Von Gradny-Sawz had bought a car for him, paying an outrageous price for a two-year-old American Ford “station wagon”—von Deitzberg had no idea what that meant—with not very many miles on the odometer. The Automobile Club of Argentina had provided excellent road maps free of charge when he went to their headquarters to personally buy the required insurance. Von Gradny-Sawz said that the Automobile Club was a law unto itself, and that they demanded to see in person the individual the Caja Nacional de Ahorro Postal was about to insure.
On the map, San Martín de los Andes did not look to be very far from Buenos Aires until he looked at the scale of the map, then checked the chart of distances on the reverse.
It was about fifteen hundred kilometers from Buenos Aires to San Martín de los Andes. He remembered that a little more than five hundred kilometers was all that separated Berlin and Vienna.
There was no way, he decided, that he was going to be able to drive a distance three times that between Berlin and Vienna in the “fairly easy two days” von Gradny-Sawz estimated it would take.
The silver lining to that dark cloud was the prospect of spending three nights—perhaps even four—in some of the bucolic roadside inns the ACA recommended on their maps. He was in no particular hurry, and after that gottverdammt submarine, he was entitled to a little rest and relaxation.
It didn’t turn out that way. Once they were fifty kilometers or so from Belgrano, they were into the pampas. The road stretched in a straight line to the horizon. There was very little traffic, and the American Ford V-8 engine propelled the station wagon easily at eighty miles per hour, which translated to about 130 kph.
That first day, they reached an idyllic roadside inn near Santa Rosa in time for cocktails and dinner, during which he checked the map and saw they were halfway to San Martín de los Andes.
The next day, although they came out of the pampas and had to travel winding roads through what he supposed were the foothills of the Andes Mountains, they made just about as good time.
He was pleased that he had decided to bring Inge with him for several reasons, in addition to the carnal. He had decided, telling himself he had to be honest about it, that her enthusiasm was probably because she was both afraid of him and needed him, rather than because of his masculine charm and good looks.
It didn’t matter why she was willing to do all sorts of things the instant he ordered them—or even suggested them—only that she was.
But aside from that, Inge proved to be a fountain of information regarding the investments of both the Operation Phoenix funds and those of the confidential fund. She had spent a good deal of the trip explaining details to him, often taking the appropriate documents from those he’d liberated from von Tresmarck’s safe, as well as the ones he had ordered Cranz to bring him from the embassy in Buenos Aires.
He had learned that Oberst Schmidt had been very useful in locating and dealing with the middlemen necessary to the acquisition process. Until Inge had uncovered this, he had thought Schmidt had been useful only in the military matters, providing security at Samborombón Bay and putting up the SS men Himmler had insisted on sending to guard the special shipments.
Von Deitzberg had come to San Martín de los Andes primarily to avail himself of Schmidt’s military assets; eliminating the Froggers had to be accomplished as quickly as possible. But what he had learned driving across the pampas made him think very seriously about the whole operation.
What had been done from the beginning of Operation Phoenix, when Oberst Grüner, the military attaché, had been running things, was first to hide the cash and gemstones and gold in the safety-deposit boxes of reliable ethnic Germans who held Argentine citizenship.
Step two was to systematically turn the gemstones and gold into cash and then, slowly, so as not to attract attention, get the cash out of the safety-deposit boxes and into the bank accounts of the ethnic Germans.
Step three, using the money now in the ethnic Germans’ bank accounts, was to purchase the businesses and real estate that were the rock upon which Operation Phoenix would stand. The deeds to all the property were held by the same reliable ethnic Germans.
The ethnic Germans could be trusted for two reasons. First, it was jokingly said that the Ausländischer Deutsch tended to be better Nazis than, say, Göring or Goebbels, if not the Führer himself.
Second, perhaps of equal importance, the Ausländischer Deutsch knew that Oberst Grüner, in addition to his military attaché duties, had been secretly the highest-ranking member of the Sicherheitsdienst in South America. That meant they knew that anything less than total honesty when dealing with the assets of Operation Phoenix would be rewarded with the painful death of everybody in the family in Argentina, and with the even more painful deaths of any relatives of the Ausländischer Deutsch who happened to be fortunate enough to be still living in the Fatherland.
Grüner’s death on the beach at Samborombón Bay had of course taken some of the glitter from the notion of German invincibility, and with that the certainty of punishment. Cranz was good, but not nearly as menacing a figure as Grüner had been.
The current situation would prevail, of course, but only until it looked to the Ausländischer Deutsch that the Germans were about to lose the war—or, God forbid, had actually lost it—when they would begin to consider that the property and money placed into their care was now theirs.
The honesty of people depends in large part on their judgment of whether or not they will be caught stealing.
The next step in that line of thinking, should the unthinkable happen, would be for them to ask themselves, “How likely is it that Hermann Göring will show up at my door and ask for directions to, and the keys to, the estancia I bought for him? Bought for him in my name.”
