[ONE]
Bureau of Internal Security
Ministry of Defense
Edificio Libertador
Avenida Paseo Colón
Buenos Aires
2230 19 December 1942
Comandante Habanzo delivered the preliminary visual and communications surveillance reports ten minutes late, at 2210 hours. While he leafed through the five-inch-tall stack of papers, el Teniente Coronel Bernardo Martín kept Habanzo standing in front of his desk.
He wondered if he was doing this because Habanzo was late, or because he simply did not like the man. He decided it was the latter. He had often warned his agents that it was far better to turn in a report late than to turn it in inaccurate—but obviously not often enough, to judge by the quality of the visual surveillance reports in front of him.
The question then changed to why he disliked his deputy. First of all, obviously, because Habanzo was stupid. Stupid people did not belong in internal security. How Habanzo wound up there was one of the great mysteries of life. For a long time, he simply assumed that he never completely trusted the information Habanzo gave him because the man was so devastatingly stupid. But now vague, uncomfortable tickles in the back of his mind were suggesting other reasons as well.
Could Habanzo be taking small gifts—or large ones, for that matter—from some interested party or other? Could he be passing items of interest to them?
Could the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, for example, have him on their payroll? The answer came swiftly: Not likely. Habanzo’s limited mental abilities would be immediately apparent to the G.O.U. And they would be afraid of him, too; for they would see him as the loose cannon that he is. He was perfectly capable of having a sudden attack of conscience and confessing, for instance. Or of selling out to a higher bidder.
On the other hand, in the counterintelligence business, one was expected to consider the unlikely—even the absurdly unlikely—as a possibility.
The communications surveillance preliminary reports were typewritten. Almost all of the wiretappers came from Army and Navy Signals, where they’d been radio operators. Radio operators were trained to sit before a typewriter and almost subconsciously transcribe Morse Code signals. Now they sat before a typewriter in a basement somewhere, or in an office off the Main Telephone Frame Room in the Ministry of Communications, and pecked out a transcript of someone’s telephone calls. Aside from minor corrections, and the elimination of abbreviations, their final reports would not be much different from what Martín had in front of him.
The visual surveillance preliminary reports were something else: They were handwritten, compiled from notes discreetly taken on site. And predictably, the syntax in these reports was often highly imaginative. More important, they were liberally sprinkled with question marks. This was done in the interest of fairness, so that El Coronel A’s words would not become a matter of official record when the agent was not absolutely positive that it was El Coronel A who spoke them, or that these were his exact words. The idea was that questionable items would be verified in the final reports: that it was not El Coronel A, but in fact El Coronel B, and that he said he was not going to Córdoba, rather than that he was going to Córdoba.
By the time the preliminary reports were finalized, about ninety-five percent of the information verified was no longer of any interest whatever. It was a terrible system. But—as Winston Churchill said about democracy—el Teniente Coronel Martín could not think of a better one.
Nothing in the reports before him was especially interesting. That was not surprising. Just about all of the members of the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos attended el Capitán Duarte’s funeral, but they were all far too intelligent to reveal anything worth paying attention to anywhere they might be overheard.
And though el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade solaced the loss of his nephew with a liter or so of Johnnie Walker, this did not yield useful information…unless irreverent remarks about the funeral ceremony could be considered useful.
Visual surveillance of young Frade was a little more interesting. He did not follow the casket to Recoleta Cemetery, but instead returned to the Frade Guest House on Avenida Libertador, where two American men were waiting for him.
One of them, Pelosi, Anthony J., was ostensibly an oil-industry technical expert who came to Argentina with young Frade. The other, Ettinger, David, was a newly arrived employee of the Banco de Boston.
If one accepted the theory that young Frade was an OSS agent…and Habanzo is strongly convinced of this; I wonder why… then Ettinger would likely be the third member of a three-man team. But on the other hand, none of these three look like men any intelligence agency in its right mind would send anywhere.
Which, of course, might be precisely what the OSS hopes someone like me will think.
Martín would have liked very much to know exactly what they talked about, but that was out of the question. At the same time, Martín was sure that his decision not to install listening devices in the house was correct. Tapping a telephone was relatively simple, and difficult to detect. Listening devices were the opposite, difficult to install and easy to detect. They were also very expensive and hard to come by. He had a budget to consider. If el Coronel Frade or his son came across a listening device—and they more than likely would—they would simply smash it. And a good deal of money, time, and effort would go down the toilet. All a listening device would accomplish would be to remind Frade and his son that they were under surveillance.
There was one anomaly in the reports, which of course Habanzo’s summaries offered little to explain: Shortly after young Frade met with the two other Americans, he returned to the Duarte mansion. On the way there, he stopped for a time at the lobby restaurant in the Alvear Palace Hotel. There he encountered the young German Luftwaffe officer and the two Carzino-Cormano girls.
Habanzo did not have a man on the young German officer, pleading a shortage of available agents. And “technical difficulties” created a ten-minute loss of phone coverage at the Guest House—which meant the man tapping the Guest House line had gone either to relieve himself or to have a little snack. During that time there could possibly have been a telephone call in connection with the meeting between young Frade and the German.
According to the visual agent’s report, young Frade suddenly left the Frade Guest House garage and then drove at “a high rate of speed” to the Alvear Palace. By the time the agent caught up with him, Frade was in a confrontation with the older of the Carzino-Cormano girls, Isabela. This was followed by an apparent confrontation with the young German officer, as Frade “walked angrily” out of the hotel.
Since it was reasonable to presume that the young German officer was not involved with young Frade’s mission for the OSS (if indeed young Frade was actually working for the OSS), it seemed reasonably safe to presume that the confrontation had something to do with the Carzino-Cormano girl. Isabela was a beautiful young woman, and both the German and the American could easily be romantically interested in her.
Thus, a likely scenario: Young Frade slipped away from the funeral and the post-funeral reception for a meeting with his men, then telephoned the Duarte mansion (during the period of “technical difficulties” with the telephone surveillance), somehow managed to get through, and was informed that the Señorita had left with the German officer.
Thirty-two incoming calls came to the Duarte mansion during the afternoon; four of them asked for Señorita Isabela Carzino-Cormano.
