The Honor of Spies

"You thought what happened at Casa Chica was in the nature of a warning?" Frade asked.

"I didn't know it was anything like this," he said. "It happened while you were in the United States?"

Frade nodded. "Yesterday. You really didn't know?"

Martin shook his head.

"Did they get the Froggers?" he asked.

"The who? Next question."

Martin looked at him for a long moment, then asked: "Anything else of interest to me happen upstairs?"

"Well, I told him I wanted him out of this house by tomorrow. That was about it."

While many people knew the mansion to be el Coronel Peron's residence, and many even thought he owned it, the fact was that it belonged to Cletus Frade, and Peron had been using it as a sort of tolerated unwelcome guest.

Martin, who knew who owned the house, shook his head in disbelief.

"Actually, what I said was, 'Tio Juan, you degenerate sonofabitch. You're going to have to find someplace else for your little girls. I want you out of here by tomorrow.' That was after he waved his pistol at me."

"He did what?" Martin asked incredulously.

"For a moment I thought he was going to shoot me. But then Enrico chambered a round in the riot gun and he thought better of it. Now that I've had a couple of minutes to think it over, I almost wish he had tried. The tragic death of Juan Domingo in his godson's library because poor old Enrico didn't know his shotgun was loaded would have solved a lot of my problems."

"And now?"

"Now, nothing. I told him that if I even suspect an attempt is made on my life, my wife's life, or the life of anybody close to me, the photographs--and some other material I have--will be made public. The only people who know what happened upstairs just now are Enrico and me. And now you."

Martin considered that for a long moment.

"I'm sure you understand, my friend, that it isn't a question of if this situation will erupt but when. I really don't see Peron trying to kill you--at least personally--but there are a number of others who would like to see you out of the way."

Karl Cranz, for instance, Martin thought.

Cranz would be very unhappy indeed about the failure of the Tandil operation. Cletus Frade was making enemies left and right.

Frade nodded.

"We did not have this conversation," Martin went on. "What happened tonight was that I insisted you come here, as el Coronel Peron asked me to do, and waited here only until I was sure that you had met with him."

Frade nodded again.

The two shook hands.

"Enrico," Martin said, "I'm very glad there was no accident because you didn't know your shotgun was loaded."

Enrico nodded at Martin but said nothing.

Martin walked across the garage to a 1939 Dodge sedan. The driver saw him coming and had the engine started before he reached the car. Martin got in the front seat and the car drove off.

"We go to the estancia now, Don Cletus?" Enrico asked.

"I need a bath first," Frade said. "I haven't had one since I left Los Angeles.

Wives--write this down, Enrico--don't like men who smell."

"The apartment in the Hotel Alvear?" Enrico asked when they had gotten into a 1941 Ford Super-Deluxe station wagon.

"The house," Frade answered. "Hotel managers don't like men who need a bath any more than wives do."

[TWO]

1728 Avenida Coronel Diaz

Palermo, Buenos Aires

1620 12 August 1943

"There is a silver lining in every black cloud, Enrico," Frade said as they approached the huge, turn-of-the-century mansion. "Now that my Tio Juan is out of Uncle Willy's house--and after I have it fumigated--we can use that instead of this."

Enrico pulled the station wagon up to the massive cast-iron gates and tapped the horn. When there was no response in sixty seconds, he tapped it again.

"What I think we have here is one more proof that when el patron is away, the mice will play," Frade said.

When there was no response to the second tooting of the horn, Frade said, "Go open the gate."

Enrico got out and shoved the left gate open. From painful experience--he had scraped the fender of his 1941 Buick--Frade knew that as massive as they were, both of the gates had to be opened for an American car to pass. The house had been built before the arrival of the automobile.

Frade slid across the seat, intending to close the driver's door and drive the car inside himself.

He had just reached for the door when he saw Enrico take his pistol--an Argentine manufactured-under-license version of the 1911 Colt .45 ACP self-loading pistol--quickly work the action, and assume a crouching two-handed firing stance.

Frade grabbed Enrico's Remington Model 11 riot shotgun from where it was held in a clip against the dash, with the butt riding on the transmission hump, and dove out the open door.

He heard both the .45 firing and the sharper sound of something else firing as he hit the sidewalk. One of the windows in the Ford shattered.