It can’t be done, not the way we’ve planned. I’ll have to come up with something else.
What? Find some excuse to bring a boat alongside and have Tony fix his charges while I go on board and…
And what?
The last team was probably eliminated trying something just like that.
By air?
Not with this airplane, certainly. Not even with a Wildcat. You can’t take out something that large with .50-caliber machine guns. I know that for a fact. And that ship has more antiaircraft weaponry on it than any Jap freighter I ever strafed.
What the hell do I do now?
[TWO]
Estancia Santa Catharina
Buenos Aires Province
1425 15 December 1942
“Take a good look, my darlings,” Claudia said to the two very beautiful, black-haired, stylishly dressed young women who came out to the Beechcraft as Clete was tying it down, “this is Cletus. El Coronel has decided that Cletus will marry one of you. Which of you will have him?”
“I said nothing of the kind,” el Coronel protested as the girls gave him their cheeks to be kissed.
The younger girl—she looked about twenty—blushed, giggled, and smiled. The other girl, who looked several years older, was obviously not amused.
“How do you do?” she said in English. “I have seen your pictures, of course. I am Isabela Carzino-Cormano. I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
It sure doesn’t sound like it.
“I am overwhelmed,” Clete said. “How soon do you think we can schedule the wedding?”
“I see that you take after Uncle…your father,” Alicia, the younger one, said with a giggle.
Isabela treated both of them to an icy smile.
They started to walk toward the ranch house.
“Somehow, I don’t think she intended that as a compliment,” Claudia said. “You may have to settle for Alicia.”
“Can’t I have both?”
“That’s an idea,” el Coronel said. “That is an American custom. The Mormons in Utah can have as many wives as they wish.”
“Really?” Alicia asked. “That’s terrible!”
“A man must be prepared to make many sacrifices in life,” el Coronel said. “Two wives, four, six…whatever duty requires.”
“Now, I am not amused,” Claudia said. “Jorge, you always go too far!”
She said that because she’s pissed that he hasn’t proposed marriage to her. Why not? I have no idea.
The faces of Claudia’s daughters showed that they had made the same interpretation.
“I saw you, Cletus,” Alicia changed the subject quickly, “at the English Tennis Club, playing with Dorotea Mallín.”
“If you two play hard to get,” el Coronel said, “I am sure that Dorotea would be happy to have him.”