Victory and Honor
Page 17
“I’m a little slow sometimes,” Bendick said. Then he looked at Boltitz. “Why should I trust you?”
Frade answered for him: “You’ve heard of the failed attempt by Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg to kill Adolf Hitler?”
Bendick looked at Frade, nodded, but said nothing.
“At the time, Kapitän zur See Boltitz was the German naval attaché in Buenos Aires and”—he gestured at Peter—“Major von Wachtstein was the assistant military attaché for air. The day after the bomb failed to kill Hitler, the embassy got a radio message ordering their arrest for high treason.”
“They were involved in the bombing?”
“In the plot of the bombing,” Frade explained, “as were Peter’s father, Generalleutnant Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein, and Karl’s father, Vizeadmiral Kurt Boltitz. General von Wachtstein was arrested, tried by a people’s court, and hung from a butcher’s hook.”
“My God!”
“Vizeadmiral Boltitz, who worked for Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the chief of German Military Intelligence, was not immediately arrested, nor was Admiral Canaris. We don’t know where Vizeadmiral Boltitz is, only that the SS was looking for him until the last day of the war.”
“He ran?” Bendick asked.
Frade nodded.
“On April twenty-third—just over two weeks ago—the 97th Infantry Division of the Third U.S. Army liberated the Flossenberg Concentration Camp in Bavaria. They found Admiral Canaris’s naked, decomposing body hanging from a gallows. It had been left there as a gesture of contempt following the admiral’s execution on April ninth for his role in the failed attempt to kill Hitler.”
“Jesus Christ!” Bendick said, then asked, “And these two German officers ran from the arrest order to Argentina?”
“No. What happened—both had been working for me—was that I flew them to Canoas, where they surrendered to the commanding officer. They were then flown to the senior enemy officer interrogation facility at Fort Hunt, outside Washington.”
“If they had been working for you, why didn’t you just keep them in Argentina?”
“Argentina was then neutral. Leaning strongly toward the Axis, but neutral. If von Wachtstein and Boltitz had stayed there, there was a good chance that some Argentine Nazi would learn where they were, tell the German Embassy, and the SS would go after them. Try to kill them.”
“They’d actually do something like that?”
“They already had done something like that. They tried to kill the commercial attaché of the German Embassy, who had deserted his post. Boltitz and von Wachtstein were no longer of any use to me inside the German Embassy, so getting them into a POW enclosure in the States seemed to be the right thing to do.”
“But they’re not in a POW enclosure, are they?”
“No. They are now OSS special agents—show him your ID, Hansel.”
Peter did.
Bendick nodded his acceptance.
Frade went on: “I knew I was going to need them, so last week—on May tenth—I flew to Washington and got them.”
General Bendick looked at von Wachtstein and, shaking his head in disbelief, asked, “And you were the air attaché of the German Embassy?”
“Tell him, Hansel,” Frade ordered.
“Before that,” von Wachtstein said, “I was commanding officer of Jagdstaffel 232—Focke-Wulf 190s—defending Berlin against B-17s.”
Bendick shook his head again and then asked Frade, “They were turned over to you—is that what you’re saying?”
“No, what I said was that I needed them, so I went and got them. I didn’t have the time to deal with the bureaucracy.”
“You just took them from a POW camp on your own authority?”
Frade nodded.
Bendick again shook his head in disbelief.
Frade said: “Your original question, Bob, was something like ‘Why should I trust Boltitz?’”
Bendick met Frade’s eyes. “Has it occurred to you, Colonel Frade, that the smart thing for me to do is pick up that telephone and tell my provost marshal to come running? That two escaped German POWs and the guy who helped them escape are in flight planning?”
Frade held the gaze and said, “You could do that, General. It’s known as ‘covering your ass.’ But you won’t.”
“And why won’t I?”
“Two reasons. One is that you know that if you did, you’d be helping the Nazis get away with sending their submarines to South America, and you don’t want to do that. Two, you’re not that kind—the CYA kind—of an officer.”
“How do you know? Was telling me all this smart?”
“Probably not. But in my business, every once in a while you have to take a chance. I took it. I’d take it again.”
“Taking a chance like putting a shot-up B-17 down on a fighter strip? Because it wasn’t really an option?”
“Yes, sir.”
General Bendick turned to his aide-de-camp.
“Jimmy,” he ordered, “get on the horn and get Colonel DuBois and Colonel Nathan down here. Tell them I’m running a middle-of-the-night training program in how to find submarines.”
[TWO]
Transient Mess Val de Cans Airfield Belém do Pará, Brazil 0405 17 May 1945
SAA Chief Pilot Gonzalo Delgano, Captain Mario Peralta, and a flight engineer whose name Clete could never remember—he thought of him as “the chubby flight engineer, who, three-to-one, also works for the BIS”—were sitting over coffee at a table near the door when Clete and the others walked in.
The diplomats were sitting at various tables around the nearly empty mess.
“We wondered where you were,” Delgano greeted them.
“We all set to go?” Clete replied.
“Anytime you are. Weather looks good, and we may even get that tailwind.”
“Just as soon we have some breakfast,” Clete said.
“You haven’t eaten?” Delgano asked.
