Blood and Honor

by W. E. B Griffin

  ‘‘Jawohl, Herr Major Freiherr!’’

  ‘‘Let’s get these pouches into the bird,’’ Peter said as Nabler started to follow Günther.

  ‘‘We of Lufthansa have something called ‘preflight inspection, ’ ’’ Dieter said. ‘‘Won’t your goddamned pouches wait?’’

  Clete shook his head, ‘‘no.’’

  Dieter picked up the steel box and pouch Günther had set on the ground and announced, ‘‘I can pick this crap up, but I damned sure won’t be able to climb the ladder with it.’’

  He put everything down, picked up the third pouch, and started up the ladder to the passenger compartment. Peter looked at the ladder and picked up only one of the two pouches, then climbed the ladder.

  Dieter stopped just inside the door and raised his voice.

  "Willi?"

  Peter looked down the cabin to the cockpit, where a man was sitting at the flight engineer’s position.

  ‘‘Kapitän?’’ the man asked.

  ‘‘There’s a box and a pouch under the wing. Would you get them for me, please?’’

  ‘‘Jawohl, Herr Kapitän!’’

  ‘‘Put them in the aft storage,’’ Dieter said, then turned to Peter and softly said, ‘‘Willi’s very obliging. He doesn’t want to be sent back to the Luftwaffe. Luftwaffe Condor flight engineers spend a lot of time in Russia.’’

  ‘‘Are there many Condors left?’’

  ‘‘Not many. Our beloved Führer has four for his personal use. I suppose, all over, there’s another four or five. Maybe six. But not many. I wonder how long they’ll be able keep up this charade. You know how many passengers are on the manifest? Five.’’

  ‘‘If they cancel these flights, what will you do?’’

  ‘‘Spend a lot of time in Russia, I suppose.’’

  ‘‘I have something to go over with you,’’ Peter said. ‘‘It’s important.’’

  He took the file card with the bank names and account numbers from his pocket. Dieter didn’t ask many questions, and Peter wondered how much he understood and could reliably pass on to his father.

  ‘‘Are you running any risk carrying that card around?’’ he asked as Dieter slipped the filing card into his shirt pocket.

  ‘‘The risk I’m worried about is, say four hours from now, looking out the window to find a B-24 pilot waving at me.’’

  He made a gesture of pointing down, an order to land.

  ‘‘A B-24?’’ Peter asked, surprised.

  ‘‘The Americans gave the Brazilians a Navy version of the B-24. They’re as fast as the Condor, and they have multiple half-inch Browning machine guns in turrets. Four turrets, if memory serves, plus a couple of single gun positions in the fuselage.’’

  ‘‘If that happens, what will you do?’’

  ‘‘Try to keep Nabler from trying to ram the B-24 while I head for the nearest Brazilian airfield—waving a white flag.’’

  ‘‘What’s Nabler’s connection with Goltz?’’

  ‘‘I used to think he was watching me, and Christ knows, he does that, but now I think there’s something more than that.’’

  ‘‘Any idea what?’’

  "You’re the intelligence officer, Peter. I’m just a simple airplane pilot."

  Peter heard a noise, and looked at the door to see Karl Nabler starting up the ladder.

  ‘‘Have a nice flight, Dieter,’’ Peter said.

  ‘‘The station manager, Herr Kapitän, asks when you plan to make your departure,’’ Nabler said.

  ‘‘Just as soon as we can wind up the rubber bands,’’ Dieter said. He offered his hand to Peter. ‘‘I’ll tell your father how bravely you are holding up in this hellhole far from the comforts of home,’’ he said. ‘‘That is, presuming I can get this overloaded sonofabitch off the ground.’’

  He held his right arm up vertically from his belt elbow.

  ‘‘Heil Hitler!’’ he said.

  Peter returned the salute.

  ‘‘Good flight, Dieter,’’ he said. ‘‘Heil Hitler!’’

  [TWO] The Horse Restaurant Avenida del Libertador Buenos Aires, Argentina 1905 14 April 1943

  As they passed the Argentine Army Polo Fields on Avenida del Libertador across from the Hipódromo, Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein slid forward on the seat of Grüner ’s Mercedes.

  ‘‘Günther, just this side of the bridge,’’ he ordered. ‘‘The Horse. The parking lot is in the back.’’

