Part 18

"But I won't be here all the time."

"Then I'll wait here for you."

"Baby, listen." He took out a package of American cigarettes, put one in her mouth, lit it. "Ladies don't smoke in San Hermano. You can smoke until you hear anyone coming. Then hand it to me. Now, sit down like a good girl, and for God's sake, listen carefully. There's a job I've got to do. It's my job alone. I've got to do it alone. I had an idea that before I was through here I'd have to do it. But Tabio's last words were spoken in English and they were to me, and baby, as soon as he stopped talking I knew what I had to do."

Hall quoted the President's words about the power of Truth. "And he was right," he said. "I remember what happened when I got out of the can in Spain. I went back to Paris to get some rest. Tabio was in Geneva, packing his things to go home. I found out he was still there and I went to see him before he left. He was going home to run for President so that this country shouldn't become a second Spain.

"I remember telling him that the thing which kept me alive in Franco's prison was my feeling that a miracle would happen--that the little guys in England and France would force the appeasers to sell guns to the Republic, or that Russia would be able to fly some heavy bombers across France for Madrid, or that Roosevelt would open his eyes and lift the damned embargo, or anything. Any good miracle like these, even a tiny one, would have saved the day. And I went to sleep every day sure that each morning I'd wake up closer to the day this miracle would happen, and that some morning I'd wake up and find that the people somewhere outside of Spain had performed this miracle.

"I remember the way Tabio listened to me speak, and how when I was done he said that the miracle I wanted all that time was that the truth should get to the people. It was that simple. And he was dead right. It's exactly what he did in his own country, and you know how the people love him for it."

Jerry looked puzzled. "But what do you propose to do?"

"Look," he said. "It's a matter of days at most before the whole nation will be mourning Tabio. The Constitution says that within thirty days after the President dies, there must be a general election. I have an idea that the race will be between Gamburdo and someone like Lavandero. Both will claim that they are Tabio's real choice as a successor. If I can get to Havana, I can dig up the truth about Gamburdo and Ansaldo in a matter of days. I'm sure of it. If it's anywhere at all, it's in Havana. Gamburdo is taking public credit for trying to save Tabio's life by bringing Ansaldo to San Hermano. The truth can make this boomerang in his face."

"Can't I help in any way?"

Hall stopped short. "Do you know what you're asking? That scrape in the hotel this morning was nothing compared to the things you're asking for if you stay. Even if Gamburdo is licked, it's only the beginning."

"But you're sticking it out, aren't you?"

"I have to. I've been in it since Madrid. There's no escaping it for me. I'll never know any peace until the crime of Spain is liquidated. Fascism isn't just an ideological enemy for me, baby. It's a cancer burning in my own, my very personal guts. I'd go off my conk if mine weren't two of the billion fists that are smashing and will go on smashing back at fascism until it's deader than Willie Androtten. I've never stopped to think of what my chances are of being alive at the finish. All I know is that if I stopped fighting it I'd die."

"Let me stay," Jerry pleaded. "I'd be a liar if I said that's the way I felt, too. But the war came to me this morning at the end of Androtten's gun, darling. I can't escape it any more than you can now."

* * * * *

They had an early dinner with Gonzales and his daughter, avoiding all serious discussion until Lavandero arrived. The Minister of Education brought grim news: Anibal Tabio had suffered a second stroke and was dying.

"Where is Ansaldo?" Hall asked.

"He is still on the ranch of Gamburdo's brother. He is waiting for an answer to his ultimatum. Don Anibal's condition is still a secret."

"But Esteban," Gonzales said, "we cannot keep it a secret. You will be accused of murdering Don Anibal if Gamburdo finds out."

"I know. I've asked Segador to come. I wanted to bring Simon Tabio, but he refuses to leave the room while his father still breathes. What do you think, _Companero_ Hall? What is the first thing we have to do? By the way, does the senorita speak Spanish?"

"No. I will tell her what she should know later."

"Is she reliable?"

"I hope to marry her--if I am alive in three weeks."

Jerry looked at Hall's face and blushed. "I'll bet you just told him about us," she said.

