When Clete drove past Peter’s apartment building looking for a place to park, he saw the doorman sitting behind his tiny desk in the lobby, his hands folded on his stomach, sound asleep.
He thought it very likely that the doorman got a weekly envelope from Teniente Coronel Martín of the Bureau of Internal Security in exchange for a report on who rode up to Piso 10 and when and how long they stayed.
Or perhaps two envelopes, the second from the Policía Federal. Or maybe even three. Peter told me that there are two obscure flunkies at the Embassy who really work for the Military Attaché, who is really, in addition to his other duties, the counterintelligence officer. They’re probably keeping an eye on Peter, too.
If I go up to see Peter—or just ask the doorman if he’s at home—that means Martín—and probably the Policía Federal and Colonel Whatsisname . . . Grüner . . . will hear about it. I can’t risk that, so what the hell do I do?
Don’t try to see Peter tonight, obviously.
Shit.
But then the doorbells caught his eye. The doorbell system was mounted on a marble pillar outside the lobby— Clete had never seen anything like it anywhere but in Buenos Aires. There were buttons for each apartment, and an intercom. You pushed the proper apartment number, identified yourself, and if the person called wanted to let you in, he pushed a button operating the solenoid-controlled lock on the plate-glass door leading into the lobby.
The question is, Clete decided, can Sleepy in the lobby see who’s pushing the bells if he wakes up? He looked. He can, if he wakes up. But even if he does, he won’t know what button I’ve pushed. I can at least talk to Peter, if not go up to his apartment. Tell him to call me, or something.
He parked the Ford around the corner and walked back to the apartment building. The doorman was still asleep.
It took three long pushes at button number 10 before there was an annoyed, even angry, ‘‘Hola?’’
‘‘Clete.’’
There was just a moment’s hesitation.
‘‘Go around the corner, to your right,’’ Peter’s metallic-sounding voice said.
Clete turned from the doorbell system on the marble pillar and walked away. The doorman was still asleep. To the right was in the opposite direction from where he had parked the Ford.
He turned on his heel, went to the Ford, and started driving around the block. No pedestrians were on the sidewalk, and so far as he could tell, no one was sitting in any of the automobiles parked along the curb on Avenida Pueyrredón. On his second pass past the apartment building, he saw Peter walking quickly toward the corner.
He drove by him, flicked his headlights, and pulled to the curb. Peter jumped in the front seat, and Clete drove off.
‘‘See if anyone’s following,’’ Peter ordered.
There were no headlights in the rearview mirror.
‘‘Nobody,’’ Clete said. ‘‘Where should we go?’’
‘‘There’s a bar on Libertador that’s usually crowded this time of night,’’ Peter said. ‘‘Just past the American Ambassador ’s residence, by the railroad bridge. It’s called ‘The Horse.’ ’’
‘‘How are you, my friend?’’ Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein of the Luftwaffe said to Major Cletus Howell Frade of the U.S. Marine Corps.
‘‘How do you think?’’ Clete replied, raising his glass of Johnnie Walker to touch Peter’s.
They were sitting at a small table on a balcony overlooking the ground-floor bar and restaurant of The Horse. When they started up the balcony stairs, they got an odd look from the waiter, who could not understand why two young men would go to the nearly deserted balcony when at least a half-dozen attractive, and unattached, women were sitting at the bar.
The two had met the previous December. When Clete first came to Argentina, his father turned the guest house over to him—‘‘Uncle Willy’s House’’ across from the racetrack on Avenida del Libertador. After a trip to Uruguay, where he had acquired explosives to blow up the Reine de la Mer—never used, as it turned out—Clete returned to the house to find Peter sitting in the sitting room, sipping his fourth glass of cognac as he listened to Beethoven’s Third Symphony on the phonograph.
Either because she didn’t know that Clete was staying in the house, or because she was so detached from reality that she did not consider that a Luftwaffe officer and a U.S. Marine Corps officer were officially enemies, Beatrice Frade de Duarte had ordered von Wachtstein to be put up in the guest house.
It was then well after midnight, and there was nothing the two young officers could do but declare that a temporary truce existed between them. They sealed the truce with a glass of cognac, and then another. And several more.
