Death and Honor

[FOUR]

Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1305 12 August 1943

They used up most of the runway getting the SAA Lodestar off the ground, but they made it.

“Write this down, Gonzo,” Clete said as they were climbing out. “Don’t try to take off from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo in one of these at max gross takeoff weight.”

Delgano didn’t reply.

Frade said: “What you’re going to do—what I hope you’re going to do, because I wouldn’t blame you if you went right to Colonel Martín—”

“I’m not going to do that. Did you really think I would?”

“Sorry. And thank you.” He was quiet in thought a moment, then went on: “Since I don’t think anybody saw us at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, maybe we can get away with acting as if we know nothing about what happened. We have just arrived from a very long flight from the States. I keep saying this, but keeping Frogger out of the hands of the Germans is the priority. He knows too much about the plot to take Hitler out.”

“There’s no way they can know we brought him with us,” Delgano said. “If . . . you for some reason can’t do it yourself, I’ll take your Lodestar and fly him anywhere you say.”

Frade looked at him. “That would be really putting your neck in the noose, you understand?”

“I understand.”

Frade nodded. “Okay. If that becomes necessary, take Captain Ashton and the others with you. They’ll—”

“Dorotea, too?”

Frade hesitated just perceptibly before saying, “Yeah, you’d better take her, too. She won’t want to go, thinking she can somehow help me if she stays. Tell her I’m already in Canoas.”

“I understand.”

Frade spent most of the just-over-one-hour-flight to Morón thinking of the worst possible scenarios for what was going to happen next. There were at least a half-dozen of them—and they were all frightening.

They called the Jorge Frade tower as soon as they could pick up the radio direction finder signal. They were then just inside the mouth of the River Plate, from there a thirty-minute flight to Morón. But they were not more than twenty minutes out when the tower responded.

Clete Frade had an insane thought as he turned on final and ordered Delgano to put the gear down.

If we crash on landing, a lot of problems would be solved.

And as soon as the Lodestar touched down, Clete saw that the problems were about to begin: In civilian clothing, El Coronel Alejandro Bernardo Martín—the Chief of the Ethical Standards Office of the Bureau of Internal Security—was in front of one of the hangars, leaning on the fender of a 1939 Dodge sedan.

“I was afraid of that,” Delgano said.

“Just remember: You know nothing.”

“And what if someone did see us at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo?”

Frade didn’t reply.

As the Lodestar taxied past the closest hangar toward the second one, where Martín waited, Frade saw something he absolutely didn’t expect to see: Sergeant Major Enrico Rodríguez, Cavalry, Retired. Enrico was sitting on the open tailgate of a 1941 Ford station wagon.

“Did you see what I saw, Gonzo?”

“Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem.”

“That’s known as pissing in the wind. But at least Enrico’s alive.”

Martín was waiting for them when they got out of the airplane.

“Well, I’m flattered to see you here, Colonel,” Frade said. “But Delgano and I really expected a brass band.”

Martín—not surprising Frade at all—did not seem amused.

“You look distressed,” Frade said. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Colonel Perón made it quite clear that he would prefer to explain the situation to you personally.”

“Well, I’m in no mood for him right now. It’s been a very long flight, and I want to go home. I just saw that Enrico has brought a station wagon—”

“Going home,” Martín interrupted, “will have to wait until you see Colonel Perón, I’m afraid, Señor Frade.”

“That sounds awfully official, Colonel. Almost as if I said, ‘I’m going home,’ you’d put handcuffs on me and throw me in the back of your car.”

“I hope it won’t come to that, Señor Frade.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Frade said disgustedly. “Well, let me tell Enrico what’s going on, then send him to my house in Buenos Aires.”

Martín considered that for a long moment.

“All right,” Martín said finally. “Please don’t do anything impulsive like getting in your car and driving off.”

“You want to come, Gonzo, and call your wife to let her know you’re back?”

“I need a word with Señor Delgano,” Martín said. “Please don’t be long, Señor Frade.”

“Señor Clete, when I saw you in the airplane, I knew that a merciful God had answered my prayers,” Enrico said emotionally, and wrapped his arms around Frade.

He’s actually crying.

But no time to get emotional.

“I have to know what happened, Enrico, and quickly.”

Enrico nodded. “I have a dear friend in the mountain troops in San Martín de los Andes. He called me. We went to corporal’s school together and to sergeant’s school and—”

“What did he say when he called you?”

