Chapter II: Part 2

In ways more subtle, but no less real than the old ways, the Republic became a colony again, except that the nation was no longer ruled by a crown but by new and even more potent symbols: the sign of the pound, the sign of the dollar, the sign of the franc. The new order brought a new San Hermano, a new Western city built around the rims of the old fortress seaport. It was a strange and often beautiful melange of French villas and British banks and American skyscrapers and German town houses.

The old Constitution of the Liberators gave way to a series of native dictators who waxed rich as the servants of the foreign owners of the metals and minerals discovered under the nation's soil, of the foreign business men who never saw San Hermano but built vast abattoirs near the wharves where skinny _Hermanitos_ earned a few pennies a day for slaughtering and then loading endless herds of native cattle in the dark holds of foreign ships.

They were ruthless men, the dictators who sat in San Hermano as pro-Consuls of the foreigners and the landowners, ruthless men who, for their share of the profits of the foreigners, of the endless rivers of pesetas the landowners sent to Spain, maintained armies of cutthroats to put down any attempt at rebellion against the new existing order.

The last of these dictators to sit in San Hermano was General Agusto Segura. More than a decade had passed since Segura had died in bed and a junta of professors and miners wrested the control of the nation from Segura's henchmen. There had been little bloodshed when the Junta took over; after thirty years, the Segura regime, or what was left of it, had just collapsed of its own rottenness.

Hall thought of Segura, and the state he had ruled, and then, again thinking about Tabio while he stared into the shadows of the darkened Plaza de la Republica, Hall remembered Tabio's quiet remark about his country's having been in the twentieth century for barely a decade. A slim decade, which began with a world in confusion and was now ending with a world in flames. But if the country weathered these flames, it would be because Tabio, instead of running for the Presidency after the revolution which swept out the remnants of Segurista power, had chosen to serve as Minister of Education for nearly ten years. Hall was willing to stake his life on this, ready to bet that the phenomenal free educational system Tabio had set up for children and adults would, in the final analysis, be one of the nation's chief bulwarks against fascism.

He changed his clothes and went out for a walk through the crooked streets of Old San Hermano before turning in. Many lights were burning in the fourth floor of the Presidencia, the floor on which the President had his apartment. Military guards were standing listlessly at the entrances to the gilded building.

Hall walked along the Plaza until he came to the Calle de Virtudes, which led to a little cafe on the street opposite the rear entrance of the Presidencia. It had no windows but giant shutters which were folded against the wall when the cafe was open for business. The cafe itself stood on a corner, the sidewalks on both sides of the place covered with tables and chairs. Wooden lattice fences, painted a bright orange, screened the tables from the pedestrian's section of the sidewalk. Inside, near the bar itself, two boys with guitars were playing and singing the tragi-comic peasant songs of the south.

He took a sidewalk table, ordered a meat pie and a bottle of beer, and then went to the small hotel next to the cafe to buy a sheet of paper, an envelope, and an air-mail stamp. He asked for a telephone book, looked up the names under Gomez, copied the address of one Juan Gomez, and returned to his table. There he bought a newspaper from a boy peddling the latest edition of the evening. The front page carried a story about Ansaldo: the distinguished visiting medico was to spend the next day conferring with local doctors who had been treating the President. In one of the back pages, under Arrivals, there was a line about the illustrious author and war correspondent Dr. M. Gall who reached San Hermano by Clipper; Dr. Gall was the noted author of _The Revenger_, even now being produced in Hollywood.

The paper was put aside for the meat pie. When he was done with the food, Hall pushed his plates away and spread his sheet of lined writing paper on the table before him. He called for some ink, filled his fountain pen, and wrote a letter in Spanish to a "Dear Pedro."

It was a rambling, innocuous letter which started out with family gossip about a forthcoming marriage of a cousin, the marriage prospects of the writer's eligible daughter, the letter received from Cousin Hernando who was happy on his new ranch and whose good wife was expecting another child soon. Then the letter went on to say that "I suppose you have read in the Havana papers that our President is ailing. Today there arrived in our city the distinguished Spanish doctor Varela Ansaldo. He is to treat the President. Perhaps I am very stupid, but is he not the surgeon who operated so well on the throat of your dear Uncle Carlos?" The letter then continued on for another page of family gossip and regards and requests that Pedro embrace a whole list of dear cousins and aunts. It was signed, simply, "Juanito."

Hall read the letter twice, sealed it, and addressed the envelope to Pedro de Aragon, Apartado 1724, La Habana, Cuba. Pedro de Aragon was a myth. Mail at this box was picked up by Santiago Iglesias, an officer of the Spanish Republican Army whom Hall had met again in Havana. Iglesias did at one time have an uncle named Carlos; the uncle had died on the Jarama front from a fascist bullet that tore through his throat and killed him instantly. Hall had arranged to write to Iglesias under names chosen from the phone books of different cities if the need arose. He scribbled the name and address of Juan Gomez on the back of the envelope, left some money on the table, and walked back to the Plaza. There he dropped the letter in a mailbox and continued on his way to the Bolivar.

There was a new clerk on duty when Hall reached the hotel, a wiry man of forty-odd whose yellow silk shirt clashed with both his black mohair jacket and his long, lined face. Hall asked for the key to Room 306 in Spanish.

The clerk cleared his throat and answered in English. "There was messages," he said, handing the key to Hall with a sheaf of slips. "And also this." From under the counter he drew a sealed letter written on heavy paper and bearing the neat blue imprint of the American Embassy at San Hermano on the envelope.