Masculine ego outraged, he went looking for them in one of the very few public places where a young woman of her position could be seen, found her with the German, expressed his displeasure, and “walked angrily” out of the hotel.
He next went to the Duarte mansion and stayed there for several hours, presumably helping Señora Carzino-Cormano deal with his father, who was by then very deeply in his cups.
“And where, Habanzo, is young Frade now?”
“At the Guest House, mi Coronel.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“And the agents on duty are prepared to deal with the situation if he suddenly erupts again from the garage and drives away at a high rate of speed? They will not, to rephrase the question, lose him again?”
“No, mi Coronel.”
“And may we expect further ‘technical difficulties’ with communications surveillance of the Guest House line?”
“I have been assured, mi Coronel, that the equipment is now working perfectly. But on the other hand, mi Coronel…”
“I don’t wish to hear about ‘on the other hand,’ Habanzo.”
“No, mi Coronel.”
“I want enough people on the communications surveillance, and enough visual people watching the house, so that tomorrow morning I will know if there were telephone calls to him, and what was said. And I want to know who comes to visit him.”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“And if he leaves the Guest House by car—even at a ‘high rate of speed’—I want to know where he goes, who he sees, and with a little bit of luck, what he says.”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“That will be all, Habanzo. I will see you here, with tonight’s preliminary reports, at nine in the morning. And if there is any unforeseen problem, I expect you to telephone me at my home.”
“Sí, mi Coronel. I understand.”
“I devoutly hope so, Habanzo.”
[TWO]
4730 Avenida Libertador
Buenos Aires
0015 20 December 1942
“I wonder,” Clete Howell said aloud as he pulled off the avenue onto the driveway and stopped, “if I can get this big sonofabitch through that narrow gate.”
He was driving his father’s Horche, with Señora Pellano sitting next to him. He had the Horche because he took his father home from the Duartes’ in it, and he needed a way back to the Guest House.
An hour earlier, though he seemed to have passed out for the evening in a leather armchair in the Duartes’ upstairs sitting room, El Coronel suddenly stood up and announced that he was tired and going home.
“You are not going to drive,” Señora Carzino-Cormano said. “You’re drunk.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Dad, you’ve had a couple,” Clete said.
“He’s had a liter!” Señora Carzino-Cormano said.
“I have never been drunk in my life.”
“It is a pity, Jorge,” Señora Carzino-Cormano said, “that Cletus is such a bad driver. Otherwise he could drive you home in your car.”
“Cletus, you silly woman, is a splendid driver. I myself accompanied him while he was at the wheel of the Horche. He drives it nearly as well as I do.” He turned to Clete. “It is settled. You will drive me home in the Horche. Then you may use the Horche as long as you like.” He turned back to Señora Carzino-Cormano: “Are you satisfied, you silly woman?”
“Perfectly, my darling. You are always such a reasonable man.”
Not without difficulty, El Coronel was installed in the front seat by Clete, Enrico, and Señora Pellano. And he was asleep by the time they reached the big house on Avenida Coronel Díaz. With Señora Pellano preceding them to open doors, Enrico and Clete half-carried, half-dragged him up the stairs to his bedroom, undressed him, and put him to bed. As soon as he was on his back, he started to snore.
“Will he be all right?” Clete asked Enrico.
“I will stay with him, mi Teniente, until Señora Carzino-Cormano arrives.”
Clete considered waiting for Claudia, then decided to hell with it, he would take the Horche and worry about the Buick in the morning.
“Señor Clete?” Señora Pellano asked.
“I was wondering if I can get this car through the gate.”
“I will guide you,” she said. She stepped out of the car, opened the gate, and with great seriousness (which made him smile), used hand signals to guide him into the basement garage.
“Can I make you a little something to eat, Señor Clete?” she asked as they entered the house through the kitchen. “Perhaps a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you, Señora Pellano. I’m beat. I’m going to bed.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am positive.”
“Señor Clete, I have something to say,” she said hesitantly.
“Say it.”
“Today was a sad occasion. But it was not the burial of Jorge that made your father drink.”
“Excuse me?”
“It was happiness. You are here and alive, and your war is over. That is why your father drank. He is so relieved, so happy about that.”
She touched his face.
“¿Con su permiso?” she asked, and before he could reply, she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek.
Without thinking, he put his arms around her and hugged her.
It was hotter than hell in Uncle Guillermo’s playroom. No one had raised the vertical blinds to take advantage of the breezes coming off the Río de la Plata. Señora Pellano would have taken care of that; but she wasn’t here.
By the time he raised them and opened the windows to the balcony, Clete was sweat-soaked. He stripped down to his undershorts and boots, then stepped onto the balcony to catch the breeze.
Who’s going to see me, anyhow? And if somebody does, so what?
He relaxed for a moment on one of the six comfortable, cushioned chairs around the table, wiping the sweat from his brow as soon as he was seated. Then he stood up and went to the ice chest. It should certainly be stocked with cold beer, he thought with pleasure.
The beer was floating around in tepid water.
When the cat’s away, the mice will play, he thought. If Señora Pellano had not gone to the Duartes’ to help out at the funeral, there would be cold beer in here.
And then the hair on his neck curled.
Jesus Christ, if Peter was serious, I’m one hell of a target for somebody with a rifle over there in the racetrack grandstands!
He quickly returned to the bedroom and stood with his back against the wall. His heart was beating rapidly, and his sweat was now clammy.
Then he told himself he was being foolish.
It’s incredible to think that someone is in the grandstands with a rifle. If there were, they would have taken a shot at me when I drove up in the Horche.
And besides, those Argentine FBI guys—the Internal Security agents—are outside on the street.
But then he remembered that he didn’t see a car on the street when he drove up, and no South American Humphrey Bogart in a trench coat standing under the tree.
I probably lost them when I took the Old Man’s Horche from Uncle Humberto’s. They are standing around watching for the Buick.
That made him smile. And with the smile, he lost the feeling of terror. He pushed himself off the wall.
You are a melodramatic asshole, Clete Frade!
But, shit, Peter sounded serious. Better safe than sorry.
