by Larry Loftis
When Aline asked Thomas about the misinformation he had given her to pass along to Pierre, he was vague, which set off a disturbing chain of thought.
She was fully aware of the use of “chicken feed”—false, misleading, or late information given to the enemy—but it made her think about Thomas’s use of Pierre to deliver it to Allied personnel. Was a leak expected? Was Pierre used to expose it? She remembered his parting words, that bit about trying to change, and she had a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Couldn’t be. A traitor?
She didn’t press further and a day or so later she received a call that took her mind off Pierre. It was a call she had feared almost since her arrival in Madrid.
Juanito had been badly gored.
The caller was Juanito’s man of swords, and he was calling from La Clinica de los Toreros, the bullfighters’ hospital. He was crying and could barely get the words out.
“He was operated on… by Dr. Tamananes… and is still unconscious.”
Aline squeezed the phone. “How serious?”
The man continued to sob, unable to answer.
Aline hung up and raced out. She knew that bullfighting was dangerous, but somehow imagined that experts like Juanito would always be able to avoid serious injury. Reality, though, was quite the opposite: a matador’s popularity—and therefore financial success—was proportional to how close he worked to the bull, how many chances he took, how often he allowed the bull’s horns to graze his chest or legs.
The odds weren’t good: 10 percent of bullfighters were killed in the ring each year, another 13 percent crippled. And over a career, some 40 percent of matadors would be wounded at least twenty times.
The scene at the hospital was chaotic. The entire corridor of Juanito’s floor was swarming with reporters, photographers, fans, and friends. Guards, doctors, and nurses had tried to keep people away, but to no avail.
Aline weaved her way through the crowd and saw Juanito’s man. He was still wearing his satin embroidered costume, his eyes bloodshot and weary. Juanito’s room was cordoned off, but his chief banderillero was able to usher her in.
Juanito’s mother, Doña Consuelo, stood to greet her. Her face revealed a mother’s grief, but amid the tension Aline could see that she was quite beautiful, just as Juanito had said.
“Gracias for coming, Aline. Juanito has been asking for you ever since he came out of the operating room. He is still groggy, but gracias a Dios, his wound is not as serious as we thought.”
Aline glanced at the bed and gasped. Juanito’s face was ashen, his complexion bearing evidence of blood loss and shock.
She took his hand and waited until his eyes opened and found hers. He tried to speak but struggled.
“Aline.”
He gestured to the counter and then grimaced in pain. “Would you care for some chocolates?”
The unexpected comment kept Aline from weeping. She looked over and saw a box of their favorite chocolates on a table next to his bed. She smiled and shook her head, unable to speak.
“Well, in that case, would you mind feeding me one?”
Aline placed one in his mouth and wondered if it was dangerous for him to eat solid food. Juanito struggled to chew and swallow, and then asked for water. She poured a glass and held it close as he sipped through a straw.
“Chocolates and water,” he said. “What else does a man need? Surely not bulls.” He turned his eyes to meet hers.
“Will you be my Florence Nightenberg?”
Aline laughed, fighting back tears. “Of course I will.”
On the way out she spoke with the doctors. Juanito had been lucky, they said, as the bull’s horn had not severed a main artery. He was going to be okay but needed to rest for two weeks. Aline knew better. Juanito would be back in the ring as soon as he could walk.
As she left the hospital, she noticed three men loitering by the entrance. There were others, too, but these looked particularly suspicious. They were smoking and apparently waiting for someone. One of the faces looked familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Next to him was a short Spaniard in a baggy suit. She looked at the third man and shivered. It all came back.
The one in the baggy suit she had seen on her train to Málaga. The third man she had seen in front of her apartment one night.
She marched up to Baggy Suit. “Didn’t I see you on the train to Málaga?”
He smiled. “Sí, señorita.”
Aline’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
“But, señorita, you don’t know us? We work for Don Juan, and we have seen you often.”
Unmoved, she turned to the man she had seen by her apartment. “And I think you have been in front of my house once or twice.”
