He glanced at the others. “You, however, you’re something else. And so are the rest of the people on the estancia. I don’t think they’ll shoot everyone. But you will be tried as spies, sentenced to death, and thrown in a cell. Unless we can do something to get you out, and I don’t think we can—‘we’ meaning me and the U.S. government—you’ll be in that cell for the duration of the war and—what is it they say?—‘plus six months.’ ”
“Yes, sir,” Fischer said meekly.
“And that means, of course, that we won’t have the radar to make sure the Germans haven’t brought another submarine-replenishment vessel into Samborombón Bay . . .”
“Shit,” Schultz said.
"... And that while you’re all in some cell—before and after your courtmartial—the Germans will probably try to have you killed.”
“They can do that?” Fischer blurted.
Frade exhaled audibly. “Yeah, Fischer, they can do that. My Uncle Juan Domingo is not the only Argentine officer who thinks Hitler’s a good guy and that the Germans and Japs and Italians—The Axis—are going to win the war.”
“Oh, boy!” Fischer said.
“And to answer your specific question: The organized crime down here is very much like ours in the States. When the Germans wanted my father dead— and, for that matter, me whacked—they didn’t try to do it themselves. They hired professional killers from whatever they call the Mafia down here. They took out my father but didn’t get me. That was dumb luck; somebody told me they were coming, and I was waiting for them. They’re not nice people. They found my housekeeper, a really nice lady, in the kitchen and slit her throat, just because she was there—”
“Jesus!”
“Yeah, Jesus. Now pay attention, Fischer: I can get you out of the country, into Uruguay, right now. And have you in Brazil tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The Froggers are at Casa Chica, a small farm I own near Tandil, in the hills between La Pampas and Mar del Plata—”
“I don’t know where any of those places are,” Fischer interrupted.
“Let me finish, Fischer,” Frade said coldly.
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s about a two-hour drive from here,” Frade went on.
“Yes, sir.”
“And every twenty miles or so, I expect there will be a checkpoint. Either army or police.”
“Yes . . . I understand.”
“I think those pictures are more important than I understand—”
Fischer, nodding, interrupted: “Mr. Dulles made that pretty clear without coming right out and saying so, or saying why.”
After a long silence, Frade said, “I am not going to order you to go out there, Fischer.”
Fischer met his eyes for a moment, then shrugged. “When do I go? Right now?”
“If we’re going to go, yeah, right now. You’re willing to take the chance?”
Fischer nodded again.
Frade raised his eyebrows. “The first thing I learned when I went into the Marine Corps was never to volunteer for anything.”
“Yeah, well, what the hell, I’ve never seen a real Nazi,” Fischer said.
“Taking into consideration that that goddamned Carlos may have sneaked back onto the estancia—”
“I don’t think so, Clete,” Schultz said. “Those gauchos of yours know if a damn rabbit comes on the place.”
Frade ignored the comment. “—and is watching us through binoculars to see what we’re doing before they come to arrest me. So, what we now are going to do is get in the Horch. Fischer gets in the backseat and lies on the floor until we’re a couple of miles from here. And we go to Casa Chica.”
“A couple problems with that, sweetheart,” Dorotea said.
Clete turned quickly to look at her.
“You don’t know how to get there,” she explained reasonably. “The only time you’ve been there, you flew the Piper Cub. And . . . when I am sitting with you in the front seat, and if Carlos is watching us, he will decide that you and I have gone off for a romantic interlude. If I’m not with you, that would be suspicious. Most Marines would not think of leaving their bride the same night they came home.”
Clete saw out of the corner of his eye that Schultz and Fischer were trying very hard not to smile.
Clete nodded. “Okay, okay, sweetheart, you can go.”
“Oh, you’re just so good to me!”
He shook his head—but he was smiling.
“Chief,” Frade then said, “take the SIGABA device out to the radar site. Make sure it and the radio and the code machine and everything else is rigged with thermite grenades.”
“And the Collins radios?”
“Leave them here. If Carlos is watching, taking them out of the hangar would be suspicious.”
Schultz nodded.
“If they come after me,” Frade went on, “torch everything, then go hide on the estancia.”
“I know just the place. Places,” Schultz said. “We’ll just lay low until we see what happens. Not that I think anything will.”
Frade raised his eyebrows, not convinced. He said, “When we get to Casa Chica, we’ll take the pictures of the Froggers—we’ll need a copy of La Nación . . .”
“There’s one in the sitting,” Dorotea said.
“. . . And then we’ll spend the night. We’ll leave there at seven, seven-thirty in the morning. Which should put us back here, or onto the estancia, at about half past nine. Have a gaucho meet us somewhere if everything’s okay. If there’s no gaucho . . . then we’ll play it by ear.”
[TWO]
Estancia Casa Chica Near Tandil Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 2015 19 July 1943
Dorotea had to tell Clete where to turn off the macadam-paved highway onto Estancia Casa Chica. There was no sign visible from the highway, but one hundred meters down a road paved with small, smooth riverbed stones, the powerful headlights of the Horch lit up two short pillars formed from fieldstone. A sturdy rusty chain was suspended between them, and hanging from the center of the chain was a small sign that read: CASA CHICA.
“Oh, damn!” Dorotea Frade said. “I don’t have a key.”
“Great!” Clete said.
Enrico Rodríguez got nimbly from the car the moment it stopped, found in the shadows the padlock fastening the chain to the left pillar, tugged at it a moment, then matter-of-factly pulled from his shoulder holster his .45-caliber pistol—an Argentine copy of a Colt Model 1911 semiautomatic—took aim, and fired.
Clete noticed that Enrico had not first worked the action, which meant he had been carrying the pistol with a round in the chamber.
The first shot dented the massive brass padlock, but it still securely held the chain. Enrico fired again, then again. The lock then dropped off the chain and the chain dropped to the road.
“Did he have to do that?” Dorotea asked, seemingly taking the abuse of the lock somewhat personally.
“Well, since unnamed persons didn’t have the key . . .”
Enrico came back to the Horch, stopping to stand in the beam of the headlights. Clete could see that the hammer still was back and locked. Enrico replaced the magazine in the pistol with a fresh one, then put the pistol back in the shoulder holster.
That means he’s back to eight available shots, Clete thought, seven in the magazine and the one he left in the throat.
Now what the hell is he doing?
What Enrico was doing was recharging the magazine he’d taken from the pistol. When he’d finished, he slipped it into the left front pocket of his pants and got nimbly back into the car.
He didn’t say one word, Clete thought, smiling as he put the Horch in gear.
Three hundred meters down the road, just past a curve, a two-wheeled horse cart was blocking the road.