Part 20

"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 attache 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, the _cabron_," 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 Spanish _Arriba_, 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 the _Arriba_ we 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, Senor 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, Senor 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_, senor! 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? _Vamonos._"

_Chapter sixteen_

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 attache case back to him. "The senor 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. More. 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 our _companero_."

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 More'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 where _they_ are. _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. More'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!"