“Somebody told me it was a nice place for a holiday.” Far back around the edges of Crobey’s accent you could detect a residue of sooty Liverpudlian squalor.

Suspicion ran high in Anders. He did not buy coincidences right off the shelf. “I want to talk to you.”

“Sure, Glenn.”

“I’m on my way to the embassy. Keep me company.”

“Can’t,” Crobey said, “I’ve got an appointment. Where are you staying?”

He felt a keen reluctance to let Crobey out of his sight but he had no weapon with which to hold the man. Anders considered the options and conceded. “The Hilton.”

It provoked Crobey’s caustic smile. Everybody in the trade knew the stale joke—two secret agents meet by chance in the lobby: “I say, old chap, this is frightfully embarrassing but can you tell me, is this the Tel Aviv Hilton or the Cairo Hilton?”

Crobey said, “Drinks then. What time will you be free? I’ll come by the Hilton.”

“Make it nine.”

“See you.” Crobey thrust his prow into the crowd. Anders watched him sway out of sight.

Wilkins said, “I just got off the scrambler with Sturdevant in Buenos Aires.”

Anders sat down. His feet were tired. “Anything?”

“The politicals seem to be coalescing toward Paraguay. It looks like they’ll be taken in by one of those Bund groups on the Pampas. You know. Bunch of senile characters with brown pasts. We’ve had taps on their phones for years but the Bundists know it. They don’t use the phones for much except ordering groceries and selling their beef cattle. But there’s no sign of unusual activity there. We’d know it if they were planning to start World War Three.”

“Doddering Nazis in their seventies or eighties.” Anders shook his head. “They’re just waiting to die. They’ve got no wars left in them.”

Wilkins’ smile agreed with him, rueful and doleful as always—the man lived under a cloud of wry gloom. “Sturdevant asked me if you want him to bring one of the politicals in for questioning.”

“No. O’Hillary’s orders—we shadow them but keep hands off.” Anders resented having to wear reins and blinders but you didn’t kick up a nest until you found out how many and how virulent the hornets were.

Anders unfolded his copy of the list of the eleven politicals who’d been released from prisons at the terrorists’ behest. They were old-timers, most of them. Leaders from the early 1960s. One of them had tried to lead a commando force into Cuba to assassinate Castro in 1961; another had gone around systematically executing people who were suspected of having been followers of Ché Guevara in Bolivia and Ecuador. Some of them probably didn’t even know one another; the thing they had in common was their anti-Castro fanaticism. Now they’d been turned loose but apparently no one had made contact with them except the old Germans in Paraguay who were offering them not armies but refuges.

The only geographic spot all eleven politicals had in common was the airport at Buenos Aires to which, on the terrorists’ instructions, the politicals had been delivered at various times during the day following the murder of Robert Lundquist. But the airport had been covered by surveillance platoons and no one had spotted anything. The politicals came in, they were processed through, they were followed when they left. No one saw any of them make contact with anyone except the aged chauffeur who had collected all of them; the chauffeur was a deaf ex-Wehrmacht colonel who, under questioning, showed no reluctance to reveal his instructions. He’d been sent to B.A. by his employers in Paraquay who felt the politicals would need a hand of friendship and who had dispatched the chauffeur with small amounts of money to be given to each of the politicals along with an open invitation to join the German hosts on their Paraguayan estates. The way in which it was all done, openly and cynically, suggested that the German invitation was a matter of sympathy more than conspiracy. Two of the eleven politicals were themselves German; that probably contributed to the Bundists’ decision to offer a haven to the ex-prisoners.

“It’s one of two things,” Anders said. “Either it was a propaganda gesture or it was a smoke screen. If it was a propaganda gesture it was designed to show the world that the anti-Castro people still have friends. That would have some value, I guess, if it encouraged other people to get on the bandwagon. It’s the only political purpose I can see in this business because it’s becoming obvious the terrorists don’t have any real practical use for these eleven politicals. Most of them are has-beens anyway. Relics of the sixties.”

“That’s the way I see it,” Wilkins agreed.

“Or it could be a smoke screen. Maybe these guys are simply a little team of crooks who figured out a handy way to earn ten million dollars tax free.”

Bemusement seeped into Wilkins’ dewlappy eyes. “Now that would be funny. You think that’s what they are?”

“I don’t know. In any case I don’t think these eleven are going to lead us anywhere. Probably they don’t know any more than we do. But I guess we’ve got to maintain surveillance on them. It’ll be a waste of time but you have to go through the motions. Right now I imagine they’re sitting around a German ranch swapping yarns about the good old days.”

“Speaking of the good old days, guess who dropped in a little while ago?”

“Harry Crobey.”

“You saw him, then. Good. He was looking for you.”

“Was he now?”

Wilkins said, “You think he’s got anything to do with this?” He looked honestly surprised. “Crobey? Terrorists?”

“He’s a hired gun. He works for just about anybody.”

“These guys are circumspect. They wouldn’t hire a known mercenary.”

“Maybe that’s just why they would,” Anders said. “He agreed to meet me for a drink tonight. If he keeps the appointment I’d like to have him shadowed when he leaves the Hilton. Can you spare a few men and a couple of cars for a day or two? They’ll have to be good at it—Crobey’s not a fool.”

Wilkins scratched his throat and blinked dismally. “Crobey? No, I can’t see him tying up with that kind. He’s arrogant, he wouldn’t hire out to a gang of off-the-wall crazies.”

“Then what’s he doing here?”

“Maybe he came to get laid. Who knows. But I can let you have a surveillance team for a little while.” He picked up a letter opener and made a dour stab at a fingernail.

Rosalia was cross when he refused to take her with him. She wanted to meet Crobey because she’d heard some of the legends about him. Finally Anders compromised. She could wander into the bar at 9:45 and he’d introduce her. But he wanted time alone with the Englishman.

Crobey was more than punctual. When Anders arrived Crobey was already there in a corner banquette; probably he’d been here twenty minutes trying to spot ambushes or eavesdroppers before they could get set. A bit amused Anders said, “Been here long?”

“Just got here. How’ve you been?”

“Busy. You know how it goes.” Anders sat.

“Getting anywhere on this terrorist thing?”

“That’s pretty blunt, even for you.”

Crobey said, “I’m working on the same job. Let’s help each other.”

“This afternoon you pretended you didn’t want me to see you. What’s the game?”

“No game. You startled me on the street—I hadn’t expected to run into you there. I had something on my mind. But I wanted to see you.”

“You didn’t say so.”

“I hadn’t decided how to play it yet,” Crobey conceded.

That was plausible enough but Anders reserved judgment. Crobey was too good at looking you in the eye.

Crobey grinned. “I could ooze a little guile. Would that make you more comfortable?”

“Probably.”

“How far have you got?”

“It’s no good pumping me, Harry, I haven’t got any secrets for sale.”

“I was thinking more about the lines of barter.”

“What are you offering to swap?”

“I just had a talk with Ortega. He was helpful. You ought to go see him.”