"So do I. But frankly, Hall, I'd like to drop the subject. I—I need your advice. Unofficially, of course. But I need it. It's about the reports that the late Roger Fielding made to the British Embassy. You saw them, I understand."
"Only once. A few nights before he was killed."
"That's what I was told. Commander New in the British Embassy told me. He's not exactly up on the San Hermano scene yet, you know. He thinks that after the job you and Lobo did in Havana that he ought to turn the originals of the Fielding reports over to the government. What he doesn't know is who to hand them to. He wants to know who will use them and who will burn them. He thought that since you were an American, he'd ask me to get your slant on it."
"I get it," Hall said. "You want one guy who is certain to be an anti-fascist. Someone who will know just how to use the information."
"Exactly. I don't suppose I have to tell you, Hall, that the enemy has been sinking our shipping in the South Atlantic and the Caribbean at a rate that spells one hell of a long war. I know, as you do, that Falangist Spaniards on shore are working with the Nazi undersea raiders. But even if we wanted to, we couldn't send enough Marines to South America to root 'em out. We've got to rely on the local governments to do the job."
"Yeah." Hall was bitter. "We want this Republic to root out the Falangists, so we send an Ambassador who plays footy with the Falangists in public and calls the anti-Falangist President a dirty Red."
"You're carping, Hall."
"All right. I'm carping. I'm a taxpayer, it's my prerogative to carp. We want the Latin American Republics to get tough with the Franquists who are helping the Nazis sink our ships, so we sell the Spanish fascists the oil they transfer to the Nazi subs, and we send an Ambassador to Madrid whose only exercise is kissing Franco's foot in public every Sunday morning, and when any of our sister Republics want to break with Franco we dispatch a sanctimonious buzzard in striped pants from the State Department and he tells them to lay off Franco, Spain's Saviour from Atheism and Communism. How in the hell can we expect the Latin Republics to crack down on Franco's stooges at home when we ourselves play up to Franco in Madrid?"
"Let's have that lighter again." Barrows was cool and unruffled, the smile that danced across the smooth lines of his face never wavered. "I'm a soldier," he said, pleasantly. "I can't discuss policy. I can only talk tactics. You know that, Hall. Tactics is the art of working with an existent situation and licking it—not waiting for the millennium. You think our policy toward Franco Spain should be changed. Maybe you're right. Maybe it will be changed. But, in the meanwhile, Franquists in Latin America, in this country specifically, are putting the finger on our ships. Fielding's reports might be accurate. If we are to act on them, we need the help of pro-Allied members of this government. Who is our man?"
"There is one man in these parts who can be trusted completely to do the right things with those reports," Hall answered. "Give him the reports, and after the polls close he'll be in a position to round up every fascist Fielding listed and put them on ice for the duration. He's an army man—Major Diego Segador."