Madame Zhi’s nephew had panicked, struggling with Powers as the sergeant tried to get him into the chair. A British marine—Jo thought it looked like an officer—was coming down the near ladder to lend a hand. Jo crabbed forward in the boat. “It’s all right!” she yelled to the youngster. “You’ll be fine!”
“No! No!” The boy kicked out at Powers, who avoided the first blow but not the second, taking it on his left shoulder. He fell back down into the Zodiac with a grunt. The boy was halfway onto the small platform of the chair, eyes wild, and Jo reached for him as he tried to slide out of the chair back into the boat. Jo grabbed a wrist as the boy came out, but the swaying of the lift brought him a bit too far forward, and he bounced off the hard rubber bow of the Zodiac and flipped into the sea, pulling Jo after him.
The shock of the cold water numbed her, even though she’d been drenched with spray during their wild ride from the island. It was pitch black, and Jo fought against panic as she tried to gain some measure of control and stop her descent. She felt the boy’s flailing arms crash into her, and then one clamped around her neck, followed by the other. She gagged, forcing out some of the precious air she’d been able to inhale before going in.
Jo’s underwater training came back to her, and she quickly pried one arm loose by pinching the ulnar nerve at the elbow. But the training was so long ago, and she was so tired and it was so cold…The boy thrashed with his suddenly useless arm but locked the other even tighter around Jo’s neck. She felt her lungs about to burst, and then came a sharp blow on her head that made everything even blacker than before.
CHAPTER THREE
Estancia Valhalla, Argentina
November 1981
They seemed nearly without end. La pampas, the natives called them, the prairies stretching so many kilometers to the west, to the foothills of the distant and invisible Andes. The man gazing upon them now, from the veranda outside his office, knew them by that name, but also by another, seemingly less elegant name: die Steppen. His father’s name for the vastness, and the son knew that name, but also the native name, because in truth he was a man of two cultures, and many days, like today, he felt them pulling him this way, then that.
For perhaps the thousandth time, he wondered if it was it like this when his father and fellow countrymen first pushed eastward from occupied Poland, forty years ago, into Russia. As they looked upon it from their airplanes, their tank turrets, their troop trucks, were they awed by the vastness, by the challenge before them? No. They would have gone forward with apprehension, certainly, but tempered with the iron discipline of their race and profession, the confidence bred by years of triumph, and the admonition of their superiors that only inferior peoples stood between them and a victory unmatched in their nation’s history.
He looked down at the cognac swirling in his glass. Ah, but if they had only succeeded, he wouldn’t be here now. Where would he be? Perhaps in that very place now, enjoying the new Lebensraum bought with blood by his father’s generation, the living space seized from the subhuman Slavs and their Jewish masters. An industrialist, with factories belching smoke around the clock and churning out ever more tanks and planes and ships, or maybe consumer goods for the people whose sacrifices had made it all possible. Yes, they would be driving his Volkswagens along mighty Autobahnen stretching from the Urals to the Pyrenees.
Or maybe he would be a landowner, with thousands of hectares under his dominion, breeding horses and cattle, and people would give him the title of Freiherr, even if such appellations were archaic in modern times. He liked the sound of it, though. Baron Wilhelm von Baumann. It had a ring to it, as the Americans would say, especially when he added the formal von.
Yet he also liked the sound of el jefe, the chief, the title used by many of his native employees when they spoke to him. When he gazed out over the lands his father had amassed, and which would someday be his own—were his already, in all but name—he felt a fierce sense of pride. The call of the pampas was strong, and even now he felt his heart race from the memory of his powerful horse beneath him as they thundered across the prairie, the hot bloodlust that gripped him when he watched the señoritas dance the chacarera, even the pleasant tug of lethargy when he saw someone taking an afternoon siesta or talking about putting something off till mañana.
