"Suspected by the Argentine authorities, you mean?" von Lutzenberger interrupted.
"Yes, Sir. They were suspected of attempting to interfere with neutral shipping, specifically with a Swedish merchant vessel, the Sundsvall, which was anchored in the Bahfa Samboromb?n while conducting repairs to one of its engines."
(The Rio de la Plata, which empties into the South Atlantic Ocean, separates Argentina from Uruguay. The mouth of the river, which is defined as a line between Punta Norte del Cabo San Antonio, Argentina, and Punta del Este, Uruguay, is approximately 160 miles wide. The Bay of Samboromb?n lies just inside this line.)
"Where exactly in the Bay?" von Lutzenberger asked. "Approximately thirty kilometers east of Pipinas, Your Excellency," Gradny-Sawz said. "The Americans, or so the story goes, were about to attempt to sabotage the Sundsvall to blow a hole in her hull. To this end, they acquired a small motorboat. Their activities came to the attention of the Argentinean Navy, and a patrol boat was sent to locate them. The Americans refused orders to heave to, and a warning shot was fired. Unfortunately, the gunner's aim was off, and the warning shot hit their vessel and sank it."
"But there has been no official report of this incident?"
"I would ascribe that, Your Excellency, to Argentinean pride. It would be embarrassing for them to publicly acknowledge that their gunnery is not what it should be. And unfortunately, there were no survivors."
"You're sure of that?" von Lutzenberger asked.
"My sources inform me, Your Excellency, that a search of the area was made and no survivors were found. I doubt if there will be."
Von Lutzenberger grunted.
"And do your sources confirm what the First Secretary has told me, Herr Oberst?"
"Yes, Sir. The details are essentially the same."
"And do you both confirm that no one can connect these unfortunate events with anyone at the embassy?"
"I very much doubt if anything like that will happen, Your Excellency," Gradny-Sawz said.
"Herr Oberst?"
"I think that the Argentineans and the Americans will both try to forget this incident as quickly as possible."
"And, Herr Oberst, did your sources tell you whether these three unfortunates might be employed by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation or their Office of Strategic Services?"
"It seems, Your Excellency," Gr?ner said, "that they were connected with the OSS."
Von Lutzenberger looked at Gradny-Sawz, who nodded.
"Pity," von Lutzenberger said. "If we could have tied them to the 'Legal Affairs Office' of the U.S. Embassy, we could almost certainly have had several people expelled as persona non grata. And what of the ship? The Sundsvall?"
"I believe that once her engines were repaired, she sailed the following morning."
"And her master made no report of this incident?"
Her master probably decided the less he had to with the Argentinean authorities, the better," Gradny-Sawz said.
"Then she won't be coming back?"
"She is to be replaced, Sir," Gr?ner replied. "She was in these waters for almost two months; her stores were nearly exhausted."
"The Bay of Samboromb?n is quite wide and quite empty. I would like to know how these Americans located the ship," von Lutzenberger said. "Do you think someone in the Argentinean Navy, or elsewhere in the government, told them?"
"I don't think that's possible," Gradny-Sawz said, almost indignantly.
"Anything is possible, my dear Anton," von Lutzenberger said. "Since we know that people in the Argentinean military services and their government will confide in you matters they perhaps should not, I think we have to presume, don't you, that there are people in the same places who talk to Americans about things they probably should not talk about."
"There are even, my dear Gradny-Sawz," Colonel Gr?ner said, "some Argentineans, in and out of the government, who hope for an Anglo-American victory."
Gradny-Sawz gave him a cold look, but did not reply.
"If there's nothing else, gentlemen?" von Lutzenberger asked, looked at the two of them, and then added, "Thank you for your time."
[TWO]
The Monteleone Hotel
New Orleans, Louisiana
0730 9 November 1942
Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, CE, AUS, late of the 82nd Airborne Division, was shaving when he heard the knock at his hotel room door. He was taking special care. Today, officers of the U.S. Navy were going to teach him something about ships and about blowing them up, or at least sinking them. He suspected they would know that he was an Army officer, even if he was in civilian clothing. All the same, he wanted to look like an officer and a gentleman.
He was still smarting about how he looked when he first arrivedno goddamned socks, and a goddamned zipper jacket, for Christ's sake! Especially when Sergeant Ettinger was wearing a suit that made him look like a banker. And Lieutenant Frade after showing up at the railroad station in his cowboy suit looked like an advertisement in Esquire magazine.
Tony, who was naked, wrapped a towel around his waist, then walked to the door and opened it. He stood behind it so no one would see him wearing only a towel.
"This is for you, Sir," a bellman said, and handed him a twine-wrapped paper package that looked like something you would get back from a Chinese laundry.
"Just a minute," Tony said, then went to the bed and slid his hand between the mattress and the box spring and pulled out his wallet. He took a dollar bill from the wallet and gave it to the bellman.
After he closed the door, he carried the package to the bed and sat down, making sure that he didn't sit on his new tweed sports coat and gray flannel pants that he had laid out to wear. Though it was not what he originally picked out, he liked the clothing more now than when he first bought it. Lieutenant Frade "suggested" then that he buy what he did. He was the commanding officer of the team, so Tony went along. Now he was glad he did.
For the first time, Tony saw a sheet of hotel notepaper stuck inside the twine on the package. He took it out and unfolded it:
Pelosi, put this stuff on, and meet me in the dining room at 7:45. A.
A.stood for Adams, one of the three mentors sent down from Virginia. Tony now understood that the word meant something like teacher or counselor; it was just like the OSS to use a word that nobody understood. Adams was somewhere in his thirties, a slight, bright-eyed man who had been an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Idaho. When Tony asked him how he'd wound up in the OSS, Adams replied, "That's not really any of your business, is it, Pelosi?"
Tony opened the drawer in the bedside table, took out his pocket-knife, cut the twine, and unwrapped the package. It contained a pair of blue dungarees, a canvas jacket with a corduroy collar, a navy-blue woolen turtleneck sweater, a woolen knit cap, long-john underwear, heavy woolen socks, and a pair of work shoes. Each item of clothing was marked somewhere with "USN." It was, Tony realized, the Navy equivalent of Army fatigue clothing.
And then he realized it was Navy enlisted men's work clothing. He'd heard somewhere that in the Navy, officers didn't wear work clothing, because it was below the dignity of a Navy officer to get his hands dirty.
How the hell am I going to look like an officer and a gentleman if I have to wear this Navy enlisted man's shit?
He didn't like what he saw in the mirror when he had put on the clothing. And when he walked into the Monteleone Hotel dining room in the Navy fatigues, he got a dirty look from the headwaiter.