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

Some of them were permanently occupied by the capataz --supervisor of the surrounding area--and, of course, his family and the peones who worked its land. And some of them were used only where there was a good deal of work to be done in the area, and the workers were too far from their casas or the village near the big house to, so to speak, commute.

House Number 52 was one of the medium-size houses. Built within a double stand of poplars, the casa itself had a verandah on three sides. On either side there were two smaller houses. Inside the larger house there was a great room, a dining room, an office, a kitchen, and two bedrooms. It had a wood-fired par- rilla and a dome-shaped oven. One building housed a MAN diesel generator that powered the lights, the water pumps, the freezers, and the refrigerators. El Patron had taken good care of his workers.

It was reasonably comfortable, secure, and far from prying eyes.

And thus the best place that Enrico and El Jefe could think of to hide the Froggers after the shooting at Casa Chica.

They'd agreed: When Don Cletus returns from the United States, he will know what to do.

Frade had been home two days now and didn't have a clue as to what he should do with the Froggers. Although he was painfully aware that keeping them on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo was not an option. Sooner or later, their presence would be confirmed and someone would come after them, either the Argentine authorities or the Germans.

One of the peones--a boy of about fourteen--ran up to Julius Caesar. Clete tossed him the reins, then slid out of the saddle. He had been carrying his shotgun--adhering to his belief that you never need a gun until you need one badly--but now no longer needed it. Siggy Stein had a Thompson .45 ACP submachine gun hanging from his shoulder.

He walked back to one of the wagons in the column and handed the shotgun to one of the bird-boys. Bird-boys were responsible for taking the birds from the hunters when the pouches were full, and later--now--plucking and gutting the perdices. The bulk of the cleaned birds, save for a few that would be taken by the peones, would be roasted ritually over a fire at lunch.

Frade was surprised to see how many birds there were. A fifty-kilogram burlap potato bag was full, and another nearly so. Several families of peones were about to have a perdiz feast. The hunting had been great, but the afterglow of that had vanished when he saw the faces on Dorotea, El Jefe, and Stein.

As he walked to the verandah, the other hunters dismounted and followed him.

"Okay, what happened?" Clete asked as he walked onto the verandah.

"There's been a small problem," Dorotea said.

"I would never have guessed from your happy faces," Clete said. "What kind of a small problem?"

"Right after we got here, la Senora Frogger asked if she could go for a walk," Dorotea said.

Dorotea and Schultz had carried the makings of lunch from the big house, bringing the food, the wine, the tableware, cooks, and several maids in Schultz's Model A Ford pickup truck. That, too, was in case anyone was watching.

"And you said, 'Okay,' right?"

"I did," Chief Schultz said, more than a little uncomfortably. "I sent Dorotea with her."

He was now speaking of The Other Dorotea, who was euphemistically described as "El Jefe's housekeeper."

"And then what happened?" Clete asked softly.

"Well," Schultz began, and then stopped. He sighed, then went on: "Clete, I sent a couple of guys on horses with them. Told them to stay out of sight but to keep their eyes open. . . ."

"And then what happened?" Clete repeated softly.

"Well, I guess they were half a mile, maybe a kilometer, out in the boonies when Dorotea took a little break. . . ."

"What do you mean, 'a little break'?"

"She went behind a bush, so to speak, is what I mean," Schultz said uncomfortably. "You know?"

That triggered a mental image of the massive "housekeeper" Frade would just as well have not had.

"And then what happened?" Clete asked for a third time.

"Then the Kraut belted her behind the ear with a thing from the fireplace--you know, a poker. She must have had it hidden in her skirt."

Clete looked back to Schultz. "And then?"

"The Kraut took off running," Schultz said. He then remembered that three of the men listening to him were German and might consider that a pejorative term. He tried to justify his lack of tact by saying, "Jesus, she could have killed Dorotea with that goddamn poker."

"Is Dorotea badly injured?" Clete inquired.

"She's got a lump behind her ear the size of a baseball."

"Where did Frau Frogger think she was going?" Frade asked.

Schultz shrugged.

"She didn't get far," Schultz said. "Dorotea went after her."

"And where is she now?" Father Welner asked.

"In the house," Schultz said. "He's taking care of her."

"I presume you mean Herr Frogger?" Clete asked.

Schultz nodded.

"Define 'taking care of her,' " Frade ordered.

Schultz now looked even more uncomfortable.

"When she caught her, Dorotea did a job on her," he said. Then he added: "It took two of the guys to pull her off of her." There was another pause, this one a little longer. "And it took them a little time to get there to pull her off."

"May I see her?" Oberstleutnant Frogger asked softly.

"Perhaps it would be better if I went in to see her first," Father Welner said. When neither Frogger nor Frade replied, the priest added, "You said earlier, Wilhelm, that there was some difficulty between you two when you first saw her."

Frogger nodded. "Thank you, Father."

Welner reached down and unbuttoned several of the buttons on his plaid woolen shirt. Then he reached inside and pulled out a dickey to which was attached a clerical collar. In a few seconds, he had fastened the collar around his neck and rebuttoned the shirt.

He looked at Frade and the others, and asked, "All right?"

They nodded.

Frade said what he was thinking: "In that plaid shirt, she's going to think you're a Presbyterian."

Von Wachtstein chuckled. Everybody else gave him a dirty look.

Welner went back to his horse and retrieved what looked like a small doctor's bag from where he had it tied to the saddle. Then he walked purposely past everyone and onto the verandah. He went in the house without knocking.

"Now that everything's in capable Jesuit hands," Frade said, "I'm going to have a little fermented grape while waiting to see what happens next."

He went onto the verandah, where the luncheon table had been set up, and helped himself to a large glass of red wine. Von Wachtstein joined him almost immediately, and then the others, one by one.

For the next ten minutes, everyone on the verandah could hear the sound of an excited female voice inside the house and the murmurs of male voices. The thick walls of the house and drawn draperies kept them from understanding any of it.

Gradually, the sound of the female voice became less audible, and finally it stopped.

Two minutes after that, the door opened and Father Welner pointed first at Oberstleutnant Frogger and then Cletus Frade and motioned them to come inside.

Frade had the unkind thought that the priest's gesture was not unlike the one the headmaster of his boarding school--also a priest, albeit an Episcopalian--had used to summon miscreants into his office to face the bar of ecclesiastic justice.

And then, knowing that he probably should not, he refilled his wineglass before going through the door.

Frau Frogger was half-lying on the couch. After a moment, Frade saw that she was asleep.

Not asleep, stupid. The way she was howling a couple of minutes ago, there's no way she could have just dozed off.

She's been drugged.