Blood and Honor

A stairway was pushed out to the plane as the pilot shut down the engines. Argentine Customs and Immigration officials stationed themselves at the bottom, and the passengers began to debark.

First off was a tall, well-dressed, good-looking, sharp-featured man in his middle forties. A moment later—still holding his diplomatic passport importantly in his hand—he marched through the gate in the fence, made directly for von Wachtstein, and greeted him somewhat abruptly: "You are?"

"Major von Wachtstein," Peter replied.

"Oh, yes," the man said, his tone suggesting that he was very familiar with just who Peter was and where he fitted into the hierarchy. "In my luggage, I have a letter and a small package for you from your father."

"Oh, really? How good of you, Herr."

"Standartenf?hrer Josef Goltz at your service, Major," Goltz said with a smile.

Major von Wachtstein came to attention and clicked his heels.

"Excuse me, Herr Standartenf?hrer," he said. "I had no way of knowing who you are."

"My movement here was of course classified," Goltz said. "No offense was taken, Major."

"The Herr Standartenf?hrer is very kind," Peter replied.

A very tall, well-dressed, olive-skinned man with prominent features walked through the gate and joined them.

"Colonel, this is Major von Wachtstein, of our embassy," Goltz said.

"I have the pleasure of the Major's acquaintance," the tall man said, offering Peter his hand.

"What a pleasure to see you again, Colonel Per?n," Peter said, saluting— the old-style, fingers-to-the-temple salute, now officially out of favor—and then shaking the Colonel's hand.

"And have you found here what I said you would find, Major?"

"What you told me, mi Coronel, was an understatement," Peter said, in absolute sincerity.

"I told this young man," Per?n chuckled, "that it would not surprise me if he found our young women extraordinary, and that the reverse might also be true."

"Is that so?" Goltz said with a somewhat strained smile, then looked at Peter and added, "I had rather expected First Secretary Gradny-Sawz to meet me," Goltz said. "We are old friends."

"I'm sure that the First Secretary did not know you were on the plane, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Peter said.

"But if not Gradny-Sawz, then Oberst Gr?ner," Goltz said.

That did not surprise Peter, who knew that Military Attach? Gr?ner was, in fact, in the service not only of the Abwehr (the Intelligence Department of German Armed Forces High Command) but the Sicherheitsdienst as well. Gr?ner himself had actually confided this to von Wachtstein, and he had also been warned about it by Ambassador Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger.

Military Attach?s are always intelligence officers, although the diplomatic community invariably pretends this is not the case. Gr?ner's role as SD officer for the Embassy was thus a covert role within a covert role. It was one more manifestation of the Through the Looking Glass land of National Socialism that Peter von Wachtstein had only recently come to understand and loathe.

As a soldier, the scion of an ancient family of Pomeranian warriors, he found it a strange mixture of the comical and deadly. It was literally suicidal to criticize any facet of it.

"The Oberst was charged by First Secretary Gradny-Sawz with handling the Herr Standartenf?hrer’s arrival," Peter said. "He thought that I could safely be entrusted with meeting the unidentified very important personage arriving on the Condor, while he saw that your hotel accommodations were both suitable and ready for you."

Goltz looked at him coldly for a moment.

"I presume you have a car, von Wachtstein? I have offered Colonel Per?n a ride."

"Oberst Gr?ner's car and driver are at your service, Herr Standartenf?hrer."

"I can call, and have someone come meet me," Per?n said.

"Don't be silly. I knew the embassy would send a car for me. Where am I going, von Wachtstein?"

"A suite has been taken for you at the Alvear Palace Hotel, Herr Standartenf?hrer. Oberst Gr?ner will be there waiting for you."

"And how will you get to town?" Per?n asked.

"A bus is here. Sir, to take the crew, the mail, and diplomatic pouches. I'd planned to go with that. I regret, Sir," he said, turning to Goltz, "that regulations require that I sign for the diplomatic pouches here. It will take a few minutes to get them through Customs. If the Herr Standartenf?hrer doesn't mind waiting, I would be happy to accompany the Herr Standartenf?hrer—"

"Thank you very much, von Wachtstein, but that won't be necessary," Goltz—far too important a personage to be forced to wait around anywhere for anything—interrupted him. "My luggage?"

"I would be happy to see the Herr Standartenf?hrer’s luggage arrives safely at his hotel."

"Splendid. You are most obliging, von Wachtstein."

"It is a privilege to be of service to the Herr Standartenf?hrer," von Wachtstein said.

"I'm sure we shall be seeing more of you, Major," Per?n said. "While I am sure you have met some of our beautiful women, I'm sure you haven't met all of them. Perhaps we can have dinner."

"It would be a great privilege, mi Coronel," Peter said.

He led them to Gr?ner’s Mercedes, saw them safely inside, closed the door, and rendered the Nazi salute as the car drove off.

"Scheisskopf'—shithead—he muttered more than a little bitterly. And then, his diplomatic carnet ( A photo-identification card in a leather wallet issued by the Argentine Foreign Ministry.) in his hand, he made his way through the Customs and Immigration section, out to the tarmac, and climbed up the movable stairs into the Condor.

The pilot, copilot, and crew chief were still in the cockpit, their laps covered with the mounds of paperwork made necessary both by arrival in a foreign country and to ensure that maintenance personnel had a complete list of items to inspect, replace, or repair.

"Well, Peter," the pilot said, "I thought that was you standing out there showing all the signs of your dissolute and immoral life among the Argentines."

"That sounds like jealousy, Dieter," von Wachtstein said, shaking hands with the pilot and nodding at the copilot. "How was the flight?"

"Wonderful. There's nothing I like better than spending an hour in the air with all thelow fuel lights lighting up the cockpit."

"Was it that bad?"

"Not really. We had at least thirty minutes' fuel remaining when we sat down."

Both knew that on a 2,800 mile leg, a thirty-minute reserve of fuel at an average airspeed of 220 miles, which meant a reserve of 110 miles, was so small as to be meaningless. Or suicidal.

"And when we came out of the soup just now, we almost ran into an American China-Clipper flying boat," the copilot said. When Peter turned to look at him, he added, "I don't have the privilege of the Herr Freiherr's acquaintance." He put out his hand. "I'm First Officer Karl Nabler, Herr Major."

"Peter, please," von Wachtstein said. "I stand in awe of your balls, Sir."

Nabler chuckled. "Because of the low fuel, you mean? It wasn't really only thirty minutes. I made it closer to an hour's reserve."

"For flying with Dieter, is what I meant. I've always believed that at a certain age, old birdmen should be forced to retire."

"You can kiss my ass, Peter," the pilot said.

"What did you almost run into? A China Clipper?"

"I think it's a follow-on model to the China Clipper—bigger engines, for one thing," the pilot said. "Anyway, when we came out of the soup, there it was, a four-engine Pan American flying boat with a great big American flag painted on the fuselage."

"And you didn't consider it your National Socialist duty to try to cut its tail off with your propellers? Shame on you, Dieter."

"That would have been nice, Peter," the pilot said, something in his eyes telling von Wachtstein that jokes of that nature were not wise in the presence of the copilot, "but I decided that the safe arrival of Standartenf?hrer Goltz and Colonel Per?n were really more important to Germany than one downed China Clipper."

"And I wasn't sure where we stood, neutrality-wise," the copilot said, making it clear that he didn't consider it insane to try to cut the vertical stabilizers off an enemy civilian transport with one's propellers. "I think that we were within what Argentina claims as its territory."

"Yes, and they take their territorial claims very seriously," von Wachtstein said. "It could have proved embarrassing, whether or not you succeeded."

"Karl, why don't you get the diplomatic pouches out of the baggage compartment?" the pilot suggested, handing him a set of keys. "So that Peter can sign for them and get them off our hands?"

"Yes, Sir."

"I'll give you a hand," Peter said, and stood to one side so that the copilot could get out of his chair.

The copilot walked past him, and Peter started to follow.

"Peter?" the pilot called, and Peter turned. "Have a look at this, will you?"

Peter leaned over the pilot's shoulder. The pilot handed him a thick, well-sealed envelope. Peter glanced at it quickly, just long enough to recognize that the address—"H-P v. W."—was in the handwriting of his father, then stuffed it quickly into the inside pocket of his uniform tunic.

The letter from his father sent in the custody of Standartenf?hrer Goltz was obviously a decoy, sent because a Generalleutnant with connections in high places could be expected to ask someone like Goltz to carry a letter to his sole surviving son—despite specific prohibitions against doing so. It would be thought odd if he hadn't asked the favor.

The letter he had just taken from the pilot was a real letter. Its contents would probably get both of them shot, or more likely garroted, if it wound up in the hands of the SD or Gestapo.

"Thank you," he said.

The pilot nodded.

"Watch what you say around Nabler, Peter," the pilot said. "He still thinks Adolf pisses lemonade."

Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein nodded, then turned and left the cockpit.

[TWO]

Dr. Cosme Argerich Military Hospital

Calle Luis Maria Campos

Buenos Aires

1B55 9 April 1943

As the convoy of staff cars rolled through the gates of the hospital, Clete had several thoughts, some of them irreverent and on the edge of unkind.

There was absolutely no reason for all these brass hats to be following them. But they had apparently been told to accompany Ramirez to the Panagra terminal to meet him, and nobody had the balls to leave without further orders. And the term "brass hat" was really more appropriate here, where the headgear of the senior brass was both enormous and heavily encrusted with gilt decoration, than it was in the States, where most general officers he had seen had worn soft fore-and-aft caps.

I'll bet those hats weigh more than a steel helmet. These guys probably go home at night with one hell of a headache, groan loudly as they take off their caps, and then have their wives massage their necks.

The guards at the gates, wearing German-style steel helmets, wide-eyed at the parade of brass hats in their cars, snapped to the Argentine equivalent of Present Arms—holding their Mauser rifles vertically, at arm's length, in front of them, where Marines held their rifles so close to their chests that they nearly touched their noses.

I was no better. The first time I saw a general up close I was a little surprised he didn’t have a halo.

This place is bigger than I remember. What the hell, it's the Argentine equivalent of Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, so why not? The difference, of course, is that probably the only wounded soldier in the whole place is Enrico. Unless some Argentine boot shot himself in the foot on the Known Distance Range.

"Mi General," Clete said, turning to Ramirez. "I know that you and your officers are busy men. I can manage by myself from here."

"Se?or Frade, with your kind permission, my officers and I would be honored to accompany you to where your father lies in honor in the Edificio Libertador."

"Your kindness, mi General, honors both me and my father."

Ramirez nodded and then raised his left hand in a gesture Clete had learned was common in Argentina and signified, "it's nothing," or "don't be silly."

The Mercedes pulled up before the main entrance of the white masonry nine-story building. Two helmeted guards brought their Mauser bolt-action rifles to Present Arms. Ramirez's aide-de-camp jumped out of the front seat and opened the rear door for Clete. Meanwhile, a gray-haired man in uniform trousers and a white medical jacket he was still in the process of buttoning came through the ten-foot-high bronze and glass doorway.

He saluted Ramirez.

"A sus ?rdenes, mi General," he said. "I had no word—"

"Se?or Frade," Ramirez interrupted him, "may I present el Coronel-Medico Orrico, who commands Dr. Cosme Argerich Military Hospital? Coronel, this is Se?or Frade."

Orrico offered his hand.

"I'm sorry we have to meet under such a tragic circumstance, Mr. Frade," he said in perfect, British English. "I was privileged to call your father my friend. Please accept my sincere condolences."

"Thank you very much, Doctor," Clete said.

"Mr. Frade wishes to see Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez," Ramirez announced.

"Of course," Orrico said, and motioned for them to enter the building.

"How is he?" Clete asked.

"Very fortunate." Orrico replied. "It could have been, should have been, a good deal worse."

"Speak Spanish, please," Ramirez ordered curtly, then looked at Clete and smiled. "My English, you will forgive me, is quite bad."

"Not at all," Clete replied in Spanish.

They boarded an elevator and rode to the sixth floor. When the door opened, a man in civilian clothing was sitting in a very uncomfortable-looking upright chair. Hanging from the back of the chair was a .45 automatic pistol in a shoulder holster. He stood up and came to attention.

A cop,Clete decided. One of el Teniente Coronel Martin's men ? Or Polic?a Federal?

Orrico led them down a wide corridor to a room, outside of which sat another guard, this one with his .45 barely concealed in a holster on his belt. And he, too, came to an Attention-like position as Orrico pushed open the door.

A hospital bed, cranked up so that its occupant could sit up, held a heavy-set, closely shaven and shorn man in his forties. He was bare-chested, and there were bandages, some of them showing blood, on his chest and arms. His head was heavily bandaged, including one covering his left eye. He was Enrico Rodriguez, late Suboficial Mayor of the Husares de Pueyrred?n cavalry regiment of the Argentine Army.

When he saw Clete, he dropped the newspaper he was reading and tried to get out of bed.

"Stay where you are, Enrico," Clete ordered, walking quickly to him.

"Mi Teniente," Rodriguez said, his voice breaking, "I have failed el Coronel. I have failed you!"

"Don't be absurd," Clete said. He turned. "May I have a moment alone with the Suboficial Mayor, please?"

"Of course," Orrico said.

Clete had the feeling that Ramirez didn't like the idea, but he left the room with the doctor.

Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez was now sobbing.

Clete put his arms around him, felt his throat tighten and his eyes water.

"What happened, Enrico?"

"They were waiting for us about two kilometers from the house at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, where the road curves sharply?"

Clete nodded to show he knew where Rodriguez meant.

"They put a beef, a carcass, in the road. When I slowed to go around it, they opened fire. . . ."

"Banditos?"

Rodriguez snorted contemptuously.

"Banditos like the 'burglars' on Libertador," he said.

"They were killed, I'm told, by the Provincial Police."

"They were killed so they could not be questioned by the clowns," Rodriguez said. He customarily referred to the agents of the Bureau of Internal Security as "the clowns."

"Go on."

"Thompsons, I think," Rodriguez said, professionally. "There was too much fire for pistols. I was hit. . ."—he pointed to his head and the bandage— ". . . the bullet must have hit the window post first, or just grazed me."

"Or hit your head and bounced off. My father always said you were the most hardheaded man he had ever known," Clete joked.

"The doctor told me the bullet dug a trench as deep as a fingernail. There was a lot of blood. They probably thought I was dead . . ."

"You were lucky," Clete said.

". . . and the car ran off the road and hit a tree. And when I came to"—he broke into chest-heaving sobs again—"el Coronel was in heaven with the angels, and your blessed mother and my sister."

Clete was surprised at the emotion that came over him. He hugged the older man tightly and only after a long moment found his voice.

"Enrico, mi amigo," he heard himself saying, "in the Bible it is written that there is no greater love than he who lays down his life for another. You did that. You failed neither my father nor me."

I sounded like an Argentine when I said that. I never said anything so corny on Guadalcanal, and Enrico is not the first weeping man I've tried to talk out of feeling responsible for someone else's death. But that came out naturally. What is that, my Argentine genes?

"And in the Bible it says, 'an eye for an eye,' mi Teniente," Rodriguez said.

"I wish you'd stop calling me that," Clete said.

"Whatever you wish, Se?or Cletus."

"How about 'Clete'?"

"Whatever you wish, Se?or Clete."

He simply doesn't understand what I'm asking. That he regard me as a friend, as I regard him. Not as an officer, not, for Christ's sake, asel Patron. To hell with it. That can wait.

"Is there anything I can do for you? Anything I can get you?"

"I wish to pray at the casket of el Coronel," Enrico said. "To beg his forgiveness."

"He has nothing to forgive you for," Clete said.

"And to go with him to his grave."

"I'll arrange for that."

"They tell me it will not be possible," Enrico said.

You will pray at his casket, Enrico, and go with my father to his grave if I have to carry you on my back.

"I'll arrange for it," Clete said firmly.

"Gracias, Se?or Clete. Is it fine?"

"Is what fine?"

"Where your father lies in honor. Is it fine and dignified?"

"I don't know. I came here from the plane. That's next."

"Se?or Clete, you must go to your father and pray at his casket!"

"Just as soon as I leave here," Clete said.

He put out his hand to Enrico, and then, instead, wrapped his arm around his shoulders.

General Ramirez was waiting, looking a little impatient, outside the room.

"Mi General," Clete said, "Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez wishes to visit my father where he lies and to accompany the body to the grave. Is there a problem with that?"

Ramirez hesitated. "There are, of course, problems of security, Se?or Frade."

"Whoever killed my father has no reason to cause harm to Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez."

"Of course," Ramirez said. "I will see to it."

You know as well as I do, don't you, mi General, that "banditos " didn't kill my father?

"I am inappropriately dressed to go to the Edificio Libertador, mi General. May I impose further on your time by asking . . ."

"By now your luggage will be at the house," Ramirez said. "It will be no imposition at all on our time, Se?or Frade."

"Thank you," Clete said. "And with your permission, mi General, I would like a private word with el Coronel-Medico Orrico."

"Whatever you wish," Ramirez said, his tone making it clear he was displeased.

Clete took Orrico's arm and led him twenty yards down the corridor.

"Was my father brought here?" he asked.

Orrico nodded.

"Was there an autopsy?"

Orrico nodded again, looking uncomfortable.

"I wish to speak to the physician who performed the autopsy."

"I had that sad duty."

"What was the cause of death?"

Orrico hesitated, then met Clete's eyes.

"Multiple wounds from shotshell pellets to the chest and cranium. We removed twenty-five double zero pellets from the body, which—together with what I believe are two entrance wounds—makes me believe he was shot twice with a twelve-bore shotgun. Either wound, in my opinion, would have caused instantaneous death. Your father did not suffer, Mr. Frade, if that is any comfort."

"Not very much, mi Coronel," Clete said. "But thank you very much."

He touched Orrico's arm, turned, and walked quickly back to General Ramirez.

[THREE]

Alvear Palace Hotel

Avenida Alvear

Buenos Aires

1730 9 April 1943

Oberst Karl-Heinz Gr?ner, the Military Attach? of the Embassy of the German Reich to the Republic of Argentina, was a tall, ascetic-looking man who looked older than his forty years.

He was not surprised when notified that Standartenf?hrer Josef Goltz would be making a "liaison visit in connection with security matters" to Buenos Aires, only that the "liaison visit" was so long in coming. The Reine de la Mer had been blown up on December 31,1942, three and a half months before.

There was no question whatever in his mind that no matter how long the list of matters about which Goltz wished to liaise, the first item on it would be the destruction of the Reine de la Mer. It would therefore seem to follow that Goltz would have come as soon as possible after that disaster.

Germany's submarine operations in the South Atlantic were critically important to the war effort. Neutral Argentina was growing rich providing both the Allies and the Axis with beef, leather, wool, and other agricultural products.

Under international law, a neutral country's merchant ships bound from one neutral country to another could not be torpedoed. Thus, Germany-bound supplies were shipped in Argentine and other neutral bottoms to neutral Portugal or Spain, then transshipped by rail through occupied France to Germany.

England, of course, was also free to use neutral merchantmen as far as Spain or Portugal, and sometimes did so. But there was no way to transship by land cargoes from Spain or Portugal to England, and the moment a merchantman, neutral or otherwise, left a Spanish or Portuguese port for England, it was fair game for German submarines.

The Allied solution to this problem was to use their own merchantmen. These sailed up the Atlantic Coast of South America under the protection of Brazilian warships, and then of the U.S. Navy, until the ships could join well-protected England-bound convoys sailing from ports on the Gulf of Mexico and on the Eastern seaboard of the United States.

Consequently, the best—often the only—place where German submarines could attack England-bound merchant ships was on the high seas between the mouth of the River Plate, when they left protected Argentinian/Uruguayan neutral territory and before they came under Brazilian Navy protection.

It was a very long way—more than 7,000 nautical miles—from the submarine pens in Germany and France to the mouth of the river Plate. As a practical matter, submarines on station in the South Atlantic could not return to their home ports for replenishment. Under the best conditions it was a forty-day round trip, and submarines returning to the South Atlantic arrived already out of fresh food and low on fuel.

