Jack put the phone back in its cradle and shook his head. He had called Hanrahan’s office in desperation, after fifteen minutes on the telephone trying, with absolutely no success, to find Major Father Lunsford. First the SWC operator had firmly denied knowing anything about a Major Lunsford, then when Jack had said he was at Mackall, that she knew anything about a place called Camp Mackall, and when he’d finally worked his way past the operator’s supervisor and gotten the signal sergeant to patch him through to the Mackall switchboard, that operator, a man, had firmly denied knowledge of a Major Lunsford or a Master Sergeant Thomas. He had finally gotten Thomas on the line.
“Hell, he doesn’t tell me where he’s going, Lieutenant,” Thomas had told him in Swahili. “I don’t have a clue where he is. You try his apartment?”
To try the apartment, it had been necessary to find a pay phone, because the Pope/Bragg telephone system did not allow off-post calls from Class B telephones, and then find change to feed the pay phone, and when he finally got the number to ring, it rang and rang and rang, making it clear that Father wasn’t at home, either.
As he had dialed the SWC number again, he wondered if Mr. Finton ate Father’s ass for not letting people know where he was the way he had eaten his.
“The general will see you now, Lieutenant,” said Captain Zabrewski, who stood six feet four inches tall, weighed 230 pounds, and had a voice like a bass tuba.
Jack marched into Hanrahan’s office and saluted.
“Hey, Jack,” Hanrahan said, returning the salute with a wave in the general direction of his forehead, and smiling. “Where’s your friend?”
“Outside, sir. Sir, I was looking for Major Lunsford—”
Hanrahan silenced him with a raised hand and punched the lever on his intercom.
“Ski, run down Mr. Zammoro. When he shows up, send him and Mr. de la Santiago in, please.”
“Father’s not here,” Hanrahan said to Jack.
“Pappy Hodges told me to take Santiago to him, sir. Can I ask where he is?”
Hanrahan thought that over perceptibly.
“He’s on his way to Buenos Aires with Colonel Lowell.”
“Buenos Aires?” Jack asked incredulously.
“It may have something to do with this,” Hanrahan said. “Which Colonel Felter, for reasons I can’t imagine, felt he should share with me. It just came over the secure photo line.”
He handed Jack what was a wire photograph of a CIA memorandum.
SECRET
Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia
FROM: Assistant Director For Administration
FROM: 1 January 1965 1310 GMT
SUBJECT : Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #8.)
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, and in consideration of the fact that SUBJECT holds Argentinian citizenship by birth, the following information is furnished:
1. (Reliability Scale Three) (From CIA Buenos Aires) The Argentine Foreign Ministry has been informed by Argentine Ambassador in Madrid that former President Juan D. PERÓN has chartered an aircraft and intends to travel today from Lisbon, Portugal via Asuncion, Paraguay to an undisclosed location in Argentina, presumably to make good on his promise to return to Argentina by 1 Jan 65. ARG FORMIN previously believed promise was meaningless.
2. CIA sources in Madrid and Lisbon know of no overt or covert charter.
Howard W. O’Connor
HOWARD W. O’CONNOR
Jack finished reading it, and looked at General Hanrahan.
“And then again, it may not,” Hanrahan said.
“General Perón? Argentina?”
“Like it says in there, Señor Guevara was born there,” Hanrahan said. “How’s married life?”
“So far just fine. sir.”
“Johnny Oliver reported in this morning. He’s getting settled in. If Father and Oliver living together can ever be called settled. In a garden apartment in Fayetteville.”
“Father—excuse me, Major Lunsford—offered to find an apartment for Marjorie and me there, sir.”
“Jack, very quickly: A senior can call a junior by his first name; the reverse is not true unless they are really friends, and among friends. Example: So far as I’m concerned, you can call Father Father and Oliver Johnny when you and I are alone, but don’t let my aide hear you do it. It would deeply offend his sense of proprieties. You’ll learn, Jack. It’s not hard, but it’s important.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jack said, meaning it, realizing that Hanrahan, like Pappy, like Marjorie, like even Geoff, was trying to help him learn how to act like an officer.
“Father told me about the apartment. When are you coming up here?”
“General, you know about the L-23 we’re to pick up in Wichita?”