The Honor of Spies

The first time had been at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, where he had dropped off Mr. Wilhelm Fischer, a South African, and where Frade's wife had told him the bad news:

That she had gone to Casa Chica the previous afternoon with provisions for Sergeant Stein and the others and found only a nearly destroyed Casa Chica, large pools of blood on the airstrip, and nothing and nobody else. Stein was gone, and so were Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez, the Froggers, The Other Dorotea, and the dozen ex-Husares de Pueyrredon peones who were supposed to be guarding the place.

There hadn't been time then to do anything about that. The SAA Lodestar was due at Aerodromo Jorge Frade in Moron in an hour--he had sent a telegram from Brazil announcing their Estimated Time of Arrival--and if it didn't land more or less on time, el Coronel Martin, who Frade was sure would be there to meet him, would suspect that the Lodestar had landed somewhere else. For example, at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

And taking into account what Dorotea had told him had happened at Casa Chica, it was also quite possible that Martin would be waiting at Jorge Frade with a warrant for his arrest as at least a conspirator in the kidnapping, or whatever it might be called, of the Froggers.

Clete Frade did the best with what he had. And what he had was his own Lodestar and someone who could fly it--SAA's chief pilot, Gonzalo Delgano. Delgano would not be suspected by Martin of having anything to do with the Froggers because Delgano was actually a BIS major charged by Martin with keeping an eye on Frade.

Frade had somewhat turned Delgano. The day before, during a fuel stop at La Paz, Bolivia, he had appealed to Delgano. And Delgano had, if not changed sides, then--after praying for guidance and being swayed by his concept of a Christian Officer's Code of Behavior--decided that he was morally obliged to help Frade smuggle Herr Fischer/Oberstleutnant Frogger into Argentina aboard the Lodestar.

If the whole thing had blown up--and it looked as if it had--and everything came out--as it inevitably would--Delgano was in deep trouble. But neither Frade nor Delgano thought el Coronel Martin would be waiting at Jorge Frade with handcuffs for both of them. With a little bit of luck, Delgano could just go home from the airfield.

Or get in a car and drive to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and fly the Frade Lodestar, with Oberstleutnant Frogger and the others of Frade's OSS team, across the River Plate to sanctuary in Uruguay.

Frade had ordered that everything the OSS owned on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo be prepared for demolition and for all the OSS personnel to be prepared to get on the Lodestar at a moment's notice.

Then he and Delgano had flown the SAA Lodestar to Aerodromo Coronel Jorge Frade in Moron, where neither was surprised to find el Coronel Martin waiting for them.

Not with handcuffs, but with the announcement that el Coronel Peron had some new information regarding the missing Froggers that he wished to discuss with Frade, and he thought that it would be a good idea for Frade to hear what he had to say.

"Not in the next couple of days, Don Cletus. Right now," Martin had said. "I'm afraid I must insist. You can follow me to the house on Libertador and then go home."

"How am I going to follow you?"

Martin pointed toward one of the hangars. Frade looked and saw Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez standing beside one of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo's Ford station wagons.

On the way to the house on Libertador, Enrico had told Frade what had happened at Casa Chica, told him that the Froggers were safe and well protected in one of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo's casas, and shown him a thick stack of photographs that Sergeant Stein had taken at Casa Chica.

The meeting was brief. Afterward when Frade came down the stairs into the basement garage of the mansion, both very tired and upset, he was annoyed but not surprised to find Martin still waiting for him.

"Alejandro, what a pleasant surprise," Frade said sarcastically. "We're going to have to stop meeting this way; people will talk."

Enrico was with him, his riot shotgun held vertically against his leg. Martin was not amused by Frade's wit.

"That didn't take long," Martin said.

"Well, we didn't have much to talk about," Frade said.

"What did he have to say?"

"Very little after I told him I knew he was there when my Casa Chica was machine-gunned."

"Excuse me?"

Frade took the sheaf of pictures from the pocket of his leather jacket and handed them to Martin.

Martin tried very hard and almost succeeded in suppressing his surprise at the photographs.

"I didn't hear about any bodies," Martin blurted. "Where are they now?"

"God only knows," Frade said. "Why did you insist I come here, Alejandro?"

Martin took a moment to consider his reply, then said, "I thought perhaps el Coronel Peron could make the point that either kidnapping--or aiding and abetting the desertion of--German diplomats was a very dangerous thing to do."