this 12th day of October 1942
Witness:
A. F. Graham
Colonel, USMCR.
* * *
He knew I was going to sign this, didn’t he? My name and the date are already typed in on the form, Clete thought, and then, This is a little melodramatic, isn’t it? And then, What the hell is the Office of Strategic Services?
After a moment’s hesitation, he asked that aloud.
“What’s the Office of Strategic Services?”
“Sign that, Lieutenant, or don’t sign it,” Graham said, and now there was a tone of annoyance in his voice. “Make up your mind.”
Clete scrawled his name on the form. Graham retrieved the form and his pen and signed his name as witness, then put the form into his briefcase.
“OK, Lieutenant Frade, now you can ask questions,” he said.
“What is the Office of Strategic Services?”
“An agency of the federal government which reports directly to the President. It performs what are somewhat euphemistically known as strategic services for the government.”
“In other words, you’re not going to tell me.”
“You will be told what you have the need to know.”
“What does the Office of Strategic Services want from me?”
“As you guessed, it wants you to go to Argentina. You will command a three-man team with the mission of taking out a merchant vessel—a merchant vessel of a neutral country, which we have determined is replenishing German submarines operating off the coast of South America. These submarines are doing considerable damage to shipping down there. We have to lessen that. But additionally, if you can find the time, we’d like you to dream up other ways to make things difficult for the Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese in Argentina.”
“I don’t know anything about…sabotage…that sort of thing.”
“The other members of your team do,” Graham interrupted.
“So the only reason I can think of that you want me for something like this is because of my father. You know my father is an Argentine…Argentinean, right?”
“Of course. And you’re right.”
“Did you hear what I said a minute ago, that I wouldn’t recognize my father if he walked into this room?”
“We know that too. Actually, we know more about you, Frade, than you probably know yourself. For example, are you aware that you hold Argentine citizenship?”
“I’ve always been told that Americans can’t hold dual citizenship.”
“So far as our government is concerned, we can’t. So far as the Argentine government is concerned, you were born there, therefore you are an Argentine citizen.”
“I haven’t been there since I was an infant,” Clete said.
“Yes, we know,” Colonel Graham said, a touch of impatience in his voice.
He turned to his briefcase and came out with a five-by-seven-inch photograph and handed it to Clete.
“El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade,” Graham said, pronouncing it “Frah-day.” “He looks rather like you, or vice versa, wouldn’t you say?”
Clete exam