Hall frowned and tore open the envelope.

"Senorita the Ambassador's daughter telephoned twice," the clerk said.

"Thank you."

"It's on this slip, Mr. Hall."

"Thanks again." He read the few handwritten lines of the letter. It was an invitation from the Ambassador's daughter, Margaret Skidmore, to attend the Ambassador's party at the Embassy on the 5th. That was two nights off.

There was a message from Jerry Olmstead. She had phoned from her room to leave word that she had retired for the evening but would meet him in the dining room at ten for breakfast. Hall noticed that the clerk was watching him intently as he read the girl's message, but when he started to read the next slip the clerk interrupted him.

"It's from Mr. Roger Fielding," he said. "I took the message myself. He is a very nice person. An Englishman."

On the slip the clerk had written, "Mr. Fielding is very sorry you were not in because it is important. He will call you again."

"My name is Fernando Souza," the clerk said, extending his hand. "I am very happy to meet you."

Hall put the papers down on the desk and shook hands with the clerk. They had a meaningless chat about the rigors of wartime travel and the dimout in peaceful San Hermano and Hall learned that the Englishman Fielding was in the tall Lonja de Comercio building and very decent. "I have been at this desk for many years and in this position one meets many people," the clerk said, and he went on amiably chatting about what one could see on different one-day tours from the city.

"It is very sad about the President," Hall said, and then the clerk reddened and he forgot to speak English. "The Educator must live," Fernando Souza said. "If the Educator goes, the nation goes."

"I know," Hall said. "I admire Don Anibal greatly."

"_Momentico, Senor. El telefono._" After nine, the night clerk had to handle the switchboard at the Bolivar.

It was Fielding again. Hall picked up the phone on the marble counter. "Yes, Mr. Fielding," he said, "I'm sorry I missed your first call."

"Not at all, old man. Not at all. Damned decent of you to answer my call now, what with the hour and all that." The voice which came through Hall's receiver was the raspy, crotchety, bluff voice of a movie Britisher, the diction almost too good to be true. "I must say it was a good surprise, a good surprise. The paper tonight, I mean, even if they called you Dr. Gall. But what can they do if the H is silent in Spanish?"

"I've been called Gall before."

"Of course you have, of course you have." The man at the other end of the wire cleared his throat with a loud harumph. "What I'm calling about, Mr. Hall, is--well, damn it all, what with the war and all that I guess we have a right to keep a tired traveler from going to bed the second his plane reaches the end of his road. I think it rather urgent we have a bit of coffee and a bit of a chat tonight. Really, old man, I think it is urgent."

"At what time?" Hall asked.

"I'm at home now," Fielding said. "I can get to Old San Hermano in an hour. Souza can tell you how to get to my office. Nice chap, that Souza. Straight as a die."

"Good."

"The office is about ten minutes from the Bolivar by cab, if Souza can get you a cab. Suppose I ring you at the Bolivar when I reach the office?"

"That will be fine. See you soon." Hall put the phone down and turned to Souza. "He said you are straight as a die," he said.

"Mr. Fielding is a very decent Englishman," Souza said. He offered no further information about Roger Fielding, and Hall decided against asking any questions.

"If you are meeting him at his office, I had better get you a cab," Souza said, and then, sensing the hesitation in Hall's eyes, he quickly added, "it would be better. Walking at night is dangerous, especially in Old San Hermano, since the lights went out. There are many--accidents."

"O.K.," Hall said. "Look, I'm going upstairs to catch a little sleep. When Fielding calls back, get me that cab and send up a pot of coffee. And it's been good meeting you, even if Fielding does say you are straight as a die."

Souza did not get the joke, but he knew that Hall was trying to joke and he laughed.

Hall went to his room, took off his shoes and his suit, and fell across the bed. He dozed off wondering why he had agreed so readily to meet the man with the tailor-made British diction.

At ten-fifteen his phone rang. "Mr. Fielding called ten minutes ago. I have your cab ready now. He is a very reliable driver."

"Good. How about my coffee?"

Souza laughed. "The only waiter on duty is a _cabron_, Senor. Mr. Fielding will have much better coffee for you, anyway."

Hall chuckled as he washed the sleep out of his eyes with cold water and combed his hair. The waiter is a _cabron_! There was one for the book. Hall made up a song while he dressed, a song about yes we have no coffee today because the son of a gun is a dirty _cabron_ so we have no coffee today.

Souza slammed his palm down on the bell twice when the elevator let Hall into the lobby. "Pepito!" he shouted.

The biggest cab driver Hall had ever seen outside of the United States bounded into the lobby from the blackness of the San Hermano night. He advanced toward the desk in seven-league strides, wiping his right hand on the blouse of his pale-blue slack suit and taking off his white chauffeur's cap with the other hand. He hovered over Hall like a mother hen.

"Pepito," Souza said, "this is Senor Hall." This he said in Spanish. In English, he again told Hall that the man was a very reliable driver.

"_Con mucho gusto_, Senor 'All. _Me llamo_ Delgado." Sheepishly, the giant offered his hand to Hall.

"I am much pleased," Hall said. "Shall we start now?"

Pepito Delgado led Hall to a blue 1935 LaSalle parked in front of the Bolivar. "She is my own machine after I make the last payment next month," Delgado said. "I am glad you speak Spanish. It is the only language I know." He drove Hall to the ten-story Comercio building in a few minutes.

