Frade took four quick steps to Frau Frogger and snatched the purse from her hands. He found the zipper, opened it, turned the purse upside down, and started to shake the contents onto the floor.
When he glanced at her, he saw pure hate in her eyes.
Frade looked at the pile of miscellany from a woman’s purse and saw a silver-framed photograph. He bent over and picked it up.
It was of three nice-looking young men, all wearing Wehrmacht uniforms. It was fairly obvious these were the Frogger children. The oldest of them was wearing a large floppy beret, and from some recess of his mind he recalled that German armed forces wore berets. He had no idea what ranks they held—as a matter of fact, he wasn’t even positive that they were all officers.
For an intelligence officer, Frade, you have enormous voids in your professional knowledge.
“Please give that back to me,” Frau Frogger said, not at all belligerently.
He looked at her, resisted the temptation to hand her the photograph, and instead carried it out of the room, knowing he was going only where Rodolfo Gómez had led the man.
The door led to the kitchen. Frogger, carrying two large leather suitcases, was walking across it. Frade motioned for him to stop. He held the photo out to him.
“These are?”
“My childr—our sons.”
“And they are where?”
“Two have been killed in the war. The third is in the United States.”
“In the United States?”
“Wilhelm, this one”—he pointed at the man wearing the oversized floppy beret—“was captured while serving with the Afrikakorps.”
“His name is Wilhelm Frogger?”
Frogger nodded. “Oberstleutnant Wilhelm Frogger.”
“He is young to be a lieutenant colonel,” Frade said.
“If you will excuse me, Herr Oberst, you look young to hold your rank.”
Well, he swallowed that colonel bullshit. Or he’s pretending he did.
Okay, where do I go from here?
Jesus, I wish I had had more time to talk to Milton!
Milton said they deserted because they didn’t want to go back to Germany.
Okay. Let’s go with that.
“Mr. Leibermann tells me that you want to be interned in Brazil.”
“That is correct.”
“I’m the only person who can get you into Brazil, and right now I can see no reason why I should do that.”
Frogger’s eyes widened, but he didn’t reply.
“Actually, Leibermann made a mistake in bringing you to me.”
“We have surrendered,” Frogger said.
“What you have done is desert your post at the embassy and put yourselves into the hands of a man whose father was assassinated on the orders of the German embassy.”