“So, how are my bridegrooms of death today?” he smiled.
The question was a rhetorical one. José, whose slouching by the black walnut tree had been replaced with a physical strictness of the professional soldier that he was, answered for the company.
“The Caballero Legionario are all excellent, thank you, Commander.”
Two men stepped forwarded and saluted.
“All five transports are ready, Commander. The new engines have been fitted and tested as have the new tires,” the first man explained.
“The dynamite, limpets and the magnesium flares have been tested and all are completely acceptable,” the second one stated.
“Excellent,” the taciturn Swede replied.
“Time for a dress rehearsal and then equipment check,” the Swede stated, feeling slightly odd using such a feminine term as “dress rehearsal.”
“Are there any questions about the missions?”
The silence was what the Swede wanted to hear.
The men marched out leaving José and the Swede alone in the room. The Swede opened his satchel and withdrew two envelopes, one bulging as it held 50 smaller envelopes, each containing five U.S. 100-dollar bills.
“Here are the men’s pay and your expenses. Do you need any more?”
“No, thank you, Commander, this is more than satisfactory.”
José and the Swede descended to the garage floor for the Swede’s “dress rehearsal.” For the next hour, the company presented their uniforms. First were the uniforms of two well-known private security firms. Then, a little more sinister, uniforms of track workers for the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad. Most sinister of all were the uniforms of the U.S. Navy.
From his satchel, the Swede extracted a large map, which he pinned to the wall. He took a broom and unscrewed the brush. He handed the broom handle to each of the company commanders in turn and had each Company commander explain his mission, so all 50 men understood. From time to time, the Swede grilled a soldier at random about any of the three missions. All the company had to understand all the missions so there was “depth on the bench” (he particularly liked the American football expression, one of a number he had learned while stationed at the consulate in San Francisco in the early thirties).
After the mission plan was completed, the Swede examined the buses. They were defrocked Greyhounds, externally tired but with fresh engines and new tires. The Swede had selected these buses as they were extremely common in the West of the United States and would not draw a second glance. His agents had gotten Texas license plates. Last, but by no means least, the Swede inspected the dynamite, limpets and magnesium flares cached inside the false sides of the storage area of the buses.
Satisfied, the Swede thought it time for his speech,
“Gentlemen, all of us are mercenaries and so we fight for money. But we all know it is not as simple as that. We also fight for a cause. We have all seen—most of us first-hand—the enemy ogre; you have seen how our beloved Spain was ignored by the Americans in her hour of need. Spain, the motherland for most of you and my adopted motherland (here the Swede was gilding the lily ever so slightly). This treachery cannot go unpunished. And, we few, we happy few, are blessed with the power to strike a fatal blow to show the world—and to teach the world—that Spain must never be allowed to suffer again. Without men like you, the Bolsheviks would have overrun and destroyed Spain. I earnestly pray all of you, my bridesmaids of death, return safely. The mission is a simple one, we have trained very hard for four months, and most important of all in any battle, we have the advantage of complete surprise. Kickoff is at 0600 tomorrow and I will return to greet all of you on the Tenth.”
José thought, “He may be a prick at times, but this Swede did the same training with the men, humped the same pack, and never pulled rank.”
The men nodded.
True to his word, the Swede was there on Wednesday, the tenth day of December, and he greeted each of the returning men. All 50 men returned safely—their missions had all gone off flawlessly. Train Hard, Fight Easy, the Swede had inculcated in them time and time again, and it was true; true as the dictum that Surprise Is the Greatest Weapon.
Each man had received his mission pay, and for those who stayed in Mexico, a regular stipend of 10 Franklins each month. And when the cost of the finest Mexico City whore, the very crème de la crème—young, tight, with large, soft brown doe-eyes, and a firm and enticing bust—was ten U.S. dollars, the men lived very, very well on a thousand dollars a month, or as Sasaki would have costed it, around 30 yen or about 30 American cents (assuming one-tenth of a yen for rent of the building per Franklin.)
18: The Valve Maker’s Observation
ON ARRIVAL IN OTTAWA, Schneider and Louise quietly left the train from Washington. It had been a wonderful trip so far. Earlier that afternoon they had dined on oysters, caviar, and ice-cold Dom Pérignon. Louise liked to encourage Schneider to get her drunk—it appealed to her lascivious side. She was wearing her favorite pair of patent leather nude sling backs with the black highlights on the toe. At the heel were two separate skin-colored straps rather than the traditional one, and these two independent straps made the sling backs far more comfortable to wear. Also, they made it less likely to slip off in a moment of sudden passion. As was her custom, under her knee-length silk skirt she wore just her garter belt holding up her cream-colored silk stockings. Wearing just her garter, she was completely open and available to any man; that alone made her start to lubricate—to be walking around with all these men, and virtually exposing herself. And the pleats in her light silk skirt did their part by swishing and exposing her legs. And her excitement fed on itself—the more excited she got, the more she lubricated.
She loved to be taken fully clothed and she loved to look down at her nude sling backs with the black toes still on her feet, legs splayed wide apart, while Schneider pushed deep inside her. (In a moment of unladylike sauciness, she told Schneider that she called these sling back heels her “fuck shoes.” With the effects of the champagne, she giggled like a naughty schoolgirl.)
They travelled as Mr. and Mrs. Holtz, upstanding American citizens; their passports were nicely scuffed courtesy of the forgery office in the basement of the embassy. Naturally, the customs officials did not look twice at them—in Chicago Germans made up the largest ethnic minority, and both Schneider and Louise spoke flawless English.
Schneider was posing as a Chicago economist specializing in the “Depression within the Depression,” as his typewritten paper proclaimed. To “live the legend,” as he preached to Louise—as well as to his acolytes—he held forth to her in the dining car. He had told her to emulate interest. And he droned on and on, louder than was really necessary, but it was just cover after all.
“Dear, here are the points I will make at the lecture.” (Of course, there was no lecture; Schneider was just living the legend.)
“Point One. In ’37 the unexpected consequences of the new Undistributed Profits taxes meant that companies no longer could keep rainy day funds, and so when it did inevitably rain and sales decreased, these companies had to shed employees instantly. Actually, the headline on Friday the 27th of August, 1937, in the New York Times was Levy on Profits Halts Expansion, which discussed the unexpected consequences of this tax. But you need remember, dear, most governments are run by lawyers who never imagine—and are always shocked by—the unexpected consequences of their actions; often government fiats generate precisely the opposite of what the bureaucrats expect. The Undistributed Profits tax is a perfect example.