"Another little belt before dinner?" Mallin asked.
"Thank you, no."
"One is usually enough for me, too," Mallin said.
Christ, it should be. There must have been four ounces of scotch in the drink you gave me.
"... and then I usually have a glass of wine for the appetite. May I interest you... ?"
"Thank you," Clete said.
Mallin poured him a glass of a red wine. Clete sipped it. It was very good. He said so.
"They call it Malbec. It... the vines, the cuttings, originally came from France. Bordeaux. This comes from a vineyard in Mendoza Province, near the Andes, in which I have a small in-terest."
"It's very nice," Clete said.
"There are those-your grandfather among them, by the way-who have been kind enough to suggest that Malbec is better than some French Bordeaux. I sent a few cases to him after my visit to your home in New Orleans."
"It's very nice," Clete repeated. "A little cleaner than most French Bordeaux, now that you mention it."
"If you like it, I am pleased," Mallin said.
"Papa?" a young male voice called from the door. Clete turned to see a boy of fourteen, fifteen, blond and fair-skinned, standing in the door. He was wearing short pants, knee-high socks, and a blazer with an embroidered insignia on the pocket.
That's obviously a school uniform, Clete thought. He looks as if he's in the Third Form at St. Mark's, or one of the other St. Grottlesex schools patterned after English public schools. For that matter, he looks as if he's in his second year at Harrow.
"Enrico, come in and greet our guest," Mallin said. "And since this is a special occasion, you may join us in a glass of wine."
The boy walked to Clete, looking at him with frank curiosity, and put out his hand.
"Enrico, this is Mr. Frade," Mallin said.
"How do you do, Sir?" the boy said.
"How are you, Enrico?"
"You are the gentleman from Texas?" Little Enrico asked, dubiously.
"Yes, I am. I left my horse and six-shooter in the garage."
"But you are wearing boots."
"Enrico!" Mallin protested. "Your manners!"
"I thought you had gauchos down here. Don't they wear boots?"
"We don't have gauchos in the house," Little Enrico said, shocked at the notion.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Clete said.
"Enrico, you owe Mr. Frade an apology. I can't believe you said that."
"He owes me no apology," Clete said. "We have a saying in Texas, Enrico, that you never have to apologize for the truth."
"Really?" Little Enrico asked delightedly.
"Unless that truth is that your friend's girlfriend is fat and ugly," Clete added.
Little Enrico laughed delightedly.
"Whose girlfriend is fat and ugly?" Pamela asked as she and the Virgin Princess walked into the sitting room. The Virgin Prin-cess now had her hair swept neatly upward. She was wearing a yellow linen dress and a strand of pearls which rested in the valley of her breasts. She was wearing high heels, which made her calves even more perfect than when Clete first saw her.
"Enrico's," Clete said. "But he says he doesn't mind, he loves her anyway."
"I said nothing of the kind!" Little Enrico protested, but he giggled.
The Virgin Princess smiled at her brother; her mouth now wore an entirely delightful if faint coat of lipstick. Then she looked at Clete, and their eyes met for just a second, until, his heart jump-ing, he quickly looked away.
"Will you have some wine, darling?" Mallin asked.
"Yes, please."
"Dorotea?"
"Please, Daddy," the Virgin Princess said.
Mallin was still pouring the wine when Alberto appeared in the door and announced that dinner was served.
"No problem," Pamela said. "We'll just carry our glasses in with us."
That was done formally too. Pamela took her husband's arm. The Virgin Princess took Clete's, and they marched into the din-ing room with Little Enrico trailing along behind.
Clete did what he could to keep his eyes off the Virgin Princess during dinner. And he was torn between deep regret and enor-mous relief when Pamela announced afterward, "We'll say good night now, Clete. I know Henry and you have a good deal to talk about."
And the first thing we're going to talk about is finding an apart-ment for me tomorrow. If I don't get out of this house quickly, I won't be shot by ' 'Internal Security.'' An outraged daddy will do it for making improper advances to his daughter.
"Thank you for a lovely dinner," Clete said.
"Good night, Mr. Frade," both Mallin children said politely, and both politely offered him their hands. For a moment, Clete's eyes again met those of the Virgin Princess.
Jesus Christ, I didn't know they came that beautiful!
[THREE]
Bureau of Internal Security
Ministry of Defense
Edificio Libertador
Avenida Paseo Colon
Buenos Aires
0915 22 November 1942
Comandante-Major-Carlos Habanzo, a stocky, dark-skinned thirty-one-year-old, stood at el Teniente Coronel Bernardo Mar-tin's office door holding a large envelope and wearing a somewhat nervous smile. Habanzo was wearing a brown suit that was too tight around both the shoulders and the crotch, Martin noticed.
Martin waved him in.
"Buenos dias, Habanzo," Martin said. "What do you have for me?" He was a tall, fair-haired, light-skinned man of thirty-five in a well-cut glen plaid suit and a regimentally striped tie.
