"What else can I find here?"
"Not too much. He made a trip to Barcelona in 1937. The authorities arrested him, but his friends got the British consulate to make a special plea for his release, and the damned fools gave in and let him go. After that he went to Argentina, but he returned to Madrid in May of 1939."
The papers contained a detailed record of the fascist agent's crimes against the Republic, and ended with a clipping fromInformacionesof Madrid which revealed that Gassau-Marina was one of ten men to be decorated by the Falangist Government for distinguished service during the three years of the war. A footnote to this list said that Gassau-Marina was one of the three men decorated that day who had previously been awarded the Order of the German Eagle, Second Class, by German Ambassador to Spain, General Wilhelm von Faupel.
"This will help," Hall said. "It's a good start."
"There's my phone. Just a minute." It was Rafael. He was calling from the offices ofAhora, and he suggested that Santiago join him there.
"Let's go," Hall said. "Do we use separate cabs?"
"Don't be a child, Mateo. You're in Havana."
"I'd better check with police headquarters on Lobo before we leave."
They found Rafael in a tile-lined office on the second floor of the newspaper building. He was sitting at a large table, three large piles of fascist publications before him, and an opened copy of the HavanaArribain his hands. "No luck yet," he said. "But Eduardo Sanchez had an idea where the picture can be found."
"Where is he?"
"He's in there," Rafael pointed to a door. "He's digging out some more magazines."
Sanchez walked in with an armload of bright-colored HavanaArribas. "It's good to see you again, Mateo," he said. "What passes?"
"Trouble. How are you making out?"
"Who knows? Are you going to stay long?"
"I'm leaving tomorrow if I can get what I need."
"You say the picture would be inArribafor 1938?"
"If at all, Eduardo."
"That's serious. There is only one place in town where I know definitely there is a complete file ofArriba. It might be a little hard to get into."
"Where is it?"
"The third floor of the Spanish Embassy."
"That's bad," Hall said.
"Bad, yes," Santiago said. He put his arms over the shoulders of Rafael and Eduardo. "But not hopeless, eh,compañeros?"
Eduardo smiled, grimly. Rafael grinned, a sudden glint in his blue eyes.
"What do you think, Rafael?"
"I think we should shoot our way in,mi coronel."
"And you, Eduardo?"
"I don't know. If we shoot our way in, we have to shoot our way out again too. Maybe we'll kill a few fascists, but will we be able to get at their files?"
"It would do us good," Rafael said, "to kill ourselves a few fascists. I think we are getting out of practice."
"Sit down," Santiago said. "This takes some planning. Mateo, you had better tell Eduardo what is at stake."
"In a minute. I want some water. And I'd better phone Lobo's headquarters again."
"Use this phone," Eduardo said. "I'll bring you water." He took three sheets of gray copy paper from his desk and fashioned a water cup. "We can't get paper cups since Pearl Harbor."
"Listen to me," Santiago said. "There is a way we can kill two birds with one stone. Eduardo, if Hall gets the picture, it kills Gamburdo and the Falange in San Hermano. That's one bird."
"And the other?"
"The other,compañeros, is Fernando Rivas."
"Rivas?" Eduardo's dark, good-looking face grew puzzled. "Is he in this too?"
"Wait. I should bringCompañeroHall up to date. You don't know Rivas, Mateo. He is a queer bird. He comes from a good Republican family in Madrid. A very good family. Republican since before the First Republic. This Rivas, this Fernando, he was good. Under Alfonso, he got a job in the Foreign Office. They sent him to Havana as an attaché in the legation. Even then he was a good Republican. But something happened to the man when the war started. He didn't fight for the fascists, but ..."
"Tell him about his wife," Rafael said.
"That's what I think did it. He had a British wife, and she had high-life aspirations."
"I think I understand," Hall said.
"I don't have to go into the details. There is no time for that, anyway. The point is that he had to go to Spain last year, and he came back filled with loathing for everything he saw. This I know for a fact. First, he started to sit home alone every night and get drunk, and then he began to write a memoir about what he saw. He didn't think anyone would ever see it. He still doesn't know that anyone but himself has ever seen it. I got it from his servant one morning a few weeks ago. She is one of ours. We photographed it and she put it back before he got home that night."
Eduardo passed a box of inexpensive cigars around. "The week before that," he said, "I ran into Rivas at a café in Matanzas. He was sobering up after a drinking bout. I tried to avoid him but he followed me out of the place. He was crying. He called himself a son of a whore mother and a traitor to his honor and his people and carried on like a fool. Then he started to tell me about his wife's lover—we've known all about that for months, but Rivas had just found out—and I became filled with disgust for the creature. I shook him off and left him standing in the street crying like a whipped dog. I hate weaklings."
"I get it," Hall said. "But when you saw his diary, you started to change your mind, eh?"
"I still don't trust him. I introduced him to Santiago because Santiago wanted to meet him."
"I wouldn't trust him with Franco's daughter," Rafael said.
Santiago Iglesias sighed heavily. "No one asks you to sleep with him, Rafael," he said. "It isn't that. But you remember what happened in the early days of the war. We had to take any officer who swore loyalty to the Republic. We had no choice in the matter, did we,chico?"
"But we also put in commissars to keep an eye on them."
"It's true,chico. But some of them proved to be really loyal, eh?"
"A handful."
"All right, even a handful. But the point is that they were useful. Here is the situation as of tonight: if the pictures which will kill the Falange in San Hermano are anywhere within our reach at all, they are in the Spanish Embassy. We have no contact we can trust inside the Embassy. The nearest thing to such a contact is Rivas. He is a weakling and he was a traitor. We know that. What we don't know is whether his repentance is sincere. The only way to really find out is to test the man. This is the time to test him. I've spoken with him three times in the past week. He begs for a chance to prove that he has the right to serve the Republic again."
"He can serve the Republic best," Rafael insisted, "by blowing his brains out."
