  Don Anibal Tabio died at ten o'clock the next morning. He died on the operating table, under Ansaldo's knife. Hall was in Santiago's office when Eduardo Sanchez called at eleven to say that an AP flash had just come through in the newspaper's wire room. "Call me when the next bulletin comes through," he said, slowly. "We have to know what Gamburdo and Lavandero are planning." Somehow, although he had known for days that Tabio's hours were numbered, it was hard to swallow his friend's dying on Ansaldo's terms. He was too stunned to wonder how Gamburdo had finally won out. For a moment, there was a sensation of sudden emptiness; this gave way to a sense of horror and rage. "Poor Anibal," he said. "Charging the arrows of the Falange with only the white plume of Truth in his thin hands." "He was your friend, wasn't he?" Santiago said. "He was a very great man." "Yes." "Would you like a drink, Mateo?" "No, later. Call de Sola again. Tell him to hurry up. I'm going to the Mexican Embassy. I have to leave an envelope with the secretary. I'll be back in less than an hour." "Bueno." The Spaniard walked to the door with Hall. "There has been a good change in you, Mateo," he said. "I remember the day when such a blow would have sent you off like a wild bull. It is better to fight them back the new way, no?" "You should know, Colonel Iglesias. You should know." Hall stopped off at a bar on the way to his hotel for a quick double brandy to steady his nerves. The manager of the Jefferson avoided Hall's eyes when he handed the attachÉ case back to him. "The seÑor will notice that the seal is unbroken?" he asked. "It is a new seal," Hall said. "But be tranquil. I was present at Secret Police Headquarters when the seal was broken. And please tell your clerk that I am not angry with him." He put the case under his arm and took a cab to the Mexican Embassy. There was more bad news when Hall returned to the Casa. The files of Franco publications kept by Doctor Nazario at the University had also failed to produce the needed picture of Ansaldo. And a messenger from Eduardo Sanchez had brought for Hall a copy of the first AP bulletin from San Hermano. Hall read the bulletin aloud for Santiago and Rafael. "The wily bastard!" he said, reading how Gamburdo had decreed six days of official mourning and a national election on the seventh day following Tabio's death. "'As our beloved Educator's chosen deputy and successor, I can promise the people of the Republic a continuation of the peace which was ours under Don Anibal's wise leadership. I can promise that any warmongers who would destroy this great blessing left to the nation by Don Anibal will immediately feel the wrath of the government. It was Anibal Tabio's last wish that our Republic be spared from suffering the ravages of a war that is neither of our making nor of our choosing.'" "I hate politicos," Rafael said. "They are a stench in the nostrils of decent people." "Tabio was a politico, too," Santiago said, sharply. "What else does it say, Mateo?" "It says that the Radicals and the Nationals have already nominated Gamburdo. The Progressives and the Communists are meeting this afternoon to select Lavandero as their candidate, and the Socialists are asking both candidates for guarantees against Bolshevism before making up their minds. The Traditional Nationalist Action Party—that's the Cross and the Sword—are out a hundred per cent for Gamburdo." "What the hell are the Socialists stalling for?" Rafael shouted. "Where are their brains?" "You mean," Santiago answered, gently, "where is their socialism?" "Listen to this," Hall said. "'The body of the President will lie in state for six days in the Great Hall of Congress. Acting President Gamburdo has ordered a hand-picked elite corps of army and navy officers to maintain a twenty-four-hour watch over the bier.' An elite corps for Don Anibal! "And listen to this: 'In the name of the Republic, Acting President Gamburdo thanked the noted surgeon, Varela Ansaldo, for his last-hour effort to save the life of the late President, and announced that he would recommend to the Congress that Dr. Ansaldo and his assistant, Dr. Marina, be given formal decorations. Gamburdo revealed that Ansaldo, who came to San Hermano at his urgent pleas, left the mourning capital at noon on the first leg of a flying voyage to Lisbon where he is