Replenishment ships, stocked with everything the submarines needed, were the obvious solution. But either German Navy or civilian cargo vessels ran the great risk of being interdicted and sunk, either en route to the South Atlantic or while on station on the high seas, waiting to replenish submarines. And "neutral" merchantmen serving as replenishment vessels weren't the solution either, as any "neutral" vessel suspected of being a replenishment vessel was shadowed by Allied warships on the high seas and off the Uruguayan and Argentine coasts.

The solution to the problem was to take advantage of Argentine neutrality—with the secret support of some high-ranking Argentine officers.

A Spanish-registered merchantman was secretly loaded with fuel, torpedoes, and other supplies in Bremen. It returned to Spain, and then sailed from Spain for Buenos Aires, as a neutral vessel bound from one neutral port to another, and thus safe from Allied interdiction.

It anchored "with engine problems" within Argentine waters in the Bay of Samboromb?n in the river Plate estuary. With the Argentine Navy and Coast Guard looking the other way, submarines were able to take on fuel, weapons, and fresh food and then resume their patrols.

It didn't take the Americans long to figure that out.

Reluctant to violate Argentine neutrality by sending warships into Argentine waters to take out a "neutral" merchantman, the Americans turned to covert operation. They sent a team of OSS agents to blow the ship up. But when they arrived, Gr?ner's contacts in Argentine intelligence warned him of the presence of the OSS team, and later identified them.

Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay had a criminal element quite as vicious as any in Berlin or Hamburg. Gr?ner had little trouble contracting with a group of Argentine smugglers to eliminate this OSS team on the river Plate, and then with a group of Paraguayans to eliminate the Argentines when they went to Paraguay "until things cooled down."

The Americans then sent a second team of OSS agents to Buenos Aires, and again they were identified to Gr?ner by German sympathizers in the Argentine military. Though Gr?ner attempted to eliminate the team chief, the attempt failed. And shortly after the replacement replenishment vessel—the Portuguese-registered Reine de la Mer —arrived in the Bay of Samboromb?n with a fresh cargo of torpedoes and fuel, she was blown to bits, taking to the bottom with her a submarine that was tied up alongside taking on fuel. There were no survivors.

Gr?ner didn't know exactly how this was accomplished. But he suspected the infiltration into Argentina of a team of U.S. Navy underwater demolition experts—with the assistance of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade. Frade also doubtless helped the team in its exfiltration from that country.

It was a monumental disaster for submarine operations. The Reine de la Mer had managed to refuel and otherwise replenish only one submarine before it was destroyed. Afterward, Gr?ner had no idea how many other submarines— he guessed ten, or perhaps a dozen—were ranging the South Atlantic counting on replenishment in Samboromb?n Bay.

What those submarines did when they were advised that fuel and food— not to mention torpedoes or ammunition for their cannon—were not going to be available in the South Atlantic was unpleasant to think about.

Even the obvious—heading for the submarine pens on the coast of France—was not possible for some of them. They did not have the necessary fuel for the twenty-day voyage.

There were options, of course. There are always options. They could rendezvous at sea with other submarines. Those with reserve fuel could share it with those whose tanks were empty. As a last desperate measure, one submarine could theoretically tow another.

Gr?ner had heard nothing of what actually happened. The German embassy in Buenos Aires was told only what it was necessary for it to know. Significantly, Gr?ner thought, there had been no word of a replacement for the Reine de la Mer. Which probably meant that none was en route. There was a possibility, of course, that the completely unexpected—and catastrophic—loss of the Reine de la Mer had so upset people that Buenos Aires would learn of a replacement vessel only when it entered Argentine waters.

It was also possible, of course, that a midocean rendezvous had taken place, with the submarines receiving at least fuel from the tanks of German surface warships, or perhaps even from merchantmen, German or otherwise, which would at least get them back to the sub pens in France.

But for all practical purposes, the destruction of the Reine de la Mer had brought submarine operations in the South Atlantic to a halt.

El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade had been one of the most powerful men in Argentina. It was scarcely a secret that he had been the power behind the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, who were reliably reported to be about to stage a coup against the government of President Ramon S. Castillo. At one time, Frade, a close friend of General Pedro P. Ramirez, the Argentine Minister of War, had been thought to be, like Ramirez, very sympathetic to the German cause.

That had changed. In an unexpectedly masterful stroke on their part, the Americans sent in Frade's long-estranged son. Blood, Gr?ner knew, was indeed stronger than water, and he himself knew the strong emotion—mixed pride and love—a father felt for a son who was a heroic aviator.

Gr?ner now acknowledged that he had allowed that knowledge to color his judgment. Young Frade had turned out to be more than a son sent to tug on the heartstrings of a father from whom he had been long separated. He was also a professional intelligence officer. The bodies of the two highly qualified assassins sent to eliminate him, and the blown-up Reine de la Mer, were absolute proof of that.

After a good deal of thought, Gr?ner decided that Goltz had waited to come to Argentina until the operation to eliminate el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade was carried out. If Goltz had been in Argentina, some would suspect he was involved in that. Because of the implications of the Frade elimination, and of his own and Ambassador von Lutzenberger's objections to it, Gr?ner also decided that the order to eliminate Frade must have come from higher up—perhaps from Canaris or Ribbentrop. But he wasn't sure. In his experience, highly placed SS-SD officers were very good at arranging for fingers of suspicion to point at other people.

There would be a long list of other items on Goltz's agenda, of course, matters that interested the upper echelons of the Nazi hierarchy.

This secondary list would start with questions concerning how long it had taken him to deal with the problem of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade once the order to eliminate him was given. This would be followed by the ritual inquiries into the level of devotion to the F?hrer personally and to National Socialism generally by members of the Embassy staff from Ambassador Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger downward.

Goltz and his superiors would also be interested in what he had done, and was doing, to aid the escape and repatriation of the officers of the Graf Spee who had been interned in Argentina since the ship was scuttled.

Getting the officers out of the internment camp and back to Germany was of personal interest to Abwehr Chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who had himself escaped from Argentine internment during the First World War. Oberst Gr?ner was very sensitive to this; Canaris was not only his superior officer in the Abwehr, but an old friend as well.

He was sure that Canaris had been satisfied with his report on the sinking of the Reine de la Mer, and that Canaris would not hold him personally responsible for it, or for the failed elimination attempt on the OSS team chief. Things go wrong, honest mistakes are made; in his report to Canaris he had admitted his culpability.

He'd admitted further that he should not have presumed that Coronel Frade's son was the naive amateur he had believed him to be, and that he also should have presumed Frade would help his son, regardless of his sympathy for the German cause. Canaris would understand. But that did not mean that others high in the Intelligence and Espionage hierarchies of the Third Reich would be satisfied with his explanations, or with the time it took him to comply with orders to eliminate el Coronel Frade.

"Herr Oberst," G?nther Loche announced loudly as he pushed open the door to the suite Gr?ner had taken for the visiting liaison officer, "Standartenf?hrer Goltz!"

Gr?ner liked Loche, a civilian employee of the Embassy known as a "local hire," because he was just smart enough for his driving duties—in other words, not too smart to the point where he would take an interest in matters that were none of his business.

His parents had immigrated to Argentina after the First World War and went into the sausage business, where they mildly prospered. More important, they were as devoted supporters of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism as anyone Gr?ner had ever met. And there was something else: G?nther's father, who had served on the Western Front in the First World War and had few illusions about combat service, was delighted that Gr?ner had convinced G?nther that he could make a greater contribution to National Socialism by serving as his driver than by "returning to the Fatherland" and volunteering for military service.

"Welcome to Argentina, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Gr?ner said, raising his arm in the approved Nazi salute. "Oberst Gr?ner at your service. I hope it was a pleasant flight?"

"A very long flight, Herr Oberst," Goltz said, returning the salute. The two men shook hands and unabashedly examined each other.

They were of equal rank. Tonight, of course, at dinner at the Ambassador's residence, Standartenf?hrer Goltz would have the place of honor, and be seated at the head table next to the Ambassador and across from the Ambassador's wife. Ordinarily, although he was senior in grade by almost two years to Gr?ner, he would be seated far below him at a formal dinner table. Protocol, which for some reason had always fascinated Gr?ner, held that branch of service was the first consideration, then the rank of the individual.

In terms of protocol, the Army was the senior service, followed by the Navy, the Air Force, and then the SS. This was a source of annoyance to many members of the SS. Since their mission was the protection of National Socialism and the F?hrer himself, they felt that the SS should be the senior service, and that SS officers should not be relegated to a distant corner of an official table. None of the other services agreed, of course.

Gr?ner had come to understand and appreciate the necessity for protocol and to understand why it rankled the SS. Many senior SS officers had never worked their way up through the ranks, and that situation was getting worse. To curry favor with—or ensure the loyalty of—high-ranking bureaucrats and even prominent doctors, lawyers, and businessmen, these people were being given honorary officer's rank in the Allgemeine SS. This carried with it the privilege of wearing the black SS uniform and the cap adorned with death's-head.

At a formal dinner, serving SS officers had precedence over honorary officers. So everyone at a dinner could look down the table and see who was a serving SS officer, and who was a bureaucrat or businessman dressed up like one.

Gr?ner found a certain justice in the dictates of protocol, and had taken pleasure that every time the SS wanted the system changed, it had been frustrated by those who wanted it left as it was.

Goltz had at least once been a serving officer. Although they had never seen each other before, Gr?ner knew a good deal about him. In the same out-of-normal-channels envelope in which he had notified him of the identity of the SS liaison officer who would visit Argentina, Admiral Canaris had included a copy of Goltz's Abwehr dossier.

Gr?ner had learned that Standartenf?hrer Josef Luther Goltz was a Hessian, born in 1897 in Giessen, forty miles north of Frankfurt an der Main. He was called up with his class of eighteen-year-olds in 1915, and served four months in the trenches on the Western Front with the 219th Infanterie Regiment. While recuperating in Weisbaden from wounds, he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class, as well as selected for Officer Training School.

On graduation he was posted to the Sixteenth "List" Bavarian Infanterie Reserve Regiment—in which Corporal Adolf Hitler won the Iron Cross First Class—and served in it until the Armistice in November 1918. During that time he was wounded twice again, promoted Captain, and also awarded the Iron Cross First Class.

Obviously,Gr?ner thought as he read the dossier, if Lieutenant or Captain Goltz encountered Corporal Hitler in the trenches, he treated him well, or he would not be a Standartenf?hrer.

Immediately demobilized after the Armistice of 1918, Goltz returned briefly to school, but after less than a year at Munich University, he dropped out. He then found employment driving a streetcar for the City of Munich. And in 1921, he joined the Sturmabteilungen (the SA, the private army of the Nazi party, commonly called the "Brown Shirts," commanded by Ernst Rohm) of the just-renamed (from "German Workers' Party") Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party).

Gr?ner remembered this now, seeing the "Long Service" Nazi party pin in Goltz's lapel.

In 1924. Goltz left Civil Service to work full-time for the Nazi party. And in 1929, he left both the SA and the employ of the Nazi party to reenter government service, this time as a policeman. In 1933, he was commissioned into the SS as a Hauptsturmf?hrer, the equivalent of a captain. His promotions thereafter came rapidly.

After reading Goltz's dossier, Gr?ner decided that Goltz was an obviously bright, well-connected, and thus dangerous man. Looking at his face now, he saw nothing to change that opinion.

"I think you'll be comfortable here," Gr?ner said, gesturing around the suite.

"I'm sure I will be," Goltz said. "At what time, if you know, would it be convenient for me to present my respects to the Ambassador?"

"The Ambassador requests the pleasure of your company at dinner at the residence . . ."

"How kind of him."

". . . at eightp.m. Following this, the Ambassador suggests that you join the official party which will go to the Edificio Libertador to pay our respects to the late Oberst Jorge Guillermo Frade."

Goltz's face now showed interest.

"Oh, really?"

"G?nther, would you wait in the corridor, please?" Gr?ner ordered.

"Jawohl, Herr Oberst," G?nther said, came to attention, clicked his heels the way he had seen Major von Wachtstein do, and left the room.

"Oberst Frade," Gr?ner said, pausing to light a cigarette, "a prominent Argentine, was tragically murdered during a robbery attempt three days ago."

"So I've heard," Goltz said. "Murdered by robbers, you said?"

"Yes. They were quickly detected by the Buenos Aires Provincial Police, and died in a gun battle during an attempt to arrest them."

"That question was one of the matters I had wished to discuss with you, Herr Oberst," Goltz said. "There was some question—"

"I must temper my desire to immediately comply with my orders," Gr?ner said, aware of the direction Goltz was taking him, "as I am sure you will understand, Herr Standartenf?hrer, with other considerations."

"There are those in Berlin who felt you questioned that decision, Herr Oberst."

"Both the Ambassador and I felt that it was unnecessary, Herr Standartenf?hrer, and perhaps even unwise. I cannot, of course, speak for the Ambassador, but I still feel that way. A moot question, anyway. Oberst Frade is no longer with us."

"The thinking in Berlin—of your superiors and mine—to which I was privy, was that the solution ordered would not only have the obvious benefit of making sure Oberst Frade was not in a position to cause Argentina to declare war on Germany, it would also make the point that the enemies of Germany, no matter how highly placed, are not immune to German retribution."

Gr?ner did not reply.

"You question the wisdom of that decision, Herr Oberst?"

"I never question my orders, Herr Standartenf?hrer. But I consider it my duty to advise my superiors of my best judgment on any issue before them."

"Of course. And your candor, as well as your professionalism, Herr Oberst, is both admired and respected in Berlin. But in this case, certainly you are willing to concede that you were . . . what shall I say . . . that you erred on the side of caution?"

"Time will tell, of course, Herr Standartenf?hrer."

"What if I told you that Oberst Juan Domingo Per?n was on the Condor with me?"

Gr?ner shrugged.

"We can, I presume, credibly deny that we were in any way involved in Oberst Frade's tragic death at the hands of robbers?"

"With the assassins dead, there is no way that any connection with us can be proved, Herr Standartenf?hrer. Credibly denied, yes. But that is not quite the same thing."

"Oberst Per?n is a member, a powerful member, of the G.O.U., is he not?"

"He is."

"Wouldn't you agree that for Per?n to replace Frade as a power in the G.O.U. is to Germany's advantage? After the coup d’?tat, in particular?"

"Oberst Per?n and Oberst Frade were intimate, lifelong friends, Herr Standartenf?hrer. That was one of the points I raised."

"And it was duly noted," Goltz said, although he could not remember that being mentioned in Berlin. "I concede that may be no immediate problem. But since you tell me that we can credibly deny knowledge of the incident, and since time passes . . ."

"Today's Pan American flight from Miami brought with it Oberst Frade's son, Herr Standartenf?hrer. I rather doubt that he will keep from Oberst Per?n his suspicions regarding those responsible for his father's death, or that he will permit the subject to simply pass into memory."

"Certainly the Argentine authorities are aware that he is an OSS agent?

Who violated Argentine neutrality with regard to the Reine de la Mer?" Goltz asked.

"I'm sure that Admiral Montoya is fully aware of those facts."

"And that won't get him expelled from the country? I'm surprised they let him in."

"Keeping him out would have been impossible."

"How so?"

"He entered the country on an Argentine passport."

"How can he do that?" Goltz asked, surprised and annoyed.

"He was born here. Under Argentine law, he is an Argentine. He is apparently claiming both his inheritance and his Argentine citizenship."

"Are you telling me that a word in the proper ear cannot expose that charade? And have him expelled?"

"Finding the proper ear may be difficult, Herr Standartenf?hrer."

"That's your job, Herr Oberst!" Goltz said, his temper flaring.

"When Oberst Frade's son arrived at the Pan American terminal, Herr Standartenf?hrer, he was greeted by a delegation of senior Argentine military officers, headed by the Minister for War, General Pedro P. Ramirez, and Major General Arturo Rawson. Both men were close friends of Oberst Frade. I rather doubt that would be of much use to whisper in either of their ears that expelling Oberst Frade's son would be a good thing."

"The Americans arranged for that?"

"I don't think so. I think it was General Ramirez's own idea. Both to show respect for the late Oberst Frade and to send a signal to those responsible for his death that the officer corps of the Argentine Army is displeased."

"That's an unexpected development."

"I was disappointed, but not surprised. Oberst Frade was a highly respected officer. Perhaps even a beloved officer."

"We will have to have a long talk about this," Goltz said. "But I would prefer that the Ambassador and Gradny-Sawz participate. This is not the time."

"I am at your disposal, Herr Standartenf?hrer."

"You were telling me about tonight?"

"The Ambassador suggests that you join the official party to pay respects to Oberst Frade at the Edificio Libertador. Inasmuch as the Ambassador and the First Secretary will be in uniform, you might wish to wear uniform yourself."

Goltz considered that. "It may require pressing. . . ."

"I'm sure that will pose no problem," Gr?ner said. "May I suggest you wear uniform to the Ambassador's residence?"

"Yes," Goltz agreed.

"Following dinner the senior Embassy officers will meet at the Residence, and we will all go to the Edificio Libertador. That shouldn't take long. There is a Corps Diplomatique line. You sign a guest register, enter the Hall of Honor, pay your respects at the casket, then to members of the Frade family in an adjacent room, and have a glass of champagne with the Argentine protocol officer in another adjacent room. After that you are free to go. The Ambassador will bring you back to the hotel."

"What, exactly, does 'pay one's respects at the casket' mean?"

"This is a Roman Catholic country. The custom is that you kneel—a prie-dieu is provided—at the casket and offer a prayer for the quick reception of the deceased into heaven."

"Are you a Catholic, Herr Oberst?" Goltz asked, almost suspiciously.

"I was raised Evangalische"—Protestant—"but I rarely enter a church except when duty requires. There will be a funeral service tomorrow for Oberst Frade at the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar, with interment to follow in the adjacent cemetery. It's called Recoleta. I don't know whether the Ambassador would like you to attend that or not."

"I'll discuss that with him tonight," Goltz said. "I am not fond of either funerals or church."

"The diplomatic service of the Reich sometimes requires that one do things one would rather not," Gr?ner said, and immediately was sorry.

Goltz was liable to interpret the remark as referring to the Frade action, and in fact Goltz looked at him strangely.

"How do I get from here to the Residence?"

"I would be happy to take you there, but that will mean I will have to stop by my house to change into dress uniform. The other option is to have Major von Wachtstein accompany you. A third option would be to go to the Residence by yourself. In my car. You would be in G?nther’s hands. He is both a capable driver and speaks Spanish, which may prove useful to you."

"Of the three options, I would prefer to inconvenience the Major," Goltz said.

"The Major works for me," Gr?ner said. "What pleases you would be convenient for him."

"Perhaps if he came by here in time to take me?"

Gr?ner went to the door and motioned G?nther into the room.

"Do you know where the Major is, G?nther?"

"The Herr Freiherr is seeing to the Herr Standartenf?hrer's luggage, Herr Oberst," G?nther said. "He should be here any minute."

"Then it's solved," Gr?ner said. "I will leave you here in G?nther’s competent hands until von Wachtstein shows up, and then see you at the Residence."

G?nther smiled at what he perceived to be a compliment.

"You have been most kind, Herr Oberst," Goltz said.

"It has been my privilege, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Gr?ner said, and offered both his hand and the Nazi salute.

Goltz returned it, and Gr?ner started to walk out of the room.

"Oh, there is one more thing," Goltz called after him. Gr?ner turned to look at him. "I have to go to Montevideo, as quickly as possible. How difficult a trip is that?"

"I presume, Herr Standartenf?hrer, that you have visas for both Argentina and Uruguay?"

Goltz nodded.

"In that case, it is a rather pleasant trip. One catches a boat downtown, at ten at night, has dinner aboard, goes to a very nice stateroom, and wakes up in downtown Montevideo."

"That's the quickest way?"

"One can drive. There is a ferry across the Rio Uruguay at Gualeguaychu. It is about a six-hour drive, but one can, obviously, leave when one wishes."

"There is no quicker way?"