"Rafael!"
"I'm sorry, Colonel Iglesias. I hate traitors."
"I don't love them,chico. But it is not for us to put our personal likes and dislikes before our greater duties, Major. And please remember," he added, smiling, "you still are a major in the People's Army. Neither your commission nor your Army has expired yet."
"What do you want me to do?" Rafael asked, softly. "I will respect your commands as my superior—and my friend."
Santiago toyed with a thick copy pencil. "I am going to put it to a vote right here. Who is for getting Fernando Rivas to let us into the Spanish Embassy and removing what we need from the files? Understand, we won't tell him what we want in the files—that would be trusting him too much before he proves himself. Who is for raiding the Embassy with the help of Rivas? On this, Mateo, you will have to vote also."
Hall and Eduardo Sanchez raised their hands.
"Against?"
The three men looked at Rafael. He folded his hands in his lap, ostentatiously studied the ceiling.
"Are you against the idea, Rafael?"
"I think it is crazy, Santiago. I am not afraid. I just think it is crazy. Can't we get in without the traitor?"
"I don't know how," Santiago said. "I guess we'll have to try it without you, Rafael."
"Over my dead body, my friend. I'm going with you. I've been wrong before, but I've never avoided a battle. I'm not ducking this one, Santiago."
Eduardo winked at Hall. "Listen to the strategist," he laughed, but there was pride and real affection in his words. "Rafael," he said, "if you didn't shoot so straight I'd say that you talk too damned much."
"Go to hell," Rafael said. "You're wasting good time. Let's finish examining these fascist papers. Maybe we'll find the filthy picture tonight in these piles, and then we won't have to risk three, no four," he looked at Hall, "four good Republican lives on the guts of a traitor. Come on, Eduardo, get to work."
Hall motioned Santiago to the door. "Let's go around the corner," he whispered, "and bring back a few bottles of Cristal."
They walked slowly to thecantineríaon the corner, had some beer, and bought a dozen bottles to take back with them. Santiago said that he hoped it would not be necessary to raid the Embassy without previously testing Rivas on less hazardous tasks.
"Personally," he said, "I think Rivas is honest about wanting to come back. I think he can be trusted if we have to do it with him. But it might mean shooting, and you cannot afford to get shot. Perhaps you had better not join us."
"No. Don't try to cut me out,viejo, or I'll do it alone with Rafael."
"All right. But I hope we find it before we have to raid the fascists."
They went upstairs. "Call Fabri at your office," Eduardo told Santiago. "He says he has some good news for you."
"He must have found Lobo." Santiago was right. His man had reached the General. "He says for you to meet him at headquarters in an hour. Fabri found him at a party in Vedado. If I know Jaime Lobo, that means he will actually be back in two hours. You've got plenty of time."
Eduardo took a bottle opener from his desk. "You'll get me in trouble," he said. "We're not allowed to drink in the office."
"Tell Escalante it was my fault," Hall laughed.
"You'd better sign a sworn statement."
"Tomorrow. Listen, Eduardo, there is something you must do for me. Santiago has a file on a man named Marcelino Gassau. I want the whole thing copied on microfilm, four negatives of everything in the file. Can you have it done in your dark room tomorrow morning?"
"Consider it done, Mateo."
Rafael drank his beer and cursed the magazines for not having the pictures of Ansaldo that Hall wanted. "Let's get back to work," he said, impatiently. "Let's find the damned pictures if they're here."
Hall and Santiago sat down at the desk and started to go through individual issues of various fascist publications for the year 1938. While they worked, Hall asked Santiago if he knew the Figueroa whom he had to see in the Mexican Embassy.
"He is a friend," the Spaniard said. "He is completely reliable. He will do anything you ask within reason—and nearly anything that is without reason at all."
None of the men found the photo Hall was seeking by the time he was ready to leave for General Lobo's headquarters. "I'll get you a taxi," Eduardo said. "You can take a look at the AP ticker in the wire room in the meanwhile. There might be some news on Tabio's condition."
The wires reported that Tabio still breathed.
It was nearly midnight when Hall crossed the threshold of the brooding stone building that was Secret Police Headquarters. Like all police headquarters the world over, this one also smelled faintly of carbolic and damp stone, a stench Hall had grown to detest in San Sebastian. He walked briskly down the dark corridor which led to Lobo's office.
A young lieutenant was sitting at the desk in the anteroom. "Mr. Johnny Green Moon?" he asked, grinning.
"Hello," Hall laughed. "You still here?"
"Just a second." The lieutenant pressed a button on his desk. There was a click in the electric door stop of the massive oak and iron door behind the desk. "Go right in, Mr. Green Moon."
Hall pushed the door open, stepped into the Spartan simplicity of Lobo's private office, and quickly shut out the smell of carbolic by slamming the door behind him. Lobo, who had equally good reasons for hating that odor, had installed an American air-cleaning system in his own office.
The young general—he was about three years younger than Hall—was sitting at his tremendous carved desk and studying some papers. "Johnny!" he shouted. "Qué tal?" He was wearing a very formal white dress uniform heavy with medals and gold braid.
"Hello, Jaime," Hall said. "You look like an American Christmas tree."
"Johnny, you dog! You took me away from a most beautiful reception."
"Beautiful?"
"A dream. Unbelievable! Four and twenty blonde Vassar girls dancing around Lobo and wondering out loud if the handsome spik speaks English. Sensational!"
Hall had to laugh with the general. He could easily picture the effect of Jaime Lobo's towering dark attractiveness—more than once in the United States Hollywood talent scouts had begged him to sign contracts—in the eyes of the American women one could find at a lavish reception in Havana. "An American sugar king's party?"
"No. The British business colony. It was stupendous." Lobo had lived in the United States for five years, got a great kick out of scattering the superlatives of Hollywood in his speech when he spoke English.