to perform a delicate operation on a prominent jurist.'" "They got away!" Rafael said. "It's not so bad," Hall said. "That is, it won't be if ..." "Of course, Mateo. If we can pin the arrows on Ansaldo after this statement," Santiago said, "it will be very hard for Gamburdo to explain to anyone. Especially since you have that picture of Gamburdo at the secret Falange dinner." "I have more than that. I have a copy of the report the Inspector General of the Falange made about Gamburdo at that dinner, and it's written on official stationery. We've just got to get more on Ansaldo!" "Are you still against raiding the Embassy, Rafael?" "I changed my mind. When do we do it? Tonight?" "I hope so, Rafael, you'll have to find Dr. MorÉ. I think you'll catch him in at the clinic now. Tell him to get Rivas and bring him to his own house in Vedado." Hall took out his wallet. "Here, Rafael, you'll need money for taxis." "Are you crazy, Mateo? This is a hundred-peso note." "You'll also need a new suit. They won't let you into the Spanish Embassy in those clothes." "I'll buy my own clothes!" "Rafael," Santiago said, gently, "Hall is our compaÑero." The boy began to blush. "I am sorry," he stammered, "but it is not my way to accept such offers." "I don't offer it to a man," Hall said. "I gave it to an officer of the People's Army. It is money intended to aid that army in its fight." "Hurry up, Rafael," Santiago said. "We will argue after we get out of the Embassy—if we get out." "I've got to see Lobo," Hall said when Rafael left. "I've got to tell him to ask the American Intelligence Service to check on Ansaldo's movements in Lisbon. I don't think he is going to operate on any Portuguese jurist or anyone else in Lisbon." "You'll make a fool of yourself, Mateo. You're not dealing with stupid Spanish fascists like Franco and Gil Robles. You're dealing with the German Nazis who run the Falange. I know them. They're too smart not to have a patient waiting in bed for Ansaldo when he gets to Lisbon. Why don't you see Lobo after our conference with Rivas? In the meanwhile, I'd better get statements from de Sola and Carlos Echagaray on Ansaldo and Marina." Meeting Fernando Rivas in the home of the Cuban doctor, Hall was reminded of what an acid-tongued Czech journalist said to him at Geneva about Chautemps, a French politician. There was nothing wrong with the politician, the Czech said, except that he had the face of a traitor. In a city where the sun always shined, Rivas had the pallor of a skin which never saw the sun. He sat tensely at the edge of the chair in MorÉ's study, hands working a battered Panama, his puffy eyes darting furtive looks at Rafael and Hall, men he had never seen before but whom he obviously suspected of being agents of the Republican underground. Hall thought: this is a man who can no longer know hate or love or anything but fear. It was Santiago's show. He ran it on his own terms. From the outset, he made it clear that he, or rather the Republic for which he spoke, was giving the orders. They were given decently, temperately, but not without the proof that force lay behind the commands. Rivas was to address him as Colonel. "And these," he said, indicating Rafael and Hall, "are my aides, Majors Juan and Pancho." "What is it you want of me, Colonel? There is nothing I would not do for you." "For whom?" "For the—for the Republic." "What Republic?" "The Republic of Spain. The Republic of the Constitution of 1931." "And why should the Republic trust you now, Rivas?" "There is no reason, Colonel. I can ask only in the name of my family." Rafael had seen the older brother of Rivas die charging a German battery near Bilbao. "It is not your privilege," he said. "I knew your brother." Hall laid a restraining hand on his arm. "You betrayed your family when you betrayed your people," Santiago said, softly. "It is not good enough. I must have a better reason." "State your own terms," Rivas said. "I will meet them." "Why?" The traitor took out a silk handkerchief, mopped his face. He suddenly seemed to grow, to straighten his back. His head held high, he looked each man proudly in the eyes. A moment earlier, his hands, his lips had been quivering. Now they were firm and still. "Why?" he repeated in a new, stronger voice. "Why?" He was fighting for one last chance, fighting with his remaining reserve of dignity. "I'll