"We have a Fieseler Storch, Herr Standartenf?hrer. Von Wachtstein flies it. I'm sure it would be at your disposal."

The Fieseler Storch was a two-seat, high-wing observation and liaison aircraft powered by a V8 Argus AS 10c.3 240-horsepower engine that provided a top speed of 109 m.p.h. and a range of 400 miles.

"And how long would it take by Storch?"

"That would depend, Herr Standartenf?hrer, on how much of the journey one was willing to make over water. As the crow flies, one hour and thirty minutes. That route is essentially over the Rio de la Plata. The Rio de la Plata ends fifty miles north where the Rib Uruguay begins. By flying north and then south over land to Montevideo, perhaps three hours."

"Be so good as to ensure that the Storch is available, should I need it."

"Of course, Herr Standartenf?hrer. Is that all, Herr Standartenf?hrer?"

"Thank you again, Herr Oberst."

Gr?ner left the room.

Adding his reaction to their brief personal contact to his impression of the dossier he had read in the Sicherheitsdienst headquarters in Berlin, Goltz decided very much the same thing about Gr?ner as Gr?ner had decided about him: Gr?ner was obviously bright and well-connected, and thus dangerous.

Goltz decided he was going to have to be very careful dealing with Oberst Gr?ner in the accomplishment of his mission.

Chapter Six

[ONE]

1728 Avenida Coronel Diaz

Palermo, Buenos Aires

1730 9 April 1943

A 1940 Ford Fordor sedan was parked at the curb before the massive cast-iron fence. Two men were sitting in it.

More cops?Clete wondered. Or Martin's men?

The enormous bronze lights beside the double doors to the mansion were draped in black, and black wreaths were fixed to the wrought-bronze metalwork that protected each of the double doors.

A dignified, silver-haired man in his sixties, dressed in a gray frock coat with a black mourning band around the sleeve, opened the door to them. Antonio had been el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade's butler for longer than Clete was old.

"Se?or Cletus, my prayers that you would arrive in time to say farewell to your father have been answered," he said.

"I am here, Antonio," he said "Would you offer General Ramirez and the other gentlemen something to drink—coffee, whiskey, whatever—while I change? My luggage is here?"

"You have been unpacked, Se?or Cletus," Antonio said.

"Where did you put me?" Clete asked.

"In the master suite, of course, Se?or Cletus," Antonio said. "Should I show you the way?"

"I know where it is," Clete said. "Please take care of my guests." He turned to General Ramirez. "I won't be long, mi General."

"Take whatever time you need," Ramirez said.

As Clete crossed the marble-floored foyer and went up to the second floor on the left branch of the curving double stairway, he remembered two descriptions of the mansion. His father had told him that his mother referred to the place as "The Museum" and refused to live there. And his father himself had described it as "my money sewer on Avenida Coronel Diaz."

It was like a museum, both in its dimensions and in the plethora of artwork, huge oil paintings and statuary that covered the walls and open spaces. The first time he saw the building, and the artwork, he had the somewhat irreverent thought that two subjects seemed to capture the fascination of Argentine artists and sculptors: the prairie—here called La Pampa —at dusk, during a rainstorm; and women dressed in what looked like wet sheets that generally left exposed at least one large and well-formed breast.

He really wished that Antonio had put him in one of the guest rooms— there were certainly enough of them—instead of in his father's suite. Its four rooms spread across the rear of the house, with windows opening on a formal, English-style garden surrounded by a wall.

When he reached the double doors to his father's suite, he stopped, his hand actually raised to knock.

"That's no longer necessary, is it?" he asked aloud, and pushed down on the bronze lever that opened the right door.

Inside was a living room, one of the few places in the house that seem to have been furnished with anyone's comfort in mind. To the right was a book-lined office. Straight ahead was the bedroom, with a dressing room to one side and a bath to the other. The furniture everywhere was heavy, and the couches and armchairs seemed to him to be constructed lower to the floor than such furniture in the States.

He took off his jacket and tossed it on the bed, then went into the dressing room.

"I wonder where they hid my stuff?" he asked aloud.

He slid open the first of a line of doors along the right side of the dressing room.

"I'll be damned," he said.

The closet held the three suits and three sports coats he had brought with him, and on separate hangers half a dozen pair of trousers. He took from a hanger a brand-new, nearly black, faintly pin-striped suit—one he had dubbed, when he bought it in Washington, "my diplomat's uniform"—carried it back into the bedroom, and tossed it on the bed.

It got through to him that his entire clothing wardrobe looked very lonely in the large closet.

He went back into the dressing room and slid open the adjacent door. That closet was absolutely empty, and so was the one next to it. On the other side of the room, a closet with shelves for God Only Knows how many shirts now held only the dozen new shirts he had purchased—like two of the suits—for his diplomatic assignment, along with half a dozen other shirts. The closet next to that held the three sweaters he had brought with him—on shelves that would accommodate fifty. The final closet held his dozen sets of shorts and skivvy shirts, plus his shoes and boots—including his favorite, battered, ancient pair of cowboy boots, which someone had already made a determined, if unsuccessful, effort to shine—and his half-dozen neckties and two pairs of suspenders.

The last time he saw the dressing room, the closets were crowded with his father's clothing. El Coronel Frade was something of a clothes horse. Now it was all gone. He wondered where.

He picked out a necktie and linen, and suspenders—the salesman in Washington had insisted on calling them "braces"—and after a moment's indecision, his new pair of "dress boots," and carried everything into the bedroom, where he tossed it all on the bed.

The enormous bathroom, marble-floored and -walled, as large as Clete's bedroom in the old man's house on St. Charles Avenue, was even worse. His battered Gillette safety razor, comb, brush, toothbrush, toothpaste, and half-empty bottle of Mennen's After Shave lotion were laid out to the left of the washbasin, a depression two feet across in a twenty-foot slab of marble. On the other side of the basin was arrayed an obviously new sterling silver version of the Gillette in a silver case, and in the event that wasn't acceptable, a set of seven ivory-handled straight razors. There was a shaving brush and a wooden tub of English shaving soap; two different kinds of bath soap; an array of bottles of what he presumed were after shave and cologne; a matched set of hairbrushes and a tortoiseshell comb that looked large and sturdy enough to do a horse's mane.

A thick terry-cloth bathrobe was laid out farther down the marble slab. And a chrome stand near the glass door to the shower held four towels and a washcloth.

Clete stripped, picked up one of the bars of soap and his Gillette, and opened the shower door. He showered quickly and shaved, using the bath soap, a time-saving device he had learned in his first year at Texas AandM, where cadets were allotted about five minutes each morning for their personal toilette.

He came out of the shower and took a towel—a warm towel; the chrome stand was obviously a heating device—and dried himself. He looked at the terry-cloth robe, decided there was no time for that luxury, and walked naked out of the bath into the living room to get his underwear.

A uniformed maid was standing there, a young woman with her hair drawn back severely under a lace cap, who had pushed a serving tray into the room. When she saw him, she flushed and modestly averted her eyes.

"Sorry," Clete said, grossly embarrassed, and retreated into the bathroom for the terry-cloth robe.

Modestly covered, he returned to the bedroom.

"Antonio was not sure if you would prefer coffee, tea, or whiskey, Se?or Frade," the maid said, indicating the cart, which held silver coffee and tea pitchers, three bottles, and all the accessories.

"Coffee, please, and that will be all," Clete said, went to the bed for his underwear, and again retreated to the bathroom.

The maid was gone when he came out again. Coffee had been poured and was waiting for him on a small round table. He took a sip. grimaced at its strength, put the cup down, and went to the tray.

He picked up a bottle of Jack Daniel's, uncorked it, and took a healthy swallow from the neck.

Then he dressed quickly, returning a final time to the bathroom to tie the necktie and brush his hair.

The uniform caps of General Ramirez and the other officers were lined up in a row on a table in the foyer. He found the officers themselves sitting comfortably in the couches and armchairs of the downstairs reception room. They all rose to their feet when he walked in.

[TWO]

Ministry of Defense

Edificio Libertador

Avenida Paseo Colon

Buenos Aires

1845 9 April 1943

There were both ceremonial and functioning guards on the wide steps leading up to the entrance of the fifteen-story Edificio Libertador. The ceremonial troops were in a uniform (*White breeches, dark-blue coats, high black leather boots, and what resembles a silk top hat. The hat dates back even earlier, to 1806. when a volunteer force was recruited and led by thirty-year-old General Juan Mart?n Pueyrred?n to resist a British attempt to occupy Buenos Aires. Pueyrred?n seized a British merchantman in the harbor. Its cargo included top hats, which Pueyrred?n issued to his troops—primarily gauchos from the Pampas—as the only item of uniform he had available. Four years later, together with generals Manuel Belgrano and Jose de San Mart?n (revered as El Libertador), he led the war for liberation from Spain, which concluded with the July 19. 1816. Proclamation of the Congress of Tucum?n, declaring the United Provinces of La Plata to be free of Spain and to be the Argentine Republic.) that dated back to Argentina's War of Independence (1810-16). They were armed with rifles and sabers of the period and stood at rigid attention, seeing nothing, like the guards at Buckingham Palace. A dozen other soldiers, in present-day German-style uniforms and steel helmets and armed with Mauser rifles, were shepherding a long line of people into the building.

The Marine officer in Clete Howell Frade—remembering that the soldiers who march perpetually guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery allow absolutely nothing, not even the President of the United States, to disturb their ritual—wondered if the ceremonial guards here would salute the Minister of War. They did not, but the sergeant in charge of the other detail scurried quickly both to salute Ramirez and to quickly open a door for them.

Clete followed Ramirez across the lobby of the building to a corridor to the right. The line of people he had seen outside was obviously headed in the same direction.

To my father's casket? Why does that bother me?

As Clete followed Ramirez past it, the shuffling line moved slowly through a corridor. The corridor was lined with foreign flags, their flagstaff's resting in heavy bronze, vaselike holders. The Stars and Stripes looked strange somehow, as just one flag among many. He spotted the German flag, with its swastika, and the Japanese, with its red-ball "rising sun," similarly lost among other flags and flags he could not remember seeing before. He smiled, remembering that the Air Group parachute riggers on Guadalcanal had made a very nice buck, indeed, turning out on their sewing machines Genuine Japanese Battle Flags for sale to gullible replacements and dogfaces.

They probably use this place for diplomatic receptions,he decided. If you show up, they haul your flag out of the corridor to make you feel welcome.

The corridor ended at another enormous set of double doors, also guarded by soldiers in ordinary uniforms. Only one of them was open, and as they approached, a sergeant stopped the shuffling line and motioned for Ramirez, Clete, and the officers trailing behind them to enter the room. In turn, Ramirez signaled for Clete to precede him.

He found himself in an enormous, marble-floored and marble-walled room that reminded him of photographs he had seen of Hitler's Reichs chancellery in Berlin. He started to walk across the room to the end of the shuffling line of people, but Ramirez stopped him with a gentle tug at his sleeve.

It took several minutes for the last people in the shuffling line to pass by the casket at the far end of the room, but finally Clete could see it. It was on what looked like a table draped in black velvet. Hanging from the ceiling above— which must be fifty, sixty feet high, at least, Clete thought—was a huge Argentine flag three times as wide as the casket was long.

That has that golden-face-in-a-sunburst centered on the blue-white-blue stripes,Clete thought, which makes it a military flag. The ordinary flag has just the stripes.

Behind the casket were massed twenty or thirty normal-size Argentine military flags in holders placed so close together that the flags formed a blue and white mass.

At each corner of the casket, facing outward, head bent, his hands resting near the muzzle of a butt-on-the-floor Mauser cavalry carbine, stood a trooper of the Husares de Pueyrred?n, in full dress uniform. ( The dress uniform of the Husares de Pueyrred?n—Pampas horsemen turned cavalrymen—features a bearskin hat and a many-buttoned tunic bedecked with ornate embroidery clearly patterned after that of the Royal and Imperial Hungarian Hussars of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.)

Behind the casket was a Capitan of Husares, head bent, his hands resting on his unsheathed saber.

Ramirez touched Clete's arm, a signal that he was supposed to approach the casket. He walked alone, uncomfortably, down the one hundred feet or so toward it. When he was halfway there, he heard a faint order being given, and was surprised to see the troopers and the officers, in slow motion, raise their heads and then bring their weapons to Present Arms, the troopers with their carbines held at arm's length in front of them, the Capitan with his saber also held upright at arm's length.

He remembered his father, who'd had more than a couple of drinks at the time, telling him that he was not at all surprised that he had "done well" in the Corps, since the blood of Pueyrred?n—of whom Clete had never heard before that moment—"coursed through his veins."

That salute is as much for me, as the great-great-grandson, or whatever the hell I am, of Pueyrred?n, as it is for my father.

He felt his throat tighten, and his eyes watered.

For Christ's sake, control yourself. You 're a Marine officer, and Marine officers don't weep!

He reached the closed, beautifully carved solid cedar casket. An Argentine flag was draped over the lower half of it. His father's high-crowned, gold-encrusted uniform cap and a blue velvet pillow covered with medals rested on the upper portion.

Where the hell did you get all those medals, Dad? Argentina's never been in a war. So far as I know, you never heard a shot fired in anger.

Except one, of course. El Coronel-Medico Orrico said death came instantaneously.

He dropped to his knees at the prie-dieu.

I don't want to think of you inside that casket, Dad. I've seen what happens to people when they take a load of 00-buckshot in the face.

I 'm sorry my coming here got you killed.

I'm sorry I spent most of my life thinking you were an unmitigated sonofabitch.

I feel sorry as hell for myself because I will never get to know you better.

I really hope that Enrico was right, and that you're with the angels and my mother in heaven.

And I swear to God, Dad, I'll get the sonsofbitches who did this to you.

He rose to his feet. As he did, he heard the Husares Capitan murmur another order. He looked at him. The Capitan was starting the slow-motion routine of changing from Present Arms to whatever the hell they call that head-bowed, hands-on-weapon position.

Clete snapped his right hand to his temple in a crisp salute. There was surprise and maybe displeasure in the Capitan's eyes.

Well, fuck you, Capitan. I'm an officer, you're an officer, and my father was an officer. If I want to salute, I goddamn well will salute.

He held the salute until the Capitan had rested his hands on his saber again and started to incline his head. Then he made a precise left-face movement and marched away from the casket.

The Capitan who had come aboard the seaplane, now wearing a Husares full dress uniform, and who Clete decided was probably a couple of years older than he was, stood by a door at the side of the room. He motioned to Clete, and Clete went through the door and found himself in a small room furnished with heavy, leather-upholstered furniture.

"May I offer you a small refreshment, Mayor Frade?" the Capitan asked. Sure. Why the hell not? A couple of canap?s, how about a cucumber sandwich and a deviled egg ?

The Capitan held a bottle of Johnny Walker scotch in one hand and a bottle of Martel cognac in the other.

"The cognac, por favor, Capitan," Clete said.

The snifter he was handed a moment later was half full of liquid. He had just taken a healthy swallow and was beginning to feel the warmth spread through his body when generals Ramirez and Rawson came into the room. Ramirez took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his eyes.

"A soldier is not supposed to show emotion," Ramirez said. "But when you saluted . . ."

Well, at least he didn't disapprove. That makes me feel better.Ramirez pointed a finger at Clete's snifter, as a signal to the Capitan to get him one.

"What we will do, with your permission, Se?or Frade," Ramirez said, "is wait for the other officers to join us. Then, if you think it is appropriate, we will raise our glasses a final time in the presence of your father." "I think he would like that, mi General."

"And then I will turn you over to Capitan Lauffer, who is General Rawson's aide-de-camp," Ramirez said, inclining his head toward the Husares Capitan. "He will be with you until after the interment tomorrow. If there is anything you need that the Capitan cannot provide, please get in touch with me." "You're very kind, mi General."

"Not at all. Your father was a lifelong friend, and I can't tell you how sorry I am, how ashamed, that this terrible thing happened to him."

The small room gradually filled with the officers who had been following them around since Clete had gotten off the plane. When Capitan Lauffer had provided each of them a brandy snifter, Ramirez raised his own glass high.

"Gentlemen, I give you our late comrade-in-arms, friend, and distinguished Argentinian, el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade."

They all raised their glasses and drained them—surprising Clete, who thought they would take a small ceremonial sip. Then, apparently in order of rank, with Ramirez doing so first, they each shook Clete's hand, expressed their condolences a final time, and left the room.

"Capitan, what did you do wrong?" Clete asked Lauffer. "You seem to be stuck with me."

"It is my privilege, Se?or. I served under your father."

"Well, I think you can go home after you take me back to the house. All I'm going to do, frankly, is have another stiff drink and go to bed."

Capitan Lauffer looked uncomfortable.

"I don't think that's what you had in mind, is it?" Clete said.

"I thought perhaps you might wish to call on your aunt and uncle, Se?or."

Christ, I forgot all about them!

"La Se?ora de Duarte left here only minutes before you arrived," Lauffer said. "She asked me to tell you that she waited as long as she could, but she had an appointment with Monsignor Kelly, some final points about the Mass and interment tomorrow."

"Thank you," Clete said. "The embarrassing truth is I completely forgot about my aunt and uncle."

"Under the circumstances . . ." Lauffer said.

"And so, if you would be so kind, I would appreciate a ride over to the Avenue Alvear."

"My car is out in back," Lauffer said. "It will save you passing through the crowd in front."

I also forget Dorotea. Jesus Christ!And Tony and Dave Ettinger. And Peter. I really want to see him. And with Capitan Lauffer hanging around, how am I going to be able to?

And— Jesus H. Christ!— Claudia! She wasn't married to him, but if anybody feels worse about my father than I do, it's Claudia, and I didn't even think of her until just now.

[THREE]

Alvear Palace Hotel

Avenida Alvear

Buenos Aires

1930 9 April 1943

Anton von Gradny-Sawz, First Secretary of the Embassy of the German Reich to the Republic of Argentina, was wearing his heavily gold-encrusted diplomatic uniform when the top-hatted doorman pulled open the door of the Embassy's Mercedes sedan in the arcade of the hotel.

Gradny-Sawz was more than a little annoyed that he had learned only an hour before that the "distinguished personage" who had arrived on the Lufthansa Condor was Standartenf?hrer Josef Goltz. It was another instance of Ambassador von Lutzenberger not electing to tell him information he believed he was entitled to know. In this instance, it was particularly galling because he and Josef Goltz were not only old friends but had worked together in the uniting of Germanic Austria with the Reich.

He could only hope that his old friend would believe him when he said he would have been at the airport to greet him when he arrived, and to take him into his home, if only he had known he was coming.

Early on, when he was a relatively junior officer in the Foreign Ministry of the Austrian Republic, Gradny-Sawz decided that Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists were the one hope of the Deutsche Volk, and that Austria should "return" to the German fatherland.

After he had made this judgment, a visiting German officer, a Sturmbannf?hrer (SS Major) by the name of Josef Goltz, somewhat delicately brought up the subject of Austria becoming part of the Reich, and of the way this might be accomplished. Gradny-Sawz understood that this was that opportunity which comes but once in one's lifetime, and took the chance. He assured Goltz that he was in complete agreement with Adolf Hitler's plans for the German people and would do whatever he could to bring Austria into the Thousand Year Reich as soon as possible.

He had bet on the right horse, he liked to somewhat smugly think. In 1938, with not a little assistance from Anton Gradny-Sawz, the Austrian Republic fell in an almost bloodless coup d’?tat, the Wehrmacht marched on Vienna, and Austria became Ostmark.

Grateful for his services, the German Foreign Ministry "absorbed" Gradny-Sawz—with a promotion and decoration "for services rendered." In January 1940, he was assigned to the Embassy in Rome as Third Secretary for Commercial Affairs. In 1941, he was assigned to Buenos Aires as First Secretary.

In Buenos Aires, he saw it as his mission to do whatever he could to see that Argentina declared war on the Allies, and if that proved impossible, that Argentine neutrality be tilted as much as possible to the advantage of Germany.

"Wait here," he ordered his driver. "I will be back directly."