"My felicitations," Lavandero said, in English. He gave her his hand. "But with your permission, we must speak in Spanish."

Hall told Lavandero and Gonzales his plan about Havana. "I was going to do it in any event if Duarte didn't hear from his friends in Mexico."

"But why Havana?"

"Because Havana was the base headquarters in the Western Hemisphere for all Falangist work. The boys in the Casa de la Cultura and on the staff of _Ahora_ worked with the Batista government to break it up. They arrested the key leaders, but even though they had to let them go back to Spain, they took their confidential files away from them."

"And you think that Ansaldo will turn up in these files?"

"It is something we must not overlook."

"There is someone at the door," Gonzales said. "Wait." He slipped the safety of the automatic in his pocket, and went to the door with his hand on the gun.

"Be tranquil," Gonzales announced. "It is Diego."

The Major Diego Segador who walked into the room was quite a different creature from the mournful-visaged officer in the neat uniform Hall had met at the barracks. He wore a gray civilian suit, whose jacket was at least four sizes too small for his broad frame, yellow box-toe shoes and an incongruous striped silk shirt. The discolored flat straw hat he carried in his tremendous square hands completed the picture which immediately came to Hall's mind: a vision of Diego Segador as a tough steel-worker on a holiday in Youngstown, Ohio, during the twenties.

"You look," said Gonzales, "like a Gallego grocer on his way to High Mass."

"That's enough," Lavandero said sharply, "Don Anibal is dying."

The blood rose to Segador's head. "No!" he shouted.

"Sit down, Diego."

Gonzales opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of brandy. He shouted to the kitchen for his daughter to bring glasses.

"Major," Hall said, "this is Miss Olmstead."

"Hello," Segador said, in English. "You have close shave, no?"

All the men had brandy. Jerry merely looked at the bottle with great longing.

"Well then, Diego," Lavandero said, "minutes count now. Hall has a plan. It is a good one." He described it for the Major. "If he comes back with pictures of Ansaldo in the uniform of the Falange, we will have to flood the country with them. They will not look nice next to the pictures of Ansaldo embracing Gamburdo, no?"

"They will look very nice--for us. But how is Hall going to get to Havana?"

"By plane. Why?"

"Why? Because you are a marked man, Hall."

"Get me to the border, then. I'll get to Havana from across the border."

"Not on your passport," Segador said. "It is too risky. Tomas, you have a passport, no? Never mind. All right, then, Hall. You go on a passport made out to Vicente, but with your picture on it. I'll drive you north by car. You board a plane in San Martin Province--there's one that meets the Clipper for Miami. The mining men use it. You travel to Havana as one of our nationals, one Emilio Vicente. Then the officials of your own government in San Juan won't ..." He stopped suddenly, filled his glass with brandy, and drank it in one short gulp.

"Out with it, Major," Hall said. "What are you hiding?"

"Hiding?"

"About me and my government?"

"Nothing. It's just that you are too well known as Matthew Hall. You are known by face in San Juan. Perhaps, when you land there to refuel, someone will recognize you. And then there will be trouble about your Vicente passport. Perhaps--one cannot be too careful."

Hall knew that the Major was concealing something from him, something that had to do with himself. He thought of his low standing at the American Embassy, and of some of the fascists in high places he had offended in San Juan. "Yes," he said, "I think you are right." This, he decided, was not the time to start new trouble.

"No," Lavandero said, "it is no good. We shall need another passport for _Companero_ Hall."

"How can we get it?" Segador asked. "There is no time."

"There is time," Lavandero said, evenly. "Duarte is preparing a passport and papers for Hall. Diplomatic. He will travel as Victor Ortiz Tinoco, official courier of the Mexican Government."

"When did he start on the papers?" Hall asked.

"A few hours ago. He thought you might want to make the trip."

"Why didn't you tell me before this?"

Lavandero's face softened. "My dear friend," he said, "what you are undertaking is no minor task. The complications are enormous. If you are caught, you face much legal trouble at the very least; death by violence, if the fascists catch you first. You are under no obligations to this Republic. I had to hear it from your lips first."

