Top Secret Read online

  “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?”

  Clete grunted. “Yeah. So when my father said that he intended to have my mother buried in the family mausoleum in the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, the Old Man talked him into leaving the baby—me—with Mom and Uncle Jim in New Orleans until after the funeral.

  “When my father came back to the States to get me, they stopped him at the border. The Old Man had arranged to have him declared a ‘person of low moral character.’ And when my father sneaked into the States from Mexico, he was arrested and did ninety days on a Texas road gang, after which he was deported and told if he tried to get into the States again, he’d do five years.”

  “Jesus . . .”

  “Yeah. My father told me he had to give up, and decided that Mom and my Uncle Jim would do a better job of raising me than his sister Beatrice, who already showed signs of lunacy.”

  “And you believed your father’s version?”

  “Yeah. I did. Right from the start. I knew what a sonofabitch the Old Man can be. I love him, you know that, Jimmy. But he can be, and you know it, a three-star sonofabitch. And what my father told me the Old Man had done sounded just like what the Old Man would do.

  “Anyway, I heard this while putting down all that booze, and then my father said, ‘The family has a guesthouse in town. Across from the racetrack on Avenida Libertador. It’s yours for as long as you’re here.’

  “He wouldn’t take no for an answer. And since I knew Mallin didn’t want me in his house—he’d seen the way I looked at his Virgin Princess, and I’d seen his reaction to learning who my father was—I agreed to take a look at the house. He introduced me to the housekeeper, who was Enrico’s sister, and showed me around the place.

  “In the master bedroom, he sat down and passed out. Enrico threw him over his shoulder and carried him home. Then I passed out.

  “Three days later, after the guy running the OSS here—an absolute moron of a lieutenant commander—sent me on an idiot mission to Uruguay . . . But that’s another story.”

  “Tell it.”

  “Okay. Why not? This clown sent Tony Pelosi, my demolition guy—you met him, too, the assistant military attaché from the embassy?”

  “Yeah. The major from Chicago.”

  “Right. Well, Commander Jack Armstrong the All-American Asshole sent me and Tony—he was then a second lieutenant—to Uruguay. We went up near the Brazilian border and waited around in the middle of the night in a field until an airplane dropped us a package. The package had what looked like wooden boxes. The OSS in the States had cleverly molded explosives to look like wooden slats, then made the slats into boxes, and flew the boxes to the U.S. Air Force base at Puerto Allegre. After the exchange of many classified messages between the Air Force and Commander Asshole, who was the naval attaché at the embassy in Buenos Aires, an Air Force guy climbed into his plane. He then violated Uruguayan sovereignty and neutrality by flying into Uruguay and dropping the boxes to the OSS agents who were to use the explosives to blow up a Spanish freighter in Argentina. It was right out of an Errol Flynn–Alan Ladd movie.”

  “You and Pelosi used the explosives on the ship?”

  Clete shook his head. “On the boat on the way back from Montevideo to Buenos Aires that night, Tony told me there wasn’t enough explosive in the wooden slats to blow a hole in a medium-sized rowboat, but not to worry, he’d bought all the TNT we would need in a hardware store in downtown Buenos Aires.”

  “Incredible!”

  “It gets worse. The OSS geniuses who had come up with their blow-up-the-Spanish-ship plan hadn’t considered that the ship might have floodlights and machine guns in place to keep people from paddling up to her and attaching an explosive charge to her hull. When Tony and I finally found the ship, we knew we couldn’t get closer to her than five hundred yards.”

  “So the ship didn’t get sunk?”

  “Oh, it got sunk all right, but by a U.S. Navy submarine. Tony and I flew over it in my father’s Staggerwing Beechcraft, lit it up with flares, and the sub put two torpedoes in her. Which is, come to think of it, how come you were able to fly up here in my red Lodestar.”

  “Why red? This I have to hear.”

  “We heroes love nothing more than being able to tell of our exploits to appreciative and impressionable young men, so I’ll tell you.” He paused. “I’ll start with the night I came back from Uruguay . . .

  “When I walked into Grand-uncle Guillermo’s house, I saw lights in the library and heard music—Beethoven—playing on the phonograph. I thought that it was probably my father, so I walked in. A young blond guy was sitting in an armchair, staring thoughtfully into a brandy snifter and waving his hand to the music.

  “In my best Texican Spanish, I courteously asked who the hell he was.

  “He jumped to his feet, bobbed his head, clicked his heels, and formally replied, ‘Major Hans-Peter Ritter von Wachtstein of the Luftwaffe.’

  “To which I naturally replied, ‘First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade of the United States Marine Corps at your service, sir.’”

  “The enemy was in the library? You’re pulling my leg . . .”

  “Absolutely not. Hansel said, in Spanish, ‘It would seem we are enemy officers who’ve met on neutral territory.’

  “So I cleverly replied, ‘That’s sure what it looks like.’

  “Hansel said, ‘I have no idea what we should do.’

  “To which I replied, ‘Why don’t you start by telling me what you’re doing sitting in my father’s chair, drinking his cognac?’