"O.K.," Hall said, dryly. "It was super-colossal." He sat down in the large armchair at the side of the desk, helped himself to one of Lobo's cigars.
"So you don't want to play," Lobo said, sobering and taking his own seat.
"Some other time, Jaime."
"Sounds bad, keed. But tell me, Johnny, is it true that Don Anibal is dying?"
"He may be dead by now."
"Ansaldo killed him?"
Hall started. "What do you know about Ansaldo?"
"I know he's a fascist pig. Why?"
"Why? For the love of God, Jaime, if you can give me the proof, we can ..." He told Lobo about the plans of Lavandero and the anti-fascists in San Hermano.
"I understand," Lobo said. "I've already sent for the dossier on Ansaldo. It should be here in a few minutes. But while we're waiting, there are a few things I'd like to show you." He opened the drawer in his desk and took out an automatic wrapped in a brown-silk handkerchief. "Take a look at this gun," he said, "but don't touch. I want to save the fingerprints."
"What about it?" Hall asked.
"Oh, nothing. I thought you might know something about it. The hell with it. But tell me, Mateo, when did you get to town?"
"This evening."
"Panair?"
"Sure, why?"
"Then you're staying at the Jefferson, registered as Victor Ortiz Tinoco, eh?"
"My God," Hall laughed. "That's my gun!"
"That was your gun,chico. It is now Cuban Government Exhibit A in the case against your brains. So you had it all figured out, my boy. You'd come to Havana with fake papers, put up at an out-of-the-way hotel, check your gun with the hotel management, shoot the Spanish Ambassador, and then plant the gun in my back pocket and blow town on your diplomatic Mexican passport. But you reckoned without two suspicious and smart young second lieutenants from Oriente Province."
"What was my fatal mistake, chief?"
"Your accent and the cardinal stupidity of giving your attaché case to the desk clerk. He's a communist from Oriente. The weight made him suspicious, and he called his friends in my office. Only he guessed from your accent that you were a Spaniard, and that the gun was for the purpose of shooting up the Mexican Embassy."
"You know what Jefferson said about eternal vigilance being the price of liberty, Jaime."
"Sure. Jefferson and the natural shrewdness of a peasant from Oriente Province. Of course the minute I saw the report describing Ortiz Tinoco as a Spaniard with scars on the face, a broken nose, and big feet which took him directly to the Casa de la Cultura, I knew it was Matthew Hall in a beard."
"Yeah. Of course my phone calls every fifteen minutes didn't give you any idea."
"They helped, my boy. I'll admit that." He took the envelope bearing Androtten's pictures and fingerprints from his desk. "Who is this individual? He looks as if he is very seriously dead."
"I brought that envelope here for you, Jaime. He was shot three days ago in San Hermano, but I'm afraid I broke his nose before he died. That other picture of him with his family and the letter from the Dutch Government-in-Exile might be more interesting."
"Wilhelm Androtten? Sounds like a brand of gin. Why did you kill him?"
"He's a Nazi, Jaime. He was trying to kill me."
General Lobo took some notes as he listened to Hall's account of Androtten's role in the Ansaldo mission. "I guess the first thing to do is to find out if the letter from Queen Wilhelmina is genuine. But it still wouldn't prove anything. The Nazi, if he was an agent, could have picked the name Androtten from a casualty list and then written to the Dutch Government in the name of the soldier's father. I'll check the photos and the fingerprints here, and also with American F.B.I. and the British. The F.B.I. has been very good lately. They've helped out terrifically here with technical things."
A green light on Lobo's desk began to flicker. "It's the file room," he said. "I guess they have the Ansaldo dossier." He called the lieutenant on the inter-phone, told him to bring in the Ansaldo dossier.
The dossier was not very long. It told the story how, in the winter of 1938, a prominent Cuban Falangist in the best of health had suddenly taken to bed with a "serious complaint." His family announced to friends that they had sent to Spain for a great doctor, one Varela Ansaldo. They said Ansaldo cured the Cuban, to be sure, but he also had long private sessions with the leaders of the Falange at the Spanish Embassy and, before he returned to Franco Spain, the Falange in Cuba had undergone a complete shake-up of its leadership. There were pictures of Ansaldo, but alone and in plain clothes.
"Are these the only pictures?" Hall asked.
"Perhaps not. We took about three thousand feet of movie film from the Inspector General of the Falange for Latin America when he tried to escape to Spain on a C.T.E. ship two years ago. Let's look at them, old man." He pressed a key in his inter-phone box. "Pablo," he barked, "set up those Villanueva films in the machine. I'm coming in in ten minutes."
"I didn't think of that film," Hall confessed. "Every time you were supposed to show it to me, something came up, remember?"
Lobo was barking into the inter-phone again. "Teniente, scare up two cold bottles of champagne for the theater, will you? We have a thirst that is killing us."
"Are you screening the film in a theater?"
"No. It's a crime laboratory the F.B.I. installed for us. The whole works. Wait till you see it, Matt. It's just like Hollywood. Colossal!"
"And the champagne?"
"That's my own contribution. I'll be damned if I can stop drinking champagne in the middle of a party just because Johnny Green Moon drags me out. Come on, let me show you the joint." He led Hall on a ten-minute Cook's tour of the crime laboratory, his patter a slightly off-color imitation of an American tourist guide's spiel. A small beaded screen had been pulled down from the ceiling, facing two chromium-and-leather lounge chairs. When the lieutenant brought in the champagne in two ice buckets, General Lobo signaled the soldier in the tiny projection booth to start the film.
There was everything but a shot of Ansaldo.
"He was too smart, thecabrón," Lobo said. "Let's go back to my office and think it over." He poured what remained of the champagne into Hall's glass.
