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“What about the Froggers?” Dorotea asked. “Did he know about them, too?”
“I guess Major Frade told him, because just before he left, he gave him a German camera—something with an l—”
“Leica?” Dorotea offered.
Fischer nodded. “And told him to take pictures of me with these people. Holding a copy of that day’s newspaper.”
“To do what with?” Schultz asked.
Fischer shrugged. “All I know is that I’m going to take the film with me when I go to the States. Mr. Dulles wanted to send a second copy through some Navy officer in our embassy—Delojo?—but Major Frade said he didn’t trust him—”
“What Major Frade said earlier,” Frade’s voice suddenly announced, startling everyone, “Lieutenant Fischer—and it was an order, Fischer—was to stop using ranks.”
Everyone turned to see Frade coming back inside the hangar.
“Sorry,” Fischer said as he noticed the pronounced change in Frade’s body language.
“I’m going to tell it like it is, Fischer,” Frade said with some force. “If my stupidity blows this operation—for allowing you to run with that line to Martín and Perón while not recognizing Delgano, a pilot, knew it was bullshit—there’s going to be real problems. And that’s the great understatement of the day. If— probably when—we get caught, I don’t think much will happen to me. I’ll be kicked out of country, but they’re not going to shoot me.”
He glanced at the others. “You, however, you’re something else. And so are the rest of the people on the estancia. I don’t think they’ll shoot everyone. But you will be tried as spies, sentenced to death, and thrown in a cell. Unless we can do something to get you out, and I don’t think we can—‘we’ meaning me and the U.S. government—you’ll be in that cell for the duration of the war and—what is it they say?—‘plus six months.’ ”
“Yes, sir,” Fischer said meekly.
“And that means, of course, that we won’t have the radar to make sure the Germans haven’t brought another submarine-replenishment vessel into Samborombón Bay . . .”
“Shit,” Schultz said.
"... And that while you’re all in some cell—before and after your courtmartial—the Germans will probably try to have you killed.”
“They can do that?” Fischer blurted.
Frade exhaled audibly. “Yeah, Fischer, they can do that. My Uncle Juan Domingo is not the only Argentine officer who thinks Hitler’s a good guy and that the Germans and Japs and Italians—The Axis—are going to win the war.”
“Oh, boy!” Fischer said.
“And to answer your specific question: The organized crime down here is very much like ours in the States. When the Germans wanted my father dead— and, for that matter, me whacked—they didn’t try to do it themselves. They hired professional killers from whatever they call the Mafia down here. They took out my father but didn’t get me. That was dumb luck; somebody told me they were coming, and I was waiting for them. They’re not nice people. They found my housekeeper, a really nice lady, in the kitchen and slit her throat, just because she was there—”
“Jesus!”
“Yeah, Jesus. Now pay attention, Fischer: I can get you out of the country, into Uruguay, right now. And have you in Brazil tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The Froggers are at Casa Chica, a small farm I own near Tandil, in the hills between La Pampas and Mar del Plata—”
“I don’t know where any of those places are,” Fischer interrupted.
“Let me finish, Fischer,” Frade said coldly.
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s about a two-hour drive from here,” Frade went on.
“Yes, sir.”
“And every twenty miles or so, I expect there will be a checkpoint. Either army or police.”
“Yes . . . I understand.”
