"You remain in command of your team, of course," Graham said.
"And Ashton's team? The Radar team?" Clete asked.
Another OSS team was being sent to Argentina. It was commanded by someone Clete had not met, but who he suspected was another of Donovan's socialites-his name was Captain Maxwell Ashton III. Ashton's team was equipped, Clete had been told, with the very latest radar. After Clete had arranged for a place on the shore of Samboromb¢n Bay where it could be set up, it could locate the German replacement vessel within a hundred yards, at night, or in the most dense fog.
Once that had been done, the plan went, an American submarine could en-ter Samboromb¢n Bay at night, running with just enough of its conning tower out of the water to provide Ashton's radar with a target and to allow its radios to function. It would then be directed to a position near enough to the German vessel to make a sure one-shot torpedo kill.
Clete thought that plan was almost as bizarre as the airplane "gift" to his fa-ther, and with only a slightly better chance of success. Getting the radar into Ar-gentina at all was going to be difficult, and getting it from wherever they managed to land it to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo without being discovered would be even more difficult.
And if the radar Captain Maxwell Ashton III and his team were bringing with them was anything like the radar on Guadalcanal, it would not be capable of locating anything with a hundred-yard degree of accuracy-if it worked at all.
He devoutly hoped he was wrong. If there was no radar-and it now seemed absolutely impossible to get a replacement for the Beech stagger-wing-they would be worse off than they'd been before. He would have to try to locate the German ship with one of the Piper Cubs on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, then guide a submarine to it the way he'd done with the Beech. And after their experience with the Beech, the Germans were almost certainly going to be prepared for another nosy airplane.
"We learned yesterday that they are in Brazil. Commander Delojo will co-ordinate the infiltration of the team with you and Captain Ashton."
"And what about the airplane?"
"That's in Brazil too. Available to you and Commander Delojo as you feel necessary."
"You're not being very clear, Colonel, about who's in charge," Clete said.
"The Part One of the basic plan remains in effect," Quinn said. "You-your team-will locate and identify the replenishment vessel when it arrives on sta-tion. As far as Part Two is concerned-infiltration of the new team into Ar-gentina-that will be coordinated, as Colonel Graham just told you, between you and Commander Delojo. Part Three, elimination of the replenishment ves-sel, is something we're still working on."
"In other words, SNAFU, right? Situation Normal, All Fucked Up?" Clete said, a little bitterly.
"Wait a minute, Major," Delojo said.
"You wait a minute, Commander," Clete snapped. "Without an airplane, I have no goddamned idea how I can find the replenishment vessel. And with my father gone, I have no idea how I can get an airplane into Argentina."
"We were thinking of the light aircraft on your father's estancia," Quinn said.
"I should have said a decent airplane. A capable airplane. The only air-planes on my father's estancia are Piper Cubs. I need that C-45."
"You found the Reine de la Mer with your father's Beechcraft," Delojo ar-gued.
"And got shot down. I'm not going to try that again. "
"That may be necessary," Delojo said.
"Aside from the fact that it would be suicidal, Commander," Clete said, "it would not work. If the Germans can talk the Argentines into looking the other way again when they anchor another replenishment ship in Samboromb¢n Bay, the Argentines are also going to look the other way when the Germans shoot up any airplane-or any boat-that comes anywhere near them. We're going to have to go with the original idea of identifying the ship by aerial photography. And you can't do that with a handheld camera in a Piper Cub."
"I think Clete's right," Graham said. "We're going to have to get that C-45 into Argentina somehow. For the sake of thinking about that, Clete, could you conceal that airplane on your father's estancia if we just flew it, black, no mark-ings, into Argentina?"
Clete thought that over.
"The landing strip on my father's estancia isn't lighted," he said. "Which means that it would have to be flown in during daylight hours. I think Mart¡n would hear that an unmarked airplane had landed before it could be pushed into the hangar."
"Who's Martin?" Delojo asked.
"You don't know?" Clete asked, a tone of disgust in his voice. "He's the Bureau of Internal Security guy in charge of watching me. And probably of watching you, too, as soon as he hears you're in Argentina."
"Well, then, we're going to have to do some thinking about this, aren't we?" Graham said.
"And, this being the situation," Quinn said, "this brings us back to inserting Ashton's team by parachute, doesn't it? Which was my original thought on the question."
"I think Clete's original objections to that remain valid," Graham said.
"Sir, with respect," Quinn said, "we drop Jed