“That thought has run through my mind,” Clete said.
“I am really offended at what he does in what I think of as our first bedroom, ” Dorotea said. “And I suspect he suspects that.”
“Why?”
“When I called to tell him we would be coming over to get the painting, he said that he was so sorry he would not be here to receive us; that he had a dinner engagement.”
“Maybe he just had a dinner engagement.”
“Ha!”
The gates were opened and the Horch drove into the basement garage. There in the garage was a 1940 Ford station wagon and a 1938 Ford coupe, but Perón’s official Mercedes was nowhere in sight.
“Good!” Dorotea said. “He’s not here. Now I won’t have to smile and pretend to be charmed.”
“You’re sure it’s here? The portrait?”
“I called and checked on that, too. I also told the housekeeper to find a well-worn comforter or two and some twine to pack it.
“And while you and Enrico are doing that, I think I might have a glass of my nice wine. Presuming he left me some.”
“Would you be shocked to hear, my darling, that I was just now trying to think of some reasonably tactful way to keep you from offering your expert advice as to how I might better pack the portrait?”
“You want a glass?”
“I’ll wait, I think, until we’re in the house we have to live in because Guess Who is living here. But thank you just the same.”
“Cletus! I think you’d better come up here!”
“Yes, my love.”
He was sitting, his legs stretched out before him, on one of the eight high-backed chairs that lined the walls of the foyer. He pushed himself out of the chair, drained his glass of merlot, set the empty glass on a side table, then trotted up the wide stairs to the second floor.
When he got there, he saw a large flat object leaning against the wall. It was cushioned with what had to be at least two well-worn comforters held in place by what looked like three hundred feet of sturdy twine.
Dorotea and Enrico were nowhere in sight.
Uh-oh! She’s in the bedroom!
Two significant things had happened to Clete in the master bedroom of the mansion.
The first involved two Argentine assassins-for-hire who had tried to eliminate Cletus Howell Frade on behalf of the German government while he slept in his granduncle’s bed. They had failed—and died for their efforts—but not before killing the housekeeper, who happened to be Enrico’s sister.
And shortly thereafter, in the same bed, the former Señorita Dorotea Mallín had not only lost her right to the title of the Virgin Princess but had become with child.
It was this last that made Clete worry about what she was up to in the bedroom—now Tío Juan’s bedroom. Clete would not have been surprised to find her doing something really outrageous.
Or, more likely, she has already done something outrageous—and now I have to make it right.
At first, Clete didn’t fully comprehend what he was looking at.
Dorothea was standing at the head of bed and Enrico at the foot. She was holding the Leica I-C 35mm camera in one hand.
Dorotea said, “Maybe you better do this, darling, and I’ll hold the map flat.”
“What map?” Clete said.
“This one,” she said unnecessarily. “I found it in that thing.” She pointed to a meter-long leather tube that he recognized as an Ejército Argentino map case. “It’s off the coast south of Mar del Plata. There are marks and notes on it around Necochea. I’ll bet when Peter sees the photo I’m making, he’ll say it’s where the submarine landed. Isn’t that interesting that Tío Juan would have a map of that area?”
“Why the hell did you go in his map case?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do.”
She looked at him unapologetically, then said, “I thought maybe it would contain something naughty.” She paused. “But this is better, isn’t it?”
“It is if he doesn’t walk in on us taking a picture of it.”
“Well, then take the damned camera and make the picture!”
The rolled map would not go back in the case. There was something else inside that stopped it.
“Baby, when you took out the map, was it by itself or rolled with something else?”
“There was another map, of South America, rolled around it.”
Clete, not without effort, got the map of South America out of the map case and unrolled it on the bed.
“Now give me that one, sweetheart,” he said, motioning for the first one that they’d photographed. He casually glanced at the second map. “Wait a minute. What the hell is this?”
He looked more closely, and saw clearly that it was a map of the South American continent. But something about it did not look right.
The map bore a label stating that it had come from the Map and Topographic Office of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht in Berlin. It was labeled VERY SECRET and carried the title Sud-Amerika Nach der Anschluss.
“Oh, shit!”
That translates as “South America, After the Annexation”!
He scanned the map and noticed that Uruguay and Paraguay no longer existed as sovereign countries; they now were part of Argentina, much as Austria had become part of Germany Nach der Anschluss. The map also showed Peru and Bolivia divided more or less equally between Argentina and Brazil.
“What is it?” Dorotea said.
“It’s why Tío Juan hopes the Germans will win the war. Put a fresh roll of film in the camera, honey. I want to take pictures of this to Washington, too.”
XIII
[ONE]
Office of the Director Office of Strategic Services National Institutes of Health Building Washington, D.C. 1425 1 August 1943
“Waiting to see me, Alex?” the director of the Office of Strategic Services inquired of the OSS deputy director for Western Hemisphere operations, who was sitting in an upholstered chair in Donovan’s outer office, holding a copy of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Oh, you are a clever fellow, aren’t you? You take one look at someone and you can tell just what they’re up to.”
“I asked him if he wanted to go in, General Donovan,” Donovan’s secretary said, just a touch self-righteously.
Donovan signaled for Graham to go into his office, then turned to his secretary. “Bring me and the Latin Bob Hope here some coffee, will you, please, Margaret?”
“I’ve never been called that before,” Graham said.
“And I’m sorry I did,” Donovan said. “I hope Hope doesn’t hear about it. I really like him.”
Graham waited until Donovan took his seat behind his desk, then handed him a manila folder stamped TOP SECRET in red.
“I hope this is good news,” Donovan said.
“As far as I’m concerned, it is,” Graham said, and sat in one of the two leather armchairs facing Donovan’s desk.
Donovan opened the folder and read the message.
URGENT
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
2100 LOCAL 30 JULY 1943
FROM TEX
TO AGGIE
SEGURO COMERCIAL IS ABOUT TO INFORM SOUTH AMERICAN AIRWAYS THAT SINCE LLOYD’S OF LONDON HAS REFUSED TO REINSURE SAA THEY ARE FORCED TO CANCEL OUR INSURANCE.
LLOYD’S REASON FOR REFUSING TO REINSURE IS THAT OUR PILOTS DO NOT HOLD US AIR TRANSPORT RATINGS. STRONGLY SUSPECT THAT LLOYD’S GOT THEIR INFORMATION ABOUT OUR PILOTS FROM CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS AT VARIG WHO THINK THAT SAA’S LODESTARS SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THEM, AND WHO NOW ARE TRYING TO CUT OFF COMPETITION. IT IS EQUALLY PROBABLE THAT PAN AMERICAN, EITHER INDEPENDENTLY OR WORKING WITH THOSE AT VARIG, HAS ALSO MENTIONED OUR NON-ATR-RATED PILOTS TO LLOYD’S BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT ANY COMPETITION EITHER.
TIO JUAN THINKS THAT THE BRITISH ARE INVOLVED IN THE CANCELLATION, EITHER ALONE OR IN CONJUCTION WITH VARIG AND/OR TRIPPE, BECAUSE THEY PLAN TO RUN ARGENTINA’S AVIATION AFTER THE WAR THE WAY THEY RUN THE ARGENTINE RAILROADS AND WANT TO NIP COMPETITION IN THE BUD.