He unfastened his harness and made his way quickly through the passenger compartment. Frogger was about to unfasten his seat belt.
“Stay there,” Frade ordered as he wrestled with the door.
Dorotea ran to him and embraced him. He was conscious of the swell of her belly against him.
“What’s with all the guns?” Clete asked, his mouth against her hair.
She exhaled audibly and pushed away from him.
“We couldn’t be sure it was you in the plane,” she said. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Sweetheart, what’s happened?”
“Oscar and I went out to Casa Chica yesterday afternoon to take supplies. Oh, God, darling! There was nobody there, and bullet holes all over. And a lot of blood on the verandah and the stairs from the landing strip.”
“The Froggers?”
She shook her head.
“Nobody was there. Not Enrico, not Rodolfo—he was out there, too—none of our gauchos, nobody.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Where the hell have you been? We didn’t even know where to call you.”
“I’ve been flying down here from Burbank. Delgano and me. And Oberstleutnant Frogger.”
Her face showed her confusion and surprise at that announcement. She said: “And Peter sent word—not much—telling me to be very careful.”
Clete looked over her shoulder at Schultz as he approached.
“Chief?”
“It looks like somebody figured out where y
ou stashed the Froggers, Major, and went and took them out.” He held his hands out in front of him in a gesture of apology. “Christ, I’m sorry.”
“Forget sorry,” Frade said.
Delgano came out of the Lodestar, followed by Frogger, and walked up to them.
“We have a problem,” Frade announced to them, then looked at Frogger. “Colonel, somebody—somebody, hell, who else could it be?—SS-Obersturmbannführer Cranz found out where we had your parents. Now we don’t know where they are.”
“Mein Gott!”
“It gets worse. According to Lieutenant Schultz”—he nodded at Schultz and Frogger’s face showed surprise at that—“and my wife, they shot up the place pretty well. There was blood all over.”
“The house is a fucking mess, Colonel,” Schultz confirmed. “Looks like it’s been in a war. We picked up some nine-millimeter Parabellum cases, which is interesting.”
“You’re saying my parents are dead?” Frogger asked evenly.
“We don’t know that,” Frade said.
Frogger’s face showed that he was not in the mood for wishful thinking.
“But I think we have to accept that Obersturmbannführer Cranz’s order that they be killed when and where found has been carried out. I’m very sorry, Colonel.”
Frogger nodded just perceptibly.