“So you sold our friend the life insurance, huh?” Stephens asked. “I didn’t have a clue whether you were going to get away with that.”
“You’re curious about that, are you, Mr. Stephens?” Lowell asked.
“What I’m curious about is what’s inside that building,” Stephens said. “It sure doesn’t look a place for an all-night party.”
“Just some old soldiers sitting around swapping war stories,” Lowell said. “You know how that goes.”
Stephens chuckled.
I’m probably not thinking too clearly, Lowell thought, but obviously Stephens has put together (a) Felter has got the CIA doing a “where-is-he” on Guevara with (b) that I’m in that loop and with (c) that I’m talking about it with Pistarini and SIDE and with (d) that I reported to Felter that I sold the life insurance. And he’s come up with Felter’s surrogate has sold the Argentines on not blowing Guevara away. Langley will hear about that, and probably within the next fifteen minutes.
You don’t get to be the CIA station chief anywhere unless you’re bright as hell, and this guy’s brighter than most, and that selling life insurance line didn’t need a rocket scientist to figure out.
Question: Why didn’t Felter arrange for me to have access to that secure radiotelephone? Why did he send that CIA report to Stephens to give to me?
Answer: (Probably severely influenced by most of a bottle of Argentine cognac, which went down as smoothly as Martel’s best) Sandy Felter does not share my high opinion of the CIA or its station chiefs. He wanted the CIA to know I’m down here, hoped they would send the station chief a heads-up. And since that might not happen, and in any case the presumption was this guy couldn’t find his ass with both hands, he set it up for him to find out himself. It would come to the CIA’s attention that a visiting officer was sending classified material, and he would want to know what that’s all about.
The CIA will now know that Pistarini—the C-in-C of the Argentina Army—is going along with him, and they can’t bitch that he’s interfering with their mission of making deals like this, because they don’t officially know about it.
Felter, you Machiavellian sonofabitch!
“We do that in the U.S. Information Agency, too,” Stephens said. “Sit around over a couple of drinks and tell propaganda stories, come up with the best way to win hearts and minds. You know how it is.”
“Yeah.” Lowell chuckled.
Colonel Harris handed him a glass with an Alka-Seltzer fizzing in its bottom.
“Sir,” Lowell said. “You may just have saved my life.”
“For example, apropos of nothing whatever, one of the times we were sitting around,” Stephens said, “one of the guys said that Che Guevara . . . you know who I mean? The guy with the beard and the beret?”
“I’ve heard the name,” Lowell said.
“Anyway, one of the guys said Guevara was going to give us hearts-and-minds problems, but maybe we would get lucky and he would have a fatal accident or something.”
“And what did you say to that?”
“I said if the sonofabitch had an accident, he would become an international saint, and that would really give us hearts-and-minds problems.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, of course, Mr. Stephens, but as a shot in the dark, I’d say you’re right on the money,” Lowell said.
From the smile that just flickered across your lips, Colonel Harris, I don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that despite our cutesy-poo talking around the subject, you know exactly what Stephens and I are talking about. And if there are any questions unanswered, Stephens will answer them. And just as soon as Lunsford and I are out the door, you will tell Stephens what the L-23 is really for, and who the players are.
But we didn’t tell Stephens, and he probably won’t tell Langley, because if it came out they knew, Harris would have his ass in a crack. And if I can get Felter to keep that Air Force asshole out all of this, that’s going to be very useful.
And you had that all figured out, Sandy, didn’t you?
“How long are you going to be down here visiting Colonel Harris, Colonel?” Stephens asked. “I mean, if that’s not classified and you can tell me?”
“Another couple of days, but not long.”
“If there’s anything I can do for you—like set up a tour of the sights of Buenos Aires for you—or anything else, let me know.”