“Who, señor?”
“El Coronel Wallace. Norteamericano,” Clete said.
He knew there was enough similarity between Portuguese and Spanish that the MP understood him.
“There is no such person, señor,” the MP said.
Oh, shit. Now what?
He tried again. “El Coronel Wallace?”
The Brazilian MP shrugged.
“Then any American officer.”
“Tomás,” one of the American MPs asked in really bad Portuguese, “what did the señor say his name was?”
The Brazilian MP obviously didn’t understand.
“El Coronel Wallace,” he said, and shrugged to show he had no idea what the señor wanted.
“Hey, pal, you speak any English?”
Clete nodded, and said, “Frade.”
“Oh, shit,” the MP said. “Major Frade, U.S. Marine Corps?”
Clete nodded. “But I’d rather people didn’t know that.”
“You got some ID, sir?”
I have a very fancy gold badge identifying me as an OSS area commander. Even has a photo ID.
But I left it in my safe, as I am here masquerading as an Argentine.
Besides, I don’t think I’m supposed to show it to anyone anyway.
But next time, I’ll bring it. It would have solved this problem.
Clete shook his head.
“Just a minute, please, sir,” the MP said, and went into the guard shack.
In about sixty seconds, the MP came back out of the shack and repeated, “Just a minute, please, sir.”
Three minutes after that, the headlights of a 1942 Ford sedan appeared as it raced up to the guard shack. Frade saw that it had a covered plate on the front bumper, and a chrome pole on the right fender, covered with an oilcloth sleeve. He had just put everything together and concluded that this was the personal auto of a general officer when the proof came: Out jumped a young Air Forces captain wearing wings, a fur felt cap with a crushed crown, and the aiguillette of an aide-de-camp.
He looked at Frade, almost visibly decided the man in the rather elegant suit whose hair now covered the collar and most of his ears could not possibly be a major of Marines, looked at the MP, then back at Frade after the MP pointed to him.
“Major Frade?”
Clete nodded.
“You have some identification, sir?”
Clete shook his head.
It clearly was not the answer the captain hoped for.
“Sir, I’m General Wallace’s aide . . .”
“He got promoted, did he?”
“Sir, if you’ll come with me, please?”
He held open the Ford’s rear door.
Three minutes later, the Ford pulled into the driveway of a pleasant-looking Mediterranean-style cottage with a red tile roof. A neat little sign on the neatly trimmed lawn read: BRIG. GEN. J. B. WALLACE, U.S. ARMY AIR FORCES.
“If you’ll come with me, Major?” the aide asked, and led him into the house, then to a closed interior door, on which he knocked.
“Come in, please,” a male voice, somewhat nasal, called.
“Right in there, sir,” the aide said, opened the door, then closed it after Frade had passed through.
Frade expected General Wallace. He got instead a white-haired civilian of about fifty who had a somewhat baggy suit, a bow tie, and a mustache that would have been Hitlerian had it not been almost white. He looked very much like the Reverend Richard Cobbs Lacey, headmaster of Saint Mark’s of Texas, an Episcopal preparatory school in Dallas at which a fourteen-year-old Clete had had a brief—five months—and ultimately disastrous association.
“Ah,” the man said. “Major Frade. I have just helped myself to some of the general’s whiskey. May I offer you one?”
It’s almost eight p.m. Why not?
“Thank you,” Frade said.
But who the hell is this guy?
The man walked to a table on which were bottles of whiskey, glasses, bottles of soda, and a silver ice bowl.
“What’s your preference, Major?”
“Is that Jack Daniel’s?”
“Indeed. And how do you take it?”
“Straight, with a couple of ice cubes.”
The man made the drink, then handed it to Clete and put out his hand.
“Allen Welsh Dulles,” he said.
“Cletus Frade.”
The man’s grip was firm.
“Yes, I know,” the man said. “How was your flight?”
“Very nice, thank you. Who are you?”
“I told you. My name is Allen Welsh Dulles.”
“That’s your name”—your three-part name, just like Richard Cobbs Lacey, and it’s for some reason vaguely familiar—“not who you are.”
Dulles smiled.
“We have mutual friends.”
“We do?”
“Your grandfather, for one.”
Clete’s eyebrows rose.
“That’s not precise,” Dulles said. He raised his glass. “Cheers!”
Clete tapped the glass and took a sip.
Taking this drink is probably not very smart.
This guy wants something from me, and I’ve already decided he’s smarter than I am.
What the hell is going on?
“Actually, my brother—John Foster Dulles—is an attorney in New York City. Among his firm’s clients are Cletus Marcus Howell and Howell Petroleum.”
“Is that so?”
“I’ve never had the privilege of meeting Mr. Howell—which I am led to believe is often an interesting experience—but nevertheless I relay, through my brother, your grandfather’s best wishes.”
Okay. Now I know what’s going on.
This guy wants to know who Galahad is.
As a friend of the Old Man, he thinks he’s got an in with me.
Fuck you, you three-name sonofabitch!
“And as does, of course, Alejandro Graham,” Dulles added.
Jesus!
“I had dinner with Alex several nights ago in Washington,” Dulles went on. “We have been friends for a long time.”
Frade didn’t reply.
“Major Hans-Peter Baron von Wachtstein,” Dulles said.
“Excuse me?”
“Is Galahad,” Dulles said.
That’s nothing but a guess.
“Who?”
Dulles smiled at him.
“Major Hans-Peter Baron von Wachtstein is Galahad,” Dulles said. “Which is something the FBI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Army’s Chief of Intelligence, and of course SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg—and others—would dearly like to know.”
Jesus, he knows about von Deitzberg?
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Frade said.
Dulles smiled at him, then took a sip of his drink.
“Well, they won’t hear it from me,” Dulles said.
“Hear what from you?”
“The identity of Galahad.”
“We’re back to the fact that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Dulles smiled at him.
“Let me tell you about my dinner with Alex Graham,” Dulles said. “Your drink all right? Need a little top-off?”
“My drink is fine, thank you.”
“It was in the Hotel Washington,” Dulles said. “You know it?”
Frade shook his head.
“Right around the corner from the White House,” Dulles said, “which is convenient when the President, as he did a couple of nights ago, wants to have a private dinner away from the White House.”
“The President?” Frade blurted.