The maid returned with the tray of coffee. In each cup now floated a large chunk of cream.
“They call that café con crème,” Stephens said as he reached for his cup. “Are the . . . what should I say, ‘permanent party’? . . . around?”
“Otmanio went for a run,” Oliver said. “He’s a Green Beret. They do that sort of thing. De la Santiago went out to buy a newspaper—newspapers. ”
“I thought you were all Special Forces,” Stephens said.
“There’s the kind who runs and the kind that don’t,” Jack said. “Oliver and I are in Group Two.”
“And Zammoro?”
“He’s visiting a friend,” Oliver said.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really,” Oliver said.
“Are you going to tell me what that’s all about?” Stephens asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“There are two kinds of guys in my line of work,” Stephens said. “I was sort of hoping that I had convinced Colonel Lowell and Father Lunsford that I was the kind who could be trusted.”
“When they briefed us,” Oliver said, “Father said you were better than most, and Colonel Lowell said he hoped we were all familiar with the adage ‘beware of spooks bearing gifts.’ ”
“Okay, fair enough. Let me tell you what I know. After an emotional greeting at Campo de Mayo between your Mr. Zammoro and the guy who diverted your flight there, there was a sumptuous repast laid in a private room of the Campo de Mayo Casino.”
“How do you know who diverted our flight?”
“I can count the people with the clout to do that on the fingers of one hand, leaving out the thumb. By a simple process of elimination—it wasn’t the President, or General Pistarini, or the minister for aviation—I have a damned good idea who did it.”
“Watch out for him, Jack,” Oliver said. “He’s clever.”
“While Dick Harris and I—he’s another good guy, by the way—were on our way from Ezeiza to Campo de Mayo, your Mr. Zammoro and his good herein-unnamed buddy left for parts unknown in said buddy’s official car.”
“How’d you find that out?” Jack asked.
“The waiters at the Casino talk too much,” Stephens said.
“Just for the record, Jack, I made the decision to tell the housing officer here what that was all about,” Oliver said. “And the answer is that I don’t have the foggiest idea what that was all about, except that Zammoro and Colonel Rangio are apparently old and good friends.”
“You didn’t know beforehand?”
Oliver shook his head, no.
“De la Santiago thinks Zammoro was afraid they wouldn’t send him down here if they knew he and Rangio were old pals.”
“What did Zammoro do in the Cuban Army?” Stephens said. “Was he in the same line of work as Rangio?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Oliver said, and then had another thought: “How did you know he was in the Cuban Army?”
“I got a radio from some people in Virginia,” Stephens said. “I know a lot about all of you, although, come to think it, you’re supposed to be a bachelor.” He paused and pointed to Jack. “The long arm of the draft caught you in the Congo,” he said. “Where your father owns one airline, for which you flew, and is chief pilot of another. Right after you married some general’s daughter, the Army recognized your all-around genius and made you an officer. . . .”
“Right before I married the general’s daughter,” Jack said, chuckling.
“De la Santiago was a captain in the Cuban Air Force, who worked for your father, then flew black B-26s in the Congo, and then joined the Army,” Stephens said. “How’m I doing?”
“Otmanio?” Oliver asked.
“Otmanio, Jorge,” Stephens said. “Puerto Rican. Joined the Army at seventeen. Jump School. Served with the Eighty-Second Airborne, 183rd Regimental Combat Team—my old regiment, by the way—made buck sergeant, applied for Special Forces, went to Vietnam as a demolitions man on an A Team, came back as an SFC with a Silver Star, two Purple Hearts . . . He’s fluent in Spanish, of course.”
“You guys are very good,” Oliver said.
“I think they call that ‘knowing your enemy,’ ” Stephens said. “Would it shock you to learn that there are people in an unnamed government agency—probably more than one agency, come to think of it—who gather at midnight in cemeteries to stick pins in a doll bearing a resemblance to one Colonel Sanford T. Felter?”
“No,” Oliver said, chuckling.
“Presumably you have heard of ‘guilt by association’?” Stephens said.
“No,” Oliver said. “What’s that?”
“It’s contagious, and you got it,” Stephens said.
Oliver raised his hand above his shoulder, his thumb holding