On the way back to his office, he asked the lieutenant to join Hall and himself. "Lieutenant," he said, "here are some pictures and data on a man named Wilhelm Androtten, and some notes I made. Put them all through the mill—our own files, F.B.I., the British. Check the papers and letters of Villanueva and Alvarez Garcia for any reference to Varela Ansaldo. And give me a report by noon tomorrow. Anything else you can think of for the moment, Mateo?"
"One thing. Those pictures of Gamburdo at the secret Falange dinner in San Hermano. Remember it? I want about six microfilm negatives of each shot."
"Give them to me with your report, Lieutenant."
The young officer accepted the papers, saluted smartly, and left.
"There's one place in Havana where I can get that picture, Jaime," Hall said. "The Spanish Embassy has a complete file of the SpanishArriba, and I'll stake my life on that picture of Ansaldo's being in that file."
"So?"
"Listen, Jaime, I don't know if I'll have to examine that file. I won't know until some time tomorrow morning. There's an outside chance that old man Nazario has theArribawe need in his collection at the University. But please, Jaime, if I do have to go through the files on Oficios Street, I don't want any of your excellent boys from Oriente Province giving me a nice case of Cuban lead poisoning."
Lobo, who had opened his collar and draped his long feet over his desk, stopped smiling. He put his feet on the floor, buttoned the tunic collar. "You don't understand," he said, speaking to Hall in Spanish for the first time that evening. "In there, with the foolish movies, I make foolish sayings. At the circus Lobo becomes the clown. But please remember, Mateo, that I am a Latin American. My own people were driven out of Spain by the spiritual forefathers of the Falange. I know what will happen to Latin America if the Falange crowd wins out anywhere."
"I know you do, Jaime."
"I'm not always the playboy, Mateo. I know what my chief means to the little nations of the Caribbean. I know what Don Anibal means to every country south of Miami. I love Don Anibal. I love you because you love my chief and my people and Don Anibal.Claro?"
"Thanks, Jaime. Then you'll tell your men I'm O.K.?"
"On the contrary, my friend. I must tell them much more than that."
"Thanks. I'll try not to make any trouble. No international incidents."
"If you don't have to shoot." Lobo became gay again. "Ay, Señor Ortiz Tinoco," he sighed, "you might want to shoot, but you are without a shooter to shoot with. My men are too good for you. They stole your gun."
"They are very good men, my general."
"They have a good chief. But look, friend, in this drawer. I have a treasure for you." He emptied the contents of a canvas bag on the desk. "Ay, Señor Ortiz Tinoco, when I relieved Jefe Villanueva of his super-production, I also took his gun. Such a wonderful little Swiss automatic, built to be carried in a lady's purse or a horse's—ear. And such a dainty Spanish leather shoulder holster. You would be a fool not to accept this outfit in return for your gigantic cannon."
Hall took off his jacket. "It's a deal," he said. "Help me get the holster on."
"Where are you going when you get the picture—if you get it, Mateo?"
"Caracas. Someone is meeting me there."
The General laughed. "Caracas? Ay, we'll get you back to Caracas in style,chico." He opened his cigar box, held it out in front of Hall. "By the way, Mateo," he said, "I never asked you before. Are you a Red?"
"No. I'm a Red, White and Blue Kid. Why?"
"Your government. Your embassy in San Hermano was sure that Pepe Stalin was paying for your rice and beans. They asked your Embassy here to check on you with me."
"What did you tell them?"
"Naturally, I told them that you were an agent.Si, señor! I told them that you were a triple agent: mornings for the Kuomintang, afternoons for the Grand Llama of Tibet, and evenings for the Protocols of Zion. You'd better be careful when you get back to New York."
"You bastard!"
"Where are you going now? Me, I'm going right back to that party. I promised a certain Vassar female, in my halting English, that I would be back. Can I drop you anywhere?"
"I'm going to the Casa de la Cultura."
"Good. But listen, Mateo, give me at least five hours' notice if you decide to do any scholarly research on Oficios Street, eh?Vámonos."
Don Anibal Tabio died at ten o'clock the next morning. He died on the operating table, under Ansaldo's knife.
Hall was in Santiago's office when Eduardo Sanchez called at eleven to say that an AP flash had just come through in the newspaper's wire room.
"Call me when the next bulletin comes through," he said, slowly. "We have to know what Gamburdo and Lavandero are planning." Somehow, although he had known for days that Tabio's hours were numbered, it was hard to swallow his friend's dying on Ansaldo's terms. He was too stunned to wonder how Gamburdo had finally won out. For a moment, there was a sensation of sudden emptiness; this gave way to a sense of horror and rage.
"Poor Anibal," he said. "Charging the arrows of the Falange with only the white plume of Truth in his thin hands."
"He was your friend, wasn't he?" Santiago said. "He was a very great man."
"Yes."
"Would you like a drink, Mateo?"
"No, later. Call de Sola again. Tell him to hurry up. I'm going to the Mexican Embassy. I have to leave an envelope with the secretary. I'll be back in less than an hour."
"Bueno." The Spaniard walked to the door with Hall. "There has been a good change in you, Mateo," he said. "I remember the day when such a blow would have sent you off like a wild bull. It is better to fight them back the new way, no?"
"You should know, Colonel Iglesias. You should know." Hall stopped off at a bar on the way to his hotel for a quick double brandy to steady his nerves.
The manager of the Jefferson avoided Hall's eyes when he handed the attaché case back to him. "The señor will notice that the seal is unbroken?" he asked.
"It is a new seal," Hall said. "But be tranquil. I was present at Secret Police Headquarters when the seal was broken. And please tell your clerk that I am not angry with him." He put the case under his arm and took a cab to the Mexican Embassy.
There was more bad news when Hall returned to the Casa. The files of Franco publications kept by Doctor Nazario at the University had also failed to produce the needed picture of Ansaldo. And a messenger from Eduardo Sanchez had brought for Hall a copy of the first AP bulletin from San Hermano.