When Hall tried to pay him, Delgado shook his head happily. "You'll pay me later," he smiled. "I'll wait for you."

"But I may be hours," Hall protested.

Delgado called upon the Saints in a series of genially blasphemous exhortations. "Mother of God," he said, "it is bad luck not to make a round trip with the first American of the season. I'll wait and not charge you more than two pesos for the whole trip."

"I do not wish to rob you," Hall said. "Wait, and we shall make a fair price later."

He entered the Comercio building, but as the doors of the elevator closed and he started on his way up to the seventh floor Hall knew that Delgado was only playing the fool and was in fact no man's fool at all, and it bothered him. The right side of his face twitched slightly as he left the car and walked down to the bend in the hall leading to Room 719.

_Chapter three_

The frosted glass door of Room 719 bore the words, "Roger Fielding Y Cia." The anteroom was dark, but Hall could see the dim form of a man sitting in a lighted inner room. He knocked on the glass without trying the knob. In a moment, the light snapped on in the anteroom, and the man from the inner office opened the hall door.

"Mr. Hall?" he asked. "I'm Roger Fielding. Welcome to San Hermano. And please come inside."

Fielding fitted to the last detail the mental image Hall had conjured of the man on the phone. Genial, peppery, he not only talked like a Hollywood Englishman, he was a casting director's dream. Let the call go out for a man to play a retired India colonel, a British Ambassador, the Duke of Gretna Green, the popular professor of Chaldean Culture at Oxford, the Dean of Canterbury or the Chief of Scotland Yard, and Fielding was the man who could slip into the role without even changing from street clothes to costume. Fielding was the man, complete to the faintly grizzled face with the gaunt features, the dazzling plaid jacket, the thick-walled Dunhill pipe with the well-caked bowl.

He ushered Hall into the inner office, whose shades were all drawn to the sills. There was a large mahogany desk at the window; against the wall stood a long table bearing a row of glass coffee makers, a tray of demi-tasse cups, and a series of earthen canisters. On the wall above this table hung a large sepia-tinted photograph of London, taken about 1920. It faced a large print of a cottage and a brook in the Shakespeare country. This engraving hung over a row of four filing cabinets with steel locks. The walls were further decorated with framed certificates of Fielding's membership in coffee associations of San Hermano, Rio and New Orleans.

"Sit down, sit down," Fielding urged, pulling a comfortable leather chair to the side of his desk for Hall, and taking the swivel chair behind the desk for himself. The highly polished desk was bare, except for a calendar pad and a folded red-leather picture frame whose picture faced Fielding.

"I'm in coffee, you see."

Hall glanced up at the certificates and the long table. "I see," he said.

"How was your trip? Not too tiring, I hope? That's the sad thing about planes. Faster than ships, but rather confining."

"It was not too bad," Hall said. "Besides, I stole an hour's cat nap at the hotel while waiting for you to get to town."

"Good for you," Fielding said. "I like a man who can steal an hour's sleep when the spirit so moves him. May I make you some coffee to keep you awake, though?"

"If it's not too much trouble."

The Englishman was already at his coffee table. He took the pipe out of his mouth, pointed with the end of the curved stem at one of the canisters. "I guess we'll mix you a little of that Monte Azul with some of this light roast from the south," he said. "If that doesn't sit well, I have two dozen other roasts you can try."

Hall asked him how good a blend would result from the mixture of Monte Azul, Bogota, and the various Brazilian growths Androtten had described to the Brazilian on the plane.

"Ah," Fielding smiled, "so you know coffees, too?"

"Not at all. My education started on the plane." Hall described Androtten, and told Fielding of the Dutchman's experiences in Java and his theories of the perfect blend.

Fielding set some coffee and water into one of the vacuum makers, put a match to the alcohol burner. "Androtten," he mumbled. "I don't remember meeting him before. However, if it's the Monte Azul bean he's after, I'll venture he'll be in to see us before the week is over. Let me see, Androtten ..." He picked up his phone, asked for a local number. "Hello," he said into the phone. "Sorry to call so late, old man. About a chap named Androtten. A Hollander. Blitzed out of Java by the Nippos. Of course. In coffee. Came in tonight on the Clipper to buy Monte Azul for blending. Know him? I see. Well, thanks, anyway."

The Englishman put the phone away. "One of my countrymen," he explained. "He's not in Monte Azul and I'm not in southern crops. We help one another in a case like this. Incidentally, he never heard of your Androtten." He chatted aimlessly about the coffee business until the coffee in the vacuum maker was ready, then he poured it into a small jug and brought the jug and two demi-tasse cups to the desk. "Sugar?" he asked.

Hall had lost his taste for sugar in San Sebastian. "I have it black and pure," he said.

"That's the only way to enjoy real coffee, Mr. Hall." Fielding took a key from his pocket and went to the first filing cabinet. "However," he said, "it wasn't to talk about coffee that you were generous enough to come here tonight. Not to talk about coffee." He pulled a brown-paper portfolio out of the file and returned with it to the desk. He undid the strings that bound the portfolio, removed a manila folder.

"I think you had better pull your chair around and sit next to me here," Fielding said. "We have to look over some things in this file."

Hall moved both the chair and the jug of hot coffee. From his new position, he could see that the leather folding frame on the desk contained two photos of what was evidently one person. One photo showed a young man of twenty-odd standing near a stone wall in what was undoubtedly England; the other photo was the young man as a laughing child in a pony cart.

