Death and Honor

[FIVE]

Suite 407 Alvear Palace Hotel Avenida Alvear 1891 Buenos Aires, Argentina 1645 4 July 1943

Graham just had time to go into his suitcase for a change of linen and his toilet kit when there was a knock at his door.

When he opened the door, Cletus Frade was standing there. Behind him was Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodríguez, Ejército Argentino, Retired. Graham saw that Rodríguez’s trench coat, worn over his shoulder, did not entirely conceal the self-loading shotgun he carried against his leg.

Graham waved them into the room.

“I wondered when I was going to see you, Major,” Graham said.

“I didn’t want to intrude on your conversation with Martín,” Frade said.

“You have any idea what that was all about?”

“I think he was sending us both a message that he’s watching us.”

“Is there a situation here I don’t know about?”

“That qualifies as a massive understatement,” Frade said.

“What’s with the shotgun?”

“Enrico has sworn an oath to God that what happened to my father will not happen to me,” Frade said.

Graham met Frade’s eyes and saw in them that what he’d said was a statement of fact.

“Unless you really want to stay here, I think you’d be more comfortable at San Pedro y San Pablo,” Frade said. “And we have to go there anyway.”

“Why do we have to go there anyway?”

“Today is the Fourth of July, and you, Colonel Graham, sir, will be the senior officer present as the local OSS detachment celebrates Independence Day.”

Graham met his eyes again and saw that Frade was serious about this, too.

“Won’t Martín know?”

“If we leave right now, we can probably get away from here before Martín can get his people in place to surveil you.”

Graham closed his suitcase.

“Okay,” he said.

Frade’s enormous Horch was parked in the Alvear Palace’s covered, off-the-street driveway, and when Frade, Graham, and Enrico came out of the revolving door, the top-hatted doorman hurried to open the rear door of the car.

Frade, who was carrying Graham’s bag, walked quickly to it, threw the bag in the backseat, then closed the door. The car immediately drove off.

Frade took Graham’s arm and propelled him out of the drive onto Avenida Alvear. When he saw the confusion on Graham’s face, he chuckled and said, “Sorry, mi coronel, it’s Ford time.”

There was a 1941 wooden-sided Ford station wagon at the curb. Graham saw that Enrico was already in the street and had opened the driver’s door.

Frade pointed to the front passenger door, and then as Graham got in, trotted around the rear of the station wagon and got behind the wheel. As soon as Enrico was sure the door was shut, he got in the back, and the station wagon pulled into the flow of traffic.

“What’s this all about?” Graham said as they pulled up to, and stayed behind, the Horch.

“The theory is that if they try to bushwhack me, as they bushwacked my father, they’ll probably hit the Horch first,” Frade said matter-of-factly. “There’s two guys with Thompsons in the Horch, and there’s another Thompson under your seat. ‘Surprise, surprise! ’ ”

“You think that’s likely?” Graham said.

Frade looked at him and shook his head in disbelief.