The meeting was brief. Afterward when Frade came down the stairs into the basement garage of the mansion, both very tired and upset, he was annoyed but not surprised to find Martín still waiting for him.
“Alejandro, what a pleasant surprise,” Frade said sarcastically. “We’re going to have to stop meeting this way; people will talk.”
Enrico was with him, his riot shotgun held vertically against his leg. Martín was not amused by Frade’s wit.
“That didn’t take long,” Martín said.
“Well, we didn’t have much to talk about,” Frade said.
“What did he have to say?”
“Very little after I told him I knew he was there when my Casa Chica was machine-gunned.”
“Excuse me?”
Frade took the sheaf of pictures from the pocket of his leather jacket and handed them to Martín.
Martín tried very hard and almost succeeded in suppressing his surprise at the photographs.
“I didn’t hear about any bodies,” Martín blurted. “Where are they now?”
“God only knows,” Frade said. “Why did you insist I come here, Alejandro?”
Martín took a moment to consider his reply, then said, “I thought perhaps el Coronel Perón could make the point that either kidnapping—or aiding and abetting the desertion of—German diplomats was a very dangerous thing to do.”
“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?”
Martín shook his head.
“Did they get the Froggers?” he asked.
“The who? Next question.”
Martín 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 Perón’s residence, and many even thought he owned it, the fact was that it belonged to Cletus Frade, and Perón had been using it as a sort of tolerated unwelcome guest.
Martín, who knew who owned the house, shook his head in disbelief.
“Actually, what I said was, ‘Tío 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?” Martín 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.”
Martín 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 Perón 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, Martín 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,” Martín went on. “What happened tonight was that I insisted you come here, as el Coronel Perón 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,” Martín said, “I’m very glad there was no accident because you didn’t know your shotgun was loaded.”
Enrico nodded at Martín but said nothing.
Martín walked across the garage to a 1939 Dodge sedan. The driver saw him coming and had the engine started before he reached the car. Martín 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 Díaz
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 Tío 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 patrón 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.
Just to be sure, he worked the action, and a brass-cased shell flew out of the weapon.
I now have five.
He ran around the front of the Ford and stood up with the shotgun at his shoulder. There was a black 1938 Peugeot sedan stopped in front of the house. There were three men in it, one driving and two firing pistols. One had just taken aim at Frade when he staggered backward with a load of double-aught buckshot from the Remington in his chest. Clete had just taken a bead on the driver—the other man with the pistol was nowhere in sight—when the man’s head exploded when a 230-grain, soft-nose lead bullet from Enrico’s .45 struck him in the mouth.
It was suddenly very quiet. Clete could hear a car shifting gears. Without realizing he was doing it, Clete used the USMC signal for advance on the left to Enrico and they ran to opposite ends of the Peugeot. The third man was lying on the street in a growing pool of blood from his head.
Enrico crossed himself, then cursed.
Clete felt a little light-headed, and steadied himself on the Peugeot.
“Don Cletus, you are all right?”
“Hunky-dory,” Frade said. “We better call the cops.”
The moment he said it, he saw that would be unnecessary. Two policemen were coming down the street at a run on the left, and a third from the right.
After a moment, Clete realized that the cops were calling for him to drop the gun. He made a gesture of surrender and laid Enrico’s s
hotgun on the roof of the Peugeot.
Enrico Rodríguez was not cowed by the police.
“This is Don Cletus Frade,” he bellowed. “How dare you point a gun at him?”
This was followed by an order: “Get on the telephone and report to el Coronel Martín of the BIS that an assassination attempt has been made on Don Cletus Frade!”
[THREE]
The Embassy of the German Reich
Avenida Córdoba
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1640 12 August 1943
The commercial counselor of the embassy of the German Reich looked up with annoyance when there was a knock at his office door.
“Whoever that is, get rid of him,” he ordered softly. “I am not available.”
Fräulein Ingeborg Hässell, a middle-aged woman who wore her graying hair drawn tight against her skull, ending in a bun at the nape of her neck, quickly stood up and went to the door and opened it. A moment later, she closed the door and announced:
“It’s Günther Loche, Herr Cranz. He said it’s important.”
