In the chaos that will ensue in Germany when the war is nally over, the only hope our people will have, to keep them in their homes, indeed to keep them from slarvalion, and the only hope there will be for the future of the von Wachtstein family, and the estates, will be access to the money that I have placed in your care.
I hope, one day, to be able to go with you again to the village for a beer and a sausage. If that is not to be, I have con dence that God in his mercy will allow us one day to be all together again, your mother and your brothers, and you and I in a beller place.
I have taken great pride in you, Hansel.
* * *
Peter was at first at a loss about how to accomplish his father’s directives. He could not, he was all too aware, succeed on his own. Yet whom could he go to for help? Whom could he trust? Having nowhere else to go, and remembering Cletus’s pledge, Peter brought the letter to Cletus Frade.
Since neither spoke the other’s language, their conversation was in Spanish.
Cletus said, “I don’t know what you want me to do. For one thing, I can’t read German. So the letter won’t mean a thing to me. For another, I don’t know how I can do you any good. Secretly transferring money between countries is not one of my regular accomplishments.”
“Forgive me for wasting your time, Señor Frade,” Peter answered frostily.
“Don’t get a corncob up your ass, Fritz,” Cletus said. “My father speaks German, and I think he would consider my debts his. And I owe you.”
He saw the surprise and concern on von Wachtstein’s face, and added, “I also suspect he’s into this chivalry and honor shit, too.”
When el Coronel Frade did in fact translate the letter for Clete (he was doing it aloud), the tears running down his cheeks and the tightness in his throat made it hard for him to make it through to the end.
Though he, too, had to admit that he was at a personal loss about handling Peter’s problem, he knew who could handle it: “My sister’s husband, Humberto Duarte, is Managing Director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank.”
“You think he will help, mi Coronel?” von Wachtstein asked.
“Of course he will,” el Coronel Frade said. “And not only because he is Cletus’s uncle, and Cletus’s debt to you is a family debt, but also because he has believed for years all the terrible things people have been saying about your Führer and the Nazi party.”
Humberto Duarte not only proved to be willing to help, but more important, he knew all the tricks necessary to transfer funds in absolute secrecy from numbered Swiss bank accounts to accounts in Argentina.
Peter’s relief was, however, short-lived. His father was not the only German who had been thinking about survival should Germany lose the war.
The very next Lufthansa Condor flight from Berlin to Buenos Aires had aboard—in addition to el Coronel Juan Domingo Perón, who had returned to take part in the coup d’état against President Castillo—Standartenführer-SS-SD Josef Luther Goltz.
Both Ambassador von Lutzenberger and Peter von Wachtstein thought the SS officer had been sent to find out what he could about the sinking of the Reine de la Mer, but that was not his purpose.
His orders had much more to do with the various missions associated with the soon-to-be-arriving “neutral” Spanish vessel Comerciante del Océano Pacífico—the repatriation of the interned officers from the Graf Spee; the replacement of the Reine de la Mer as a replenishment vessel for U-boats; and finally—and most secretly—the transfer of funds to be used for the implementing of Operation Phoenix.
Standartenführer Goltz presented this information to Ambassador von Lutzenberger and his old friend First Secretary Anton von Gradny-Sawz.
Ambassador von Lutzenberger, recognizing the threat Operation Phoenix posed to what he and Peter were doing with the von Wachtstein money—and other money entrusted to him by other friends—decided that Peter had to know, and told him everything.
The next day, Peter had flown Standartenführer Goltz to Montevideo in the Fieseler Storch, where Goltz met with Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck, the SS-SD man at the German Embassy in Uruguay.
Von Tresmarck’s wife, whom Peter had known in Berlin, presumed he knew what was going on and revealed to him the source of the Operation Phoenix funds available in Uruguay. It came from the families and friends of Jews in concentration camps in Germany. For a price, the SS would arrange for the release of Jews from the death camps and their travel to Uruguay and Argentina.
Peter had then been faced with another moral decision. On one hand, his stomach turned at yet another proof of the incredible moral bankruptcy of the Nazi hierarchy generally and the SS specifically.
On the other, to reveal this state secret, and what he knew about the Océano Pacífico, to a man he knew was an agent of the OSS was not only treason, pure and simple, but also personally painful.
The Kapitänleutnant of one of the submarines with empty fuel tanks in the South Atlantic was a close friend from college days, a wholly decent human being. Furthermore, if his treason ever became known, it would mean not only not being able to carry out the responsibility his father had given him to care for the people who depended on the von Wachtsteins, but would also be tantamount to signing an execution order for his father.
In the end, Cletus Frade gave him his word that he would never reveal the source of his information, and so Peter told him. Frade then told Peter that one of his agents, David Ettinger, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, had heard the stories about the ransoming of Jews from concentration camps, and had been investigating them. Ettinger’s obscenely mutilated corpse had been found a few days before, on the beach at Carrasco, outside Montevideo. The severed penis in Ettinger’s mouth, Clete said, had been a message to the Jews who knew about the ransoming operation.
