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

"What happened?" Martin asked.

"Enrico was opening the gate when people started to shoot at us," Frade said. "Who the hell are they? Were they?"

"All we know so far is that the car was stolen," Martin said. "If I had to guess, I'd say the dead men were members of the criminal element."

"God, you're a veritable Sherlock Holmes!" Frade said. "And I'll bet they followed us here from Libertador, right?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say they followed us from Aerodromo Coronel Jorge Frade to Libertador and then followed you here. I can't ask them, of course, as they are no longer with us."

Clete, after first taking a sip, laid down his glass of scotch whisky, picked up a telephone, and dialed a number from memory.

"Tio Juan, this is your godson, Cletus. Three members of the criminal element just tried to kill Enrico and me. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and accepting that you just didn't find the time immediately to call your German friends and call them off. But if I were you, I'd call them right now."

Then he hung up.

He looked at Martin, who shook his head.

"You don't really think el Coronel Peron had something to do with what happened here, do you?" Martin asked.

"I think his German friends had a lot to do with it."

"But you have no proof?"

"As you said, the people who tried this are no longer with us."

"Hypothetically speaking: What if one or more of them were still with us? What if one or more of them said, ' Si, senor. We were hired by'--let's say Commercial Attache Karl Cranz--"

"You mean SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Cranz?"

Martin ignored the interruption.

He continued: "Or perhaps Sturmbannfuhrer--excuse me, Deputy Commercial Attache Raschner--to carry out this dastardly deed. I'm sure both of them would regard the charges as absurd. But that's moot. Cranz and Raschner have diplomatic immunity; they don't even have to answer any of my questions. The worst that could happen to them would be being declared persona non grata and told to leave Argentina. That would cause a diplomatic incident, at the very least, and the Germans would, tit for tat, expel a like number of Argentine diplomats from Berlin. And on the Condor that flew the Argentines home there would be the replacements for Cranz and Raschner."

"Why am I getting the idea that you think the Argentines should stay in Berlin?"

"I have no idea. And I denounce as scurrilous innuendo that the Argentine agricultural attache in Berlin, who was a classmate of mine at the military academy, has any connection with the Bureau of Internal Security."

"Suggesting that someone has a connection with the BIS is a terrible thing to say about anybody," Frade said.

"I thought you might feel that way," Martin said, and then went on: "Earlier in his career, I just remembered, my classmate was privileged to serve in the Husares de Pueyrredon under your late father."

Frade picked up his glass, took a deep swallow of his scotch whisky, then said, "How interesting. So tell me, Alejandro, what happened here tonight?"

"My initial investigation tends to suggest that three known members of the criminal element were observed by the police trying to break into these premises. When the police challenged them, the criminals fired at them. The superior marksmanship of the police prevailed, and the malefactors unfortunately went to meet their maker."

Frade considered that a moment, nodded his acceptance, and then asked, "Can you get Rodriguez's weapons back from the cops?"

"The 'cops'? Oh, you mean the police. Why would the police have the suboficial's weapons?" Martin said. He nodded, then added, "It's always a pleasure to see you, Don Cletus. But we're going to have to stop meeting like this, lest people start to talk. I can show myself out. I'm sure you're anxious to get to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and the charming Dona Dorotea."

"Just as soon as I have a shower," Frade said. "Enrico will show you out."

When Enrico came back into the library a minute or so later, he had the Remington Model 11 in one hand, the .45 pistol stuck in his waistband, and a leather bandolier of brass-cased shotgun cartridges hanging around his neck.

"How are we going to get home?" Frade asked.

"When I put the Ford in the garage, I will see," Rodriguez said. "I think the old Buick is down there."

"And what happens to the Ford?"

"I will have it taken to el Coronel's garage at the estancia. I don't know about the window glass, but we can repair the other damage."

"I don't want Dorotea to see it," Frade said.

Rodriguez made a deprecating shrug and extended the pistol to Frade.

"I don't think I'll need that in the shower, Enrico."

"You are the one who taught me, Don Cletus, that one never needs a weapon until one needs one badly."

"Point taken, my friend," Frade said, and took the pistol.

[FIVE]

Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

Near Pila

Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

2055 12 August 1943

The "old Buick" Enrico thought he would find in the basement garage of the mansion had been there. It was a black 1940 Buick Limited four-door "touring sedan." In other words, a convertible. It had a second windshield for the rear seat, spare tires mounted in the fenders, and enormous extra headlights on the bumper. It had been el Coronel's pride and joy until he had acquired a Horch--an even larger car--in Germany. Once that had been taken off the ship in Buenos Aires, he had never driven the Buick again. But he hadn't wanted anyone else driving the Buick, so it had been, so to speak, put to pasture in the mansion basement until he could decide what to do with it.

The black Buick was the only vehicle on the two-lane macadam road crossing the pampas. There were 300,000 square miles of the pampas--an area roughly half the size of Alaska, a little larger than Texas, and just about twice as big as California--which ran from the Atlantic Ocean just south of Buenos Aires to the foothills of the Andes Mountains. The name came from the Indian word for "level plain."

The road was straight as an arrow, but as the speedometer hovered between seventy and eighty miles an hour, the headlights illuminated nothing but the road itself and a line of telephone poles marching at hundred-meter intervals beside it.

Enrico Rodriguez was driving. His shotgun was propped between the door and the dashboard. His pistol and the bandolier of shells were on the seat beside him. Cletus Frade sat in the front passenger seat, asleep, his head resting against his window.

Rodriguez took his right hand from the steering wheel, leaned across the front seat, and almost tenderly pushed Frade's shoulder.

It took several more pushes of growing force before Frade wakened. But when he did so, he was instantly wide awake, looking quickly around as if he expected something to be going wrong.

"We are nearly home, Don Cletus," Enrico said.

Frade looked out the windows, then said what he was thinking: "How the hell can you tell?"

All that could be seen out the Buick's windows were the road and the telephone poles. There was nothing whatever to indicate where they were on the more than eight-hundred-square-kilometer Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, or, for that matter, where they had been or were going.

"I know, Don Cletus," Enrico said. "In ten, eleven minutes, we will be home."

"Then why didn't you wake me in ten, eleven minutes?"

"I thought you might wish to use the shaving machine, Don Cletus," Enrico said. "There should be one in the glove box. Your father believed a gentleman should always be shaved."

And yet another comparison I have failed with my father, Frade thought as he felt his chin.