"Buenos dias, mi Coronel," Habanzo replied, then walked up to Martin's desk, laid the envelope before him, and stepped back from the desk.
Martin opened the envelope.
These are grainy, but very good, Martin decided. There is only so much that can be done with a high-speed 35-mm negative, even one made by a Leica.
As a gesture of friendship, el Coronel Grner, the German mil-itary attach6-and the Abwehr's man in Buenos Aires; it was not much of a secret-had arranged for the Defense Ministry to buy a half-dozen Leica I-C 35-mm cameras, at giveaway prices. They were the best tool around for surreptitious photography, and for photographing documents.
"These were taken yesterday, mi Coronel," Habanzo offered. "When the Pan American Clipper landed, and at the Alvear Pal-ace..."
"Which one is young Frade?" Martin interrupted.
"The tall one, mi Coronel."
"And he is staying at the Alvear Palace?".
"No, mi Coronel. He was taken to Se¤or Mallin's home by Se¤or Mallin. There are photos..."
"You recognized Se¤or Mallin, did you, Habanzo?" Martin interrupted again.
"Of course, mi Coronel."
Martin found the entry of Enrico Mallin into the puzzle fasci-nating.
"Thank you, Habanzo," Martin said. "Please give my com-pliments to whoever took these. They will doubtless prove very useful."
Habanzo beamed at the compliment.
"That will be all, Habanzo. Thank you," Martin said.
"Con permiso, mi Coronel," Habanzo said, came to attention, did an about-face, and marched out of the room.
Martin examined the photographs again. If one looked for it, one could see a strong family resemblance on young Frade's face. Martin had looked at enough photographs of el Coronel Frade to know his almost as well as his own.
Well, he's here, and he's his father's son. Now I'll have to bring The Admiral in on this, especially with the introduction of Mallin into the puzzle.
The Admiral was el Almirante Francisco de Montoya, the Chief of the Bureau of Internal Security of the Ministry of National Defense, to whom el Teniente Coronel Martin reported directly. Martin's most important responsibility (as Chief of the innocu-ously named Ethical Standards Office) was to keep an eye on the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, which was strongly suspected of plan-ning a coup d'‚tat against the president.
The commonly accepted motive for a coup d'‚tat was El Almiran
te's strong suspicion-shared by Martin-that President Ram6n S. Castill¢, who had pronounced pro-Axis sympathies, intended to remain in office no matter what was the result of the next election, and that the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos was deter-mined to see that this did not happen.
Keeping an eye on the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos meant keep-ing an eye on el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade, who was both the brains and the money behind them.
The imminent arrival of young Frade had first been brought to Martin's attention a week earlier by a captain who worked with Immigration. He set up an appointment, explaining to Martin's sergeant that he had information, unspecified, that el Coronel Martin would be interested in. He showed up, in uniform, at the appointed time, and then spent the better part of an hour telling, in great detail, what he knew.
Martin was by nature an impatient man, but he learned long ago to listen. More often than not, a careful listener could pick out a valuable gem of information hidden somewhere in a hay-stack of verbosity and minutiae. He heard the captain out:
A cable had been received from the Argentinean Embassy in Washington, D.C., stating that extended residence visas had been granted by the Consulate in New Orleans to two Americans, one of whom, Cletus Howell Frade, was born in Argentina. The cable had suggested that it might be of interest to look into Frade's relations in Argentina. Clearly, the Consul in Buenos Aires had smelled something not quite in order about the two Americans.
A routine investigation into Cletus Howell Frade was discreetly initiated. Since Frade was not an uncommon name in Argentina, there was no reason whatever for the Immigration Section to sus-pect that the best-known Frade of all had an American citizen for a son.
The investigation quickly determined that Cletus Howell Frade was born in the hospital of the University of Buenos Aires to one Elizabeth-Ann Howell de Frade, Citizen of the U.S. of America, and her husband, one Jorge Guillermo Frade, Citizen of Argen-tina, resident in Pila, Province of Buenos Aires. Jorge-George- and Guillermo-William-were even more common Christian names in Argentina than the surname Frade.
Beyond that, there was very little information in government files concerning Cletus Howell Frade. There was no record bear-ing his name in the files of the Ministries of Defense, Education, or Immigration. The files were linked. The Ministry of Education provided the Ministry of Defense annually with a list of physically fit sixteen-year-old males. This gave the Ministry of Defense a list to compare against the list of nineteen-year-old physically fit males who had registered for National Service under the Organic Military Statute of 1901 (according to which, without exception, one year's active military service was required of all physically fit males turning twenty years, followed by reserve service until age forty-five). If a boy's name was on the sixteen-year-old list and not on the nineteen-year-old list, why not? Where was he? One possibility was that he left the country. This could be ascertained by checking the list of sixteen-to-twenty-year-old males who had either left or reentered the country. The Ministry of Immigration furnished this list on a monthly basis.