I have already transferred all of the Operation Adler property in Uruguay to Herr Jorge Schenck—in other words, to me. It doesn’t matter that I did so because I frankly didn’t know what else to do with it. I had to take it away from von Tresmarck, and obviously I couldn’t, even as fond as I am growing of Inge, risk putting it in her name.
What I will do here, right now, is take a look at the various real-estate properties owned by the former confidential fund and transfer one of them—perhaps two, but I don’t want to move too quickly and draw attention to Herr Schenck—to me.
Von Deitzberg finished dressing, examined himself admiringly in the mirror, and decided the tailors in Buenos Aires were every bit as good as the ones in Berlin, the main difference being that here the tailors’ shops were full of fine woolens and the ones in Berlin had either been destroyed in the bombing or were out of material, even to those with the special SS clothing ration coupons.
His mind turned back to the present: If I report to Himmler that I am taking the appropriate steps not only to recover the Operation Phoenix assets von Tresmarck stole, but to protect our assets in Argentina from disappearing by putting them in my name, he will understand. And that will give me an excuse—“It’s not going as quickly as one would wish”—to stay here.
It might also serve as the reason to keep Cranz and Raschner here, so that some of the properties can be transferred to them. I am going to have to give them something, enough to keep them happy. Two birds with one stone.
He walked to the bathroom door and pushed it open. Inge, drying herself, had one foot resting on the water closet.
“Hurry it up,” he said. “Schmidt’s due any minute.”
She smiled and wiggled her buttocks at him.
He turned and went to the window and looked down at the street.
San Martín de los Andes was really nothing more than a small village. There was hardly any vehicular traffic on the street he could see at all.
And then he saw an olive-drab Mercedes touring car coming down the road. The canvas top was down. There was a soldier driving, and two men in the backseat. The younger of them was in civilian clothing; the other was wearing an Argentine army uniform.
That has to be Oberst Schmidt.
“They’re almost here,” he called. “I’m going to meet them in the lobby. Get rid of your underwear before you come down.”
Inge appeared in the bathroom door. Naked.
“You want me to come down without my underwear? Or do you mean get that out of sight?”
She pointed to her underwear on a chair.
“If you came down without your underwear, it would give Oberst Schmidt a heart attack,” he said. “And we need him.”
Von Deitzberg reached the lobby of the hotel just as el Coronel Erich Franz Schmidt of the 10th Mountain Regiment walked in from the street. The young man in civilian clothing with him, who looked like a recruiting poster for the SS, was SS-Hauptsturmführer Sepp Schäfer of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.
I shall have to be very careful with that young man; not say anything at all that might be construed as defeatism.
Oberst Schmidt did not cut a very military figure. He was portly and rather short.
He looks more like a Bavarian party official—and don’t those bureaucrats and clerks love to wear uniforms and boots?—than a soldier.
“El Coronel Schmidt?” von Deitzberg asked, advancing on him.
“At your service, señor,” Schmidt said.
Schäfer popped to attention and clicked his heels.
“I don’t think clicking your heels in these circumstances is wise, Schäfer,” von Deitzberg said coldly.
“I beg pardon.”
“We are waiting for one of my agents,” von Deitzberg said. “The one thing a distinguished career in the SS-SD has not taught this agent is to be on time, probably because this SS-SD agent is a female.”
He got the expected chuckles.
“I don’t want to get into anything specific in public, of course, but to clear the air, you may feel free in Señora Schenk’s presence to say anything you would say to me.”
“Excuse me, sir. ‘Señora Schenck’?” Schäfer asked.
“I generally give junior officers one opportunity to ask an inappropriate question of me,” von Deitzberg said icily. “That was yours.”
“I beg your pardon, Herr Schenck.”
“Men traveling with good-looking females to whom they are not married cause gossip. Men traveling with their wives do not. You might try to remember that, Schäfer.”
“Yes, sir.”
Inge came tripping down the stairs.
From their faces, it was clear that she was not what Schmidt or Schäfer expected to see.
“I apologize, sir, for keeping you waiting,” Inge said.
“Don’t make a habit of it,” von Deitzberg said coldly. “Gentlemen, my wife. She knows your names.”
Inge nodded at both of them.
“I thought, Herr Schenck, that if it meets with your approval, we could have dinner at my quarters at the base.”
“You are very hospitable, Herr Oberst,” von Deitzberg said.
Schmidt waved them toward the door.
[THREE]
Quarters of the Commanding Officer
10th Mountain Regiment
San Martín de los Andes
Neuquén Province, Argentina
2100 5 October 1943
There were five Argentine officers waiting for them in el Coronel Schmidt’s dining room. The dining room was much larger than von Deitzberg expected it to be, as the house itself was much smaller than he expected it to be.
It was hardly more than a cottage, sitting in a group of cottages across a road from the barracks, stables, and other buildings of the regiment. Von Deitzberg couldn’t see much; nothing was brightly illuminated.
Against one wall of the dining room were three flags: the Argentina colors, a red Nazi flag, and an elaborately embroidered flag, the 10th Mountain Regiment’s colors.
As the officers were introduced to Señor and Señora Schenck, young enlisted men in starched white jackets immediately began passing champagne glasses. When everyone held one, Colonel Schmidt said, “Gentlemen, I give you el Presidente Rawson.”
