So what to do?
“When in doubt, tell the truth” isn’t going to work here.
What about “The truth, part of the truth, but nothing about Gehlen”?
La Vallé delivered a fresh drink to Clete, who took a sip, then began: “You’re going to find this hard to believe, General, but here’s what I know. President Roosevelt wanted to punish Juan Trippe of Pan American Airways because of Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh.”
“The first man to fly across the Atlantic?” Nervo asked.
“Yes, sir. What happened is . . .”
It took five minutes—which seemed longer—for Clete to relate the story. Nervo never for a second took his eyes off Clete’s while he listened.
“That’s what I know, General,” Clete finished.
“And you believe this story?”
“Sir, the proof is at Aeropuerto Jorge Frade: three Lockheed Constellation aircraft.”
“Edmundo?” Nervo asked.
“That story is so incredible, I’m tempted to believe it,” Wattersly said.
“Why was Father Welner on the first flight to Portugal?” Martín asked Frade.
“Yes,” Nervo added. “Why?”
“He came to me just before we took off,” Frade immediately answered. “He said that the Vatican wanted him to carry a message to the cardinal archbishop here that they didn’t want to trust to their usual communications channel.”
“And I’m sure that’s true,” Nervo said. “Jesuits don’t lie. The message probably said, ‘Bless you, my son, go and sin no more.’ But I’d like to know why else Welner wanted to go to Portugal.”
“We brought back a flock of nuns and priests and orphans,” Clete said. “And the Papal Nuncio in Lisbon arranged for a block of seats on every flight and paid in advance.”
“When was the last time, Alejandro, that Customs officers strip-searched a nun entering the country?” Nervo said. “Or even a Jesuit priest?”
Martín shook his head and chuckled.
“The Germans are occupying Rome,” Nervo said. “Do you think the Holy Father has decided it’s time to move the treasury? Or at least the larger diamonds in the vaults?”
“You’re only saying that,” Martín said, “because you’re a Saint George’s Old Boy and you’ve been corrupted by all those terrible things Father Kingsley-Howard told you about Holy Mother Church.”
Nervo and Lauffler chuckled.
“Well, I’ll tell you this, Alejandro,” Nervo said. “We’ll never find out why the Vatican is flying all these nuns and priests. Holy Mother Church—and especially Jesuits like Welner—has been in our business much longer than we have and is much better at it than we are.”
“I daresay you’re right,” Wattersly said.
“You said something before, Coronel,” Clete said. “Said you’d get back to it. Something involving Casa Montagna?”
“Oh, yes! I’m glad you remembered. About a week ago, my first cousin once removed Erich Franz Schmidt happened to bump into me at the Círculo Militar and told me that he had been thinking about the weapons cached at Estancia Don Guillermo. He told me he had been running some road movement exercises with his regiment and he had been thinking of sending one of them over there to see if the weapons were still there and, if so, to take possession of them. So they wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“Why would he tell you this?” Clete asked.
“I’m the deputy chief for operations on the General Staff,” Wattersly replied. “And I might have heard one of his road movement exercises coincided with the attack on Casa Chica in Tandil.”
“What did you tell him?” Nervo asked.
“I told him I was sure the weapons cache had been removed when General Rawson became president, but that I would look into it for him.”
“Are they still there?” Nervo asked.
“Yes, they are,” Clete said.
“And you left it at that, Edmundo?” Nervo asked.
“Except for telling him not to send troops to Estancia Don Guillermo until I got back to him. It might offend Don Cletus, and Cousin Erich knew how close Don Cletus was to El Presidente.”
“Maybe you should get them out of there,” Martín suggested. “God might tell Schmidt to go get them.”
“They’re not going anywhere,” Clete said evenly. “I need them. My wife lives there.”
“And the Froggers, right?” Martín asked.
“And the Froggers,” Clete admitted.
“If Schmidt goes there, it would be with at least one company of Mountain Troops.”