tell you why, my Colonel. Because I don't care whether I live or not. But I want to die as a Spaniard, as a free man again. I want to die as a Republican. Is that reason enough?" Colonel Santiago Iglesias was not a cruel person. He hated to play cat and mouse with a human being, even with such as Rivas. But his first responsibilities were to the Republic. "I hardly think so," he said, speaking as an officer, although as a man he knew that Rivas had stated a good reason, because he knew the reason to be true. "I hardly think so, Rivas," he said. "Merely because the wife of a man who betrayed the Republic turns out to be a whore is no reason for the Republic to love him more." Fernando Rivas bent forward, as if he were trying to ward off a heavy series of blows. "No," he said. "It is not reason enough." The thin body of Rafael Abelando shook with silent laughter for a moment, and then it became still. The young major turned to Santiago, his face filled with a sudden pity for the wreck of a man in the chair. Hall caught the look, too, the admission of something Rafael would have died rather than say out loud. The boy was ready to give the traitor Rivas his last chance. It was the moment Santiago had been waiting for; without Rafael's implicit confidence in his plan, he had all but decided to call it off. "What do you think, Pancho?" Hall nodded agreement. "And you, Major?" "The hell with what I think. I'll do my thinking later. If he comes through, I'll tell you what I think. If he funks out on us, I'll slit his throat." "All right, Rivas," Santiago said. "We will give you your chance. We need your help tonight." "Shall I come armed? I am an expert marksman, Colonel." "No. We shall carry the arms. You shall carry the key—or the keys. We want to get into the third floor of the Embassy, and we want to get out alive—and without shooting. Can it be done?" Rivas raised his head, stared into the faces of the three men who held open the gates of the Republic. "I am willing," he said. "It might take some planning, gentlemen, but it can be done." He held out his hand to Santiago. The colonel accepted it. "I am glad you are with us," Santiago said. "In a sense, you are the most fortunate of the four of us. You see, Rivas, if we should all get killed tonight, yours would be the most lasting memorial." "But why me, Colonel?" Santiago picked a heavy manila envelope up from the floor. He took out the photographs of the memoir on Franco's Spain that Rivas had written in his own hand. "You see," he said, "if we should all die tonight, the Casa de la Cultura will publish your excellent memoir—with a postscript about your heroic sacrifice." "But how?" Rivas gasped. "Where?" "You are surprised, Rivas? Please let me assure you that there are many of us. We are everywhere where they are. Claro?" "I understand." For a fleeting moment Rivas had been back with the Republic, a free man among free men. Now he was again a prisoner, but with two jailers—Franco and the Republic. Now the Republic could force the other to destroy him. "Yes," he said, "I understand." The Republic, he knew, gave him his choice of executioners or his opportunity to fight for his freedom. "Well?" "I am grateful," he said. "I am grateful for the chance to belong to the Republic again." "Good. We must plan. Shall we drink on it?" There was a decanter of Scotch whisky on Dr. MorÉ's sideboard. Santiago filled four glasses to the brim, then called for and filled a fifth glass. "It is for the other who will be with us tonight," he said. Eduardo was getting the affidavit on Ansaldo from the exile in Marianao. "To the Republic!" Hall watched Rivas drink his Scotch in one greedy, hysterical gulp. He quietly filled the man's glass, shoved the bottle toward him. Rivas downed the second Scotch, reached for the bottle, then changed his mind as his hand was in mid-air. "Paper," Rivas said. "The desk. I must draw a floor plan of the Embassy." At eleven o'clock, Rivas let Santiago and his three friends into the Spanish Embassy through the rear door. At ten-thirty, a large but unscheduled military parade started winding through the streets of Old Havana. No one seemed to know what the parade was about, but the soldiers in the ranks thought that it had something to do with a surprise party being given to General Jaime Lobo to celebrate his promotion in rank. It was