The Honor of Spies

Welner went back to his horse and retrieved what looked like a small doctor's bag from where he had it tied to the saddle. Then he walked purposely past everyone and onto the verandah. He went in the house without knocking.

"Now that everything's in capable Jesuit hands," Frade said, "I'm going to have a little fermented grape while waiting to see what happens next."

He went onto the verandah, where the luncheon table had been set up, and helped himself to a large glass of red wine. Von Wachtstein joined him almost immediately, and then the others, one by one.

For the next ten minutes, everyone on the verandah could hear the sound of an excited female voice inside the house and the murmurs of male voices. The thick walls of the house and drawn draperies kept them from understanding any of it.

Gradually, the sound of the female voice became less audible, and finally it stopped.

Two minutes after that, the door opened and Father Welner pointed first at Oberstleutnant Frogger and then Cletus Frade and motioned them to come inside.

Frade had the unkind thought that the priest's gesture was not unlike the one the headmaster of his boarding school--also a priest, albeit an Episcopalian--had used to summon miscreants into his office to face the bar of ecclesiastic justice.

And then, knowing that he probably should not, he refilled his wineglass before going through the door.

Frau Frogger was half-lying on the couch. After a moment, Frade saw that she was asleep.

Not asleep, stupid. The way she was howling a couple of minutes ago, there's no way she could have just dozed off.

She's been drugged.

Christ, Welner drugged her!

She was an ordinary-looking middle-aged woman, just an inch the far side of plump. Her black, faintly patterned dress was dirt-smudged and torn in several places.

Her face was battered, and Clete had a mental image of the two gauchos trying to pull the massive Dorotea off her as Dorotea's arms flailed beating her.

"Mein Gott!" Oberstleutnant Frogger said softly.

"She'll be sore for a while, and I'm afraid she's going to lose a tooth," the priest said. "But aside from that, she's not seriously injured physically."

"She's sedated?" Oberstleutnant Frogger asked.

The priest nodded. "I gave her something."

"She attacked the Father," Herr Frogger said softly. "She . . . your mother smashed a water pitcher against the table, and then tried to shove what was left of it in the Father's face."

"She's disturbed," Father Welner said, using the calm, considerate tone of a priest.

"That makes trying to shove a broken water pitcher in your face okay?" Frade said sharply.

"We had to wrestle her to the ground," Herr Frogger said. He exhaled. "I had no idea she was that strong."

No one said anything for a moment.

"That's when Father gave her the injection," Herr Frogger said. "If he hadn't done that, I don't know what would have happened."

"How long will she be out?" Clete asked.

"She'll sleep soundly for four or five hours--perhaps longer, because she's physically exhausted as well--and then she will gradually become awake."

Oberstleutnant Frogger asked what Clete was thinking: "And then what?"

"Then we're back to square one," Clete said. "And we can't have that."

"My mother belongs in a hospital. Not for what that woman did to her, but for her . . . that uncontrollable, irrational rage."

"Colonel," Frade said. "You know that's not an option."

"Well, then," Oberstleutnant Frogger replied, "what do we do, put her in chains?"

"That is one option," Clete said.

"Cletus, you can't be serious," Father Welner said.

"I'm perfectly serious," Frade said. "She's made it clear that she will do anything--she could have killed Dorotea--to get away. She has decided that both her husband and her son are the enemy. And, for that matter, that you are. And since putting her in a hospital is out of the question, what other option is there?"

"Actually, I can think of one," the priest said.

"Well, let's have it," Frade said, more sharply than he intended.

"When your Aunt Beatriz became unstable after your cousin Jorge's passing--"

"He didn't pass, Father," Frade said. "You know what happened to him."

Oberstleutnant Frogger looked at Frade.

"He was an Argentine army officer, Colonel," Frade said. "A quote unquote neutral observer at Stalingrad. The damned fool went flying around in a Storch and got himself killed when it was shot down."

"That's a bit cruel, don't you think, Cletus?" the priest asked.

"It's the truth. Cruel? Maybe. We're in a cruel business. Let's hear your possible solution. The other options I can think of start with chaining her to the floor."

"At the risk of Major Frade taking offense at my defense of him, Father," Oberstleutnant Frogger said, "there are things in play here involving many lives."

"Are you going to tell me what they are?" the priest asked.