"But you're sticking it out, aren't you?"

"I have to. I've been in it since Madrid. There's no escaping it for me.

I'll never know any peace until the crime of Spain is liquidated.

Fascism isn't just an ideological enemy for me, baby. It's a cancer burning in my own, my very personal guts. I'd go off my conk if mine weren't two of the billion fists that are smashing and will go on smashing back at fascism until it's deader than Willie Androtten. I've never stopped to think of what my chances are of being alive at the finish. All I know is that if I stopped fighting it I'd die."

"Let me stay," Jerry pleaded. "I'd be a liar if I said that's the way I felt, too. But the war came to me this morning at the end of Androtten's gun, darling. I can't escape it any more than you can now."

They had an early dinner with Gonzales and his daughter, avoiding all serious discussion until Lavandero arrived. The Minister of Education brought grim news: Anibal Tabio had suffered a second stroke and was dying.

"Where is Ansaldo?" Hall asked.

"He is still on the ranch of Gamburdo's brother. He is waiting for an answer to his ultimatum. Don Anibal's condition is still a secret."

"But Esteban," Gonzales said, "we cannot keep it a secret. You will be accused of murdering Don Anibal if Gamburdo finds out."

"I know. I've asked Segador to come. I wanted to bring Simon Tabio, but he refuses to leave the room while his father still breathes. What do you think, _Companero_ Hall? What is the first thing we have to do? By the way, does the senorita speak Spanish?"

"No. I will tell her what she should know later."

"Is she reliable?"

"I hope to marry her--if I am alive in three weeks."

Jerry looked at Hall's face and blushed. "I'll bet you just told him about us," she said.

"My felicitations," Lavandero said, in English. He gave her his hand.

"But with your permission, we must speak in Spanish."

Hall told Lavandero and Gonzales his plan about Havana. "I was going to do it in any event if Duarte didn't hear from his friends in Mexico."

"But why Havana?"

"Because Havana was the base headquarters in the Western Hemisphere for all Falangist work. The boys in the Casa de la Cultura and on the staff of _Ahora_ worked with the Batista government to break it up. They arrested the key leaders, but even though they had to let them go back to Spain, they took their confidential files away from them."

"And you think that Ansaldo will turn up in these files?"

"It is something we must not overlook."

"There is someone at the door," Gonzales said. "Wait." He slipped the safety of the automatic in his pocket, and went to the door with his hand on the gun.

"Be tranquil," Gonzales announced. "It is Diego."

The Major Diego Segador who walked into the room was quite a different creature from the mournful-visaged officer in the neat uniform Hall had met at the barracks. He wore a gray civilian suit, whose jacket was at least four sizes too small for his broad frame, yellow box-toe shoes and an incongruous striped silk shirt. The discolored flat straw hat he carried in his tremendous square hands completed the picture which immediately came to Hall's mind: a vision of Diego Segador as a tough steel-worker on a holiday in Youngstown, Ohio, during the twenties.

"You look," said Gonzales, "like a Gallego grocer on his way to High Ma.s.s."

"That's enough," Lavandero said sharply, "Don Anibal is dying."

The blood rose to Segador's head. "No!" he shouted.

"Sit down, Diego."

Gonzales opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of brandy. He shouted to the kitchen for his daughter to bring gla.s.ses.

"Major," Hall said, "this is Miss Olmstead."

"h.e.l.lo," Segador said, in English. "You have close shave, no?"

All the men had brandy. Jerry merely looked at the bottle with great longing.

"Well then, Diego," Lavandero said, "minutes count now. Hall has a plan.

It is a good one." He described it for the Major. "If he comes back with pictures of Ansaldo in the uniform of the Falange, we will have to flood the country with them. They will not look nice next to the pictures of Ansaldo embracing Gamburdo, no?"

"They will look very nice--for us. But how is Hall going to get to Havana?"

"By plane. Why?"

"Why? Because you are a marked man, Hall."

"Get me to the border, then. I'll get to Havana from across the border."

"Not on your pa.s.sport," Segador said. "It is too risky. Tomas, you have a pa.s.sport, no? Never mind. All right, then, Hall. You go on a pa.s.sport made out to Vicente, but with your picture on it. I'll drive you north by car. You board a plane in San Martin Province--there's one that meets the Clipper for Miami. The mining men use it. You travel to Havana as one of our nationals, one Emilio Vicente. Then the officials of your own government in San Juan won't ..." He stopped suddenly, filled his gla.s.s with brandy, and drank it in one short gulp.

"Out with it, Major," Hall said. "What are you hiding?"

"Hiding?"

"About me and my government?"

"Nothing. It's just that you are too well known as Matthew Hall. You are known by face in San Juan. Perhaps, when you land there to refuel, someone will recognize you. And then there will be trouble about your Vicente pa.s.sport. Perhaps--one cannot be too careful."

Hall knew that the Major was concealing something from him, something that had to do with himself. He thought of his low standing at the American Emba.s.sy, and of some of the fascists in high places he had offended in San Juan. "Yes," he said, "I think you are right." This, he decided, was not the time to start new trouble.

"No," Lavandero said, "it is no good. We shall need another pa.s.sport for _Companero_ Hall."

"How can we get it?" Segador asked. "There is no time."

"There is time," Lavandero said, evenly. "Duarte is preparing a pa.s.sport and papers for Hall. Diplomatic. He will travel as Victor Ortiz Tinoco, official courier of the Mexican Government."

"When did he start on the papers?" Hall asked.

"A few hours ago. He thought you might want to make the trip."

"Why didn't you tell me before this?"

Lavandero's face softened. "My dear friend," he said, "what you are undertaking is no minor task. The complications are enormous. If you are caught, you face much legal trouble at the very least; death by violence, if the fascists catch you first. You are under no obligations to this Republic. I had to hear it from your lips first."