He walked quickly around the room, turning off the lights. Then he carefully lowered the shutters.
He turned the lights on again.
As I learned as a Boy Scout, “Be Prepared!”
He went to the wardrobe where he was hiding the Argentine copy of the Colt Model 1911 .45 pistol and took it out. He removed the clip, emptied and reloaded it, dry-fired the pistol, satisfied himself that it was functioning properly, and then reinserted the clip and worked the action, chambering a round.
And then he felt a little absurd, again.
“Why don’t I do this right?” he asked himself aloud. “If this is going to be a replay of the Gunfight at the OK Corral, why not do it with a Colt six-shooter?”
He went to the desk and took out the felt-lined walnut box containing the old Hog Leg, the Colt Army .44-40 revolver that his grandfather carried while commanding the Husares de Pueyrredón.
You’d be proud of me, Grandpa, sitting here with your Hog-Leg about to defend myself against the Argentine equivalent of the Apaches.
Jesus Christ, it’s hot in here with those goddamned blinds closed!
He stood up and walked to the rear of the apartment, where there was a second balcony behind the elevator shaft and the steep stairway. It was barely wide enough for two simple wooden chairs with leather seats and backs. And it offered a far-from-charming view of the service entrances of other houses—and to judge from the smell of it, the Buenos Aires version of a privy.
But it was in the open, and there was a small breeze. He started to sit down, but decided a warm beer was better than no beer, and returned to Uncle Guillermo’s playroom.
Feeling more than a little sheepish, he turned off the lights, opened one of the vertical blinds, and crept onto the balcony. He took two beers from the ice chest, then crept back inside. He lowered the blind again, then started back toward the other balcony.
The .45 automatic was on the desk, beside the .44-40 Hog Leg.
I should put that away before Señora Pellano comes in here with my breakfast and sees it.
Ah, to hell with it. I’ll take it with me and put it away before I go to bed.
He went to the rear balcony and laid the pistol on the floor of the balcony. Then he settled himself as comfortably as he could—sitting in one of the chairs, resting his booted feet on the other—and opened one of the beers.
Warm beer is better than no beer at all.
While he sipped the beer, thoughts of the Virgin Princess passed pleasantly across his mind.
Can I tell her I love her?
Why the hell not, she already said that to me…probably.
And she looked at me out of those beautiful eyes and pursed her lips in a kiss….
Jesus Christ, I’d give my left nut to put my arms around her and kiss her!
He heard the sound of feet on the stone stairs.
What the hell is that?
A cat or something? Rats?
What the hell is it?
He carefully lowered his booted feet to the floor and stood up. He had left the door to the rear balcony slightly ajar. He approached it, put his hand on the knob, and started to open it. Then he changed his mind, dropped to his knees, and felt around the floor until his fingers touched the Argentine .45.
He went back to the door. He heard feet on the stone stairs again, then his heart jumped as he realized someone was coming up the stairs.
No. Someone is already on the top floor; and somebody else is coming up the stairs. And it goddamned sure isn’t Señora Pellano. Then who the hell is it?
He smelled a man.
A man who hasn’t had a bath in a long time. Smells like an infantry Marine from the ’Canal.
The second man walked toward Uncle Guillermo’s playroom.
What the hell do I do now?
Clete eased the door open. Walking on his tiptoes, he left the balcony and walked toward the playroom.
It was absolutely dark inside.
He found the light switch, closed his eyes, and turned the lights on.
He opened his eyes. In the time it took them to adjust to the sudden glare, he saw two men.
What the hell is he doing next to my bed?
The second man was closer, shielding his eyes. He held a long, curved knife. When he saw Clete, he brought the arm holding the knife up across his chest, so he could slash at Clete when he moved in.
The man next to Clete’s bed turned—he had an even larger knife—and assumed a crouching position.
Clete glanced at the closer man, in time to see him start to rush at him.
Did I chamber a round in this thing?
The .45 kicked in his hand, and then again and again. The noise was deafening.
The man rushing him staggered, with a look of surprise on his face. He fell to the ground. The back of his head was a horrible, bloody mess, shattered like a watermelon.
Where the hell did I hit him? In the mouth? I had to; there’s no other mark on his face.
The other man was now rushing at him with his knife held high over his shoulders.
The .45 bucked again and again and again and again. The man rushing him started to fall.
Clete pulled the trigger again. The pistol didn’t fire. He checked it. The slide was locked in the rear position. He had emptied the magazine.
The man he had just hit was now screaming in agony, holding his right leg with both hands.
Jesus Christ, when Señora Pellano hears all this noise, she’ll be terrified!
Señora Pellano! How did these bastards get past her?
He looked at the man screaming in pain. The way his leg was bent, it was clearly broken. Blood covered the man’s hands.
I shot at him four times and only hit him once, in the lower leg?
He walked to him, kicked his knife across the room, then went to the desk. He picked up a loaded .45 magazine, ejected the empty one in the pistol, loaded the fresh one, and let the slide go forward.
He went to the stairs and started down them.
There were no lights.
He went down carefully, rubbing his back against the wall, desperately hoping he wouldn’t fall.
He reached the first floor and found the handle to the kitchen door.
He raised the pistol and pushed the door open. The kitchen, too, was dark. He felt around for the switch, found it, and snapped on the lights.
Señora Pellano, in a black bathrobe, was sitting at the kitchen table. Her eyes were open and her head was thrown back.
Her throat had been cut. Through the gaping wound he could see bone and her slashed throat. Blood soaked her bathrobe and dripped onto the floor.
“You miserable sonsofbitches!” Clete said, his voice breaking.
He ran back up the stairs to Uncle Guillermo’s playroom. Halfway up, he could hear the man screaming again.
“For the love of the Blessed Virgin, please help me!”
He reached the playroom. The man had crawled to the bathroom, where he had pulled a towel from the rack and was attempting to make a tourniquet with it.
He looked at Clete.
“Please, Señor, for the love of God, help me!”
Clete raised the pistol and shot him in his good leg. And then, when the man looked at him in surprise and terror, he shot him again, aiming between his eyes. His aim was a little off; he hit him in the center of his forehead.