Hall read the bulletin aloud for Santiago and Rafael. "The wily bastard!" he said, reading how Gamburdo had decreed six days of official mourning and a national election on the seventh day following Tabio's death. "'As our beloved Educator's chosen deputy and successor, I can promise the people of the Republic a continuation of the peace which was ours under Don Anibal's wise leadership. I can promise that any warmongers who would destroy this great blessing left to the nation by Don Anibal will immediately feel the wrath of the government. It was Anibal Tabio's last wish that our Republic be spared from suffering the ravages of a war that is neither of our making nor of our choosing.'"
"I hate politicos," Rafael said. "They are a stench in the nostrils of decent people."
"Tabio was a politico, too," Santiago said, sharply. "What else does it say, Mateo?"
"It says that the Radicals and the Nationals have already nominated Gamburdo. The Progressives and the Communists are meeting this afternoon to select Lavandero as their candidate, and the Socialists are asking both candidates for guarantees against Bolshevism before making up their minds. The Traditional Nationalist Action Party—that's the Cross and the Sword—are out a hundred per cent for Gamburdo."
"What the hell are the Socialists stalling for?" Rafael shouted. "Where are their brains?"
"You mean," Santiago answered, gently, "where is their socialism?"
"Listen to this," Hall said. "'The body of the President will lie in state for six days in the Great Hall of Congress. Acting President Gamburdo has ordered a hand-picked elite corps of army and navy officers to maintain a twenty-four-hour watch over the bier.' An elite corps for Don Anibal!
"And listen to this: 'In the name of the Republic, Acting President Gamburdo thanked the noted surgeon, Varela Ansaldo, for his last-hour effort to save the life of the late President, and announced that he would recommend to the Congress that Dr. Ansaldo and his assistant, Dr. Marina, be given formal decorations. Gamburdo revealed that Ansaldo, who came to San Hermano at his urgent pleas, left the mourning capital at noon on the first leg of a flying voyage to Lisbon where he is to perform a delicate operation on a prominent jurist.'"
"They got away!" Rafael said.
"It's not so bad," Hall said. "That is, it won't be if ..."
"Of course, Mateo. If we can pin the arrows on Ansaldo after this statement," Santiago said, "it will be very hard for Gamburdo to explain to anyone. Especially since you have that picture of Gamburdo at the secret Falange dinner."
"I have more than that. I have a copy of the report the Inspector General of the Falange made about Gamburdo at that dinner, and it's written on official stationery. We've just got to get more on Ansaldo!"
"Are you still against raiding the Embassy, Rafael?"
"I changed my mind. When do we do it? Tonight?"
"I hope so, Rafael, you'll have to find Dr. Moré. I think you'll catch him in at the clinic now. Tell him to get Rivas and bring him to his own house in Vedado."
Hall took out his wallet. "Here, Rafael, you'll need money for taxis."
"Are you crazy, Mateo? This is a hundred-peso note."
"You'll also need a new suit. They won't let you into the Spanish Embassy in those clothes."
"I'll buy my own clothes!"
"Rafael," Santiago said, gently, "Hall is ourcompañero."
The boy began to blush. "I am sorry," he stammered, "but it is not my way to accept such offers."
"I don't offer it to a man," Hall said. "I gave it to an officer of the People's Army. It is money intended to aid that army in its fight."
"Hurry up, Rafael," Santiago said. "We will argue after we get out of the Embassy—if we get out."
"I've got to see Lobo," Hall said when Rafael left. "I've got to tell him to ask the American Intelligence Service to check on Ansaldo's movements in Lisbon. I don't think he is going to operate on any Portuguese jurist or anyone else in Lisbon."
"You'll make a fool of yourself, Mateo. You're not dealing with stupid Spanish fascists like Franco and Gil Robles. You're dealing with the German Nazis who run the Falange. I know them. They're too smart not to have a patient waiting in bed for Ansaldo when he gets to Lisbon. Why don't you see Lobo after our conference with Rivas? In the meanwhile, I'd better get statements from de Sola and Carlos Echagaray on Ansaldo and Marina."
Meeting Fernando Rivas in the home of the Cuban doctor, Hall was reminded of what an acid-tongued Czech journalist said to him at Geneva about Chautemps, a French politician. There was nothing wrong with the politician, the Czech said, except that he had the face of a traitor. In a city where the sun always shined, Rivas had the pallor of a skin which never saw the sun. He sat tensely at the edge of the chair in Moré's study, hands working a battered Panama, his puffy eyes darting furtive looks at Rafael and Hall, men he had never seen before but whom he obviously suspected of being agents of the Republican underground. Hall thought: this is a man who can no longer know hate or love or anything but fear.
It was Santiago's show. He ran it on his own terms. From the outset, he made it clear that he, or rather the Republic for which he spoke, was giving the orders. They were given decently, temperately, but not without the proof that force lay behind the commands. Rivas was to address him as Colonel. "And these," he said, indicating Rafael and Hall, "are my aides, Majors Juan and Pancho."
"What is it you want of me, Colonel? There is nothing I would not do for you."
"For whom?"
"For the—for the Republic."
"What Republic?"
"The Republic of Spain. The Republic of the Constitution of 1931."
"And why should the Republic trust you now, Rivas?"
"There is no reason, Colonel. I can ask only in the name of my family."
Rafael had seen the older brother of Rivas die charging a German battery near Bilbao. "It is not your privilege," he said. "I knew your brother." Hall laid a restraining hand on his arm.
"You betrayed your family when you betrayed your people," Santiago said, softly. "It is not good enough. I must have a better reason."
"State your own terms," Rivas said. "I will meet them."
"Why?"
The traitor took out a silk handkerchief, mopped his face. He suddenly seemed to grow, to straighten his back. His head held high, he looked each man proudly in the eyes. A moment earlier, his hands, his lips had been quivering. Now they were firm and still. "Why?" he repeated in a new, stronger voice. "Why?" He was fighting for one last chance, fighting with his remaining reserve of dignity. "I'll tell you why, my Colonel. Because I don't care whether I live or not. But I want to die as a Spaniard, as a free man again. I want to die as a Republican. Is that reason enough?"