His mixed heritage could be a blessing or a curse, and sometimes he wavered between the extremes by the day, even by the hour. More often, he felt it was a curse. He knew, for instance, that if his father’s cause had been victorious, he never would’ve been able to take his wife back to his homeland. Although Anna Baumann’s heritage was primarily German, like many of her countrymen, it was not purely Aryan. She would have been considered below his station, and her Spanish blood might have caused her to be considered little better than a common Gypsy.
And with a shudder, he remembered what had happened to those people.
No. While he appreciated the charms of his mother’s heritage, the benefits of living in the country in which he had been born, he had always identified more with his father. Like most of his expatriate countrymen, Dieter had sought a wife with strong German roots, and almost without exception the children, especially the males, were raised in their fathers’ culture. A culture that had produced a warrior class so proud, so mighty, that their nation had come close to capturing the world.
But they had failed. No, that wasn’t quite true, he thought, remembering his reading, and the stories told by his father and his Kameraden, of heroism on the battlefield undone by political bunglers back home, fools who had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory even as the soldiers could see the onion-shaped domes of the enemy’s capital. Bunglers…idiots…some of the milder words he’d heard from the Kameraden about those dark days. And yet, weren’t some of those same men among the very group who had made those disastrous decisions? Willy knew from his reading that must be so, yet it had never been spoken of. Not for the first time, he wondered about that, about where the truth really lay.
In any event, he was here, on a warm November day, so many thousands of kilometers from where he sometimes felt should be: in the land of his father’s birth, on the continent that should be his now, his and his generation’s. Instead they had this one. A beautiful and bountiful land, to be sure, but with no history, no tradition. A land where Stone Age savages had built a semblance of civilization, but one so weak it would be swept away by a few hundred Spaniards on horseback. And what kind of legacy had those conquistadores built? Tinpot dictators who plundered the land and then hid from the people behind toy armies that wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the field against the Wehrmacht.
The glass door creaked open behind him, and he heard the tapping of his father’s cane, the shuffling of the slippered feet upon the wood. He turned to face the old man. “Hello, Father,” he said with genuine respect. Germany’s defeat had not been caused by men like Dieter Baumann, who shed his blood on the steppes of Russia and then came to this foreign land to work tirelessly for the Fatherland.
“Ach, but it is a beautiful day,” his father said in his native German. He knew Spanish, of course, even spoke fluently it with a cultivated Buenos Aires accent, but within the family, and the Kameraden, it was always German. How many times during his childhood had Willy been scolded for lapsing into the language of their adopted country? He’d heard “Sprechen sie Deutsch!” too many times to count. “What are you drinking so early in the day?” the old man said now.
“Cognac,” Willy answered. “Would you like some?”
“French goat-piss,” Dieter Baumann spat. “I suppose you left the schnapps inside?”
In spite of himself, the son grinned. “I’m afraid so,” he said. His hand moved to a nearby button. “I can have Ernesto bring you a glass.”
The old man waved it off. “Thank you, no.” He adjusted the threadbare smoking jacket around his bony shoulders and shuffled forward to the railing next to his son. “Yes, a beautiful day,” he said again, hooking his ca
ne on the railing and leaning forward, supported by his hands.
“It will be warm again,” Willy said, looking outward with his father.
“After all these years, I’m still not used to it,” Dieter gruffed. “Summer in the wintertime. Raising a glass and saying ‘Fröhliche Weihnachten!’ during a heat wave.” He shook his head, one lock of gray hair coming loose and dropping across his furrowed forehead. Dieter absent-mindedly brushed it back into place with a liver-spotted hand.
How much time does he have left, Willy wondered for the first time today. He was seventy-four now, elderly, and yet still among the youngest of the Bund’s surviving founders. How many of the old men were left now? Dieter knew, certainly. Frail though his body might be, his mind was still as sharp as ever, something that couldn’t be said for many of the Kameraden. Enough of them were still around and sharp enough to be firmly in charge of the Bund, Willy had to remind himself, with a touch of envy. Well, his generation’s time was coming, hopefully soon.
