Palermo, Buenos Aires
1545 10 April 1943
Tony looked around in exaggerated awe as they passed through the hotel-size foyer of the Frade mansion.
"You're going to live here? Won't you be a little cramped for space?"
"I'd like to move back into the house on Libertador, but there's a colonel named Per¢n staying there."
"Who's he?"
"My father's best friend. He just came back from Germany."
"What was he doing in Germany?"
"I have no idea," Clete said, "but he told me he finds it impossible to be-lieve the Germans were involved in my father's assassination."
"Oh, shit!" Tony said. "Clete, my back teeth are floating."
"Over there," Clete said, stopping on the first step of the stairs to the second floor and pointing. "Unless you can wait until we get upstairs?"
"Over there will do very nicely, thank you very much, Major, Sir," Tony said, and walked quickly to the restroom.
Enrico touched Clete's arm.
"Se¤or Clete, we are being followed by the clowns. One of their cars, an Anglia, followed us from Avenida Alvear."
"You didn't say anything."
"We don't have to worry about the clowns any longer, Se¤or Clete. El Coronel Mart¡n is now one of us," Enrico said, and then asked, "You did not no-tice that we were being followed?"
Clete shook his head, "no."
"You must be on the lookout for such things," Enrico said. "A car follow-ing you may not be a clown car."
"You're right."
Tony came out of the restroom a moment later, a look of satisfaction on his face, and the three of them continued up the stairs.
Once they were in his bedroom, Clete rang for a maid, ordered drinks and something to nibble on, then changed out of his suit and into a pair of khakis.
"OK," he said, walking back into the sitting from his bedroom to find Tony drinking from the neck of a bottle of Quilmes beer. "I feel better. I really wanted to get out of that suit."
He spotted a silver wine cooler filled with ice and beer and took one, dis-missing the maid's offer of a glass, and the maid herself, with a smile and a waved hand.
He slumped into an armchair facing Tony.
"How was your leave?" Clete asked, taking a sip of his beer.
"We came all the way over here to talk about my leave?"
"Indulge me, Tony. I've had a bad couple of days. This is the first time I've had a chance to sit down and relax."
Tony gave him a strange look, then shrugged.
"Very nice," he said. "My leave was nice. I could have done without those bullshit briefings in Washington. And the crypto school was worse."
"They were necessary, I suppose. I went through them too."