“I know,” Graham said. “Your grandfather told me.”
“My grandfather?” Clete had blurted.
Graham nodded. “I saw him just before I flew out here to see you. The kindest words he used to describe el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade—”
“My father is a colonel?” Cletus Frade asked, astonished.
Graham nodded again, and handed him a photograph. It showed a large, tall, dark-skinned man with a full mustache. He wore a rather ornate, somewhat Germanic uniform, and was getting into the backseat of an open Mercedes-Benz sedan. In the background, against a row of Doric columns, was a rank of soldiers armed with rifles standing at what the Marine Corps would call Parade Rest. Their uniforms, too, looked Germanic, and they were wearing German helmets.
“That was taken several months ago,” Graham said. “The day he retired from command of the Húsares de Pueyrredón, Argentina’s most prestigious cavalry regiment.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“You’re the product of an unfortunate infatuation, and a hasty, equally unfortunate marriage, right?”
Frade had looked at him but said nothing.
“I’ll take your silence as agreement,” Graham went on. “If I go wrong, stop me.”
Frade nodded at Graham coldly but said nothing.
“Your mother converted to Roman Catholicism in order to marry your father, ” Graham continued. “Which ceremony was conducted in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the Cathedral of Saint Louis in Jackson Square, officiated by the Cardinal Archbishop of New Orleans. Your Aunt Martha was your mother’s matron of honor. Captain Juan Perón was your father’s best man.”
“You seem to know more about this than I do,” Frade had replied, more than a little sarcastically.
“ ‘Sir, with respect, you seem to know more about this than I do, sir,’ ” Graham said coldly. “Don’t let my charming smile and warm manner fool you. I’m a Marine colonel and you’re a first lieutenant. You have that straight in your mind, mister?”
“Yes, sir.”
Graham nodded.
“Yeah, now that you mention it, I probably do know more about this than you,” Graham went on conversationally. “Anyway, after a three-month honeymoon slash grand tour of Europe, during the last month of which your mother came to be with child, the newlywed couple went to Argentina, where a healthy boy—you—came into the world in the German Hospital in Buenos Aires. How’m I doing, Cletus?”
“Sir, from what I have heard before, that’s correct.”
“Shortly thereafter, your mother found herself in the family way again. There was some medical problem, and at her father’s insistence, she came home, so to speak, for better medical attention. She died in childbirth, as did the baby. Your father then returned to Argentina, leaving you in the care of your Aunt Martha and Uncle James Howell. You were raised on a ranch near Midland, Texas, then were a member of the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M—as was I, coincidentally— but you resigned from the Corps so that you could become a tennis-playing jock at Tulane. You went from Tulane into the Marines, where you flew F4Fs, shot down seven Japanese, and then were returned to the States to sell war bonds and teach new pilots how to stay alive. That about it, Cletus?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you cannot remember ever having seen your father?”
“No, sir, I cannot.”
“Do you know how your grandfather feels about your father?”
“Yes, sir. He thinks he’s an unmitigated bastard and the less said about the no-good sonofabitch the better.”
Graham nodded.
“Maybe being an unmitigated bastard is the reason your father got to be a colonel. In the Ejército Argentino, that’s like being a major general in the Marine Corps.”
Frade looked at him but didn’t say anything.
“And—if the coup d’état he’s setting up works, and we think it probably will—he’s probably going to be the next president of Argentina.”
“Jesus Christ!” Frade had blurted.
“It would be in the interest of the United States, obviously, if the president of Argentina leaned toward the United States. Right now, the Argentines, including your father, are leaning the other way. You getting the picture, Lieutenant? ”