"I lost my boy," Fielding mumbled, absently. He tapped the ashes from his pipe out into an ash tray on the window sill, filled it again with new tobacco from a worn ostrich pouch. Hall could see a thin, rheumy film cover the Englishman's eyes.

"The war?" Hall asked, softly, but if Fielding heard him he gave no indication that he had.

Fielding held a lighted match over the filled bowl of his pipe, started it burning with deep, sucking draughts. "Ah, your book," he said, when the pipe was burning. "You are a man of courage, Hall. You showed real guts. The kind of guts our Nellie Chamberlain didn't have when England needed them most."

Hall poured fresh coffee into both his and Fielding's cups. "Thank you," he said. "I tried to do it justice." He told him what the British censor in Cairo had said when he saw the manuscript.

The grizzled Englishman took the pipe out of his mouth, looked at Hall with amazement and disgust. "British grit, my foot!" He bellowed. "The _Revenger_ was doomed the day Nellie Chamberlain decided to back Franco. I'm talking about your other book, Hall, _Behind Franco's Lines_. Any fool can get a battleship shot out from under him, but it takes a man ..." Suddenly he stopped, because both Hall and he were looking at the photos of the young man who was once a laughing boy in a canary-colored pony cart.

He opened the folder. A photostat of a multi-paged typewritten report lay on top of the neat pile of papers in the folder. "Now then, Hall, to get to the point. When I read that you had arrived in San Hermano, well, frankly, Hall, I thought it was the answer to my prayers. I know I'm a garrulous old man, but that comes from talking into the prevailing winds for so long that I just can't help myself."

"I know what you mean," Hall said. "Only I never thought of it in that way. I thought of it in terms of talking to a blank wall."

"Be it as it may, Hall, I don't think I'll be talking at a blank wall when I speak to you. As I said, there is a point to this meeting, and the point is brief. Hall, the Falange is in San Hermano, and it is up to much trouble."

"The Falange!"

"Oh, I know what you are thinking. Tabio made it illegal and it had to disband and all that. But Tabio's government never threw the whole Falange crowd into jail, where they belong, and they are still getting their orders from the Spanish Embassy."

Hall passed a hand in front of his smarting eyes. "Did you say they're up to trouble?" he asked.

"I said just that, Hall. Did you ever hear of the Cross and the Sword? Sounds like the name of a ha'penny thriller. Have you seen one of these since you arrived in San Hermano?" He handed Hall a gold lapel emblem; it was a sword with a blazing hilt, the letters ATN engraved across the cross piece of the hilt.

"The ATN stands for Accion Tradicionalista Nacional, but no one calls them that any more than they call the Nazis by their formal name. You know, National German Socialist something or other. It's a bad business, Hall, a very bad business. The Cross and Sword, alias the Falange Espanola."

"Are they very strong?"

"They don't parade around the streets in their blue shirts as they did until Tabio clamped down in '40, and they don't pack the Cathedral in their Falange uniforms any more to hold special masses for the rotten soul of that young snot old Primo de Rivera whelped. The Cross and the Sword is not like that. But go to the San Hermano Country Club or a meeting of the Lonja de Comercio or to a fashionable party in the country and every tailored jacket you see will have a Cross and a Sword pinned to the lapel.

"Go to a little country village the day after the local school teacher was murdered on some lonely dark road. The _campesinos_ stand around muttering 'The Cross and the Sword is guilty,' and the next night the home of some local Spanish landowner goes up in smoke. Then it's only a matter of hours before the Cross and Sword members in San Hermano are raising hell because a fellow Cross and Sword member had his house burned down. They tell everyone that's what happens when you have a Red regime which forces a gentleman to sell his land to the government and then sells the land back to the peasants who have to borrow the money from the government to pay for the land."

Hall turned the Cross and Sword emblem over in his fingers. "That's what happened in Spain," he said. "It happened in just that way."

"Of course it did, Hall. Of course it did. Now look here. Look at this." From the bottom of the pile of documents in the folder, Fielding extracted a map of the nation's coastline.

"Here," he said, "is the coast. Now note these islands. I have numbered some of them in red ink. Now take this island, Number Three. Looks like an ink blot, doesn't it, now? Not much of a place for anything. Just a bunch of volcanic caves and some quite useless land. Good for grazing a few head of sheep, but not too good even for that. Belongs to a chap named Segundo Vardenio. Been in his family for years, over three hundred years. Own the island, own thousands of acres on the shore facing the bloody island. I know the whole family. More Spanish than the Duke of Alba, that family.

"Well, sir, they were all in the Falange. Segundo Vardenio was one of the big leaders of the Falange in the country. Used to wear his blue shirt and his boots and give his damned stiff-arm salute all over the place. And what do you think goes on at his island, Hall? I'll tell you. Oil and submarines, submarines and oil. The Vardenio lands on the shore are in sugar. They have a narrow-gauge Diesel railway of their own on the estates. Understand, Hall, a _Diesel railway_? The locomotives and the submarines burn the same type of oil."

"German subs?"

"Hun subs and only Hun subs, Hall. Look here. Look at this report. I sent it to the chief of Naval Intelligence at our Embassy. On the 29th of September, 1940, a Hun sub anchored off Vardenio's island. A small launch belonging to the Vardenio family towed the sub into the largest of the sea caves on the island. The sub took on a load of Diesel oil, fresh fruit, meat, cigars, razor blades and a sealed portfolio. I don't know what was in that portfolio. Three days later, the British freighter _Mandalay_, carrying beef and copper from San Hermano, was torpedoed and sunk by a Nazi submarine at approximately this point." Fielding held a ruler between an X mark in the ocean and the island.