[THREE]
4730 Avenida Libertador
Buenos Aires
0115 20 December 1942
El Teniente Coronel Bernardo Martín made an illegal U-turn in the middle of Avenida Libertador and pulled up behind one of the five Policía Federal police cars parked in front of the Frade Guest House.
His action attracted the attention of two uniformed Policía Federal officers—the one assigned to make sure that traffic continued to flow along Avenida Libertador, and the one assigned to make sure that no unauthorized persons entered the scene of the crime. Both greeted him as he left his car.
“Yo soy el Coronel Martín, del Servicio de Seguridad del Interior,” he said. Though he was out of uniform—he was wearing only the shirt he had worn that day and a pair of casual trousers—he spoke with such authority that one of the policemen saluted and the other begged his pardon for stopping him.
He entered the foyer of the Guest House and found el Comandante Habanzo in animated conversation with several Policía Federal officers—two uniformed senior officers, one a capitán, the other a teniente, and two plainclothes detectives, most probably from the Homicide Bureau.
Habanzo looked enormously relieved to see him.
“Mi Coronel,” he said.
Interesting that he is here, Martín thought as Habanzo briefly described the carnage at the Guest House. Is this a manifestation of his devotion to duty, inspired by our little chat earlier? Or is there another reason?
“You are?” the Capitán asked, not at all friendly, when Habanzo finished.
“Mi jefe, el Coronel Martín,” Habanzo introduced him.
“¿Credenciales?”
Christ! They are in my jacket pocket.
“Capitán,” Martín said. “You have two choices. You may accept the word of el Comandante Habanzo, whose credentials I presume you have seen, that I am who I say I am…”
“Credenciales, por favor.”
“…or we will all stand here while I telephone my office and have an agent dispatched to my home to pick up my credentials. While we are waiting, I will telephone my friend el Coronel Savia-Gonzalez, wake him from a sound sleep, and tell him that one of his capitáns is interfering with Internal Security.”
“With respect, mi Coronel,” the Capitán said. “We have three murders here. Murder is the responsibility of my office.”
“What we have here, according to el Comandante Habanzo, is three bodies. If my investigation indicates that there were in fact three murders, and that these murders have no connection with Internal Security, then I will happily turn over the investigation to the Policía Federal.”
He locked eyes with the Capitán, who after a moment backed down.
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“Where is the American?” Martín asked.
“In there, mi Coronel,” Habanzo said, pointing to a closed door, before which stood a uniformed Policía Federal. “It is the library.”
“Has he been interrogated?”
“No, mi Coronel. He refuses to answer any questions.”
“I have placed him under arrest,” the Capitán said.
“No, you haven’t,” Martín said. “Be good enough, Capitán, to accompany el Comandante and me on a preliminary survey of the crime scene.”
“There are two,” Habanzo said. “The kitchen, and the apartment on the upper floor.”
“We will begin with the kitchen,” Martín said. “Where is it?”
“Through that door, mi Coronel.”
Martín’s stomach nearly turned when he saw the body sitting at the kitchen table. There was already the sickly sweet smell of blood, and flies.
“Get a towel, or a sheet or something, and cover the body.”
“Photographs have not been taken,” the Capitán protested.
“If I decide photographs are in order, the sheet can be removed,” Martín said, and went to the doors leading outside from the kitchen to examine them for marks of forcible entry. There were none.
Which means nothing. People will remove dead bolts and chains to open doors to complete strangers.
He turned from the door to the basement.
“Habanzo, have you examined the door from the street to the garage, and the front door, for signs of forcible entry?”
“I have,” the Capitán answered for him. “Or rather, one of the Homicide Bureau investigators has,” he corrected himself. “There were none.”
“Thank you,” Martín said. “How do we reach the—you said ‘upper-floor apartment’?”
“There is a stairway and an elevator, mi Coronel,” Habanzo said.
“We will use the elevator,” Martín said. “It may be necessary to seek evidence on the stairway. I don’t think robbers would use the elevator; they make noise.” He turned to the Capitán: “To judge from the position of the woman’s body, I would say that she was sitting there when her throat was cut; that she was not moved there. Would you agree?”
The Capitán nodded. “Which suggests she was taken by surprise,” he said. “Which in turn suggests she knew the people who murdered her.”
“Possibly,” Martín agreed. “Where is the elevator?”
The smell of blood in the apartment was even stronger than in the kitchen. And there were more flies.
Martín examined both bodies, then the trail of blood leading to the bathroom, and the towel used as a tourniquet. The tiles surrounding the bathtub were shattered, as well as the tub itself, which sat inside the tile base.
He returned to the bedroom and saw the Colt single-action revolver on the desk. A holster for a .45 automatic and an empty clip lay on the table. A bowl for pencils was on the desk. Martín picked up a pencil, hooked the trigger guard of the Colt revolver, and sniffed at the barrel. It had not been fired.
“Other weapons?” he asked.
“There is a .45 automatic, mi Coronel,” Habanzo said. “It has been fired. It is in my possession.”
“Where did you find it?”
“When the young Norteamericano opened the door to me, he had it in his hand. He gave it to me.”
“A stolen Army pistol,” the Capitán said.
“Not necessarily,” Martín said. “This house is owned by el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade. The pistol may be his. It is conceivable that he loaned it to his son for protection.”
“That is illegal.”
“You tell el Coronel that, Capitán,” Martín said.
He looked around the room again.
“I now wish to speak to the Norteamericano,” he said. “Here. Habanzo, will you bring him up?”
“You wish to talk to him here, in the scene of the murders?” the Capitán asked.
“It sometimes makes people uneasy to be brought to the scene of the crime,” Martín said. “Uneasy people often say more than they wish. Habanzo, just put him on the elevator. I’d like to speak to him alone.”
“I’d prefer to be here, mi Coronel, when you speak with the suspect,” the Capitán said.
“First of all, he is not a suspect. Secondly, he has refused to answer your questions. Perhaps he will answer mine.”
“I respectfully protest, mi Coronel.”
Martín shrugged.
“And when you have put the Norteamericano on the elevator, Habanzo, please telephone to el Coronel Savia-Gonzalez, apologize for waking him at this house, and tell him that I consider it very important, in a matter of Internal Security, that he come here immediately.”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“Thank you, Comandante,” Martín said.