his old regiment which had been called out at nine that night and ordered into parade formation. At ten forty-five, the paraders were halted for some reason, and the General's runners motorcycled down along the line of march and told the bandmasters to keep on playing the liveliest of tunes. The order reached the second band in the line just as it stopped in front of the Spanish Embassy. A crowd gathered to listen to the band and watch the parade. Santiago, Hall, Rafael and Eduardo casually detached themselves from this crowd at precisely eleven. Rivas led them quietly up the back stairs. The blare of the brasses, the booming of the drums, the crashing of the cymbals penetrated every corner of the Embassy. "God is with us," he said. "The noise is wonderful." Hall bit his tongue. A fat lot God had to do with it! He was crawling behind Santiago, the Swiss automatic in the right hand cocked at his hip. Eduardo was behind him, and ahead of Rafael. "Third floor," he whispered. "We turn left at the head of the stairs and climb three steps." Santiago pulled out his gun as they approached the third-floor landing. He allowed Rivas to get a few steps ahead of him, to take the three steps which led to the library. "Go in with Rivas," he whispered to Hall. "You too, Eduardo." They followed Rivas into the dark room. He was standing near a draped wall, motioning to them to follow him quietly. "Behind the drape," he said. Eduardo closed in next to him. He frisked him for hidden knives or guns. "Don't move," he said. Santiago joined Eduardo and Hall. "Rafael is covering the door," he said. He motioned to Rivas to approach the drape. Eduardo remained at the traitor's heels, the gun in Rivas's back. Hall knew what to do. He waited until Santiago flattened himself out against the wall which paralleled the drape, then he quickly drew the cloth to one side. He found himself facing a large steel cabinet built into the wall. "Open." Santiago's fingers twirled an imaginary dial before his nose. "Open it, Rivas." The frightened man who was both host and hostage raised his hand slowly, fingered the dial, dropped his hand in disgust. He dried his sopping fingers against the front of his jacket, tried again. The tumblers of the lock rose and fell; the lock remained closed. Santiago slowly released the safety catch of his pistol. "What passes?" he asked. "Ssh," Rivas pleaded. "I'll try it again." "Wait." Hall held a small bottle of brandy up to Rivas's face. "Take a drink. It will steady your hands." "Many thanks." "Open it." "It's coming, Colonel." Santiago looked at the luminous dial of his wrist watch; eight minutes gone. The band would not be under the window all night. He beckoned to Hall. "That white door near the window, Mateo. He says you will find the Arribas in there perhaps." "I'll try it." "He's opened the steel door," Eduardo said. "Keep him covered." Santiago stepped in front of Rivas, opened the door as wide as it would swing. He faced a multitude of locked steel drawers. "Let me," Eduardo said. He changed places with Santiago. He was good at picking such picayune locks; the concentration camp on the Isle of Pines was full of native fascists whose careers ended when Eduardo jimmied open the locks that protected their secrets. He could crack them open swiftly, almost noiselessly. "There's one," he whispered. "Two." "He has a talent," Santiago said to Rivas. Hall glided over to the white door of the closet. Like the others, he wore soft-soled rubber shoes. He took a small oil can from his pocket, saturated the hinges and the handle of the white door. Slowly, he opened the wooden door. A book balanced precariously on an upper shelf behind the door started to fall. He grabbed it with his left hand. A rash of invisible pimples spread over his scalp. Too much noise that time, even though the book didn't fall. He held his breath, counted to twenty. The band was still blaring, the drums pounding away. Good old God! He ran the slim beam of the dime-store flashlight over the shelves. Informaciones, A.B.C., ah, here, Arriba! He turned to signal to Santiago that he had found it, but the colonel had again changed places with Eduardo, was now emptying documents from the little steel drawers to the inside of his shirt. Rafael, standing guard at the doorway, wildly signaled Hall to get to work on the files. He pointed vigorously