He continued to read the report aloud, running a bony finger under the words as he read them, pausing now and then to sneer at his detractors in the British Embassy or to chuckle at some particular sarcasm written into the report.

The facts in the report were set forth in great detail. They dealt with other submarine anchorages, with the role of the Cross and the Sword on the waterfront, and with the beginnings of an organized ring of sabotage. The report ended with the account of the events which followed the visit of the _Ciudad de Sevilla_, a Spanish liner, to the port of San Hermano.

"Look here, Hall," Fielding said. "Listen to this. On the twentieth of September, '41, the _Ciudad de Sevilla_ docked in San Hermano at four-ten in the afternoon. At approximately five o'clock, the radio operator of the Spanish liner, one Eduardo Jimenez, left the ship and proceeded to a bar on the Paseo de Flores, the bar known as La Perrichola. There he met with two unidentified men, one of whom was later identified as a provincial leader of the Cross and the Sword. The three men went to a brothel near the waterfront, and at exactly ten o'clock left the brothel and got into a waiting sedan which, by a roundabout route, took them to Calle Galleano 4857, a quiet villa in the west suburb.

"The villa belongs to Jorge Davila, a lawyer for some of the great landowning families of the south. Davila's record as one of the leaders of the now illegal Falange and an organizer of the Cross and the Sword has been covered in my previous report, dated July 7th of this year." Fielding poured some fresh coffee for Hall and himself. "Tomorrow or the next day I can show you the report in question, Hall. But to proceed with this report.

"At Davila's home, a group of Cross and Sword leaders were waiting for the three men in the sedan. They had a long meeting, lasting over five hours. Then eight men, including the Spanish ship's officer, left the house and entered two fast cars of American make. The cars proceeded to the town of Alcala, in the sugar lands some seventy miles from San Hermano.

"In the morning, there was no trace of the eight men in Alcala. That night, the sugar fields of the English planter, Basil Greenleaf, were set on fire by incendiary flames started in over twenty different parts of his acreage at the same time. Two of Greenleaf's employees who were attempting to fight the blaze in the east field were killed by rifle fire. One of them lived long enough to stagger to the road where he told his story to the Greenleaf foreman, a man named Esteban Anesi.

"I must call your attention, sir, to the fact that Greenleaf was the only planter in the Alcala region who had contracted to sell his crop to Great Britain, and that the fire took place exactly two weeks before the harvest time.

"Eduardo Jimenez was next seen in San Hermano the day after the fire, when he appeared in the Municipal Police Headquarters in what was evidently a state of extreme intoxication. He complained that on leaving his ship on the twentieth, he had gone to a bar for a drink, met up with two pimps, and had then been taken to a brothel where, after two days of drunken revelry, he had been cleaned out of his life's savings and then been carried out to sleep it off in an alley off the Calle Mercedes. Having made his complaint, he passed out. A police doctor examined him, recommended a good night's sleep."

Fielding held his finger under the word _sleep_. "Hah," he roared. "Damn clever, the bastards! Now then, where was my place? Oh, yes, good night's sleep. Yes."

"In the morning, Jimenez awoke, vomited, and started to yell for the jailer. He wanted to know what he was doing in a cell, and when shown his complaint, he expressed innocent amazement. He could not recall a thing. The warden gave him a hearty breakfast and sent him on his way. Jimenez joined his ship, which sailed for Spain that afternoon with a cargo of beef."

The case of Eduardo Jimenez was the last in the report. Fielding put the copy aside and leaned back in his chair. "Was this worth your while, Hall?" he asked.

Hall grinned. "You have the necessary proof?"

"Absolutely. To the last word, old man. To the last word."

"May I have a copy of your report?"

"Of course. I hope you will get better results, though."

"May I ask an impertinent question, sir?"

"Be as impertinent as you wish. I'm sixty-four years old, Hall, and if I can't put up with Yank impertinence in this late stage, I deserve no sympathy."

"Well then, and don't answer if you think me too brash, Fielding, it's simply ..."

"Hold on!" Fielding held up a restraining hand. "Let me write your question out on this slip of paper and after you ask it, I'll show you what I've written." He scribbled a few words on the paper, covered them with his left hand.

"Are you British Intelligence?" Hall asked him.

Fielding handed Hall the slip of paper. On it was written: _Q. Fielding, old man, are you a British agent? A. No, my fine impertinent friend. Believe it or not, I am not a British agent._

He was not smiling when he put a lighted match to the slip of paper and watched it burn to ashes in the bronze tray. "As a matter of fact," he said, soberly, "I am not in very good repute at the British Embassy. I organized a dinner of the more sensible people in the British colony here in '38 and, after I'd made a blistering speech against Munich and non-intervention in Spain we all signed a row of a cable to Nellie Chamberlain. They have me down as a sort of an eccentric and a Red. Perhaps I am eccentric, but I'm no more a Red than poor Professor Tabio or your own Mr. Roosevelt."

"I've been called both things before myself."

"I'll bet you have, Hall. I'll bet you have. Let's have another jug of coffee and look through some more reports. Can you stay awake for an hour or so?"

"I can stay up all night."

"Well, maybe you can. But I'm not as young as I used to be. We'll finish the reports in this folder and call it a night. But first--the coffee."