"When can I start?"

"In two hours. You will have to give me your passport, so that I may have the picture copied for the Ortiz Tinoco papers. Segador's idea is the right one. He will drive you to the San Martin airport tonight. The Mexican Embassy is ordering the tickets. I will leave you with Gonzales and Segador to work out the rest of the details."

"Good. Here is my passport."

"The Republic will always be grateful to you, _Companero_ Hall." Lavandero stood up and started for the door. Hall accompanied him.

"Well," Hall said, "I'll try to get back within the week--if I'm lucky." He held out his hand to the Minister.

"Thank you, _companero_." Lavandero raised his arms to Hall's shoulders and embraced him. "You were worthy of his trust."

"And you of his love," Hall answered. He was sorry for Lavandero, sorry for him as a friend, as a man, as a leader so intent on answering his responsibilities to his moment in history that he had to allow his own personal rages to simmer unattended within him until there again came a time when a man could walk off alone and be his own master.

"I will see you in a week, _companero_."

Hall walked back to the living room. Segador was trying to convey to Jerry his impressions of Atlantic City in 1919. "Womans _bonitas_," he was shouting, "whisky bad. Much bad. I have young years, much money. Well, well. So."

"We'll listen to your memoirs when I get back," Hall said.

"When we get back," Segador said.

"You're coming with me?"

"I'm meeting you on your way back. We'll meet in Caracas. Listen to me, _companero_. The chief of our Air Force is loyal. He will give me one of our American bombers. From the San Martin airport, a bomber can make Caracas in fifteen hours. Give me ten hours' notice, and I will meet you in time. I already have a loyal flying crew standing by for my orders."

"Where can we meet in Caracas?"

"At the airport. I can meet your plane."

"Won't you be followed?"

"Of course. By three or four of my picked men. Don't worry about that."

Gonzales interrupted to say that there would be time for them to have dinner at the house before starting on the drive north.

"Oh, while we're at it," Hall said, "I am going to ask you to be good enough to keep my _novia_ here until I return. That is, if Segador thinks it is safe."

"It is safe," the Major grunted. "We will make it safe."

"Then it is the privilege of my daughter and myself to make this house the senorita's for a century." Gonzales called his daughter in from the kitchen. "It will be very good for her, _amigos_. Maria Luisa is studying English in high school. It will help her greatly."

"Let her teach Jerry Spanish in a week," Hall said.

The girl seemed pleased when her father told her about Jerry. "Oh, nice," she said, trying out her English immediately. "You are very welcome, Aunt. The pleasure it is all of mine."

"You are very kind," Jerry said.

"Please. May I show you the room? There are five rooms upstairs in my father's house. Your room faces the ..." She paused, flustered, turned to Hall. "_Como se dice, por favor, frente con vista al mar?_"

"Tell her that her room _faces the ocean front_, Maria Luisa. And teach her two words of Spanish for every word you learn from her."

"Let's go," Jerry said to the girl. "Vamoose _arriba, si_?"

"Under no circumstances," Segador said when the girls were gone, "must you attempt to come back by regular routes. If anything happens to me, wait at the border. Get to Santiago by plane, and wait in the big hotel for word from us."

"How bad is it for me?"

"Who knows? The fascists are mother-raping bastards, but they are no donkeys. Today they must be looking for you in San Hermano. In a few hours, they will begin to worry. Tomorrow they will become upset because you are gone, and by tomorrow night they will turn the whole Cross and Sword gang loose to look for you. But by tomorrow night, if all goes well, and if that madman of a Duarte doesn't try to drive the car himself but brings his driver along, you will be in Havana.

"Of course," Segador said, "we will do everything we can to end the hunt. But we can only do the usual things. Perhaps we will identify the body of some poor Hermanito who gets killed by a car as Matthew Hall. Give me some papers, by the way; we'll need them if we can get the right body."

"Lavandero has my American passport. And here's my wallet. That's good enough." Hall took the three photos out of the wallet. "The pictures are for her--if I don't come back."

"And the money?"