And then it became apparent that they really had a great deal in common. Both were fighter pilots, which provided an immediate bond between them. Peter had heard of the exploits of the greatly outnumbered Marine fighter pilots on Guadalcanal, and had an understandable fellow fighter pilot’s professional admiration for someone who had been one of them. And Clete had heard of the ferocious valor of German fighter pilots defending Berlin from waves of B- 17 bombers and had a fellow fighter pilot’s professional admiration for someone who had been one of them.
By the time they staggered off to bed, they were friends.
But this truce ended very early the next morning when an Argentine officer, learning that the two enemies were under the same roof on Libertador, appeared to remove von Wachtstein from the difficult situation before one tried to kill the other.
Later, when von Wachtstein learned that it was Oberst Grüner’s intention to ‘‘eliminate’’ Cletus Howell Frade— by then identified as an OSS agent—von Wachtstein, after a painful moral battle with himself, decided he could not stand silently by and watch it happen. He warned Clete that an attempt would be made on his life.
Clete, forewarned, was able to deal with the assassins when they came to the Libertador house. The equation, so far as Clete was concerned, was simple. He owed von Wachtstein his life, and told him so.
Shortly afterward, Peter received from his father the letter in which he told him that he was required by honor to join the small group of German officers who saw it as their duty to kill Adolf Hitler, and that he had done so. From the tone of the letter, it was clear that Generalleutnant von Wachtstein fully expected to lose his life and was prepared for that.
Peter was not surprised. He had by then already smuggled into Argentina the equivalent of half a million dollars in Swiss francs, English pounds, United States dollars, and Swedish kroner. His father had given him this money to safeguard in Argentina until the war was over. When his father did this, he explained that ‘‘a friend’’ in Argentina would not only help him invest the money, but would also receive more money from other sources to be safeguarded.
The friend turned out to be Ambassador Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger. Soon after he was so identified, the Ambassador informed Peter that getting money to Argentina was only the beginning of the problems they faced. Protecting the money and investing it was very risky. All over Argentina there were Nazi sympathizers who would quickly report anything suspicious to Grüner and his operatives. In Nazi Germany, illegal foreign financial transactions were considered treason. The penalty for treason was the execution of the traitor, all members of his immediate family, and the confiscation of all lands and property of whatever kind.
Reluctantly, but with no other choice that he could see, Peter went to Clete for assistance. And Clete in turn went to his father, carrying with him Generalleutnant von Wachtstein ’s letter to Peter. The letter so moved el Coronel Frade that he wept. And he immediately enlisted his brother-in-law, Humberto Valdez Duarte, Managing Director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank, to deal with the secret investment and safekeeping of the money.
‘‘Saying I’m sorry about your father seems pretty damned inadequate, Cletus.’’
Clete shrugged his understanding.
‘‘Tell me what you know about what ha
ppened,’’ he said.
‘‘I didn’t know about the details,’’ Peter said. ‘‘But I was aware that something like that was going to be attempted. I tried to tell your father that. . . . I’m terribly sorry, Clete."
"Why?"
‘‘I suppose I don’t enjoy the complete confidence of Oberst Grüner,’’ Peter said. ‘‘Oh, you mean why did they . . . ?’’
‘‘Kill my father?’’
‘‘The order came from Berlin. Both Grüner and the Ambassador tried to stop it. Grüner for professional reasons— he knew how angry your father’s friends would be. Von Lutzenberger? I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he happily went along with Grüner’s objection that it would cause trouble. What I think—and this is only a guess—is that there were several reasons for the assassination. One, they didn’t want your father to become President of Argentina. Two, they couldn’t let the destruction of the Reine de la Mer go unavenged. You were in America . . . your father was here. What do they call that, ‘two birds with one stone’?’’
‘‘Christ!’’
‘‘Three,’’ Peter went on, ‘‘they wanted to punish your father for changing sides, to make the point that traitors can expect to be punished. Four, they wanted to frighten the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, make the point that they have the ability to assassinate anyone who gets in their way.’’