The doorman was displeased. There was room for only three or four cars under the hotel arcade. Because Gradny-Sawz's Mercedes blocked one of the spaces, the traffic flow would be impeded. But there was nothing he could do. The Mercedes carried the CD insignia and Corps Diplomatique license plates. Diplomatic status gave one the privilege of parking wherever one elected to park.

Gradny-Sawz marched into the lobby and stopped by the desk to inquire as to Standartenf?hrer Goltz's room number. When he had it, he ordered, in not very good Spanish, "Be so good as to inform the Standartenf?hrer that I am on my way up. I am First Secretary Gradny-Sawz of the German Embassy."

"I know who you are, Se?or Gradny-Sawz," the desk clerk said in a tone that bordered on the insulting.

Gradny-Sawz climbed the second flight of stairs and entered the elevator.

When Gradny-Sawz knocked, Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein opened the door to Goltz's suite.

Gradny-Sawz was relieved to see that von Wachtstein was in full dress uniform, complete to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross hanging around his neck. He was sometimes negligent about this. Gradny-Sawz was willing to grant him the benefit of every doubt—he was, after all, a fellow nobleman—but sometimes he seemed unable to grasp that he was now assigned to diplomatic duties, with concomitant responsibilities vis-a-vis dress and other matters of protocol.

"I hope you have been taking very good care of Standartenf?hrer Goltz, Hans-Peter," Gradny-Sawz said.

"I have been doing my best," Peter said. "I thought we would see you at the Residence."

Goltz came out of the sitting room, curious to see who was at the door. Anton Gradny-Sawz raised his right arm in the Nazi salute.

"Heil Hitler!" Gradny-Sawz barked.

"Anton, my old friend!" Standartenf?hrer Goltz cried happily, went to him, and embraced him. "You're just in time. Major von Wachtstein and I just opened a bottle."

"Josef," Gradny-Sawz said, taking Goltz's arm as they walked into the sitting room, "if you had not become so important, the Ambassador would have told me it was you arriving, and I would have been at the airport with a bottle of champagne, to take you to my house."

"I know you would have," Goltz said. "But security . . ."

"Well, at least we'll move you out of here tonight," Gradny-Sawz said. "I'll have von Wachtstein take care of it."

"Will it wait until tomorrow? I'm just a little worn out."

"Moving may wait, but what we might find when we get there tonight, Josef, might not be there tomorrow."

Goltz took his meaning.

"I thought you might be getting too old for that sort of thing, Anton."

"God, I hope not!"

"In that case, I think I just may have to impose on the already abused Freiherr von Wachtstein."

"Sir?" Peter asked, coming into the room and hearing his name.

"Hans-Peter," Gradny-Sawz ordered, "would you see that the Standartenf?hrer's luggage is packed and moved to my home?"

"Yes. Sir."

"The Standartenf?hrer and I are old and dear friends," Gradny-Sawz said. "We can't have him staying in a hotel."

"Yes, Sir."

"And be so good as to call my houseman and tell him we'll be there directly after paying our respects at the Edificio Libertador, and to make sure everything is in order when we arrive."

"Yes, Sir," Peter said. "I was just about to introduce the Standartenf?hrer to the very fine native champagne."

"Well, by all means, continue," Gradny-Sawz said. "It's quite good. It's not a good German Sekt, of course, but every bit as good as any French I've ever had."

Peter poured the champagne.

"Welcome to Argentina, Josef!" Gradny-Sawz said, touching his glass to Goltz's, and then, after a moment, to von Wachtstein's.

"Hear, hear," von Wachtstein said.

"Nice," Goltz said, tasting the champagne.

"Their wine is nice, and so is their beer," von Wachtstein said. "And their beef! Magnificent!"

"And so, according to Oberst Per?n, are the women?" Goltz said. "Or were you just being diplomatic, von Wachtstein?"

"No, Herr Standartenf?hrer, I was not being diplomatic. Their women are magnificent."

"Aryan?"

"I never thought about that before," von Wachtstein said. "I'm not sure where the Spaniards and the Italians fit in as Aryans. The majority here are Spanish or Italian. Some Germans, some English, even some Slavs. Poles, for example."

"If I were you, von Wachtstein, I don't think that I would take some Spanish or Italian beauty home to Poppa in Pomerania."

Von Wachtstein laughed.

"I'm not ready, Herr Standartenf?hrer, to take some Berlin blonde of impeccable Aryan background home to my father."

"Nor would I if I were in your shoes. Enjoy life while you can. Before you know it, you'll be as old as Anton here."

Anton Gradny-Sawz's smile was strained.

"I think we had better leave," he said. "It's time."

"I'll see that the Standartenf?hrer's things are packed, and take them to your residence, and then come to the Residence."

"You're a good man, von Wachtstein," Goltz said, smiling at von Wachtstein and touching his arm.

He went to the mirror by the door, put on his black brimmed cap with the death's-head insignia, and adjusted it twice before he was satisfied.

Peter closed the suite door after them, helped himself to another glass of champagne, and waited for the maid's knock. When she arrived, he showed her what he wanted done. He then told her he had business in the lobby and would wait for the luggage in the lobby bar, and left the room.

When he got on the elevator he told the operator to take him to the roof garden. Once there, he stood in the line waiting before the maitre d'hotel's table. And when he reached the head of the line, he replied to the maitre d's surprised look at seeing him both in uniform and alone by announcing he had to make a quick telephone call.

The maitre d' picked up the telephone. Peter gave him a number, which the maitre d' repeated, then handed the receiver to Peter.

"This is the Duarte residence," a male voice announced.

"Se?orita Alicia, please," he said. "Se?or Condor is calling."

"I will see if the lady is at home, Se?or," the butler said.

He didn't know if there were listening devices on the Duarte line; there might be. There were almost certainly listening devices on the line in Goltz's hotel room. But even if someone was listening to the Duarte line, no suspicions would be aroused, unless Alicia, in her naivet?, said something she should not. He had arrived in Buenos Aires speaking fluent Spanish. Since then he had worked very hard to acquire the Porteno (Buenos Aires Native) accent and idiom. Condor—which they had chosen as a nom d'amour from the Argentine national bird, and because he was a pilot—was a fairly common name. It was unlikely that any telephone monitor would find one more call from a young man to Se?orita Alicia Carzino-Cormano suspicious, or that Se?or Condor was a German officer.

"Hola?"

Every time he heard her soft, somehow hesitant voice, his heart jumped.

"How are you?"

"How do you think I am? Where are you?"

"In the roof garden of the Alvear."

"I mean, really?"

"I mean, really."

"I thought you said you had to go to work."

"I am working. I am carrying the luggage of a distinguished personage. Later, I'm part of the official party which will go to the Edificio Libertador to pay our respects to el Coronel Frade. . . ."

"Oh, Peter!"

"I should be free after that. About ten, I think."

"Well, I can't leave here, obviously, and you can't come here."

"The Duartes have told me I am always welcome," he teased.

"Cletus is here," Alicia said.

"Cletus is there?"

I've got to see him. How the hell am I going to arrange that?

That was the last thing in the world he expected to hear.

"Not here. Right now, no one seems to know where he is. But he's in Buenos Aires. He'll probably, certainly, come here sooner or later. In addition to everything else, Mother is frantic."

"How do you know he's in Buenos Aires?"

"Someone called Beatrice Duarte and said that she saw him at the casket... at Edificio Libertador. He was with General Ramirez."

Well, if he's with Ramirez, everybody in Buenos Aires will know he's back.

"If you see him before I do, would you tell him to get in touch with me, please?"

"Of course," Alicia said, then: "Carino,( *Porteiio: Sweetheart, darling, or equivalent.) he's not in danger, is he?"

"I don't think so."

Not as long as he's with Ramirez, anyway. And maybe not for a day or two, until Gr?ner has time to set up another assassination.

"Peter, I'm worried for him."

You and me both, Schatzie.(Berlinerische: Sweetheart, darling, or equivalent.)

"He'll be all right," von Wachtstein said.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said.

"I love you."

"Yes, of course, I feel the same way."

"Somebody's there?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Isabela?"

"Yes."

Isabela was the elder of the two daughters of Se?ora Claudia Carzino-Cormano. Clete referred to her as "El Bitcho," Peter remembered with a smile. The feeling was mutual. Isabela loathed Clete, and she was not very fond of Peter either, which he suspected was because he had shown no interest in her from the moment he had laid eyes on Alicia.

"Stick your finger in her eye," Peter said.

"That's a very good idea, if somewhat impractical. Thank you for calling. Goodbye."

He hung up and looked up and saw the maitre d' examining his extended index finger. Then he mimed sticking it in his eye.

"Mother or sister?" the maitre d' inquired.

"The sister."

"I will pray for you. Sisters are more dangerous than mothers."

"Thank you," Peter said. He slipped the maitre d'hotel a bill and got back on the elevator. He rode to the main floor, took a seat in the lobby bar, ordered a beer, and waited for either the maid or a bellman to bring him Standartenf?hrer Goltz's luggage.

[FOUR]

1420 Avenida Alvear

Buenos Aires, Argentina

2105 9 April 1943

The Mercedes pulled up to the heavy gate in the twelve-foot-tall wrought-iron fence. As it did so, a police sergeant, one of three policemen standing on the sidewalk before the mansion, put out his hand and ordered it to stop.

An officer in the uniform of the Husares de Pueyrred?n was not an ordinary citizen, but the sergeant's orders had been explicit. He was to ensure that no one intruded on the privacy of the mourning Duarte family.

"Are you expected, mi Capitan?" he asked politely when Lauffer rolled down the window.

"We are expected," Lauffer replied, and added: "This is Se?or Frade."

"Thank you, Sir," the sergeant said, saluted, and signaled for one of his men to open the gate.

The door to the mansion was opened by a maid; but a butler, a black mourning band on his arm, appeared the next moment.

"Se?or Frade," Lauffer announced. "To see Se?or Duarte."

"I will announce you," the butler said. "May I show you into the reception ( The day-to-day Spanish of middle- and upper-class Argentines is heavily laden with British terms. Living rooms are called "the living"; dining rooms, "the dining"; reception rooms, "the reception," et cetera.) ?" He met Clete's eyes. "You have my most sincere condolences on the loss of your father, Se?or Frade."

"Thank you," Clete said.

Clete and Lauffer followed the butler across the foyer to a double door. He opened the door and bowed them through it, then closed the door after them and began to climb the stairs to the second floor.

"Cletus!" a svelte woman in her fifties cried, rising out of one of the armchairs and walking quickly to him. She was dressed in a black dress with a rope of pearls its only ornamentation. Her luxuriant black, gray-flecked hair was parted in the middle and done up in a bun at the neck.

Se?ora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano kissed Clete on the cheek.

"I'm not entirely sure I'm glad to see you," she said, and then changed her mind. "Yes, I am. Oh, Cletus!"

She wrapped her arms around him and rested her face on his chest.

His hand on her back could feel her stifling a sob, then she got control of herself.

"What are we going to do without him, Cletus?" she asked.

He shrugged and made a helpless gesture with his hands.

Claudia then acknowledged the presence of Capitan Lauffer.

"Good evening," she said. "Despite the circumstances, it is good to see you."

"It is always a pleasure to see you, Se?ora," Lauffer said.

When Claudia stepped away from Clete, she was replaced by Alicia, who was dressed and made up almost identically to her mother. The only difference Clete could see was that instead of pearls she wore a golden cross on a chain around her neck.

"Oh, Clete, I'm so sorry," she said.

She kissed Clete somewhat wetly on the cheek and then, while hugging him, whispered, "Peter wants you to call him."

"OK," he said very softly, so that her sister, Isabela, who was approaching, could not hear him.

Isabela, two years older than Alicia, wore her black hair piled on top of her head. A diamond-and-emerald brooch was pinned to her black dress. She was tall, lithe, and finely featured. Isabela was even better looking than Alicia, Clete often thought, but unfortunately knew it.

She did not embrace Clete, and her kiss, he thought, was the sort of kiss a bitch like Isabela would give to an alligator when good manners required her to go through the motion.

"Cletus," she said.

"Isabela," he replied.

"Would you like something to eat? Drink?" Claudia asked.

"Yes, I would," he said. "To drink."

"I'll ring," Alicia said.

"There's whiskey here," Claudia said. "In that cabinet. Whiskey, Clete? Capitan?"

"Please," Clete said.

Claudia went to a huge cabinet, which opened to reveal a complete bar.

"You'll have to ring," Claudia said. "There's no ice."

"Straight's fine," Clete said.

"Maybe for you," Claudia said. "Send for ice, Alicia." She looked at Clete. "I don't think I've ever seen you looking so elegant."

"I bought this to be my diplomat's uniform," he said.

"You will stay now? At your embassy, I mean?"

"I declined the appointment. But I will stay."

"Meaning what, Cletus?"

"I entered Argentina on my Argentine passport," he said. "I have, in a sense, come home."

"Oh, my!" Claudia said.

"Your Argentine passport?" Isabela said. "But you're a norteamericano."

"Isabela, I was born here," Clete said. "I'm as entitled to an Argentine passport as you are."

"I never heard of such a thing!" Isabela snorted.

"I'm sure there's a lot of things you haven't heard about," Clete said.

"Don't you two start!" Claudia said. "I couldn't stand that."

"Sorry," Clete said.

"Your father is in the Edificio Libertador," Claudia said.

"We just came from there."

"I'm sure he would like it, but I found it rather macabre."

"It was impressive," Clete said. "But, yeah, I think el Coronel would like it."

A maid appeared with a bucket of ice.

Too soon to be in response to Alicia's sending for someone,Clete decided. Somebody decided we would need a drink.

"Your aunt Beatrice was over there all day. She came back not an hour ago. We are to have a small—family, I suppose—dinner."

"How is she?" Clete asked.

"She's not here," Claudia said. "She's in the arms of Jesus and/or morphia."

"Mother!" Alicia said, shocked.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me."

There was a barely audible tap on the corridor door, and when Humberto Valdez Duarte turned his head to it, he saw the door open just wide enough to show his butler's face, his eyebrows asking permission to enter.

Duarte, a tall, slender man of forty-seven, who wore his thick black hair long at the sides and brushed slickly back, held out his hand, palm outward, and shook his head "no."

He quickly swung his feet off his wife's delicate, pink and pale-blue silk-upholstered chaise longue, on which he had been resting with a cup of coffee, and walked out of the bedroom and through the sitting, to the door.

"Se?or Frade is here, Se?or," the butler said.

"Thank God!" Duarte said softly.

"I put him, and Capitan Lauffer of the Husares, in the reception, with the Carzino-Cormanos."

"Fine. Please offer them whatever they wish, and tell them the Se?ora and I will join them shortly.

The butler nodded, then withdrew his head from the door and closed it softly.

Duarte went back into the bedroom. Beatrice Frade de Duarte was sitting before her vanity in her slip, brushing her long black hair. She smiled at him in the mirror. His wife was six months older than he was, a tall, slim woman with large dark eyes and a dazzling smile.

"What was that, carino?" she asked.

"Cletus is here."

"Oh, good! In time for dinner."

"He has Capitan Lauffer of the Husares with him. What would you like me to do about him?"

"Invite the Capitan to join us, of course. I've always liked him, and you know how fond Jorge was of him."

"Would you like me to go to them now, or wait until you're ready?"

"You go down now, of course, offer my apologies, and tell them I'll be there shortly."

He walked to the vanity, smiled at his wife in the mirror, touched her head, and finally bent over and kissed it. She smiled and put up her hand and caught his.

Then he turned and left the room.

The fact that his wife had developed serious emotional problems did not cause Humberto Valdez Duarte to love her less, he often thought, but rather the opposite. Sometimes—like now—he felt a tenderness for her that was surprising in its intensity ... a desire to wrap her, figuratively and literally, in his arms and to continue to protect her from all unpleasantness.

They had known each other all of their lives, and had married at twenty-one, on Humberto's graduation from the University of Buenos Aires. While everyone agreed that the marriage was a good one, uniting two of Argentina's most prominent families, there were some raised eyebrows at the time—even some whispers—about their tender ages. People of their social position usually married no younger than twenty-five, and often later. Unless, of course, there was a reason.

The whispers died thirteen months after their marriage when Beatrice gave birth to their first—and as it turned out, only—child, Jorge Alejandro.

The first indication of emotional problems came when Beatrice's postpartum depression required the attention of a psychiatrist.

Now that he thought about it, there had been indications of emotional difficulty all along, most often manifested in Beatrice's detachment from reality— her unwillingness to accept the existence of anything unpleasant—coupled with a growing religious fervor. She began to go to mass daily about the time Jorge started school, and developed an unusually close relationship with her confessor, Padre (later Monsignor) Patrick Kelly.

Humberto often wondered what she had to confess. When he went, infrequently, to confession, there was generally some act or thought for which he really needed absolution. Try as he could, however, he could think of nothing Beatrice might want to confess more sinful than possible unkind thoughts about one of her friends, Jorge's teachers, or her brother, Jorge Guillermo Frade. The latter seemed most likely. Having un-Christian thoughts about her brother was very understandable.

During the six months since Jorge Alejandro had been killed, he had confessed the same thing many times.

Jorge Alejandro idolized his uncle from the time he could walk. Children are prone to adore indulgent uncles, especially when the uncles are dashing cavalry officers and superb horsemen, and who delight in making available to nephews the toys—fast cars, highly spirited horses, firearms, airplanes—their parents would just as soon they not have so early in life, or ever.

But neither he nor Beatrice could bring themselves to deny Beatrice's brother the company of his nephew. After Jorge Guillermo Frade lost his wife— and for all practical purposes, their son—he never remarried. And it was clear that he really loved Jorge Alejandro . . . saw him as a substitute for the son he had lost.

In his third year at St. George's School, Jorge Alejandro firmly announced that he had no intention of becoming a banker—with the clear implication that in his view banking was a profession about as masculine as hairdressing and interior decorating. He announced that instead he intended to follow his uncle to the Military Academy and become an officer—after all, he carried the blood of Pueyrred?n in his veins. There was nothing Humberto, who was Managing Director ( In Argentina, as in Europe, the term is equivalent to "President" or "Chief Executive Officer.") of the Anglo-Argentine Bank, could do about it except hope that Jorge Alejandro would find the discipline at Campo de Mayo too much to take.

That hope did not materialize. Like his uncle, Jorge Alejandro was appointed Cadet Coronel during his last year at Campo de Mayo. And like his uncle—by then el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade, commanding the Husares de Pueyrred?n Cavalry Regiment—he was commissioned into the cavalry. Almost certainly because of his uncle's influence, he was "routinely" assigned to the Husares.

All that was well and good, but what el Coronel also did was arrange for Capitan Duarte to be posted to the German Army as an observer. For this Humberto vowed he would never forgive him—now, of course, he was sorry about that. Logic told Humberto that el Coronel would rather die himself than see any harm come to Jorge Alejandro, but the facts were that el Coronel arranged for Jorge Alejandro to go to Germany as an observer, and that he was killed at Stalingrad. The godless Communists shot down an observation aircraft that he was flying, against regulations for a neutral observer.

Beatrice's nervous problems grew worse, naturally, when Jorge went to Europe. And when word of his death reached them, it pushed her over the edge. And so, one of the apartments in their house was turned into what was really a psychiatric facility. It was complete to a hospital bed with restraints, and nurses on duty and doctors on call around the clock. After a time, she came out of it— with Monsignor Kelly reminding her that suicide is a mortal sin, and the doctors keeping her in a chemically induced state of tranquility.

Meanwhile, in what Humberto regarded as a cold and calculated public relations gesture, and Beatrice as an act of great Christian charity and compassion, the Germans returned Jorge's remains from Stalingrad, escorted by a highly decorated Luftwaffe pilot from a very good German family.

Jorge's remains and Major Hans-Peter von Wachtstein of the Luftwaffe arrived in Buenos Aires at almost the same time as another highly decorated aviator. The second dashing young hero was an American Marine. In what Humberto regarded as a cold and calculated diplomatic move, the Americans sent him to Argentina primarily because he was Jorge Guillermo Frade's long-estranged—from infancy—son. It was common gossip—at least before Cletus arrived—that el Coronel was probably going to be the next President of the Argentine Republic, and the norteamericanos were certainly aware of this.