Cranz’s eyebrow rose, and he made a Let him in gesture with his well-manicured fingers.
Fräulein Hässell opened the door and signaled for Loche to enter.
Cranz smiled warmly at Loche.
“I gather you have something to tell me about our friend, Günther?”
“Yes, sir,” Loche said. He was now standing almost at attention. His eyes flicked nervously at Fräulein Hässell.
“Be good enough, please, Fräulein Hässell, to give Günther and me a moment?”
She went through the door and closed it after her.
“So what have you to tell me, Günther?” Cranz asked.
“Herr Cranz, some men attempted to kill Frade as he was opening the gates of his house on Avenida Coronel Díaz.”
“And?”
“Frade and his bodyguard killed them. There were three of them. Frade used a shotgun and his bodyguard a pistol.”
This was not what Cranz hoped to hear.
“Frade was not injured?”
“No, sir. Neither he nor his bodyguard.”
“And the men who did this: You think they all died?”
“Yes, sir. They were all dead.”
Well, there’s the silver lining in the dark cloud. If they’re dead, the police can’t tie me or Raschner to this.
“You did very well, Günther,” Cranz said. “There’s one more thing I want you to do. Go to Herr Raschner’s apartment and tell him—and absolutely no one, no one, else—what you just told me.”
SS-SD-Sturmbannführer Erich Raschner, his “deputy commercial attaché,” had organized the hit for Cranz.
“Jawohl, Herr Cranz.”
“And send Fräulein Hässell back in here, will you, please, on your way out?”
“Jawohl, Herr Cranz,” Loche barked. He gave Cranz the straight-armed Nazi salute, barked “Heil Hitler!” did an about-face, and marched to the door.
Cranz shook his head and waited for Fräulein Hässell to reappear.
When she had, he said, “Please set up a meeting for eight-thirty tomorrow morning between the ambassador, Herr Gradny-Sawz, Kapitän zur See Boltitz, and myself.”
Fräulein Hässell nodded.
“Please ask the ambassador if we might use his office. And tell Herr Raschner to make sure that he inspects the ambassador’s office for listening devices.”
She nodded again.
He smiled warmly at her. “And now where were we, Fräulein Ingeborg, when we were so rudely interrupted?”
[FOUR]
1728 Avenida Coronel Díaz
Palermo, Buenos Aires
1705 12 August 1943
Police of varying ranks had come to the scene, but the interrogation of Frade and Rodríguez had been stopped by a telephone call from the Bureau of Internal Security, which announced it was taking over the investigation and that el Coronel Martín was en route.
When Martín arrived at the mansion ten minutes later, he found two policemen guarding the door of the library, and Frade and Rodríguez inside. Frade was sitting in an armchair with a glass in his hand and a bottle of Johnnie Walker on the low table in front of him.
“Alejandro, what a pleasant surprise,” Frade said. “But we’re going to have to stop meeting this way; otherwise people will talk.”
Martín had not been amused when Frade had said it before, and he was not amused this time either.
“What happened?” Martín asked.
“Enrico was opening the gate when people started to shoot at us,” Frade said. “Who the hell are they? Were they?”
“All we know so far is that the car was stolen,” Martín said. “If I had to guess, I’d say the dead men were members of the criminal element.”
“God, you’re a veritable Sherlock Holmes!” Frade said. “And I’ll bet they followed us here from Libertador, right?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say they followed us from Aerodromo Coronel Jorge Frade to Libertador and then followed you here. I can’t ask them, of course, as they are no longer with us.”
Clete, after first taking a sip, laid down his glass of scotch whisky, picked up a telephone, and dialed a number from memory.
“Tío Juan, this is your godson, Cletus. Three members of the criminal element just tried to kill Enrico and me. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and accepting that you just didn’t find the time immediately to call your German friends and call them off. But if I were you, I’d call them right now.”
Then he hung up.