Colonel Santiago Iglesias was not a cruel person. He hated to play cat and mouse with a human being, even with such as Rivas. But his first responsibilities were to the Republic. "I hardly think so," he said, speaking as an officer, although as a man he knew that Rivas had stated a good reason, because he knew the reason to be true. "I hardly think so, Rivas," he said. "Merely because the wife of a man who betrayed the Republic turns out to be a whore is no reason for the Republic to love him more."
Fernando Rivas bent forward, as if he were trying to ward off a heavy series of blows. "No," he said. "It is not reason enough."
The thin body of Rafael Abelando shook with silent laughter for a moment, and then it became still. The young major turned to Santiago, his face filled with a sudden pity for the wreck of a man in the chair. Hall caught the look, too, the admission of something Rafael would have died rather than say out loud. The boy was ready to give the traitor Rivas his last chance. It was the moment Santiago had been waiting for; without Rafael's implicit confidence in his plan, he had all but decided to call it off.
"What do you think, Pancho?"
Hall nodded agreement.
"And you, Major?"
"The hell with what I think. I'll do my thinking later. If he comes through, I'll tell you what I think. If he funks out on us, I'll slit his throat."
"All right, Rivas," Santiago said. "We will give you your chance. We need your help tonight."
"Shall I come armed? I am an expert marksman, Colonel."
"No. We shall carry the arms. You shall carry the key—or the keys. We want to get into the third floor of the Embassy, and we want to get out alive—and without shooting. Can it be done?"
Rivas raised his head, stared into the faces of the three men who held open the gates of the Republic. "I am willing," he said. "It might take some planning, gentlemen, but it can be done." He held out his hand to Santiago. The colonel accepted it.
"I am glad you are with us," Santiago said. "In a sense, you are the most fortunate of the four of us. You see, Rivas, if we should all get killed tonight, yours would be the most lasting memorial."
"But why me, Colonel?"
Santiago picked a heavy manila envelope up from the floor. He took out the photographs of the memoir on Franco's Spain that Rivas had written in his own hand. "You see," he said, "if we should all die tonight, the Casa de la Cultura will publish your excellent memoir—with a postscript about your heroic sacrifice."
"But how?" Rivas gasped. "Where?"
"You are surprised, Rivas? Please let me assure you that there are many of us. We are everywhere wheretheyare.Claro?"
"I understand." For a fleeting moment Rivas had been back with the Republic, a free man among free men. Now he was again a prisoner, but with two jailers—Franco and the Republic. Now the Republic could force the other to destroy him. "Yes," he said, "I understand." The Republic, he knew, gave him his choice of executioners or his opportunity to fight for his freedom.
"Well?"
"I am grateful," he said. "I am grateful for the chance to belong to the Republic again."
"Good. We must plan. Shall we drink on it?"
There was a decanter of Scotch whisky on Dr. Moré's sideboard. Santiago filled four glasses to the brim, then called for and filled a fifth glass. "It is for the other who will be with us tonight," he said. Eduardo was getting the affidavit on Ansaldo from the exile in Marianao.
"To the Republic!"
Hall watched Rivas drink his Scotch in one greedy, hysterical gulp. He quietly filled the man's glass, shoved the bottle toward him. Rivas downed the second Scotch, reached for the bottle, then changed his mind as his hand was in mid-air.
"Paper," Rivas said. "The desk. I must draw a floor plan of the Embassy."
At eleven o'clock, Rivas let Santiago and his three friends into the Spanish Embassy through the rear door.
At ten-thirty, a large but unscheduled military parade started winding through the streets of Old Havana. No one seemed to know what the parade was about, but the soldiers in the ranks thought that it had something to do with a surprise party being given to General Jaime Lobo to celebrate his promotion in rank. It was his old regiment which had been called out at nine that night and ordered into parade formation.
At ten forty-five, the paraders were halted for some reason, and the General's runners motorcycled down along the line of march and told the bandmasters to keep on playing the liveliest of tunes. The order reached the second band in the line just as it stopped in front of the Spanish Embassy.
A crowd gathered to listen to the band and watch the parade. Santiago, Hall, Rafael and Eduardo casually detached themselves from this crowd at precisely eleven.
Rivas led them quietly up the back stairs. The blare of the brasses, the booming of the drums, the crashing of the cymbals penetrated every corner of the Embassy. "God is with us," he said. "The noise is wonderful."
Hall bit his tongue. A fat lot God had to do with it! He was crawling behind Santiago, the Swiss automatic in the right hand cocked at his hip. Eduardo was behind him, and ahead of Rafael. "Third floor," he whispered. "We turn left at the head of the stairs and climb three steps."
Santiago pulled out his gun as they approached the third-floor landing. He allowed Rivas to get a few steps ahead of him, to take the three steps which led to the library. "Go in with Rivas," he whispered to Hall. "You too, Eduardo."
They followed Rivas into the dark room. He was standing near a draped wall, motioning to them to follow him quietly. "Behind the drape," he said. Eduardo closed in next to him. He frisked him for hidden knives or guns. "Don't move," he said.
Santiago joined Eduardo and Hall. "Rafael is covering the door," he said. He motioned to Rivas to approach the drape. Eduardo remained at the traitor's heels, the gun in Rivas's back. Hall knew what to do. He waited until Santiago flattened himself out against the wall which paralleled the drape, then he quickly drew the cloth to one side. He found himself facing a large steel cabinet built into the wall.
"Open." Santiago's fingers twirled an imaginary dial before his nose. "Open it, Rivas."
The frightened man who was both host and hostage raised his hand slowly, fingered the dial, dropped his hand in disgust. He dried his sopping fingers against the front of his jacket, tried again. The tumblers of the lock rose and fell; the lock remained closed. Santiago slowly released the safety catch of his pistol. "What passes?" he asked.
