Goltz nodded.
‘‘In that case, it is a rather pleasant trip. One catches a boat downtown, at ten at night, has dinner aboard, goes to a very nice stateroom, and wakes up in downtown Montevideo. ’’
‘‘That’s the quickest way?’’
‘‘One can drive. There is a ferry across the Río Uruguay at Gualeguaychú. It is about a six-hour drive, but one can, obviously, leave when one wishes.’’
‘‘There is no quicker way?’’
‘‘We have a Fieseler Storch, Herr Standartenführer. Von Wachtstein flies it. I’m sure it would be at your disposal.’’
The Fieseler Storch was a two-seat, high-wing observation and liaison aircraft powered by a V8 Argus AS 10c.3 240-horsepower engine that provided a top speed of 109 m.p.h. and a range of 400 miles.
‘‘And how long would it take by Storch?’’
‘‘That would depend, Herr Standartenführer, on how much of the journey one was willing to make over water. As the crow flies, one hour and thirty minutes. That route is essentially over the Río de la Plata. The Río de la Plata ends fifty miles north where the Río Uruguay begins. By flying north and then south over land to Montevideo, perhaps three hours.’’
‘‘Be so good as to ensure that the Storch is available, should I need it.’’
‘‘Of course, Herr Standartenführer. Is that all, Herr Standartenf ührer?’’
‘‘Thank you again, Herr Oberst.’’
Grüner left the room.
Adding his reaction to their brief personal contact to his impression of the dossier he had read in the Sicherheitsdienst headquarters in Berlin, Goltz decided very much the same thing about Grüner as Grüner had decided about him: Grüner was obviously bright and well-connected, and thus dangerous.
Goltz decided he was going to have to be very careful dealing with Oberst Grüner in the accomplishment of his mission.
VI
[ONE] 1728 Avenida Coronel Díaz Palermo, Buenos Aires 1730 9 April 1943
A 1940 Ford Fordor sedan was parked at the curb before the massive cast-iron fence. Two men were sitting in it.
More cops? Clete wondered. Or Martín’s men?
The enormous bronze lights beside the double doors to the mansion were draped in black, and black wreaths were fixed to the wrought-bronze metalwork that protected each of the double doors.
A dignified, silver-haired man in his sixties, dressed in a gray frock coat with a black mourning band around the sleeve, opened the door to them. Antonio had been el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade’s butler for longer than Clete was old.
‘‘Señor Cletus, my prayers that you would arrive in time to say farewell to your father have been answered,’’ he said.
‘‘I am here, Antonio,’’ he said ‘‘Would you offer General Ramírez and the other gentlemen something to drink— coffee, whiskey, whatever—while I change? My luggage is here?’’
‘‘You have been unpacked, Señor Cletus,’’ Antonio said.
‘‘Where did you put me?’’ Clete asked.
‘‘In the master suite, of course, Señor Cletus,’’ Antonio said. ‘‘Should I show you the way?’’
‘‘I know where it is,’’ Clete said. ‘‘Please take care of my guests.’’ He turned to General Ramírez. ‘‘I won’t be long, mi General.’’
‘‘Take whatever time you need,’’ Ramírez said.
As Clete crossed the marble-floored foyer and went up to the second floor on the left branch of the curving double stairway, he remembered two descriptions of the mansion. His father had told him that his mother referred to the place as ‘‘The Museum’’ and refused to live there. And his father himself had described it as ‘‘my money sewer on Avenida Coronel Díaz.’’
It was like a museum, both in its dimensions and in the plethora of artwork, huge oil paintings and statuary that covered the walls and open spaces. The first time he saw the building, and the artwork, he had the somewhat irreverent thought that two subjects seemed to capture the fascination of Argentine artists and sculptors: the prairie— here called La Pampa—at dusk, during a rainstorm; and women dressed in what looked like wet sheets that generally left exposed at least one large and well-formed breast.
He really wished that Antonio had put him in one of the guest rooms—there were certainly enough of them—instead of in his father’s suite. Its four rooms spread across the rear of the house, with windows opening on a formal, English-style garden surrounded by a wall.
