“Enrico, why didn’t you tell me you were friends?” Clete challenged, more in wonder than anger or even annoyance.
“You didn’t ask, Don Cletus,” the old soldier said matter-of-factly.
“Well, Don Cletus?” Peralta said. “Now that you’re a little less worried about Estanislao . . .”
“I apologize, Inspector,” Clete said.
“No need,” Nowicki said simply.
“. . . where shall we start?” Peralta finished his question.
“The arms cache?” Clete replied. “The perimeter defense of this place?”
“There are more arms, heavier arms, than I expected,” Peralta said. “Fifty-caliber machine guns, mortars. And a great deal of ammunition. Which makes me wonder whether el Coronel Schmidt is really after that, rather than using the weapons cache as an excuse to look for the Froggers.”
“Why would he want the weapons? He’s got a regiment.”
“Doesn’t the U.S. Corps of Marines teach its officers that guns are like sex? You can never have too much.”
“Point taken, Inspector,” Clete said.
“But now that we’re on the subject of el Coronel Schmidt, let’s get that clear between us, Don Cletus. My orders from Inspector General Nervo are to assist you in any way I can, short of helping you start, or involving the Gendarmería in, a civil war.”
“I have no intention of starting a civil war,” Clete replied. “Is that what Inspector General Nervo thinks?”
“It’s not you he’s worried about,” Nowicki said. “It’s that Nazi bastard Schmidt.”
“Schmidt wants to start a civil war? What the hell for?”
“To put in the Casa Rosada someone who understands that the Nazis—and until last week, the Italians—were fighting the good fight against godless Communism,” Peralta said. “And what makes him especially dangerous is that the bastard really believes he’s on God’s side.”
“Who does he want to put in the Casa Rosada? A colonel named Schmidt?”
“Maybe a colonel named Perón,” Peralta said. “But probably Obregón.”
“The head of the Bureau of Internal Security?”
“I’ve known for some time—as have Nervo, Martín, and some others—that el General de División Manuel Frederico Obregón likes to think of himself as the Heinrich Himmler of Argentina,” Peralta said. “Not the concentration camp Himmler, of course, but as the patriot rooting out godless Communists and other opponents of National Socialism wherever found. Rawson—and others; el Coronel Wattersly, for example—keep him on a pretty tight leash, which Schmidt would love to remove.
“Rawson is a good man, but not very strong. He could be talked into resigning if he thought the alternative was civil war.”
“And Obregón would move into the Casa Rosada?”
“More likely Pepe Ramírez—el General Pedro Pablo Ramírez—with Perón as his vice president. They get along pretty well, and nobody really likes Obregón.”
“Jesus Christ!” Clete said bitterly. “So, what do you want to do with the weapons to keep them out of Schmidt’s hands?”
“I think the best place for them is probably here. The Gendarmería doesn’t have any place to store them more securely than they are here. Inspector General Nervo left the decision to me, based on what I found here. And I can’t fault your defense of Casa Montagna. What I have to try—try very hard—to do is keep you from having to defend it.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Well, Schmidt can’t get here without using the roads, and the Gendarmería owns the roads. We’ll know immediately if—I think I should say when—he starts in this direction. You’ll probably have two days’—maybe three or four—warning. And Inspector General Nervo will tell Wattersly and the others.
“In the meantime, today we’re going to spread the word that the Gendarmería came here, found a small cache of weapons, and took them off your hands. So there’s no reason for Schmidt to come looking for them. Maybe that will stop Schmidt. Maybe it won’t.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“The only thing I can tell you for sure, Don Cletus, is that if there is a civil war, the first battle will not be between Schmidt’s Mountain Troops and the Gendarmería.”