“He was wrong. I am almost positive that some excellent detective work on the part of the Sicherheitsdienst agents in the embassy has located them. In Mendoza. Once we are sure of this, SS-Hauptsturmführer Sepp Schäfer and I will carry out the unpleasant duty of executing these swine.
“It gets worse. I have to tell you that an officer of the SS, Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck, has deserted his post in Montevideo, Uruguay. He went—initial investigation indicates this happened within the last week—to Paraguay, taking with him a substantial amount of money he stole from the embassy. There hasn’t been time for a summary court-martial, of course—it may have to take place in Germany, as he is entitled to be judged by officers of equal or superior rank and there are not three officers like that available here—but when it takes place, and if it finds this swine guilty, SS-Hauptsturmführer Sepp Schäfer and I will run him down, recover what he stole, and carry out his execution.”
I don’t think, judging by the looks on the faces of these people, that I would have any trouble at all finding volunteers for a firing squad for either the Froggers or von Tresmarck, or both.
“There is only one thing worse than a traitor,” von Deitzberg said solemnly. “And that is someone who encourages—by argument, or by payment—another to betray the duties and obligations which he has sworn an oath to God Almighty to carry out.
“So the silver lining in this despicable black cloud for me will be the opportunity to kill Milton Leibermann of the FBI for doing this to the Froggers, and especially, especially, Don Cletus Frade of the OSS, who tried and failed to turn his father into a traitor, and when that distinguished officer refused, murdered his own father—or had him murdered, which is the same thing—so that he could place the Frade assets in the service of Roosevelt and international Jewry.”
Von Deitzberg saw the look on el Coronel Schmidt’s face.
Didn’t know that before, did you, my friend?
Why the hell didn’t I think of that until just now?
Goebbels is absolutely right: The bigger the lie, the more people who’ll believe it.
[FOUR]
Casa Montagna
Estancia Don Guillermo
Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
1300 7 October 1943
Don Cletus Frade, who with his wife was sitting on the verandah of Casa Montagna sipping wine as they watched the fifth chukker of the game between the Ramapo Valley Aces and the Mountain Húsares, did not pay much attention to the dark green 1939 Ford Tudor when it first appeared.
For one thing, the appearance of Gendarmería vehicles—he had come to think of their color as “Gendarmería Green”—was routine, and for another, it was a good match. A dozen new mallets, two dozen new wooden polo balls, and a supply of red-and-blue polo shirts—real polo shirts, with the players’ position numbers on their chests and backs—had arrived on a training flight of an SAA Lodestar, and there were now four players properly identified on each side.
And everybody on the field knew how to play the game. Captain Sawyer had once told Major Frade, with pride, that he’d been rated as a four-goal player. Captain Sawyer was by no means the best player on the field today.
Frade didn’t even pay much attention to the Ford until it drove up to the verandah. There was a sort of motor pool beside one of the outbuildings, and he expected the Ford would go there. And then the driver of the Ford jumped out, ran around the front of the car, and opened the rear door. Two men in civilian clothing got out. One was Inspector General Santiago Nervo of the Gendarmería and the other was el Coronel Alejandro Bernardo Martín of the Bureau of Internal Security.
Both officers walked directly to Doña Dorotea and kissed her, and then—Nervo first—turned to Don Cletus, who stood up and then asked, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Our duty, Major,” Nervo said as he wrapped his arm around Frade’s shoulders. “I hope we’re not too late for lunch.”
“How the hell did you get here?”
El Coronel Martín first embraced Frade, then answered the question.
“With the polo mallets,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“We were on hand to meet the Ciudad de Buenos Aires when it returned from Lisbon,” Martín said. “I asked your chief pilot, Gonzalo Delgano, if there was any way at all he could think of to get us to San Martín de los Andes in a hurry, and he was kind enough to say he would look into it . . .”
“That was nice of him,” Clete said dryly.
