Hate

what was going on. Johnny read the note and told Martha that he needed some cigarettes and was going down to the 7-11 to buy some. Johnny showed up about half an hour after he was sure Mad Joe's boys were clear of the area. He walked over to the van when Gator called out to him. He jumped into the van and they took off. Gator laid out the plan, telling Johnny only that Cory was alive and waiting for them. They dropped him a block away from the 7-11 and Johnny got his car and went home. Once inside he didn't say a word, just wrote the instructions on note paper, carefully destroying each note. They packed what they had to have in a dozen suitcases and at 3:00 AM that night Johnny slipped them out into the stationwagon, covering them with old blankets. Saturday evening was when Johnny and Martha went to confession each week and they took the boys with them, leaving the keys in the wagon. They went in the front door of the church and out the rear door into a van where Gator and Mad Joe were waiting. Fifty minutes later they were seated in a Lear 35 that sat idling on the ramp at the airport. Tater Baker, Mad Joe and Gator gave them their new ID, their new Argentinian Passports and Tater, who had been the medic on the team, gave them the shots they would need.

Two of Terry Stevens' boys (Terry was the other black guy in the unit) dressed for the act in scruffy clothes, walked along the street by the church checking out the cars. They had spotted the two men who were the surveillance team for the evening on the family, so Eddie Stevens sneaked up behind them and stuffed a potato up their exhaust pipe. Then when Bobby was ready to grab the station wagon, Eddie set off a grenade simulator behind the spooks car. The resulting explosion, (a grenade simulator is really loud) scared the shit outa the two spooks and they jumped outa the car to see what the fuck was going on. When they turned around, the station wagon was gone. Eddie and Bobby Stevens dropped the suitcases at the Lear Jet, took the station wagon to long term parking and caught a flight to Dallas. They changed planes in Dallas and flew on home to Little Rock. The Lear busted off for Mobile. Johnny, Martha and the boys changed over to a long ranged Grumman Gulfstream and seven hours later landed in Rio De Janerio. Cory was there with Smith and Jones to meet them.

"Jesus," Cory thought, "the boys are men now." Martha and Johnny were still spry and chipper as ever. Martha cried a lot as Cory held her for the first time in a lot of years. They had lunch at the officers club at the Brazilian Military base and then boarded the Navajo for the flight to Argentina and their new home. When they landed at Santa Marta, the whole damn Rancho Staff were there to meet them. Johnny and Martha were impressed and the boys went a little crazy when they saw:

1. All those horses and 2. Some of the daughters of the Gauchos. They were really excited over the beautiful girls and Cory forsaw some serious problems with those two. Later that afternoon he took them into Raul's office and let him explain what happens when somebody fucks around with one of the Gaucho's daughters. The two young men emerged from that little talk with pale faces and a true resolve to be good. Raul looked a Cory and said.

"That should keep them good for at least a week, don't you think? Luckily no one could hear the two men nearly becoming hysterical with laughter.

Christmas was really something at Rancho Santa Marta. Cory had built, or at least let the Rancho staff build, a modest chapel. A priest came out from B.A. and said Mass for all the people on the Rancho. Teresa Ramirez was a picture of purity and beauty as she sat with her family directly across the aisle from the Harmon Family. Ted, the oldest, never took his eyes off her. Yessir boys, it was off to the races. Within a month Ted walked into Raul's office one morning and asked Raul if he could marry Teresa. Cory was stunned to say the least. Raul turned almost white, stood up from his desk and put out his hand to Ted and told him.

"Welcome to Argentina, finally I have a son." Raul had six girls. Ted shook his hand and stammered,

"But you told us that you'd castrate us if we messed around with your girls."

Raul grinned and said, "Teresa had already chosen you for a husband and I only told you those things to get you to do what I wanted you to do, marry Teresa.

Life in the Argentine was different, yet the same as anywhere in hometown USA. The people speak mostly Spanish but a large number speak English a lot better than Americans do. Most of the staff and their families on Rancho Santa Marta spoke several languages, Spanish, English and usually German. All of Colonel Harmons family was learning to speak Spanish from the people who worked for him and as he got more fluent, he began to attend some of the dinners and other special functions in the area as well as in B.A. B.A. is a lovely city and Cory bought a small villa near the race track so they would have a place to stay when they were in town. Raul flew in with Cory a few days after he bought the villa and by the afternoon, had it staffed. Raul's sister was the housekeeper and she took charge, hiring two maids, a gardner and chauffer and made her husband the butler. Cory was amazed at

the speed Estrella was getting things done. Food, booze and furnishings appeared overnight, (good furniture too) Cory thought,

"I'm being treated like royalty in this country." Cory found that he loved the night clubs in BA, but most of all he loved the Opera.

He was at the opening night of a new opera by Boguardus, when he was introduced by an Army General to a beautiful lady by the name of Maria Del Gatto. Cory was forty four years old and Maria, he found out later was forty six. She was the widow of a Cavalry Officer who had died of Cancer several years before. Cory thoroughly enjoyed her company and he asked her out for dinner. She chose the restaurant where they had a supurb meal, then they went dancing and bar hopping.

Cory was feeling guilty, enjoying himself too much. About three thirty in the morning, he stopped the car and took Maria for a walk in one of the lovely parks in the city. He told her all about Shirl, his boys and that his real name was wasn't Joacim Bernardo. Maria sat there on the bench for several minutes and then said.

"Cory, I know what your name is, I know your were an Army Colonel and I know why you are here. Nothing stays a secret very long in Argentina."

Three days later, Maria told him that she had to get out of bed and go home. Then she really dropped a bomb on him. She told him that she owned a 5000 hectare vinyard and winery about fifty kilometers west of his rancho and that she had a 6000 foot airstrip adjacent to her hacienda. She looked at Cory and asked,

"Would you mind flying me home in the Navajo?"

Cory called Santa Marta and told Smith and Jones to come get them. Cory and Maria were waiting at the airport when they taxied in. It took them an hour to refuel, refile and get back into the air. Cory had never enjoyed a plane ride more. Maria got the guys to fly low over the vineyard and showed it to him from the air. It was a beautiful place. Once on the ground she proudly showed him around. Cory tasted the three wines her vineyard produced and found that they were as good or better than any he had ever tasted.

Cory spent three days with her at her Santa Maria Winery and when she flew him home in her old Aztec he asked her to marry him. She almost crashed the friggin' airplane. But she said yes and that they could be married in three months. Cory knew he could wait for this beauty but sure used a lot of fuel, flying back and forth between the Rancho and the Winery. Martha loved Maria. She told Cory that though Maria was totally opposite of Shirl, she had that lovely olive complexion where Shirl had been blonde and fair, she was still the woman that Martha thought Cory needed to ease the pain of the loss of Shirl and a partner to help him make his way in the social and political society of Argentina. It didn't hurt that Maria was also one of the finest looking women he had ever seen.