Dieter coughed once, then again. He pulled a brilliantly-white handkerchief from the left sleeve of the smoking jacket and wiped his lips with it. “How are you feeling?” his son asked.
“Like any old man, some days fine, some days like scheiss,” Dieter croaked. He coughed again, then barked out a laugh. “If your mother were still here, though, I could muster up enough good days to enjoy myself a bit.”
Willy Baumann looked at his father in surprise. He had never heard him speak of his late wife with such lustiness. And yet, who could blame him? Anna Baumann may have been ten years in the grave by now, but her memory was still clear in the mind of her son, and undoubtedly even more so in that of her husband. She had been a beautiful woman indeed, a cultivated daughter of Argentine high society who nevertheless was called “meine Feuerballerin”, my fireball, by Dieter on the few occasions Willy had been witness to real intimacy between husband and wife. He could imagine what had gone on behind closed doors, though, having known a few native fräuleins himself.
“So, what is happening?” Dieter asked.
Willy knew that he meant the family business, and not the business they engaged in openly. The cattle, the cement works and power plants, the newspapers and radio stations, all purchased and built up over the years, the companies that made Baumann a name of influence in Argentine politics and high finance, were tended to quite efficiently by Willy now that Dieter was in retirement. So efficiently, in fact, that the family was now one of the richest in the country. No, his father was asking about the family’s real business.
“Alles ist in ordnung,” he answered. All is in order, a phrase that was particularly pleasing to any German’s ear, no less his father’s. “I spoke with Heinz by telephone an hour ago. He will be meeting with the General tomorrow to discuss the South Georgia question.” The General was Roberto Viola, the current head of the junta that ruled Argentina. Heinz Nagel, a close friend of Willy’s, was the Bund’s chief operative in Buenos Aires and its main contact with the junta.
“What does Heinz think?”
“He believes the general will be agreeable to our timetable,” Willy said carefully. In truth, Heinz was certain that Viola would do exactly as he was told, but as always, Willy wanted to be cautious. They had not gotten this far by being reckless.
Dieter nodded, and Willy could almost hear the gears turning inside. His father had been in this country more than forty years now, and knew its people better than any of the other German expatriates ever would. After all, he’d had the ear of Juan Perón himself, and were it not for his father’s tireless dedication to the cause, Project CAPRICORN never would have happened. And now, after all the years, all the work, all the danger and intrigue, they were so close…
“Make sure to inform the Reichsleiter as soon as you have confirmation from Heinz,” Dieter said firmly.
“Of course,” Willy said, automatically glancing around to see if any servants were present. Only among select members of the Bund was the word “Reichsleiter” even uttered; it appeared nowhere on any correspondence, could be found in no file. The Reichsleiter’s real name was even more of a secret. Dieter knew it, of course, and so did Willy, but beyond the two of them, how many knew the true identity of their leader? Twenty? Thirty? Certainly not many more. It was the Bund’s most coveted secret. If the man’s existence were revealed, the Jews would go mad for revenge. Everyone remembered what had happened to Eichmann.
Even mentioning the man’s title was risky, but Dieter felt secure enough here, on his own estate, with only his son within earshot. Dieter had taught his son early to be very careful in trusting anyone. The Bund’s success, indeed its very survival, depended on its true nature being kept secret from the outside world. Even their Argentine hosts had no real idea, although some of the higher-placed and smarter ones undoubtedly suspected. If any did, though, they wisely kept quiet. The Bund had been active on this continent for nearly four decades, and its reach was long.
“Assuming the general is as agreeable as Heinz believes he will be,” Dieter said, “when will we move on South Georgia?”
“March,” Willy answered at once. Anticipating his father’s next question, he said, “The Malvinas in April.”
“And the Englandern?”