“I can hold that mountain against his entire regiment,” Clete said, unimpressed.
“Which would start that civil war we’ve been talking about,” Nervo said. “That can’t be allowed to happen.”
“Then you had better figure out a way to keep this guy away from Casa Montagna,” Clete said.
“I can stall him for several weeks,” Wattersly said. “I mean insofar as ‘get ting back to him’ is concerned. I can’t guarantee he won’t act on his own.”
“You better see that he doesn’t, Edmundo,” Nervo said.
The library door opened and Dorotea Mallín de Frade stepped into the room.
“I realize I’m interrupting all the naughty stories, but dinner is ready, gentlemen,” she said.
“You could not have appeared at a better time, señora,” General Nervo said. “I think we have said all that needed to be said. Right, Martín?”
Martín nodded, then looked at Wattersly, who nodded and then looked at Clete, who nodded.
“General Nervo, darling, was telling this story about the two nuns and the Gendarme—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Dorotea said.
General Nervo laid his hand on Cletus’s arm and motioned for him to follow Dorotea out of the library.
I don’t know what the hell it is, but the touch of his hand makes me think I have just passed inspection.
XIII
[ONE]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila
Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
0945 2 October 1943
The Reverend Kurt Welner’s 1940 Packard 160 convertible coupe, roof down, was parked in front of the big house when the convoy—a 1941 Ford station wagon, the Horch, and a second Ford station wagon bringing up the rear—arrived carrying Don Cletus Frade and his wife to their home.
“Oh, good!” Clete said, thickly sarcastic. “Now I can go to confession. I was getting a little worried. I haven’t been to Mass in a week!”
“Cletus!” Doña Dorotea exclaimed.
“And maybe we can get Father Kurt to say Grace before I have my breakfast,” Clete, unrepentant, went on.
“If you hadn’t insisted on getting up in the middle of the night to come out here,” Dorotea said, “you could have had your breakfast in Buenos Aires.”
“It was in the hope that I would find peace in my humble home. Peace and breakfast.”
“When we go inside, you behave!” Dorotea ordered.
Kurt Welner, S.J., and two other priests—both of whom Clete pegged as some kind of clerical bureaucrats—were in the sitting room when Clete and Dorotea, trailed by Enrico, walked in.
The two priests with Welner rose to their feet. Welner did not.
“Bless you, my children,” Clete intoned sonorously as he raised his hand to shoulder level in a blessing gesture.
“Cletus!” Dorotea snapped furiously.
“Father,” Enrico said, “Don Cletus is very, very tired. . . .”
Welner made a gesture that said I understand—or perhaps I understand he’s crazy.
Dorotea went to Father Welner and kissed him, then shook the hands of the other two.
“I’m Dorotea Mallín de Frade. Welcome to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.”
“I absolutely have to have my breakfast,” Clete said. “Anyone else hungry?”
“Actually, all we’ve had is coffee and a biscuit,” We
lner said, and stood. He pointed his finger at one of the other priests and, switching to German, added, “Cletus, this is Otto Niedermeyer.”
Clete now remembered seeing SS-Hauptscharführer Niedermeyer in Lisbon as he boarded the Ciudad de Rosario.
Niedermeyer snapped to attention and barked, “Herr Major!”
Clete had a sudden chilling series of thoughts:
Jesus Christ! When I so cleverly decided that I could get away with not telling Martín and Nervo about bringing these people to Argentina, I didn’t think about them actually being here, and that Martín and Nervo will, as sure as Christ made little apples, find out that they are!
What the hell was I thinking?
Or not thinking?
When they find out I lied to them, there goes that “We’re all in this together!”
What the hell am I going to do?
“Don’t ever use my rank again!” Clete said unpleasantly in German, then asked, “And the other fellow?”
“If you don’t know his name,” Welner said, “then you could truthfully say you’ve never heard of him.” He let that sink in. “He’s going to arrange for National Identity booklets, et cetera.”
