Special Ops - By W.E.B. Griffin Page 0,72

sonofabitch about it.

The door to McGrory’s office was open, and the defense attaché, who was in uniform, complete with attaché aiguillette, and of course wearing his wreath-starred command pilot’s wings, was at his desk, reading the Buenos Aires Herald.

Harris debated, and decided against, knocking at his door.

I’m not a goddamn PFC.

“Have you got a minute for me, Colonel?” he called.

McGrory raised his eyes from the Herald.

“Come in, Colonel. What’s on your mind?”

Harris walked in and laid the teletype on his desk.

McGrory read it.

“Why wasn’t I advised of this previously?” McGrory asked when he had finished reading it.

“It was delivered to me ten minutes ago, Colonel.”

“If there is to be an aircraft at this embassy, it should be an air force aircraft,” McGrory said.

When Harris didn’t reply, McGrory added: “Wouldn’t you agree, Colonel? An air force aircraft for an air force post?”

“Colonel, I get my orders from the chief of staff of the U.S. Army. And I have never questioned one of his orders before, and I am not going to start now.”

“I would hate to think, Colonel, that you have gone over my head with this,” McGrory said.

“I don’t know how it is in the air force, Colonel, but in the army we can’t go over another officer’s head unless he’s senior.”

“Be advised, Colonel,” McGrory said, his face flushed, “that I intend to get to the bottom of this.”

“I stand so advised,” Harris said.

“Is there anything else, Colonel?” McGrory asked.

“I don’t think so, Colonel,” Harris said, and leaned over and took the teletype from McGrory’s desk.

“I’d like a copy of that, Colonel,” McGrory said. “If you don’t mind.”

“I’ll get you one, Colonel,” Harris said.

He walked to the door and turned around.

“There is one more thing, Colonel, now that I think of it.”

“Which is?”

“Merry Christmas, Colonel McGrory,” Colonel Harris said, and walked out of the office before McGrory could reply.

He was almost back at his own office when he had the thought, That dumb sonofabitch is right. This is an air force post. So how come I’m getting an army airplane, and army pilots and mechanics?

What the hell is this all about?

[ SEVEN ]

SECRET

Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia

FROM: Assistant Director For Administration

FROM: 27 December 1964 1805 GMT

SUBJECT : Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #5.)

TO: Mr. Sanford T. Felter

Counselor To The President

Room 637, The Executive Office Building

Washington, D.C.

By Courier

In compliance with Presidential Memorandum to The Director, Subject: “Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara,” dated 14 December 1964, the following information is furnished:

1. (Reliability Scale Two) (From CIA sources in Bamako, Mali) SUBJECT met with President Modibo KEITA of Mali at 1105 GMT 26 December 1964 for one hour and fifteen minutes. No details of their conversation or identities of other (if any) personnel attending are available.

2. (Reliability Scale Four) SUBJECT held a press conference at 1605 GMT 26 December, during which he expressed his belief that Africans and Cubans have a common goal in defeating U.S. Imperialism.

Howard W. O’Connor

HOWARD W. O’CONNOR

SECRET

[ EIGHT ]

Office of the Commander-in-Chief

The Army of Argentina

Edificio Libertador

Buenos Aires, Argentina

1015 28 December 1964

Lieutenant General Pascual Angel Pistarini, the commander-in -chief of the Argentine Army, was sitting behind his huge, ornately carved desk, his back turned to it, his glistening riding boots resting on the sill of the window of his ninth-floor office, sipping a coffee as he looked out over the River Plate.

Pistarini, was a tall, slim, rather sharp-featured man of forty-six. He had intelligent blue eyes (his maternal grandmother was German), and when he smiled—rarely—he displayed a set of teeth so perfect some people suspected they were not his. They were. He attributed this to his mother, who had listened to her mother, and fed all of her five children as much milk as possible, well into their teenage years. This was not common in Argentina, where most children went from their mother’s breast to coffee, but Pistarini’s children were fed cow’s milk and they all had fine teeth.

What General Pistarini was thinking, when his aide-de-camp came into his office, was that he had made a serious error in agreeing to take the parade of the First Regiment of Cavalry—the Húsares de Pueyrredón; named after the Pampas estanciero who had turned two-hundred-odd gauchos into cavalrymen and run the English out of Buenos Aires—at Campo de Mayo that afternoon.

It was hot as hell, and humid, and after sitting for an hour or so on a horse in the afternoon sun, he was going to be sunburned, dehydrated, and his fresh-from-the-dry-cleaner’s-uniform sweat-soaked.

There was nothing that could be done about it now, it was too late, and

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