Page 5

“Well, Sid,” Truman interrupted, “you were wrong. The most important thing on my plate at this time is getting those two SS sons of bitches back behind bars so we can try them and then hang them. If this Colonel Cohen thinks Captain Cronley can help him, you get Cronley out of goddamn Argentina and to goddamn Germany as soon as humanly possible. Got it?”

Admiral Souers said, “Yes, Mr. President.”

“And you, Bob, you start right now on getting OMGUS and the Air Force and anybody else off Cronley’s back—and Cronley’s people’s backs—and keep them off. They deserve medals and they damn sure shouldn’t have to be running from the law like John Dillinger’s gang of bank robbers. Got it?”

Justice Jackson said, “Yes, Mr. President.”

[TWO]

The Polo Field

Estancia Don Guillermo

Kilometer 40.4, Provincial Route 60

Mendoza Province, Argentina

1345 9 April 1946

Polo was the oldest equestrian sport in the world. It featured opposing four-man teams attempting to strike with long-handled mallets a ball between twelve and a half and fifteen inches in circumference into the other team’s goal.

The players on the Mendoza estancia’s polo field were expert horsemen mounted on superbly trained Arabian ponies. But they were not dressed in the usual manner—boots, white trousers, and colored cotton short-sleeved shirts—with seven of the eigh

t wearing the outfits of working gauchos, the Argentine version of American cowboys. It included a wide-brimmed black leather hat, a white shirt with billowing sleeves, tucked into equally billowing black trousers tucked into knee-length soft black leather boots. Around their waists, they wore wide leather belts decorated with silver studs, inserted into the back of which were silver-handled knives with blades at least twelve inches long.

The hatless eighth player wore a gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo of the Agriculture and Mechanical College of Texas—commonly called Texas A&M—blue jeans, and what were properly termed Western or cowboy boots.

He was a tall, muscular, blond twenty-two-year-old. On the list—classified Secret—of “Detached Officers” maintained in the Pentagon, he was listed as: Cronley, James D. Jr., Captain, Cavalry, AUS O-396754. Permanently detached to Directorate of Central Intelligence.

After wresting control of the ball from an opposing gaucho about to score a goal, Cronley then drove it at a full gallop toward the other end of the field. As he did, he saw a man waving a sheet of paper near the goal.

The man’s name was Maximillian Ostrowski. He had spent World War II as an intelligence officer with the Free Polish Army and was now a DCI special agent.

Cronley smacked the ball a final time, scoring.

But instead of returning to the field, he reined in the jet-black Arabian and dismounted.

“This just came,” Ostrowski said, handing him the sheet of paper.

Cronley’s eyes went to it:

TOP SECRET–LINDBERGH

URGENT

DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

FROM: DIRECTOR SOUTHERN CONE

1945 GREENWICH 9 APR 1946

TO: ALTAR BOY MENDOZA

PASS TO GEN MARTIN

1—LODESTAR WILL PICK UP YOU, WINTERS, SPURGEON, PULASKI, AND OSTROWSKI ASAP TODAY. TRY TO STAY OUT OF SIGHT IN BUENOS AIRES.

2—I WILL SEND MY PRECISE ETA PISTARINI TOMORROW ASAP. HAVE EVERYBODY THERE.