Once that had been done, the plan went, an American submarine could enter Samboromb?n Bay at night, running with just enough of its conning tower out of the water to provide Ashton's radar with a target and to allow its radios to function. It would then be directed to a position near enough to the German vessel to make a sure one-shot torpedo kill.
Clete thought that plan was almost as bizarre as the airplane "gift" to his father, and with only a slightly better chance of success. Getting the radar into Argentina at all was going to be difficult, and getting it from wherever they managed to land it to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo without being discovered would be even more difficult.
And if the radar Captain Maxwell Ashton III and his team were bringing with them was anything like the radar on Guadalcanal, it would not be capable of locating anything with a hundred-yard degree of accuracyif it worked at all.
He devoutly hoped he was wrong. If there was no radarand it now seemed absolutely impossible to get a replacement for the Beech stagger-wingthey would be worse off than they'd been before. He would have to try to locate the German ship with one of the Piper Cubs on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, then guide a submarine to it the way he'd done with the Beech. And after their experience with the Beech, the Germans were almost certainly going to be prepared for another nosy airplane.
"We learned yesterday that they are in Brazil. Commander Delojo will coordinate the infiltration of the team with you and Captain Ashton."
"And what about the airplane?"
"That's in Brazil too. Available to you and Commander Delojo as you feel necessary."
"You're not being very clear, Colonel, about who's in charge," Clete said.
"The Part One of the basic plan remains in effect," Quinn said. "Youyour teamwill locate and identify the replenishment vessel when it arrives on station. As far as Part Two is concernedinfiltration of the new team into Argentinathat will be coordinated, as Colonel Graham just told you, between you and Commander Delojo. Part Three, elimination of the replenishment vessel, is something we're still working on."
"In other words, SNAFU, right? Situation Normal, All Fucked Up?" Clete said, a little bitterly.
"Wait a minute, Major," Delojo said.
"You wait a minute, Commander," Clete snapped. "Without an airplane, I have no goddamned idea how I can find the replenishment vessel. And with my father gone, I have no idea how I can get an airplane into Argentina."
"We were thinking of the light aircraft on your father's estancia," Quinn said.
"I should have said a decent airplane. A capable airplane. The only airplanes on my father's estancia are Piper Cubs. I need that C-45."
"You found the Reine de la Mer with your father's Beechcraft," Delojo argued.
"And got shot down. I'm not going to try that again. "
"That may be necessary," Delojo said.
"Aside from the fact that it would be suicidal, Commander," Clete said, "it would not work. If the Germans can talk the Argentines into looking the other way again when they anchor another replenishment ship in Samboromb?n Bay, the Argentines are also going to look the other way when the Germans shoot up any airplaneor any boatthat comes anywhere near them. We're going to have to go with the original idea of identifying the ship by aerial photography. And you can't do that with a handheld camera in a Piper Cub."
"I think Clete's right," Graham said. "We're going to have to get that C-45 into Argentina somehow. For the sake of thinking about that, Clete, could you conceal that airplane on your father's estancia if we just flew it, black, no markings, into Argentina?"
Clete thought that over.
"The landing strip on my father's estancia isn't lighted," he said. "Which means that it would have to be flown in during daylight hours. I think Mart?n would hear that an unmarked airplane had landed before it could be pushed into the hangar."
"Who's Martin?" Delojo asked.
"You don't know?" Clete asked, a tone of disgust in his voice. "He's the Bureau of Internal Security guy in charge of watching me. And probably of watching you, too, as soon as he hears you're in Argentina."
"Well, then, we're going to have to do some thinking about this, aren't we?" Graham said.
"And, this being the situation," Quinn said, "this brings us back to inserting Ashton's team by parachute, doesn't it? Which was my original thought on the question."
"I think Clete's original objections to that remain valid," Graham said.
"Sir, with respect," Quinn said, "we drop Jedburgh teams into France and the lowlands every day."
"We're talking about Argentina, not France," Clete said. "It's a hell of a lot farther from Brazil to Buenos Aires Province than it is across the English Channel."
"And whatever chance Clete might have to influence the new governmentpresuming that goes wellwould be destroyed if it came out that we were parachuting OSS teams into Argentina," Graham said. "I repeat, Clete's original objections to that remain valid. It is not an option at this time."
"Yes, Sir," Quinn said.
"I think you had better message Brazil to have the team prepared to infiltrate from Brazil across the Uruguay River into Corrientes Province," Graham said.
"Yes, Sir."
"You work, Clete, on getting the airplane into Argentina, and I'll work on it at this end."
"Yes, Sir," Clete said.
"And also, until Delojo has time to get his feet on the ground, you be thinking about infiltration across the Ri? Uruguay."
"Yes, Sir."
"Anything else, Clete, that we should talk about here and now?"
"Colonel, the priorities," Clete said. "What's more important, me getting close to the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos or taking out the replenishment vessel?"
"That decision is going to have to come from the President," Graham said. "There has been enormous diplomatic pressure about the Reine de la Mer. And what he might decide today might very well change tomorrow."
"Great!" Clete said.
Graham stood up and put out his hand.
"Good luck, Clete. We'll be in touch."
[TWO]
Centro Naval
Avenida Florida y Avenida Cordoba
Buenos Aires
2110 5 April 1943
A dark-blue 1939 Dodge four-door sedan pulled to the curb and a man stepped out of the backseat. The mantall, fair-haired, light-skinned, in his mid-thirties, and wearing a light-brown gabardine suitleaned down and put his head in the open passenger-side front-door window.
"Come back for me in an hour and a half," he ordered the driver, a somewhat younger man in a nearly identical suit.
S?, mi Coronel," the driver said.
The man then turned and quickly mounted the shallow flight of stairs on the corner of the building and pushed his way through the revolving door of the Centro Naval.
"Buenos tardes, mi Coronel," the porter manning the guest-book table said, and then, when el Teniente Coronel Alejandro Bernardo Mart?n had finished signing in, reached into a table drawer and handed him a small envelope.