When he reached the double doors to his father’s suite, he stopped, his hand actually raised to knock.
‘‘That’s no longer necessary, is it?’’ he asked aloud, and pushed down on the bronze lever that opened the right door.
Inside was a living room, one of the few places in the house that seem to have been furnished with anyone’s comfort in mind. To the right was a book-lined office. Straight ahead was the bedroom, with a dressing room to one side and a bath to the other. The furniture everywhere was heavy, and the couches and armchairs seemed to him to be constructed lower to the floor than such furniture in the States.
He took off his jacket and tossed it on the bed, then went into the dressing room.
‘‘I wonder where they hid my stuff?’’ he asked aloud.
He slid open the first of a line of doors along the right side of the dressing room.
‘‘I’ll be damned,’’ he said.
The closet held the three suits and three sports coats he had brought with him, and on separate hangers half a dozen pair of trousers. He took from a hanger a brand-new, nearly black, faintly pin-striped suit—one he had dubbed, when he bought it in Washington, ‘‘my diplomat’s uniform’’— carried it back into the bedroom, and tossed it on the bed.
It got through to him that his entire clothing wardrobe looked very lonely in the large closet.
He went back into the dressing room and slid open the adjacent door. That closet was absolutely empty, and so was the one next to it. On the other side of the room, a closet with shelves for God Only Knows how many shirts now held only the dozen new shirts he had purchased— like two of the suits—for his diplomatic assignment, along with half a dozen other shirts. The closet next to that held the three sweaters he had brought with him—on shelves that would accommodate fifty. The final closet held his dozen sets of shorts and skivvy shirts, plus his shoes and boots—including his favorite, battered, ancient pair of cowboy boots, which someone had already made a determined, if unsuccessful, effort to shine—and his half-dozen neckties and two pairs of suspenders.
The last time he saw the dressing room, the closets were crowded with his father’s clothing. El Coronel Frade was something of a clotheshorse. Now it was all gone. He wondered where.
He picked out a necktie and linen, and suspenders—the salesman in Washington had insisted on calling them ‘‘braces’’—and after a moment’s indecision, his new pair of ‘‘dress boots,’’ and carried everything into the bedroom, where he tossed it all on the bed.
The enormous bathroom, marble-floored and-walled, as large as Clete’s bedroom in the old man’s house on St. Charles Avenue, was even worse. His battered Gillette safety razor, comb, brush, toothbrush, toothpaste, and half-empty bottle of Mennen’s After Shave lotion were laid out to the left of the washbasin, a depression two feet across in a twenty-foot slab of marble. On the other side of the basin was arrayed an obviously new sterling silver version of the Gillette in a silver case, and in the event that wasn’t acceptable, a set of seven ivory-handled straight razors. There was a shaving brush and a wooden tub of English shaving soap; two different kinds of bath soap; an array of bottles of what he presumed were after shave and cologne; a matched set of hairbrushes and a tortoiseshell comb that looked large and sturdy enough to do a horse’s mane.
A thick terry-cloth bathrobe was laid out farther down the marble slab. And a chrome stand near the glass door to the shower held four towels and a washcloth.
Clete stripped, picked up one of th
e bars of soap and his Gillette, and opened the shower door. He showered quickly and shaved, using the bath soap, a time-saving device he had learned in his first year at Texas A&M, where cadets were allotted about five minutes each morning for their personal toilette.
He came out of the shower and took a towel—a warm towel; the chrome stand was obviously a heating device— and dried himself. He looked at the terry-cloth robe, decided there was no time for that luxury, and walked naked out of the bath into the living room to get his underwear.
A uniformed maid was standing there, a young woman with her hair drawn back severely under a lace cap, who had pushed a serving tray into the room. When she saw him, she flushed and modestly averted her eyes.
‘‘Sorry,’’ Clete said, grossly embarrassed, and retreated into the bathroom for the terry-cloth robe.
Modestly covered, he returned to the bedroom.
‘‘Antonio was not sure if you would prefer coffee, tea, or whiskey, Señor Frade,’’ the maid said, indicating the cart, which held silver coffee and tea pitchers, three bottles, and all the accessories.
