The Honor of Spies

But he was surprised to see that the Little Sisters of Santa Maria del Pilar were also on hand, represented by their Mother Superior. She was standing by a small bus, much like the one the Little Sisters of the Poor had had at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

I wonder what that's all about?

"Don Cletus?" a male voice behind him at the cockpit door said.

Clete turned and saw Inspector Peralta, one of the two Gendarmeria Nacional officers who had been waiting for him at Jorge Frade when he'd "refueled." The other officer was Subinspector Navarro. The best that Clete could figure was that Peralta was roughly the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel and Navarro a major. Inspector General Nervo's orders to them had been simple: "Place yourself at Don Cletus's orders and keep me posted--twice a day--on what's going on."

Frade made the introduction between Dona Dorotea and Inspector Peralta.

Then Peralta said: "With your permission, Don Cletus, rather than go directly to Estancia Don Guillermo, I will go to the Mendoza headquarters of the Gendarmeria and have a talk with Subinspector Nowicki--he came to meet us; I see his car--and join you later. May I bring Subinspector Nowicki with me when I do?"

He's being polite as hell, but he's sure running the show.

"Of course."

"Subinspector Navarro will escort you now with the trucks and men you see. If you would be good enough to show him the weapons cache, that would be helpful."

Does that mean the weapons will then get loaded on the trucks, and bye-bye weapons cache?

Oh, stop it, for Christ's sake! The next thing, you'll be eyeing Mother Superior suspiciously.

What other choice do I have?

"I'll have Rodriguez show him the cache as soon as we arrive."

"Do you think four of my men will be sufficient to guard the aircraft, Don Cletus? Or shall I arrange for more?"

I never even thought about that. The Constellations in Buenos Aires, yeah. But not the Lodestar here.

You're really on top of things, Senor Superspy!

"I'm sure that will be enough."

"Then I'll see you shortly," Peralta said, saluted, and backed out of the cockpit door.

Clete looked at Dorotea.

"Good man," he began before being interrupted by the voice of Mother Superior at the cockpit door.

"What in the world are you doing up here and in there?" she asked of Dona Dorotea, then turned to Don Cletus. "You really can be, can't you, quite as stupid as your father?" She looked at Dorotea. "Well, come on!"

"Where am I going?" Dorotea said.

"To the convent. The original idea was to examine the German women and children. Now I'll have to see what damage this husband of yours has caused to you."

Dorotea nodded. "I told him that I didn't think I should be sitting up here in my delicate condition."

She waited until Mother Superior was glaring at Cletus and couldn't see her face. Then, looking very pleased with herself, she smiled warmly at him and stuck out her tongue.

And then, with great difficulty, she started to hoist herself out of the copilot's seat.

[THREE]

Casa Montagna

Estancia Don Guillermo

Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60

Mendoza Province, Argentina

1525 3 October 1943

Captain Madison R. Sawyer III had been playing polo--sort of--to pass the time when "Frade's Lodestar," as Sawyer thought of it, had buzzed the polo field.

He had found eight mallets--one of them broken, all of them old--hanging at various places on the walls of Casa Montagna, which had of course cut the number of players to three on each team, leaving one spare mallet.

Finding players and horses had posed no problem. When he had asked--at the morning formation of the former cavalry troopers of the Husares de Pueyrredon now guarding Casa Montagna--if anyone happened to know how to play polo, every hand had shot up. The horses were not, of course, the fine polo ponies he had grown used to at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. But even the worst of them seemed to have some idea what was expected of a polo pony.

The problem of no polo balls had been solved by purchasing at a very generous price three soccer balls--what the Argentines called footballs--from the children of peones who lived in the compound. He also promised to see that they would have replacement footballs just as soon as he could send someone into town to buy them.

The air-filled soccer balls of course behaved quite differently than a regulation solid-wood polo ball would have, but that just made the play more interesting.