Hall flipped his fingers through the eight hundred-odd dollars worth of travelers' checks. "I'd better sign these, just in case," he said. "I want you to split it between Pepe Delgado and Emilio Vicente."

"I understand," Segador said. "Duarte is bringing some money for you to travel on."

"I'll repay him when I return. Is there anything else I should know? I have to write a letter. Have you any paper, doctor?"

"In a moment."

"Just a few things," Segador said. "A simple code for sending messages to us." He explained the code system in a few minutes. "And one other thing. I have the pictures we took of that Nazi Vicente shot; pictures of his face and his fingerprints. We will seal them in the pouch you are carrying. Perhaps you can identify it in Havana somehow."

"I will try. Ah, thanks for the paper. This will take me only a few minutes." Hall propped the writing pad on his lap and wrote a short note to his attorney in New York.

"Well, this is it," he wrote, "and I'll be more surprised than you are if you ever receive this letter. I'm about to leave this country on what might turn out to be a one-way trip to the grave. If I don't come back, this letter is to be sent to you. It's about my will. I still want the dough to go to the Spanish refugees and the veterans of the International Brigades, but I want to lop off about a quarter of the total in the bank and due me from Bird and leave it for Miss Geraldine Olmstead. She is an American citizen and, if you hadn't received this note, would by now be Mrs. H. When you meet her, introduce her to my friends and take her around to the Committee; she wants to help the Spanish Republicans. If I really thought this was my last trip, I guess I'd close this letter with some appropriate and high-sounding last lines--you know, the kind of crap a guy would write as the lead for his own obit. But we'll skip the farewell address. This letter is being witnessed by two good friends, one a doctor and the other a major in this country. I guess that makes it legal."

Hall signed the letter, told Gonzales and Segador what he wanted done with it, and handed them the pen. "How much time do we have?" he asked.

"You will have to leave in less than two hours," Segador said. "Duarte will be here long before then."

"Good." Hall looked at his watch. "I would like to see the girl alone in her room for a while. There is much that I must tell her before I go."

"I understand," Segador said.

"Are you making the trip to San Martin with me?"

"No. I will only ride the first twenty miles with you. I have a car waiting for me at Marao."

Hall waited for Gonzales to call his daughter, and then he went up to Jerry's room.

_Chapter fifteen_

Hall had time to buy a paper at the Havana airport before the Panair bus started out for the city. In the half-light of evening, he could read only the headlines, and the front page carried nothing about Tabio's condition. It meant only one thing, that Don Anibal was still alive. His death would have rated a banner headline in every paper published south of the United States borders.

He folded the paper under his sealed attache case, sat wearily back in his seat as the half-empty bus rolled through the flat table lands between the airport and Havana. It was a run of fifteen miles from Rancho Boyeros to the Prado, a stretch long enough to give Hall another opportunity to review in his mind the nature of the tasks that lay ahead of him.

Physically, there were few details which could trap him. Duarte had been very thorough, even to the point of bringing Mexican labels for Jerry to sew into every item of apparel on Hall's body and in his Mexican leather grip. The credentials in his worn Mexican wallet had carried him through the control stations of four governments, including the station in San Juan (although the night in Puerto Rico had been a jittery twelve hours of sulking in his room like a caged animal). He wore a hat and a pair of soft ankle boots which belonged to Duarte, and a pair of broad-framed tortoise-shell reading glasses he had borrowed from Dr. Gonzales. The attache case, protected by the Mexican seal, contained the pictures of Androtten, a letter from Duarte to a man named Figueroa in the Mexican Embassy, and the automatic Segador had given him the day after he was drugged.

It was too late to report to the Mexican Embassy and deliver the letter to Figueroa. But the Casa de la Cultura would be open (there were lectures and meetings of some sort going on every night at the Spanish Republican society), the boys on the staff of _Ahora_ would be at their desks at the paper, and Colonel Lobo could always be reached within a few hours. The idea was to contact all three tonight; if the documentary bomb which would blow up Ansaldo was anywhere in Havana, it would be either at the Casa, the paper, or in the files of the Secret Police.