  ‘‘Jawohl, Herr Major Freiherr!’’

  ‘‘What’s this, Hans?’’ Standartenführer Josef Goltz asked.

  ‘‘A bar I sometimes come to, Herr Standartenführer. It has been my experience that fast horses attract beautiful women.’’

  ‘‘Ah-ha!’’ Goltz said.

  Peter originally planned to take Goltz to the men’s bar at the Plaza Hotel for a drink. The decision to go to The Horse was impulsive.

  He wondered if he was being clever. He didn’t know how closely he was being watched by either the Argentine BIS or Oberst Grüner’s agents, but there was no doubt that he was frequently under surveillance. Given that, if someone had seen him enter The Horse with Cletus Frade, or saw him do that again with Cletus tonight, or at some other time in the future, there would be some confusion if he was also seen entering The Horse with Standartenführer Goltz.

  The more likely reason for his change of mind, he decided, was that he suddenly needed a drink. Maybe two drinks. Not more than two, which would be foolish in Goltz’s company. But he wanted a drink, and right then, not fifteen minutes later when they would reach the Plaza Hotel.

  What happened at El Palomar had disturbed him. For one thing, though Kapitän Dieter von und zu Aschenburg was as good and experienced a pilot as Peter knew, he had a very hard time getting Lufthansa flight 666 off the ground. For several very long seconds before the Condor finally staggered into the air, it looked as if he would run out of runway.

  There was no wind; the wind sock hung limply from its pole atop the control tower. Dieter, he had reasoned, was probably counting on some wind for his takeoff roll, and there was none.

  That was bad enough, but when Peter got in the Mercedes beside Goltz he remembered Dieter’s gesture, the hand signal to land or be shot down, he was likely to get if the Condor was intercepted by one of the B-24s the Americans had given to the Brazilians.

  And that triggered a sudden very clear memory of Hauptmann Hans-Peter von Wachtstein of Jagdstaffel 232 making the same gesture from the cockpit of his Focke-Wulf 190 to a B-17 pilot near Kassel.

  The B-17 had almost certainly been hit by antiaircraft either before or after he dropped his bombs on Berlin. The damage to his fuselage and wings did not come from machine -gun fire. He had lost his port inboard engine—the prop was feathered—and his starboard outboard engine was gone. The starboard wing was blackened from an engine fire.

  He was staggering along at less than a thousand feet, trying to keep it in the air until he was out of Germany. He probably knew that he wasn’t going to make it home, but was hoping he could make it to Belgium or the Netherlands, where there was at least a chance the Resistance would see him go down and take care of him and whoever was still alive in his crew.

  Peter throttled back and pulled up beside him and gave him the land or be shot down signal. By then he had no desire to add one more aircraft to his shot-down list by taking out a cripple.

  The pilot looked at him in horror, then very deliberately shook his head from side to side, asking either for an act of chivalry on Peter’s part, or mercy. Peter repeated the land or be shot down signal, and then the question suddenly became moot. The B-17’s starboard wing burst into flame and then crumpled, and the B-17 went into a spin. Twenty seconds later, it crashed into a farmer’s field and exploded.

  Until Dieter made the land or be shot down signal, Peter had been able to force from his mind the memory of the B-17 pilot slowly shaking his head from side to side. Now it came back.

  The B-17 pilot,
he thought, was probably a young man very much like Cletus. Well, maybe not exactly. Cletus was a fighter pilot, but a pilot. A pilot like himself, and Dieter. He had no doubt that Dieter would like Clete if he knew him, and vice versa.

  Why the hell are we killing each other?

  Günther jumped out from behind the wheel and held the door open for Standartenführer Goltz. Peter stepped out of the other side of the Mercedes and led Goltz into The Horse.

  ‘‘One has the choice, Herr Standartenführer: One can sit at the bar, or at a table; or one can go into the balcony. The view is better from the balcony, but at the bar one might have the chance to strike up an acquaintance with one of the natives.’’

  Goltz thought that over.

  ‘‘I think the balcony, Hans,’’ he said. ‘‘I want to have a word with you that won’t be overheard.’’

  Peter followed him up the stairs to the balcony, where Goltz selected a table by the railing. A waiter appeared immediately and took their order. Resisting the temptation to order a whiskey, Peter ordered a beer. After a moment’s indecision, Goltz ordered whiskey.