‘‘Coffee, please, and that will be all,’’ Clete said, went to the bed for his underwear, and again retreated to the bathroom.
The maid was gone when he came out again. Coffee had been poured and was waiting for him on a small round table. He took a sip, grimaced at its strength, put the cup down, and went to the tray.
He picked up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, uncorked it, and took a healthy swallow from the neck.
Then he dressed quickly, returning a final time to the bathroom to tie the necktie and brush his hair.
The uniform caps of General Ramírez and the other of ficers were lined up in a row on a table in the foyer. He found the officers themselves sitting comfortably in the couches and armchairs of the downstairs reception room. They all rose to their feet when he walked in.
[TWO] Ministry of Defense Edificio Libertador Avenida Paseo Colón Buenos Aires 1845 9 April 1943
There were both ceremonial and functioning guards on the wide steps leading up to the entrance of the fifteen-story Edificio Libertador. The ceremonial troops were in a uniform9that dated back to Argentina’s War of Independence (1810-16). They were armed with rifles and sabers of the period and stood at rigid attention, seeing nothing, like the guards at Buckingham Palace. A dozen other soldiers, in present-day German-style uniforms and steel helmets and armed with Mauser rifles, were shepherding a long line of people into the building.
The Marine officer in Clete Howell Frade—remembering that the soldiers who march perpetually guarding the Tombof the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery allow absolutely nothing, not even the President of the United States, to disturb their ritual—wondered if the ceremonial guards here would salute the Minister of War. They did not, but the sergeant in charge of the other detail scurried quickly both to salute Ramírez and to quickly open a door for them.
Clete followed Ramírez across the lobby of the building to a corridor to the right. The line of people he had seen outside was obviously headed in the same direction.
To my father’s casket? Why does that bother me?
As Clete followed Ramírez past it, the shuffling line moved slowly through a corridor. The corridor was lined with foreign flags, their flagstaffs resting in heavy bronze, vaselike holders. The Stars and Stripes looked strange somehow, as just one flag among many. He spotted the German flag, with its swastika, and the Japanese, with its red-ball ‘‘rising sun,’’ similarly lost among other flags and flags he could not remember seeing before. He smiled, remembering that the Air Group parachute riggers on Guadalcanal had made a very nice buck, indeed, turning out on their sewing machines Genuine Japanese Battle Flags for sale to gullible replacements and dogfaces.
They probably use this place for diplomatic receptions, he decided. If you show up, they haul your flag out of the corridor to make you feel welcome.
The corridor ended at another enormous set of double doors, also guarded by soldiers in ordinary uniforms. Only one of them was open, and as they approached, a sergeant stopped the shuffling line and motioned for Ramírez, Clete, and the officers trailing behind them to enter the room. In turn, Ramírez signaled for Clete to precede him.
He found himself in an enormous, marble-floored and marble-walled room that reminded him of photographs he had seen of Hitler’s Reichschancellery in Berlin. He started to walk across the room to the end of the shuffling line of people, but Ramírez stopped him with a gentle tug at his sleeve.
It took several minutes for the last people in the shuffling line to pass by the casket at the far end of the room, but finally Clete could see it. It was on what looked like a table draped in black velvet. Hanging from the ceiling above— which must be fifty, sixty feet high, at least, Clete thought— was a huge Argentine flag three times as wide as the casket was long.
That has that golden-face-in-a-sunburst centered on the blue-white-blue stripes, Clete thought, which makes it a military flag. The ordinary flag has just the stripes.
Behind the casket were massed twenty or thirty normal-size Argentine military flags in holders placed so close together that the flags formed a blue and white mass.
At each corner of the casket, facing outward, head bent, his hands resting near the muzzle of a butt-on-the-floor Mauser cavalry carbine, stood a trooper of the Húsares de Pueyrredón, in full dress uniform.10Behind the casket was a Capitán of Húsares, head bent, his hands resting on his unsheathed saber.
