"I still don't trust him. I introduced him to Santiago because Santiago wanted to meet him."
"I wouldn't trust him with Franco's daughter," Rafael said.
Santiago Iglesias sighed heavily. "No one asks you to sleep with him, Rafael," he said. "It isn't that. But you remember what happened in the early days of the war. We had to take any officer who swore loyalty to the Republic. We had no choice in the matter, did we, chico?"
"But we also put in commissars to keep an eye on them."
"It's true, chico. But some of them proved to be really loyal, eh?"
"A handful."
"All right, even a handful. But the point is that they were useful. Here is the situation as of tonight: if the pictures which will kill the Falange in San Hermano are anywhere within our reach at all, they are in the Spanish Embassy. We have no contact we can trust inside the Embassy. The nearest thing to such a contact is Rivas. He is a weakling and he was a traitor. We know that. What we don't know is whether his repentance is sincere. The only way to really find out is to test the man. This is the time to test him. I've spoken with him three times in the past week. He begs for a chance to prove that he has the right to serve the Republic again."
"He can serve the Republic best," Rafael insisted, "by blowing his brains out."
"Rafael!"
"I'm sorry, Colonel Iglesias. I hate traitors."