He looked at Martín, who shook his head.
“You don’t really think el Coronel Perón had something to do with what happened here, do you?” Martín asked.
“I think his German friends had a lot to do with it.”
“But you have no proof?”
“As you said, the people who tried this are no longer with us.”
“Hypothetically speaking: What if one or more of them were still with us? What if one or more of them said, ‘Sí, señor. We were hired by’—let’s say Commercial Attaché Karl Cranz—”
“You mean SS-Obersturmbannführer Cranz?”
Martín ignored the interruption.
He continued: “Or perhaps Sturmbannführer—excuse me, Deputy Commercial Attaché Raschner—to carry out this dastardly deed. I’m sure both of them would regard the charges as absurd. But that’s moot. Cranz and Raschner have diplomatic immunity; they don’t even have to answer any of my questions. The worst that could happen to them would be being declared persona non grata and told to leave Argentina. That would cause a diplomatic incident, at the very least, and the Germans would, tit for tat, expel a like number of Argentine diplomats from Berlin. And on the Condor that flew the Argentines home there would be the replacements for Cranz and Raschner.”
“Why am I getting the idea that you think the Argentines should stay in Berlin?”
“I have no idea. And I denounce as scurrilous innuendo that the Argentine agricultural attaché in Berlin, who was a classmate of mine at the military academy, has any connection with the Bureau of Internal Security.”
“Suggesting that someone has a connection with the BIS is a terrible thing to say about anybody,” Frade said.
“I thought you might feel that way,” Martín said, and then went on: “Earlier in his career, I just remembered, my classmate was privileged to serve in the Húsares de Pueyrredón under your late father.”
Frade picked up his glass, took a deep swallow of his scotch whisky, then said, “How interesting. So tell me, Alejandro, what happened here tonight?”
“My initial investigation tends to suggest that three known members of the criminal element were observed by the police trying to break into these premises. When the police challenged them, the criminals fired at them. The superior marksmanship of the police prevailed, and the malefactors unfortunately went to meet their maker.”
Frade considered that a moment, nodded his acceptance, and then as
ked, “Can you get Rodríguez’s weapons back from the cops?”
“The ‘cops’? Oh, you mean the police. Why would the police have the suboficial’s weapons?” Martín said. He nodded, then added, “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Don Cletus. But we’re going to have to stop meeting like this, lest people start to talk. I can show myself out. I’m sure you’re anxious to get to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and the charming Doña Dorotea.”
“Just as soon as I have a shower,” Frade said. “Enrico will show you out.”
When Enrico came back into the library a minute or so later, he had the Remington Model 11 in one hand, the .45 pistol stuck in his waistband, and a leather bandolier of brass-cased shotgun cartridges hanging around his neck.
“How are we going to get home?” Frade asked.
“When I put the Ford in the garage, I will see,” Rodríguez said. “I think the old Buick is down there.”
“And what happens to the Ford?”
“I will have it taken to el Coronel’s garage at the estancia. I don’t know about the window glass, but we can repair the other damage.”
“I don’t want Dorotea to see it,” Frade said.
Rodríguez made a deprecating shrug and extended the pistol to Frade.
“I don’t think I’ll need that in the shower, Enrico.”
“You are the one who taught me, Don Cletus, that one never needs a weapon until one needs one badly.”
“Point taken, my friend,” Frade said, and took the pistol.
[FIVE]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila
Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
2055 12 August 1943
The “old Buick” Enrico thought he would find in the basement garage of the mansion had been there. It was a black 1940 Buick Limited four-door “touring sedan.” In other words, a convertible. It had a second windshield for the rear seat, spare tires mounted in the fenders, and enormous extra headlights on the bumper. It had been el Coronel’s pride and joy until he had acquired a Horch—an even larger car—in Germany. Once that had been taken off the ship in Buenos Aires, he had never driven the Buick again. But he hadn’t wanted anyone else driving the Buick, so it had been, so to speak, put to pasture in the mansion basement until he could decide what to do with it.
The Honor of Spies Page 6