There was no telling what the Nazis were up to with their ransoming oper-ation. He had no idea whether it was simply one more turn of the screw to squeeze more money out of Jews inside, or outside, Germany, or a far more complex operation. But whatever it was, it had certainly attracted the attention of Colonel Graham back in Washington.
And this problem-this, if you will, contribution to the war effort, to the war against the Nazis-was his to solve. His alone. He had been ordered not to even mention anything about it to Milton Leibermann. At first he thought this was preposterous. Leibermann was after all FBI, and thus presumably skilled in investigation and interrogation. But then he wondered about that. If Leiber-mann was so skilled in investigation and interrogation, then why was it David Ettinger, and not FBI agent Milton Leibermann, who uncovered the Nazi ran-som operation?
While of course he wasn't doing any of this for credit, if Leibermann was brought into it, the "investigation," if that's what it could be properly called, would have become Leibermann's-the FBI's-investigation. David Ettinger, after all, was officially only a staff sergeant radio technician detailed to the OSS.
Furthermore, it was entirely possible that the very presence of Leibermann, or one of his FBI agents, would be counterproductive. It had taken him a good deal of time, and all of his psychological insight, to persuade any of the people involved to talk to him at all.
The sudden appearance of someone else asking questions would very likely result in all the just-beginning-to-open doors being very firmly slammed shut again.
And he was getting close to finding out how the money was being moved. The fact that the Sicherheitsdienst colonel had ordered his assassination was clear enough proof of that.
He was, of course, concerned about that. But the time of greatest danger for him was when he was still on the estancia. It was possible, if not very likely, that the German hired assassins would try to do to him what they had done to Cletus Frade's father, ambush him on the road to Pila.
Not only was that unlikely, but he was being protected on Estancia San Pe-dro y San Pablo-and as far as that went, anywhere in Argentina-by two men from the Bureau of Internal Security. He had heard Pelosi telling the Chief about that.
And so, feeling rather clever about the whole thing, he made sure that once he had sneaked away from the house, with lights in the Chevrolet turned off so that neither Pelosi nor the Chief would wake up, he turned the lights on, so that the BIS men would see him and follow him.
Which they did. All the way into Buenos Aires. There they stationed them-selves on Calle Monroe outside his apartment. If any assassins were lying in wait on the estancia, or at his apartment, the sight of two men in an obviously official car was enough to discourage them from trying anything.
In the apartment he took a shower and shaved, then called the ferryboat ter-minal and reserved space for the 8:30 departure. Then he dealt with the problem of his gun. He had two holsters for the Smith & Wesson.38 Special snub-nose, a shoulder holster and one that strapped on his belt. It was, of course, illegal to take any firearm across the border. It was unlikely, he thought, that he would be searched passing through Uruguayan Customs, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
He decided he didn't need the holster. The Smith & Wesson was small enough to carry in his pocket. He wrapped the pistol in a small face towel, then put the package in his toilet kit under his razor and other toilet articles. He put the toilet kit itself in the small suitcase he was taking with him, carrying only a change of linen and a spare set of trousers. He didn't plan on being in Uruguay long.
At 7:45 he left his apartment, got in the Chevrolet, and, trailed by his BIS protectors, drove to the port. He was early-on purpose-which meant that his early on-loaded car would be off-loaded early in Montevideo.
When the ferry moved away from the pier, he saw the men from the BIS standing on the quay, and resisted the temptation to wave at them. They would not, of course, follow him across the border.
He paid some attention to his fellow passengers on the ferry, but none of them looked like assassins for hire. They looked like businessmen off to Mon-tevideo for the day-in other words, he hoped, much like he did.
Uruguayan Customs and Immigration officials performed their function aboard the ferryboat. An Immigration officer took a quick glance at his pass-port, saw that it bore the stamps of a dozen or more short trips back and forth between Buenos Aires and Montevideo, added one more stamp, and waved him on to the Customs officers standing at the ramp.
They asked him to open the trunk, and after finding nothing in it but a spare tire and a jack, didn't even ask him to open his one small suitcase.
He drove off the boat, then drove to the Casino in Carrasco by the Rambla, the road that follows the coastline.
He was completely unaware of the somewhat battered and rusty 1937 Graham-Paige sedan that followed him to Carrasco, possibly because it never came closer than two cars behind him, and possibly because he wasn't looking for it. He did not expect to be followed in Uruguay.
He had not telephoned the Casino Hotel for a reservation, to obviate the possibility that the desk clerk, the concierge, or someone else in the hotel hier-archy had been paid to notify someone if he should again come to Montevideo.
He felt just a little smug about this, too. It seemed to prove that he had paid attention to the instructors in Camp Holabird and at the Country Club.
The Casino Hotel had a room for him, a nice two-room suite on the second floor. He went to the room, left his bag, and then went back downstairs and to the car. He drove it into the basement garage and went back up to the room.
If there was any basis to think that the Germans, or Uruguayans in German employ, had arranged to be notified if he appeared again, then obviously they had already been notified, or would be shortly.
He took the Smith & Wesson snub-nose from his toilet kit and checked it for operation. He even went so far as to put a match head in his jar of Vaseline and lubricate the wear points.
He had confidence in the pistol and in his ability to use it. He was not, of course, a shot like the Chief and Tony Pelosi were shots. He used to watch them a little enviously as they shot their.45 automatic pistols on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. They would shoot at tin cans, more to kill time than anything else, burning up case after case of Argentine Army ammunition provided by Frade's father through his serge
ant.
They just didn't shoot the tin can. The object was to make it jump in the air, and keep jumping, as long as any ammunition was left in the pistol.
Ettinger knew that no matter how much he practiced, he could never be-come that sort of pistol shot. But he had paid attention at the pistol ranges at Camp Holabird and the Country Club. They shot at life-size silhouette targets at seven yards. The object was to fire rapidly and hit what were called "vital" ar-eas on the silhouette targets.
Using a pistol identical to one he had now, over time he became rather pro-ficient. Three times out of four, firing five shots as rapidly as possible, he put four bullet holes in the vital areas of silhouette targets.
When he was really feeling good about his shooting, he aimed all shots at the silhouette's head. Two or three times, he put all five shots in the head.