The aroma from the jug warmed Hall's senses. In the cell at San Sebastian he would awake at night dreaming that he was smelling the sweet vapors of a fresh pot of coffee boiling away near his pallet. "God," he said, "I must tell you about what this smell means to me some day."

"There's nothing like it," Fielding agreed. "Now let me see, here's a photostat of a letter from the Embassy acknowledging the receipt of the report I just read, and here ... Ah...." He started to turn the next letter over, but Hall, reading the letter-head, laid a hand on the sheet.

"May I?" he asked.

Fielding handed him the letter. It was on the stationery of the International Brigade Association in London, dated January, 1938.

"The action on the Jarama front ... bitter ... your son Sergeant Harold Fielding leading squad of volunteer sappers ... missing in action ... thorough check on records of hospitals and field stations on that front ... no record of Sergeant Fielding ... we therefore regret ... must be presumed dead...."

The father of Sergeant Fielding held the picture of the boy in front of Hall. "This photograph," he said, heavily. "It was taken a year before he went to Spain. You didn't, by any chance, happen to know the lad, did you, Hall? He was my only child. Completing work on his Master's in biochemistry at Cambridge when the Spanish show started. You didn't happen to know him, eh, Hall?"

Hall studied the photograph.

"He fought with the British Battalion," Fielding offered.

"I was with them in the fighting for Sierra Pedigrosa," Hall said. "There was Pete Kerrigan, and a boy named Patterson I knew pretty well. And--but that was after the Jarama fighting."

"The boy is not alive," Fielding said. "I checked with the International Red Cross after the war, and he was not taken prisoner by the fascists. I just wanted to find someone who could tell me--who could tell me how my boy died."

Hall returned the red-leather frame. "I wish from the bottom of my heart I could help you. But I just can't. I'm afraid I never did meet the boy."

Roger Fielding read the letter from London for perhaps the thousandth time, sighed, and placed it face down on top of the pile to the left of the letters and reports in the folder. "Ah, well," he said. "Now for the living. Now here's a report I made three weeks ago. Some day those young stuffed shirts in the Embassy will have to read my reports seriously, Hall. Perhaps this is the report that will do it."

The second report bore the heading: "Neutrality or Belligerence: Gamburdo or Tabio."

Hall started. "What's this?" he asked.

"Let's look it over, old man." Fielding cleared his throat and began to read aloud.

"It is no secret, or it should be no secret to our vigilant intelligence services, that President Anibal Tabio is a warm friend of the cause for which the United Nations are fighting. It is no secret that Tabio, before being stricken with his present tragic illness, was planning to go before the Havana Conference himself to lead the continental campaign to declare war on the Axis powers.

"However, the views of Vice-President Gamburdo, who now has assumed the control of the government, are less well known. Gamburdo's views, however, are not among the best kept secrets of this war." Fielding chuckled, waved his pipe in the direction of the Presidencia, and added the comment, "I should say not! They are far from secret.

"Gamburdo's ties to the Cross and the Sword are very discreet. I have reason to believe that Gamburdo believes his link with the ATN is not known by anyone except a few chosen fascist leaders."

Fielding looked up at Hall. "Oho," he laughed. "That must have been hard to swallow. They don't like to call the Cross-and-Sword bandits 'fascists.' Oh, no. Not the Embassy. They've got them tabbed as 'conservatives' opposed to the extremes of the Red Tabio regime. The fools!

"Well, now, to continue. Ah--chosen fascist leaders. Oh, yes. But twice within the past two weeks, for three hours on the twelfth and for a full day on the fourteenth, Gamburdo was at the ranch of his brother Salvador in Bocas del Sur conferring with Cross and Sword leaders Jorge Davila, Segundo Vardenio, Carlos Antonio Montes, and Jose Ignacio del Llano. The second meeting was also attended by Ramos, the Spanish Consul General in San Hermano."

"Ramos," Hall commented. "I know something about him. Two years ago Batista gave him twelve hours to get the hell out of Cuba before the diplomatic courtesies were forgotten and a cot reserved for Ramos in the concentration camp for Axis nationals on the Isle of Pines."

"He did come to San Hermano from Havana," Fielding said. "So I'm not so crazy after all."

"You're not crazy at all."

"Hello!" Fielding exclaimed. "If you know that Ramos was kicked out, then the Embassy crowd must know it too. Now I begin to see why Commander New has invited me to have dinner at the Embassy tomorrow." He took a deep breath, straightened his tie with elaborate mock ceremony. "Mr. Hall," he said, speaking like an announcer at a royal court, "I have the pleasure of informing you that Roger Fielding, Esquire, is about to be released from the insane asylum to which His Majesty's Ambassador consigned him in September, 1938."

Hall laughed and helped himself to another pipeful of Fielding's tobacco. "Let's finish this report," he said. "I can't tell you how important it is to me."

"Here you are, old man." Fielding handed the report to Hall. "I was reading them aloud to keep you from falling asleep. But I think you're wide awake now."

Hall smiled warmly at the old man and read the rest of the report. It was very brief. It described how Gamburdo had shifted nearly the entire customs staff at San Hermano to other ports or to desk jobs on land, and replaced them with new customs men who were in many cases proven members of the Falange or the ATN or both. This move, the report stated, opened the gates to Axis arsonists assigned to cross the seas on Spanish liners.