Though Cletus Howell Frade was, of course, his and Beatrice's nephew, Humberto confessed to Padre Welner, a Jesuit—not to Monsignor Kelly, who had already heard too much of his private affairs through Beatrice—that he had selfish and un-Christian thoughts about him, and was afraid he hated him, for no reason except that Cletus was alive and Jorge Alejandro was dead.

Jorge Alejandro was buried in the family tomb in Recoleta Cemetery with much ceremony—including an escort by the Husares de Pueyrred?n and the pinning of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross to the flag covering his casket. In her chemically induced tranquility, Beatrice seemed more interested in the postinterment reception at the house than in the burial of their only child.

The same night, the Germans tried to murder Cletus Frade. The official story was that Cletus came across burglars, but there was no question in Humberto's mind that the same Germans who solemnly honored Jorge Alejandro at the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar in Recoleta Cemetery cold-bloodedly ordered the assassination of his cousin on the same day.

Beatrice accepted the burglar story without question. And later, when her brother died at the hands of "bandits," she was even further removed from reality. She was absolutely incapable of believing that the charming German Ambassador, Graf von Lutzenberger, or the even more charming Baron Gradny-Sawz, his first secretary, were capable of displaying bad manners, much less ordering the assassination of her brother.

In fact, she made a point of personally inviting both of them to the postinterment reception they were holding.

Under the circumstances, Beatrice's dissociation from reality was probably a good thing. Humberto did not want to see her again as she was when word of Jorge Alejandro's death had reached them. It broke his heart.

And there were practical considerations, too. Gradny-Sawz was delighted that Beatrice made von Wachtstein a welcome guest in their home. (The young German airman had remained in Buenos Aires as the Assistant Military Attach? for Air at the German Embassy.) Gradny-Sawz considered himself an aristocrat. Thus he saw this relationship between the aristocratic young officer and the prominent Duarte family—and consequently the Anglo-Argentine Bank— as both natural and of potential use to Germany. At the same time, he didn't have the faintest idea that the real relationship between von Wachtstein and the Anglo-Argentine Bank had absolutely nothing to do with furthering the interests of the Nazis, but the reverse.

When Humberto pushed open the door to the reception, Cletus Frade was sitting on a couch beside Claudia Carzino-Cormano, who was holding his hand. When Cletus saw his uncle, he stood up.

Humberto went to him. Although Cletus had made it quite clear that norteamericanos regarded any gesture between men more intimate than a handshake as damned odd—even between uncle and nephew—he embraced him, kissed both of his cheeks, and then embraced him again.

"Cletus, I am so very sorry."

"Thank you."

"God has seen fit to take my son, and your father," Humberto said. "May they rest in peace. And God, I like to think, has given us each other. I will now regard you as my son, and ask that you think of me as your father."

Oh, shit. He means that. That's bullshit, pure and simple. So why do I feel like crying?

Clete found himself embracing his uncle.

"And how is Aunt Beatrice?" he heard himself asking when they broke apart.

"I have come to believe that God, in his infinite mercy, has chosen to spare Beatrice the pain she would feel under normal circumstances. I think you take my meaning."

Clete nodded.

In other words, what Claudia said was right on the money. She's in the arms of Jesus and drugs, and you know it. You poor bastard.

"Beatrice will join us shortly," Humberto said, then turned to Claudia and her daughters, kissing them each in turn.

"Do you have everything you need?" he asked.

Everybody nodded.

"I think I will have a little taste, myself," Humberto said, and made his way to the cabinet bar. "Beatrice will be along in a minute, and then we can have our dinner."

Chapter Seven

[ONE]

1420 Avenida Alvear

Buenos Aires, Argentina

2145 9 April 1943

Beatrice Frade de Duarte appeared in the library a few minutes after her husband. She was immaculately turned out, and the soul of refined hospitality. And quite obviously mad.

She kissed Clete on the cheek as if she had seen him only a few hours before, gaily kissed the Carzino-Cormano females, complimented them on their dresses and hair, and then called for champagne.

"Champagne increases one's appreciation of food," she complained, "but whiskey simply makes one gluttonous."

Claudia Carzino-Cormano, smiling brightly with a visible effort, squeezed Clete's upper arm painfully.

When the champagne was served, Beatrice toasted, "Good friends. They are always such support at a time like this."

Clete thought Alicia was going to cry.

After Beatrice carefully paired them off—Humberto with Claudia, Capitan Lauffer with Isabela, and Clete with Alicia—they went into the dining. She began the dinner conversation with the announcement: "This is probably the wrong time to say this—Cletus would have to get a special dispensation from the Cardinal Archbishop to waive the year's mourning period—but I always suspected that my late brother hoped that Cletus and Isabela would be struck by Cupid's arrow. I think of you, dear Claudia, as family already. Their marriage would make it official."

"Well, you never know what time will bring," Claudia said quickly, to forestall any reply from either Isabela, who rolled her eyes, or Clete.

Throughout dinner, Beatrice chattered on happily about her idyllic childhood with her brother on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. The highlight of all this was the story of el Coronel's burial casket.

"Poppa somehow came into a stock of cedar," she said, turning her brilliant smile on Capitan Lauffer. "Which, unless I am mistaken, is not grown here. Or if it is, this was of an exceptionally high quality. I have no idea where it came from, to tell you the truth. But, anyway, there it was, in one of the buildings some distance from the big house, and one day Poppa saw it and decided he wanted to be buried in a cedar casket."

"Is that so?" Capitan Lauffer replied politely.

"So he asked one of the foremen to find someone who knew how to make a casket. The foreman came up with a man from one of Poppa's estancias in Corrientes. ... Do you know where Corrientes is, Cletus, dear?"

"No, Ma'am," Cletus confessed.

"It's in the north. It's bounded by Brazil, and Paraguay, and, in a tiny little corner in the south by Uruguay."

"Is it really?"

"You must go there, Cletus, and soon."

"I'd like to."

"You have property there. It was your dead father's, and now, of course, it's yours. It was of course Poppa's. Poppa was your grandfather, but you never knew him. He was taken into heaven before you were born. Your father and I inherited from Poppa, of course, but when I married your Uncle Humberto, your father bought out my share."

"Is that so?"

"As I recall, the property in Corrientes was rather extensive. Five or six estancias and something else, some kind of a business. . . ."

"Threeestancias, my darling," Humberto said with a banker's certainty. "The tea plantation, and the refrigerico"—a slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant.

"Yes, I knew it was something like that. Anyway, long before we were there, the Jesuit fathers were there, bringing the Indians to the blessed Jesus. You can still see the ruins of what they built. You really must see those ruins, Cletus, it would be very educational for you. Anyway, the Jesuits—this was hundreds and hundreds of years ago—taught the Indians whose souls they had saved crafts, among them wood carving."

"Is that so?"

"And that wood-carving skill has stayed with the people after all these years, even though there are hardly any Indians at all left. Long after the Jesuits were expelled from Argentina. Can you believe that?"

"It's hard to believe, Aunt Beatrice."

"But it's true. You can get the most beautiful carved things in Corrientes. Anyway, there was a man on one of the estancias who was a really good wood carver, so Poppa had him sent to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, took him to the place where he had stored the cedar he'd acquired, and told him to make a casket."

"Really?"

"And the man did. And when Poppa was taken into heaven, your father remembered that Poppa was always talking about being laid to rest in his carved cedar casket, so he went looking for the casket Poppa had made. And do you know what he found, Cletus?"

"No, Ma'am."

He drained his wineglass, and Claudia gave him sort of a warning look.

El Coronel got really drunk when they buried cousin Jorge, and she doesn't want a repetition of that from me. And she's right. If this keeps on much longer, I'm going to be either drunk or crazy.

"Casket after casket after casket. A dozen caskets!" Beatrice announced happily. "Maybe more. Maybe fifteen, or sixteen. But at least a dozen. Anyway, so what had happened, you see, is that when the man who carved the casket finished, and no one sent him back to Corrientes, and there was a lot of cedar left over, he made another casket, and when he finished that, another. Isn't that amazing?"

A maid appeared at his side with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. Clete covered his glass with his hand, and got a quick pursing-of-the-lips kiss from Claudia as his reward.

"Absolutely amazing," he said.

"This went on for ... I don't know. Humberto, darling, for how many years did the wood carver make caskets?"

"Several, my darling."

I wonder how in hell he puts up with this, day after day?

"Anyway,"Beatrice went on relentlessly, "finally he ran out of cedar and asked someone, one of the foremen, what he wanted him to do next, and that was the first your father knew about all the caskets this man had made. Whatever happened to the man, Humberto, do you recall?"

"I don't know where he is now, my precious. I know he stayed on at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo for a long time. He did all the carving in La Capilla Nuestra Se?ora de los Milagros."

"Yes, that's right. I'd forgotten. Now, Cletus, I know you've been there. Your father buried Se?ora Pellano from Nuestra Se?ora de los Milagros."

The Chapel of Our Lady of the Miracles, which was equipped with two priests, seemed to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. Clete remembered his father telling him that 1,400 people lived and worked on the estancia, whose 84,205 (more or less) hectares (one of which equals 2.47 acres) surrounded the small city of Pila, in southeast Buenos Aires Province.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Andin one of Poppa's carved cedar caskets. Your father was really fond of Se?ora Pellano, Cletus. Otherwise he would have buried her in an ordinary casket—after all, all she was was a servant—instead of in one of Poppa's carved cedar caskets."

"My father was very fond of Se?ora Pellano, Aunt Beatrice."

"Anyway,all of these caskets just sat there in the building on San Pedro y San Pablo until we needed one for Se?ora Pellano. We couldn't put my Jorge Alejandro in one, you see. I forget why, exactly, but Monsignor Kelly said it wouldn't be a good thing to do, and I never question the Monsignor's judgment, but when Se?ora Pellano was taken into heaven, we used one for her, and now that your father has gone to be with all the angels and your blessed mother, Cletus, we are going to lay him to rest in one. I thought it looked so handsome in the Edificio Libertador. Many people commented on it."

"It is a magnificent casket, Se?ora de Duarte," Capitan Lauffer said politely.

"Well, anyway, it's going to be a long, long time before anyone in this family has to go out and buy a casket," Beatrice said, and then changed the subject: "Capitan Lauffer, did you think to bring a schedule of events with you?"

"I have one in the car, Se?ora."

"Well, after dinner I think we should go over it with Cletus, don't you? To see if he approves?"

"I think that would be a good idea, Se?ora," Lauffer said, looking at Clete, his facial expression indicating that he was sorry but under the circumstances he had had no choice but to agree with her.

The schedule of events turned out to be something like an Operations Order: Viewing of the casket at the Edificio Libertador would cease at 10:30p.m. that night. At 1a.m. the body would be moved to the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar, which was adjacent to Recoleta Cemetery. It would be carried there on an artillery caisson of the Second Regiment of Artillery, and accompanied by a mounted escort of the Husares de Pueyrred?n.

Clete wondered about that, but he quickly saw the logic of it. When they buried Cousin Jorge Alejandro, his casket was moved in the same way the six or seven blocks from his parents' house to the Basilica. Because that happened during the day, it caused a monumental traffic jam. Moving his father's casket from the Edificio Libertador to the Basilica, which was at least two miles away, would be logistically impossible in the daytime, unless closing down the business center of Buenos Aires was acceptable.

The Basilica would be opened to the public from 8:00a.m. until 10:00a.m. for viewing of the casket, and then closed. Seating of official guests would begin at 11:00a.m. Nuns from the Convent of the Sisters of the Holy Cross would provide appropriate choral music from 11:00 until 12:00, when the mass would begin. The mass would be celebrated by the Cardinal Archbishop of Argentina, assisted by three bishops, a monsignor named Kelly, and one lowly priest, Padre Kurt Welner, S.J.

Following the mass, the casket would be carried by officers of the Husares de Pueyrred?n from the Basilica to the Frade tomb for interment.

Following the interment, Se?or and Se?ora Humberto Duarte would receive mourners, by invitation only, at their residence at 1420 Avenida Alvear. Because of a shortage of parking, it was suggested that mourners move by foot to the Duarte home. A limited number of automobiles would be available to accommodate the immediate family, the aged, and the infirm.

"I think, Capitan Lauffer," Beatrice asked thoughtfully, "that it would be appropriate for Cletus to be at Our Lady of Pilar from about nine o'clock until the final viewing is over, don't you?"

Lauffer looked at Clete.

"May I respectfully suggest, Se?ora, that would be Se?or Frade's decision?"

Beatrice looked at Cletus.

"Yes, of course, Aunt Beatrice," Clete said.

"But now, Beatrice, we have to send Cletus to bed," Claudia Carzino-Cormano said firmly. "He must be exhausted."

"I am a little tired," Clete said.

"You poor boy," Beatrice said, kissing Clete's cheek. "Of course you must be, with all you've had to do today."

[TWO]

1728 Avenida Coronel Diaz

Palermo, Buenos Aires

2330 9 April 1943

"I know dinner was very difficult for you, Capitan," Clete said to Lauffer as they sat in his car before the door of what his father had called "the money sewer." "I appreciate your understanding."

"Don't be silly," Lauffer said automatically, then blurted, "I felt more sorry for your uncle than your aunt."

Clete grunted.

"I shouldn't have said that," Lauffer said. "Forgive me."

"I was thinking exactly the same thing," Clete said. "Christ, he must have the patience of a saint."

"He loves her very much," Lauffer said. He put out his hand. "You must be exhausted."

"Yeah."

"I will be here at eight-thirty to take you to the Basilica," he said. "Would that be all right?"

"Fine."

"Or I could be fifteen, twenty minutes late. Delayed in traffic."

Clete smiled at him. "I really appreciate that," he said. "But I think I'd better be there at nine."

"Eight-thirty, then," Lauffer said, and reached across Clete to open the door. "Sleep well."

The moment he stepped out of the car the door to the mansion opened. He saw Antonio, the butler.

The perfectly trained servant,Clete thought. He didn't open the door until he was sure I wanted it open.

"Good evening, Se?or Cletus."

"Good evening, Antonio."

"Is there anything I can get for you, Se?or?"

"No, I don't. . . Yes. I'm not sure I have an un-messed-up shirt for tomorrow. Is there someone . . . ?"

"Your linen has been gone over, Se?or."

"In that case, you can't do anything for me except say 'good night.'"

"Would you like me to have your suit refreshed?"

Clete looked down at the creases in his trousers.

"It looks fine to me."

"I'll have the laundress touch it up," Antonio said. "Your father took great pains with his appearance."

Was that a shot at me, el slobbo? Or was "touching up " the son's suit a last service to el Coronel?

"Thank you," Clete said.

"You have had several telephone calls, Se?or. All from, I believe, the same lady. She did not choose to leave her name."

Well, I know who that is, don't I?

"If she calls back, put her through. Even if I'm asleep."

"Very well, Se?or."

"Good night, Antonio."

"Good night, Se?or."

Clete started up the wide stairway.

He found the bed had been turned down. A pair of pajamas were laid out on it.

What do I do, put them on and toss and turn all night? Or sleep in my skivvy shirt, which will make me appear both ungrateful to the staff and boorish, as well?

He stripped to his underwear, then carried the suit to the sitting and left it on a chair so the laundress could find it. That done, he returned to the bedroom, closing the door after him.

He was brushing his teeth when the telephone rang.

Tinkled,he thought. The telephones here don't ring, they tinkle, as if the bell is powered by a run-down battery.

There was an ornate, French-style telephone on the huge marble sink.

"Hola?"

"Clete?" Dorotea's voice made his heart jump.

"Hi, Princess."

"I've been trying for hours to get you."

"How did you know I was here?"

"Your grandfather called Daddy. Daddy told me."

"How are you?"

"I'm all right," Dorotea said. "Clete, I can't tell you how devastated I am by what happened to your father, how sorry I am for you."

"Thank you."

She seems hesitant about something. Distant.

"I have something to tell you, Clete."

"Tell me."

"Not over the telephone. I want to be looking at you when I tell you."

"Tell me now, and look at me later."

"Damn you! This is very important."

"So what do you want me to do? I don't suppose you can come here. Do you want me to come there?"

"God no! Daddy would have kittens."

"OK. Then what?"

"Where are you going to be first thing in the morning?"

"At nine o'clock, I'll be at the church."

"Our Lady of Pilar?"

"Right."

"Will you be alone?"

"I don't think so, but we can find someplace to talk, if that's what you're asking."

"All right, I'll see you there."

"Fine."

"Cletus, I am so sorry for you."

"I'll be all right."

"I'll see you at nine, or a little after," Dorotea said, and the line went dead.

He put the ornate receiver back in its cradle.

"Clete, my boy," he said aloud, "I think you have just received Part One of a 'Dear John' communication, with Part Two to be delivered in person at zero nine hundred hours. Shit!"

Well, what the hell did I expect? She just turned nineteen years old, for Christ's sake. Before me, she was really the Virgin Princess. I was the first, quote, real man, unquote, in her life. Nineteen-year-old girls routinely fall in love with, quote, older men, unquote, and if the older man is a sonofabitch, as I certainly was, sometimes even let them into their pants.

"Cletus," she will say, "I will always love you. But I have met someone else. He is my age. I didn't want to fall in love with him. It just happened. I can only hope that you can understand. I never wanted to hurt you."

Whereupon, as a gentleman should in such circumstances, I will touch her shoulder in a brotherly way, sincerely announce that of course I understand, wish her and the boyfriend all possible happiness, and tell her I will never forget her either.

Which is true. I'm in love with her— or think I am. I never felt this way about anybody else before— but that does not add up to us living happily ever after in a vine-covered cottage by the side of the road. What I should be is grateful that Juan or Pancho or whatever the fuck the sonofabitch's name is has come into her life, getting me out of it without causing her any pain. Or getting her killed, which would have been a genuine possibility. And if these bastards do succeed in killing me, which is also a genuine possibility, it will be easier on the Princess. I will have been just one in a long line of her ex-boyfriends, not her lover or, Jesus Christ, even worse, her fianc?.

Shit!

He walked out the bath into his bedroom and looked at the bed.

I don't want to get in there. That's not my bed, it's my father's bed, and I don't care if they have gone to great pains to remove everything that was his from his apartment, it's still his apartment and his bed.

And for some reason, I'm not at all sleepy. Probably all the alcohol I didn't have, and all the coffee— strong enough to melt the teeth of a mule— I did.

Tony! I have to see him, and I have to see Ettinger. And Peter. I really want to see Peter. He knows who ordered the assassination of my father, and I think he 'II tell me.

He went to the dressing room and quickly pulled on khaki trousers, a polo shirt, and a tweed jacket. He hadn't gotten as far as taking off his boots, and getting dressed took less than a minute.

When he went through the sitting, his suit was already gone. He went down the wide stairs, then to a corridor under them. Just off that was the stairwell to the basement garage.

Half a dozen cars were in the garage, but none was in the place reserved for his father's beloved Horche.

I wonder where that is? Do the cops have it?

He went to a 1940 Ford station wagon, parked between an ancient, immaculately maintained Rolls Royce sedan and a small Mercedes sedan. The Ford was locked.

"Damn!"

"Se?or?"

He turned to find a middle-aged man in his shirtsleeves.

"May I help you, Se?or?"

"Can you get me the keys to this?" he said, pointing to the Ford. "I would be pleased to conduct the Se?or anywhere he wishes to go," the man said, pointing at the Rolls Royce.

"Just get me the keys to this, please," Clete said.

[THREE]

Avenida Pueyrred?n 1706

Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina

0005 10 April 1943

When Clete drove past Peter's apartment building looking for a place to park, he saw the doorman sitting behind his tiny desk in the lobby, his hands folded on his stomach, sound asleep.

He thought it very likely that the doorman got a weekly envelope from Teniente Coronel Mart?n of the Bureau of Internal Security in exchange for a report on who rode up to Piso 10 and when and how long they stayed.