to the non-existent watch on his narrow wrist. Hall dug into the Arriba pile. He pulled the top of the 1938 batch to the floor, sat down in front of them. April. May. June. Not here. Impossible! He sneaked the remainder of the brandy into his throat. Once again. April. He looked at Santiago, working calmly; light flickering over the papers in the drawers, eyes selecting the wheat from the chaff. The problem is April. It happened in April, 1938. Easy does it. April One. April Two. Three. Four. Seven. Nine. No. No. Not yet. Santiago was in the middle of the room, his hands crammed with papers. He beckoned to Rafael, stuffed batches of papers into the major's shirt. "Got the bastard!" Hall said. He forgot to whisper. He climbed to his feet, a yellowing newspaper in his hands. "Got it!" A door opened on the floor above. "Rivas?" someone on the fourth-floor landing called. Rafael was still in the room. Santiago held his shoulder, shook his head. Stay here, he motioned. He signaled for Rivas, handed him his own gun. He pointed to the third-floor landing, smiled at the man. The four men in the room covered the back of Fernando Rivas as he advanced toward the landing, the warm gun gripped firmly in his sweaty hand. They watched him stick his head out of the door, say, hoarsely, "Yes. It's all right," the gun hidden behind his thigh. "What's all the noise?" Fourth Floor again. "Parade." "What are you doing there?" No suspicion—just conversation. Anyone could see Fourth Floor only meant conversation. Anyone but Rivas. To a man, the four behind Rivas prayed he would stall off the man above him with a polite nothing. "None of your business, you fascist pig!" Over and above all the noises of the city, of the band on the corner, of the hearts thumping in the breasts of the four men in the room there fell a whining silence which was both hours long and seconds short. Then the silence was shattered by the crashing explosions of two heavy pistols. "Let me." Rafael ran to the doorway, flattened out against the wall. His eyes took in the prone body of Rivas at the landing and the heap of man sprawled on the stairs. Rivas was dead. His gun lay near his head. The man on the stairs still held onto his gun. Rafael reached behind him for the silent weapon, the weapon you used on lone forays into enemy territory, on guards in concentration camps. The knife flashed over his head, pinned the hand with the pistol to the wooden stairs. Behind the knife flew Rafael. Once again the blade was raised, this time with a hand still on it as it descended. Eduardo pulled Hall's sleeve. "Quick," he said. "The stairs. Follow me." "All right," Rafael said to the dead Rivas, "now you're a Republican." The watch on Santiago's wrist read 11.29 when Rafael, the last man to leave, melted into the crowd around the band. People on the sidewalk could hear feet pounding heavily through the large empty rooms of the Embassy. Lights were going on in all the dark windows. Yells. A woman's scream. At the head of the parade, a baton twirled. The uniforms started to move forward. The crowd on the sidelines followed the band. Later, sitting in Lobo's office, the mass of documents from the shirts of Santiago and Eduardo and Rafael on the desk before the general, Hall remembered his outcry when he found the picture of Ansaldo and the Axis officers giving the fascist salute. My "got it!" got poor Rivas, he thought. I'm still an amateur at it. Santiago was good; found dynamite, but he kept his mouth shut. Eduardo was good; cracked the locks and kept his mouth shut. Rafael was good; finished off the bastard from the Fourth Floor in seconds, and remembered to use a knife, and kept his mouth shut until it was all over. Funny the way he stood over what remained of Rivas and said, "All right, now you're a Republican." Mocking, yet respectful. It was good; no forgiveness for the dead man's treachery but respect for his insane courage. "It was a nice band concert, yes?" Lobo said. "Plenty of bim bam boom in the drums. Tsing! Tsing! Cymbals. Tarantara, tarantara." "Sure." "I'm a one-man band, eh, keed?" "Colossal." "What's eating you, Matt? That little slob who killed himself with his big mouth?" "It was my fault, Jaime. It was my big mouth." The General picked up a fistful of the documents which had cost the life of Fernando Rivas. "What the hell is his life worth compared to the lives of the hundreds of American seamen who now won't be sent to the bottom by Nazi torpedoes in the South Atlantic? I'll say it again, Matt, and if you'd stick around long enough, I could prove it. By tomorrow morning I'll have at least twenty mucking bastards in the calabozo thanks to what's in these papers; twenty fascist snakes who are the eyes and the ears and the oil and the water of the Nazi subs in this part of the ocean. You did it—and at the cost of only one second-rate life. Isn't it worth it?" Hall was going through the documents on the desk. Bombshells, most of them.