He had a second thought.
“Where is the .45 automatic, did you say?”
“In my possession,” Habanzo said.
“Can you give it to the Norteamericano and have him bring it up here?”
Habanzo’s face registered surprise.
“Presumably you unloaded it?” Martín asked.
“Yes, mi Coronel.”
“Then I don’t think he will try to hold me at gunpoint, do you?”
“His fingerprints will be all over it!” the Capitán protested.
“Since el Comandante Habanzo has told us the Norteamericano was carrying the pistol when he opened the door to him, his fingerprints are already all over it,” Martín said, with sarcastic patience. “Please have him bring the pistol.”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
When Cletus Howell Frade stepped off the elevator, Martín was somewhat shocked at his appearance. He was naked, except for a pair of bloodstained white boxer shorts and cowboy boots. His face, chest, and legs were bloodstained, and there were finger marks where he had tried to wipe them. And he was carrying the .45 automatic by lopping a finger through the trigger guard.
“Teniente Frade, I am el Teniente Coronel Martín of Internal Security. We have met. Do you remember that?”
Clete nodded. He handed the pistol to Martín.
“This is the weapon you used to do that?” Martín asked, nodding toward the two bodies.
Clete was silent.
“We must talk seriously and quickly,” Martín said. “Let me begin by saying I know you are an intelligence officer of the OSS. I am presuming that you are a very good one, or otherwise your government would not have sent you to Argentina.”
Clete met his eyes but did not reply.
That was a shot in the dark, Teniente Frade. And, while I am not very good at judging reactions by watching people’s eyes and other body signals, I’m not all that bad, either. I would wager three-to-one now that you are an OSS agent.
“I like to think that I am also a competent intelligence officer. A good intelligence officer does not choose sides. He simply gathers information and passes it to his superiors for their decisions. That luxury is no longer available to me. Because of who you are, I must either choose to offend your father…which may prove very costly to me in the future, I’m sure you know what I mean…or I must ally myself with him. I have decided to ally myself with your father.”
Clete said nothing.
“You have no response?”
“Could I go in the bathroom and wash myself?” Clete asked.
“Not just yet,” Martín said. “What I want from you now is for you to tell me what happened here tonight.”
“Mi Coronel, I think I would prefer to wait until my father can find me a lawyer.”
“You don’t have that luxury,” Martín said. “We need a credible story, and we need it before the Chief of the Policía Federal arrives. He’s on his way. Just tell me what happened. We’re alone, and you can deny anything you tell me now later.”
Clete said nothing.
“I’m sure this doesn’t frighten you, but I think I should tell you that unless we can come up with a credible story for el Coronel Savia-Gonzalez, he will insist that you be taken to police headquarters for interrogation. They won’t kill you, but they will make you very uncomfortable, and it may be days before even your father can get you released.”
What the hell have I got to lose?
“I was at the home of my uncle, Humberto Valdez Duarte, following the funeral of my cousin. Later, I drove my father home, then returned here with Señora Pellano. I came up to my apartment. The blinds had not been raised, and it was very hot in here. I took a beer and went out onto the servants’ balcony on the rear. I heard noises, came in here to investigate, and found two men, armed with knives. They attacked me, so I shot them. I went downstairs and found Señora Pellano with her throat cut. There was a pounding at the door, and I opened it. A man who said he was Comandante Habbabo…”
“Habanzo,” Martín corrected him.
“…was standing there with a gun. I gave him the automatic. He tried to question me. I refused to answer until I had a lawyer, and we argued about that awhile, until the police came. I was then locked in the library and was there until just now.”
“Do you know the men whom you shot?”
Clete shook his head no.
“Do you have any idea why they wanted to kill you?”
“No.”
“Where did you get that stolen .45 automatic pistol. Is it your father’s?”
Clete was silent.
“All right. Now I will tell you what I believe happened,” Martín said. “You returned from your uncle’s home, and did not raise the blinds because you thought there might be an attempt on your life. You believed this because you earlier met the German, el Capitán von Wachtstein, at the Alvear Palace Hotel. For reasons I cannot imagine, he warned you that the Germans would try to have you killed. That also explains why you went out on the servants’ balcony with a pistol.
“When the attempt was made, you killed one of the men and wounded the other. You went looking for Señora Pellano, found her with her throat cut in the kitchen, lost your professional detachment, and returned here and shot the other man, who had by then dragged himself into the bathroom. The bullets ricocheted off the tile of the bathtub, which explains the blood on your body. And the human flesh, which I think is brain tissue.”
Clete said nothing.
“Killing the one and wounding the other was self-defense. Coming back here and killing the wounded man was murder…unless, should the matter reach trial, your lawyer pleads a crime of passion, based on your close personal affection for Señora Pellano.”
“Those bastards didn’t have to kill her,” Clete heard himself saying. “She never hurt anybody in her life.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that,” Martín said. “Of course they had to kill her. It was at no cost to them. They were going to kill you, and they can only hang you once for murder. Killing her removed a potential witness against them.”
“You’re a cold-blooded bastard, aren’t you?”
“I am beginning to suspect that I have more experience in these matters than you do,” Martín said. “Professional judgment does not make me cold-blooded.”
Clete exhaled audibly.
“This is the story we will tell,” Martín said. “On your return from the Duarte mansion, you came to your apartment. You were surprised by armed robbers. You managed to put your hands on the old Colt and killed them both with it. Since the six-shooter was empty, you picked up the robbers’ gun, the automatic, went downstairs, and found Señora Pellano murdered in the kitchen. At that point, Comandante Habanzo knocked at the door. You let him in and gave him the robbers’ gun.”
“There’s a couple of large holes in that story,” Clete said. “For one thing, the Colt has not been fired. And what about the automatic?”
“Anything else?”
“There’s a trail of blood on the floor, leading to the bathroom.”
“That robber crawled in there during the gunfight,” Martín said. “Where he threatened you with the .45. So you killed him with the old revolver.”
“The old revolver has not been fired.”
Martín ignored him.