Or perhaps two envelopes, the second from the Polic?a Federal. Or maybe even three. Peter told me that there are two obscure flunkies at the Embassy who really work for the Military Attach?, who is really, in addition to his other duties, the counterintelligence officer. They're probably keeping an eye on Peter, too.

If I go up to see Peter— or just ask the doorman if he's at home— that means Martin— and probably the Polic?a Federaland Colonel Whatsisname. . . Gr?ner. . . will hear about it. I can't risk that, so what the hell do I do?

Don't try to see Peter tonight, obviously.

Shit.

But then the doorbells caught his eye. The doorbell system was mounted on a marble pillar outside the lobby—Clete had never seen anything like it anywhere but in Buenos Aires. There were buttons for each apartment, and an intercom. You pushed the proper apartment number, identified yourself, and if the person called wanted to let you in, he pushed a button operating the solenoid-controlled lock on the plate-glass door leading into the lobby.

The question is,Clete decided, can Sleepy in the lobby see who's pushing the bells if he wakes up? He looked. He can, if he wakes up. But even if he does, he won't know what button I've pushed. I can at least talk to Peter, if not go up to his apartment. Tell him to call me, or something.

He parked the Ford around the corner and walked back to the apartment building. The doorman was still asleep.

It took three long pushes at button number 10 before there was an annoyed, even angry, "Hola?"

"Clete."

There was just a moment's hesitation.

"Go around the corner, to your right," Peter's metallic-sounding voice said.

Clete turned from the doorbell system on the marble pillar and walked away. The doorman was still asleep. To the right was in the opposite direction from where he had parked the Ford.

He turned on his heel, went to the Ford, and started driving around the block. No pedestrians were on the sidewalk, and so far as he could tell, no one was sitting in any of the automobiles parked along the curb on Avenida Pueyrred?n. On his second pass past the apartment building, he saw Peter walking quickly toward the corner.

He drove by him, flicked his headlights, and pulled to the curb. Peter jumped in the front seat, and Clete drove off.

"See if anyone's following," Peter ordered.

There were no headlights in the rearview mirror.

"Nobody," Clete said. "Where should we go?"

"There's a bar on Libertador that's usually crowded this time of night," Peter said. "Just past the American Ambassador's residence, by the railroad bridge. It's called 'The Horse.'"

"How are you, my friend?" Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein of the Luftwaffe said to Major Cletus Howell Frade of the U.S. Marine Corps.

"How do you think?" Clete replied, raising his glass of Johnny Walker to touch Peter's.

They were sitting at a small table on a balcony overlooking the ground-floor bar and restaurant of The Horse. When they started up the balcony stairs, they got an odd look from the waiter, who could not understand why two young men would go to the nearly deserted balcony when at least a half-dozen attractive, and unattached, women were sitting at the bar.

The two had met the previous December. When Clete first came to Argentina, his father turned the Guest House over to him—"Uncle Willy's House" across from the racetrack on Avenida del Libertador. After a trip to Uruguay, where he had acquired explosives to blow up the Reine de la Mer —never used, as it turned out—Clete returned to the house to find Peter sitting in the sitting room, sipping his fourth glass of cognac as he listened to Beethoven's Third Symphony on the phonograph.

Either because she didn't know that Clete was staying in the house, or because she was so detached from reality that she did not consider that a Luftwaffe officer and a U.S. Marine Corps officer were officially enemies, Beatrice Frade de Duarte had ordered von Wachtstein to be put up in the guest house.

It was then well after midnight, and there was nothing the two young officers could do but declare that a temporary truce existed between them. They sealed the truce with a glass of cognac, and then another. And several more.

And then it became apparent that they really had a great deal in common. Both were fighter pilots, which provided an immediate bond between them. Peter had heard of the exploits of the greatly outnumbered Marine fighter pilots on Guadalcanal, and had an understandable fellow fighter pilot's professional admiration for someone who had been one of them. And Clete had heard of the ferocious valor of German fighter pilots defending Berlin from waves of B-17 bombers and had a fellow fighter pilot's professional admiration for someone who had been one of them.

By the time they staggered off to bed, they were friends.

But this truce ended very early the next morning when an Argentine officer, learning that the two enemies were under the same roof on Libertador, appeared to remove von Wachtstein from the difficult situation before one tried to kill the other.

Later, when von Wachtstein learned that it was Oberst Gainer's intention to "eliminate" Cletus Howell Frade—by then identified as an OSS agent—von Wachtstein, after a painful moral battle with himself, decided he could not stand silently by and watch it happen. He warned Clete that an attempt would be made on his life.

Clete, forewarned, was able to deal with the assassins when they came to the Libertador house. The equation, so far as Clete was concerned, was simple. He owed von Wachtstein his life, and told him so.

Shortly afterward, Peter received from his father the letter in which he told him that he was required by honor to join the small group of German officers who saw it as their duty to kill Adolf Hitler, and that he had done so. From the tone of the letter, it was clear that Generalleutnant von Wachtstein fully expected to lose his life and was prepared for that.

Peter was not surprised. He had by then already smuggled into Argentina the equivalent of half a million dollars in Swiss francs, English pounds, United States dollars, and Swedish kroner. His father had given him this money to safeguard in Argentina until the war was over. When his father did this, he explained that "a friend" in Argentina would not only help him invest the money, but would also receive more money from other sources to be safeguarded.

The friend turned out to be Ambassador Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger. Soon after he was so identified, the Ambassador informed Peter that getting money to Argentina was only the beginning of the problems they faced. Protecting the money and investing it was very risky. All over Argentina there were Nazi sympathizers who would quickly report anything suspicious to Gr?ner and his operatives. In Nazi Germany, illegal foreign financial transactions were considered treason. The penalty for treason was the execution of the traitor, all members of his immediate family, and the confiscation of all lands and property of whatever kind.

Reluctantly, but with no other choice that he could see, Peter went to Clete for assistance. And Clete in turn went to his father, carrying with him Generalleutnant von Wachtstein's letter to Peter. The letter so moved el Coronel Frade that he wept. And he immediately enlisted his brother-in-law, Humberto Valdez Duarte, Managing Director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank, to deal with the secret investment and safekeeping of the money.

"Saying I'm sorry about your father seems pretty damned inadequate, Cletus."

Clete shrugged his understanding.

"Tell me what you know about what happened," he said.

"I didn't know about the details," Peter said. "But I was aware that something like that was going to be attempted. I tried to tell your father that. . . . I'm terribly sorry, Clete."

"Why?"

"I suppose I don't enjoy the complete confidence of Oberst Gr?ner," Peter said. "Oh, you mean why did they . . . ?"

"Kill my father?"

"The order came from Berlin. Both Gr?ner and the Ambassador tried to stop it. Gr?ner for professional reasons—he knew how angry your father's friends would be. Von Lutzenberger? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he happily went along with Gr?ner's objection that it would cause trouble. What I think—and this is only a guess—is that there were several reasons for the assassination. One, they didn't want your father to become President of Argentina. Two, they couldn't let the destruction of the Reine de la Mer go unavenged. You were in America . . . your father was here. What do they call that, 'two birds with one stone'?"

"Christ!"

"Three," Peter went on, "they wanted to punish your father for changing sides, to make the point that traitors can expect to be punished. Four, they wanted to frighten the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, make the point that they have the ability to assassinate anyone who gets in their way."

"But Gr?ner gave the order, right?"

"Gr?ner carried out the order."

"What's the difference?"

Peter shrugged.

"I'm going to get that sonofabitch," Clete said evenly.

"If you could get him, which might not be easy to do . . ."

"I'm going to get that sonofabitch!"

". . . all that will happen is that they will send somebody else in, even before they persona non grata you out of Argentina," Peter said. "As a matter of fact, there's already somebody here."

"Excuse me?"

"I spent most of the day with Standartenf?hrer Josef Goltz."

"What's a Standartenf?hrer?"

"Colonel, in the SS," Peter said. "We had a Lufthansa Condor flight today . . ."

"I saw it. It was making its approach as we came in," Clete said. "Good-looking plane."

". . . and he was on it. I thought it was significant that he left Berlin right after we cabled them about what had happened to your father."

"You think he's the man who ordered—"

"I don't know that," Peter said. "It's possible. He's some sort of a big shot, I know. Just before he came here he was at Wolfsschanze . . ."

"Where?"

"Hitler's headquarters—it means 'Wolf's Lair'—near Rastenburg, in East Prussia. That it even exists is supposed to be secret. And he's Sicherheitsdienst."

"What does that mean?"

"The Sicherheitsdienst—SD—is the secret police, the elite of the SS. Sicherheitsdienst plus Wolfsschanze adds up to two Very Important Nasty People."

"How do you know he was at... what did you call it?"

"Wolfsschanze," Peter supplied. "Because he brought me a letter from my father. My father's stationed at Wolfsschanze. A letter and some major's insignia.

"What's he doing here?"

"I don't know. I know he's meeting with the Ambassador, Gr?ner, and Gradny-Sawz tomorrow morning," Peter said. "And I know he wants to go to Uruguay—Montevideo—as soon as he can. He wants me to fly him there in our Storch, but he doesn't like the idea of going direct, over the Rio de la Plata."

"I know the feeling," Clete said. "Every time I'm out of sight of land, I imagine my engine is making strange noises."

"I didn't like crossing the English Channel," Peter said. "Anyway, I suspect, as anxious as this guy is to get there, he'll tell me to take the over-solid-earth route."

"Why is he so anxious to get to Montevideo?"

Peter shrugged.

"He didn't say," he said, then changed the subject: "Clete, I have a real problem."

"What's that?"

"You remember that letter I got from my father? The one your father translated for you?"

"What about it?"

"Don't bother to tell me I should have burned it," Peter said.

"It's still around?" Peter nodded. "Why, for Christ's sake? If Gr?ner gets his hands on that. . ."

"I won't blame it on your father," Peter said. "But he ... I didn't want to burn it. Your father thought it would be a good thing to have after the war."

"So you kept it."

In your shoes, I would have done the same thing.

"Your father was keeping it for me."

"Where?"

"I don't know for sure. In some safe place. Probably with the records of the investments. And I don't like to think what would happen to a lot of people— Ambassador von Lutzenberger and maybe even your uncle Humberto—if those records fell into the wrong hands."

"Where do you think they are?"

"Did your father have a safe at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo? Or some other place besides the obvious . . . bank safety-deposit boxes, for example?"

"I don't know. Seems likely. But I don't know. I'll ask Claudia."

"I don't think there's a hell of a lot of time."

"I understand," Clete said. "Maybe Enrico knows. I'll ask him, too."

"Be careful, diplomatic immunity or not," Peter said.

"I don't have diplomatic immunity."

"You don't?" Peter asked, visibly surprised. "Alicia told me you were going to be the Assistant Naval Attach?."

"That changed. I came back here on my Argentine passport."

"But you're still OSS?"

"I'm still what?"

"Sorry."

Clete shrugged.

"I was asking as a friend, concerned for your welfare. You understand that, I hope?"

Clete nodded again.

"You can count on them trying to kill you, you know that?" Peter said.

"When I was in fighter school, the instructors kept harping, 'watch your back, watch your back, watch your back.' I didn't know what they were talking about then, but eventually I got pretty good at it."

He looked at his watch. It was quarter to one.

"I'll see Claudia in the morning," he said. "And Enrico. They should have an idea where my father would put something he didn't want anybody else to get at."

"I better go home," Peter said.

"I'll drop you."

"You go, I'll finish my drink, then catch a cab."

"OK."

"This might be a good place to meet, if we have to."

"Sure. What'll we call it, in case anybody is listening, as they probably will be."

"It's The Horse. Let's call it The Fish."

They looked at each other. Clete stood up and put out his hand.

"It's good to see you, amigo," he said. "But do me a favor, will you?"

"Certainly."

"Try to walk like a man when you leave. The waiter is three-quarters convinced that we're a pair of fairies."

"What the hell, we've been up here by ourselves, holding a whispered conversation, doing everything but holding hands, what do you expect him to think?"

[FOUR]

Recoleta Plaza

Buenos Aires, Argentina

0145 10 April 1943

There was no answer when Clete rang the bell of Tony Pelosi's apartment in a run-down building in the heavily Italian La Boca* district.

He's probably out with Maria-Teresa, damn him!

Though Clete thought it was a dump, Tony had selected his apartment primarily because it was close to the Ristorante Napoli. Its proprietor, Se?or Alberghoni, had a daughter named Maria-Teresa. Tony was in love . . . not a very smart thing for someone in Tony's line of work to be, Clete thought.

He drove back through downtown on Avenida del Libertador, then headed for Belgrano, where Ettinger had an apartment on Calle Monroe (Monroe Street). Just before he reached the Avenida 9 de Julio, there was a traffic holdup of some sort. He crept along for a block or two, and the jam cleared. As he passed Avenida 9 de Julio, he looked up and saw the source of the trouble.

*"The Mouth." so called because it is the mouth of the Riachuelo Industrial Canal opening on the river Plate. Shipping tycoon—and second husband of Jacqueline Kennedy—Aristotle Onassis got his start operating a small ferry across the Riachuelo Canal.

What looked like half a squadron of cavalry, each splendidly mounted trooper holding a lance, was moving at a walk. He couldn't see an artillery caisson, but he thought there was only one reason cavalry would be moving through downtown Buenos Aires at this hour. He checked the Hamilton chronograph. It was twenty minutes to two. The schedule of events called for the casket to be moved, starting at one.

He accelerated, drove three blocks farther, and turned left, reaching Avenida Alvear as the lead troopers of the cavalry came into sight. He drove ahead of them to the park that fronts the Recoleta Cemetery and the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar, stopped, and got out.

He stood in the shadow of the Recoleta Cemetery wall and watched the procession arrive. The maneuver had obviously been planned carefully and rehearsed, for it went off like clockwork.

The procession stopped by the front of the church. A half-dozen troopers in the lead of the procession dismounted, and the reins to their mounts were given to the troopers beside them. The dismounted troopers then marched to the head of the procession and held the bits of the horses of the commanding officer and the detachment of eight officers riding immediately behind him. They dismounted and marched to the caisson, where they unstrapped the casket, shouldered it, and marched into the church with it.

Two minutes later, they came back out, remounted, waited for the horse-holders to regain their mounts, and then did a column left at the walk back toward Avenida Alvear.

Clete waited until the last of them had left, then got back in the Ford and returned to Avenida del Libertador.

He wondered if Enrico had been able to get out of the hospital to go to the Edificio Libertador.

He hoped so, but it was too late to do anything about it if there was a hitch in that plan.

I'll make damned sure he's at the funeral tomorrow, if I have to go to the hospital and get him myself.

[FIVE]

As he drove back past The Horse—which he now thought of as The Fish—on Avenida del Libertador, he had a sudden thought:

There's a secret compartment in Uncle Willy's desk. Did my father know about it? Would he hide Peter's father's letters and the records Peter was talking about in there?

It was an uncomfortable thought. He had discovered the secret compartment by accident when he lived in Uncle Willy's house. It held some of Uncle Willy's secrets: a large collection of glass slides showing a number of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen—the ladies were a bit overplump, and the gentlemen were wearing nothing but mustaches and black socks—performing various obscene sexual acts on one another.

On the one hand, the chances that his father even knew about the secret compartment were remote. And even if he did, would he use the secret compartment to conceal important documents? But on the other hand, it might be just the place his father would choose to use, because it was so unlikely. And the secret compartment was certainly large enough.

What the hell, I'm practically right in front of the place. It will only take me a minute to look. And Peter is obviously scared shitless, with reason, that somebody will find his father's letter.

Directly across Libertador from the racetrack, he stopped before the cast-iron gates of a large, turn-of-the-century masonry house. The gates carried both the house number—4730—and the crest of the Frade family. He blew the horn, and thirty seconds after that there was a glow of light as the basement garage door opened. A moment later, without question, a stocky, middle-aged man started to pull the gates inward.

What Clete thought of as "Uncle Willy's house" had been built by his granduncle Guillermo, a bachelor and near-legendary ladies' man. Uncle Willy's apartment on the top floor was actually one very large room stretching the full width and length of the building.

It was designed with two objects in mind: Wide windows opening on Avenida del Libertador provided Granduncle Guillermo with what amounted to a comfortable private box for watching the horse racing at the Hipodromo across the street. And when the curtains were drawn, he had comfortable quarters for entertaining lady guests. According to Clete's father, there were an awesome number of these.

Clete's connection with the building went back to his birth. According to his father, his mother flatly refused to live in "The Museum," the Frade mansion on Avenida Coronel Diaz, and moved into Uncle Willy's house. When her time came, she left Uncle Willy's house for the hospital, where she was delivered of a male infant named Cletus Howell—after her father—Frade.

He drove the Ford down a steep ramp into the basement garage, thinking, Just as soon as I can, I'm getting out of the Museum and coming back here.

A second stocky man walked up to the car. Clete almost didn't see him, his attention having been caught by two cars already in the garage. One of them— a 1941 Buick convertible coupe—was his. It was as glistening as it had been in the showroom of Davis Chevrolet-Buick in Midland, Texas, the day Uncle Jim had made it plain to him that only fools drove convertibles, and the best he could expect for a graduation present was something sensible, like a Chevy business coupe.

The second car was his father's Horche convertible touring sedan, the joy of his life. El Coronel's extraordinary attachment to his Horche was well-known, and a source of amusement to his friends.

Enrico had told Clete that from the moment el Coronel—"as nervous as a first-time father"—watched the massive automobile being lowered to the dock from the Dresden of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, only three people were ever behind its wheel, el Coronel himself, Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, and Cletus Howell Frade.

Clete thereafter made a point of asking to drive the car whenever they rode in it, and then of driving it in a manner to cause his father to hang on with white knuckles.

I really should have buried him in that,Clete thought. He really loved that car, and he died in it.

Even in the dim light, Clete could see the shattered windshield, and the bullet holes in the massive hood and doors.

"Enrico, mi Teniente," the stocky man said, "will be here shortly. He rode with el Coronel to Our Lady of Pilar."

"He rode?"

“S?, mi Teniente."

Jesus Christ, his wounds are still bleeding!

"I just came from there. El Coronel is safely inside the church."

The man nodded.

"I wish to see Enrico when he comes," Clete said.

And then I will take the stupid sonofabitch back to the hospital, where, with a little luck, they'll be able to fix the damage he did to himself by getting on a horse in his condition. Jesus, I hope I can get him out again for the funeral!

As he walked to the interior stairs that led to the kitchen, he saw where the stocky men had been sitting, in armchairs obviously moved to the garage from somewhere upstairs, and that beside the armchairs were two double-barreled shotguns.

Three women were in the kitchen when he pushed open the door. One of them was middle-aged, and the other two were younger. The two younger ones were in maid's uniforms.

Christ, with nobody living here, why do we need two maids and a housekeeper?

Oh, yeah, El Coronel told me he used this place as a guest house before I showed up. It's probably full of people here for the funeral.

The kitchen was clean and cheerful, and the tiles on the floor were spotless.

Clete had a sudden, sickeningly clear mental image of the tiles by the kitchen table, thick and slippery with the blood of Enrico's sister, Se?ora Marianna Maria Dolores Rodriguez de Pellano, who had been the housekeeper.

"Her murder was unnecessary," el Teniente Coronel Alejandro Bernardo Mart?n explained at the time. (He'd come to the murder scene to see how it affected Argentine security, not to investigate the crime.)

"'But on the other hand," Mart?n added, "from the viewpoint of the would-be assassins, it was the correct thing to do. The dead make terrible witnesses, and the government can only execute murderers once."

A voice interrupted these thoughts.

"I am Se?ora Lopez, Se?or Frade. The housekeeper. Can I get you anything?"

"No, thank you. I'm going to go upstairs for a minute, and then I'm going to wait for Enrico in the sitting."

"I have laid out some things in the sitting for our guest, Se?or Frade. If there is something else you would like, just ring. And there is whiskey and ice and soda."

"Thank you," Clete said, and smiled at her.