“. . . and he asked a few questions, and learned that a training flight was scheduled for one of your Lodestars; that, among other things, it was dropping off polo mallets and some other equipment for you at Mendoza; and he could see no reason why it couldn’t drop us off at San Martín on the way back.”
“Why not?” Clete said. “SAA always tries to cooperate with the BIS.”
“So Capitán Delgano . . .”
“I thought he was a major,” Clete said.
Nervo chuckled.
“He was a major,” Martín said. “Now he’s retired.”
“Oh,” Clete said. “I didn’t know that.”
Nervo, smiling, shook his head.
“So he not only arranged for us to go along with the Polo Mallets Training Flight—until just now, when we drove in, I wondered about those mallets—but flew the plane himself.”
“Right after he came back from Lisbon? How obliging of him.”
“He said something about there not being much to do but watch the needles on the fuel gauges drop. Anyway, he flew us to San Martín, and now here we are. By a fortunate coincidence, another training flight is scheduled to land here about four, and Major—excuse me, Capitán—Delgano has been kind enough to arrange it for us to go back to Buenos Aires on that.”
“How nice of him!”
The doorbell at the door behind them sounded loudly.
“Well, that’s the chukker,” Dorotea announced. “One to go. If my husband will pull me out of this chair, I’ll forgo that and see about lunch.”
“Subinspector Nowicki may drop by, Doña Dorotea,” Nervo said.
“I’ll set a place for him,” she said, and raised both arms toward Clete.
He gently pulled her out of the chair.
“Thank you,” she said. “But don’t think I’m ever going to forgive you for putting me into this condition.”
Nervo laughed.
Dorotea walked into the house as Wilhelm Fischer came out with a wineglass. She returned a few minutes later.
“So how were things in San Martín de los Andes?” Clete asked Nervo.
“Why don’t we wait until Nowicki and Sawyer are with us?” Martín asked. He pointed at Sawyer.
“I’ve never met him,” Nervo said. “But he’s not too bad a polo player—for an American—is he?”
“You were about to tell us, mi general,” Clete said, “why your duty took you in such a hurry to San Martín de los Andes.” He paused, and raised a bottle. “Another little sip of our humble Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon, mi general?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Nervo said. He turned to Fischer. “Before you came here, Señor Fischer, to improve the quality of the grapes, I’ve been told this stuff was practically undrinkable.”
“I’m so glad I’ve been able to helpful, mi general,” Fischer said.
“Then you won’t be taking a couple of cases back to Buenos Aires with you?” Frade asked.
“The hell I won’t. I accept your gracious offer. But I must say that if I didn’t know better, Don Cletus, I might think you’re trying to get me to tell you things I shouldn’t.”
“You bet your ass I am, mi general,” Clete said. “What’s going on in San Martín de los Andes?”
“Well, among other things, the murderer of your father has finally been identified,” Nervo said.
“Really?” Clete asked very softly.
“You did it. Or at least ordered it.”
“Or so Señor Schenck told at dinner to a group of el Coronel Schmidt’s officers—one of whom just happens to work for Bernardo.”
Clete just looked at him.
“Would you like me to go on, or would you prefer me to start at the beginning?”
“Try the beginning,” Clete said.
“If you’d prefer. Well, the first interesting thing that happened was that we now have a beautiful blonde in the picture. Von Gradny-Sawz’s friend in the Interior Ministry got her a National Identity booklet identifying her as Señora Griselda Schenck, who you will recall died several years ago in an auto crash that also killed her loving husband, Jorge.
“The second interesting thing that happened was that the Uruguayan authorities asked the Policía Nacional to contact a woman by the name of Inge von Tresmarck. They wanted to know if she could shed any light on the whereabouts of her husband, Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck, the security officer of the German Embassy in Montevideo whom the Germans had reported to be missing. The Uruguayans said they knew Señora von Tresmarck had taken the overnight steamer to Buenos Aires.