‘‘But Grüner gave the order, right?’’
‘‘Grüner carried out the order.’’
‘‘What’s the difference?’’
Peter shrugged.
‘‘I’m going to get that sonofabitch,’’ Clete said evenly.
‘‘If you could get him, which might not be easy to do . . ."
‘‘I’m going to get that sonofabitch!’’
‘‘. . . all that will happen is that they will send somebody else in, even before they persona non grata you out of Argentina, ’’ Peter said. ‘‘As a matter of fact, there’s already somebody here.’’
‘‘Excuse me?’’
‘‘I spent most of the day with Standartenführer Josef Goltz.’’
‘‘What’s a Standartenführer?’’
‘‘Colonel, in the SS,’’ Peter said. ‘‘We had a Lufthansa Condor flight today . . .’’
‘‘I saw it. It was making its approach as we came in,’’ Clete said. ‘‘Good-looking plane.’’
‘‘. . . and he was on it. I thought it was significant that he left Berlin right after we cabled them about what had happened to your father.’’
‘‘You think he’s the man who ordered—’’
‘‘I don’t know that,’’ Peter said. ‘‘It’s possible. He’s some sort of a big shot, I know. Just before he came here he was at Wolfsschanze . . .’’
‘‘Where?’’
‘‘Hitler’s headquarters—it means ‘Wolf’s Lair’—near Rastenburg, in East Prussia. That it even exists is supposed to be secret. And he’s Sicherheitsdienst.’’
‘‘What does that mean?’’
‘‘The Sicherheitsdienst—SD—is the secret police, the elite of the SS. Sicherheitsdienst plus Wolfsschanze adds up to two Very Important Nasty People.’’
‘‘How do you know he was at . . . what did you call it?’’
‘‘Wolfsschanze,’’ Peter supplied. ‘‘Because he brought me a letter from my father. My father’s stationed at Wolfsschanze. A letter and some major’s insignia.’’
‘‘What’s he doing here?’’
‘‘I don’t know. I know he’s meeting with the Ambassador, Grüner, and Gradny-Sawz tomorrow morning,’’ Peter said. ‘‘And I know he wants to go to Uruguay— Montevideo—as soon as he can. He wants me to fly him there in our Storch, but he doesn’t like the idea of going direct, over the Río de la Plata.’’
‘‘I know the feeling,’’ Clete said. ‘‘Every time I’m out of sight of land, I imagine my engine is making strange noises.’’
‘‘I didn’t like crossing the English Channel,’’ Peter said. ‘‘Anyway, I suspect, as anxious as this guy is to get there, he’ll tell me to take the over-solid-earth route.’’
‘‘Why is he so anxious to get to Montevideo?’’
Peter shrugged.
‘‘He didn’t say,’’ he said, then changed the subject: ‘‘Clete, I have a real problem.’’
‘‘What’s that?’’
‘‘You remember that letter I got from my father? The one your father translated for you?’’
‘‘What about it?’’
‘‘Don’t bother to tell me I should have burned it,’’ Peter said.
‘‘It’s still around?’’ Peter nodded. ‘‘Why, for Christ’s sake? If Grüner gets his hands on that . . .’’
‘‘I won’t blame it on your father,’’ Peter said. ‘‘But he ... I didn’t want to burn it. Your father thought it would be a good thing to have after the war.’’
‘‘So you kept it.’’
In your shoes, I would have done the same thing.
‘‘Your father was keeping it for me.’’
‘‘Where?’’
‘‘I don’t know for sure. In some safe place. Probably with the records of the investments. And I don’t like to think what would happen to a lot of people—Ambassador von Lutzenberger and maybe even your uncle Humberto— if those records fell into the wrong hands.’’
‘‘Where do you think they are?’’
‘‘Did your father have a safe at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo? Or some other place besides the obvious . . . bank safety-deposit boxes, for example?’’
‘‘I don’t know. Seems likely. But I don’t know. I’ll ask Claudia.’’
‘‘I don’t think there’s a hell of a lot of time.’’
‘‘I understand,’’ Clete said. ‘‘Maybe Enrico knows. I’ll ask him, too.’’