“No. That’s why we’re going to eat now,” Clete said.
If you’d have come out and just asked, “What have you been up to?” I probably would have told you.
“El Señor Nulder wondered what had happened to you,” Delgano said.
“And asked you?”
Delgano nodded.
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth. I didn’t know.”
Clete ordered: “Enrico, why don’t you go ask Señor Nulder if he can spare a moment for me?”
It was the first time that Frade had gotten a good look at Rodolfo Nulder, the director of security at the Secretariat of Labor and Retirement Plans. He thought there was something about him—his carriage, a hint of arrogance—that suggested a military background.
Nulder smiled and put out his hand as he approached the table.
“I’m Rodolfo Nulder, Señor Frade,” he announced with a charming smile.
“So Capitán Delgano has been telling me.”
“Did he also tell you that I was at both the military academy and the Kriegsschule with your father?”
“No, as a matter of fact, he didn’t,” Frade lied, somewhat deflating Nulder’s arrogance, if only for a moment. “But he did tell me, when I asked him who was in charge of our cargo of diplomats, that you probably were. True?”
“When I left the army, I became involved with governmental security. I’m presently the director of security for the Secretariat of Labor and Retirement Plans—”
“The Secretariat of Labor and Retirement Plans?” Frade interrupted. “Or the Secretary of Labor and Retirement Plans?”
Nulder raised his eyebrows, then said, “Actually, I suppose one could say that both are true. I sometimes assist el Coronel Perón in security matters outside the Secretariat of Labor and Retirement Plans. This is one of those occasions. Actually, Señor Frade, I was hoping to have a word with you, to explain my role in this mission, when we arrived here. But then no one seemed to know where you were.”
“No one did,” Frade said.
He said: “I was going to tell you that in his role as vice president, el Coronel Perón thought, because I know Germany, that I would be useful in carrying out the mission President Farrell had assigned to the Foreign Ministry, and asked me to participate.”
“Does that mean you’re the man in charge?” Frade asked, not very pleasantly.
“Let me put it this way. Think of me as the liaison officer between yourself, as the managing director of SAA, and the senior Foreign Ministry officer, Ambassador Giménez, on this mission.”
Frade considered that, nodded, and said: “Then I guess you’re the man I’m looking for. You can pass this on to Ambassador Giménez. . . . Wait. I just thought of something: How can you be an ambassador to a country that no longer exists? What used to be Germany is now territory held by force of arms by the Allied Powers and under martial law. Can you accredit an ambassador to a military headquarters?”
Nulder’s face showed both that he had not expected the question and that he had no answer to it.
“I really don’t know,” he confessed. “Why don’t we leave such questions to the Foreign Ministry?”
“Okay. But the reason I wanted to see the man in charge—and the reason I’m just now having my breakfast—is that the commanding general of this base sent for me. When I got to his office, he had several officers of the United States Secret Service with him. Are you familiar with the Secret Service?”
“Somewhat,” Nulder said.
“Well, their primary duty is to protect the President. I knew that. But what I remembered just now is that they’re under the secretary of the Treasury.”
“I don’t understand what that means,” Nulder admitted.
“Well, the secretary of the Treasury is a man named Morgenthau. He’s Jewish. He doesn’t like Nazis. He’s heard that some Nazis are going to try to avoid trial for war crimes by escaping to South America. So he’s put the Secret Service on it.”
“I don’t quite follow you,” Nulder said.
“They were subtle, if you know what I mean,” Frade said. “They didn’t come right out and say they suspect the Foreign Ministry of doing anything they shouldn’t, like smuggling Nazis into Argentina, but they did tell me that any diplomats going into occupied Germany could forget diplomatic immunity. Anybody caught trying to help Nazis get out of Germany will find themselves standing in front of a court-martial.”
“I don’t think they can do that,” Nulder said.
“I don’t know if they could or not, Señor Nulder. But that’s what they told me. It was sort of a word to the wise, if you know what I mean.”
Nulder did not reply.
“They also told me the Secret Service has authority on any U.S. base—like this one, and Canoas. Which means, if they wanted to, they could search the airplane and check everybody’s identity.
“What they were saying, without coming right out and saying it, was that we can expect to be searched pretty carefully on our way home.”
After a long moment, Nulder said: “Interesting. Have you any idea when we’ll be taking off?”
“Ten minutes after I finish my breakfast.”
“Well, then, I’ll see you aboard,” Nulder said, offered his hand, and then began walking away.
“Pass that on to Ambassador Whatsisname, will you, Señor Nulder?” Clete called after him.
Nulder acknowledged the call with an impatient wave of his hand, but neither replied nor turned around.
Clete looked at Delgano.
“Gonzo, why do I think I just ruined Señor Nulder’s day? And why doesn’t that bother me?”
“You’re crazy, Cletus, that’s why,” Delgano said.
But Delgano was smiling.
And when Frade looked at Captain Peralta and the chubby flight engineer and saw their smiles, he knew it wasn’t probable they were officers of the BIS—but certain.
[THREE]
Portela Airport Lisbon, Portugal 1850 17 May 1945
The weather had not been good. And there had been no tailwind. There had been turbulence—some of it severe—several times.
