“If I give them just a little more training,” Jimmy said, “I think the both of them could be permitted to fly short distances without supervision.”
Nervo and Sanchez laughed.
“What’s going on in there?” Frade asked, pointing at the window.
“The young fellow is Captain Guillermo O’Reilley of the Tenth Mountain,” Nervo said. “We know that because he told us. He also told us the gendarmerie has no right to ask him what he’s doing while he is on official business of the Ejército Argentino, much less a right to de
tain him. But that’s all he’s told us.”
“Is he right about you not having such authority?” Frade asked.
“No, he’s not. And he knows he’s not. I suspect he’s one of the brighter young officers in the Tenth, which makes me suspect that he was told to say what he’s been saying by a senior officer of the Tenth—possibly even by el Coronel Hans Klausberger himself—should the gendarmerie catch him at what he was doing.”
“Which was?” Jimmy asked.
“Surveilling Casa Montagna,” Nervo said. “And also Provincial Route 60, probably with the purpose of finding the best place from which they could shoot up cars and trucks moving to and from Mendoza.”
“Hoping to shoot who?”
“Well, I’d say Don Cletus is high on that list, and probably any of the Good Gehlens, as I suspect they are regarded as traitors by a number of people.”
“What would they get out of killing Clete?” Jimmy asked. “Or any of the Good Gehlens?”
“I don’t know, Jimmy. They have to know that Juan Domingo would be really furious. He would have been furious before Clete took him off Isla Martín García and brought him here, a little bloody but alive. After that happened—”
“What are you going to do with this guy?” Clete interrupted, nodding toward Captain O’Reilley. “And the others? How many were there?”
“Two tenientes, six sergeants, and a corporal. I have placed them all under arrest. And I’ve been sitting here wondering how effective it would be if I put the corporal—he’s about as old as Jimmy—in there with Nolasco and Captain O’Reilley, then announced to O’Reilley that unless he tells us everything we want to know, we will cut off the corporal’s fingers one at a time with bolt cutters. That would force O’Reilley to consider what an officer’s moral obligations to his enlisted soldiers are.”
“Jesus Christ!” Clete said. “You can’t be serious—”
Nervo put up his hand to stop him, and grinned.
“Everyone will please notice that Cletus was the only one who fell for that. What I really have been thinking is that the smart thing to do is nothing while we wait for one or both of two things to happen. One, they send people looking for Captain O’Reilley and his men, and we lock them up. And we keep doing that until we get a teniente coronel or better in our bag.”
“That’s a thought,” Clete said.
“And the other is wait until Garcia and Rodríguez return from San Martín de los Andes—the Tenth’s barracks—and hear what they have to say. I am open to suggestion, Don Cletus.”
“I leave the entire matter in your capable hands, General,” Clete said.
“You’re only saying that because you don’t have any better ideas.”
“True. And now my friends and I will return to Casa Montagna and pull some corks. We have earned that. You’re coming for dinner?”
“I promised our Jesuit to meet his plane and take him up there.”
“Then we’ll see you later.”
[FOUR]
The Emergency Room
The Hospital of the Little Sisters of Saint Pilar
Mendoza, Mendoza Province, Argentina
1635 21 October 1945