Martin reached for his telephone and dialed el Almirante's private, supposed-to-be-secure number.
"Martin, mi Almirante. I have something I'd like to discuss with you as soon as possible."
[FOUR]
Surprising Martin not at all, once the Chief of the Bureau of Internal Security of the Ministry of National Defense was apprised of the problem, he rose from his desk, locked his hands behind his back, stared for three minutes out his window at the Rio de la Platait seemed longer than thatand then turned around to face Martin.
I will now be ordered to do what I think best under the circumstances, thus putting my neck and not his on the chopping block. But telling him is still the right thing.
"How, Coronel, do we know that the fellow who arrived from the United States yesterday is in fact el Coronel Frade's son?" el Almirante asked.
The question came as a surprise.
"Mi Almirante," Martin began, aware that he sounded as if he didn't really know what he was talking about, which was exactly how he felt, "he has a passport in that name."
El Almirante dismissed the passport with a wave of his hand.
"There are two possibilities," el Almirante said. "He is, or he isn't. As I would hope you have learned by now, Coronel, I am one of those who believe in assigning tasks to people in whom I have confidence and then letting them get on with it. But in this matter, I think a suggestion is in order."
"S?, mi Almirante?"
"I would suggest that your next step would be to ascertain that Cletus Marcus Howell is, or is not, the son of el Coronel Frade..."
And how will I do that?Martin's mind raced. Fingerprints? Even if I can get this fellow's fingerprints, what would I compare them to?
"... and the way I suggest you do that is ask el Coronel Frade. In either possibility, I daresay that el Coronel could not help but be interested that a man representing himself to be his son has arrived in the country."
"S?, Se?or," Martin said, less as an acknowledgment of receiving an order than as an agreement that this was the way to deal with the situation.
"Let me know what you find out, Martin," el Almirante said, dismissing him.
[FIVE]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
1225 23 November 1942
After his session with el Almirante, el Teniente Coronel Martin considered the possibilities:
The best would be that the young man was not the son of el Coronel Frade, but some sort of American agent. Then el Coronel Frade could not help but be impressed with the BIS's ability to find him out.
This was a credible scenario: It was a standard practice of intelligence agencies worldwide to issue spurious credentials in the name of a real person, often a dead one. There was no reason to think the Americans were less skilled than anybody else at that sort of thing. If, for example, an American intelligence functionary charged with reading newspaper obituaries had come across the name of a young man, or a childor even an infantstating that he had been born in Argentina, the name and statistics would have been filed away for possible future use.
There were several possibilities that were not as pleasant to consider. For instance, the young man could well be who he said he was. And from his looks, that was quite likely.
That's going to place me on dangerous ground with el Coronel Frade. I can't imagine a better way to antagonize a proud and powerful officer than showing him a photograph of his son and telling him that BIS thinks he might be an intelligence agent who is possibly operating against the best interests of Argentina.
And if he is el Coronel's son, that raises other embarrassing questions: What is the relationship between el Coronel and his son? Why has the boy never even been to Argentina before? That suggests that the boy is a skeleton in el Coronel's closet, whose door he felt sure was firmly closed... until BIS stuck its nose once again in his business.
And if the young man is both el Coronet's sonand an American intelligence agent which is unlikely, but possible is el Coronel aware of this? Is the son here because the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos has turned to the Americans for help? Or is the young man here to offer that help? And is the American government, which would dearly like to see President Castillo out of office, aware of the relationship between el Coronel Frade and the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, and playing the father-son card?
Perhaps it would have been better to snoop around a little more, perhaps even ask the Embassy in Washington or the Consulate in New Orleans to see what they could find out about "Cletus Howell Frade." But, following the session with el Almirante de Montoya, that was no longer an option.
Though Martin normally worked in civilian clothing and drove an unmarked Bureau of Internal Security Chevrolet, for his visit to el Coronel Frade he decided to wear his uniform (his basic branch was Cavalry) and arrange for an Army sedan with a soldier driver. Perhaps, if he was lucky, el Coronel Frade would be reminded that he was an officer, a Cavalry officer, simply doing his duty. He also decided not to call ahead and ask for an appointment; Frade was likely to be "unavailable" if he did that. But he would make sure that Frade was at home.
When he called Frade's Buenos Aires home, a large mansion at Number 1728 Avenida Coronel Diaz, he was told that Frade was at the estancia, and was not expected to return to the city for several days.
Which is understandable,Martin thought. If I didn't have to be in the city in the middle of the summer, I wouldn't be here either.
This required only a minor change in his plans. At 10:15 he left Buenos Aires in the backseat of an Army Mercedes open sedan, drove down Route Two to the turnoff to LaPlata, had a nice luncheon in the Hotel Savoy, then returned to Route Two and drove down it past Lake Chascomus to the Pila turnoff, and then down to Pila.
According to the map, the government road ended at Pila. But there was no visible evidence of this. A sign, of brick and wrought iron, at the side of the road read "San Pedro y San Pablo," but he saw no other indication he was now traveling on a private road.
Fifteen kilometers past the sign, he could see glimpses of the sprawling, white painted stone main building, sitting with its outbuildings in a two- or three-hectare manicured garden, all set within a windbreak of a triple row of tall cedars.
Those cedars were planted a long time ago,Martin thought. And then, There are parks in Buenos Aires smaller than el Coronel Frade's garden.
As he came closer, he saw a landing strip in a field outside the windbreak. Four airplanes were parked on it: a stagger-wing Beechcraft, a luxurious, six-place machine he had seen and admired at El Palomar, the civilian airport on the outskirts of Buenos Aires (this was almost certainly Frade's aircraft; he owned such an airplane); a two-plate Piper Cub; and two Fieseler Storches. The Piper had civilian markings, while the Fieselers had Argentine Army markings. Fieselers were provided to the Army as another gesture of friendship and respect by the Germans.
The Fieselers and the Piper might well have just dropped into the Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo for a cup of coffee and a friendly chat with our old comrade-in-arms Jorge Guillermo Frade. But it's more likely that I've come upon a meeting of the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos.
So what to do now? Turn around and go back to Buenos Aires, hoping that no one has noticed an official Army car turn around close to the house? There are gauchos in the fields. It's entirely possible that they are posted as guards or lookouts, and that they sent one of their number galloping across the pampa to the house to report an Army car on the road. Cutting across the pampa, they can get to the house long before I do.