Cletus Howell Frade's name was not on any of the lists, which suggested that he left the country before his sixteenth birthday and did not return. It was impossible to determine exactly when he left, because records more than five years old were routinely destroyed.
Thorough to a fault, the Immigration Section of BIS's inves-tigators had searched the appropriate files for information on the parents. They could find nothing whatever about Elizabeth-Ann Howell de Frade, the mother. Which meant that she was not res-ident in Argentina, and, by inference, had last left the country more than five years before, since there was no record of her departure in that period. The records of the boy's father were, however, found in the files of Buenos Aires Province.
They indicated that he was still in Argentina, and still a legal resident of Pila, a small town about 150 kilometers from the City of Buenos Aires in the Province of Buenos Aires.
Further investigation revealed that he had good reason to live in Pila. The town was almost entirely surrounded by Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, whose 84,205-more or less-hectares (one hectare equals about two acres) had been in the Frade family for more than a century and a half. On the death of their father, the estancia had passed to Jorge Guillermo Frade and his sister (now Beatrice Frade de Duarte, whose husband was Humberto Valdez Duarte, Managing Director of the Anglo-Argentinian Bank). Re-cords of the Province of Buenos Aires revealed that shortly after her marriage, Se¤ora de Duarte had sold her interest in Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo to her brother for an undisclosed sum.
At that point, the investigators realized they might be dealing not with a Jorge Guillermo Frade, but with the Jorge Guillermo Frade. Confirmation came from the records of the Ministry of Defense, which showed that el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade, formerly Colonel Commanding the Husares de Pueyrred¢n Cav-alry Regiment, (The Husares de Pueyrred¢n trace their heritage to the Pampas horsemen, turned cav-alrymen, who rode with General J. M. Pueyrred¢n, one of the three officers (the others being Manuel Belgrano and Jose' de San Martin) who led the war (1810-1816) for in-dependence from Spain. In 1942, and today, the regimental dress uniform features a bearskin hat and a many-buttoned tunic bedecked with ornate imagery clearly patterned after the Royal and Imperial Hungarian Hussars of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.) one of Argentina's most prestigious units, had upon his retirement eighteen months before listed his official ad-dress as Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, Pila, Province of Buenos Aires.
And that changed the entire complexion of the investigation. The investigator in charge brought the matter to his captain's attention; and the captain immediately sought an audience with el Teniente Colonel Martin. He brought with him all the infor-mation the investigation had developed.
"Thank you, Capital," el Teniente Coronel Martin said po-litely. "I will send a memo to el Coronel de Darre expressing my appreciation for your diligence and professionalism in this matter. And, of course, I'll take over this investigation from this point."
From that moment, Martin knew that at some point he would have to bring the problem to the attention of el Almirante. He had put off doing so, however, because of his sure and certain knowledge that once he was apprised of the problem, the Chief of the Bureau of Internal Security of the Ministry of National Defense would rise from his desk, lock his hands behind his back, stare for a moment out his window at the Rio de la Plata, and then turn around and order him to do what he thought should be done under the circumstances.
In other words, nothing; he didn't think he would get any guid-ance, much less specific orders. El Almirante had no better idea than Martin if the likely coup d'‚tat would be successful. If it was, it would obviously be better to have aligned oneself with the dissidents before the attempt. If it failed, it would obviously be better to have manifested some sign of loyalty to the pre-existing regime.
Until the situation developed to a point where the success or failure of the coup could be reasonably predicted, the wise path for anyone in their business was absolute neutrality. Martin knew el Almirante devoutly believed-as he himself did-that the best way to preserve one's absolutely neutral status was to avoid any contact that was not absolutely essential with any member of ei-ther side.
And "contact" here meant bringing to the attention of el Co-ronel Jorge Guillermo Frade that Internal Security was prying into the subject of his son. And into the relationship between the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos and Se¤or Enrico Mallin, whose name had never come up before in that connection. And this meant that el Coronel Frade would become aware that Internal Security had added still more facets of his life to their investigations.
The previous incumbent of Martin's position was abruptly transferred back to the Artillery. When el Almirante was turning the job over to Martin, he told him matter-of-factly that the pre-vious incumbent's transfer was engineered by el Coronel Edmundo Wattersly, who believed that Internal Security was adding information to his dossier he didn't want there. Wattersly
was the third, perhaps fourth or fifth, most influential member of the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos. Frade was the most influential. Frade very possibly had the power to have el Almirante transferred back to the Armada-the Navy-and el Almirante knew it.
Adding to his dilemma, although he'd given the question a great deal of thought, Martin wasn't sure where el Almirante's loyalties lay-with the President? With the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos? Or was he still sitting on the fence?
But no matter where el Almirante sat, he would have to be made aware of this latest development. No matter what happened, Martin could not afford to have his loyalty to his superior ques-tioned.
Martin reached for his telephone and dialed el Almirante's pri-vate, supposed-to-be-secure number.
W E B Griffin - Honor 1 - Honor Bound Page 21