And that’s just one of the ways they’ll find out they’re here!
If somebody in the Interior Ministry is passing out National Identity booklets to people who shouldn’t have them, Martín knows about it.
And so does Nervo.
And by now Martín’s people on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo—Good Ol’ Carlos Aguirre, “my” airframe and power plant mechanic, who I know works for Martín, pops quickly to mind—are already wondering what Welner and the other two Jesuits are doing here. And does Nervo have his own people on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, keeping an eye on Don Cletus Frade?
You bet your ass he does!
And are they wondering the same thing?
You bet your ass they are!
“If I don’t know his name, how am I going to get in touch with him if I need him?” Clete asked.
“Through me.”
“I don’t like that,” Clete said flatly.
They locked eyes for a moment.
“Cletus,” Welner said finally, “this is Father Francisco Silva. Also of the Society of Jesus.”
Clete went to Silva and shook his hand.
“Make sure I have your phone number before you leave, Father,” he said. “But right now let’s get some breakfast.”
He walked to the door to the dining room, but before he reached the door, it opened.
Elisa Gómez—Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo’s chief housekeeper, a plump female in her late forties who was wearing a severe black dress and had a large wooden cross hanging around her neck—stood there.
“Don Cletus?” she said.
But Clete saw that Elisa was looking at the priests, and with great curiosity.
“We’re going to need breakfast,” Clete said. “A lot of it.” He looked at Welner and asked, “Where are the others?”
“They should be here soon,” Welner said. “They’re coming in a Little Sisters of the Poor bus.”
And when Aguirre and whoever Nervo has watching me see a busload of priests, nuns, and orphan children showing up here in a Little Sisters of the Poor bus, then me flying everybody off in the Lodestar, they’re going to say, “How nice! Don Cletus has found religion!”
In a pig’s ass they are!
On a scale of one to ten, Major Frade, you have fucked up to at least twelve!
“For a dozen people, Elisa,” Clete went on.
“Sí, Don Cletus.”
“And bring coffee and sweet rolls while we’re waiting, please.”
The first people to arrive—unexpectedly—were Lieutenant Oscar J. Schultz, USNR, in his gaucho clothing, and Staff Sergeant Jerry O’Sullivan of the United States Army, who was in uniform except that he was wearing neither a necktie nor any headgear. He had a Thompson submachine gun hanging from his shoulder.
Schultz took one look around the room and said, “Oops! Sorry.”
Clete waved them into the dining room.
“Padre,” Schultz said to Welner.
“Father,” O’Sullivan said.
“Jefe,” Welner replied. “Jerry.”
Clete saw Niedermeyer looking at Schultz with interest bordering on in credulity.
“Say hello to Otto Niedermeyer,” Clete said, pointing to him. “When he’s not dressed up like a Jesuit priest, he’s an SS sergeant major.”
Schultz crossed to Niedermeyer and offered his hand.
“I never know when he’s kidding,” Schultz said in German.
“I kid you not,” Frade said.
“And sometimes he even explains things to me,” Schultz added, then glanced at Clete. “Is this one of those times?”
“In a minute,” Clete said. “Had your breakfast?”
“Cup of coffee is all,” Schultz said. “The Other Dorotea spent the night with her mother. The perimeter gauchos said you’d just driven onto the estancia. We thought we’d welcome you home.” He looked at Niedermeyer. “Not one of those from the U-boat?”
“There was SS on the U-boat?” Frade asked.
“About a dozen of them, the best I could see,” O’Sullivan said.
“Anybody see you while you were looking?” Clete asked.
O’Sullivan shook his head.
“No, sir,” he said, and with a smile added, “And there was some kind of big shot. All dressed up. Complete to homburg hat and briefcase. His rubber boat struck something and sank like a rock. He got soaked.”
Looking at Niedermeyer, Frade said, “That was probably SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg. You know who he is?”
Niedermeyer nodded, then blurted, “He’s here? He came here by U-boat?”
Clete nodded.
