"We happen to have incontrovertible evidence that the late Elicio Portada was connected with a n.a.z.i-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, senor. Our evidence is incontrovertible. In the meanwhile, thanks to your att.i.tude 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 Emba.s.sy 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 Emba.s.sy 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 Emba.s.sy. 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 Amba.s.sador 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 Emba.s.sy. 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d to tell me nursery tales on the telephone at one in the morning." Lobo was growing genuinely indignant.

"G.o.d, 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 doc.u.ments 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 gla.s.ses 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 G.o.d 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 Emba.s.sy 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 Amba.s.sador'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 Amba.s.sador 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 n.a.z.i 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."

_Chapter seventeen_

The American Army plane banked sharply over the blacked-out Caracas field. Three times the four-motored ship circled the airport, breaking its speed, rousing the men who controlled the lights along the correct runways. During the second time around, Hall thought he saw a Douglas with the bright green-and-white flag on its wings. He was not so sure the third time.

The pilot brought his ship in gently. It rolled down the new concrete strip, a silver juggernaut in a cloud of red dust. Hall climbed out, gave the captain a silver cigarette case as a souvenir of the trip. The plane was not through for the night; it was to take on more fuel and proceed to a base farther south.

Hall went to the small operations building. He showed his papers to a sleepy official, had his pa.s.sport stamped. "That Douglas on the other end of the field," he said to the official, "is that the plane from San Hermano?"

The official didn't know. He offered to find out. "It is not of importance," Hall said. He left his bag with the official. "I will be ready to go to the city as soon as the American plane takes off. Is that car for me?"

He went out to the field, stood chatting with the American flying officers as they stretched their legs and smoked while their plane was readied for the next leg of their flight. The boys were an agreeable surprise, or they had a C. O. with brains; each of them spoke some degree of Spanish, and to a man they were polite to the "Cuban officer"

who had made the trip with them. It was a decent, non-condescending politeness.

"I am going to ask General Lobo to thank you all for your kindness," he said. "You are, as they say in English, _d.a.m.n regular guys_!"

The young captain, who had given Hall his life history and his Seattle home address, was touched. "Aw," he said, "we're just ordinary Yanks, Major Blanco. Don't forget to look me up if you ever get to Seattle after the war. Then I'll show you some real hospitality. _Entiende?_"

"Oh, I understand perfectly, Captain. And you must visit me, too. You can always reach me through General Lobo." Hall, who had calmly appropriated the story of Lobo's boyhood and palmed it off on the captain as his own during the flight, began to laugh. "Oh, yes, Captain," he said, "we will have the most amazing reunion after the war."

"Well," the American pilot said, "we're shoving off now."

Hall exchanged salutes and handshakes with the Fortress crew. "_Hasta p.r.o.nto_," he shouted, as the last man climbed aboard. He remained where he stood, waving at the Americans, when he saw the outlines of Segador's thick shoulders emerging from the lighted doorway of the administration building. Segador was walking toward the Douglas.

He approached Hall, glanced at the Cuban uniform for a second, and continued on his way to the parked plane. There was no hint of recognition.

"Pardon me," Hall said to Segador, "have you a match, please?"