The Honor of Spies

Buenos Aires Province,

Argentina

0630 14 August 1943

While it was assumed that the peones of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo were completely trustworthy, Enrico pointed out that money talked, and that it was unlikely but possible that some of the technicians working on the place might be on the payroll of someone else.

They knew, for example, that Carlos Aguirre, the airframe and power plant mechanic el Coronel had hired to maintain his Beechcraft Staggerwing and the Piper Cubs, was an agent of the Bureau of Internal Security. They knew because Gonzalo Delgano told them. Delgano knew because, when he had been on the estancia's payroll as the Beechcraft's pilot and as el Coronel's instructor pilot, he had all the time been an army officer attached to the BIS, charged with reporting on el Coronel Frade's activities.

Against the remote--but nevertheless real--possibility that someone besides Carlos Aguirre was in the employ of BIS, or, for that matter, someone in the employ of the German Embassy, would report that when the group came to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo before sunrise, von Wachtstein, Boltitz, Father Welner, and Humberto Duarte had not gone bird hunting as announced, Clete Frade decided that they would in fact go bird hunting.

A fairly complicated hunting expedition was organized. A wrangler had horses waiting for all the men when they came out of the big house after a breakfast buffet. So was a horse-drawn wagon carrying shotguns, ammunition, and the makings of a midmorning snack break. A second horse-drawn wagon carried the dogs--eight Llewellyn setters--and three handlers for them.

Everyone mounted up. Then Clete--to the amusement of the dozen mounted peones who would go with them--had his usual difficulty with Julius Caesar. The large, high-spirited black stallion had never been ridden by anyone but el Coronel and manifested its resentment of its new master by trying very hard to throw Clete. When Frade finally got control of his mount, the party walked their horses through the formal gardens and out onto the pampas, with the wagons following.

Four kilometers or so from the big house, they dismounted and collected their weapons from the wagon. Clete's father's hunting equipment included something he had never seen before: a leather shell bag, which looked to him like a woman's purse on an extra-long strap.

And he was again wearing more of his father's clothing, in this instance boots and a Barbour jacket. He had never seen one of these before, and as Father Welner had seen him suspiciously eyeing and feeling the material, the priest said, "Not to worry, my son, the Queen has one just like it."

"It looks greasy," Clete said.

"They wax the thread before they weave the cloth."

All four of the Diamond Grade Brownings had been brought along in a rack that looked as if it had been made for precisely that purpose. Clete saw the priest take the 28-bore rather than the 16.

Ah, we're going to play King of the Mountain!

He took the other 28-bore from its rack.

"The way your father and I shot," the priest said, "was by turns. You shoot until you miss, and then the other chap."

"After you, Padre," Clete said, grandly waving Welner ahead of him onto the grass of the plain.

The Llewellyns were both very good hunters and superbly trained. They picked up a scent within two minutes, found birds not quite a minute after that, and held the point perfectly until the birds took flight and the priest had fired.

Two perdices fell to the ground.

"Good shooting," Clete said politely.

"Lucky," the priest said politely.

He was lucky six times in a row before he missed.

"Tough luck," Clete said politely as he fed two shells to his over-and-under shotgun.

"I think it was badly loaded shells," the priest said. "You might take that into consideration should you have any difficulty."

The eyes of Texas are upon you, Cletus, he thought as he started after the Llewellyns.

As well as those of the smug Jesuit.

And, of course, the eyes of the members of your private army, who are probably praying the Good Father makes a monkey of el patron.

Don't fuck up!

He dropped nineteen birds--eight of them in doubles--before missing. When he finally missed, he turned to Father Welner and said, "You must be right about the faulty shells. I usually shoot much better than this."

By then it was quarter past ten, and they stopped the hunt for a break.

And to get down to the business of the day. Which was getting Frogger to trust Hans-Peter von Wachtstein and Karl Boltitz and vice versa.