AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But no time to get emotional.
“I have to know what happened, Enrico, and quickly.”
Enrico nodded. “I have a dear friend in the mountain troops in San Martín de los Andes. He called me. We went to corporal’s school together and to sergeant’s school and—”
“What did he say when he called you?”
“That something strange was happening. He said the regiment had been quartering a half-dozen Nazis—the German Nazis, not Argentine, the ones who wear black uniforms and have a skull on their caps?”
Frade nodded his understanding.
“They came off a submarine?” Enrico asked.
Frade nodded again. “So I was told.”
“Well, these Nazis were getting ready to—what he said was ‘take care of some traitors’—and that they would be transported to Tandil in regimental trucks. And my friend said he knew that Casa Chica was near Tandil, and that I might want to tell you.”
“So you were ready for them?”
“What is very sad, Don Cletus, it breaks my heart to tell you, is that this was done at the orders of El Coronel Perón.”
“How do you know that?”
“I saw him with my own eyes, Don Cletus. I even took his picture when he was on the road.”
“You did what?”
“I took his picture.”
“I didn’t know you had a camera,” Clete said, thinking out loud.
“Doña Dorotea brought it to Casa Chica one day and then forgot it, and Señor Frogger showed me how to use it.”
“Where is Señor Frogger now?”
“On Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, of course. Safe, of course.”
“What happened at Casa Chica, Enrico?”
“Well, when I knew that the Nazi bastards were up to something, Sergeant Stein and I took the Froggers back to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.”
How the hell is that possible?
Dorotea knows nothing about that . . .
“Where’s Stein?” Frade said.
“With the Froggers. If you keep interrupting, Don Cletus . . .”
“Sorry.”
“I took them to the estancia, and picked up a few gauchos, all old soldiers, and took them back to Casa Chica.”
“But you didn’t say anything to Doña Dorotea?”
“Of course not. She is in the family way, thanks be to God, and I didn’t want to worry her with this. I knew how to handle it.”
That explains why she didn’t know!