“Not once or twice, señorita,” he said kindly. “Almost every night. Well, we changed sometimes, but more often I took that part.”
Aline bristled. “But why would you be in front of my house?”
“Don Juan wanted us to protect the señorita and to inform him who the señorita went out with, to make sure the men would bring her to no harm.”
Aline didn’t know whether to laugh or cold-cock one of them. They were the ones who had been following her. One thing was for sure: when Juanito was healthy, he would receive a severe dressing down from Florence Nightenberg.
* * *
As August rolled on, Aline discovered something unusual.
Gloria von Fürstenberg had vanished.
She had not been to Ana de Pombo’s so-called shop, sources reported, and no one had seen her since August 9. For Gloria to be absent from two weeks of parties and receptions was strange, to say the least. Aline tried not to think about the coincidence that Gloria and Pierre had disappeared at the same time.
Meanwhile, Allied intelligence was catching up on rumored efforts by high-ranking Nazis to sneak themselves and looted art out of Europe.II Argentina and Brazil were the principal destinations, they believed, and Spain seemed to be the conduit.
In May the Foreign Economic Administration—President Roosevelt’s organization to engage in economic warfare—had set up a task force to examine what could be done. Dubbing the mission “Project Safehaven,” the FEA began contacting OSS X-2 offices, starting with Barcelona, the closest hub to the French border.
To exert pressure on the Spanish to assist in Safehaven, Ambassador Hayes met with Spain’s foreign minister, José Félix de Lequerica, in late August. Hayes demanded assurances that Spain would not receive or harbor Axis war criminals, or provide haven for looted property. Lequerica agreed to cooperate. The OSS, though, operated on the assumption that the Spanish would provide little to no assistance in hunting the traffickers or the art.
In France, the Allies continued their push toward Germany, liberating Paris on August 25. It was a major milestone, and Parisians were fortunate and thankful that the German commander in charge of the city, General Dietrich von Choltitz, disobeyed Hitler’s order to destroy the city and instead surrendered it intact to the Free French Forces.
Four days later ELTON, Barcelona’s deputy station chief, sent Gregory Thomas a cable with the subject heading: GERMAN PROPERTY IN SPAIN. In his message, he informed Thomas of FEA’s directive, and also advised him of the orders that had been given to Edmundo Lassalle: “PELOTA has been instructed to keep a careful eye on any indication of German property or German interests changing hands.”
The following week Barcelona updated Thomas on how they intended to use Edmundo: “The question of enemy investments and transfers of capital was thoroughly discussed with PELOTA yesterday, and I expect to see him tomorrow about the same question. I believe that PELOTA is our best approach to the highest banking and industrial circles, and, in accordance with my suggestion, he is proceeding both here and in Madrid to line up persons who will be suitable for our penetration of this society.”
In September the FEA formalized Safehaven as an operation and announced four major objectives:
To restrict German economic penetration o
utside the borders of the Reich
To prevent Germany from sequestering assets (including loot) in neutral countries
To ensure that German assets would be available for postwar rebuilding of Europe
To prevent the escape of possible war criminals
The State Department would take the lead in overall implementation, but the OSS would act as the investigating and policing arm. To organize the portion of their task to keep looted treasures from leaving Europe, the OSS established the Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU), which would be coordinated from the London office.
Gregory Thomas informed Edmundo that, as the station’s coordinating Safehaven agent, he would need to go to London for special debriefing. No one would be better suited to crack the German network, Thomas explained, than a harmless Disney executive who had extensive connections in Mexico.
In the meantime, Aline was preoccupied with two disturbing mysteries. Pierre, whom she had not heard a word from or about in more than three months, had disappeared.
And Gloria von Fürstenberg was still missing.
I. The Cairo Conference, code-named SEXTANT and held to discuss Allied strategy, occurred November 23–26 and December 3–7, 1943. President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill attended both meetings, while China’s Chiang Kai-shek attended the former, and President Ismet Inönü of Turkey attended the latter.
II. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who was in charge of setting up Germany’s defenses along France’s northeastern coastline, had always contended that his men had to defeat any Allied invasion by crushing it on the beaches. If the Allies made it onto the mainland, he felt, the war was lost. This setback, combined with defeats on the Eastern Front, led most German officers to conclude that it was just a matter of time before Germany capitulated.
CHAPTER 16 THE COUNT
On December 11 Edmundo left for London, where he would undergo Safehaven training for almost a month. There, he learned that he would have a new priority: discovering German companies and operatives moving Nazi money in and out of Spain and, where possible, the location of any loot. He was encouraged to enlist the aid of any available agents in Madrid or Barcelona, and he decided that Aline would be his perfect sidekick.
The first week of the New Year Gregory Thomas had his hands full keeping tabs on the various scattered cats of the Madrid office, including Lazar, Prince Max, Ana de Pombo, Pierre, Gloria, and now Safehaven. His code name, ARGUS, was apt since, like the king of Greek mythology, he needed to be all-seeing.
And he was. He started the year by informing Robert Dunev that Ana de Pombo’s business was a cover operation for the Abwehr. Knowing that Eva, the sister of Dunev’s fiancée, Louise Marie, worked at the store, he forbade Dunev from visiting Louise Marie in her home. Dunev had no prior knowledge of Ana de Pombo’s connection to the Germans, and it’s unclear how Thomas learned it. In all probability, Aline informed Thomas about Ana’s relationship with Gloria von Fürstenberg, and the fact that Ana’s store wasn’t really an active business. It’s likely that Thomas learned that Ana’s business partner was an Abwehr officer by checking with X-2, OSS’s counterintelligence arm, which already had a file on Gloria.
Unable to see Louise Marie at her home, Robert Dunev made the best of it. Here, they’re enjoying a romantic lunch date at Madrid’s El Parque del Buen Retiro. Michael Dunev
On January 9 Edmundo returned to Spain, and Thomas decided that Madrid should be his permanent base. Madrid held more clues in the Safehaven drama than Barcelona, he felt, and he liked the idea of pairing the charismatic Mexican with Aline. It was time, then, to inform Aline that she now officially had more duties than just the code room. Like Edmundo and Dunev, she also would be a field agent gathering intelligence and submitting formal reports. But first he had to debrief her on Safehaven itself.
* * *
It was a crisp winter morning and Aline hustled to the office, wondering about the note Gregory Thomas had left on her desk the day before. “Tomorrow morning at nine in my office, urgent,” was all it said. The last three months had been relatively quiet and she wondered if she was going to be sent back home. As she passed through the embassy gates, she saw the milkman’s donkey cart. “Vaya usted con Dios, señorita,” the man called out as he filled a pail. She waved and hurried up the stairway to Thomas’s office. He motioned to a side chair and she sat, studying his angular face and expecting him to say her time in Madrid was over. The milkman’s donkey began braying and Thomas went to the window and peered out.
Turning back, he said, “I’ve asked you to come here because we have a new mission for you.”
Aline lifted her chin. She wasn’t being sent home after all.
“There’s a large operation going on now,” he began, “in collaboration with the rest of the Allies. It involves uncovering assets that have been looted by the Third Reich and by individual members of the Nazi government. Gold, jewels, art. Assets stolen from governments, private persons, and companies. Often from wealthy Jews whose effects were confiscated or who were tricked into paying a ransom for a freedom they never enjoyed.”
Aline could feel her adrenaline spike. This meant more than just keeping her eyes and ears open at parties and occasional freelance work with Edmundo; it was a legitimate assignment as a field agent. A mission.
Thomas took his seat and went on. “Swiss bank accounts are being opened in names we must uncover. The loot is being shipped out of Europe to safe havens in South America. That’s why we call it Operation Safehaven. We have many agents working on this—teams in Holland, Belgium, France, and Switzerland. But in Spain, the work will be more delicate.