‘‘Be careful, diplomatic immunity or not,’’ Peter said.
‘‘I don’t have diplomatic immunity.’’
‘‘You don’t?’’ Peter asked, visibly surprised. ‘‘Alicia told me you were going to be the Assistant Naval Attaché.’’
‘‘That changed. I came back here on my Argentine passport. ’’
‘‘But you’re still OSS?’’
‘‘I’m still what?’’
‘‘Sorry.’’
Clete shrugged.
‘‘I was asking as a friend, concerned for your welfare. You understand that, I hope?’’
Clete nodded again.
‘‘You can count on them trying to kill you, you know that?’’ Peter said.
‘‘When I was in fighter school, the instructors kept harping, ‘watch your back, watch your back, watch your back.’ I didn’t know what they were talking about then, but eventually I got pretty good at it.’’
He looked at his watch. It was quarter to one.
‘‘I’ll see Claudia in the morning,’’ he said. ‘‘And Enrico. They should have an idea where my father would put something he didn’t want anybody else to get at.’’
‘‘I better go home,’’ Peter said.
‘‘I’ll drop you.’’
‘‘You go, I’ll finish my drink, then catch a cab.’’
‘‘OK.’’
‘‘This might be a good place to meet, if we have to.’’
‘‘Sure. What’ll we call it, in case anybody is listening, as they probably will be.’’
‘‘It’s The Horse. Let’s call it The Fish.’’
They looked at each other. Clete stood up and put out his hand.
‘‘It’s good to see you, amigo,’’ he said. ‘‘But do me a favor, will you?’’
‘‘Certainly.’’
‘‘Try to walk like a man when you leave. The waiter is three-quarters convinced that we’re a pair of fairies.’’
‘‘What the hell, we’ve been up here by ourselves, holding a whispered conversation, doing everything but holding hands, what do you expect him to think?’’
[FOUR] Recoleta Plaza Buenos Aires,
Argentina 0145 10 April 1943
There was no answer when Clete rang the bell of Tony Pelosi’s apartment in a run-down building in the heavily Italian La Boca15district.
He’s probably out with Maria-Teresa, damn him!
Though Clete thought it was a dump, Tony had selected his apartment primarily because it was close to the Ristorante Napoli. Its proprietor, Señor Alberghoni, had a daughter named Maria-Teresa. Tony was in love . . . not a very smart thing for someone in Tony’s line of work to be, Clete thought.
He drove back through downtown on Avenida del Libertador, then headed for Belgrano, where Ettinger had an apartment on Calle Monroe (Monroe Street). Just before he reached the Avenida 9 de Julio, there was a traffic holdup of some sort. He crept along for a block or two, and the jam cleared. As he passed Avenida 9 de Julio, he looked up and saw the source of the trouble.
What looked like half a squadron of cavalry, each splendidly mounted trooper holding a lance, was moving at a walk. He couldn’t see an artillery caisson, but he thought there was only one reason cavalry would be moving through downtown Buenos Aires at this hour. He checked the Hamilton chronograph. It was twenty minutes to two. The schedule of events called for the casket to be moved, starting at one.
He accelerated, drove three blocks farther, and turned left, reaching Avenida Alvear as the lead troopers of the cavalry came into sight. He drove ahead of them to thepark that fronts the Recoleta Cemetery and the Basílica of Our Lady of Pilar, stopped, and got out.
He stood in the shadow of the Recoleta Cemetery wall and watched the procession arrive. The maneuver had obviously been planned carefully and rehearsed, for it went off like clockwork.
The procession stopped by the front of the church. A half-dozen troopers in the lead of the procession dismounted, and the reins to their mounts were given to the troopers beside them. The dismounted troopers then marched to the head of the procession and held the bits of the horses of the commanding officer and the detachment of eight officers riding immediately behind him. They dismounted and marched to the caisson, where they unstrapped the casket, shouldered it, and marched into the church with it.
Two minutes later, they came back out, remounted, waited for the horseholders to regain their mounts, and then did a column left at the walk back toward Avenida Alvear.
Blood and Honor Page 19