"Cross and Sword members," the report concluded, "are in certain exclusive bars openly boasting that when Tabio passes away, Gamburdo will declare the nation a neutral in this war. His family has been sending copper, hides, beef, coffee, and sugar only to Spanish firms since 1940. It is an open secret in the Lonja de Comercio that these shipments do not remain in Spain but are immediately trans-shipped to Germany. None of the Spanish firms with which the Gamburdo family does business were in existence before July 18, 1936, the day the Spanish War started. They are all known in shipping and export circles as German enterprises. Gamburdo's brother has twice been heard to boast, while in his cups, that the Nazis are protecting his vast holdings in France.

"The Cross and Sword members in San Hermano business circles speak highly of Gamburdo and to a man they assert that if Tabio dies, Gamburdo will impose a foreign policy which in the name of neutrality will bring prosperity to the landowners and exporters. It will also, of course, bring vitally needed war supplies from this country to the Axis powers; a fact they don't even bother to deny."

Hall was puzzled by the report's lack of information on Gamburdo's link to the Falange during the Spanish War. He remembered that picture of Gamburdo at the Falange dinner held in San Hermano in 1936, the picture he had seen in the files of the secret police in Havana. "How much do you have on Gamburdo?" he asked.

"Gamburdo?" Fielding yawned twice, stretched his arms. "Not as much as I would like to have, Hall."

"Oh." Hall told him about the picture.

"I'm not surprised," Fielding said. "But it's really news to me. What do you know that I should know?"

"Nothing much, I'm afraid. How about this doctor who arrived on my plane, Varela Ansaldo?"

"He's never been in San Hermano before."

"Who sent for him?"

"I don't know. _El Imparcial_ has been giving Gamburdo the credit."

"What do you think of that?"

"I don't know, Hall. I think they might be trying to give Gamburdo credit for something he doesn't deserve. _El Imparcial_ is very much pro-Gamburdo, you know."

"Don't I know it! I used to see Fernandez in his Falange uniform in San Sebastian."

"He's no good."

"Do you think his paper can be right about Ansaldo? I mean about his being brought to San Hermano by Gamburdo."

"Possibly I can find out."

"What do you think, Fielding? What's your hunch?"

"I have none, old man. But I can see that you have, and I can see what it is. You think _El Imparcial_ might for once be telling the truth."

"Not the whole truth. I saw _El Imparcial_, too. It also said that Varela Ansaldo was brought to San Hermano to _cure_ Tabio."

Fielding cocked his head, looked at Hall out of one eye. "And you think Ansaldo was brought in to kill Professor Tabio?"

"I don't know. I just don't know."

"But you mean to find out?"

"_Quien sabe?_"

"I'll help you. I'll give you all the help I can."

"But you think I'm nuts?"

The Englishman hesitated for a long while. "Ah ... Frankly, old man--well, damn it all, you could be wrong. But I'd never say you were--_nuts_ I believe is the word you used."

"Thanks."

"Well, sir, it's been a busy day." Fielding put the letters back in the folder, then shoved the folder into the portfolio and tied the strings. "Unless I hear a motion to the contrary, I shall make a move to adjourn. Ah, the delegate from North America bows. The Ayes have it. Session is adjourned."

He rose from the desk, put the portfolio back in the filing cabinet, closed the drawer and tested the lock. "Suppose we meet again after I have my dinner with Commander New at the Embassy tomorrow night. He's our new Intelligence man. Understand he took quite a beating from the Hun at Dunkirk."

"Swell. Same place?"

"I don't know yet, old man. Suppose I give you a ring." The Englishman suddenly lapsed into a lisping, Castillian Spanish. "Senor Hall? Eh, Senor Hall? This is Father Arupe. Bless you, my son. Would you care to come to confession tonight?"

"Then it will be Father Arupe on the phone?"

"Yes, Senor. If I ask you to confession, it means this office in an hour. If I suggest you attend mass in the morning, drive out to my house. I'll write the address for you."

"Good."

"Oh, just another word about tonight's reports. If you could help me bring the facts about the waterfront to your government, I think it would be most beneficial. Most beneficial, old man."

"I'll do my best."

"I know I can count on you. Knew it before I ever laid eyes on you, Hall. One of my associates can keep us both posted on the waterfront. Name's Harrington. Grand chap, Harrington. Straight as a die, and intelligent."

Hall poured a cup full of cold coffee and swallowed it in a gulp. "God, that's good coffee," he said.

"How are you going back to the Bolivar?"

"I've got a car waiting downstairs. The driver insisted upon waiting."

"El Gran Pepe?"

"Yeah. I guess it is Big Joe." He described his driver. "And Souza says he is very reliable."

"Oh, he is, old man. He is. You know, since they turned the bloody lights down, it's worth your life to cross the streets at night. Awful lot of traffic accidents and all that, you know. Nothing like a reliable driver."

"How about you, Fielding?"

"Oh, I'll phone for my own reliable driver. Or better yet, tell Pepe to come back for me, will you, old man?"

Hall rubbed the right side of his face. "Why don't you ride back with me, and then continue on out to your house?"

"No. It would be better if you left here alone."

"But how about you?"

"There's no danger, old man. No danger. Besides ..." Fielding reached into his jacket pocket, took out a small black automatic. "She's loaded, and I can shoot in the dark, if need be. My Betsy is all I need."

"This is silly," Hall protested.

"Go on, now, old man. No one is going to break in to the office at this hour of the night. I'm in no danger at all."

"If you say so." Hall got up. "Don't see me to the door. I know my way."

The old man put his arm around Hall's shoulder. "We English," he said, "we're an undemonstrative tribe. Take pride in our cold hearts. But underneath the ice some of us have hearts. I'm glad to know you, Hall. And I'm glad we had this little chat. Good night, and sleep well. You're all in."