“You are more seriously injured than you think you are,” he said. “You will require immediate emergency medical treatment. I am going to summon an ambulance from the Military Hospital, which is nearby. You will be treated and placed under protective custody. I doubt if the Policía Federal can gain entrance to you in the hospital, but if they somehow manage to—I really don’t know how cooperative el Coronel Savia-Gonzalez will be in this; he is not an admirer of your father—you will refuse to answer any of their questions without a lawyer.”
“The .44-40 hasn’t been fired,” Clete repeated. “The bullets in the bodies are .45 ACP, not .44-40.”
“Your professionalism, Teniente, is returning,” Martín said approvingly. He went to the desk and picked up both pistols. He went into the bathroom and pressed the .45 against the right hand of the man with the bullet hole in his forehead, then stood up. He took the Colt .44–40 revolver, fired two cartridges into the body, then went to the body of the man in the bedroom and fired two cartridges into his body. Finally he walked to the desk and fired two cartridges into the wall, one next to the bathroom door, the other through one of the closed blinds.
Then he laid both pistols back on the table.
“The revolver has less recoil than the automatic,” he observed calmly. “I would have thought the reverse.”
A few seconds later, puffing from the exertion of running up the stairs, Comandante Habanzo rushed into the room with a .32 ACP Colt automatic in his hand.
“What are you doing with that?” Martín asked.
“I heard shots.”
“You heard a car backfiring,” Martín said. “Habanzo, do you remember offhand the number of the Military Hospital?”
“No, mi Coronel.”
“Presumably, you have it written down somewhere?”
“Sí, mi Coronel,” Habanzo said, more than a little awkwardly stuffing his small automatic back into its shoulder holster and then producing a notebook.
[FOUR]
Room 305
Dr. Cosme Argerich Military Hospital
Calle Luis María Campos
Buenos Aires
0205 20 December 1942
Siren screaming, the ambulance, a 1937 Ford station wagon, pulled up to the emergency entrance of the hospital. The driver and his assistant jumped out, walked quickly to the rear, opened the doors, and pulled out the stretcher holding First Lieutenant Cletus Howell Frade, USMCR, under a thick wool blanket.
He raised his head. A gurney was being hastily wheeled to the station wagon under the supervision of a very large and sternfaced nurse. He was moved, none too gently, from the stretcher onto the gurney. The wool blanket from the ambulance was jerked off and replaced by a thinner cotton cover.
The gurney was then wheeled into the hospital, now accompanied by a man in a business suit, who made little effort to hide the .45 automatic he carried, riding high on his hip.
The gurney was rolled onto an elevator. It rose (three floors, Clete guessed) and stopped. It was then rolled down a corridor and into an operating room, which made Clete more than a little nervous.
He was transferred to an operating table. Its cold stainless steel was cool against his back and buttocks. A short, unpleasant-looking, mustachioed doctor in a white jacket bent over him, pried his eyelids apart, and shined a small flashlight in his eyes.
“I’m all right, Doctor,” Clete said.
The doctor ignored him. He made a sweeping gesture with his hands, and the nurse snatched the thin hospital blanket away and then pulled off his boxer shorts.
Jesus Christ!
As the nurse wrapped a blood-pressure collar around his arm, the doctor applied a stethoscope to his chest and then his throat. She gave him a sharp shove so he would roll onto his side; and a moment later, he felt the annoying and humiliating insertion of an anal thermometer. He watched as someone dropped his bloody shorts into a stainless-steel tray.
The anal thermometer was finally removed, his temperature announced orally, and then repeated by a woman in hospital whites holding a clipboard.
He was moved back onto his back. His blood-pressure reading was announced orally, repeated by the woman with the clipboard, and then the large nurse inserted a needle in his left arm to draw blood.
That completed, the doctor made another sweeping gesture with his hand. And the nurse, using what looked like a miniature spatula, began scraping his body.
Martín said that was probably brain tissue.
He felt slightly nauseous when she carefully scraped the brain tissue off the first spatula with a second one. The tissue was dropped into a second stainless-steel tray.
He was then given two sponge baths, first with water, then with alcohol. His face, chest, and legs stung uncomfortably. And when he moved his left leg, the large nurse firmly pushed it down against the operating table.
His chest stung, and he put his hand to it. Her hand grabbed his.
“I itch, goddamn it, take your hand off!”
She did not. There was a test of arm strength.
“Let him,” the doctor said.
He scratched, and was sorry he did; he felt a sharp pain.
A tray of instruments appeared. The doctor took a scalpel in one hand and a ferocious-looking set of tweezers in the other. Starting at Clete’s forehead, he began to remove tiny pieces of tile, dropping each piece into still another stainless-steel tray.
There is a moral in this, Clete thought, wincing at the pain: When you shoot someone in the forehead, be sure of your backstop.
He smiled at his own wit. The doctor smiled, very insincerely, back at him.
Jesus Christ, you must be losing your marbles. You killed a man, and that’s nothing to smile about. Not only killed him, shot him in cold blood. Well, maybe not cold blood. You were pretty goddamned pissed after seeing what they did to Señora Pellano. But the bottom line is you killed a defenseless man.
He closed his eyes and kept them closed until he sensed the doctor stand up after he finished working his way down his body with the scalpel and tweezers.
The large nurse then appeared with a stainless-steel bowl and what looked like a small paintbrush. She carefully wiped each small wound with an alcohol towel—it stung painfully. And then she painted each wound with the purple substance that was in the stainless-steel bowl—it stung even more painfully.
The doctor looked down at him once more.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Clete said.
The doctor ignored him and disappeared.
The large nurse nudged him again, and he slid off the operating table back onto the gurney. The thin cotton blanket was once more draped over him, and the gurney was wheeled out of the operating room and down the corridor.
The man with the barely concealed .45 marched alongside.
“Wait!” he ordered curtly.
“I have inspected the room, Sir,” another man said.
The man with the .45 grunted, and went into a room to conduct his own inspection. He came back out, carrying a telephone.
“You inspected the room, did you?”
The second man looked sheepish. The man with the .45 shook his head at him in tolerant disgust, then motioned for the gurney attendant to push Clete into the room.