Ramírez touched Clete’s arm, a signal that he was supposed to approach the casket. He walked alone, uncomfortably, down the one hundred feet or so toward it. When he was halfway there, he heard a faint order being given, and was surprised to see the troopers and the officers, in slow motion, raise their heads and then bring their weapons to Present Arms, the troopers with their carbines held at arm’s length in front of them, the Capitán with his saber also held upright at arm’s length.
He remembered his father, who’d had more than a couple of drinks at the time, telling him that he was not at all surprised that he had ‘‘done well’’ in the Corps, since the blood of Pueyrredón—of whom Clete had never heard before that moment—‘‘coursed through his veins.’’
That salute is as much for me, as the great-great-grandson, or whatever the hell I am, of Pueyrredón, as it is for my father.
He felt his throat tighten, and his eyes watered.
For Christ’s sake, control yourself. You’re a Marine of ficer, and Marine officers don’t weep!
He reached the closed, beautifully carved solid cedar casket. An Argentine flag was draped over the lower half of it. His father’s high-crowned, gold-encrusted uniform cap and a blue velvet pillow covered with medals rested on the upper portion.
Where the hell did you get all those medals, Dad? Argentina ’s never been in a war. So far as I know, you never heard a shot fired in anger.
Except one, of course. El Coronel-Medico Orrico said death came instantaneously.
He dropped to his knees at the prie-dieu.
I don’t want to think of you inside that casket, Dad. I’ve seen what happens to people when they take a load of 00-buckshot in the face.
I’m sorry my coming here got you killed.
I’m sorry I spent most of my life thinking you were an unmitigated sonofabitch.
I feel sorry as hell for myself because I will never get to know you better.
I really hope that Enrico was right, and that you’re with the angels and my mother in heaven.
And I swear to God, Dad, I’ll get the sonsofbitches who did this to you.
He rose to his feet. As he did, he heard the Húsares Capitán murmur another order. He looked at him. The Capit án was starting the slow-motion routine of changing from Present Arms to whatever the hell they call that head-bowed, hands-on-weapon position.
Clete snapped his right hand to his temple in a crisp salute. There was surprise and maybe displeasure in the Capitán’s eyes.
&
nbsp; Well, fuck you, Capitán. I’m an officer, you’re an officer, and my father was an officer. If I want to salute, I goddamn well will salute.
He held the salute until the Capitán had rested his hands on his saber again and started to incline his head. Then he made a precise left-face movement and marched away from the casket.
The Capitán who had come aboard the seaplane, now wearing a Húsares full dress uniform, and who Clete decided was probably a couple of years older than he was, stood by a door at the side of the room. He motioned to Clete, and Clete went through the door and found himself in a small room furnished with heavy, leather-upholstered furniture.
‘‘May I offer you a small refreshment, Mayor Frade?’’ the Capitán asked.
Sure. Why the hell not? A couple of canapés, how about a cucumber sandwich and a deviled egg?
The Capitán held a bottle of Johnnie Walker scotch in one hand and a bottle of Martel cognac in the other.
‘‘The cognac, por favor, Capitán,’’ Clete said.
The snifter he was handed a moment later was half full of liquid. He had just taken a healthy swallow and was beginning to feel the warmth spread through his body when generals Ramírez and Rawson came into the room. Ramírez took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his eyes.
‘‘A soldier is not supposed to show emotion,’’ Ramírez said. ‘‘But when you saluted . . .’’
Well, at least he didn’t disapprove. That makes me feel better.
Ramírez pointed a finger at Clete’s snifter, as a signal to the Capitán to get him one.
‘‘What we will do, with your permission, Señor Frade,’’ Ramírez said, ‘‘is wait for the other officers to join us. Then, if you think it is appropriate, we will raise our glasses a final time in the presence of your father.’’
‘‘I think he would like that, mi General.’’
‘‘And then I will turn you over to Capitán Lauffer, who is General Rawson’s aide-de-camp,’’ Ramírez said, inclining his head toward the Húsares Capitán. ‘‘He will be with you until after the interment tomorrow. If there is anything you need that the Capitán cannot provide, please get in touch with me.’’
Blood and Honor Page 15
