Walsh pulled back the sleeve of his cloak and glanced at the dial of his army watch: it was three o’clock. The messenger, if he arrived in Santiago, should have shown up by now. The wind blew in from all directions on this part of the shore, and there was nowhere to hide. But when a soft “Hello!” came from behind him, Redrick shuddered and turned around sharply.
A stranger of average height, dressed like himself in an elegant cloak of European cut, smiled at him from under a gray Tyrolean hat. Laughing blue eyes on an inconspicuous face without signs of vegetation looked benevolent from behind round glasses, like those the German minister Goebbels used to wear.
The stranger wore strong alpine boots made of buffalo leather, and soft woolen trousers lay on them in heavy folds. He was holding an ordinary black umbrella cane in his hands.
“Good afternoon, Commander Walsh,” the stranger continued, in a velvety voice more befitting of a porter in a fashionable Monte Carlo hotel than a secret agent. “I hope I didn't startle you with my unexpected appearance?”
After recovering from the first shock, Walsh put on one of his most pleasant smiles and said in an even voice with a touch of hospitality:
“Not at all, sir. I’m here for the sake of meeting you, and not at all for admiring the local inhospitable landscape. To whom do I have the honor of speaking?”
The stranger cast an expressionless glance at the endless lead-steel expanse of the ocean and casually said:
“Alfred Rosenblum. I came from Lausanne. Especially, my good man, for your soul.”
The emissary laughed a pleasant laugh with a hint of subtle superiority Europeans have over representatives of the New World. Walsh swallowed this bitter pill silently, waiting for him to continue. In the end, he is in his field, why not let the guest show all the cards himself.
The guest continued.
“The ‘stable’ decided that you should change your golf course, which this country undoubtedly is, for a baseball court. They see Argentina in this context. In the sense, that baseball is a purely American game, and in the vastness of the local pampas you will have to play it without holding back.”
Redrick chuckled and looked Mr. Rosenblum straight in the eye.
“And by what rules will I have to play in Argentina, sir? I hope you can explain them to me?”
The representative of the European residency smiled:
“My dear Mr. Walsh, of course, I’ll explain. That is why I came here from the other end of the world. You don’t think I left the Lausanian oysters for the sake of the local ceviche? I’m not a fan of spicy dishes, dear friend. We in Europe try to protect our stomachs in the old-fashioned way, not like you young people here, among mountains of spices and peppers. As for the rules, they are, as always, simple: America comes first, and we have to achieve here only a positive result. A victory.”
Walsh nodded in response, and he asked the question that the situation itself had already seemed to suggest for some time:
“And who will we play against this time?”
Mr. Rosenblum suddenly stared at him and said in a low voice:
“Against the Council, son… Against Russian agents here, in the very ass of the world.”
Walsh turned to the ocean, watched for a while as the heavy shafts rolled repeatedly onto the gray sand. Then he said:
“What the devil are these Russians doing in Latin America?”
“That’s a topic for a separate conversation, and we will still have a lot of time to chat on the way to Buenos Aires. An airplane is already waiting for us at the airbase near Santiago de Chile. You, my friend, have five hours for everything. Transfer the ‘station’ to your deputy for the time you’ll be away from your post. As far as I know, your successor is already preparing to fly to Chile. We'll talk about the rest in your office and on the plane. This mission is very important for the White House. There hasn't been an event as secret as this since the Manhattan Project. Come on, it's time to go to your office.”
Mr. Rosenblum turned and walked towards the crevasse, where there was a path Walsh had not noticed before. He took one last look at the Pacific plain, the black clouds, then he pulled down his hat and followed the Center’s man to a car, which turned out to be waiting for them a hundred yards away, just around a sharp bend in the trail.
He thought that fate once again smiled on him: just recently he considered it was time to get out of this unfriendly country, and just like that, they told him where to go. Hell, not a terrible option when you think about it. If not for the Russians…
But here, fate itself was powerless.
July 28, 1950
Oval Office of the White House
Washington, D.C.
Harry Truman, the thirty-third President of the United States of America, sat at his desk. He was listening to the quiet man in the guest chair to the left of the countertop. Once again, the president noted to himself that the naval uniform suits him. Rear Admiral Roscoe Henry Hillenkoetter was the third director of US intelligence. He was also the first CIA director since the National Security Act had passed.
Hillenkoetter went the way of a proper admiral. He commanded the battleship Missouri during the Second World War. Afterwards, he led naval reconnaissance in 42–43 in the staff of Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander of the Pacific Fleet.
In 1947, the Rear Admiral headed the Central Intelligence Group. It grew in a short time, through his efforts, to the size of a department. He was Truman's poster boy and never forgot to whom he owed his position as chief of clandestine services in the States. The rumor was that it was he who coined the secret slogan of this secret organization: ‘By 1948, more than the state’. Those were not empty words. By now, management has moved from the banal collection of information about events in the world to shaping those very events. Thus, the CIA became a government within the US government.
Truman listened to the Rear Admiral's report half-heartedly. He remembered the unofficial breakfast for the signing of the National Security Directive at the White House. His chief of staff, Admiral William Leahy, and the then first director of the CWG, Admiral Sidney Souers, both attended. He had presented them with a black cloak and hat, a wooden dagger, and a false mustache each. Truman had told them then: "You must accept these garments and their attendant accessories as my personal detective and director of the central office of intelligence."
And so the Central Intelligence Group, in a couple of years, proved to him that, in principle, a small intelligence organization cannot exist.
The President showed he had lost the thread of the admiral's report. Rubbing his tall forehead, Truman interrupted Hillenkoetter's monotonous reading with an impatient gesture. He said, staring into his eyes:
“Ros, let's stop here. The situation in Korea, of course, is acute. The commies are breaking into the South with terrible force, but I'm not interested in this now…”
The admiral closed the folder, put it on his knees. He stared at the head of state somewhere around the bridge of his nose. His face was the classic sea wolf of Jack London’s novels, and also impenetrable. Truman suddenly realized the admiral fit in perfectly on the bridge of a warship, like that same Missouri. He was also quite imposing right here, in the Oval Office. Well, wherever a person is, that is their place, but it is a rare
