"If we could get to her steering ... or to her engines, and had an hour or so to do it, possibly. Pelosi is very good at what he does, but..."
"But what?"
"There's no way to get close to that ship, much less get aboard her."
"You have to try."
"I'll have a shot at anything that looks like it has a chance of succeeding, but I'm not going to commit suicide."
"What did you say?"
"I said I'm not going to commit suicide. I respectfully suggest you send a message to Colonel Graham ..."
"Colonel Graham is the Deputy Director of the OSS. I have no intention of bothering him with something like this. What he expects from me, and what I expect from you, is that we carry out the mission assigned by the OSS."
"I respectfully request, Sir, that you send a message to Colonel Graham and tell him that I said there's no way to take the Reine de la Mer out with the men and materiel I have."
"It doesn't work that way, Frade," Nestor said. "We receive our orders and we carry them out to the best of our ability."
What is this "we" crap? You'll be in your office in the Bank of Boston.
"Why didn't we, or the English, sink the Reine de la Mer off Lisbon, once she was identified? Or here, as she came into the Rio de la Plata estuary? The Navy is operating in the South Atlantic. And there's even a destroyer, the Alfred Thomas, making a port call here the day before Christmas."
"Where did you hear about the Alfred Thomas?" Nestor interrupted.
"Apparently it's common knowledge."
"I asked you how you heard about it. Did Ettinger tell you?"
You don't like it that Ettinger told me about the destroyer and didn't tell you. And that I didn't tell you either. But screw that. I'm not going to let you get on Ettinger's back for that.
"No, I heard it from Enrico Mallin. Why can't this destroyer sink the Reine de la Mer?"
"It's not your business to question decisions like that, if I have to point that out to you. But the reasons seem self-evident. The Reine de la Mer is a Portuguese ship. Portugal is neutral. The United States does not torpedo neutral ships."
"But it's all right for the three of us to sink it? What's the difference? Aside from the fact that a destroyer has the capability to take it out, and we don't?" Clete asked, and then went on without waiting for a reply: "I'd like to plead my case up the chain of command."
"It doesn't work that way. You're in the OSS now. You take your orders from me, and you don't have the privilege of questioning them. What's the matter with you, Frade?"
Clete felt frustration and anger sweep through him. "I know what orders are, Mr. Nestor, and I'll" try to obey mine," he said. "All I'm asking you to do is pass the word up the chain of command. Tell them that I told you that I'll need more to take out the Reine de la Mer than good intentions and twenty pounds of explosives. A very fast powerboat, maybe. Certainly another two hundred pounds of high explosive. Or a TBF from Brazil. Something."
"A what from Brazil?"
"A TBF," Clete repeated. And then, when he realized that Nestor had no idea what a TBF was, he added, "A torpedo bomber."
"A torpedo bomber?" Nestor asked sarcastically.
"I'm a fighter pilot, but I can fly TBFs. I could go to Brazil, pick up the plane, fly it to that dirt strip we used for the airdrop in Uruguay, where Pelosi would be waiting with enough avgas to get me to the Reine de la Mer ..."
Nestor looked at him with incredulous contempt.
"... and put a torpedo in her."
Nestor shook his head sadly, as if he had failed to make a point to a backward child.
"Frade, that would be just as much an act of war as the Alfred Thomas attacking the Reine de la Mer.''
"I could then fly over my father's estancia, put the plane on a course that would carry it out over the Atlantic, and bail out," Clete said.
"And that's what you want me to suggest to my superiors?"
"Yes, Sir."
"You simply refuse to understand the situation. Sinking the Reine de la Mer with a torpedo bomber was, I am quite sure, one of the options considered. It was obviously discarded. It's out of the question. Quite impossible."
"So is doing the Reine de la Mer any harm with twenty pounds of explosive. And I will not order my men to do something that has no chance of success, and that will get them killed," Clete said. "I respectfully request that you pass that up the chain of command."
"I don't think there is any point in continuing this conversation, Lieutenant Frade," Nestor said. "You leave me no choice but to report your insubordinationif that's all it isup, as you put it, 'the chain of command.' "
"What do you mean, 'if that's all it is'?" Clete demanded, coldly angry.
"What would you call it when an officer refuses to obey an order because there is an element of personal risk involved?"
Clete pulled to the curb and slammed on the brakes.
"Get out," he ordered. "Before I punch you into next week."
Nestor looked at him in surprise, then opened the door and stepped out.
[SIX]
Avenida Alvear
Buenos Aires
1815 17 December 1942
"And here we are at the Alvear Palace Hotel," Oberst Karl-Heinz Gr?ner, military attach? of the Embassy of the German Reich to the Republic of Argentina, said quite unnecessarily to Hauptmann Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, who was residing there. "Just a few minutes' walk from the Duarte mansion."
They were both in civilian clothing, and had just come from Peter's formal introduction to Ambassador von Lutzenberger at the embassy.
"I estimate a three-minute walk, Herr Oberst," Peter said
straight-faced.
"No more, I am sure."
The military mind at work. Or an Oberst-and-higher's mind at work. My father can't park a car without a detailed operational plan. Why should this man be any different?
"It was the original intention of the Argentines to line with cavalry from the Husares de Pueyrredon both sides of Avenida Alvear from the Frade mansion to the Basilica of Saint Pilar, which is approximately a kilometer in that direction, he pointed. "I talked them out of that."
"Yes, Sir?"
The avenue will be lined from a point approximately twenty-five meters from the Duarte mansion with troops of a regular regimentthe Second Regiment of Infantry. There will be a representative honor guard of the Husares de Pueyrredon at the mansion itself. On my side, I thought it would be best, for public relations purposes, to have regular troops in field gearthey wear our helmets, you know, and are armed with Mausers, and look very much like German troops. And on their side, I suspect they were pleased at the suggestion. With that many men in those heavy winter-dress uniforms, in this heat, it was statistically certain that a number of Husares would faint and fall off their mounts."
He looked at Peter with what could have been the suggestion of a smile.
"It is always embarrassing, Herr Oberst, when men faint while on parade."
"Precisely," Gr?ner said. "I had a tactical officer at the infantry school who used to quite unnecessarily threaten us that anyone who fainted on parade would regret it."
Peter now felt quite safe in smiling at Gr?ner, and did so. Gr?ner smiled back.
"The Husares de Pueyrredon, the mounted troopers," he went on, "will line the path of the procession from the point where Avenida Alvear ends at the Recoleta Park, at the foot of this small hill." He pointed again, and resumed walking.