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“I’m starting to believe it.”

“Then maybe you’d also believe that machine guns from el Coronel Schmidt’s Mountain Regiment are what just about took down Don Cletus’s house in Tandil.” He paused, then added: “And that there are photographs of el Coronel Juan Domingo Perón standing beside those machine guns.”

“You asked me to back off from that, and I did,” Nervo said. “Perón was there, and you have pictures of him?”

“Perón was there, and Don Cletus has pictures.”

“You believe that?” Nervo said. “Not that I wouldn’t believe anything I heard about that degenerate sonofabitch.”

“I believe it,” Martín said. “The question now becomes: Do you believe what Cortina just told you?”

“Yeah, I believe it,” Nervo said. “You’re not smart enough to come up with this yourself.”

“Thank you.”

“The question I have is: What are you going to do with it?” Nervo said.

“I know what I’m supposed to do with it.”

“If you took this to Obregón, you and everybody connected with you would be dumped in the River Plate halfway to Montevideo,” Nervo said.

El General de División Manuel Frederico Obregón was director of the Bureau of Internal Security.

“He’s another asshole who thinks Hitler and the Nazis are saving the world from the Antichrist,” Nolasco said bitterly.

“That thought, both of those thoughts, have run through my mind,” Martín said.

“What about taking it to Rawson?” Nervo said. “Lauffer?”

It was obvious that Lauffer was choosing his words before speaking them.

“I really like General Rawson,” he said. “He’s a good man, but . . .”

“Not very strong, right?” Nervo said sarcastically.

Lauffer did not respond directly.

“Just now, I was thinking that if I went to him with this, the first thing he’d do would be to ask General Obregón what he thought.”

“In that case, you and Martín both would be swimming with your hands tied behind you in the River Plate,” Nervo said.

“What does your American OSS friend, Don Cletus, suggest should be done about this?” Nolasco said. “Obviously, he knows about it. And—I just thought of this—since he does know, why doesn’t he just take it to the newspapers? Here and everyplace else in the world?”

“What the Americans have decided to do is wait until the war is over and then grab all the money the Germans have sent here, and the things the Germans have bought with it.”

“How are they going to know about all that?” Nolasco said.

“I would suspect, Pedro, that the Froggers are telling them,” Nervo said sarcastically. He looked at Martín. “Frade does have the Froggers, right?”

Martín nodded.

“You know where?”

Martín nodded again.

“Where’s where?”

“In for a penny, in for a pound, to quote the beloved headmaster of our beloved Saint George’s School, Santiago,” Martín said. “They’re at Frade’s Casa Montagna in Mendoza.”