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That was for you, Cletus, Cronley thought.
For as much as accusing von Dattenberg of being a liar.
Was that on purpose? Or does Clete have a burr under his saddle about von Dattenberg?
“Thanks, Karl,” Cronley said. “Okay, you said the guy in Bremen told you the landfall was just north of the Magellan Strait. We know pretty well where that is, what its coordinates are.”
“Yeah,” von Dattenberg said thoughtfully. “Subteniente, you’re thinking of the seconds, am I correct?”
Cronley nodded. “We need charts of that area, good charts—”
“And of course the list of rendezvous points,” von Dattenberg said. He looked at Frade. “Can we get them here?”
“The list of rendezvous points from U-405 is in my safe at the Edificio Libertador,” General Martín said.
“With the charts from U-405?” von Dattenberg asked.
Martín nodded.
“Can we get them here?” Cronley asked.
Martín got out of his chair and, moving carefully without aid of his crutches, walked to a sideboard. He picked up the telephone and dialed a number.
“General,” Cronley called as Martín waited for someone to answer. “Your—the Argentine army’s—maps of the area also would be helpful.”
Martín nodded.
They listened to the one-sided conversation.
“You are supposed to answer before the third ring,” Martín said sternly, and then before a reply could be made, went on: “Write this down. Go to the Topographic Service and get every map, in every scale, they have on the coast from Río Gallegos down to San Sebastian Bay . . .
“Yes, I know that’s going to be a lot of maps . . .
“If they ask what we want them for, tell them it’s a matter of national security . . .
“Madre de Dios! If I don’t tell you what I want them for, Major, then you can truthfully tell them you have no idea what the chief of the Bureau of Internal Security wants them for, only that he has the authority to demand them immediately and is doing so . . .
“And while they are collecting the maps, go to the safe and take out all the documents we have from U-405 . . .
“Yes, all of them . . .
“And when you have them all, bring them to Don Cletus Frade’s house on Libertador . . .
“Yes, the one across from the racetrack . . .
“I know you’ll need a truck. I don’t care if it takes three trucks. Just do it. And make sure the truck, or trucks, are guarded. By our people . . .
“How large a guard detail? You’re a major. You figure that out.”
He slammed the handset into the base and turned to Major Habanzo.
“That was Marinelli,” he said, and then asked rhetorically, “How did that idiot ever get assigned to BIS?”
“Calm down, Bernardo,” Frade said. “What might have been off-loaded from U-234—operative word ‘might’—is the stuff from which they make atomic bombs, not an actual atomic bomb. There’s not going to be a mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion in the Strait of Magellan.”
Martín snapped his head to face Frade.
“Cletus,” he said icily, “I am not going to permit anything—anything—connected with atomic bombs to be brought into Argentina, whether it’s a bomb or ‘the stuff from which they make atomic bombs.’”
