Martín sat down at his desk and read the reports. They told him nothing that Habanzo had not told him—or hinted at—on the telephone.
“Why did this idiot not follow young Frade and the other one to Uruguay?”
“Mi Coronel, as you yourself have often said: Without specific, previous authorization, an agent’s authority stops at the water’s edge.”
If I say now what I would like to say, I will regret it.
“Habanzo,” he said a full thirty seconds later—which of course seemed much longer to Comandante Habanzo—“I will explain our policy to you one more time. I would appreciate it if you would not only remember it, but pass it on to our agents: The authority of an agent does indeed end at the water’s edge. But this agent’s instructions were to surveille young Frade, not arrest him. No authority is needed to follow someone across a border. Do you see the difference?”
“Sí, mi Coronel,” Habanzo replied. “Mi Coronel, in this specific case, in addition to his misunderstanding of his authority, our agent did not have sufficient funds to take the boat to Montevideo for an unknown period of time. There would have been a hotel bill. Perhaps he would have been required to rent an automobile…”
Martín held up his hand to stop him.
“Be so good as to refresh my memory, Habanzo.”
“I will try, mi Coronel.”
“Do we have an officer on our staff who is charged with seeing that our agents are properly equipped to perform their duties?”
“Sí, mi Coronel,” Habanzo said, somewhat unhappily, now sensing what was coming.
“Charged, in other words, with providing them with automobiles, appropriate documents, weapons where necessary…and of course sufficient funds to fulfill their duties?”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“And who, precisely, is that officer on our staff, Habanzo? What is his name?”
“It is I, mi Coronel. I have obviously failed to carry out my duty.”
“Unfortunately, that is the conclusion I myself have reached.”
He let him sweat for a full minute before he went on.
“The damage is done, Habanzo. We will speak no more of it.”
“It will never happen again, mi Coronel. Gracias, mi Coronel.”
“We know from this,” Martín said, tapping a document on his desk, “that young Frade and the other one…”
“Pelosi, mi Coronel. Anthony—it is the English for Antonio—Pelosi.”
“…returned from Uruguay at approximately nine-thirty last night.”
“Whereupon, mi Coronel, surveillance of the subjects was resumed by our agents, who were stationed at customs in the expectation that they would return.”
“Did it occur to them to speak with the customs officer who inspected their luggage?”
“No, mi Coronel, it did not,” Habanzo replied, and hastily added, as he saw the clouds form on Martín’s face: “I personally went to the individual concerned and questioned him myself.”
Proving, I suppose, that you are only half stupid.
“And?”
“There was nothing suspicious in their belongings, mi Coronel. They had boxes of straw ducks, chickens…you know what I mean. And two beach radios that didn’t work.”
“One thing at a time. The straw ducks. Why would two bachelors have boxes full of children’s toys?”
“I have no idea, mi Coronel,” Habanzo confessed. “Perhaps for the children of their servants.”