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Restraining a smile, Clete barked, “Stand at ease, permission granted,” and then glowered at Ashton, who was smiling.
“Señor, if I am not with you at Campo de Mayo, questions would be asked . . .”
Jesus, he’s right about that!
“. . . but if Rodolfo were to drive Doña Dorotea in the Horch and the truck following them was carrying furniture, and provisions. . . .”
“Good idea, Clete,” Leibermann said. “Nothing suspicious about that. What do they call that? ‘Hiding in plain sight’?”
Clete considered that a moment, then agreed. “Yeah, it is. You sure you’re up to this, baby?”
“Of course I am. All I do is ride over there—I’ve never been to the estancia, but I’ve been to Tandil; I’d guess it’s about two hours from here—unload the provisions and the furniture, and ride back. As long as Rodolfo and Seigfried don’t hang out a sign, no one will suspect that we’re hiding a couple of Nazis in what is now my little love nest in the hills.”
Clete was surprised at her use of the term Nazi and then wondered why. He quickly decided that was because the word called up images of Nazis in steel helmets or SS uniforms in B movies, not the dumpy looking guy and his matching wife he had seen in the back of the Chevrolet.
He turned to Leibermann.
"And you and Max head back to Buenos Aires and hope nobody saw you come out here.”
[THREE]
Office of the Ambassador Embassy of the German Reich Avenida Córdoba Buenos Aires, Argentina 1140 14 July 1943
“I suggest for the moment,” Ambassador von Lutzenberger said, “that we accept Sturmbannführer Raschner’s premise that Herr Frogger has chosen to desert his post—”
“What other reason for his disappearance could there possibly be?” von Deitzberg interrupted almost indignantly.
Von Lutzenberger ignored him and went on: “—which then poses the question of why.”
“He did not wish to go home, obviously,” Gradny-Sawz said.
“If so, wouldn’t that raise the question why?” von Lutzenberger said.
“Isn’t that equally obvious?” von Deitzberg said sarcastically. “He’s the traitor we’ve been looking for.”
Cranz had several thoughts, one after the other:
Nonsense.
Frogger not only had no reason to be a traitor but was psychologically incapable of being one.
Does von Deitzberg actually believe what he’s saying?
Of course not.
Von Deitzberg was sent here to find the traitor, and failed.
But he can now say that he suspected Frogger all along, and was getting close to having enough proof when Frogger somehow found out—or simply sensed it—and deserted.
That makes him look a lot better than having failed to find the traitor.
And if there is a traitor, knowing that Frogger has been “exposed” might just make him relax enough so that he’ll make a mistake. If that happens, von Deitzberg will get credit for catching both.
My God, he’s good!
“Cranz,” von Deitzberg asked, “wouldn’t you agree?”
“I’m only wondering, Herr Generalmajor, how it is that Frogger managed to escape the attention of Herr Gradny-Sawz, Oberst Grüner, and Untersturmführer Schneider.”
