The White Vixen (24 page)

“Will he cooperate?” the Chief of Station asked Travis.

“I think so,” Travis said. “His information has always been valuable.” He had been running the butler, code-named “Jeeves”, since his recruitment the previous year. Travis would never have believed that a sprained ankle would be a stroke of luck, but his slip on the stairs had put him in the hospital emergency room that day when the butler had brought his mother in. She’d taken a fall and was treated for a bruised shoulder. Travis recognized Ernesto from photos he’d been examining in connection with the Siegfried Bund. Once a year the staff at the Baumann mansion posed for a group photograph, and the photographer, for a small fee, agreed to provide a copy of the picture to an interested foreigner, who said he’d heard that his long-lost sister was working there as a maid. It was a simple matter to find out the name of the patient that night, and that of her son. An additional fee was required to provide details of the woman’s condition, and that of her husband, but Travis had a rather comfortable expense account for such purposes.

A week’s worth of surveillance on the couple’s apartment building turned up Ernesto, and a week later Travis had occasion to share a park bench with the butler. Small talk about the weather and families over the course of three meetings led to the opening, and Travis dangled the bait. Ernesto was reluctant, but he took it. Reluctance was good; informants who eagerly accepted were often the most unreliable, and occasionally were working for BIS. More than one British agent had been burned over the years for being too quick to close such a deal.

“Are we sure the list of pilots he provided a few weeks ago is connected to Pilcaniyeu?” Travis asked now.

“Someone in London believes it, so we must, also,” his superior said. “All of the pilots in question are native Argentines, sons of German immigrants. We think all of their fathers are members of the Bund. The pilots trained not only here but also in West Germany, with the Luftwaffe, for six months as part of an exchange program.”

“What is the connection with the facility down in Pilcaniyeu?” Travis asked. He was persistent, but knew when to stop pushing. While he was on good terms with the chief, he had no desire to offend the man and risk losing this particular posting. A widower, Travis enjoyed Buenos Aires, particularly its beautiful women.

The man on the other side of the desk gave a slight shrug. “Apparently there’s one somewhere,” he said. Travis sensed he was not being told everything the man knew, but of course that was common. Field agents had need-to-know only to their own pay grade. “Let me know when you are next to meet with Jeeves.”

Travis stood up. “I’ll look for his signal on my walk Sunday night.”

The MI6 station chief watched Travis exit the small office. A good man, perhaps a bit too curious, but if the butler found out anything about Pilcaniyeu, the agent would be able to put two and two together. Then he might have to be brought further into the loop. That could prove beneficial, though; the butler wasn’t the only agent the man was running, and the others might be able to provide additional information about this Bund outfit.

The MI6 man reached for a file on his desk. He’d been re-reading it when Travis came to make his report. Now he picked it up again. The first page was the list of the six pilots provided by the helpful gentleman’s gentleman. Various other sources of information had provided fairly complete details of each man’s background. All of them had trained with the West German Luftwaffe, as the man had told Travis. What he had not mentioned was the name of one particular unit each Argentine pilot had worked with while in Germany. It was
Jagdstaffel
72, based near Hopsten in northwestern Germany, near the Dutch border. The squadron flew the American F-4 Phantom and was the only Luftwaffe unit tasked to train pilots in the delivery of unconventional munitions, including nuclear weapons.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Bermuda

March 1982

Jo Ann wondered if she had a right to feel this good, with the warm sun, the sand, the ocean gently surging into Warwick Long Bay, and Ian beside her, flipping through a soccer magazine. She sat up, sighing with contentment.

“You are allowed to take the top off, you know,” Ian said.

She smiled at him. “I take it off at night for you,” she said. “Why do you want me to take it off now, in public?” Although this wasn’t one of Bermuda’s most popular beaches, there were still a good number of people here today, and Jo had noticed that most of the women were going about without their bikini tops. She had no doubt that Ian had noticed that, too.

“Coward,” he said, rolling back on his stomach and pretending to read the magazine again. Jo knew he was a big fan of Manchester United. This was the fourth day of their vacation here, and it hadn’t taken that long for Jo to discover that British men weren’t too different than their American cousins when it came to football, regardless of the shape of the ball.

Well, what the heck. Jo reached behind her, unsnapped the bra, and peeled it off. Reaching into her beach bag, she found the bottle of sun screen and began applying some to her breasts. She heard a muffled “Hmm” beside her. Something told her that soccer had suddenly lost its hold on her marine.

Done with the sunscreen, she lay back, propping herself on her elbows, and stretched her legs out. She noticed that two men walking nearby glanced at her appreciatively, in spite of the presence of their own topless companions. One of the men smiled at her and winked. She smiled back.

“Well, how does it feel?” Ian said. He was on his side now, the magazine forgotten. Jo glanced over at him. Like most of the men on the beach, he was wearing a Speedo; unlike most of the men, he had the body for it. By the look of his suit, it seemed Ian was enjoying Jo’s altered appearance.

“Probably not as good as it feels for you,” she said playfully. Really, though, she felt almost liberated. This was something she would never do on an American beach, not that there were any that would allow topless women in the first place, as far as she knew.

“You may be right about that,” he said. He rolled another ninety degrees onto his back. Jo saw a couple of passing women giving him the eye. Good for the goose, good for the gander, she supposed. “Where would you like to go for dinner tonight?”

“How about that place down the road from the golf course, the one we saw yesterday?” They’d played nine holes at Belmont Golf Club, not too far from Warwick Bay, and a few kilometers west of the town of Hamilton and their hotel.

“Sounds fine,” Ian said. “You know, I rather like this. Deciding where to go for dinner is the most difficult decision of the day. I could get used to this.”

