting for me at Pôrto Alegre,’’ Clete said.
‘‘Were you paying attention before when I said I am not about to parachute me, or the radar, or anybody on my team except the gorilla—you’re welcome to him—into anywhere? ’’
‘‘I just came from checking out the airstrip where I’m going to land the airplane,’’ Clete said.
‘‘On this side of the border?’’
Clete nodded.
‘‘You’re an officer and a gentleman, so you don’t lie, right?’’ Ashton said.
‘‘Not about this.’’
‘‘On the other hand, Delojo is a Regular Navy officer and gentleman, and look what happened to me when I trusted him.’’
‘‘He took advantage of your innocence,’’ Clete said. ‘‘I wouldn’t do that.’’
Ashton looked at him thoughtfully.
‘‘How’d you arrange for someplace to land?’’
‘‘That I can’t tell you. It’s arranged.’’
"How are you going to get across the border into Brazil? "
‘‘That’s arranged, too.’’
"And from São Borja to Pôrto Alegre?’’
‘‘How much do you think Consuelo would want to take me, maybe take the both of us, to Pôrto Alegre?’’
Blood and Honor Page 51
