"Yanqui?"
"Yanqui. You're traveling as Major Angel Blanco of my confidential staff. You are going south for me on a most delicate mission. You speak very little English, and you stink from pomade. Besides, you wear these thick glasses and you've been out on such a night of wild Latin debauchery that you sleep most of the time. In short, you are the Anglo-Saxon's dream of the stupid, conceited, lecherous Latin officer who can't hold his liquor."
"Claro. I'm repulsive."
"Yes, but you are also a walking microfilm file, only no one knows it. Your belt, your Sam Browne harness, the lining of your short boots, the inside of the visor of your cap are filled with identical sets of microfilms. Your pouch carries a letter from me to a General XYZ in code—and God preserve the sanity of anyone who attempts to uncode it. It will add up to precisely three tons of mierda de caballo."
Hall found a uniform that fit him. He got into it, smeared the proffered pomade into his black hair. "Do I carry any baggage?"
"We'll pack you a bag. Two extra uniforms, pictures of your wife, your mistress, and your mother, a pound of pomade, a few copies of the Infantry Journal—it will be all right."
"I can imagine. But before I go, Jaime, there's something I don't quite get. Why did the Spanish Embassy crowd have to hide Rivas's body? Why couldn't they admit that he did it?"
Lobo adjusted Hall's tunic. "Elementary, my dear Watson," he said. "The Portada blighter was sleeping with the Rivas bloke's wife. It's the Ambassador's job to avoid scandals within the happy family. Admitting Rivas killed Portada over a rag, a bone, and a hank o' hair would be a confession the Ambassador couldn't run his own show. Elementary?"
"No. You're improvising, and the notes sound all wrong. Let me know about it when you really find out, Sherlock."
"Come back in two weeks." General Lobo yawned, stretched his long frame. "I'll take you to the American air base myself," he said. "I'll introduce you and act as your interpreter. And after you take off, you'll be on your own. Who's meeting you in Caracas, by the way?"