The Honor of Spies

I trust Nervo and Martin. I trust Inspector Peralta because Nervo trusts him. And I suppose I can trust Subinspector Navarro because he works for Peralta.

That's a hell of a lot of people being told a hell of a lot of secrets.

Not to mention the local Gendarmeria boss, Subinspector Nowicki. I don't know him, or where he comes from.

"Don Cletus, did Inspector General Nervo tell you I can read faces?" Inspector Peralta asked.

"Excuse me?"

"I can look at a face and tell what that person is thinking," Peralta said seriously.

What the hell is this?

"Really?"

"Would you like me to tell you what you're thinking?" Peralta said, and then went on without giving Clete a chance to reply. "Who the hell are all these people? How the hell do I know I can trust them? Am I close?"

"That thought has run through my mind, now that you mention it," Clete said.

"Don't be embarrassed, Don Cletus. I would have been worried if you were not worried. So let's deal with it: Me, you can trust, because the inspector general said you can, and you trust the inspector general. Subinspector Navarro can be trusted because I tell you he can. That leaves Subinspector Nowicki, whom you keep looking at through the corner of your eye. Despite his shifty eyes, I have learned he is trustworthy. But let him speak for himself. Estanislao?"

Subinspector Nowicki--a burly, totally bald, muscular man in his early forties, who had been sitting slumped in an armchair while sipping steadily at a glass of wine--stood.

"Don Cletus, I am a Pole. I hate Nazis and Communists. I know what they have done to Poland and I don't want either taking over in Argentina. Before I came here, I commanded the Gendarmeria squadron in Pila. I was privileged to call your father my friend. When the Nazi bastards murdered him and nearly killed my old friend Enrico, I prayed to God for the chance to avenge el Coronel's murder. I swear before God and on my mother's grave that you can trust me."

He nodded once, then sat down.

"Enrico, why didn't you tell me you were friends?" Clete challenged, more in wonder than anger or even annoyance.

"You didn't ask, Don Cletus," the old soldier said matter-of-factly.

"Well, Don Cletus?" Peralta said. "Now that you're a little less worried about Estanislao . . ."

"I apologize, Inspector," Clete said.

"No need," Nowicki said simply.

". . . where shall we start?" Peralta finished his question.

"The arms cache?" Clete replied. "The perimeter defense of this place?"

"There are more arms, heavier arms, than I expected," Peralta said. "Fifty-caliber machine guns, mortars. And a great deal of ammunition. Which makes me wonder whether el Coronel Schmidt is really after that, rather than using the weapons cache as an excuse to look for the Froggers."

"Why would he want the weapons? He's got a regiment."

"Doesn't the U.S. Corps of Marines teach its officers that guns are like sex? You can never have too much."

"Point taken, Inspector," Clete said.

"But now that we're on the subject of el Coronel Schmidt, let's get that clear between us, Don Cletus. My orders from Inspector General Nervo are to assist you in any way I can, short of helping you start, or involving the Gendarmeria in, a civil war."

"I have no intention of starting a civil war," Clete replied. "Is that what Inspector General Nervo thinks?"

"It's not you he's worried about," Nowicki said. "It's that Nazi bastard Schmidt."

"Schmidt wants to start a civil war? What the hell for?"

"To put in the Casa Rosada someone who understands that the Nazis--and until last week, the Italians--were fighting the good fight against godless Communism," Peralta said. "And what makes him especially dangerous is that the bastard really believes he's on God's side."

"Who does he want to put in the Casa Rosada? A colonel named Schmidt?"

"Maybe a colonel named Peron," Peralta said. "But probably Obregon."

"The head of the Bureau of Internal Security?"

"I've known for some time--as have Nervo, Martin, and some others--that el General de Division Manuel Frederico Obregon likes to think of himself as the Heinrich Himmler of Argentina," Peralta said. "Not the concentration camp Himmler, of course, but as the patriot rooting out godless Communists and other opponents of National Socialism wherever found. Rawson--and others; el Coronel Wattersly, for example--keep him on a pretty tight leash, which Schmidt would love to remove.

"Rawson is a good man, but not very strong. He could be talked into resigning if he thought the alternative was civil war."

"And Obregon would move into the Casa Rosada?"