“Don’t worry,” Clete said, “with a little practice—four, five hours shooting touch-and-gos, you’ll eventually get the hang of it. I’ll show you the tricks.”
It went right over von Wachtstein’s head.
His face showed he thought he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Just kidding, Hansel.”
“Alicia and I are going to Doña Claudia’s,” von Wachtstein then said. “What about Karl and Beth?”
“That depends on where Beth’s mother is,” Clete said. “That’s where they’ll go.”
One of the drivers of the cars waiting for them told them that “las señoras” were all at Estancia Santa Catalina.
“Karl,” Frade said, “your call. When we get there, you and Beth can try to look innocent, or hang your heads in shame. Doesn’t matter. Martha Howell will see through it and make you both pay for your lewd and lascivious behavior.”
“Screw you!” Beth said.
There was a 1942 Chevrolet Master Deluxe sedan with diplomatic license plates parked in front of the Big House when Clete and Siggie Stein rolled up in one of the estancia’s station wagons.
Probably Tony Pelosi and/or Max Ashton, Clete decided, just before he decided, I guess Doña Alicia has been dropped from the roll of las señoras.
His wife was sitting on the side verandah with the U.S. Embassy “military attachés” Pelosi and Ashton, and someone he was surprised to see—Milton Leibermann, the “legal attaché” of the embassy. Their children were nowhere in sight.
“I thought you’d be with las señoras,” Clete said to his wife when all the handshaking and kissing were done.
“I didn’t think Milt came all the way out here from Buenos Aires just for the hell of it,” Dorotea said matter-of-factly.
Leibermann laughed.
“She’s good, Clete,” he said. “I didn’t. And neither did these two.”
“Excuse me?”
“When I asked Tony if I could borrow his embassy car to come out here, he said he’d drive me. And then Max sniffed something was up and found the time in his busy schedule to join us.”
“So, what’s up, Milt?”
“I got a letter from an old pal, a fellow Gangbuster, that I thought might be of interest to you.”
“A fellow Gangbuster?” Clete asked.
“That’s what we called ourselves when we were going through the FBI Academy,” Leibermann said. “There was a radio program at the time called Gangbusters. Allegedly based on the exploits of the New Jersey State Police under Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf.”
“I don’t understand,” Clete confessed.
“Read this,” Leibermann said, handing Frade a sheaf of typewriter paper. “I will then entertain questions.”
Dear Milt:
For reasons which will become apparent as you read this, I really wish that instead of writing this in some haste, we were sitting—two old friends—across a table from one another. But that’s simply not possible under the circumstances.
Let me start with the good news: You will shortly learn through normal channels that the Bureau’s Operation in Buenos Aires has been upgraded by Director Hoover from Foreign Station to Overseas Division, and that the Director has named you Chief thereof.
That appointment comes with a substantial pay increase, of course, but this has all happened so suddenly that I just don’t know the details. When I have them, I will get them to you as soon as I can.
The appointment also carries with it both much greater responsibility and authority than you were charged with as Special Agent in Charge Buenos Aires Station. The Section Chief, South America, is being informed today that effective immediately, Overseas Division, Argentina, will report directly to the Assistant Director for South America. Who just happens to be yours truly.
While your outstanding performance of your duties certainly merits a promotion like this for you, I must in candor tell you that another reason for it was the Director’s realization that for you to be able to deal with the responsibilities you will now have you will require both more authority than you had as Special Agent in Charge and the appropriate senior title to go with them.