Delgano had flown the entire leg with Peralta as his copilot. Frade knew that the smart thing for him to do was take over from Delgano to give him a rest. He also knew—although it wasn’t true—that Delgano would take being relieved as proof that Frade found his piloting wanting. And so would the other SAA pilots and flight engineers.
So he had let him fly.
There was also some electrical disturbance; they didn’t pick up Portela’s Radio Direction Finding signal until thirty-five minutes after the dead-reckoning flight plan said they should. Worse, when they finally heard it, it showed them to be about one hundred miles south of where they should have been.
They had been in no unusual danger. They had a little more than an hour’s fuel remaining when they touched down at Portela Airport in a driving rain.
Still, it had been anything but a pleasant flight, and Delgano’s face showed his fatigue when he looked up at Clete.
“Nice job, Gonzo,” Clete said.
The grateful look Delgano then made told Clete he had made the right decision in not trying to relieve him.
A FOLLOW ME pickup truck led them to the passenger terminal.
It was raining so hard that Clete ordered that they leave the cockpit door closed and exit the aircraft by the passenger door, up to which had been rolled a covered stairway.
When they walked into the terminal, Frade immediately saw Fernando Aragão—ostensibly the SAA director in Portugal but, more important, the Lisbon OSS station chief. He was in his fifties and chubby, with slicked-back black hair and a neatly kept pencil mustache.
With Aragão was a well-dressed, tall, slender, olive-skinned man with an arrogant air about him.
Frade disliked him on sight.
Aragão began: “Señor de Hernández, this is—”
“I am Claudio de Hernández, the ambassador,” the man cut him off. “Who’s in charge of the charter aircraft?”
Frade pointed to Delgano.
Delgano pointed to Frade.
“Well,” the ambassador immediately and more than a little arrogantly demanded, “which is it?”
Then, before anyone could reply, he demanded of Frade, who was wearing his Naval Aviator’s leather jacket, “Who are you, señor?”
“Who did you say you were?” Frade replied.
“I am Claudio de Hernández, the Argentine ambassador.”
“Good. I was wondering how I was going to find you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Have you got something that says you’re the ambassador? A diplomatic passport, a carnet, something like that?”
“I don’t think I like your attitude or tone of voice, señor.”
“I don’t like yours much, either,” Frade said. “We’re back to how do I know you’re who you say you are?”
“Señor Aragão has told you who I am.”
“He’s told me who he thinks you are.” Frade looked at Aragão. “Has this fellow ever shown you his identification, Fernando?”
“Actually, no,” Aragão replied. “But—”
“There you go,” Frade said.
Coldly furious, de Hernández said, “I asked you before, señor. Who are you?”
“If you can show me something that says you’re the Argentine ambassador, I’ll tell you. Otherwise, I’m going to get in a taxi and go to the hotel. It’s been a long flight, and I’m tired.”
The ambassador came up with a diplomatic carnet and shoved it at Frade.
Frade examined it.
“This is in Portuguese,” he said. “I don’t speak Portuguese. You don’t have a passport?”
The ambassador produced his diplomatic passport. “I hope you find that satisfactory, señor,” he said sarcastically.
“Well, it’s a step in the right direction. Have you got our overflight clearances, Mr. Ambassador?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “There is a problem. A small problem—”
“In other words, you don’t have them?”
“You said that once I established my bona fides you would identify yourself.”
“My name is Frade. General Farrell sent word to me that you—the Argentine Foreign Ministry anyway; I don’t recall that he specifically mentioned the Argentine ambassador to Portugal—would have the necessary overflight permission waiting for me when we arrived in Lisbon. And now you’re telling me you don’t have them. I can’t believe that General Farrell would tell me something he didn’t believe. Exactly what’s going on here, Mr. Ambassador?”
“Would you be so kind, Señor Frade, to tell me your function in this mission?”
“I’m the managing director of South American Airways. When General Farrell asked me to set this up, I was of course, as a patriotic Argentine, anxious to do what I could to rescue our diplomats from Germany, and I decided the best way I could do that was to fly the mission myself.”
“You’re a pilot?”
“How could I possibly fly this mission if I wasn’t a pilot, Mr. Ambassador?”
“I wasn’t told any of this,” the ambassador said.
“Why should you have been? And there is another problem, Mr. Ambassador. When we were at the North American Val de Cans Airfield in Brazil, I was summoned by the general in command. He made two things clear to me. First, that he suspects this flight is a cover under which senior former German officials—Nazis, to put a point on it—will be allowed to escape Germany under Argentine diplomatic protection—”
“That’s outrageous!”
“That’s what the North American general suspects. Second, he told me that if we are caught smuggling Nazis out of Germany, not only will we be tried by a U.S. Military Tribunal and put in prison for at least ten years, but they will confiscate the airplane.”
“They couldn’t do that,” Ambassador Hernández said. “We have diplomatic immunity!”
“I tried to tell him that. In effect, he said, ‘He who has the power to grant immunity has the power to take it away.’ I believe him. He was very serious. Now, I told Señor Nulder all this, and I told him to tell Ambassador Giménez, and now I’m telling you.”