Did she say "our guest," singular? That's surprising. I would have thought this place would be full of people for the funeral.

He rode the elevator to Uncle Willy's apartment on the top floor. There was evidence that somebody was staying in the room, and it made him a little uncomfortable to be an intruder.

Screw it. All I'm going to do is check the secret compartment in the desk.

He walked across the room to the massive desk, and opened the secret compartment without difficulty. There was nothing in it at all.

Not even Uncle Willy's naughty pictures.

Somebody's been in there. Who? When? And did they find just the dirty slides? Or, presuming it was here, Peter's father's letter?

Damn!

He got back on the elevator and rode it back to the foyer. When he entered the sitting, he saw that a plate of sandwiches and other finger food had been laid out on a table beside a coffee service and half a dozen bottles of hard liquor.

He made himself a scotch and soda, looked for and found a cigar in a humidor, and then slipped into an armchair. He looked around the room. There was a change since he had left: The oil portrait of a Thoroughbred was no longer hanging over the fireplace. (Granduncle Guillermo had raised the horse from a colt, and had won a great deal of money on it.) In its place hung a large oil portrait of a beautiful young woman in an evening dress with an infant in her arms. The woman was Se?ora Elizabeth Ann Howell de Frade, and the infant was her firstborn, Cletus Howell Frade.

Clete had last seen it hanging in his father's private library at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

I wonder why he brought it here?

Well, it means he came here when I was in the States, which suggests that goddamned letter may be here— or was here— after all.

He found a match, and was in the slow process of correctly lighting the cigar when the door opened.

It was Enrico, in a Husares uniform.

The bandage on his head is leaking blood. Christ only knows what he looks like under that Student Prince Graustarkian uniform jacket.

"Mi Teniente . . ."

"I asked you not to call me that," Clete snapped.

"Se?or Clete . . ."

"What in the name of God were you thinking riding a horse in your condition?"

"I rode with your father in the cavalry all our lives, Se?or Clete. It was my duty to ride with him tonight."

"And what are you going to do, for Christ's sake, when I die? Follow me to the cemetery in an airplane?"

Not only could Enrico not immediately counter the logic of that remark, but there was a chuckle of appreciation from a previously unseen spectator.

Clete raised his eyes from his still not fully and properly ignited cigar and saw a tall man in uniform. Not of the Husares. He didn't recognize anything about this one except the epaulets, which carried the insignia of a coronel.

Clete stood up.

"According to Enrico, you are quite a soldier yourself, Se?or Frade. Therefore, you should know that arguing with a determined Suboficial Mayor is a waste of time and breath. One has the choice of giving in or having him shot."

"I'm tempted to do the latter," Clete said. "Or at least to chain him to his bed."

The tall colonel walked to him and put out his hand. "Perhaps levity is out of place," he said. "But on the other hand, I've heard that laughter often occurs spontaneously when pain is at the point of being unbearable."

"You have the advantage of me, mi Coronel," Clete said.

"Forgive me. But I have heard so much of you over the years, and tonight, from Enrico, that I feel I know you. Your father was my best friend, from our first day at the military academy. My name is Per?n, Juan Domingo Per?n."

"How do you do?"

"I have just, with great embarrassment, realized that I find myself an uninvited guest in your home, Se?or Frade."

"My father's best friend will always be my honored guest," Clete heard himself say.

Where the hell is this flowery language coming from? It just pops into my mouth. And not, I don't think, because I'm speaking Spanish, and not English. I have never been a charmer in either language.

He turned to Enrico.

"Take off your jacket and sit down," he ordered, pointing to a chair.

"Se?or Clete?"

"You heard me," Clete said. He walked to the pull cord and jerked on it. When the housekeeper appeared a moment later, Enrico, with some difficulty, was still in the process of taking off his tunic.

She sucked in her breath when she saw Enrico's bloodstained undershirt.

"I'm going to need bandages, and tape, and cotton wool, and alcohol, or some other antiseptic," Clete said.

“S?, Se?or," she said, and quickly left the room.

"What I should do, Enrico, is call for an ambulance and send you back to the hospital."

"I am all right, Se?or Clete."

Clete looked at him, felt a wave of emotion for Enrico's dedication to his father, and went to the whiskey bottles, poured an inch and a half in a glass, and handed it to him.

"With a little luck, you'll choke to death on this, and I won't have to worry about you anymore," he said.

"Gracias, Se?or Clete," Enrico said, and added: "I saw you outside Our Lady of Pilar."

"You're lucky I didn't see you," Clete said.

The housekeeper and one of the maids appeared with what Clete had asked for.

Clete unwrapped the bandage on Enrico's head. Dried blood had glued it to his skin. After some thought, Clete decided it would hurt him less to jerk it off than to pull it. He did so. Enrico winced but made no sound.

He winced again as Clete mopped at the blood with alcohol-soaked cotton wool. It wasn't as bad as he thought it might be. The stitches sewing the wound together had not pulled loose. The wound itself, as Enrico had told him in the hospital, was actually a half-inch-wide, two-inch-long canal gouged out of his flesh. He washed it carefully, then applied a fresh bandage.

"You have done that before," el Coronel Per?n said as Clete was applying the fresh bandage.

"Once or twice," Clete said. "This is one of those famous wounds—'another half an inch, and that's all she wrote, Charley!'"

"Excuse me?" Per?n said.

"He's lucky he's alive," Clete said. "Another half an inch, another quarter of an inch . . ."

He bent over and looked for a fingerhold on one of the bandages on Enrico's upper chest. "On the other hand," he went on, "the head wound probably kept him alive. It knocked him out, and with all the blood, those murdering bastards thought he was already dead and not worth a round of 00-buck."

He jerked the bandage off. Enrico grunted.

"At least the banditos who did this soon paid for it," Per?n said. "Saving yourself and the rest of the family the pain of a trial, and the government the expense."

"Banditos,my ass," Clete flared, aware that he was now sounding more like himself. "Assassins is the word, mi Coronel. The fucking Krauts couldn't get me, so they went after my father and Enrico. And got my father."

There was no reply for a long moment, long enough for Clete to finish washing Enrico's wound and to turn to find a fresh bandage.

'"By "Krauts' I presume you mean Germans?" Per?n asked, somewhat stiffly.

"That's right."

"Enrico told me that was his belief," Per?n said. "But I am frankly surprised that you give credence to something like that."

"I believe it because it's true," Clete said evenly. "And the reason the bastards are dead, mi Coronel, is because dead people can't testify about who hired them."

"Argentina has long been plagued with banditos," Per?n said.

"These bastards may have been banditos, but they were working for the Germans."

"Your father was a friend of Germany, Se?or Frade. He had many German friends. He was a graduate of the Kriegsschule."

"Yeah, well, one of his German friends ordered his assassination. Another of them—or maybe the same sonofabitch—ordered my assassination. That time they got Enrico's sister, Se?ora Pellano."

"In that tragic incident, as I understand it, you killed both of the burglars. Did you do that so they would not be able to testify in court?"

What the hell's the matter with you? You don't like hearing the truth? Well, fuck you, Colonel!

Watch your temper, Clete!

"I had to kill one of them," Clete said evenly. "The second, I am ashamed say, I shot because I lost control of myself when I saw what they had done to Se?ora Pellano. I now regret that very much. If I hadn't lost my temper, we could have made the sonofabitch tell us who paid him."

There was another long silence. Per?n said nothing at all until Clete had finished replacing all of Enrico's bandages.

"Obviously, Se?or Frade," he said finally, "you believe what you have said. I find it difficult—impossible—to accept. But I will look into the matter, and put the question to rest for all time."

Watch what you say, Clete! Not only was this guy your father's best friend, but pissing him off isn't going to accomplish anything.

"I would be grateful if you would, mi Coronel," Clete said. "And I have another service to ask of you."

"Anything within my power, Se?or Frade."

"Would you see that Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez gets to Our Lady of Pilar tomorrow? By automobile? I will see to it that there are seats with the family for my father's best friends."

"Of course."

"You go to bed, Enrico, and try not to do anything else stupid between now and tomorrow."

“S?, mi Teniente. Gracias, mi Teniente."

"If I can't get you to call me by my name, at least get the rank right," Clete said. "I was discharged from the Marine Corps as a major."

Clete saw Per?n's eyes light up with that announcement.

Is that why I said that? So Per?n won't dismiss me as just one more young, and stupid, lieutenant?

"You're very young to have been a mayor," Per?n said.

"Yeah, well, we were in a war. Promotions come quickly when there's a war. Enrico, is my Buick drivable?"

"Yes, of course, mi Mayor."

"I think I'll take it with me," Clete said. "I took a Ford station wagon from my father's house. Do you think one of the men downstairs could drive it back for me? They may need it tomorrow."

"You came here alone?" Enrico asked, horrified.

"Why not?"

"Mi Mayor," Enrico said, shaking his head at Clete's stupidity. "The men downstairs will see you safely to el Coronel's house."

Clete put out his hand to Per?n.

"I am delighted to have the privilege of your acquaintance, mi Coronel."

Per?n grasped his hand firmly.

"The pleasure is mine, Mayor," he said. "I regret the circumstances."

Chapter Eight

[ONE]

The Basilica of St. Pilar

Recoleta Plaza

Buenos Aires

0915 10 April 1943

It was necessary for Antonio to really shake Clete to wake him, and even after a shower and several cups of coffee with his breakfast, he still felt groggy and exhausted.

As he had announced he would, Capitan Lauffer appeared at eight-thirty.

En route to Our Lady of Pilar, Clete told him about Enrico climbing out of a hospital bed onto a horse to escort his father from the Edificio Libertador to the Basilica, and also about meeting el Coronel Per?n.

"He and your father were great friends," Lauffer said.

"So he said."

"He just came back from Germany."

"Excuse me? What did you say?"

"He just came back from Germany. He was on the Lufthansa flight yesterday."

"What was he doing in Germany?" Clete asked.

Lauffer shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't know."

Well, that explains that "difficult— impossible— to believe " bullshit he gave me last night, doesn't it?

"Is Per?n involved in this Grupo de Oficiales Unidos business?"

"Se?or Frade . . ."

"Do you think you could bring yourself to call me 'Clete'?"

"I would like that. My Christian name is Roberto."

He offered Clete his hand.

"Clete,"Lauffer said, "one of the difficulties we have in Argentina with norteamericanos is that you have a tendency to ask questions that shouldn't be asked, and are impolitic to answer."

"In other words, he is," Clete said. "Is that why he came back? Because the G.O.U. is about to move?"

Lauffer looked at him, smiled, and shook his head.

"I don't know anything about the G.O.U."

"You are being deaf, dumb, and blind, right?" Clete challenged with a smile.

"But if I were a betting man. and I knew that one man was involved with the G.O.U., I would wager his best friend was."

"OK. That's good enough. Thank you for your nonanswer. And since you don't know anything about the G.O.U., I suppose you can't tell me if it's loaded with Nazi sympathizers?"

"I wonder if you are asking that question personally or professionally."

"Professionally?"

"There is a rumor going around that you are really an agent of the OSS."

"Of the what?"

"You never heard of the OSS, of course?"

"Not a word."

"Then I suppose it's also not true that you are the man who blew up the Reine de la Mer."

"The what?"

"As an officer of the Argentine Army, of course, I was horrified to hear that the American OSS violated the neutrality of Argentina by blowing up a neutral ship in our waters."

"As, of course, you should have been. The Americans blew up a Nazi ship, you say? Do you think they had a reason?" Clete asked, smiling.

"My father, however—he is a retired Admiral of the Armada"—Navy— "does not share my views. He said something to the effect that he was surprised it took the Americans so long to do what the British should have done in the first place, and that he hoped whoever did it not only got away but received an appropriate decoration."

"You can tell your father, if what you say is true, that something like that probably happened."

Lauffer smiled back at him. "A decoration and a promotion to Mayor?"

"Something like that," Clete said.

"So far as Nazis being within the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos: I would suspect that if such an organization really exists, it is not controlled by those who sympathize with Germany, or, on the other hand, by those who sympathize with the British and the norteamericanos. It would be concerned with Argentine internal affairs."

Clete was disappointed when he looked out the window and saw they were at the rear of Recoleta Cemetery; he preferred not to end the conversation just now.

When they reached the church (The Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar (completed 1732), on Recoleta Square, is considered the most beautiful church in Buenos Aires.) itself, a line of people had already formed to view the casket when the church was opened. Clete wondered how many of them had known, much less admired, his father, and how many were there out of simple curiosity.

Lauffer knocked at a side door, which was opened by a monk in sandals and a brown robe.

"This is Se?or Frade," Lauffer said, and the monk opened the door all the way and pointed to the interior of the church.

The casket—el Coronel's uniform cap, his medals, and the Argentine flag back in place on top—was in the center of the aisle near the altar. And the honor guard was present, too, preparing to go on duty; their officer-in-charge was checking the appearance of the troopers. When he saw Lauffer, he came to attention and saluted.

There was a tug on Clete's sleeve, and he turned to see another brown-robed monk, extending a large key to him.

"The key to your tomb, Se?or," the monk said. Clete looked helplessly at Lauffer, and the monk picked up on it. "We have moved your grandfather, Se?or, and made the preparations for your father. I would like your approval of the arrangements."

"Moved my grandfather"? What the hell does that mean?Lauffer, seeing Clete's confusion and hesitation, nodded. "Thank you," Clete said to the monk.

"I'll go with you. I knew this was coming, and brought a torch," he said, exhibiting a flashlight.

They followed the monk out of a side door of the church and into the cemetery. Ornate burial grounds were not new to Clete. Because of the water table, belowground burial in New Orleans is virtually impossible. The result of that over the years has been the construction of elaborate aboveground tombs covering hundreds of acres.

The Old Man called the cemeteries "Marble City," allegedly to keep the bodies from floating down the Mississippi, but really erected to impress the neighbors. The worse the scoundrel, the larger his tomb.

But there was nothing in New Orleans like Recoleta Cemetery. Here even the smallest of family tombs resembled marble churches, and there were acres and acres of them, side by side.

He had been here once before, the day Cousin Jorge Alejandro was laid to rest in the Duarte tomb.

They came to the Frade tomb. It was about the size of the Duarte Tomb, about thirty feet wide and twenty feet deep. Wrought-iron-barred glass doors offered a view of the interior, which was set up like a church altar. The monk reclaimed the key. "With your permission, Se?or Frade," he said, and unlocked the door.

I’ll be damned. 1 think he expects me to go inside.

He looked at Lauffer, his eyebrows raised in question, and Lauffer smiled, nodded, and handed Clete a flashlight.

That was nice of him to think about that, but I won't need a flashlight in there. I can see well enough, and I don't intend to stay long.

He followed the monk into the tomb. He looked around. There was a large Christ on the cross— either a statue or more likely a bronze casting—on the wall of the tomb above the altar; a large, formal cross— I wonder if that's gold? Probably not; if it was gold, somebody would climb the cemetery walls at night and steal it—and several other gold—or at least gold-plated—objects beside it on sort of a shelf against the wall. Two of them were filled with fresh flowers. Nice touch. Everything rested on a— what do you call that, an altar cloth ?— sheet of finely embroidered linen. That's fresh from the laundry. A similar but larger cloth covered a marble table, three feet wide and eight feet long, two feet from the altar against the wall. In a church, that's where the priest would have the wine and wafers for Holy Communion.

He turned to the monk, wondering if it would be appropriate to comment on the nice furnishings, or maybe to thank him— he had the key to this place, he's probably responsible.

The monk was on his knees, not praying, but instead lifting a section of the tomb floor. The floor, Clete noticed for the first time, was of steel. Like in the center of a bridge, where they put a section of steel like that, with holes, to keep cars from skidding when there's ice.

What thehell is he doing?

With a grunt, the monk pulled a five-foot-square section of the floor loose, and with an effort pushed it to the side of the room, resting it against a wall.

Then he took a small flashlight from the folds of his robe, put it in his mouth, and backed into the hole in the floor. When only his chest was above floor level, he took the flashlight from his mouth.

"Be careful, Se?or. Sometimes the ladder is slippery."

Does he expect me to go down there? What the hell is down there, anyway?

When the monk disappeared from view, Clete went to the opening and stared down. A metal ladder, looking like something you'd find on a destroyer, went down as far as Clete could see.

At least three decks.

He shrugged— what the hell?—and backed carefully into the hole. Lauffer's flashlight was too large to put in his mouth, so he had to put it in his pocket. There was just enough light for him to find the round rungs of the ladder with his feet. He started to climb down.

He found himself in a room as large as the altar room above. There was no altar. Instead there were shelves on all four sides of the room, four high, each holding a wooden casket. Most of them were full-size, but he saw three smaller caskets, one tiny. Children's caskets, and a baby's casket. On the wall in front of him, where two shelves would ordinarily be. he saw another Christ on a cross.

The monk was descending farther into the ground. Clete followed him.

There's no smell of death in here. A musty smell, and the smell of wood, that's all.

The thought triggered a clear and distinctly unpleasant memory of the sweet smell of corrupting corpses.

Shit!

Clete climbed down after the monk through three more burial chambers, each full of caskets on shelves, and then to a fourth chamber. In this one, all but two of the casket shelves were empty.

I guess this is where el Coronel will go. How the hell are they going to get that casket down here?

The monk flashed his light on the two shelved caskets. Both were massive and polished like good furniture, Clete saw, but not identical.

I'll be damned! That's one of those cedar caskets Beatrice was raving about!

"We have moved your grandfather here, Se?or Frade," the monk said, laying his hand on one of the caskets. "Beside your grandmother."

"I see," Clete said.

"I will now leave you to your private prayers for the repose of the souls of the departed," the monk said, and started for the ladder. He stopped. "I suggest you be careful with your torch. If you drop it... very little light gets this far down."

He waited until Clete had taken his flashlight from his pocket and turned it on, then offered a final word of advice. "You might find it convenient to place the torch under your belt. And mind the ladder!"

"Thank you," Clete said.

The only thing I want out of this place is me! But, shit, I can't just follow him immediately.

You've been around dead people before. Stop acting like a child.

He flashed the light on the caskets, noticing for the first time that engraved bronze plates were on them.

MARY ELIZABETH CONNERS DE FRADE

1861-1916

"Mary Elizabeth Conners"? That doesn't sound Spanish. What did the monk say, "beside my grandmother"? Mary Elizabeth Conners is— was— my grandmother? She bore my father? Changed his diapers, for Christ's sake? Suckled him? An Englishwoman? Or an Irishwoman?He flashed the light on the other casket.

EL CORONEL

GUILLERMO ALEJANDRO FRADE

1857-1919

My grandfather, another el Coronel Frade.

Clete saw in his mind's eye el Coronel Alejandro Frade's pistol. His father had given it to him as a Christmas present reflecting his heritage. It was a Colt .44-40 single-action, often fired, most of the blue gone, a working gun, not a decoration. On one of its well-worn grips, inlaid in silver, was the crest of the Husares de Pueyrred?n, on the other the Frade family crest.

To judge by the gun, my grandfather was apparently a real soldier.

El Coronel— why do I think of him that way, rather than "Dad"?— told me his father died the rear beforeDad came to New Orleans and married my mother.

Did some monk bring my father down here when his father died, to show him where his grandfather had been moved? What the hell is that "moved" business, anyway? Moved from where, and why?

Sorry, Grandpa, Grandma, I'm an Episcopalian, and I don't know what kind of a prayer I'm supposed to offer for the repose of your souls. If I knew what to say, I would.

I've been down here long enough.

Curiosity got to him before he reached the next level, however, and instead of climbing higher, he stepped off the ladder and moved around the chamber, looking for one casket in particular. He didn't find it on that level, although he came across a surprising number of people whose names were non-Spanish-sounding. Even some Germans, which he found disturbing, but mostly English. Mawson. Miller. Evans.

He found the casket he was looking for on the next level.

JORGE GUILLERMO FRADE

1850-1915

Uncle Willy's in there. Horse breeder, swordsman of national disrepute, and collector of dirty pictures. Maybe I do have some of your genes in me, Uncle Willy. God knows, I like horses, whiskey, and wild, wild, women, and I looked at every one of your dirty pictures the night I found them.

