Until the situation developed to a point where the success or failure of the coup could be reasonably predicted, the wise path for anyone in their business was absolute neutrality. Martín knew el Almirante devoutly believed—as he himself did—that the best way to preserve one’s absolutely neutral status was to avoid any contact that was not absolutely essential with any member of either side.
And “contact” here meant bringing to the attention of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade that Internal Security was prying into the subject of his son. And into the relationship between the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos and Señor Enrico Mallín, whose name had never come up before in that connection. And this meant that el Coronel Frade would become aware that Internal Security had added still more facets of his life to their investigations.
The previous incumbent of Martín’s position was abruptly transferred back to the Artillery. When el Almirante was turning the job over to Martín, he told him matter-of-factly that the previous incumbent’s transfer was engineered by el Coronel Edmundo Wattersly, who believed that Internal Security was adding information to his dossier he didn’t want there. Wattersly was the third, perhaps fourth or fifth, most influential member of the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos. Frade was the most influential. Frade very possibly had the power to have el Almirante transferred back to the Armada—the Navy—and el Almirante knew it.
Adding to his dilemma, although he’d given the question a great deal of thought, Martín wasn’t sure where el Almirante’s loyalties lay—with the President? With the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos? Or was he still sitting on the fence?
But no matter where el Almirante sat, he would have to be made aware of this latest development. No matter what happened, Martín could not afford to have his loyalty to his superior questioned.
Martín reached for his telephone and dialed el Almirante’s private, supposed-to-be-secure number.
“Martín, mi Almirante. I have something I’d like to discuss with you as soon as possible.”
[FOUR]
Surprising Martín not at all, once the Chief of the Bureau of Internal Security of the Ministry of National Defense was apprised of the problem, he rose from his desk, locked his hands behind his back, stared for three minutes out his window at the Río de la Plata—it seemed longer than that—and then turned around to face Martín.
I will now be ordered to do what I think best under the circumstances, thus putting my neck and not his on the chopping block. But telling him is still the right thing.
“How, Coronel, do we know that the fellow who arrived from the United States yesterday is in fact el Coronel Frade’s son?” el Almirante asked.
The question came as a surprise.
“Mi Almirante,” Martín began, aware that he sounded as if he didn’t really know what he was talking about, which was exactly how he felt, “he has a passport in that name.”
El Almirante dismissed the passport with a wave of his hand.
“There are two possibilities,” el Almirante said. “He is, or he isn’t. As I would hope you have learned by now, Coronel, I am one of those who believe in assigning tasks to people in whom I have confidence and then letting them get on with it. But in this matter, I think a suggestion is in order.”
“¿Sí, mi Almirante?”
“I would suggest that your next step would be to ascertain that Cletus Marcus Howell is, or is not, the son of el Coronel Frade…”
And how will I do that? Martín’s mind raced. Fingerprints? Even if I can get this fellow’s fingerprints, what would I compare them to?
“…and the way I suggest you do that is ask el Coronel Frade. In either possibility, I daresay that el Coronel could not help but be interested that a man representing himself to be his son has arrived in the country.”
“Sí, Señor,” Martín said, less as an acknowledgment of receiving an order than as an agreement that this was the way to deal with the situation.
“Let me know what you find out, Martín,” el Almirante said, dismissing him.
[FIVE]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
1225 23 November 1942
After his session with el Almirante, el Teniente Coronel Martín considered the possibilities:
The best would be that the young man was not the son of el Coronel Frade, but some sort of American agent. Then el Coronel Frade could not help but be impressed with the BIS’s ability to find him out.
This was a credible scenario: It was a standard practice of intelligence agencies worldwide to issue spurious credentials in the name of a real person, often a dead one. There was no reason to think the Americans were less skilled than anybody else at that sort of thing. If, for example, an American intelligence functionary charged with reading newspaper obituaries had come across the name of a young man, or a child—or even an infant—stating that he had been born-in Argentina, the name and statistics would have been filed away for possible future use.
There were several possibilities that were not as pleasant to consider. For instance, the young man could well be who he said he was. And from his looks, that was quite likely.
That’s going to place me on dangerous ground with el Coronel Frade. I can’t imagine a better way to antagonize a proud and powerful officer than showing him a photograph of his son and telling him that BIS thinks he might be an intelligence agent who is possibly operating against the best interests of Argentina.