“Diligent police work revealed that Señora von Tresmarck had taken a room at the Alvear Palace Hotel. She then went shopping, leaving a message to that effect with the hotel switchboard. She never returned to the Alvear Palace.”
“Von Tresmarck is missing?” Clete asked. “What the hell is that all about?”
Nervo did not reply.
“Then we learned that the ever-obliging von Gradny-Sawz purchased a car—a 1941 Ford station wagon—for Señor Schenck. The Automobile Club requires people who want insurance to appear in person. Señor Schenck did so, and while he was there availed himself of the ACA’s free travel services. They provided him with road maps, on which the route to San Martín de los Andes was marked, and made a reservation for him and Señora Schenck at the Rio Hermoso Hotel in San Martín.”
“Which is where Schmidt is, right?”
Again, Nervo did not reply.
“By the time all these details came to my attention, and Alejandro’s—sometimes the Policía Nacional is a little slow—Señor and Señora Schenck were well on their way to San Martín de los Andes.
“By the time we got there, the Schencks had already been entertained at dinner in el Coronel Schmidt’s quarters and, the morning following, had departed for San Carlos de Bariloche—”
“That’s where Körtig is,” Frade interrupted. “Or at least where he’s headed.”
“Tell me about that,” Martín said.
“Welner ‘just happened to hear’ . . .”
“Father Kurt Welner, S.J.? That Welner?” Nervo asked.
“That Welner.”
“And you can’t bring yourself to call him ‘Father’? Out of simple respect for the cloth?”
“I don’t call you ‘General’ all the time, either, mi general.”
“Perhaps you should. A little proper respect goes a long way with me. So tell me, Señor Heathen, what did the Reverend Father Kurt Welner of the Society of Jesus ‘just happen to hear’?”
“The other Jesuit, the one who gets National Identity documents . . .”
“The Reverend Father Francisco Silva, S.J.? That Jesuit?”
“That’s the one. He showed up here and said that Welner had ‘just happened to hear’ that a small country hotel in Bariloche was up for sale, and he thought it just might be what we were looking for to put up the Gehlen people.”
“Beware of Jesuits bearing gifts,” Nervo said.
“And that, since he just happened to be driving that way anyway, he thought I might want to take a look at it.”
“Could be one of two things,” Nervo said. “Holy Mother Church might want to dump a hotel they own that’s not making them enough money—or is termite-infested—on a gringo with money, or our wily Jesuit is being accommodating to this Gehlen fellow, for good reasons of his own that I can’t even guess at.”
“Well, since real-estate appraisal is not among my many other skills, I gave Körtig a pistol and sent Pablo Alvarez . . .”
“The estancia manager?” Martin asked. “Apparently, he knows what’s going on and can be trusted?”
Frade nodded, and picked up the rest: “. . . with him to have a look at the hotel in Bariloche, and at other properties on the way. Pablo has friends all over this part of Argentina.”
“Who wouldn’t be surprised if he was quietly buying property for a friend of yours?” Martín asked.
“Yeah,” Clete said.
“You gave Körtig a pistol?” Nervo asked.
“He asked for one, and I gave him one,” Frade replied. “There are people who don’t like people who like Valkyries. He wanted to be able to defend himself. That sounded reasonable to me.”
“He gave me one, too, General,” Fischer said. “For the same reason.”
Nervo’s eyebrow rose, but he didn’t say anything.
“Where’s the other German?” Martín asked.
“Well, I didn’t give that Nazi sonofabitch a pistol,” Frade replied. “If I did, once he finds out—if he doesn’t already know—how my grape expert rides around with the Valkyries, he would be duty bound to use it on him. I’ve got him under sort of house arrest; I don’t know what the hell else to do with him.”
“Just don’t let him get loose,” Nervo said.
“I hope he doesn’t try to get away. I told him if he or his wife tried, I’d shoot both of them. I don’t want him calling my bluff.”
