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[FOUR]

Casa Número Cincuenta y Dos

Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

Republic of Argentina

1205 14 August 1943

Frade knew there was something wrong the moment he walked Julius Caesar up to the verandah of the house.

Both Dorotea and El Jefe, who had been sitting on the verandah, stood up the moment they saw him, but neither smiled or waved.

They look like they’re waiting for Daddy to give them a whipping, now that he’s home from the office.

Or for the Grim Reaper.

The door opened and Staff Sergeant Sigfried Stein came onto the verandah. He didn’t look particularly happy either, and when he saw Frade, his look changed to very glum.

What the hell has happened?

There were seventy-odd “casas,” each numbered, scattered around the three hundred forty square miles of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. The use of the Spanish word for “house” was somewhat misleading. There was always more than just a house. Each so-called casa had stables and barns and all the other facilities required to operate what were in effect the seventy-odd farming subdivisions of the estancia. And on each casa there was always more than one house; often there were four or more.

Some of them were permanently occupied by the capataz—supervisor of the surrounding area—and, of course, his family and the peones who worked its land. And some of them were used only where there was a good deal of work to be done in the area, and the workers were too far from their casas or the village near the big house to, so to speak, commute.

House Number 52 was one of the medium-size houses. Built within a double stand of poplars, the casa itself had a verandah on three sides. On either side there were two smaller houses. Inside the larger house there was a great room, a dining room, an office, a kitchen, and two bedrooms. It had a wood-fired par- rilla and a dome-shaped oven. One building housed a MAN diesel generator that powered the lights, the water pumps, the freezers, and the refrigerators. El Patrón had taken good care of his workers.

It was reasonably comfortable, secure, and far from prying eyes.

And thus the best place that Enrico and El Jefe could think of to hide the Froggers after the shooting at Casa Chica.

They’d agreed: When Don Cletus returns from the United States, he will know what to do.

Frade had been home two days now and didn’t have a clue as to what he should do with the Froggers. Although he was painfully aware that keeping them on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo was not an option. Sooner or later, their presence would be confirmed and someone would come after them, either the Argentine authorities or the Germans.

One of the peones—a boy of about fourteen—ran up to Julius Caesar. Clete tossed him the reins, then slid out of the saddle. He had been carrying his shotgun—adhering to his belief that you never need a gun until you need one badly—but now no longer needed it. Siggy Stein had a Thompson .45 ACP submachine gun hanging from his shoulder.

He walked back to one of the wagons in the column and handed the shotgun to one of the bird-boys. Bird-boys were responsible for taking the birds from the hunters when the pouches were full, and later—now—plucking and gutting the perdices. The bulk of the cleaned birds, save for a few that would be taken by the peones, would be roasted ritually over a fire at lunch.

Frade was surprised to see how many birds there were. A fifty-kilogram burlap potato bag was full, and another nearly so. Several families of peones were about to have a perdiz feast. The hunting had been great, but the afterglow of that had vanished when he saw the faces on Dorotea, El Jefe, and Stein.

As he walked to the verandah, the other hunters dismounted and followed him.

“Okay, what happened?” Clete asked as he walked onto the verandah.

“There’s been a small problem,” Dorotea said.

“I would never have guessed from your happy faces,” Clete said. “What kind of a small problem?”

“Right after we got here, la Señora Frogger asked if she could go for a walk,” Dorotea said.

Dorotea and Schultz had carried the makings of lunch from the big house, bringing the food, the wine, the tableware, cooks, and several maids in Schultz’s Model A Ford pickup truck. That, too, was in case anyone was watching.

“And you said, ‘Okay,’ right?”

“I did,” Chief Schultz said, more than a little uncomfortably. “I sent Dorotea with her.”