(3) You will contact “Mallard.”
(4) You have 45 mins possible, 1 hr stretching it, battery power. (90 mins, 2 hrs, using spare set)
(5) Leave walkie-talkies in Wardrobe Punta de E. on departure.
* * *
Clete took the radio from Tony and examined it dubiously.
There was a nameplate on it: AN/PRC-6 MOTOROLA CORP. CHICAGO, ILL.
“These things really work?”
“Yeah. Well, now we know how we talk to the drop plane.”
Clete put the walkie-talkie to his ear and heard a hiss.
“There’s two of them?” he asked.
“Yeah. Take that one into your room, and we’ll see if they work.”
Clete went back to his room, examined the walkie-talkie again, pulled out an antenna that looked as if it should be mounted on a car fender, put the radio to his ear, and depressed a two-inch-long lever marked PRESS TO TALK.
“Dr. Watson, can you hear me?”
“Yeah. You’re coming in five by five.”
“I will be damned. Dr. Watson, over and out.”
He walked back to Tony’s room.
“What’s the range of these things?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Tony replied, thinking about it. “Maybe a mile. Maybe longer if we’re talking to an airplane.”
“Start thinking about how we can get these into Argentina,” Clete said.
“We’re supposed to leave them in the hotel in…Where we going? Punta someplace?”
“Punta del Este. Fuck ’em. The first thing a Marine learns, Tony, is that when he puts his hands on a piece of equipment that works, he keeps it.”
[FOUR]
La Posta de la Congrejo Hotel
Punta del Este, Uruguay
0005 10 December 1942
“You want to put the top down?” Lieutenant Frade inquired of Lieutenant Pelosi as they prepared to get in their rental car.
“Why not? We could see better.”
The car was a 1937 Ford convertible sedan. They had a good deal of difficulty pulling the top down.
“The President probably has people who do this for him,” Clete observed.
“What?”