“Which makes me wonder how he came here,” Schultz said, nodding toward Niedermeyer.
“On my airplane,” Clete said.
“You are going to tell us what’s going on, right?” Schultz said.
Clete looked at Schultz.
Maybe, after I figure out how I’m going to explain everything to everybody.
Right now, I don’t have a clue how to do that.
“I’m going to wait until everybody is here,” Frade said, stalling. “I don’t want to do it twice.”
Someone else almost immediately appeared at the dining room door, but it wasn’t whom Clete expected. It was a svelte, formidable woman in her mid-fifties who had gray-flecked, luxuriant black hair and wore a simple black dress with a triple strand of pearls.
Shit!
I should have realized that Claudia was likely to show up!
But why the hell couldn’t she have invited herself for a late lunch? By then, I’d be out of here.
And how am I going to explain any of this to her?
He said: “Señora Claudia Carzino-Cormano! What an unexpected pleasure.”
Claudia went to Dorotea and embraced her affectionately. Then she looked at Cletus: “I’ve got a message for you, Señor Sarcastic. Can I give it to you now?”
“Whisper it in my ear,” Clete said.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked.
He nodded.
She went to him.
“I probably shouldn’t kiss you,” she said, “but I will. I missed you at the airport.”
Then she kissed him and, covering her mouth with her hand, whispered in his ear.
He immediately parroted it out loud.
“ ‘Von Wachtstein’s on his way in his Storch to meet von Deitzberg at the airport in Carrasco,’” he said, then added rhetorically: “I wonder what the hell that’s about? Von Deitzberg went over there on the SAA flight yesterday afternoon. You’d think he would come back that way.”
“Unless,” Dorotea offered, “he wanted to take advantage of Peter’s diplomatic immunity and have him fly something back here he didn’t want to risk carrying through customs.”
“Yeah
,” Clete said, accepting that immediately. He gave Dorotea a thumbs-up.
She smiled and shrugged as if to say, Well, what did you expect?
“That’s all Peter said to tell you,” Claudia said, then went to the priests, kissing Welner first.
“I passed a Little Sisters of the Poor bus on the way over here,” Claudia said. “That yours, Father Kurt?”
He nodded.
“It’s nice to see you again, Father,” she said, offering her hand to the bona fide Jesuit. Then she turned to Niedermeyer. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name, Father.”
“His name is Niedermeyer,” Clete said. “He’s not a priest.”
“What did you say?” Claudia asked, but before Clete could respond, she looked at Welner.
“What is going on here, Father Kurt?” she demanded.
“Claudia, I think Cletus would much prefer to answer that.”
She looked at Cletus.
“What I would much prefer is not to answer at all,” Clete said. “But pull up a chair, Claudia, and I’ll think of something.”
Why the hell didn’t you think of a story to tell all these people, Señor Superspy?
You didn’t think anybody would be curious?
Claudia sat at the table, looked at him, waited all of thirty seconds, and then asked, “Well?”
“I’m waiting for the others to arrive.”
“What others?”
“They should be here any minute,” Clete said.
“Why can’t you tell me now?” she demanded.
Because I don’t know what to say.
“They should be here any minute,” Clete repeated.
“I think I just heard somebody drive up,” Schultz said.
A minute later, one of the maids opened the door from the foyer.
“Sister María Isabel of the Little Sisters of the Poor asks to see you, Father,” the maid announced to Welner.
Welner looked at Clete, who nodded.
“Ask the sister to come in, please,” Welner said.
“There are nuns and a priest and children with her, Father,” the maid said.
“The more the merrier,” Clete said. “Bring them all in.”
When the nun came into the room, she had with her a priest wearing a brown cassock with a rope belt, his bare feet in sandals—That has to be SS-Obersturmbannführer Alois Strübel; I remember him from the plane—two boys Clete decided were about ten, a girl he thought was probably a year or two younger, and three other nuns.
The Honor of Spies Page 42