  “That got his attention. He said, ‘Herr Leutnant, please permit me to extend my condolences on the loss of your loved one, the late Hauptman Jorge Frade Duarte, whose remains I had the honor of escorting from Germany.’

  “I suavely replied, ‘Before we get into that, Major, is there any more of that cognac? I’ve had a trying day.’”

  “So that’s how you met Hansel!” Jimmy said, laughing.

  Clete nodded. “An hour and a bottle and a half of cognac later, we were pals. What had happened was that my loony tune Aunt Beatrice, either not knowing or not caring that I was in the family guesthouse, sent Hansel there after he delivered Cousin Jorge’s lead-lined casket.”

  “What was that all about? Sending the body home to Argentina?”

  “Hansel told me the idea came from Josef Goebbels himself. Pure propaganda. The son of a prominent—very prominent—Argentine family gets killed in the holy war against the godless Communists. Germany and Argentina fight the holy war together.”

  “And how did Hansel get involved?”

  “He’s a legitimate German hero. He got the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross from Hitler himself. And—an important ‘and’—his father, one of the German generals in from the beginning of the plot to assassinate Adolf, wanted to get the last of the von Wachtstein line out of Germany alive. Hansel’s two brothers had already died in the war.”

  “And he told you all this the night you met him?”

  “No, of course
not. It came out later. That first night we just got smashed and agreed on a couple of things. For example, that fighter pilots are superior human beings and, unkindly, that Cousin Jorge not only didn’t deserve the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross Hansel was going to pin on his casket but was a goddamned fool for going to a war he didn’t have to go to.

  “The next morning, they sent people from the German embassy to get Hansel out of the house. We had decided we wouldn’t mention to anyone that we’d met.

  “The next time I saw him was the day of the funeral. He came to me at the Alvear hotel and told me to watch my back—the SS guy in the embassy had told him they were going to whack me.”

  “What?”

  Clete nodded and went on, “And sure enough the next night, three Paraguayan hit men showed up at Uncle Guillermo’s house and tried to do just that.”

  “Tried to assassinate you?”

  “Obviously they failed. But they slit the throat of Enrico’s sister before they came upstairs after me. Miserable bastards. She was a really good woman. She had known my mother—and me, too, when I was an infant—and told me a hell of a lot about my mother that nobody had ever told me before.”

  “‘They failed’?”

  “I was waiting for them,” Clete said simply. “I shot them.”

  “I never heard any of this.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Jimmy, write home? ‘Dear Mom: Well, the news from the Paris of Latin America is that Nazis sent some Paraguayan assassins to my house last night. I had to kill all three. There’s blood and brains all over my bedroom. PS—Tell Jimmy’?”

  “Jesus!”

  “They do a lot of that, assassinations or attempted assassinations, down here. Just before they shot at Tío Juan, somebody showed up at Martín’s house to take him out. He had to kill three, too—and they were Argentine officers.”

  Cronley was silent for a moment, then asked, “You didn’t get hurt? What did you do with the bodies? Did the cops come?”

  “There was a water pitcher by my bedside. It got hit, exploded, and I had fifty or so crystal fragments in my face and neck. It wasn’t serious but at the time I thought I was going to bleed to death right there.

  “Yeah, the cops came. But so did Bernardo Martín. He got rid of the cops, then put me in an ambulance and hid me in the military hospital. A dozen BIS agents stood watch as they patched me up.

  “The next day, Enrico showed up at the hospital with that shotgun you’ve seen him with. The newspapers reported a robbery in the Frade mansion and the police had been forced to shoot the robbers.

  “Then my father showed up. Thoroughly pissed. Enrico would stay with me, he announced, until I could be loaded on the Panagra Clipper to Miami. I told him thanks but no thanks. I had been sent to Argentina to blow up a ship, and that’s what I intended to do—it was my duty as an officer.

  “He gave me a funny look, then he wrapped his arms around me. ‘I should have known better. The blood of Pueyrredón flows in your veins as it flows in mine! You must do your duty! And it is clearly my duty to help you.’

  “Whose blood?”

  “Juan Martín de Pueyrredón’s. It seems he’s my great-great-grandfather. He ran the English out of Buenos Aires in 1806 using gauchos from his estancia as cavalry. Big hero down here. Think Nathan Bedford Forrest.

  “I didn’t know that then. All I knew was that my father was emotional about our bloodline and trying to be a nice guy. I said something like, ‘Thanks but unless you know where I can borrow an airplane to look for this Spanish ship . . .’

  “To which he replied, ‘There’s half a dozen Piper Cubs and a Staggerwing Beechcraft at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. Or I can come up with something else.’

  “He then told me the estancia was one of the family’s little ranches, eighty-four thousand two hundred and five hectares. A hectare is two point five acres.”

  Jimmy whistled.

  “He said the Cubs were useful to keep track of the cattle. The Staggerwing Beechcraft he’d bought to fly back and forth between Santo Tomé and Buenos Aires when he was commanding the Húsares de Pueyrredón Cavalry Regiment. He had a pilot, Gonzalo Delgano—”

  “The SAA pilot?”

