“I rather doubt that there will be time for him to complete the entire course. I want to get this team down there as soon as possible.”
“Of course. We all do. But certainly you don’t want him sent down there half-trained, inadequately trained?”
“He’s had the CIC training. What he needs from you, in whatever time is available…”
“How much time are we talking about, Alex?”
“Documents is working on his papers. He needs a visa, which the Bank of Boston has to arrange for via the Argentine Consulate in Boston. Since we want as few eyebrows raised as possible, we can’t push too hard for that. Still, I don’t think he will be here for more than ten days or two weeks, and I think we had better operate on the ten-day idea.”
“There’s not much I can do for him—nothing personal, Sergeant—in ten days.”
“Run him through as much explosives training as time permits, and if there is any time left over, work on his swimming, and maybe even infiltration techniques. Explosives first.”
“Whatever you think is best for him, of course,” Newton-Haddle said. “We’ll do our best for him. Sergeant, I wonder if you’d be good enough to wait outside for a moment while I have a word with Colonel Graham?”
“Certainly, Sir,” Ettinger said, and left the office, closing the door behind him.
“What’s on your mind, Newt,” Graham said, “that you didn’t want the sergeant to hear?”
“Alex, we’re friends, right?” Newton-Haddle asked. He waited until Graham nodded. “And so I may speak with candor?”
“Please do.”
“It’s always difficult when one feels one must—when duty requires that one must—point out to a friend where one feels the friend, so to speak, is going off half-cocked.”
“We’re friends, Newt. Have a shot at it.”
“I see a great deal of potential in the men of your team, a potential I would really hate to see disappear down the toilet. Even Pelosi…”
“Even Pelosi?” Graham asked.
“His knowledge of explosives is extraordinary…”
“He cut his teeth, so to speak, on a stick of dynamite,” Graham said. “That’s why I picked him.”
“I would like to keep him here as an instructor, at least for the time being.”
“He’s going to Argentina, Newt, sorry. But now that you’ve brought up Pelosi, and his extraordinary skill, can I suggest that you get him to teach Ettinger as much as he can while they’re here?”
“By the time Pelosi reaches Argentina,” Newton-Haddle said, ignoring the suggestion, “the problem there will be solved. The team down there will have taken out the ship. I trained them myself, and they’re good.”
“I’m sure they are, and I hope—of course I hope—that they can take out that damned ship long before the backup team gets to Argentina. But we can’t bank on that happening. We need a second team down there as soon as we can get them there. A little redundancy never hurts, Newt. And I have been charged with taking out the replenishment vessel. He goes, sorry.”
“There is, of course, a good deal to what you say,” Newton-Haddle said charmingly. “There always is. It is always better to err on the side of caution.”
“I’m glad you understand,” Graham said.
“Which brings us to Lieutenant Frade,” Newton-Haddle said.
Graham’s patience with Newton-Haddle was about exhausted.
“If you’re going to bring up again my refusal to send him through here, Newt, save your breath. He needs a rest-and-recuperation leave, not your version of Parris Island recruit training.”
“He’s the asset it would really be criminal to flush away.”
“Get to the point, please, Newt. I have to get back to Washington.”
“I think we should give more thought to the use of this one-of-a-kind asset than we have so far.”