W. IV - Honor Bound 05 - The Honor of Spies

"I need a bath first," Frade said. "I haven't had one since I left Los Angeles.

Wives--write this down, Enrico--don't like men who smell."

"The apartment in the Hotel Alvear?" Enrico asked when they had gotten into a 1941 Ford Super-Deluxe station wagon.

"The house," Frade answered. "Hotel managers don't like men who need a bath any more than wives do."

[TWO]

1728 Avenida Coronel Diaz

Palermo, Buenos Aires

1620 12 August 1943

"There is a silver lining in every black cloud, Enrico," Frade said as they approached the huge, turn-of-the-century mansion. "Now that my Tio Juan is out of Uncle Willy's house--and after I have it fumigated--we can use that instead of this."

Enrico pulled the station wagon up to the massive cast-iron gates and tapped the horn. When there was no response in sixty seconds, he tapped it again.

"What I think we have here is one more proof that when el patron is away, the mice will play," Frade said.

When there was no response to the second tooting of the horn, Frade said, "Go open the gate."

Enrico got out and shoved the left gate open. From painful experience--he had scraped the fender of his 1941 Buick--Frade knew that as massive as they were, both of the gates had to be opened for an American car to pass. The house had been built before the arrival of the automobile.

Frade slid across the seat, intending to close the driver's door and drive the car inside himself.

He had just reached for the door when he saw Enrico take his pistol--an Argentine manufactured-under-license version of the 1911 Colt .45 ACP self-loading pistol--quickly work the action, and assume a crouching two-handed firing stance.

Frade grabbed Enrico's Remington Model 11 riot shotgun from where it was held in a clip against the dash, with the butt riding on the transmission hump, and dove out the open door.

He heard both the .45 firing and the sharper sound of something else firing as he hit the sidewalk. One of the windows in the Ford shattered.

Just to be sure, he worked the action, and a brass-cased shell flew out of the weapon.

I now have five.

He ran around the front of the Ford and stood up with the shotgun at his shoulder. There was a black 1938 Peugeot sedan stopped in front of the house. There were three men in it, one driving and two firing pistols. One had just taken aim at Frade when he staggered backward with a load of double-aught buckshot from the Remington in his chest. Clete had just taken a bead on the driver--the other man with the pistol was nowhere in sight--when the man's head exploded when a 230-grain, soft-nose lead bullet from Enrico's .45 struck him in the mouth.

It was suddenly very quiet. Clete could hear a car shifting gears. Without realizing he was doing it, Clete used the USMC signal for advance on the left to Enrico and they ran to opposite ends of the Peugeot. The third man was lying on the street in a growing pool of blood from his head.

Enrico crossed himself, then cursed.

Clete felt a little light-headed, and steadied himself on the Peugeot.

"Don Cletus, you are all right?"

"Hunky-dory," Frade said. "We better call the cops."

The moment he said it, he saw that would be unnecessary. Two policemen were coming down the street at a run on the left, and a third from the right.

After a moment, Clete realized that the cops were calling for him to drop the gun. He made a gesture of surrender and laid Enrico's shotgun on the roof of the Peugeot.

Enrico Rodriguez was not cowed by the police.

"This is Don Cletus Frade," he bellowed. "How dare you point a gun at him?"

This was followed by an order: "Get on the telephone and report to el Coronel Martin of the BIS that an assassination attempt has been made on Don Cletus Frade!"

[THREE]

The Embassy of the German Reich

Avenida Cordoba

Buenos Aires, Argentina

1640 12 August 1943

The commercial counselor of the embassy of the German Reich looked up with annoyance when there was a knock at his office door.

"Whoever that is, get rid of him," he ordered softly. "I am not available."

Fraulein Ingeborg Hassell, a middle-aged woman who wore her graying hair drawn tight against her skull, ending in a bun at the nape of her neck, quickly stood up and went to the door and opened it. A moment later, she closed the door and announced:

"It's Gunther Loche, Herr Cranz. He said it's important."

Cranz's eyebrow rose, and he made a Let him in gesture with his well-manicured fingers.

Fraulein Hassell opened the door and signaled for Loche to enter.

Cranz smiled warmly at Loche.

"I gather you have something to tell me about our friend, Gunther?"

"Yes, sir," Loche said. He was now standing almost at attention. His eyes flicked nervously at Fraulein Hassell.

"Be good enough, please, Fraulein Hassell, to give Gunther and me a moment?"

She went through the door and closed it after her.

"So what have you to tell me, Gunther?" Cranz asked.

"Herr Cranz, some men attempted to kill Frade as he was opening the gates of his house on Avenida Coronel Diaz."

"And?"

"Frade and his bodyguard killed them. There were three of them. Frade used a shotgun and his bodyguard a pistol."

This was not what Cranz hoped to hear.

"Frade was not injured?"

"No, sir. Neither he nor his bodyguard."

"And the men who did this: You think they all died?"

"Yes, sir. They were all dead."

Well, there's the silver lining in the dark cloud. If they're dead, the police can't tie me or Raschner to this.

"You did very well, Gunther," Cranz said. "There's one more thing I want you to do. Go to Herr Raschner's apartment and tell him--and absolutely no one, no one, else--what you just told me."

SS-SD-Sturmbannfuhrer Erich Raschner, his "deputy commercial attache," had organized the hit for Cranz.

"Jawohl, Herr Cranz."

"And send Fraulein Hassell back in here, will you, please, on your way out?"

"Jawohl, Herr Cranz," Loche barked. He gave Cranz the straight-armed Nazi salute, barked "Heil Hitler!" did an about-face, and marched to the door.

Cranz shook his head and waited for Fraulein Hassell to reappear.

When she had, he said, "Please set up a meeting for eight-thirty tomorrow morning between the ambassador, Herr Gradny-Sawz, Kapitan zur See Boltitz, and myself."

Fraulein Hassell nodded.

"Please ask the ambassador if we might use his office. And tell Herr Raschner to make sure that he inspects the ambassador's office for listening devices."

She nodded again.

He smiled warmly at her. "And now where were we, Fraulein Ingeborg, when we were so rudely interrupted?"

[FOUR]

1728 Avenida Coronel Diaz

Palermo, Buenos Aires

1705 12 August 1943

Police of varying ranks had come to the scene, but the interrogation of Frade and Rodriguez had been stopped by a telephone call from the Bureau of Internal Security, which announced it was taking over the investigation and that el Coronel Martin was en route.

When Martin arrived at the mansion ten minutes later, he found two policemen guarding the door of the library, and Frade and Rodriguez inside. Frade was sitting in an armchair with a glass in his hand and a bottle of Johnnie Walker on the low table in front of him.

"Alejandro, what a pleasant surprise," Frade said. "But we're going to have to stop meeting this way; otherwise people will talk."

Martin had not been amused when Frade had said it before, and he was not amused this time either.