The Honor of Spies

The incline in front of Casa Chica was very steep, and between the house and the road and gate, but not visible from either, a landing strip had been carved out of the hillside. Frade had told Stein his father had used it to fly his lady love into the house in one of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo's fleet of Piper Cubs.

The car and the truck appeared a moment later, moving slowly in low gear, and turned onto the landing strip. When they stopped, Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez--who had been Cavalry, Ejercito Argentino, and had retired with the late Coronel Jorge Frade from the Husares de Pueyrredon, Argentina's most prestigious cavalry regiment--got out of the car and started toward the house, going up the stairs carved into the hillside. He carried a Remington Model 11 self-loading twelve-gauge riot shotgun in his hand.

The driver of the refrigerator truck got out from behind the wheel, went to the rear doors, and pulled them open. A dozen peones, all armed with Mauser rifles, began to pile out of the truck and then to unload from it equipment, including ammunition cans, blankets, food containers, and finally a Browning Automatic Rifle.

Rodriguez put his arm around Stein's shoulders and pounded his back affectionately, but did not speak.

"What's going on, Sergeant Major?" Stein asked in Spanish.

Their relationship was delicate. Rodriguez had a long service history and had held the senior enlisted rank for ten years of it. He knew that Stein had just been promoted to staff sergeant yet had been in the army not even two years.

On the other hand, Don Cletus Frade had made it clear to Rodriguez that Stein was in charge of the Froggers and Casa Chica.

"I have had a telephone call from an old friend," Enrico Rodriguez said. "There are two trucks of Mountain Troops on their way here. They have with them a half-dozen Nazi soldiers--the ones who came off the submarine? The ones with the skulls on their caps?"

Stein nodded his understanding.

"What makes you think they're coming here?"

"My friend, he is also of the Husares, heard the Nazi officer tell his men they were going after traitors to the Fuhrer."

He mispronounced the title, and without thinking about it, Stein corrected him and then asked, "How would they know we have the Froggers here?"

Rodriguez shrugged.

"We will defend them," Rodriguez said seriously.

"That's what those guys are for?" Stein asked, nodding down the stairs toward the peones now milling around on the landing strip.

"There are twelve, all old Husares," Rodriguez said.

"Sergeant Major, with the twelve we have here, that's two dozen. Against how many soldiers on two trucks?"

"Probably forty, forty-two," Rodriguez said. "What I have been thinking is that they are coming in such strength thinking we have only the dozen men, and they can make us give them the Froggers without a fight. If they see we are so many, they may decide that there will be a fight, and they know that if there is a fight against us, there would be many casualties. How would they explain the deaths of ten or fifteen Mountain Troops so far from their base?"

"Sergeant Major, I think it would be best if there were no confrontation," Stein said carefully.

"You mean just turn the Froggers over to them?"

"No. I mean get the Froggers out of here, back to someplace on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo."

"Don Cletus said they were to be kept here in Casa Chica," Rodriguez said.

"That was before he knew about this," Stein argued.

After a pause, the old soldier said, "True."

Stein had to suppress a smile, both at the old soldier and at the Christian scripture that had for some inexplicable reason popped into his Jewish head: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Ninety seconds ago, he reminded himself, I was asking myself whether I had the balls to shoot both of those goddamn Nazis rather than see them freed, and decided that I did.

"You have some place to take them?" Stein pursued.

"I will tell the driver where to take you," Rodriguez said. "And then later meet you there."

"You're not going to take them?"

"I am going to stay here and see what these bastards are up to," Rodriguez said.

"And so will I," Stein said, somewhat astonished to hear himself say it.

Rodriguez was visibly unhappy to hear this.

"Do you have a saying in the U.S. Army that there can only be one commander?"

"Sergeant Major, I recognize that your experience in matters like these is much greater than mine." Which is practically nonexistent. "I am at your orders."

"We will send six of the men, plus the driver, with the Froggers," Rodriguez ordered as he assumed command. "You tell The Other Dorotea to prepare the Nazis to be moved. Tell her I said I want them tied and blindfolded."