“In the bed, please, Señor,” the man with the .45 said.
“I have to urinate,” Clete said.
“Over there,” the man said.
Clete walked naked to a small room equipped with a toilet, a bidet, and a shower.
When he returned, the room was empty.
It was also hot. The heavy vertical shutters had been lowered. When he went to them, he saw that the lowering belt had been padlocked. It could not now be moved.
Shit!
He went to the door. It was locked. He banged on it, and finally it was opened. There were two men, obviously armed, in the corridor. The man with the .45 who had been in the operating room was not there.
“I want the window open,” Clete said. “It’s as hot as a furnace in there.”
“Sorry, Señor,” the taller of the two men replied. “That is prohibited.”
“By who?”
The man shrugged.
Clete went back inside, and as he walked to the bed, heard the door being locked.
He lay down on the bed, put his hands under his head, and started to wonder about what was going to happen next. Then he heard the door being unlocked again. It opened, admitting a hospital attendant who handed him a small gray paper-wrapped package and left. The door was locked again.
Clete opened the package and found it contained a tiny bar of soap, a tiny towel, shaving cream, a razor, toothbrush (no toothpaste), a glass, a hospital gown, and cotton slippers.
“To hell with it,” he said aloud. “It’s too hot in here to put that on.”
He lay down on the bed, and again began to wonder what would happen next.
[FIVE]
Clete woke up suddenly, and with a reflex action, he looked at his Hamilton. It was eight-fifteen in the morning. On the crystal of the chronograph he noticed a small piece of whitish substance, flaked with now darkened blood. The large, unpleasant nurse did not look for brain tissue on his watch.
He left the bed, walked to the washbasin, and carefully scrubbed the watch clean. Then he glanced at himself in the mirror. His face was covered with violet patches—the disinfectant the nurse had painted him with—and so was the rest of his body.
I look like a clown. I wonder what the hell that purple stuff is.
He scrubbed at his face with no success, then tried a shower, which proved equally ineffective.
Maybe alcohol will get it off.
He went back to the bed and put on the hospital gown, then slipped his feet into the slippers. Another glance at the mirror confirmed his suspicion that his ass was hanging out.
And he was hungry. And thirsty. He banged on the door again, and in a moment it was unlocked and opened. Two strange men were in the corridor, cast from the same mold as the previous two. Though both were standing, now they had chairs. One waved a forefinger at him as if he were a small child.
“You must remain in your room.”
“I’m hungry and thirsty.”
Both men shrugged helplessly.
He closed the door himself, heard it being locked, and then returned to the mirror to examine himself—with mingled shock and amusement. There came the sound of the door being unlocked again.
Breakfast?
The door opened. A little pale, but otherwise showing no signs of passing out drunk eight hours before, el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade entered the room, freshly shaven, perfectly dressed. He was trailed by Enrico, who was carrying a small leather suitcase.
“Are you all right?” Clete’s father demanded. “You are not seriously injured?”
“I’m pretty sick about what those bastards did to Señora Pellano.”
His father nodded.
“I will of course help you, Cletus, any way I can. But the time has come for you to tell me what you are really doing down here.”
“I’m here to make sure that Howell Petro—”
“Refuse to answer me, if you must. But don’t lie to me again,” his father interrupted him.
Clete met his father’s eyes. His father nodded, as if he was satisfied that he had gotten through to Clete.
“The Bureau of Internal Security believes you are an agent of the OSS,” he said.
“Do they?” Clete said. And then he decided he didn’t want to lie to his father anymore. That did not mean telling him everything; but he wouldn’t lie about what he told him.
“I’m a serving officer of the U.S. Marine Corps,” he said. “I’ll tell you that much.”
El Coronel Frade nodded again, as if he thought he was making progress.
“And you’re here to damage the German ship in Bahía Samborombón?” his father asked.
“If I were, I couldn’t tell you that. You’re an officer, you know what it is to be under orders.”
“Or to try to influence me?” He gave Clete a hard look. “Depending on who I talk to in the BIS, I am offered both possibilities.”
“I’d like to influence you,” Clete said. “Your neutrality, your alleged neutrality, in this war makes me sick to my stomach.”
“Does it indeed?” his father asked, his face tightening.
“You—and the BIS—apparently know all about the Reine de la Mer. You even called it a German ship just now. And you close your eyes to it. If you were really neutral, you’d have done something about it.”
“You seem to know a good deal about it yourself,” Frade challenged. “You know its name…very informative.”
“If you hadn’t closed your eyes to the Germans’ replenishing their submarines in your sacred neutral waters, it wouldn’t have been necessary for the U.S. government to send people down here to do something about it.”
“Has it occurred to you that if the United States government had not sent you down here, Señora Pel—what happened to Señora Pellano would not have happened?”
Clete felt anger welling up.
“I’m as sorry as you are that Señora Pellano was killed. I was goddamned fond of her. She’ll be on my conscience, all right. But not because I’m here doing what I was sent here to do, but because I forgot for a moment that the Germans have no qualms about killing innocent people. They kill innocent people by the millions. What’s one more?”
“In the First World War, Allied propaganda showed German soldiers bayoneting babies in Belgium. That Allied Declaration, if that’s what you’re talking about, is the same sort of thing.”
“If you believe that, I feel sorry for you.” Clete said softly. He was aware that the flash of anger was replaced by a sad resignation, as if their roles were now reversed…as if he was now the parent talking to the child who would not accept the unpleasant truth.
“International law…” Colonel Frade began, and stopped.
“I should have protected her,” Clete said, his voice calm and sad, “and I didn’t. I’m ashamed of that. But I’m not ashamed of coming here to do what I was sent to do. If there’s any shame, you should feel it, because Argentina is too stupid or selfish to know or care what this war is all about.”
His father’s face grew white. It was a moment before he spoke.
“El Almirante de Montoya believes it will be best for you, under the circumstances, to remain here in the hospital for the next few days.”
“Who? Admiral who?”
“El Almirante de Montoya is Chief of the Bureau of Internal Security. He has assumed jurisdiction in your case. Fortunately, he and I are friends, because your fate is in his hands.”
“And what exactly does that mean?”