"Ssh," Rivas pleaded. "I'll try it again."
"Wait." Hall held a small bottle of brandy up to Rivas's face. "Take a drink. It will steady your hands."
"Many thanks."
"Open it."
"It's coming, Colonel."
Santiago looked at the luminous dial of his wrist watch; eight minutes gone. The band would not be under the window all night. He beckoned to Hall. "That white door near the window, Mateo. He says you will find theArribasin there perhaps."
"I'll try it."
"He's opened the steel door," Eduardo said.
"Keep him covered." Santiago stepped in front of Rivas, opened the door as wide as it would swing. He faced a multitude of locked steel drawers.
"Let me," Eduardo said. He changed places with Santiago. He was good at picking such picayune locks; the concentration camp on the Isle of Pines was full of native fascists whose careers ended when Eduardo jimmied open the locks that protected their secrets. He could crack them open swiftly, almost noiselessly.
"There's one," he whispered. "Two."
"He has a talent," Santiago said to Rivas.
Hall glided over to the white door of the closet. Like the others, he wore soft-soled rubber shoes. He took a small oil can from his pocket, saturated the hinges and the handle of the white door. Slowly, he opened the wooden door. A book balanced precariously on an upper shelf behind the door started to fall. He grabbed it with his left hand. A rash of invisible pimples spread over his scalp. Too much noise that time, even though the book didn't fall. He held his breath, counted to twenty. The band was still blaring, the drums pounding away. Good old God!
He ran the slim beam of the dime-store flashlight over the shelves.Informaciones, A.B.C., ah, here,Arriba! He turned to signal to Santiago that he had found it, but the colonel had again changed places with Eduardo, was now emptying documents from the little steel drawers to the inside of his shirt.
Rafael, standing guard at the doorway, wildly signaled Hall to get to work on the files. He pointed vigorously to the non-existent watch on his narrow wrist.
Hall dug into theArribapile. He pulled the top of the 1938 batch to the floor, sat down in front of them. April. May. June. Not here. Impossible! He sneaked the remainder of the brandy into his throat. Once again. April. He looked at Santiago, working calmly; light flickering over the papers in the drawers, eyes selecting the wheat from the chaff. The problem is April. It happened in April, 1938. Easy does it. April One. April Two. Three. Four. Seven. Nine. No. No. Not yet.
Santiago was in the middle of the room, his hands crammed with papers. He beckoned to Rafael, stuffed batches of papers into the major's shirt.
"Got the bastard!" Hall said. He forgot to whisper. He climbed to his feet, a yellowing newspaper in his hands. "Got it!"
A door opened on the floor above. "Rivas?" someone on the fourth-floor landing called.
Rafael was still in the room. Santiago held his shoulder, shook his head. Stay here, he motioned. He signaled for Rivas, handed him his own gun. He pointed to the third-floor landing, smiled at the man.
The four men in the room covered the back of Fernando Rivas as he advanced toward the landing, the warm gun gripped firmly in his sweaty hand. They watched him stick his head out of the door, say, hoarsely, "Yes. It's all right," the gun hidden behind his thigh.
"What's all the noise?" Fourth Floor again.
"Parade."
"What are you doing there?" No suspicion—just conversation. Anyone could see Fourth Floor only meant conversation. Anyone but Rivas. To a man, the four behind Rivas prayed he would stall off the man above him with a polite nothing.
"None of your business, you fascist pig!"
Over and above all the noises of the city, of the band on the corner, of the hearts thumping in the breasts of the four men in the room there fell a whining silence which was both hours long and seconds short. Then the silence was shattered by the crashing explosions of two heavy pistols.
"Let me." Rafael ran to the doorway, flattened out against the wall. His eyes took in the prone body of Rivas at the landing and the heap of man sprawled on the stairs. Rivas was dead. His gun lay near his head. The man on the stairs still held onto his gun. Rafael reached behind him for the silent weapon, the weapon you used on lone forays into enemy territory, on guards in concentration camps.
The knife flashed over his head, pinned the hand with the pistol to the wooden stairs. Behind the knife flew Rafael. Once again the blade was raised, this time with a hand still on it as it descended.
Eduardo pulled Hall's sleeve. "Quick," he said. "The stairs. Follow me."
"All right," Rafael said to the dead Rivas, "now you're a Republican."
The watch on Santiago's wrist read 11.29 when Rafael, the last man to leave, melted into the crowd around the band. People on the sidewalk could hear feet pounding heavily through the large empty rooms of the Embassy. Lights were going on in all the dark windows. Yells. A woman's scream.
At the head of the parade, a baton twirled. The uniforms started to move forward. The crowd on the sidelines followed the band.
Later, sitting in Lobo's office, the mass of documents from the shirts of Santiago and Eduardo and Rafael on the desk before the general, Hall remembered his outcry when he found the picture of Ansaldo and the Axis officers giving the fascist salute. My "got it!" got poor Rivas, he thought. I'm still an amateur at it. Santiago was good; found dynamite, but he kept his mouth shut. Eduardo was good; cracked the locks and kept his mouth shut. Rafael was good; finished off the bastard from the Fourth Floor in seconds, and remembered to use a knife, and kept his mouth shut until it was all over. Funny the way he stood over what remained of Rivas and said, "All right, now you're a Republican." Mocking, yet respectful. It was good; no forgiveness for the dead man's treachery but respect for his insane courage.
"It was a nice band concert, yes?" Lobo said. "Plenty of bim bam boom in the drums. Tsing! Tsing! Cymbals. Tarantara, tarantara."
"Sure."
"I'm a one-man band, eh, keed?"
"Colossal."
"What's eating you, Matt? That little slob who killed himself with his big mouth?"
"It was my fault, Jaime. It was my big mouth."
