The Honor of Spies

"And the Froggers are giving you information, or at least names--that sort of thing--regarding the money from both Operation Phoenix and the other one? Does the other one have a name?"

"The who? Never heard of them. And, no, the other filthy operation doesn't have a name."

"Do the Germans know you know about the unnamed operation?"

"They don't know how much we know about it."

"How much do you know?"

"A good deal. And when the war is over, when faced with the alternative of either telling us what we don't know or a hangman's noose, I suspect the slimy SS bastard running the operation in Montevideo will sing like a canary."

"Montevideo?"

Frade nodded.

"Your sergeant was killed in Montevideo," Martin said.

"Technical Sergeant David Ettinger," Frade said. "They stuck an ice pick in his ear in the garage of the Hotel Casino de Carrasco. More precisely, the SS bastard hired a local assassin--probably assassins--to do it. Ettinger was getting too close to that unnamed operation."

"Has the 'SS bastard' a name?"

"Why do you want his name?"

"For my general fund of knowledge, Cletus."

"There is a man in Montevideo who was offended by what happened to David Ettinger . . ."

"An American, perhaps?"

Frade nodded.

"Maybe in the OSS?"

"Next question?" Frade said, and then went on: "This man believes in the Old Testament adage about an eye for an eye. But he was refused permission to take out the SS bastard. That's when they told us FDR had decided that he wanted the unnamed operation to continue, to save as many Jews as possible. To keep an eye on this SS bastard, but keep him in place. If you had his name, Alejandro, I don't know what you'd do with it."

"I understand," Martin said. "If I were you, I wouldn't trust me with it either. Even if I gave you my word that I would keep it to myself, and pass on to you anything that came my way about him. And the unnamed operation."

They locked eyes for a long moment.

"Sturmbannfuhrer Werner von Tresmarck," Frade said. "He has diplomatic cover, of course. He's a homosexual. His wife is involved in it up to her eyeballs . . ."

"I thought you just said he was homosexual."

Frade nodded. "He is. That's how they keep him in line. He either does what they tell him, with absolute honesty, and keeps his mouth shut, or he winds up in a concentration camp with a pink triangle pinned to his suit."

"And the wife?"

"Inge. She is not homosexual. That's what they call an understatement. She was sort of a high-class hooker in Berlin after her first husband was killed in Russia. She was given the choice between marrying this guy and keeping an eye on him, or going to work in a factory. Inge is feathering her own nest with what she can skim from the unnamed operation money."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think someone--Galahad probably--also knows Senora von Tresmarck and has been gossiping about her to you."

"I don't know anybody named Galahad. I thought I told you that."

Martin smiled. He was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly, he said, "If I understand you, Cletus, until I told you about this kidnapping of the Mallins, you thought you had sort of an arrangement, an armistice, with the Germans."

"An uneasy armistice, but yeah. They would be very unpopular in Berlin if they got themselves declared persona non grata and got kicked out of Argentina. So--I thought--they'd be willing to just let things stand as they are while they're waiting for their ultimate victory."

"Then what's this kidnapping about?"

"Now you sound as if you believe it's serious."

"I'm not prepared to ignore it. Are you?"

"So if you're not prepared to ignore it, what are you doing about it?"

Martin, obviously considering his answer, took a long moment before re plying.

"I've got people on them," he said finally. "All of them. Including your fa ther-in-law."

"Which might tip our German friends that you know of the plan, and wonder where you got your information," Frade said.

Martin did not reply, but after a moment shrugged his agreement.

"How about this?" Frade suggested. "Tomorrow morning, I take my mother-in-law and the boy to Mendoza . . ."

"I heard you had Dona Dorotea at Casa Montagna," Martin said. "What's that all about?"

"Next question? And how come you know about Casa Montagna?"

"Next question?"

"As I was saying, I'll put some people from the estancia on my father-in-law," Frade said. "Conspicuously. Four guys--all ex-Husares--in a station wagon with 'Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo' painted on the doors. He won't like it, but I don't think he wants to go to Mendoza, and I'm sure he doesn't want to be kidnapped."

"Is he going to be at Dona Claudia's little party?"

"Reluctantly, I think."

"This is none of my business, but why doesn't he like you?"

"You mean, what prompted him to tell his wife--he didn't know I was in the house, of course--'I curse the day that depraved gringo sonofabitch walked through our door!'?"

"He actually said that?"

"It may have something to do with me going to be the father of his first grandchild."

"But why 'depraved'?"