The facts in the report were set forth in great detail. They dealt with other submarine anchorages, with the role of the Cross and the Sword on the waterfront, and with the beginnings of an organized ring of sabotage. The report ended with the account of the events which followed the visit of the Ciudad de Sevilla, a Spanish liner, to the port of San Hermano.
"Look here, Hall," Fielding said. "Listen to this. On the twentieth of September, '41, the Ciudad de Sevilla docked in San Hermano at four-ten in the afternoon. At approximately five o'clock, the radio operator of the Spanish liner, one Eduardo Jimenez, left the ship and proceeded to a bar on the Paseo de Flores, the bar known as La Perrichola. There he met with two unidentified men, one of whom was later identified as a provincial leader of the Cross and the Sword. The three men went to a brothel near the waterfront, and at exactly ten o'clock left the brothel and got into a waiting sedan which, by a roundabout route, took them to Calle Galleano 4857, a quiet villa in the west suburb.
"The villa belongs to Jorge Davila, a lawyer for some of the great landowning families of the south. Davila's record as one of the leaders of the now illegal Falange and an organizer of the Cross and the Sword has been covered in my previous report, dated July 7th of this year." Fielding poured some fresh coffee for Hall and himself. "Tomorrow or the next day I can show you the report in question, Hall. But to proceed with this report.
"At Davila's home, a group of Cross and Sword leaders were waiting for the three men in the sedan. They had a long meeting, lasting over five hours. Then eight men, including the Spanish ship's officer, left the house and entered two fast cars of American make. The cars proceeded to the town of Alcala, in the sugar lands some seventy miles from San Hermano.
"In the morning, there was no trace of the eight men in Alcala. That night, the sugar fields of the English planter, Basil Greenleaf, were set on fire by incendiary flames started in over twenty different parts of his acreage at the same time. Two of Greenleaf's employees who were attempting to fight the blaze in the east field were killed by rifle fire. One of them lived long enough to stagger to the road where he told his story to the Greenleaf foreman, a man named Esteban Anesi.
"I must call your attention, sir, to the fact that Greenleaf was the only planter in the Alcala region who had contracted to sell his crop to Great Britain, and that the fire took place exactly two weeks before the harvest time.
"Eduardo Jimenez was next seen in San Hermano the day after the fire, when he appeared in the Municipal Police Headquarters in what was evidently a state of extreme intoxication. He complained that on leaving his ship on the twentieth, he had gone to a bar for a drink, met up with two pimps, and had then been taken to a brothel where, after two days of drunken revelry, he had been cleaned out of his life's savings and then been carried out to sleep it off in an alley off the Calle Mercedes. Having made his complaint, he passed out. A police doctor examined him, recommended a good night's sleep."
Fielding held his finger under the word sleep. "Hah," he roared. "Damn clever, the bastards! Now then, where was my place? Oh, yes, good night's sleep. Yes."
"In the morning, Jimenez awoke, vomited, and started to yell for the jailer. He wanted to know what he was doing in a cell, and when shown his complaint, he expressed innocent amazement. He could not recall a thing. The warden gave him a hearty breakfast and sent him on his way. Jimenez joined his ship, which sailed for Spain that afternoon with a cargo of beef."
The case of Eduardo Jimenez was the last in the report. Fielding put the copy aside and leaned back in his chair. "Was this worth your while, Hall?" he asked.