The Honor of Spies

"Howdy," Frade said. "How about a little something to cut the dust of the trail?"

Dorotea looked at her husband and shook her head. Then she kissed her husband affectionately and the priest formally.

"Father, this is Mr. Wilhelm Fischer," Dorotea said. "He's come all the way from South Africa to see how we grow grapes and make wine. Willi, this is Father Welner, an old and dear friend."

Frade saw the look on Welner's face.

"Hey, Padre," Frade said as Welner and Fischer shook hands, "you ever hear that curiosity killed the cat?"

The priest did not reply directly.

"Welcome to Argentina, Mr. Fischer," he said.

III

[ONE]

Estancia Santa Catalina

Near Pila

Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

2115 13 August 1943

Cletus Frade was well turned out in a tweed suit from London's Savile Row for the "supper" la Senora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano was giving to mark the return of Frade from the United States. "Supper" was a code word. "Dinner" would have meant black-tie. Frade had one of those, too, also from Savile Row. He also had a silk dressing gown and two dozen shirts from Sulka's in Paris.

All of the clothing had been his father's. He was comfortable wearing it, because when he had found it in one of the two wardrobes in the master suite of the big house, it all had been in unopened boxes.

A tailor from Buenos Aires had been summoned to adjust the unused clothing to fit Clete--not much had been required--and to adjust the clothing that his father actually had worn to fit Enrico. His father had been, to use a term from Midland, Texas, where Clete had been raised, something of a clotheshorse.

Frade had observed at the time that he now had all the clothing he would need for his lifetime.

He would not have been mistaken for a Londoner, however, or even for an Argentine who patronized the tailors of Savile Row or the linen shops on the Rue de Castiglione in Paris. Because when he climbed down from the driver's seat of the Horch before the verandah of the big house of Estancia Santa Catalina, not only was he wearing a gray Stetson "Cattleman" hat, but when his trouser legs were pulled up, they revealed not silken hose but the dully gleaming leather calf of Western boots, finely tooled, and bearing his initials in contrasting red leather.

There were a dozen large automobiles already parked at Claudia's big house, including two Rolls-Royces, two Cadillacs, half a dozen Mercedeses, and a pair of Packards, one of them Father Welner's. He didn't see the olive-drab Mercedes that was provided to el Coronel Juan D. Peron as the Argentine secretary of state for labor and welfare.

The Rolls-Royce Wraith Saloon Touring limousine belonged to his uncle, Humberto Valdez Duarte, who was the managing director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank. In Argentina, managing director translated to chairman of the board. Duarte, a tall, slender man of forty-six, was married to Beatriz Frade de Duarte, Clete's father's sister.

The 1939 Rolls-Royce Phantom III James Young-bodied "Drop Head" (convertible) belonged to Clete's father-in-law, Enrico Mallin, managing director of the Sociedad Mercantil de Importacion de Productos Petroliferos (SMIPP). Mallin--a forty-two-year-old Argentine who stood six-foot-two, weighed one hundred ninety-five pounds, and had a full head of dark-brown hair and a massive, immaculately trimmed mustache--didn't like his son-in-law at all. And the feeling was mutual.

As Clete walked onto the verandah with Dorotea, he could see the other guests having a cocktail in the sitting room, the other side of a reception line headed by Dona Claudia de Carzino-Cormano with her daughters, Alicia, Baroness von Wachtstein, and Isabela, a quite beautiful, black-haired, stylishly dressed female whom Clete thought of, and often referred to, as "El Bitcho."

Dorotea led the way down the reception line.

She and Claudia exchanged compliments.

Fischer followed her.

"Claudia, this is Wilhelm Fischer. He's from South Africa, and he's come here to show us how to grow grapes. Willi, this is our hostess, la Senora Carzino-Cormano, known as the Lioness of the Pampas."

"How do you do?" Claudia replied as she flashed Clete an icy look. "Welcome to Estancia Santa Catalina."

"You are very kind to have me, madam," Fischer replied, and--certainly without thinking about it--clicked his heels as he bent over her hand.

"I thought only Germans did that," Cletus said.

"Cletus, my God!" Claudia exclaimed.

"Did I say something wrong again?"

She did not respond directly.

"This is your party, Cletus," Claudia said. "You're supposed to be standing here greeting people. And then you're the last to show up."

Then she kissed his cheek--a real kiss, as opposed to pro forma.

"I don't do standing in line very well," he said.

She shook her head, then said, "Juan Domingo called. He can't be here."

"Oh, God, what a shame!" Frade replied with great insincerity, then moved to Alicia.

"Alicia, this is . . ."