“How good of you to come. I am Pascual Pistarini.”
“It was very good of you to ask us, General,” Lowell said. “May I introduce my assistant, Major George W. Lunsford?”
“And it is a pleasure to meet you, Major,” Pistarini said. “I understand you are not a polo player?”
“No, sir, I am not,” Father said.
“Then may I suggest that you join me here, and I will attempt to explain the game to you, while Ricardo takes your colonel and does his best to get him suited up?”
“You’re very kind, sir,” Lunsford said.
“And if you will be good enough to come with me, mi coronel?” Fosterwood said, motioning toward the door to the building.
“Inasmuch, mi coronel,” Lowell said, “as we are both of the same rank, and you are about to learn what a terrible polo player I am, could you find it in your heart to call me by my Christian name? Craig?”
General Pistarini laughed.
“Of course, Craig,” Fosterwood said. “My friends—and if I may say so, I consider you one already—call me Ricky.”
They shook hands, smiled, and Ricky waved Craig into the building.
Just inside the door were two soldiers in fatigues and web gear carrying automatic rifles, and there were others, officers, in fatigue uniform and armed with pistols and submachine guns in the large foyer of the building.
“Polo fans, no doubt?” Craig said to Ricky.
“There is, as I mentioned, a small internal problem at the moment, ” Fosterwood said uneasily. “What is the cliché? ‘Better safe than sorry’?”
“Are you a betting man, Ricky?”
“Every once in a while I make a small wager, yes. Why do you ask?”
“I’ll give you five to one the Brazilians don’t let him leave the country for anywhere but Spain.”
Fosterwood, although he tried hard, could not keep his surprise off his face.
“Excuse me?” he said after a moment.
Lowell smiled at him.
“How good a polo player is General Pistarini?” he asked.
“He has a six-goal handicap,” Fosterwood said, almost visibly relieved the subject had been changed.
“The locker room is right this way, Craig,” he went on. “Unless you would like a little something to drink first?”
“I think, under the circumstances, that alcohol would not be wise,” Craig said. “After the game . . .”
When Craig rode onto the field—which he saw was manicured, but bore the marks of frequent use—he saw that the tile-roofed building also had a verandah on the polo field side. Officers and their wives were sitting, waiting for the game to begin, at tables on it.
There was also a balcony cut into the attic of the building, providing a better view of the field, obviously for senior officers and their wives. There were four tables under umbrellas. No one was sitting at any of the tables.
And he saw, standing at maybe thirty-yard intervals against the ten-foot-high shrubbery that lined both sides of the field, more soldiers in field gear and carrying automatic rifles.
Perón really has these people worried. What if he manages to get back in, and takes over the country again? Where’s that going to leave me?
Your immediate problem, Craig, my boy, is not to fall off your horse while playing far out of your league. Worry about that.
Not only is this a first-class shower room, Lowell thought an hour and a half later, standing in a large, tile-walled shower stall under a powerful stream of hot water, but there is obviously an even better one reserved for the commander-in-chief of the Argentina Army. I don’t see him here, and he needed a shower just about as bad as I do.
Fosterwood, now wearing a polo shirt and slacks, was waiting for him in the locker room.
“You are too modest, Craig,” he said. “Of our five goals, two were yours.”
“God takes care of fools and drunks, Ricky, and I qualify on both counts.”
Fosterwood laughed delightedly.
That’s a funny line, but not that funny.
“I will have to remember that,” Fosterwood said. “When you’re finished dressing, the general asks that you join him.”
Fosterwood led him up a stairway to the upper-level balcony. Pistarini, dressed in slacks and a polo shirt like Fosterwood, was sitting in a wicker chair at one of the tables with Father Lunsford and a ruddy-faced man of forty-odd in a suit. There were glass mugs of beer sitting in front of Lunsford and the ruddy-faced man.
And there were two soldiers in field gear with automatic rifles, standing in the inside corners of the area, simultaneously scanning the area and trying to make themselves inconspicuous.
Pistarini rose to his feet, smiled, and offered Lowell his