  “The SAA chief pilot. My father told me I could use the Staggerwing to find the Reine de la Mer, the Spanish ship supplying German subs, if I gave my word of honor as an officer and gentleman that I’d leave Argentina immediately after I blew it up. I didn’t think the Argentines were going to like a Yankee blowing up a ship in their waters and would put me in jail if they didn’t shoot me. I agreed to his terms.

  “So that’s what happened. Tony and I found the Reine de la Mer. An American sub sneaked into the River Plate. Tony and I lit up the Reine de la Mer with flares from the Staggerwing and the sub put two torpedoes into her. A spectacular sight that Tony and I watched swimming around in the water into which I had dumped the Staggerwing after the machine guns on the Reine de la Mer had knocked out the engine.”

  “You got shot down?”

  Frade nodded.

  “Enrico picked us up in a speedboat. We hid in Buenos Aires for two days, then took the Panagra Flying Clipper to Miami. My father saw us off. He said”—Frade’s voice started to break—“that he loved me and was proud of me and that we would see each other after the war.”

  “And?”

  “And that was the last time I ever saw him.”

  Clete met Jimmy’s eyes, cleared his throat, and went on: “Then my education in this business really began. You may find this hard to believe, but at that point in my life, I was as innocent and naïve as you are now.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “In Miami, I called Colonel Graham—”

  “Who?”

  “Colonel A. J. Graham, USMCR, OSS deputy director for Western Hemisphere Operations. The guy who I met in Hollywood and sent me to Buenos Aires. I was going to tell him Tony and I were in Miami and why. He said he already knew. Then he told me to go to New Orleans, to the Old Man’s house, and take Tony with me. We were not only not to go home, we weren’t even allowed to call home.

  “Two days later, he showed up at the Old Man’s house and announced the President was very pleased—”

  “Roosevelt?”

  Frade nodded.

  “As proof thereof, I was now a captain, and Tony a first lieutenant. As soon as the paperwork caught up, I would get the Navy Cross and Tony the Silver Star.

  “For a few wonderful seconds I saw a bright future. I’d go to Pensacola for the rest of the war and very, very carefully teach young men to fly. After the war, I’d get out of the Corps, fly to BA, marry Dorotea, and we’d spend the rest of our lives in a vine-covered cottage by the side of a road somewhere.

  “Graham said, ‘We now need to talk about you going back to Buenos Aires.’

  “I replied, ‘If I go back, two things will happen. Right after I shoot Commander Asshole, the Argentines will put me in jail or in front of a firing squad or both.’

  “He said, ‘You’re replacing Commander Asshole as the naval attaché. You will have diplomatic immunity and can’t be arrested for anything. Ditto for Pelosi—he’s now an assistant military attaché.’

  “‘You don’t understand, Colonel, sir,’ I said. ‘The Argentines know I used my father’s Staggerwing to light up the Reine de la Mer. They won’t accept me as naval attaché.’

  “Graham shook his head. ‘The only way they could turn you down would be by accusing you of being involved in that. How could you possibly light up a ship the Argentine Foreign Ministry insists has never been in neutral Argentine waters?’

  “He let me figure that out, then said, ‘So far as your father’s Staggerwing is concerned, the President decided it would be a nice gesture on his part, a token of the admiration of the American people for the man we think will
be the next president of the Argentine Republic, to send him another. He’s issued the necessary orders to see that’s done immediately. You can tell him that when you get back down there, which will be as soon as the State Department gets off its bureaucratic ass and delivers your diplomatic passports and you get on a Clipper.’”

  “And?”

  “And . . . next day came the news that my father had been assassinated. The word Graham got was that the people involved with my father in Outline Blue, the coup d’état, were convinced the Germans were behind it, and were furious. Graham suggested I go back as an Argentine—since I was born here—and cozy up to whoever was the new president.”

  “Wasn’t that risky?”

  “Graham knew damned well how risky. But he saw how angry I was. It didn’t occur to me that he was thinking, What the hell, Frade’s expendable.”

  “You’re bitter?”

  “I was for a while. But when I grew up, I realized that not being told you’re considered expendable is one of the rules in this game we’re playing. You should write that down.”

  “Would you believe I’ve already figured that out? That I’m considered expendable and nobody told me?”

  “I think you’re referring to Mattingly,” Clete said. “I want to talk about that, but let me finish this first.”

  Cronley gestured Go on.

  “Tony and I came back here on the next Clipper—Tony on a diplomatic passport, me as an Argentine citizen coming home to bury his father. The funeral was spectacular.”

  “Spectacular?”

  “A delegation of Argentine Army brass met the Clipper. After stopping at the military hospital to pick up Enrico—”

  “What was Enrico doing in the hospital?”

  “Still bleeding from the multiple double-aught buckshot when they murdered my father. The only reason he was alive was that the guys with the shotguns apparently decided that anybody bleeding from so many holes wasn’t worth shooting a third time.

  “So we pushed Enrico’s wheelchair out of the hospital and loaded him into an open Army Mercedes . . . I should mention he was wearing his dress uniform over nine miles of bloody bandages . . . and then drove to the Edificio Liberator, Argentina’s Pentagon, where my father had been lying in state. In a closed coffin. There wasn’t much left of his head.