“The stuff goes by train from Holland and Belgium across France to Bordeaux. From there it is shipped across the Bay of Biscay to Bilbao. Right now, Madrid is the hub of the wheel for all exports from the war zones. For Nazis trying to escape, too.”
Aline’s mind began to race, wondering who might be involved. Lazar? Ana de Pombo? Gloria? Was it possible that Pierre was involved, even a double agent?
She would be working with Edmundo, Thomas said, and they were to uncover the Nazis’ financial network in Spain, particularly the companies the Germans were using as fronts and any individuals who were sending, or trying to send, money abroad. In essence, the goal was to trap the money in Spain. Once accounts were frozen, ill-gotten funds could be confiscated and returned by Allied authorities to the original owners or their descendants. At the top of the list of people to investigate was Prince Max.
Aline would be filing most of her reports with James MacMillan, Thomas said, but she’d also be handling assignments from Larry Mellon. Edmundo, he added, would now be stationed permanently in Madrid, but any information he had should be conveyed through her reports. Since Edmundo didn’t have a cover job at the Oil Ministry to give him a reason to visit the embassy, Aline would keep their bosses informed.
* * *
A few weeks into their new collaboration, Edmundo was waiting for Aline at a table in the Palace Hotel bar. This peculiar spy, “a delicious confection of warm brown skin, dazzling white teeth, and slick black hair,” she remembered later, had become something of a big brother.
Edmundo stood and raised her hand to his lips. “Divina, you’re ravishing.” He stepped back and appraised her chic new Balenciaga outfit.
Aline smiled, reminding herself that this irrepressible flirt had the full trust of Walt Disney and the OSS.
He explained that he had just returned from Lisbon, and that he had gone to Casino Estoril. “My pet, you can’t imagine how dowdy the women in the casino in Cascais are these days! Life has been such a monotony since I saw you last.”
Aline shook her head and then noticed that Edmundo’s attention had been captured by someone entering the bar. She followed his eyes to an attractive auburn-haired woman in a navy silk suit and pillbox hat.
It was Princess Maria Agatha of Ratibor and Corvey, a German heiress who, like Prince Max, had numerous connections to the Third Reich. One
of her relatives, in fact, Prince Ernst von Ratibor and Corvey, had found his way onto the US blacklist for dealing with Nazis.I American officials had frozen his assets in the United States, and when Prince Ernst’s Peruvian wife, Consuelo Eyre, had sought release of funds held in an American bank, the request was denied.
Aline and Edmundo had discovered only days earlier that Princess Agatha had worked the prior year for Dr. Franz Liesau, a mysterious man who ran a company called Oficina Tecnica. Liesau had countless ties to the Gestapo, sources reported, and Oficina Tecnica was suspected of being a German front for espionage.
Also like Prince Max, Princess Agatha had much to lose if Germany lost the war. Her family owned palaces and estates in Westphalia, Germany, and in Grafenegg, Neuaigen, Asparn, and Corvey, Austria. They also owned considerable land and businesses in and around Ratibor, a town in southern Upper Silesia, Germany. Their wealth stemmed from mining, and their coal deposits in Ratibor were Berlin’s principal source of energy.
Incredibly, Edmundo had been playing both sides of the coin. While gaining Princess Agatha’s trust by wooing her romantically, he nevertheless decided that she was a legitimate subject for counterintelligence. As such, he had placed her on the OSS blacklist, which allowed him to socialize with her on the company’s dime. It was a violation of everything they had been taught in training, not to mention morally reprehensible, but Edmundo never seemed bothered by contradictions.
Aline remembered him saying to her months earlier that he was sure Agatha was actually anti-Nazi, and Aline could tell that he really was interested in her. Perhaps he was the perfect spy. One minute he was obsessed with gossip about royalty and aristocratic families, the next he was juggling women, Disney, and espionage. But one thing was clear: he was hands down one of the most skilled and productive agents working for the OSS in Europe. And he always made her laugh.