The discovery of Uncle Willy's casket somehow pleased him, and when he realized that, he was uncomfortable. He returned to the ladder and climbed upward again.

In the chamber immediately below ground level, where there was enough light from above to see more clearly, an ornately carved casket caught his eye— angels blowing trumpets; a hooded woman carrying a limp body, presumably to heaven—and he stepped off the ladder and looked for the nameplate on it.

MARIA ELENA PUEYRRED?N DE FRADE

1812-1858

Jesus Christ, Pueyrred?n's daughter! My what? My great-grandmother? This is the reason I got that saber salute from the Capit?n of the Husares de Pueyrred?n at the Edificio Libertador yesterday. Down here, that's like being related to George Washington.

He touched the limp body the hooded woman was carrying, tenderly, almost reverently, then climbed back on the ladder.

Why do I suspect that Colonel Graham knows more about my family tree than I do ? He's a clever sonofabitch, and damned well knows that nobody's going to easily throw Pueyrred?n's great-great-grandson out of Argentina.

When he put his head through the hole in the upper-chamber floor, he could see out of the tomb. Specifically, he found himself looking farther than decency allowed up the marvelously formed, silk-stocking-clad legs of a young woman in a black dress.

He had two thoughts, the first of them not very relevant:

There seems to be plenty of silk stockings down here. I wonder why there's such a shortage of them in the States? Women are painting their legs in the States, including a line down the back of the leg, so it looks like they're wearing stockings.

His second thought, since he had recognized the legs, was more to the point.

Jesus,Dorotea! I forgot all about her. Somebody must have told her where I was, and she came to personally deliver Part Two of the Dear John letter she started on the phone last night.

Christ, I'm going to miss her!

He came out of the hole. Dorotea had been waiting for him. He gave her a wait-a-second signal and turned to the monk to thank him for the tour of the family tomb.

And suddenly, on seeing the embroidered cloth-covered table, it was as if his brain, which had been out of gear, suddenly dropped into high.

They're going to put el Coronel's casket on that table. That's what he meant when he said they had moved my grandfather. He was here, for God only knows how long, until today, or yesterday. The casket of the last one to die goes on display in front of the altar for however long it takes for the next family member to croak.

The next one to croak is very likely to be me.

Jesus, what a weird custom!

Christ, I better say something to Tony, leave a letter of instructions or something. I don't want to go on display in here!

Or do I? What's wrong with being with my father and Uncle Willy?

Jesus Christ!

"Is everything to your satisfaction, Se?or Frade?" the monk asked.

"Perfectly. I am in your debt, Sir, for your thoughtfulness."

"Your father, Se?or Frade, your family, have always generously supported the Recoleta Cemetery."

That's a pitch for money. I'll be damned!

What the hell do I say to him ?

I'll have to ask somebody— Humberto— about giving them money. How much and to whom.

"Again, I thank you for your thoughtfulness. And I will never forget it."

The monk smiled, turned, bowed before the altar, and walked out of the tomb.

Clete followed him. He saw Lauffer, standing twenty yards away, motion to the monk to join him.

He thinks I want to be alone with the pretty girl. What did General Lee say at Appomattox Courthouse? "I would rather die a thousand deaths . . ."?

"What do you say, Princess? How's tricks?"

"I really wish you wouldn't call me that," Dorotea said in British-accented English.

"Sorry. You said you had something on your mind, Dorotea?"

"This is probably the worst possible place, at the worst possible time, to tell you this," she said. "I'm really sorry."

Oh, I don't know. This is a cemetery. Shouldn't dead love get a decent burial?

"What is it, Prin . . . Dorotea? I probably won't be nearly as upset as you think I'm going to be."

She moved close to him and looked into his eyes.

"We're going to have a baby," she announced softly.

Even as he spoke the words, looking into her eyes, he knew the question he was croaking—"Are you sure?"—was unnecessary.

"Of course I'm sure."

"Oh, Princess!"

"Does that mean 'Three cheers, hurrah!' or 'Oh, my God!'"

"Princess, you really surprised me with this one."

"In other words, "Oh, my God!'?"

"I thought I was going to get a Dear John," he said.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Cletus. What's a 'Dear John'?"

"It's a letter a girlfriend writes her boyfriend in the service. 'Dear John, I'm sorry to tell you this, but someone else has come into my life.'"

"Sometimes you are a bloody ass, Cletus," Dorotea said angrily, and loudly enough so that the monk turned. "I love you, and until this moment I was laboring under the delusion that you loved me, too."

"Princess, I love you more than my life," Clete said. "When I thought I was going to lose you, I wanted to jump in the goddamned River Plate."

She looked at him. Her tongue came out and licked her lips in a nervous gesture he found exquisitely exciting.

"Yes," she said.

"Yes what?" he asked, confused.

"Yes, I will marry you. Or wasn't that a proposal?" she asked, a naughty glint in her eyes.

"It was," he said. "But I don't think this is the place to get on my knees."

"Or the time. You had better wait a couple of days before you ask Daddy for my hand. And speaking of the devil, so to speak, what he thinks I'm doing is trying to find the loo, so I'm going to have to go back."

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

"I would really like to put my arms around you and really kiss you," she said. "But not here with the monk watching. Can you wait?"

"I don't have any choice, do I?"

"None," she said brightly, turned, and walked away.

She's not wearing a girdle under that dress. She really has a magnificent fanny. And as far as that goes, a magnificent everything else, too.

And she's carrying my child!

Why couldn't you keep your pecker in your pocket, you stupid sonofabitch?

Capitan Lauffer raised his eyebrows questioningly: Don't you think you should be getting back to the church? Clete nodded and walked to him.

[TWO]

1420 Avenida Alvear

Buenos Aires, Argentina

1215 10 April 1943

"Would you like something to eat, Cletus?" Humberto Valdez Duarte asked, walking over to where Clete stood at the bar set up in the downstairs reception, helping himself to a bottle of scotch.

Is that just good manners, or an expression of concern for my welfare, or is he worried that I 'm going to climb into a bottle the way my father did when they buried Cousin Jorge Alejandro?

"I'm all right, thank you. Can I fix you one of these?"

"There is supposed to be someone . . ." Humberto said impatiently, and looked around the empty reception. A door leading to the butler's pantry opened as he watched, and two barmen in starched white jackets came through, carrying a large, galvanized tub filled with ice and various bottles. "Ah, there they are!"

He waited until they had placed the tub behind the bar, then ordered: "I'll have one of those, please."

"Are you all right, Cletus?" Humberto asked.

Just peachy-keen, Uncle Humberto. I have just watched my murdered father being buried, and have been standing here thinking that if I hadn't shown up down here, he would still be alive. And also thinking that heading the list of shitty things— sins, if you like— I have done in my life is impregnating an innocent nineteen-year-old. Fucking up not only her life, but that of a child, too.

"I'm fine. Thank you."

The barman handed Humberto his drink. He nodded his thanks, then raised the glass.

"To Jorge Guillermo," he said, "May he find your mother in heaven as beautiful as he remembered her."

Clete touched his glass.

"And the horses be fast, and the champagne properly chilled," Clete said.

Where the hell did that come from?

Humberto chuckled and took a sip.

"Yes," he said.

"I watched the Husares de Pueyrred?n move him from the Edificio Libertador last night," Clete said. "I think el Coronel would have been pleased with his funeral."

"He loved parades," Humberto said. "Particularly if he was leading it."

"He was too goddamned young to die," Clete said. "And like that!"

"Yes," Humberto said. "Cletus, that brings up a somewhat delicate matter."

"What's that?"

"The reception will start in about fifteen minutes. There are already people arriving."

Clete nodded and waited for him to go on.

"There will be a reception line . . ."

"Can I get out of that?"

". . . and among the guests expected are Ambassador von Lutzenberger and members of his staff from the German Embassy. I believe Major von Wachtstein will be among them."

Clete's eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing.

"We see a good deal of Ambassador von Lutzenberger and his staff socially," Humberto went on. "Your aunt Beatrice added many of them to our list after their many courtesies to us when Jorge Alejandro was brought home. She is especially fond of Major von Wachtstein. There are, of course, certain advantages to the situation."

"I'm not sure I'm up to standing in a reception line and smiling at the murdering sonsofbitches."

"I think everyone will understand that you are indisposed."

"Is that what I am, 'indisposed'?" Clete said, and then, softly, "Speaking of Germans, I saw Peter von Wachtstein last night."

"Was that wise? If you were seen . . ."

"We weren't," Clete said. "He's very concerned that my father had some records. . ."

"The records of certain financial transactions," Humberto said. "I'm very concerned myself."

"Plus a personal letter from Peter's father."

"I know about the letter, too."

"But you don't know where they are?"

"They're most likely in your father's safe at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo," Humberto said. "God, I hope they are!"

"I don't know what safe you're talking about."

"It's in your father's study."

"I'd like to get in it as soon as possible. Who has the combination?"

"I was hoping you would have it."

"No. I didn't even know there was a safe until just now."

"Well, I know Claudia doesn't have the combination," Humberto said. "She asked me for it."

"Why does she want it?"

"I simply presumed there were personal things—letters perhaps—that she didn't want anybody else to see. Wanted to get them out of the safe before you started going through it."

"So how do I get in it?"

"Right now, I don't know. Let me think about it. But for the moment, unless you want to see the Germans, you'd better get out of here."

"Where do I go?"

"The upstairs sitting," Humberto said. "I will instruct the servants who is to be taken there to pay their respects to you privately. The Mallins, for example. And there is an American officer . . ."

"An American officer? Do you have his name?"

"Teniente Pelosi," Humberto said. "I have his card." He handed it to Clete.

Anthony Joseph Pelosi

First Lieutenant, Corps of Engineers

Army of the United States

Assistant Military Attach?

Embassy of the United States of America

"I really want to see him," Clete said. "But I don't want to make it obvious. Wait until the place is full of people, and then send him upstairs."

"Certainly."

"Make sure he doesn't get away. He may think I don't want to see him."

"I understand," Humberto said.

"Right," Clete said. "Humberto, thank you. And when this is all over, I really need to talk to you."

"I was about to say almost exactly those words," Humberto said. "There are business matters that need immediate decisions. Perhaps we can find the time over the weekend. We will have to find the time over the weekend. Can I show you the way?"

"I know where it is, thank you."

Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, in Husares de Pueyrred?n uniform, jumped to attention when Clete walked into the upstairs sitting, startling Clete enough that in a Pavlovian Marine officer's reflex, he barked, "As you were!"

"Mi Mayor?" Enrico asked, baffled.

"One, stand at ease, Enrico, and two, stop calling me 'Major.'"

"Por favor, mi Mayor," Enrico said. "My last service to mi Coronel."

"What?"

Enrico turned to the table beside him.

"Mi Mayor," he said, "I present to you the saber and decorations of the late el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade!"

He extended to Clete a saber, together with its accoutrements, and the pale-blue velvet medal-covered pillow that had lain on the casket.

Clete's throat tightened and his eyes watered. He came to attention.

"Muchas gracias, Suboficial Mayor," he said, and took them with as much military decorum as he could muster. When he looked at Enrico he saw tears running down his cheeks.

Clete turned, found a table, and laid the saber and the pillow on it, then turned to Enrico, who was standing at the Argentine equivalent of Parade Rest.

"I think that what my father would prefer now, Enrico, is that his friend and his son have a drink to him, rather than stand here weeping like women."

“S?, mi Mayor, I think he would," Enrico said. He snapped to attention and then relaxed, as if he had been dismissed. He walked to a small bar that had been set up. "English whiskey, Se?or Clete, or norteamericano?"

"Just as long as it's wet," Clete said.

[THREE]

The official delegation of the Embassy of Germany to the funeral mass and interment of the late el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade had arrived at the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar in two automobiles, and it was presumed that the suggestion that mourners walk the half-dozen blocks down Avenida Alvear to the reception at the Duarte mansion did not apply to them.

Ambassador von Lutzenberger did not invite Standartenf?hrer Goltz to ride with him and Frau Ambassador in the Embassy Mercedes. On one hand, this surprised First Secretary Gradny-Sawz, for it would be the polite thing to do vis-a-vis a visiting dignitary of Goltz's stature, he thought. But on the other hand, it pleased him, for it allowed him to be with Goltz. Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein also rode with Gradny-Sawz and Goltz in the second, slightly smaller Embassy Mercedes.

The police passed them through the barriers blocking Avenida Alvear without question, but the gates of the mansion were closed, and it was necessary for them to get out of the cars on the curb.

A barrage of flashbulbs went off. Gradny-Sawz glanced around, saw an unruly crowd on the sidewalk, and quickly decided what was going on. Though the police had tried to keep the journalists from Buenos Aires newspapers a respectable distance from the mansion, the journalists had jumped over the police barricades and were overwhelming the half-dozen policemen at the fence gate. They saw a good picture, and were going to risk a policeman's angrily swung baton to get it.

After paying what Gradny-Sawz thought was probably the shortest courtesy call possible. President Ramon Castillo was leaving the mansion with a small entourage just as the American Ambassador with his entourage—Gradny-Sawz saw Vice Consul Spiers and the American military Attach?—started inside.

An exchange of handshakes was of course required by protocol, and that in itself would be a good news photograph. But this act was taking place as Ambassador von Lutzenberger also started to enter the mansion. A photograph of the President of Argentina shaking hands with the American Ambassador while the German Ambassador waited his turn was a photograph worthy of the front page, and would probably be seen all over the world.

And God was with Germany, Gradny-Sawz decided, as the American Ambassador walked into the mansion. At least three photographs got a shot of Castillo shaking hands with von Lutzenberger while, back to the camera, the American Ambassador, trailed by his staff, marched away.

Thatphoto would almost certainly appear on the front pages of La Nacion, La Prensa, and Clarin, the major Buenos Aires newspapers. With a little luck, it would be transmitted by cable all over the world.

The American Embassy Press Officer had somehow managed to make the major Argentine newspapers aware that the late Oberst Frade was survived by his son, Cletus Howell Frade, of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA and Buenos Aires. La Nacion had further described the son as "Teniente Frade, USMC"; and La Prensa as "Major Frade, U.S. Navy." The Buenos Aires Herald —as expected, considering their close connection to the Americans—had reported that Major Cletus H. Frade, USMC, Retired, a hero of the Battle of Guadalcanal, had flown from his home in Texas, USA, to attend his father's funeral. Major Frade was expected to remain in Argentina, the nation of his birth, and was, under Argentine law, an Argentine citizen.

The photograph of President Castillo shaking Ambassador von Lutzen-berger's hand, in Gradny-Sawz's professional judgment, would affect Argentine public opinion far more effectively than the best public relations efforts of the Americans.

It was, of course, a shame that Ambassador von Lutzenberger was not a more imposing figure physically. Von Lutzenberger's uniform was, of course, even more heavily gold-encrusted than that authorized for First Secretary Gradny-Sawz. It was, Gradny-Sawz thought, as he usually did on occasions like this, no fault of Graf von Lutzenberger that he was fifty-three, sharp-featured, small, skinny, and almost entire bald. But the result was inevitable: Von Lutzenberger looked somehow comical in his uniform, like a member of the chorus in an operetta.

The police soon managed to get the press back behind their barricades, and Gradny-Sawz, Goltz, and von Wachtstein walked quickly to the gate in the fence. And Ambassador Graf and Frau Grafin Ambassador von Lutzenberger were waiting for them just beyond the servants checking invitations at a table set up inside the door.

There were only two people receiving. Se?or and Se?ora Duarte. Gradny-Sawz wondered where the son was; he had been at the church earlier, and it had been reported to him that he had also gone to the Edificio Libertador.

"Permit me, Se?or Duarte, and Se?ora," von Lutzenberger said, "to offer the most profound expression of condolences on the tragic loss of el Coronel Frade on behalf of the German government, and my wife, and myself personally."

"How kind of you," Humberto said.

"My brother is now in heaven with the blessed Jesus and all the angels," Beatrice said, almost cheerfully.

"You know my wife, of course," von Lutzenberger said. "And First Secretary Gradny-Sawz. May I present Standartenf?hrer Goltz? Herr Standartenf?hrer, these are my friends Se?or and Se?ora Duarte. Se?or Duarte is the managing director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank."

Goltz clicked his heels and bowed, then bent over Beatrice's gloved hand.

"I am honored, Sir and Madam," he said, "to meet the parents of the courageous officer who gave his life in the war against Bolshevism."

Beatrice did not seem to hear him.

"Good afternoon, Peter," she cried happily.

Peter von Wachtstein clicked his heels and bowed.

"Se?ora," he said.

Beatrice pushed between Frau Ambassador von Lutzenberger and Standartenf?hrer Goltz to clutch Peter's hand and offer him her cheek.

"And we are going to see you over the weekend, aren't we?" Beatrice said. "You'll come to the estancia for the memorial mass?"

"I hope to have that privilege, Se?ora," Peter said.

"You'll sit with us, of course. I'll tell Se?ora Carzino-Cormano," she said, then kissed her cheek again before resuming her place in line to shake the hand of Gradny-Sawz.

"Anton," she said, gushing sincerity. "Thank you for coming."

"Thank you having me, my dear Se?ora," Gradny-Sawz said, and the German delegation was through the line.

A white-gloved servant showed them the door of the reception. Another servant stood just inside the door holding a tray of champagne glasses.

"The bar, gentlemen, is at the rear of the room," he said.

They all took champagne and moved into the reception.

Goltz turned over his shoulder.

"What was that about, von Wachtstein?" he asked. "With our hostess?"

Ambassador von Lutzenberger answered for him: "There is to be a private memorial service, family and friends only, for Oberst Frade at his estancia on Sunday. To which, apparently, our von Wachtstein has been invited. Since he escorted the remains of Hauptmann Duarte to Buenos Aires, the Duartes seem to have almost adopted him."

"How interesting," Goltz said.

Fascinating. Von Wachtstein has developed a friendship, a close friendship, with the people who run the Anglo-Argentine Bank. That may prove very useful indeed.

[FOUR]

Clete's first visitors in the upstairs sitting were Se?ora Claudia Carzino-Cormano and her daughters. He had been sitting slumped in an armchair with a drink, reading with disbelief the Buenos Aires Herald.

It was clear to him that the front-page story—which described him as a hero of the Battle of Guadalcanal, retired from the Marine Corps as a Major, and an Argentine citizen—had come directly from the typewriter of the Information Officer at the American Embassy. He wondered if it had been written at the Ambassador's orders, or whether Colonel Graham had something to do with it. That seemed unlikely, but Graham routinely did unlikely things.

Accordingly to other stories in the Herald, the Germans and the Japanese were retreating on all fronts after suffering severe losses. Hitler was about to fall on his knees and beg for mercy, and Emperor Hirohito was next in line.

The last he had heard, the Germans were still occupying most of the land-mass of Europe. And the Japanese were still in Singapore, and for that matter, the Philippines, plus all the little Pacific islands from which the Marine Corps would have to remove them, in fighting that was going to be at least as bloody as it had been on Guadalcanal.

He wondered how the readers of the Herald reconciled the optimistic news reports on the front page with the two and a half pages of obituaries, often with photographs, of the Anglo-Argentines who had been killed fighting with the His Britannic Majesty's Royal Army, Navy, and Air Force all over the world. Three Anglo-Argentines, he noticed, had been killed fighting with His Royal Australian Air Force in New Guinea, another place from which the Japanese obviously had no plans of retreating.

When he saw Claudia enter the room, he dropped the newspaper on the floor beside him, jumped to his feet, and went to her.

"How're you holding up, sport?" he asked, although through her black veil he could see in her eyes and the strain oh her face the answer to that.

She pushed the veil off her face and hugged him and tenderly kissed his cheek.

"So far, not bad," she said. "At least I'm not drinking my way through it."

She indicated the whiskey glass he had left on the wide arm of the chair.

"My first," he lied, and she snorted.

Alicia kissed him, and then Isabela made smacking noises as far from his cheek as she could manage.