"Photograph these, will you, Jaime?" Lobo was sorting out the documents in rough piles. Sabotage. Espionage. Undersea warfare. Guantanamo. Cuban politics. "The works," he grinned. "In a week, this haul will have crammed our prisons with fascist rats. If we didn't have to avoid treading on the toes of your State Department these documents would be enough to put the Spanish Ambassador in the calabozo and bring about a break with Franco. But even if it happens, you won't be around to see it, Matt. You're leaving in exactly four hours." "Four hours?" "Just a minute. That's my private phone. Yes, General Lobo speaking." He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Pick up the other phone. It's the Spanish Ambassador." "O.K." "Yes, Mr. Ambassador?" "General! Something terrible has happened." "Terrible?" "There's been a murder in the Embassy. Someone broke into the Embassy and shot one of our attachÉs. Communists, I think." "Is he dead? When did this all happen?" "Five minutes ago." Hall and Lobo looked at the wall clock. The hands showed ten minutes after one. "Five minutes or hours, Mr. Ambassador?" "Minutes, General. It just happened." "Where did it happen?" "On the stairs. The back stairs, between the third and fourth floors. It is terrible." "Who is the man?" "Elicio Portada, General Lobo. Poor Portada!" "Just a minute." He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Listen to those lies, will you? Only one body. Three hours to dispose of the Rivas carcass and search the files. Did you leave them in much of a mess, Matt?" "I don't remember." "It doesn't matter." The hand came away from the phone. "Hello. Yes, this is still General Lobo. Mr. Ambassador, I have very serious news for you. As the representative of a friendly neutral, I am sure we can count on your co-operation." "What is it, General?" "We happen to have incontrovertible evidence that the late Elicio Portada was connected with a Nazi-Falange ring in direct contact with German submarine fleets in these waters. My immediate deduction is that he was killed by members of this ring to keep him from confessing to us. He was on the verge of making a complete confession." "What? It is preposterous! I shall protest to the Foreign Minister!" "Suit yourself, seÑor. Our evidence is incontrovertible. In the meanwhile, thanks to your attitude as you now express it. I must remind you that while the crime was committed on what is legally Spanish territory, if you move the body one inch out of the Embassy grounds you will be moving it on to Cuban national territory. Do you understand me? Not one body is to be moved out of the Embassy without my consent. Not one body, do you understand?" "My government shall protest your interference, General Lobo." "Let them. I'm sending two men over to the Embassy. Tell them what happened. And make up a list of all of Portada's friends. We'll find the murderer on that list, I'll warrant." He hung up the telephone with a slam. "Let him sleep that off," he laughed. "My super-dooper crime laboratory will prove that the Ambassador lied about the time of the shooting. My super-sleuths will find bloodstains on the third-floor landing—and I hope to Christ Rivas has a different blood type than Portada. My super-sleuths will keep a straight face when the fascists hand them the gun of the missing murderer. Then my colossal courtesy-of-the-F.B.I. crime laboratory will find Rivas's fingerprints on the gun. Mystery: where is Rivas?" "Have you got his fingerprints?" "Teniente," Lobo shouted into the inter-phone, "send those Einsteins of crime to the home of Fernando Rivas of the Spanish Embassy. Bring back fingerprints: best place to find them is liquor bottle, razor, hair brush—and do it fast." "Good going." "I'll teach