"There was another attempt on your life yesterday?" Father Welner said.
"Three guys in front of the house on Avenida Coronel Diaz," Clete confirmed. "Rodriguez put two of them down, and I got the third one." He looked at Mother Superior. "The story in La Nacion said the police killed them during a robbery attempt."
"You didn't say anything," Welner said.
"Rodriguez?" Mother Superior asked. "Enrico Rodriguez? Is that who you're talking about? Your father's--what's that term?--batman?"
"I don't know if he was my father's batman or not," Frade said. "But he was one of my father's two true friends."
"Father Welner being the other?" she asked.
Frade nodded.
"Are you aware, Cletus," Mother Superior said, "that Enrico's sister Marianna took care of you from the day you were born until your mother went to the United States?"
Frade nodded. "Yes, I am. La Senora Rodriguez de Pellano was my housekeeper in the house across from the Hipodromo on Libertador. She had her throat cut in my kitchen the night the assassins came after me the first time."
"I hadn't heard that," Mother Superior said as she crossed herself. Then she added, "Where is Enrico now?"
"At the estancia with the German woman," Clete replied.
"And what precisely is the nature of the German woman's illness?"
"She's crazy," Frade said.
"Damn it, Cletus!" Dorotea said in exasperation.
Clete, unbowed, explained: "Yesterday, she told her sole surviving son that he's a traitor who will burn in hell for all eternity. Doesn't that sound a little crazy to you?"
"Her son is with her?" Mother Superior asked.
"And her husband," Welner said.
"And six of my men, in case the Germans learn where they are and come to kill all three."
A moment later, the door to the office opened and a nun--this time a huge one, reminding Clete of The Other Dorotea--stepped inside.
She had to be waiting outside, and somehow Mother Superior summoned her.
"Yes, Reverend Mother?"
"Please ask Sister Monica to select three very reliable sisters to deal with a woman suffering from mental illness. Ask them to pack enough clothing for three or four days. Bring a van around. Put my medical bag in it. I will drive."
"Yes, Reverend Mother."
The huge nun left, carefully closing the door behind her.
"That will take a few minutes," Mother Superior said. "There's no reason for everyone to wait for me. I know my way out there. And if you would be so good, Father, to hear my confession while we wait?"
[THREE].
Casa Montagna
Estancia Don Guillermo
Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
1915 14 August 1943
Darkness had fallen, but there was enough light from the headlights for Clete to be able to see the white stone kilometer markers along the road as the resident manager of Estancia Don Guillermo--whose name, if he had ever known it, Clete had forgotten--drove the Lincoln down the macadam road.
They were now at Km 39.8.
That means we're point-six kilometer from where we'll turn onto Estancia Don Guillermo, and thirty-nine-point-eight kilometers from where they started counting, probably at a marker in the Mendoza town square.
That's not saying we're thirty-nine-point-eight kilometers from the center of town, but that we're thirty-nine-point-eight kilometers down the road from the marker.
The way this road weaves, we're a lot closer as the bird flies than that.
Why the hell do people say that?
"As the bird flies" means in a straight line? I've never seen a bird fly more than twenty-five yards in a straight line.
Jesus Christ, it's odd thoughts time! And that means C. Frade's tail is really dragging.
I have every right in the world to have my tail dragging. Not only did I just fly from the States across Central and South America, and then fly down here, I also just threw Tio Juan out of Uncle Willy's house, had people try to kill me, and--and what else?
Doesn't matter what else.
I have every right to be tired, and I damn sure am.
What does matter, however, is that when my tail is really dragging, I tend to do really stupid things. Like, for example, being a little less than charming to Mother Superior at the convent and then actually getting ready to walk out of her office.
If Dorotea and Welner hadn't stopped me, I think I would have, and that would have really screwed up things.
Watch it, Little Cletus. You just can't afford to screw something up.
Ten seconds later, the Lincoln slowed and turned off the highway. Fifty meters off the road, there was a gate in a wire fence. Beyond the fence, the headlights lit up rows of grapevines as far as he could see.