The General picked up a fistful of the documents which had cost the life of Fernando Rivas. "What the hell is his life worth compared to the lives of the hundreds of American seamen who now won't be sent to the bottom by Nazi torpedoes in the South Atlantic? I'll say it again, Matt, and if you'd stick around long enough, I could prove it. By tomorrow morning I'll have at least twenty mucking bastards in the calabozo thanks to what's in these papers; twenty fascist snakes who are the eyes and the ears and the oil and the water of the Nazi subs in this part of the ocean. You did it—and at the cost of only one second-rate life. Isn't it worth it?"
Hall was going through the documents on the desk. Bombshells, most of them.
Mandato # 36: 1940. From: Inspector-General Delegación Nacional, del Servicio Exterior, de Falange Española Tradicionalista de las J.O.N.S. To: Jefe Supremo, Falange de San Hermano.In Re: A.T.N. Effective immediately you will form Acción Tradicionalista Nacional, to replace organization of Falange ordered dissolved by the Jew-Communist betrayer, Tabio. You will replace Yoke and Arrows with new symbol of Cross and Sword. Until further orders, you will not enter Spanish Embassy or consulates.CamaradaPortada will arrive with detailed orders within thirty days.Saluda aFranco!ArribaEspaña!Mandato # 74: 1941, Servicio Exterior. Confidential: Enrique Gamburdo entered Tabio government with permission and approval of the National Delegation of the Falange.CamaradaGamburdo is to be given the support and unquestioning loyalty due an Old Shirt. There will be no exceptions to this order. Signed ...Orden # 107: 1941. Confidential: Our heroic Japanese Allies have today destroyed the Jew-Protestant-Marxist American fleet in Honolulu.Camaradasof the Cross and Sword must be prepared to defend the wise peace policies ofCamaradaGamburdo against the Jewish war mongers who will now try to make the Kahal the government in San Hermano. El Caudillo has shown how the Motherland can frustrate the war mongers. Do not falter and delay the glorious hour of our final victory.CamaradaMarcelino Gassau will soon arrive in San Hermano with instructions on how to help the victory. Signed ...
Mandato # 36: 1940. From: Inspector-General Delegación Nacional, del Servicio Exterior, de Falange Española Tradicionalista de las J.O.N.S. To: Jefe Supremo, Falange de San Hermano.In Re: A.T.N. Effective immediately you will form Acción Tradicionalista Nacional, to replace organization of Falange ordered dissolved by the Jew-Communist betrayer, Tabio. You will replace Yoke and Arrows with new symbol of Cross and Sword. Until further orders, you will not enter Spanish Embassy or consulates.CamaradaPortada will arrive with detailed orders within thirty days.Saluda aFranco!ArribaEspaña!
Mandato # 74: 1941, Servicio Exterior. Confidential: Enrique Gamburdo entered Tabio government with permission and approval of the National Delegation of the Falange.CamaradaGamburdo is to be given the support and unquestioning loyalty due an Old Shirt. There will be no exceptions to this order. Signed ...
Orden # 107: 1941. Confidential: Our heroic Japanese Allies have today destroyed the Jew-Protestant-Marxist American fleet in Honolulu.Camaradasof the Cross and Sword must be prepared to defend the wise peace policies ofCamaradaGamburdo against the Jewish war mongers who will now try to make the Kahal the government in San Hermano. El Caudillo has shown how the Motherland can frustrate the war mongers. Do not falter and delay the glorious hour of our final victory.CamaradaMarcelino Gassau will soon arrive in San Hermano with instructions on how to help the victory. Signed ...
"Photograph these, will you, Jaime?"
Lobo was sorting out the documents in rough piles. Sabotage. Espionage. Undersea warfare. Guantanamo. Cuban politics. "The works," he grinned. "In a week, this haul will have crammed our prisons with fascist rats. If we didn't have to avoid treading on the toes of your State Department these documents would be enough to put the Spanish Ambassador in the calabozo and bring about a break with Franco. But even if it happens, you won't be around to see it, Matt. You're leaving in exactly four hours."
"Four hours?"
"Just a minute. That's my private phone. Yes, General Lobo speaking." He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Pick up the other phone. It's the Spanish Ambassador."
"O.K."
"Yes, Mr. Ambassador?"
"General! Something terrible has happened."
"Terrible?"
"There's been a murder in the Embassy. Someone broke into the Embassy and shot one of our attachés. Communists, I think."
"Is he dead? When did this all happen?"
"Five minutes ago."
Hall and Lobo looked at the wall clock. The hands showed ten minutes after one.
"Five minutes or hours, Mr. Ambassador?"
"Minutes, General. It just happened."
"Where did it happen?"
"On the stairs. The back stairs, between the third and fourth floors. It is terrible."
"Who is the man?"
"Elicio Portada, General Lobo. Poor Portada!"
"Just a minute." He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Listen to those lies, will you? Only one body. Three hours to dispose of the Rivas carcass and search the files. Did you leave them in much of a mess, Matt?"
"I don't remember."
"It doesn't matter." The hand came away from the phone. "Hello. Yes, this is still General Lobo. Mr. Ambassador, I have very serious news for you. As the representative of a friendly neutral, I am sure we can count on your co-operation."
"What is it, General?"
"We happen to have incontrovertible evidence that the late Elicio Portada was connected with a Nazi-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, señor. Our evidence is incontrovertible. In the meanwhile, thanks to your attitude 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 Embassy 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 Embassy 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 Embassy. 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 Ambassador 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 Embassy. 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 bastard to tell me nursery tales on the telephone at one in the morning." Lobo was growing genuinely indignant. "God, 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 documents 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 glasses 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 God preserve the sanity of anyone who attempts to uncode it. It will add up to precisely three tons ofmierda 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 theInfantry 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 Embassy 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 Ambassador'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 Ambassador 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 Nazi 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 ofArribafor 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."