“Me, too,” Jo said. She laid back, her hand finding Ian’s. The sun felt good on her newly liberated breasts.

Their two-day reunion on Ascension Island had been too brief for them. A week after returning to England, Ian called her with the news that he had arranged for a week’s leave. Could she join him in Bermuda? Jo didn’t need to be asked twice. It took a bit of doing for her to arrange her own leave on such short notice, but the Washington incident was still proving useful for her, and with Colonel Reese’s strong recommendation, her leave was approved.

Ian’s wounds had healed nicely, although his shoulder was still tender and the bright red scar wasn’t the most attractive thing in the world. Jo didn’t care, though. She knew now she was desperately, gloriously in love with this man, and being with him was all that mattered. That he was rounding back into top shape physically was just a pleasant bonus. Very pleasant indeed; she had not even bothered to count the number of times they’d made love since arriving on the island.

In the month since Ascension, Jo had gone about her daily Air Force business with a zest that surprised even Kate, who knew her better than anyone. “You be glowin’, girl,” she said one day at lunch. “That man of yours, he must be somethin’ else.”

“He sure is,” Jo replied with a smile.

When the lights were out in her quarters at night, though, Jo couldn’t help thinking about the future. Where was this relationship going? Where could it possibly go? On the surface of it, there were so many obstacles—both of them in the service, and not just different branches, but different nations. Military romances were difficult enough under the best of circumstances, and these were far from the best. Of course, they could always resign their commissions, or at least one of them could and join the other. Ever practical, sometimes annoyingly so, Jo had begun to think about what she would say if Ian proposed to her. While her heart shouted at her to accept, her brain caused her to hesitate, think it through. Could she give up her Air Force career to marry Ian, move to England? What if he stayed in the Royal Marines? What if—

“You’re thinking again,” he said. Without even knowing it, she’d sat up, bringing her knees to her chest. It hadn’t taken Ian very long to figure that one out. She was in her deep-thought mode. She’d been able to stay out of that so far on the trip, but here it was again.

“Sorry,” she said, relaxing. She lay back down and rolled over to face him. “Ian?”

“Yes, love?” He leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on the tip of her nose.

“I was thinking about…about us.”

He kissed her left cheek. “That’s good,” he said. “Are they good thoughts?”

“Yes,” she said. “Some of them are confusing, though.”

He stopped kissing her. “Such as?”

“Well…where are we going with this, Ian?”

He looked at her. “Is this what American men call ‘The Big Talk’?”

She couldn’t suppress her grin. “I suppose it is,” she said. She reached out and touched his face. “I love you, Ian. More than I thought I could ever love a man again.”

He took her hand and kissed it. “You know that I’m positively daft over you,” he murmured. “I can’t stand being away from you.”

She felt her heart starting to beat faster. “I feel the same way.”

“Jo…” With a sigh, he lay back down on the beach towel.

“What’s the matter?” Panic suddenly surged through her. Was he going to break it off? Concede to the obstacles?

“There is something I haven’t told you,” he said.

Oh, boy, here it comes, she thought. Another woman. Maybe he’s married…no, that couldn’t possibly be. Could it?

“Before I left London, I was told that I’m to be promoted to lieutenant colonel,” he said, pronouncing it “lefftenant”, in the very British way. “Apparently some of the higher-ups at Admiralty had high marks for my performance on Carpenter’s Island, regardless of how it turned out.”

This one caught her right out of left field. “Ian, that’s wonderful,” she said. “I told you they’d see what really happened.”

“Captain Stone and some other members of the crew are to receive commendations,” he said. “You know the Argentines have been making political hay out of the whole thing.”

“Yes, I saw it on the news,” she said. Making hay, indeed. There had been jubilant demonstrations in Buenos Aires, bellicose speeches by President Galtieri, and a triumphant parade for the troops who took the island. One odd thing Jo noticed: the officers of that commando force all had German surnames. She meant to ask the Intel folks about that when given the chance, just out of curiosity. Ian had told her about his confrontation with the Argentine commander, Schmidt, but she hadn’t known about the men under his command. Neither, apparently, had Ian, until returning to London.

“We didn’t win the battle for Carpenter’s Island,” Ian said, “but we didn’t really lose, either. The Argies left the island the day after we did. There are apparently some influential people at Admiralty who think that punishing anyone from
Cambridge
for leaving the island in Argentine hands would make things even worse than they are. The newspapers are already raking the P.M. over the coals for not providing us with any support. Not that there was any to provide,” he added in a wry tone. He sat up, staring out to sea, to the south, as if he were trying to somehow see that wretched little island out there.

“Before I left for this trip, I had a very serious chat with a friend of mine in
MI6,” Ian said. “Something’s up, Jo.” He turned to face her again, and his eyes were hard. “A lot of people in the know in London believe the Argentines will move on the Falklands soon. Their success on Carpenter’s just fueled the fire. Taking over a rockpile full of penguins for a day is one thing. Seizing islands settled by British subjects is quite another.”

“That would mean war,” Jo said, unable to keep the chill out of her voice.

“Indeed,” Ian said with a serious nod. “My C.O. told me before leaving that I should enjoy myself here because things might start happening when I returned. He wouldn’t tell me much more. My intelligence friend filled in more of the blanks. The Argentines are getting set up to move on the Falklands, Jo, and when they do, that’s where I’ll be going.”

In spite of the Bermudian sun, a chill ran down her spine. “How soon?” she managed to ask.

“I don’t know,” he said. “My friend thought May at the latest. It’s winter down there in our summer, you know. Once June arrives, the weather will be too foul to conduct naval operations. It will take us at least a month to assemble the fleet and get down there. If the Argentines move just before winter strikes, we may not get down there at all, at least until the fall. Our fall, that is.”