“What’s going on?” Martín asked.
“Actually, we were just talking about you,” Frade said.
“Really?” Martín said as he walked around the room, shaking hands and exchanging embraces.
Flowers shook hands wordlessly with everyone.
“I said something to the effect that if el General was here we could ask him what this swap-the-diplomats mission is really all about,” Frade said.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Martín said, walking finally to Clete, where he hugged his shoulder.
“May I say how elegant you all look in your uniforms?” Martín asked.
“Only if you say it without smirking,” Clete said, then added: “You really don’t know what’s going on? Or where our passengers are? I told Humberto to tell my Tío Juan we wanted to leave no later than four-thirty.”
“Colonel Frade, may I have a moment with you?” Colonel Flowers asked.
“Certainly. May we use your office, Gonzalo?”
“Certainly.”
When they had gone into the adjacent office, Flowers said, “Sergeant, leave the briefcase, please, and wait for me in the corridor.”
One of the Marines handed Flowers the briefcase, then both Marines left the office, closing the door behind them.
Flowers put the briefcase on the desk, then sat down in an armchair before it.
He looked at Clete and said, “May I ask where you’re going?”
Why not tell him?
“The Foreign Ministry has chartered a Connie to take a crew of Argentine diplomats to Germany and bring back the ones who are there.”
“Sort of a rescue mission?”
“I suppose you could say that. They were in Berlin while the Russians took it. That couldn’t have been much fun.”
“You’re going to Berlin?”
Frade nodded. “I’m flying the airplane. The mission will be led by someone from the foreign ministry.”
“And you’re taking the two Germans with you?”
“If you’re talking about von Wachtstein and Boltitz, Colonel, you’re getting into areas I’m not at liberty to discuss with you.”
That earned Frade the cold, tight-lipped expression he expected, but Flowers did not respond directly.
“I have half a million dollars for you,” Flowers said.
Half a million bucks? Frade thought. No shit?
Oh! Talk about government efficiency! It’s been damn near a year since I sent that invoice to Washington.
The actual idea of billing the OSS had been triggered by Doña Dorotea, who had been dealing with managers of various Frade enterprises going over their bills. She’d asked Clete, “Who’s going to pay for all the money we’re spending on the OSS? Us?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he had replied, “Who else?”
Then he’d realized that Dorotea’s question was one he had not previously considered. It had not taken him long at all, after his father had been assassinated and he had inherited everything he thought of as “el Coronel, Incorporated,” to stop thinking about money. He had other things on his mind, for one thing, and for another, the well of Frade cash seemed to be as inexhaustible as the pool of water at the bottom of Niagara Falls.