Victory and Honor (Honor Bound 6)

Two years later, Frade—who now knew a helluva lot more than he wanted about the usefulness of South American Airways and about the secret German operations—picked up the telephone from the lower shelf of the table next to his chair. He crisply announced, “Area Commander Frade speaking, sir.”

He heard Allen W. Dulles chuckle.

“How was your flight from Washington, Area Commander?” Dulles asked.

“How did you hear about that?”

“I spoke with someone who began the conversation along the lines of ‘I’m glad you’re there. You won’t believe what Alec’s loose cannon just did with a pair of POWs at Fort Hunt.’”

“From that I infer ‘there’ is ‘here,’ right?” Frade said.

“I’m in the Alvear Palace.”

“And you’re here because of what allegedly happened in Washington? I don’t understand . . .”

“In part that. I thought we—you, me, and those allegedly sprung from Fort Hunt—need to discuss some new developments, ones that have come up in the week since you and I last spoke in Lisbon—”

“Oh, do we absolutely have to talk!” Frade announced.

“—and so,” Dulles went on, “believing that because you had just flown the Atlantic you probably would spend at least a day or two in the bosom of your family, I went back to Lisbon and caught the very next South American Airways flight to Buenos Aires.”

He paused, chuckled, then went on: “Tangentially, an observation or two about that: Your airline must be making money, Cletus. I was lucky to get a seat. Every one got sold, despite the outrageous prices you’re charging for a ticket. Many of the seats were occupied by Roman Catholic clergy of one affiliation or another. I decided that Buenos Aires must be overflowing with sinners for the Pope to spend so much money rushing all those priests, brothers, and nuns over here to save souls.”

Clete laughed.

“I’ll tell Father Welner what you said,” he said.

“Have you seen the good Father lately?”

“He met the airplane and he’s here now. Having his lunch. He and General Martín—they met the plane and said we had to talk.”

“Do they know about von Wachtstein and Boltitz?” Dulles said.

“Welner handed them—in front of Martín—Argentine identity documents stating that they’d immigrated to Argentina in 1938.”

“Then what Martín probably wants to talk about is what should be done with them in the immediate future. So far as a great many Germans in Argentina are concerned, both are traitors to the Thousand-Year Reich.”

“Not only Argentine Germans,” Frade said, “but I’d say at least half of the newly converted clergy—of the sort you said were on your flight—also think they’re traitors. I don’t mind the good Germans, but I’ve about had enough of these Kraut bastards.”

Dulles didn’t reply immediately. Then he said, “Understood. We need to discuss that, too.”

“So,” Frade said, “can you tell me about these new developments you just mentioned?”

And why they are so important that you came all the way here to tell me about them?

“When can we get together?” Dulles said. “I don’t want to talk about them on the phone.”

“I don’t think you want to come here to Uncle Willy’s house.”

“Not if Martín and Father Welner are there, Cletus.”

“Okay. Well, what I’m planning now—and, unless I’m given a good reason not to, what I’m indeed going to do—is spend the night here, then load everybody on the Red Lodestar and fly them out to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. From there, I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

“So then why don’t you drop by Jorge Frade about nine tomorrow morning and fly out to the estancia with us? Martín and Welner aren’t going.”

“Very well. I’ll see you at the airport at nine,” Dulles said, and hung up.