There was a Ford Model A pickup truck inside the fence. A man got out of it, walked to the gate, and swung it open. The Lincoln's lights flashed over the pickup as they drove through the gate, and Frade saw there was a second man standing by the side of the truck, a Mauser rifle cradled in his arms. This one he recognized. He was one of the peones he'd brought from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.
When they drove past, the man saluted. Clete returned it.
They drove for a kilometer, perhaps a little more, through endless rows of grapevines. The road suddenly became quite steep--the resident manager had to shift into second gear--and made a winding ascent of a mountainside.
And then there was a massive wooden gate blocking the road.
But there's no fence or anything to the right of the gate.
Why have a gate if people can just drive around it?
He looked out his side window and saw why people could not just drive around this gate. Three feet from the side of the car a stone curb marked the side of the road. Beyond the curb there was a precipitous drop-off; he could not see the bottom.
Well, since there's a granite mountain on the left and nothing but air on the right.
I guess that if they don't open the gate, you either blow it up or you don't get in.
The gate swung inward as they approached it.
There was another Model A pickup with another man holding a rifle just inside the gate, and again Clete recognized him as one of his men from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. This one didn't salute as the Lincoln inched carefully past the Ford.
The road now was so steep that the estancia manager did not shift out of low.
They turned a curve and suddenly were on a level plateau perhaps three hundred meters wide and two hundred meters long. A low stone wall on three sides suggested--it was too dark to see--a drop-off like the one beside the gate.
At the far end of the plateau, with what looked like a light in every window--and there were a lot of windows--was the house and its outbuildings.
The main house was three stories and red-tile-roofed. The third floor had dormer windows, and the roof extended over a verandah whose pillars seemed vine-covered. The Andes Mountains were on the horizon behind it, bathed in moonlight.
And now we know why they call it Casa Montagna.
That is indeed a mountain house.
"It's beautiful!" Dorotea said from the backseat.
Enrico Rodriguez, Madison Sawyer, and Gonzalo Delgano were standing on the verandah.
If they're waiting for us, they knew we were coming, and that means there's a telephone at either or both gates.
Nobody's going to get in here by surprise.
"No nuns?" Sawyer greeted them as he waved them into the house.
Inside the door was a foyer. In the center was a fountain in a circular pool.
"Classy," Frade said.
"This whole place is classy," Sawyer said. "And that fountain has no pumps. Enrico showed me. It's fed by a mountain stream. There's a tank, and that provides the pressure. And after the water goes through the fountain, it's fed back into the stream and goes down the mountain."
"Fascinating," Frade said.
Enrico showed him how the fountain works? That means that Enrico knows this place pretty well.
And never told me about it.
What the hell else can I own?
"I don't suppose that at a vineyard there's a pump spitting out wine?" Frade said.
"No, but there's a very nice bar in there," Sawyer said, pointing.
"Why don't we have a look at that?" Frade said.
"The nuns should be here any minute," Dorotea said.
Translation: Now is not wine time.
"Where's Frau Frogger?" Frade asked.
Sawyer pointed to the left.
"There's an apartment there with barred windows and lockable doors. Enrico put her in there. Her husband and son are with her, and one of our guys is sitting in the foyer outside. Stein's setting up the SIGABA and the Collins."
"Well, as soon as I have a glass of wine, I'll have a look at both," Frade said.
Dorotea shook her head in resignation.
Clete walked through the door that Sawyer had indicated and found himself in a comfortable room, two walls of which were lined with books, one half of a third wall with oil paintings and framed photographs and half with a bar, complete with stools. The fourth wall held French doors that opened onto a rear patio and provided a panoramic view of the Andes.
Clete went behind the bar and looked through the bottles of wine in a rack on the wall, finally pulling out a Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon. He took a quick look at the label and then a longer look.
"My God!" he said. "This says one of 2,505, 1917. Nineteen seventeen?"
"I think it gets better with age, like Kentucky bourbon," Sawyer said.
"Either that or we have a bottle of twenty-six-year-old vinegar," Clete said, and fed the bottle to a huge and ornate cork-pulling device mounted on the wall. He poured some in a glass and sipped.