that fascist bastard to tell me nursery tales on the telephone at one in the morning." Lobo was growing genuinely indignant. "God, how I wish you didn't have to leave town, Matt. I'm going to be running a circus for the next two weeks!" "I'll take a rain check on it, Jaime. Maybe I can come back in time for the closing day." "Who knows?" Lobo sent for his aide, ordered microfilm copies of the documents to be ready in four hours. "And bring me the special belts and harnesses, Teniente." "Did you get me a seat on a Panair plane? I thought Figueroa would take care of that." "Better than that, my boy." Lobo crossed the room, opened a panel in the wall. It revealed a closet filled with uniforms. "Get into one that fits, Mateo. I have a seat for you on a Flying Fortress headed for Caracas." "Yanqui?" "Yanqui. You're traveling as Major Angel Blanco of my confidential staff. You are going south for me on a most delicate mission. You speak very little English, and you stink from pomade. Besides, you wear these thick glasses and you've been out on such a night of wild Latin debauchery that you sleep most of the time. In short, you are the Anglo-Saxon's dream of the stupid, conceited, lecherous Latin officer who can't hold his liquor." "Claro. I'm repulsive." "Yes, but you are also a walking microfilm file, only no one knows it. Your belt, your Sam Browne harness, the lining of your short boots, the inside of the visor of your cap are filled with identical sets of microfilms. Your pouch carries a letter from me to a General XYZ in code—and God preserve the sanity of anyone who attempts to uncode it. It will add up to precisely three tons of mierda de caballo." Hall found a uniform that fit him. He got into it, smeared the proffered pomade into his black hair. "Do I carry any baggage?" "We'll pack you a bag. Two extra uniforms, pictures of your wife, your mistress, and your mother, a pound of pomade, a few copies of the Infantry Journal—it will be all right." "I can imagine. But before I go, Jaime, there's something I don't quite get. Why did the Spanish Embassy crowd have to hide Rivas's body? Why couldn't they admit that he did it?" Lobo adjusted Hall's tunic. "Elementary, my dear Watson," he said. "The Portada blighter was sleeping with the Rivas bloke's wife. It's the Ambassador's job to avoid scandals within the happy family. Admitting Rivas killed Portada over a rag, a bone, and a hank o' hair would be a confession the Ambassador couldn't run his own show. Elementary?" "No. You're improvising, and the notes sound all wrong. Let me know about it when you really find out, Sherlock." "Come back in two weeks." General Lobo yawned, stretched his long frame. "I'll take you to the American air base myself," he said. "I'll introduce you and act as your interpreter. And after you take off, you'll be on your own. Who's meeting you in Caracas, by the way?" "Major Diego Segador. Know him?" Lobo smiled. "You'll get through," he said. "Segador has nine lives, each of them tougher than the side of a battleship. Ask him to tell you what we did to those three Nazi heavyweights in San Souci in '39. Madre de Dios, Mateo, it was carnage!" Twenty steps down the corridor, a Negro technician was focusing a sharp lens on page three of Arriba for April 27, 1938. The picture which spread across four columns of the top of the page was remarkably like the picture Hall had carried in his mind since that day with Jerry in San Hermano. The fans in the negative dryer were whirring over twenty-odd other negatives. Lobo was right, Hall realized. They were worth the life of one Rivas, they might yet take the life of a Hall. The stakes were worth the risk. Kill the beast in San Hermano, drive a knife into its arteries, keep it from crawling north and its foul breath beginning to stink up the clean air. Kill, so you can live again, kill, so you can go back to Ohio when the beast was dead, and have children and not worry that some day they'd have to kill or be killed too. Kill for the same reasons the Rafaels and the Santiagos and the Lobos kill and you'll never have to lose a night's sleep. "What are you thinking, Mateo?" "I'm thinking of the girl I'm going to marry in two weeks." "Hijo de la gran puta! He's in love, too! Let's go to the laboratory. We've got a lot to do before you go." |
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