“That something strange was happening. He said the regiment had been quartering a half-dozen Nazis—the German Nazis, not Argentine, the ones who wear black uniforms and have a skull on their caps?”

Frade nodded his understanding.

“They came off a submarine?” Enrico asked.

Frade nodded again. “So I was told.”

“Well, these Nazis were getting ready to—what he said was ‘take care of some traitors’—and that they would be transported to Tandil in regimental trucks. And my friend said he knew that Casa Chica was near Tandil, and that I might want to tell you.”

“So you were ready for them?”

“What is very sad, Don Cletus, it breaks my heart to tell you, is that this was done at the orders of El Coronel Perón.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw him with my own eyes, Don Cletus. I even took his picture when he was on the road.”

“You did what?”

“I took his picture.”

“I didn’t know you had a camera,” Clete said, thinking out loud.

“Doña Dorotea brought it to Casa Chica one day and then forgot it, and Señor Frogger showed me how to use it.”

“Where is Señor Frogger now?”

“On Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, of course. Safe, of course.”

“What happened at Casa Chica, Enrico?”

“Well, when I knew that the Nazi bastards were up to something, Sergeant Stein and I took the Froggers back to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.”

How the hell is that possible?

Dorotea knows nothing about that . . .

“Where’s Stein?” Frade said.

“With the Froggers. If you keep interrupting, Don Cletus . . .”

“Sorry.”

“I took them to the estancia, and picked up a few gauchos, all old soldiers, and took them back to Casa Chica.”

“But you didn’t say anything to Doña Dorotea?”

“Of course not. She is in the family way, thanks be to God, and I didn’t want to worry her with this. I knew how to handle it.”

That explains why she didn’t know!

Frade discreetly looked back toward Delgano and Martín. They were deep in discussion. Frade turned to Enrico.

“And how did you handle it, Enrico?”

“Well, we drew the blinds and left the lights on, and the radio, and then we went and hid down by the road. That’s where I saw El Coronel Perón. It was late in the afternoon . . .”

“And took his picture?”

“Yes. Him with the colonel of mountain troops and the Nazis in black uniforms.”

“And?”

“What surprised me, Don Cletus, what shamed me and broke my heart, was that the mountain troops set up two machine guns, one behind the house and one in front, and fired maybe five hundred rounds, maybe a little more than that, at the house. They didn’t try to arrest anybody. They just tried to kill whoever was in the house.

“Then the Nazis went in the house. And of course no one was there.

“So they went and told Colonel Perón and the colonel of mountain troops, and Colonel Perón told them they should stay—not in the house, but around it—in case somebody came back, and that he would send a truck back for them in the morning. So then he and the mountain troops left and the Nazis stayed.”

“And then?”

I shouldn’t be smiling; getting this story out of him is like pulling teeth.

“And then we waited until the trucks had gone far enough so that they couldn’t hear the shots, and we killed the Nazi bastards. I personally killed two of them myself.”

“What did you do with the bodies?”

“Left them there. I also took pictures of them, and took their identification papers and one of the hats with the skull on it.”

“You think the photos came out?”

“I had them processed in Pilar the next morning—that would be yesterday morning. They came out very well.”

“Why didn’t you tell Doña Dorotea about any of this? Or at least El Jefe?”

“I tried. But when I came up to the house, I saw her and El Jefe had just driven off in the Horch. I couldn’t catch them, as much as I would have liked to, to spare Doña Dorotea, in her delicate condition, what she would see when she got to Casa Chica. I was too late, I am sorry to say.”

“Then why didn’t you tell her when she came back?”

Sergeant Major Enrico Rodríguez, Cavalry, Retired, looked uncomfortable at being put on the spot. He broke eye contact, looked at his feet a long moment as he gathered his thoughts, then looked back at Clete.

“You know, Don Cletus, that I love you as if you were my own son,” he began cautiously. “So I will tell you the truth: I was afraid she would not understand what I had done and would say something that she would later regret.”

Clete forced back a smile.

“You can bet on that, Enrico.”

“And then there was word that you would be coming back, so I thought I would come here and wait and tell you what had happened.”

Now Clete did smile.

“Fess up, Enrico. You’re afraid of Doña Dorotea.”

“Do not be silly. She’s a woman. A wonderful one, to be sure. . . . You will explain to her when we get back to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, Don Cletus?”

“I’ll try, Enrico. I will try.”

“We are going there now?”

"No, first I have to see El Coronel Perón. I’ll be riding with Martín. You follow.”