“I think those pictures are more important than I understand—”
Fischer, nodding, interrupted: “Mr. Dulles made that pretty clear without coming right out and saying so, or saying why.”
After a long silence, Frade said, “I am not going to order you to go out there, Fischer.”
Fischer met his eyes for a moment, then shrugge
d. “When do I go? Right now?”
“If we’re going to go, yeah, right now. You’re willing to take the chance?”
Fischer nodded again.
Frade raised his eyebrows. “The first thing I learned when I went into the Marine Corps was never to volunteer for anything.”
“Yeah, well, what the hell, I’ve never seen a real Nazi,” Fischer said.
“Taking into consideration that that goddamned Carlos may have sneaked back onto the estancia—”
“I don’t think so, Clete,” Schultz said. “Those gauchos of yours know if a damn rabbit comes on the place.”
Frade ignored the comment. “—and is watching us through binoculars to see what we’re doing before they come to arrest me. So, what we now are going to do is get in the Horch. Fischer gets in the backseat and lies on the floor until we’re a couple of miles from here. And we go to Casa Chica.”
“A couple problems with that, sweetheart,” Dorotea said.
Clete turned quickly to look at her.
“You don’t know how to get there,” she explained reasonably. “The only time you’ve been there, you flew the Piper Cub. And . . . when I am sitting with you in the front seat, and if Carlos is watching us, he will decide that you and I have gone off for a romantic interlude. If I’m not with you, that would be suspicious. Most Marines would not think of leaving their bride the same night they came home.”
Clete saw out of the corner of his eye that Schultz and Fischer were trying very hard not to smile.
Clete nodded. “Okay, okay, sweetheart, you can go.”
“Oh, you’re just so good to me!”
He shook his head—but he was smiling.
“Chief,” Frade then said, “take the SIGABA device out to the radar site. Make sure it and the radio and the code machine and everything else is rigged with thermite grenades.”
“And the Collins radios?”
“Leave them here. If Carlos is watching, taking them out of the hangar would be suspicious.”
Schultz nodded.
“If they come after me,” Frade went on, “torch everything, then go hide on the estancia.”
“I know just the place. Places,” Schultz said. “We’ll just lay low until we see what happens. Not that I think anything will.”
Frade raised his eyebrows, not convinced. He said, “When we get to Casa Chica, we’ll take the pictures of the Froggers—we’ll need a copy of La Nación . . .”
“There’s one in the sitting,” Dorotea said.
“. . . And then we’ll spend the night. We’ll leave there at seven, seven-thirty in the morning. Which should put us back here, or onto the estancia, at about half past nine. Have a gaucho meet us somewhere if everything’s okay. If there’s no gaucho . . . then we’ll play it by ear.”
[TWO]
Estancia Casa Chica Near Tandil Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 2015 19 July 1943