Nervo looked as if he was about to reply, then stopped and said: “I was telling you about the dinner party Schmidt gave for some of his officers and the Schencks. According to Martín’s guy, they toasted El Presidente, and then the Führer, as Schmidt stood before the Argentine flag and a swastika. . . .”
“What did you say about von Deitzberg accusing me of ordering my father’s murder?”
“Señor Schenck gave a little speech, winding it up with saying what great pleasure it was going to give him to do his duty executing not only the Froggers and Sturmbannführer von Tresmarck for treason, but also the even more despicable Milton Leibermann for encouraging the Froggers to desert, and the most despicable of all, the evil Don Cletus Frade, who, when he failed to turn his father into a traitor, ordered his murder and promptly placed all Frade assets in the hands of international Jewry.”
“That’s absolutely disgusting!” Doña Dorotea exclaimed. “They believed that?”
“Everybody but Martín’s guy,” Nervo said.
“Are you going to warn Leibermann?” Clete asked.
“For the foreseeable future, Milton is going to be under close BIS surveillance to make sure he does nothing against the interests of the Argentine Republic,” Martín said, and chuckled, and added, “And just as soon as I get back to Buenos Aires, I’ll explain to him what it’s all about.”
“Tell him what you told me,” Nervo said, and then went on without giving Martín a chance to reply: “He said it would be good training for his agents; that Señor Milton is better at escaping from surveillance than anyone he’s ever known.”
“You think von Deitzberg will try to assassinate Leibermann?” Clete asked.
“Actually, no. He’d have to do it in Buenos Aires, either himself or using some German from the embassy. I really don’t think our assassination professionals would be available. Both Martín and I have gotten the word to them that the season on Americans is closed. And you and Enrico removed three of the best of them from their rolls.
“But is von Deitzberg going to try to assassinate you and the Froggers? Oh, yes. Even if he has to do it himself. When he went to Bariloche, he took with him the SS officer in charge of the SS people who were on the submarine. In private conversation after the dinner, Martín’s guy said von Deitzberg was talking about the similarities between ‘rescuing’ someone from Casa Montagna and the rescue of Mussolini from that mountain in Italy. He said the SS officer—his name is Sch�
�fer, Hauptsturmführer Sepp Schäfer—had gleams of glory in his eyes. He sees a chance for him to become the Otto Skorzeny of South America. What I think Schäfer is going to do is reconnoiter this place.”
“If he does, can I shoot him?”
“I’m just a simple . . .”
“Yeah, I know. Señor Simple Policeman. Answer the question.”
“They would just send somebody else. If you don’t shoot him, then they will think they will have the element of surprise.”
“And they won’t?”
“It’s about fifteen hundred kilometers from San Martín to here,” Nervo said. “The rule of thumb for a motor convoy is an average of thirty-five kilometers per hour. That’s about forty-three hours. Even pushing—say they try to drive fourteen hours a day—that’s three days . . .”
“Gee, I didn’t know simple policemen could do that kind of figuring in their heads,” Clete said.
Nervo smiled and shook his head. “. . . and what Martín and I have been doing is arranging to stretch that time a little. The convoy is going to have to take detours along primitive roads; they will have to wait while bridge repairs are accomplished. They may even find that twenty-kilo barrels of nails have been spilled onto the roads at various places by careless carpenters, requiring the time-consuming repair of truck tires. . . .”
“Oh, mi general, you’re evil!” Clete said.
“Thank you. Coming from a patricidal assassin such as yourself, I consider that a great compliment.”
“I can’t believe you two!” Martín said.
“Neither can I,” Doña Dorotea said.
“I estimate,” General Nervo said, “that from the time they leave San Martín—and we will learn that the moment they do—you will have at least four days, and possibly five, before they come knocking at your gate.
“At the very least, that should give us time to get el Coronel Wattersly from Buenos Aires to (a) best, Bariloche, or (b) last-ditch defense, here, where he can step into the road and ask el Coronel Schmidt where the hell does he think he’s going without the permission of the General Staff of the Ejército.”
The Honor of Spies Page 52