"Good night, Fielding. And thanks. You're swell."

Hall left the office, rode the elevator to the main floor. Outside, the reliable driver was asleep at the wheel, his right hand under the white chauffeur's cap which rested on his lap. Hall stood near the open window, smiling sardonically at Big Pepe. O.K., pal, he thought, we'll find out about you right now. He cleared his throat, suddenly barked, "Arriba Espana!"

Big Pepe awoke with a startled growl. The hand under the cap swung up toward the window. It was clenched around a large nickeled revolver.

"It's me, Pepe," Hall laughed. "Hall."

The driver groaned, shoved the pistol into his trouser-pocket. Then he also laughed. "Get in," he said. "Get in and thank your stars you're still alive."

Hall joined him in the front seat.

"Arriba Espana," Pepe muttered, starting the car. "That is no joke in the heart of any Delgado from the Asturias. That is an abomination."

"You're an Asturiano?"

"Look at me, _companero_. Do I have the face of a Gallego? Do I have the head of a Catalan? Do I have the eyes of a Madrileno or the soul of a _puta_?"

"You fought in the war against the fascists?"

"Mother of God, he's asking me if I fought! Always until eternity they will ask, Delgado, did you fight? And what will I say?"

"Watch out!" Hall screamed. "You'll hit that pole!" He grabbed for the wheel. Big Pepe's steel arm stopped him.

"_De nada_," the driver laughed. "Didn't Fernando tell you I am a reliable driver?" The car missed the pole by inches, whirled around a corner on two wheels, and then rolled casually down the Avenida de la Liberacion. Another mad turn, and they were at the Bolivar.

"The Englishman, Fielding," Hall said. "He wants you to pick him up at the office and take him home."

"_Bueno._" Big Pepe put the car in gear.

"How much do I owe you?" Hall shouted.

"_Manana, companero, manana._" Big Pepe had to stick his head out of the window and look back, while the car moved ahead, to answer Hall. One more _manana_, the American thought, and the reliable driver would drive his car through a wall. He watched the car turn the corner on two wheels.

Souza was still on duty. He handed Hall the key to his room. "You look very tired, Senor Hall," he said. "I hope you sleep well."

"Thank you. Good night, _amigo_." When he got to his room, he phoned down to the desk.

"I forgot," he said. "But if that _cabron_ of a waiter is still on duty, could you send up a bottle of mineral water with the elevator operator?"

"Of course. The operator is no _cabron_."

"Thanks. And by the way, didn't I meet you the last time I was in San Hermano?"

"No, Senor. But if you will pardon me for presuming, I feel in a sense as if we are old friends, in a sense."

"Old friends?"

"Yes, Senor. You see, I have read your book."

"My book?"

"_Si, su libro. Buenas noches, companero._"

This time there was no confusion in Hall's mind. He knew which book Fernando Souza meant. He went to sleep feeling less lonely than he had in a long time.

_Chapter four_

The alarm in the pigskin traveling clock Bird had given Hall as a going-away gift went on at eight. Hall shut it off, glanced at the radium dial, and got out of bed. On the roof tops of the houses in old San Hermano roosters were crowing. Outside, trolley bells clanged a block away from the Bolivar. Hall took the half-emptied bottle of carbonated water into the bathroom, poured it over his toothbrush, sprinkled the wet brush with powder, and scrubbed his teeth. The charged water filled his mouth with a vigorous foam. He rinsed his mouth with the rest of the soda, bathed, shaved and dressed.

There was nothing in his box at the desk. He handed the day clerk the key and walked out to the street. At a little hole-in-the-wall stand on Virtudes Street he bought a glass of mouth-puckering tamarind juice. A few steps down the narrow street there was a newsstand. Hall bought two morning papers, found a cafe where he had a cup of coffee with hot milk and a toasted roll. He remained at his table in the soft morning sun, reading the papers and smoking a cigar, until nearly ten o'clock.

According to both papers, Ansaldo and Marina were to make a preliminary examination of Tabio, and would then spend the rest of the day consulting with San Hermano physicians who were attending the President. There was no hint of what was actually wrong with the President, simply a repetition of the old statement that Tabio's condition was still grave.

Jerry was on time for their breakfast appointment. She was wearing a bright yellow suit of very thin cloth. "Hello," she said. "Still want to be a tourist guide?"

"More than ever." He caught himself wishing that this could be just an ordinary date with a girl.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Why?"

"You're scowling."

"Sorry. My mind must have wandered. I'd never scowl at you."

She smiled at him. "Thanks," she said. "I thought for a moment that I'd pulled a boner. The suit isn't too loud, is it?"

It was his turn to smile. "God, no," he laughed. "It's perfect. Very hungry? Good. We're eating right here in the hotel."

They took a table near a potted orange tree.

"How do you say ham and eggs in Spanish?" she asked.

"_Jamon y huevos._ Want some?"

"Uh huh. But I want to order them myself."

"O.K. Order some for me, too." Hall hissed for the waiter.

"What's the idea of razzing the guy?"

"Relax, that's the way you call a waiter."

Jerry smiled at the waiter when he reached their table. With a childish directness, she pointed first at Hall and then to herself. "_Jamon y huevos_," she said.

"That is all the Spanish the senorita speaks," Hall explained. "I think we will have toast and coffee, too."

"Well, well," the waiter said in accented English. "The lady speaks good, no?"

"No," Jerry laughed.