"Tell me why it would be in everybody's best interests. Yours for example, mi Coronel."
"At half past nine this morning, General Ramirez went to your house on Libertador to meet with General Rawson and el Coronel Per¢n. The subject of their conversation was to be how to retrieve Outline Blue, and the money, from your safe."
"You seem pretty sure it's in my safe. How is that? And what safe are we talking about, mi Coronel?"
Mart¡n smiled at him and shrugged.
&n
bsp; "I didn't think this would be easy," he said. "But if you insist... Since Outline Blue and the money are not in the house on Coronel Diaz, or in the Libertador House, or in any of your father's safety-deposit boxes."
"You looked, did you?"
"Let us say I am confident about what I just said," Mart¡n said. "So, by the process of elimination, and because keeping it here would have made more sense to your father than keeping it anywhere else, I think we can all reasonably presume that it's here. Specifically, in the safe in your father's private study."
"Is that the safe Se¤ora Carzino-Cormano was asking you about, Enrico? The one you said only el Coronel had the combination to?"
"S¡, Se¤or Mayor."
"Forgive me, Suboficial Mayor," Mart¡n said. "But not only do I think that you know the combination to the safe, but el Coronel Per¢n thinks you do, too. He told General Ramirez that last night."
Enrico looked very uncomfortable.
"You were telling me why it would be in your best interests if I gave it to Rawson, if I had what you're talking about," Clete said.
"Again, I said, 'everybody's best interests,'" Mart¡n said.
"OK, everybody's," Clete said.
"A good many officers, friends of your father's, who feel as he did that the present government of Argentina must be replaced..."
"Let's stop the fencing," Clete said. "What's in it for you, mi Coronel, if I hand over Outline Blue, and the money, to you?"
Mart¡n met Clete's eyes.
"It would keep me from receiving an order I would much prefer not to carry out."
"What order would that be?"
"To take whatever steps are necessary to obtain Outline Blue and the money."
"And what would be in it for me?" Clete asked.
"Aside from my profound gratitude, you mean?" Mart¡n asked, smiling.
"Aside from your profound gratitude."
"What did you have in mind?"
Christ, he called my bluff. He's a professional, and he knows when to call a bluff. So what do I say now? Think, for Christ's sake!
That SS colonel!
"An SS colonel arrived on the same plane as el Coronel Per¢n from Ger-many-" Clete said.
"Goltz," Mart¡n interrupted. "Josef Goltz. What about him?"
"I'm a curious man, mi Coronel. Who is he, and what does he want here?"