  When the waiter left them, Goltz looked unabashedly at the women at the bar below.

  ‘‘The sometimes painful cost of duty,’’ he said. ‘‘Look at that one!’’

  ‘‘The natives are attractive, aren’t they?’’

  ‘‘Spectacular! I could spend the next three days with my nose buried in those breastworks!’’

  Peter laughed.

  ‘‘If it makes you feel any better, Herr Standartenführer,’’ Peter said, ‘‘it has been my experience that ninety-nine percent of the native females carry a sign you don’t at first notice around their necks reading, ‘Look, But Do Not Touch!’ ’’

  ‘‘Really?’’ Goltz replied, sounding genuinely disappointed.

  ‘‘It may be their Spanish heritage,’’ Peter said. ‘‘I always thought we were on the wrong side in Spain. I have been reliably informed that the Spanish Communists believed in free love. That was not true of the ladies who supported El Caudillo.29Like their Argentine cousins, they believed in saving it for the marriage bed.’’

  ‘‘And you couldn’t overcome that unfortunate situation? ’’

  ‘‘The competition to fly a Fokker on a supply run to Germany was ferocious, Herr Standartenführer. The girls who hang around the bar at the Hotel am Zoo, or the Adlon, are far more appreciative of, and generous to, dashing air-menresting from the noble war against the communist menace.’’

  ‘‘I’ve noticed that. Some of the girls I’ve seen in the am Zoo and Adlon even seem to prefer shallow young Luftwaffe lieutenants to more senior, and better-looking, SS officers.’’

  ‘‘I am sure the Herr Standartenführer is not speaking from personal experience, about the ladies of the Adlon preferring shallow Luftwaffe lieutenants to senior officers of the SS.’’

  ‘‘Oh, but I am, Hans.’’ He paused, then asked, ‘‘Is that where you previously had the pleasure of Frau von Tresmarck ’s acquaintance?’’

  Well, I guess I was wrong again. He is not a faggot after Günther’s firm young body. So what is that scholarship in the Fatherland all about?

  ‘‘My experience, sadly, was the opposite,’’ Peter said. ‘‘The one thing wrong with those bars—I hope the Herr Standartenführer will forgive me—is that senior officers frequent them. The young ladies prefer senior officers to junior ones.’’

  ‘‘My question was, was it at the Adlon or the am Zoo that you knew Frau von Tresmarck?’’

  ‘‘I was hoping that the Herr Standartenführer would forget he had asked the question.’’

  ‘‘That, meine lieber Hans, confirms what I suspected from the smiles on your faces when you met again at the airport,’’ Goltz said.

  ‘‘I hope Sturmbannführer von Tresmarck—’’

  ‘‘I wouldn’t worry about him,’’ Goltz said with a smile. ‘‘Unless, of course, he smiles warmly at you.’’

  ‘‘I’m not sure I understand the Herr Standartenführer.’’

  ‘‘Oh, I think you do, Hans. You’re a man of the world. Von Tresmarck’s reaction, I’m sure, is better someone like you, who presumably knows and will follow the rules of the game, than someone else.’’ Then, reacting to the look on Peter’s face, he added, ‘‘Don’t look so surprised. I came to know our Inge rather well myself in Berlin before she married von Tresmarck,’’ Goltz said. ‘‘You might even say that I was their Cupid.’’

  ‘‘Excuse me?’’

  ‘‘A man in Werner’s position needed a wife,’’ Goltz said. ‘‘And I was very much afraid that our Inge would be caught in one of the periodic sweeps the police made through the Adlon, and places like it, looking for those who could be put to useful work and who don’t have permission to live in Berlin. Our Inge would not be happy in jail, I don’t think, or, for that matter, running a lathe in some factory.’’

  ‘‘You don’t consider improving the morale of lonely of ficers useful work, Herr Standartenführer?’’

  ‘‘A commendable avocation, Hans. One I suspect our Inge continues to practice here. How did you pass your time waiting for me?’’

  ‘‘May I respectfully request that we change the subject, Herr Standartenführer?’’

  ‘‘After one final word,’’ Goltz said. ‘‘A word to the wise. Don’t let your . . . friendship with Inge get out of hand. Moderation in all things, meine lieber Hans.’’

