Top Secret (Clandestine Operations 1)

“Then he said it was time for lunch. I tried to be a gentleman and pay for the drinks, but my father waved at the barman. ‘My son’s money is no good in the Alvear. Make sure everyone knows that.’

“We walked out of the hotel. The Horch was parked there next to an Absolutely No Parking Or Stopping At Any Time sign. Enrico—you know Enrico . . .”

Jimmy nodded.

“. . . was standing there holding the driver’s door open. My father said, ‘Cletus, this is Suboficial Mayor Rodríguez. We soldiered together for twenty-five years. Enrico, this is my son Cletus.’

“Enrico popped to attention. ‘An honor, mi teniente. El coronel has told me what a fine officer of the Corps de Marines you are.’”

“I thought your father was a Nazi. Or a Nazi sympathizer.”

“At the time, so did I. So then my father said, ‘Get in the back, Enrico. Teniente Frade will drive.’ I got behind the wheel and drove to the Círculo Militar, a couple of blocks away.

“I later found out I was the first person except Enrico my father ever let within ten feet of that steering wheel. He really loved his Horch.

He died in it.”

“What?”

“Assassinated. Two barrels of twelve-gauge double-aught buckshot to the face.”

“Jesus Christ, Clete!”

“I’ll return to that later. So we went to the Círculo Militar, where we had several more double Jack Daniel’s while waiting for our lunch, during which time he introduced me to maybe half of the senior brass of the Ejército Argentino as ‘my son, Teniente Cletus, hero of Guadalcanal, where he shot down seven Japanese aircraft and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.’

“During lunch, which was an enormous filet mignon served with two bottles of Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon—from here, Jimmy, my father said it came from a ‘little vineyard the family owns’ . . . Okay, where was I? Oh. The important part. Over lunch, I heard my father’s version of his marriage and why I was raised by Mom and Uncle Jim. It differed substantially from the Old Man’s version.”

“What was your father’s version?”

“That he and my mother were married in New Orleans, in the Saint Louis Cathedral, with the Old Man’s blessing. His poker-playing pal the Cardinal Archbishop did the honors. No one had ever told me that.

“My father’s best man was his Army buddy, then Major Juan Domingo Perón. A year later, I was born—upstairs in this house, the attending physician was Mother Superior—and Tío Juan became my godfather.”

“That old nun who just sewed up Perón?”

“One and the same. She runs the Little Sisters of Saint Pilar hospital. She also delivered both of my kids.”

“So what the hell happened?”

“My mother, when she converted to Roman Catholicism, jumped in with both feet. The Old Man thought her conversion was no more than a formality to get the cardinal to marry them in the cathedral. But she became deeply devout.”

“So what? I don’t understand.”

“She’d had trouble when I was born. Mother Superior warned her that future pregnancies would be dangerous. This was confirmed by other doctors.”

“And your father didn’t care, he just—”

“What my father told me, with tears running down his cheeks, was that he would cheerfully have started to worship the devil if that’s what it would have taken to get my mother to get her tubes tied or let him use what he called ‘french letters.’ But my mother declared them mortal sins. She said it was in the hands of God.”

“And she became pregnant?”

“And died, together with the child she was carrying, in childbirth.”

“Here?”

“In New Orleans. My father said she didn’t want to go there. But Mother Superior told her that it was her Christian duty to get the best medical attention possible. They left here—taking me with them—and flew to Miami and then New Orleans. Where she died. And the Old Man went ballistic, blaming it all on—”

“That despicable Argentinean sonofabitch?”