“What’s Casa Chica?” Frade said. “One of the casas on the estancia? Didn’t you hear what Doña Dorotea just said? This is the first place Martín’s going to look. And, God damn it, the people who work for him are not clowns; they’re good.”
“This is somewhat delicate, Don Cletus.”
“Delicate? What the hell are you talking about?!”
“Casa Chica is a very small estancia near Tandil in the hills between La Pampas and Mar del Plata,” Enrico explained. “No more than maybe two hundred hectares.”
“Whose estancia is it?”
“It is yours, Don Cletus.”
“How come I never heard of it?”
“It was one of your father’s most closely kept secrets, Don Cletus,” Enrico said.
“You mean during the . . . before the coup? Because of that?”
“No, Don Cletus,” Enrico said uncomfortably. “Señor . . . it was where he and Doña Claudia would go when they wished to be alone.”
Leibermann smiled. Frade glared at him.
“There is an airstrip and a nice little house. Very romantic, Don Cletus. There is a very nice view of the hills. There is a waterfall, not a very big one, but a very nice one. And—”
“And nobody knows about this place?” Clete shut him off.
“No, señor. Only myself and Rodolfo. When El Coronel and Doña Claudia went there, he took with them only Rodolfo or me, and Mariana María Delores, may she be resting in peace.”
Frade’s mind flashed the image of Enrico’s sister, Señora Mariana María Dolores Rodríguez de Pellano, her throat slashed during the failed attempt to assassinate Frade.
When Clete didn’t reply, Enrico went on: “There are just a few servants there, Don Cletus. All of them my family. They know how to keep their mouths shut.”
“That sounds ideal, Clete,” Leibermann said.
“Can we get these people there without anyone seeing them?”
“In the back of a truck,” Enrico said.
“Honey, I really have to go,” Clete said. “If I’m late getting to Campo de Mayo, the first thing they’ll think is that I’m involved in this.”
Dorotea nodded.
“Call Casa Número Veintidós. Tell Chief Schultz to send Sergeant Stein here with a truck and a couple of Thompsons. Tell Stein to dress like a gaucho. And then, Enrico, truck these people out to this place in Tandil. Don’t let them be seen, and don’t let them near a telephone.”
“I will go with you, Don Cletus,” Enrico said softly.
Clete ignored him.
“I have no intention of riding in the back of a truck,” Dorotea said. “I’m pregnant, in case you haven’t noticed. Factor that into your planning, Napoleon.”
“What are you talking about?” Clete asked. “You’re not going to this place, wherever it is. Jesus Christ!”
“Permission to speak, Don Cletus?” Enrico asked.
When Frade looked at him, he saw Enrico was standing at attention.
Restraining a smile, Clete barked, “Stand at ease, permission granted,” and then glowered at Ashton, who was smiling.
“Señor, if I am not with you at Campo de Mayo, questions would be asked . . .”
Jesus, he’s right about that!
“. . . but if Rodolfo were to drive Doña Dorotea in the Horch and the truck following them was carrying furniture, and provisions. . . .”
“Good idea, Clete,” Leibermann said. “Nothing suspicious about that. What do they call that? ‘Hiding in plain sight’?”
Clete considered that a moment, then agreed. “Yeah, it is. You sure you’re up to this, baby?”
“Of course I am. All I do is ride over there—I’ve never been to the estancia, but I’ve been to Tandil; I’d guess it’s about two hours from here—unload the provisions and the furniture, and ride back. As long as Rodolfo and Seigfried don’t hang out a sign, no one will suspect that we’re hiding a couple of Nazis in what is now my little love nest in the hills.”
Clete was surprised at her use of the term Nazi and then wondered why. He quickly decided that was because the word called up images of Nazis in steel helmets or SS uniforms in B movies, not the dumpy looking guy and his matching wife he had seen in the back of the Chevrolet.
He turned to Leibermann.
"And you and Max head back to Buenos Aires and hope nobody saw you come out here.”
[THREE]
Office of the Ambassador Embassy of the German Reich Avenida Córdoba Buenos Aires, Argentina 1140 14 July 1943
“I suggest for the moment,” Ambassador von Lutzenberger said, “that we accept Sturmbannführer Raschner’s premise that Herr Frogger has chosen to desert his post—”
“What other reason for his disappearance could there possibly be?” von Deitzberg interrupted almost indignantly.
Von Lutzenberger ignored him and went on: “—which then poses the question of why.”
“He did not wish to go home, obviously,” Gradny-Sawz said.
“If so, wouldn’t that raise the question why?” von Lutzenberger said.
“Isn’t that equally obvious?” von Deitzberg said sarcastically. “He’s the traitor we’ve been looking for.”
Cranz had several thoughts, one after the other:
Nonsense.
Frogger not only had no reason to be a traitor but was psychologically incapable of being one.
Does von Deitzberg actually believe what he’s saying?
Of course not.
Von Deitzberg was sent here to find the traitor, and failed.
But he can now say that he suspected Frogger all along, and was getting close to having enough proof when Frogger somehow found out—or simply sensed it—and deserted.
That makes him look a lot better than having failed to find the traitor.
And if there is a traitor, knowing that Frogger has been “exposed” might just make him relax enough so that he’ll make a mistake. If that happens, von Deitzberg will get credit for catching both.
My God, he’s good!
“Cranz,” von Deitzberg asked, “wouldn’t you agree?”
“I’m only wondering, Herr Generalmajor, how it is that Frogger managed to escape the attention of Herr Gradny-Sawz, Oberst Grüner, and Untersturmführer Schneider.”
“Or mine,” von Lutzenberger said. “I’m as culpable as they are.”
And so you are, Your Excellency, Cranz thought.
You are nobly accepting responsibility for something over which you had no control, and could not be expected to, with a senior Sicherheitsdienst officer—now conveniently dead—in charge of that sort of thing.
The proof of that came immediately.
“Your Excellency,” von Deitzberg said smoothly, “I admire your position, but I respectfully suggest that if Oberst Grüner—an expert in these matters— could not detect this traitor, you really couldn’t be expected to.”
Now he’s “Your Excellency”?
And you “respectfully suggest,” von Deitzberg?
You’re now friends, are you?
“I am the ambassador of the German Reich, Herr Generalmajor, and responsible for everything that happens—or doesn’t happen—on my watch,” von Lutzenberger said. “But, readily acknowledging your expertise in these areas, may I ask what you suggest we do now?”
And if you go along with that, von Deitzberg, won’t that dump the responsibility for whatever happens next in your lap? I know you’re too smart not to see that.
So the question becomes, How are you going to react? As a professional, and agree with von Lutzenberger that the responsibility is in fact his? Or will your ego take over?