  ‘‘I hear and obey, Herr Standartenführer,’’ Peter said with a smile.

  ‘‘I’m not at liberty, at this time, to tell you how, but von Tresmarck is engaged in quite important work, and nothing, nothing can be allowed to interfere with that.’’

  ‘‘Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer.’’

  ‘‘Now, we can change the subject,’’ Goltz said. ‘‘What shall we talk about?’’

  ‘‘Günther said something about a scholarship at Daimler-Benz? ’’ Peter said. ‘‘Is that a safe subject?’’

  ‘‘Oh, he told you about that, did he?’’

  Peter nodded.

  ‘‘I’m going to arrange that, Hans, to show my appreciation to his family.’’

  ‘‘I don’t think I understand, Herr Standartenführer.’’

  Goltz looked around the balcony to assure himself that no one was close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation.

  ‘‘One of the reasons I’m here, von Wachtstein, is that Admiral Canaris wants to bring the officers from the Graf Spee back to Germany. It is a matter of personal importance to him. You know, of course, that the Admiral was himself interned here during the First World War and escaped?’’

  ‘‘Yes, I do, Herr Standartenführer. When we learned I was coming here, my father told me that story.’’

  ‘‘Your father and the Admiral are quite close, I understand? ’’

  ‘‘I don’t think close, Herr Standartenführer. They know each other, of course, but I don’t think they could be called close friends.’’

  Why do I think that question wasn’t idle curiosity?

  ‘‘Anyway, the preliminary thinking—Oberst Grüner and I were talking about this earlier today—is that the repatriation of the Graf Spee officers will be accomplished in three stages. First, get them out of their place of imprisonment, which should not pose much of a problem. Second, find a location where they can be kept safely until transportation can be arranged for them. And, of course, third, getting them from their refuge out of the country and to the Fatherland. ’’

  ‘‘There’s a lot of them,’’ Peter said. ‘‘That will have to be quite an operation.’’

  ‘‘There’s something near two hundred of them. That’s the second problem. Obviously they can’t all be moved at once. So we’re thinking right now that we will move them in groups of, say, twenty or twenty-five. A single truckload, in other words.’’

  ‘‘Herr Standartenführer, excuse me, but my understanding is that the officers have given their parole. They were offered the choice: They w
ould be confined under guard. Or they would give their parole that they would not attempt to escape, and thus would undergo their internment in a hotel, without guards.’’

  ‘‘That was in 1939, von Wachtstein,’’ Goltz responded. ‘‘The situation is different in 1943.’’

  ‘‘I understand, Herr Standartenführer. But once the first group of officers disappears, I was wondering whether the Argentine authorities will then place all the others under greater restrictions.’’

  ‘‘We’ll have to deal with that when it happens,’’ Goltz said impatiently. ‘‘Oberst Grüner did not seem to consider that an insurmountable problem.’’

  ‘‘I was trying to be helpful, Herr Standartenführer.’’

  ‘‘I understand, Hans,’’ Goltz said.

  We’re now back to ‘‘Hans,’’ are we?

  ‘‘I had a long chat with our friend Günther over the weekend. I learned that not only is he a good National Socialist, but that his father and many of his father’s friends are also.’’

  ‘‘That has been my impression, too, Herr Standartenf ührer.’’

  ‘‘I also learned that his father has a small estancia near a place called San Carlos. Are you familiar with San Carlos? ’’

  ‘‘No, Herr Standartenführer, I am not.’’

  ‘‘San Carlos de something . . .’’

  ‘‘San Carlos de Bariloche. Yes, Herr Standartenführer, I know it. It is commonly called simply ‘Bariloche.’ It’s in the foothills of the Andes.’’

  ‘‘Near the Chilean border,’’ Goltz said.

  ‘‘There’s a very fine new hotel there,’’ Peter said. ‘‘Strange name: Llao Llao. But a first-class hotel. I had a chance to visit there. Hauptmann Duarte’s father has an interest in it, and he—’’

  ‘‘I want to talk to you about your relationship with the Duarte family, Hans, but right now—’’

  ‘‘Excuse me, Herr Standartenführer.’’

  ‘‘The Loche family has a small estancia near San Carlos de Bariloche. They manufacture some of their sausage products there. The sausage is transported to Buenos Aires, and elsewhere—’’