Champagne was sipped.
Schmidt toasted again: “Gentlemen, I give you the Führer of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler, and his Final Victory over the godless Communists.”
This time the glasses were drained.
“Well, gentlemen, since my wife and I were never here, I don’t suppose it much matters what I say,” von Deitzberg said.
He got the expected chuckles and took another sip of the ritual postdinner brandy before going on. It was Argentine, and surprisingly good.
“But let me say it’s good to again be with my fellow sailor, Sepp Schäfer—who, come to think of it, is also not here.”
That caused applause and laughter.
And reminded everybody that I am important enough, what I’m doing here is important enough, to justify sending us by submarine.
“Let me say something about the current situation,” von Deitzberg said. “I’m sure you have all heard that it was necessary for the Wehrmacht to withdraw from Africa, and also that our forces suffered a terrible defeat at Stalingrad. And, of course, that our Italian allies betrayed us, and as a result of that, the Americans are now in Italy.
“Those are facts. Not pleasant facts, but facts. A professional soldier must deal with the facts, not with things as he wishes they were.
“But there is another fact here that applies: The great military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz wrote, ‘There is only one decisive victory: the last.’ ”
More applause.
“What went wrong? Von Clausewitz also wrote, ‘The most insidious enemy of all is time.’ ”
Von Clausewitz didn’t actually say that, but it sounds like something he would have said if he had thought of it. And I don’t think there are any really serious students of von Clausewitz in this room to challenge me.
“Time has been against us,” von Deitzberg went on. “The rocket scientists at Peenemunde, while their work has been brilliant, just haven’t had the time to develop rockets that not only are more accurate than the ones currently landing in England, but will have the range to strike the United States.
“But it’s just a matter of time until they do.
“Luftwaffe engineers have developed a new fighter, the Messerschmitt Me- 262, which uses a revolutionary new type of propulsion, the jet engine. It is faster than any other fighter aircraft in the world, and it is armed with 40mm cannon. It can fire at American and British bombers from a distance greater than their .50-caliber machine guns can return fire. Once it goes into action, it will cause unacceptable losses to British and American bombers.
“There is already a squadron of these aircraft flying in Augsburg. But there has been time enough to manufacture only twenty or thirty of them.
“But it’s just a matter of time until they do.
“Time has been working for our enemies.
“So now we make it work for us.
“How do we protect our rocket engineers from being killed by the Soviet Communists if they should temporarily overrun our rocket facilities? More important, how do we prevent our rocket scientists from being forced to work for the Soviet Communists?
“The same thing for our aeronautical engineers.
“The same thing for our physicists, who are close to developing a bomb more powerful than the imagination can accept.
“If the Soviets came into possession of German technology, it would mean the end of the Christian world.
“I’m sure the answer has already occurred to many of you.
“We bring them to Argentina, secretly, by submarine. Germany has the largest fleet of submarines in the world.
“And we set them up, with new laboratories, perhaps even manufacturing facilities. If things go even worse for us, with time working against us, certainly with manufacturing facilities.
“Where?
“I’m sure that answer has already occurred to many of you, perhaps all of you. I know that it has occurred to el Coronel Schmidt.
“Right here, in
this remote corner of Argentina.”
There was a burst of applause.
“As you can well understand, this has to be accomplished with the greatest secrecy. The Communists are everywhere. And the Jews. The Antichrist.
“El Coronel Schmidt and others have been working on establishing these refuges for German scientists—and their families—for some time, and will continue to do so.
“But there is another problem, the real reason I am here. This is always distasteful for professional officers, but again, we must deal with things as they are rather than with things as we may wish them to be.
“I am speaking of treason, which von Clausewitz described—I forget the exact quote . . .”
Probably because I just made this one up. But it does sound like something he would say.
“. . . but it was to the effect that treason is simply another way of showing cowardice in the face of the enemy. On the battlefield, there is a simple way of dealing with those who throw down their arms and refuse to fight. One conducts a summary court-martial to establish that those are the facts. And if they are, the traitors, the cowards—whatever they are called—are tied to a post, stripped of their military insignia, offered a blindfold, and shot, with as many of their former comrades in arms as can be gathered watching.
“In the First World War, when soldiers of regiments refused to fight, every tenth soldier in the regiment was shot. We Germans believe in honor and justice, and we don’t shoot people we don’t know for sure have run from the enemy. But we do execute those we know have shown their treason, their cowardice.
“I am ashamed to tell you that a trusted officer of the German Embassy in Buenos Aires, Wilhelm Frogger, and his wife—who, like my wife, was an agent of the Sicherheitsdienst, the secret police branch of the SS—have deserted their post and gone over to the enemy.
“They were assisted in running by an American, a slimy Jew by the name of Milton Leibermann, who works for the American FBI. Leibermann thought that—probably with the assistance of the head of the OSS in Argentina, a man named Frade—he could hide the Froggers from us, save them from the execution they so rightly deserve.
The Honor of Spies Page 51
