"When can I start?"
"In two hours. You will have to give me your pa.s.sport, so that I may have the picture copied for the Ortiz Tinoco papers. Segador"s idea is the right one. He will drive you to the San Martin airport tonight. The Mexican Emba.s.sy is ordering the tickets. I will leave you with Gonzales and Segador to work out the rest of the details."
"Good. Here is my pa.s.sport."
"The Republic will always be grateful to you, _Companero_ Hall."
Lavandero stood up and started for the door. Hall accompanied him.
"Well," Hall said, "I"ll try to get back within the week--if I"m lucky."
He held out his hand to the Minister.
"Thank you, _companero_." Lavandero raised his arms to Hall"s shoulders and embraced him. "You were worthy of his trust."
"And you of his love," Hall answered. He was sorry for Lavandero, sorry for him as a friend, as a man, as a leader so intent on answering his responsibilities to his moment in history that he had to allow his own personal rages to simmer unattended within him until there again came a time when a man could walk off alone and be his own master.
"I will see you in a week, _companero_."
Hall walked back to the living room. Segador was trying to convey to Jerry his impressions of Atlantic City in 1919. "Womans _bonitas_," he was shouting, "whisky bad. Much bad. I have young years, much money.
Well, well. So."
"We"ll listen to your memoirs when I get back," Hall said.
"When we get back," Segador said.
"You"re coming with me?"
"I"m meeting you on your way back. We"ll meet in Caracas. Listen to me, _companero_. The chief of our Air Force is loyal. He will give me one of our American bombers. From the San Martin airport, a bomber can make Caracas in fifteen hours. Give me ten hours" notice, and I will meet you in time. I already have a loyal flying crew standing by for my orders."
"Where can we meet in Caracas?"
"At the airport. I can meet your plane."
"Won"t you be followed?"
"Of course. By three or four of my picked men. Don"t worry about that."
Gonzales interrupted to say that there would be time for them to have dinner at the house before starting on the drive north.
"Oh, while we"re at it," Hall said, "I am going to ask you to be good enough to keep my _novia_ here until I return. That is, if Segador thinks it is safe."
"It is safe," the Major grunted. "We will make it safe."
"Then it is the privilege of my daughter and myself to make this house the senorita"s for a century." Gonzales called his daughter in from the kitchen. "It will be very good for her, _amigos_. Maria Luisa is studying English in high school. It will help her greatly."
"Let her teach Jerry Spanish in a week," Hall said.
The girl seemed pleased when her father told her about Jerry. "Oh, nice," she said, trying out her English immediately. "You are very welcome, Aunt. The pleasure it is all of mine."
"You are very kind," Jerry said.
"Please. May I show you the room? There are five rooms upstairs in my father"s house. Your room faces the ..." She paused, fl.u.s.tered, turned to Hall. "_Como se dice, por favor, frente con vista al mar?_"
"Tell her that her room _faces the ocean front_, Maria Luisa. And teach her two words of Spanish for every word you learn from her."
"Let"s go," Jerry said to the girl. "Vamoose _arriba, si_?"
"Under no circ.u.mstances," Segador said when the girls were gone, "must you attempt to come back by regular routes. If anything happens to me, wait at the border. Get to Santiago by plane, and wait in the big hotel for word from us."
"How bad is it for me?"
"Who knows? The fascists are mother-raping b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, but they are no donkeys. Today they must be looking for you in San Hermano. In a few hours, they will begin to worry. Tomorrow they will become upset because you are gone, and by tomorrow night they will turn the whole Cross and Sword gang loose to look for you. But by tomorrow night, if all goes well, and if that madman of a Duarte doesn"t try to drive the car himself but brings his driver along, you will be in Havana.
"Of course," Segador said, "we will do everything we can to end the hunt. But we can only do the usual things. Perhaps we will identify the body of some poor Hermanito who gets killed by a car as Matthew Hall.
Give me some papers, by the way; we"ll need them if we can get the right body."
"Lavandero has my American pa.s.sport. And here"s my wallet. That"s good enough." Hall took the three photos out of the wallet. "The pictures are for her--if I don"t come back."
"And the money?"
Hall flipped his fingers through the eight hundred-odd dollars worth of travelers" checks. "I"d better sign these, just in case," he said. "I want you to split it between Pepe Delgado and Emilio Vicente."
"I understand," Segador said. "Duarte is bringing some money for you to travel on."
"I"ll repay him when I return. Is there anything else I should know? I have to write a letter. Have you any paper, doctor?"
"In a moment."
"Just a few things," Segador said. "A simple code for sending messages to us." He explained the code system in a few minutes. "And one other thing. I have the pictures we took of that n.a.z.i Vicente shot; pictures of his face and his fingerprints. We will seal them in the pouch you are carrying. Perhaps you can identify it in Havana somehow."
"I will try. Ah, thanks for the paper. This will take me only a few minutes." Hall propped the writing pad on his lap and wrote a short note to his attorney in New York.
"Well, this is it," he wrote, "and I"ll be more surprised than you are if you ever receive this letter. I"m about to leave this country on what might turn out to be a one-way trip to the grave. If I don"t come back, this letter is to be sent to you. It"s about my will. I still want the dough to go to the Spanish refugees and the veterans of the International Brigades, but I want to lop off about a quarter of the total in the bank and due me from Bird and leave it for Miss Geraldine Olmstead. She is an American citizen and, if you hadn"t received this note, would by now be Mrs. H. When you meet her, introduce her to my friends and take her around to the Committee; she wants to help the Spanish Republicans. If I really thought this was my last trip, I guess I"d close this letter with some appropriate and high-sounding last lines--you know, the kind of c.r.a.p a guy would write as the lead for his own obit. But we"ll skip the farewell address. This letter is being witnessed by two good friends, one a doctor and the other a major in this country. I guess that makes it legal."
Hall signed the letter, told Gonzales and Segador what he wanted done with it, and handed them the pen. "How much time do we have?" he asked.
"You will have to leave in less than two hours," Segador said. "Duarte will be here long before then."
"Good." Hall looked at his watch. "I would like to see the girl alone in her room for a while. There is much that I must tell her before I go."
"I understand," Segador said.
"Are you making the trip to San Martin with me?"
"No. I will only ride the first twenty miles with you. I have a car waiting for me at Marao."
Hall waited for Gonzales to call his daughter, and then he went up to Jerry"s room.