“Grandfather, don’t blow a gasket, but that’s absolutely impossible.”
“How did you ever get to be a colonel,” the old man replied, “much less a senior intelligence officer, without learning that nothing is ever absolutely impossible?”
He reached into his inner pocket, came out with a small envelope, and tossed it onto the table in front of Clete.
Clete was surprised when he saw what was printed on the flap of the envelope and even more shocked when he saw what it contained:
* * *
The White House
Washington, D.C.
12 October 1945
Dear Colonel Frade:
I asked your grandfather to go down there to have a look around for me.
I have told him what you’re all up to, and look forward to him telling me how well you’re doing it.
Sincerely,
Harry S Truman
* * *
“Bernardo,” Frade said, as he tossed the note to General Martín, “you’ve always wondered where I acquired my skill as an intelligence officer. Now I can tell you. It’s in my genes. Say hello to my grandfather, Super Spy.”
X
[ONE]
4730 Avenida Libertador General San Martín
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1347 20 October 1945
Martha Howell looked up from the Truman note and at her father-in-law.
“Dad, where the hell did you get this?”
“One of the President’s Secret Service agents brought it to my apartment in the Hay-Adams.”
“That’s not what I was asking, and you know it.”
“Oh, you mean, ‘Why did Harry write it?’”
“‘Harry’?” she parroted incredulously. “You now call him Harry?”
“Well, not in public, of course. After all, Harry is the President.”
“The last time I heard you mention his name, Dad, you used language I can’t repeat in mixed company.”
“I don’t know where you got that,” the old man replied. “Harry Truman is a fine man. A fellow Thirty-third Degree Mason, among other things.”
“My God!” Martha said.