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.
"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.
And Enrico's right. I need a shave. I should have shaved when I showered. Maybe I had other things on my mind, like the look on that poor bastard's face when he took the load of double-aught buck in his chest.
Frade was uncomfortable using the Remington electric shaver; it had been his father's. But finally, after a moment's hesitation, he took it out and plugged it into the cigar lighter hole and, as the razor's blades hummed, started rubbing it against his face.
Two minutes after he started, Enrico slowed the Buick to a crawl, crossed himself, and muttered a prayer.
Now Frade knew where they were and why Enrico was praying--they were passing the spot where Frade's father had died. He didn't like to think about that.
Six minutes later, the three-row-thick stand of enormous poplars that surrounded the casa grande--"the big house"--protecting it from the winds of the pampas, appeared on the horizon.
A minute after that, the estancia airfield began to come into focus. A twin-engine Lockheed Lodestar, painted a brilliant red, was sitting in front of the hangar, dwarfing the four Piper Cubs parked beside it. Two peones on horseback sat watching it. When the Buick came closer still, Frade saw that they were cradling rifles in their arms and that a large fire extinguisher on wheels was beside the left engine of the Lodestar.
The plane was, as he had ordered it to be, ready to go at a moment's notice.
One of the gauchos doffed his flat-brimmed cap.
When the Buick passed through the outer line of poplars, the "big house" was visible beyond the inner two rows of trees. The term was somewhat misleading. There was indeed "a casa grande"--a rambling structure surrounded on three sides by wide porches--but the inner rows of poplars also encircled a complex of buildings. These included the small church La Capilla Nuestra Senora de los Milagros, seven smaller houses for the servants and the senior managers of the estancia, a large stable beside a polo field, the main garage, and "el Coronel's garage."
To which the shot-up station wagon will soon be taken--with a little luck, outside the view of Dorotea.
Between the second line of poplars and the line closest to the "Big House" was the English Garden, covering more than a hectare. Today, looking more than a little out of place, three more peones sat on their mounts, rifles cradled in their arms, as the horses helped themselves to whatever carefully cultivated flowers seemed appetizing.
The peones respectfully removed their wide-brimmed hats and sort of bowed when they saw Frade in the Buick. He returned the greeting with a sort of military salute. When he'd first become patron of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, he had returned their gesture with a wave, as a salute was obviously inappropriate between himself, a Marine major, and Argentine civilians.
Waving had made him feel like he was pretending to be the King of LaLa-Land, condescendingly acknowledging the homage of his loyal subjects. Enrico had solved that problem by telling him that not only was there universal military service in Argentina, but el Coronel, and before him, el Coronel's father, Don Cletus's grandfather, also el Coronel Frade, had encouraged the "young men of the estancia" to enlist in the Husares de Pueyrredon Cavalry Regiment for four years, rather than just doing a year's conscript service.
The result was that just about most of the more than one thousand male peones of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo had been soldiers at one time. Frade thought, but did not say, that the real result was that he had, if not a private army, then a private battalion at his command. And lately he had cause to think he might have to use it.