“When de Montoya feels it would be safe for you to leave the hospital, you will come to the estancia, until I can arrange to send you safely out of the country.”
“I’m not leaving the country,” Clete said.
His father met his eyes.
“You have no choice in the matter.”
“I’m not finished here. I killed the men who killed Señora Pellano,” Clete said. “Now I want to get at the people who hired them. The Germans.”
“You don’t know for a fact that the Germans were behind this.”
“Of course it was the Germans,” Clete said, less angrily than sadly. “Don’t tell me you closed your eyes to that too.”
As if he had not heard a word, el Coronel Frade went on: “I have arranged for the release of Señora Pellano’s body. I will accompany it to the estancia, where she will be buried. De Montoya has agreed to release you from here in time to attend Señora Pellano’s funeral. That will provide a satisfactory reason for you to move to the estancia. You will stay there until I can make arrangements for you to leave the country. In the meantime, Enrico will stay with you.”
“What? What for?”
“If one attempt to kill you was made, there will probably be another.”
“But there are guards in the corridor.”
“I know where Enrico’s loyalties lie,” Frade said simply. “Enrico will stay with you.
“You have disappointed me, Cletus,” Frade went on carefully. “A good woman is dead on account of you. And you have lied to me. The estancia is large. You and I will only have to see a little of one another.”
“I want very much to go to Señora Pellano’s funeral, Dad,” Clete said. “But I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to stay at the estancia.”
El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade met his son’s eyes, then turned on his heel and walked out of the room. After he passed through the door, Enrico locked it.
Enrico turned, met Clete’s eyes for a moment, and then went to the bed, where he unzipped the suitcase and took from it what seemed to be a Browning twelve-bore self-loading shotgun. He assembled it, then loaded it with five Winchester 00-buck cartridges.
“Browning?” Clete heard himself asking. “A Browning, or an Argentine copy?”
Enrico didn’t reply for a moment, then held the shotgun out to Clete.
“A Remington Model Eleven, mi Teniente,” he said.
Clete examined it and handed it back.
“Marianna was very fond of you, mi Teniente,” Enrico said. “She was always talking to me about you, like you were her son.”
Marianna? Oh. He means Señora Pellano. I never knew her first name. And now she’s dead, because of my stupidity.
“I was very fond of her. I am ashamed she is dead.”
Enrico met his eyes again.
“I have asked the Blessed Virgin to let Marianna know that you avenged her death, so that she may find eternal peace in the company of the angels, knowing you are alive and they are dead.”
“Until just now, I didn’t know you and Señora Pellano were close,” Clete said.
“She was my sister,” Enrico said simply. “I will now protect your life, mi Teniente, with my own. But I would also very much like to kill some Germans myself. Do you perhaps have a name? Or names?”
Jesus, he means all of that. If anyone tries to kill me in here, it would have to be over his dead body. And if I gave him the German ambassador’s name, he’d kill him. Or die trying.
Clete shook his head no.
“I’ll work on this,” Enrico said. “Honor demands that I also avenge her death, even if that is against mi Coronel’s wishes. I will help you in any way I can, especially if it means I can kill Germans.”
And he means that too.
“Thank you, Enrico,” Clete said.
I wonder if that means he would let me go, let me escape from my father’s protection.
Having said his piece, Enrico went on to immediate, practical matters.
“Mi Teniente, where is the telephone?”
“They took it out,” Clete said. And then, curiously: “Who did you want to call?”
“I thought we would have coffee, and perhaps the newspaper, mi Teniente. We will be here a long time.”
“I could use something to eat.”
“Bueno, I will take care of everything,” Enrico said. He walked to Clete and held out the shotgun. “Mi Teniente is familiar with this shotgun?”
“Yes. I’ve got a Browning. They’re about identical.”
“It is loaded, and the safety is off, mi Teniente,” Enrico said, and handed the Remington to Clete.
He walked to the door, pounded on it, and left the room.
Five minutes later, he was back.
“Coffee and some pastry is on the way,” he announced. He walked to the window.
“It’s locked,” Clete said.
Enrico looked at him and winked.
“The clowns in the corridor asked where I was going. I told them for breakfast, a telephone, and the key to the window. They told me I could have neither the key to the window lock,” he held up a small key, “or a telephone.”
He removed the padlock, opened the vertical blind three feet, and then opened the window. He whistled. Moments later, a telephone appeared outside the window; it was hanging on a cord. Enrico hauled it in, untied the cord, then closed the window and the vertical blind.
He plugged the telephone in, picked up the handset, listened for a moment, nodded his head in satisfaction, then unplugged the telephone and put it in the cabinet beside the bed.
“We will keep it there until we need it, mi Teniente,” he said. “In case the clowns in the corridor become curious.”
“How did you do that, Enrico?”
“The Suboficial Mayor of the hospital was in the Husares de Pueyrredón when el Coronel and I were with the regiment. He was injured in a bad fall, and is on limited duty.”
“He gave you the telephone?”
“Sí, mi Teniente, and he will see that we eat well, from the Sargento’s mess.”
“When they hear what happened on Avenida Libertador and cannot find me, my two friends will be worried about me. Can I call them, Enrico?”
Enrico met his eyes for a long moment.
He is not going to let me use the phone. All that talk about going against my father’s wishes sounded great, but when push comes to shove…
“The clowns cannot listen to that line,” Enrico said, pointing to the telephone wall plug. “I thought of that. But I think the clowns will be listening to the line of your friends.”
“You’re probably right.”
Probably, shit! Of course he’s right.
“It would be better to have them come here. Do you need both of them, or just one?”
“Just one. Could you do that? How would you bring him past the clowns?”
“You do not have suboficiales mayores in your army, mi Teniente?”
“I am a Marine, Sergeant Major, not a soldier. But yes, we have men like you in the Corps. They call them ‘gunnys.’ It means gunnery sergeant.”
“And when your officers have a problem they cannot solve, do they turn to the ‘gunnys’?”
“Yes, we do.”
“It is the same here. This problem may take some time, but it can be solved. I suggest, mi Teniente, that you write a short note to your friend, telling him to accompany the man who gives him the note. And tell me the address.”