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“Think how bad it would be if she’d married Dieter here,” von Wachtstein said. “ ‘Señora Carzino-Cormano de von und zu Aschenburg.’ Now, that’s a mouthful.”

“It’s a good thing you’re buying dinner, Hansel, or you’d pay for that,” von und zu Aschenburg said.

Cranz smiled at both of them.

“Or would that be a real imposition, Peter?” Cranz finally asked. “Having von und zu Aschenburg and myself at your mother-in-law’s home?”

“I’m sure it would be no problem,” von Wachtstein said. “Actually, unless you really want to go to a hotel, we could spend the night out there. There’s plenty of room.”

“If you’re sure it would be no imposition . . .”

“Let me call them and let them know we’re coming,” von Wachtstein said, and reached for the telephone.

[FIVE]

Estancia Santa Catalina Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province 2215 12 July 1943

That afternoon, when Don Cletus Frade, El Patrón of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, on hearing that El Coronel Juan Domingo Perón had found time in his busy schedule to accept the kind invitation of Doña Claudia de Carzino-Cormano of Estancia Santa Catalina to a small, “just family” dinner, Frade had taken several steps to make sure things went smoothly.

For one thing, he told his wife, Señora Dorotea Mallín de Frade, to make sure Señorita Isabela Carzino-Cormano, the elder daughter of Doña Claudia de Carzino-Cormano, was aware that not only were they coming to the dinner for Tío Juan Domingo but that he probably was going to bring at least one American officer with him.

“El Bitcho,” as Clete thought of Isabela, not only disliked him intensely on a personal basis but was more anti-American than Mussolini. With just a little bit of luck, he hoped, El Bitcho would suddenly remember a previous engagement which, sadly, would preclude her presence at the “just family” dinner with Tío Juan Domingo.

Dorotea had done what her husband asked, but it hadn’t worked.

When they had driven over to Estancia Santa Catalina in time for the cocktail tour, El Bitcho was there in the sitting room, dressed in black, and again playing the tragic role of widow-in-everything-but-name of the late Capitán Jorge Alejandro Duarte, who had fallen nobly on the field of battle at Stalingrad.

Clete knew that his uncle, Humberto Duarte, while deeply mourning the loss of his only son, did not hold Clete’s father—who had arranged for Jorge to be an aerial “observer” with Von Paulus’s Sixth Army in Russia—much less Clete responsible for what had happened.

But Isabela sure as hell made it clear that she did. Jorge had been killed by the godless Russian Communists, who were allied with the Americans. Cletus Frade was an American. It was as simple as that.

When Clete and Dorotea had walked into the sitting room of the big house at Estancia Santa Catalina, Isabela, sniffling into a lace handkerchief, had walked out in an air of high drama.

Custom required that Clete embrace and kiss everybody. Kissing Doña Claudia and Alicia von Wachtstein posed no problems. Kissing his Uncle Humberto was, as usual, a little awkward. Kissing his Aunt Beatrice made him both uncomfortable and a little ashamed of himself. That she was playing with far less than a full deck wasn’t her fault, obviously, but the cold fact was that kissing her made him feel uncomfortable.

But not as uncomfortable as kissing Tío Juan Domingo had made him feel. Notwithstanding the fact that he had been his father’s best friend and the best man at his parents’ wedding, he couldn’t stand the sonofabitch.

To help get himself through the greeting ritual that experience had taught him was inevitable, Clete had told himself that he was behaving like a child. He certainly could not afford to act as such, and reminded himself that Perón had done nothing to him and had, in fact, done things for him, and the last thing he should do now, when he needed Perón’s influence to get the airline off the ground, was piss off the bastard.

There were two people in the sitting room he was not expected to kiss and didn’t. One of them was Gonzalo Delgano, a short, muscular man of about forty, and the other a bespectacled, slim, fair-skinned man of about the same age whose name was Kurt Welner. Both of them were wearing well-cut suits and striped neckties.

“How are you?” Frade said, offering Delgano his hand. “More important, what do I call you? ‘Señor’? Or ‘Major’?”

“I could ask just about the same thing of you,” Delgano replied. “But how about ‘Gonzalo,’ Don Cletus?”

“How about dropping the ‘Don’?”

“Agreed. Good to see you again, Cletus.”

Frade next offered his hand to Welner, who, when he had seen Clete kissing Perón, had smiled approvingly, causing Clete to give him the finger behind Perón’s back. Smiling broadly, Father Kurt Welner, S.J.—who only rarely wore the clerical collar associated with his profession—had countered the gesture by making the motions of a priest benignly blessing a beloved member of his flock.

Welner had been Clete’s father’s friend and confessor; Clete wasn’t sure which had been the more important role. Welner was also the confessor for the Duartes and the Carzino-Cormanos. He wasn’t sure what Welner’s relationship with Perón was, although Perón treated him with great respect.

“What’s the latest from Rome?” Clete asked.

“ ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ ” Welner replied unctuously.

They both laughed. Claudia looked dismayed.