The Honor of Spies

"I've never seen Cortina, Clete. All I did was talk to him on the telephone--and only a couple of times. If I'd have seen him, he wouldn't be able to pull that sergeant major bullshit on me."

" 'OIC'?" Nervo asked.

" 'Officer-in-Charge.' Or maybe 'Officer-in-Command,' " Clete furnished.

Nervo nodded his agreement and said: "That would make some sense."

"So you think Moller knows?" Clete asked.

"Sure he does," Nervo said.

Schultz nodded his agreement.

"What would all that be about?" Clete asked. "And spare me that I'm Just an Old Chief and Simple Policeman crap."

"If you're watching Moller, you're probably not going to be watching Kortig. Or at least as closely," Schultz said. "If Kortig has another mission, one you don't know about . . ."

"Do you think either one of them knows about Valkyrie?" Clete asked.

"I don't know about Moller," Nervo said. "But I'll bet Kortig does. Gehlen may have sent him here to make sure Moller--if he doesn't already know about Valkyrie--doesn't find out; or if he does, that he doesn't blow the whistle on Valkyrie to the German Embassy or von Deitzberg. You told me Kortig didn't seem all that surprised to hear that von Deitzberg is here."

Schultz was nodding. "Clete, I think you have to find out what the fuck these two Krauts are really up to."

"Yeah," Frade said. He pushed himself out of his chair. "And the sooner the better."

Nervo stood. Clete waited until he had drained his glass, then said, "Tell me, Simple Policeman. In the Gendarmeria, how would you do this? By pulling fingernails?"

Nervo looked at him stonefaced.

"Actually," the inspector general then said, "I've found the best method is to drag people across the pampas behind a horse for fifteen minutes before beginning the interrogation."

[TWO]

Approaching El Plumerillo Airfield

Mendoza, Mendoza Province, Argentina

1410 3 October 1943

Dona Dorotea Frade, in the copilot seat of the Lodestar, pushed the intercom button on her microphone and said, "Let me land it, Cletus, please."

Frade glanced at her, then returned his attention to outside the aircraft as he said, "No. You shouldn't even be sitting there."

"Nonsense. There's nothing an eight-months-and-some-days pregnant woman can't do except lead anything that comes close to a normal life."

"You all right, baby?"

"No woman eight months pregnant is all right, Clete. But I can land this, and I want to. This will be my last flight for a while."

He glanced at her again. "You just decide that?"

"No, I decided it on the plane on the way to Buenos Aires. Once I got back to Mendoza, that was it."

He saw the airfield ahead and started to make a shallow descent to the right.

"I gather that means you are not going to grant the humble request of the mother of your unborn child?"

"No, it means I want to make a low pass over Casa Montagna."

"Why?"

"It's known as terrifying the natives. Puts a little excitement into their lives."

"They know we're coming, Cletus."

"Let's make sure," he said as he headed for Estancia Don Guillermo.

He made two low-level passes over the house on the mountain side, one to the south and one to the north, and then raised the nose.

I could get a Piper Cub in there easily. I wonder if my father had that in mind?

It couldn't have been cheap to dynamite all that rock out of the way and then make everything level.

He climbed to twelve hundred feet, leveled off, then picked up his microphone and pressed the intercom button.

"First Officer, you have the aircraft." He pointed out the windscreen. "The airfield's over thataway."

She put her hands on the yoke and he took his off.

"Thank you, my darling," the first officer said.

"That was a good landing," Clete said.

"Well, thank you, darling."

"Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing."

"You bah-stud!"

He saw she was smiling.

If anything had gone wrong, I could have taken it away from her.

I think.

Looking out the windscreen, Clete Frade saw that a considerable number of vehicles were on hand to meet them. He was not surprised to see the four-door Lincoln Continental his Aunt Beatriz had rebodied or even the two dark green army-style trucks and two 1941 Ford sedans painted the same color that obviously went with the maybe a dozen members of the Gendarmeria Nacional standing near them. And he had expected the small bus parked beside the gendarmes. There were in all seven Mollers and Kortigs, plus the suitcases now holding the clothing Rodriguez and the nun had bought for everybody.