His heart quickened as the bus reached the narrow streets of Havana, honked its way to the Maceo, and then turned lazily down the Prado. He loved this city as he loved only two others, New York and Madrid. In the course of nearly four decades, Hall had spent a mere four months in Havana, but these were months in which he rarely got more than four hours' sleep a night. He had worked hard in this city, but for a hundred-odd nights he had also known the fantastic pleasures of merely walking the streets of the Cuban capital, talking to friends, stopping off to rest and have a tropical beer or a tall glass of mamey pulp, getting drunk only on the green softness of the Havana moon and the cool pleasures of the Gulf breeze. Here he had found old friends from Spain, and made new and life-long friendships with a host of Cubans. He knew, when he last left Havana, that the city had become one of his spiritual homes, that always he would think of it as a place to which he could return when he wanted the peace which comes to a man from being where he belongs.

As they approached the Panair office, Hall became apprehensive. He was afraid that he might be recognized by one of the clerks. He dug into his wallet for an American two-dollar bill and handed it to the driver. "Take me directly to the Jefferson Hotel, _chico_," he said. "It is only two streets out of your way."

"I won't get shot if I do, _amigo_."

He chose the Jefferson because it was a small, ancient and very unfashionable hotel, without a bar, and completely overlooked by the American colony. It was also very inexpensive, just the kind of a place a new courier, anxious to make a good record, would choose. It was on the Prado, it was clean, and the bills were modest enough to reflect to the credit of the government traveler who submitted them. Not the least of its charms for Hall was that the Jefferson was the one place where he stood not the slightest chance of being known by either the guests or the employees.

He signed the register with a modest flourish, insisted upon and obtained a reduced rate due to his standing as a courier, and then, spotting the large safe in the office behind the counter, he asked for the manager. "I am," he said, flourishing his identity papers, "a courier of the Mexican Government. Since I have arrived too late to present myself to my Embassy tonight, could I ask for the privilege of depositing my case in your safe for the night?"

The manager said he would be honored to oblige. He had, he said, traveled widely in Mexico, and admired the Mexican people, the Mexican Government, and most of all Senor Ortiz Tinoco's Department of Foreign Relations, and did the visitor expect to make frequent stops in Havana? The visitor assured the manager that he did.

The case was handed to the night clerk, who opened the safe, deposited it, and closed the heavy iron door. "It will be as safe," the manager said, "as the gold in the teeth of a Gallego."

"That," said Hall, "is security enough for me."

He got into the rickety elevator and went to his room. It was a large room overlooking the Prado. He opened the shutters, looked out at the star-drenched skies. He was home again. Outside, juke boxes in three different open cafes on one street were playing three records with maximum volume. A baby in the next room was lying alone and cooing at the ceiling. Near by, a light roused a rooster on some rooftop to let out a loud call.

Hall heard the sounds of the city as they blended into the tone pattern peculiarly Havana's own. He took a quick shower, changed into some fresh clothes, and went downstairs to the Prado. He stopped first at a cigar stand a few doors from the hotel, bought a handful of choice cigars, and lit a long and very dark Partagas, being careful to remember that only gringos removed the cigar band before lighting up.

He walked casually down the Prado, toward the Malecon, pausing in the course of the four blocks between the Casa de la Cultura and the Jefferson to study the stills in the lobby of a movie house showing an American film, to sip a leisurely pot of coffee, and to buy a box of wax matches and a lottery ticket from a street vendor. From the street, he could see that the windows of the Casa were well lighted. He walked another block, crossed the street, and then, very casually, he studied the signs on the street entrance to the organization's headquarters. _Tonight: Lecture on History of Music by Professor A. Vasquez. Dance and ball for young people._ And why shouldn't a bachelor courier on the loose in Havana attend a dance for the young _refugiados_? He went through the motions of a visiting blade debating with himself the propriety of attending such a ball.

Squaring his shoulders, the Mexican courier put the cigar in his mouth and started to climb the stairs to the headquarters of the Casa. He climbed slowly, afraid of receiving too enthusiastic a greeting when he reached the first-floor landing.