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 suspect 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 Argentina, resident in Pila, Province of Buenos Aires. JorgeGeorge and GuillermoWilliamwere 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 bearing 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 investigators 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 resident 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 84,205more or lesshectares (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). Records 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 Cavalry Regiment, (The Husares de Pueyrred?n trace their heritage to the Pampas horsemen, turned cavalrymen, 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 independence 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 address 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 information the investigation had developed.
"Thank you, Capital," el Teniente Coronel Martin said politely. "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 guidance, 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 preexisting 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 believedas he himself didthat the best way to preserve one's absolutely neutral status was to avoid any contact that was not absolutely essential with any member of either side.
And "contact" here meant bringing to the attention of el Coronel 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 previous 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 Armadathe Navyand 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 laywith 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 questioned.