“They have one ship still in these waters, HMS Endurance, a destroyer. Their Admiralty is in the process of reducing their fleet and our contact in London predicts the ship will be recalled early in the New Year.”
“The fools,” Dieter said. “The South Georgia occupation will come after that?”
“We will set our date and move then, whether or not the ship is still on station,” Willy said confidently. “The very same ship was on station when we took South Thule in 1976, and the English did nothing.”
“They will do something when the Malvinas fall,” Dieter said, once again using the Argentine name for the islands the English knew as the Falklands.
“Let us hope so,” Willy said. “Sometime around late May, we think.” It was ironic, really. If they waited to seize the islands in late May, just before the onset of the brutal South Atlantic winter, the operation would be a tactical success but a strategic failure. The Argentines were almost fanatically focused on regaining control of the islands they’d lost to the English over a century before, but they weren’t stupid. Capturing the islands just before winter would keep the Royal Navy out of the fight for months, and by then the doves in the British government would have taken over. They would push for a negotiated settlement of the issue. Somehow, the junta had to be persuaded to move early enough to make sure the English would have enough time to send their fleet. That would take some delicate maneuvering on the part of the Bund, but Heinz was confident it could be done. Willy trusted his friend’s instincts, but there was a contingency plan in case the junta decided to wait.
The old man grunted. “Six months from now,” he said. “I hope I will live to see it.”
Surprising himself, Willy reached out and touched his father’s arm. “You will,” he said, emotion making his voice a bit husky.
Dieter nodded, his lips a thin smile. “You are a good son, Willy. So good that I don’t have to ask you if everything is going well at Pilcaniyeu.”
“We are ahead of schedule there, Father,” Willy said with a touch of pride. The Bund had entrusted the Baumanns with this most vital part of the project, thanks to the family’s experience in the energy industry, not to mention Dieter’s influence within the upper hierarchy and his political contacts back in what was left of the Fatherland. It was said the Reichsleiter himself had anointed the elder Baumann with this responsibility some fifteen years ago.
Dieter nodded again. “When the Union Jack is lowered over the Malvinas, their hag of a prime minister will assemble her fleet and send it south,” he said.
“She will have to,” Willy said, “or her government will fall. Then her successor will do it anyway.”
“She’ll do it,” Dieter said confidently. “She will want to show sh
e has die Hoden of a man.” That brought a laugh from his son, knowing from his own reading that Margaret Thatcher’s opponents already suspected she might somehow have had testicles surgically attached.
“When their fleet arrives, we shall be ready, Father, that I can promise you.”
Dieter Baumann looked at his son, and his gray eyes were as hard and cold as Willy had ever seen them. “We had better be,” he said. “Seven million Germans gave their lives in the last war. We must ensure they did not die in vain.”
The shrilling of the telephone interrupted the moment. The two men looked out at the land in silence for a minute, until Ernesto cleared his throat behind them. “Pardon me, Herr Oberst,” he said in fluent German, using Willy’s military rank of colonel. “There is an urgent telephone call for you from Buenos Aires.”
“Thank you,” Willy said. He walked quickly past the Argentine butler into the office. Five minutes later, he returned to his father’s side.
“What is it?” the old man asked. He squinted at his son. “What has happened?”
“That was Heinz,” Willy said. “General Viola has suffered a heart attack.”
Dieter slammed his cane on the wooden deck. “Scheiss!”
CHAPTER FOUR
Lamma Island, Hong Kong
November 1981
“You know, I’d be happy to take you to a nicer place.”
Jo Ann smiled across the table at her escort. “This is fine,” she said. “I’ve been told the food here is excellent.”
“Perhaps, but the atmosphere is somewhat…rustic.” Major Ian Masters was possessed of a fine wit, as Jo had already discovered. “The Royal Navy is rather parsimonious, but I can certainly afford something a bit more, shall we say, upscale?”
“Nonsense,” Jo said. “Besides, it’s my treat. You did say I could buy you dinner, remember?”
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