Standartenführer Goltz—who had not himself told Peter any more than he felt he absolutely had to know about Operation Phoenix—had been forced to press him into service when the Océano Pacífico arrived in Argentina.
Peter had managed to get word to Cletus Frade about where and when the “special cargo” would be unloaded, and Operation Phoenix and the other missions of the Océano Pacífico had been aborted on the beach at Puerto Magdalena.
Afterward, there was no reason, Peter knew, for anyone to suspect that he was in any way responsible for tipping the OSS off about the attempted landing operation, or that he was now a traitor to the oath he had taken, pledging loyalty unto death to the person of the Führer of the German people, Adolf Hitler.
But he knew that did not mean he was not under suspicion.
“Would you like to freshen up before coming to the table?” Señorita Alicia de Carzino-Cormano asked.
“Yes, thank you, I really would,” Major von Wachtstein replied, exhibiting greasy hands as proof of the necessity.
“You take dear Peter to our room, Alicia,” Señora Frade de Duarte ordered. “And I will see that there is a place set for him.”
“Of course,” Alicia said.
Señora Duarte laid her fingers on Peter’s cheek. “Don’t dally, dear,” she said, and then, motioning her husband to follow her, she started to walk to the main house.
Humberto nodded, then walked after his wife.
“Give me a minute to take this off,” Peter said as he pulled down the zipper of his gray flying suit and started to shrug out of it. Beneath it, he still wore the suit Gradny-Sawz had admired.
“I was afraid for a moment,” Alicia said, “that she was going to take you to her room to wash your hands, and send me to make a place for you at lunch.”
He smiled at her.
He freed his legs from the flying suit and hung it on the wing support. Then he followed Alicia into the house, where she led him not to the bedroom where the Duartes were staying, but to her own. The moment they were inside, she locked the door and th
rew herself into his arms.
“When you came by plane, I was afraid you’d been ordered to Germany,” she said.
“No,” he said. “So far, there’s been no word from Berlin.”
“I’m so frightened for you, Peter,” she said.
That makes two of us.
“There’s nothing to be frightened about, precious,” he said, stroking her hair.
Do I believe that? Or am I pissing in the wind?
He gently extricated himself from her arms.
Another thirty seconds of feeling her against me like that, and I’ll carry her to her bed.
And all we need is Clete’s lunatic aunt coming to look for me, and finding us in Alicia’s bedroom.
“Let me wash my hands,” he said.
She nodded toward her bathroom.
He went into the bathroom and washed his hands with a clear bar of glycerin soap—concluding that while it might do wonders for the complexion of a young female, it was not ideal for removing oil from hands.
She was standing by her desk when he went back into the bedroom.
“If they do order you to go to Germany,” Alicia asked, “then will you go to Brazil?”
“Baby, I don’t think they’re going to order me to Berlin.”
“If they do!” she insisted angrily.
“If that happens, we will see what I have to do.”
“Sometimes I hate you,” she said.
“Baby, don’t say that!”
“Why not? Right now, I mean it!”
He reached his hand to touch her face. She knocked it away, walked to the door, and unlocked it.
“They’ll be wondering what’s keeping you,” she said.
He nodded, and started to walk past her. She stepped into his path, threw her arms around him, and kicked the door closed.
“Peter, I can’t live without you!” she said against his chest.
“Ich liebe dich, meine hartz,” he said, close to tears. I love you, my heart.
She pushed away far enough to look up at him.
“If I kiss you, we would never get out of my room,” she said.
He kissed her forehead, gently took her hands from his arms, opened the door, and started walking down the corridor to the dining room.
[TWO]
“Over here, darling!” Señora Beatrice Frade de Duarte cried happily when she saw Peter and Alicia come into the dining.* She was sitting immediately beside Claudia Carzino-Cormano at the head of the table, and had made a place for Peter between herself and her husband. Seated across from her was a ruddy-faced, silver-haired Irishman, Monsignor Patrick Kelly, the Duarte family priest. Beside him was Isabela Carzino-Cormano, Alicia’s older sister, a very beautiful, black-haired young woman of twenty-two. Beside her was a tall, handsome young Argentine Peter did not know. He was obviously another houseguest, Isabela’s, to judge by the fact that they were both dressed in riding clothing. Across from him sat Dr. Manuel Sporazzo, a middle-aged, well-dressed man whom Peter knew to be Beatrice Frade de Duarte’s psychiatrist. The empty place beside him was obviously Alicia’s.
Peter obeyed the summons, as Alicia made her way to the place set for her.
“How nice to see you, Peter,” Claudia said.
“Señora Carzino-Cormano, I again thank you for your kind invitation,” Peter said, clicking his heels and bowing his head to her.
“Don’t be absurd,” Claudia said. “You are always welcome here, Peter.”
“Buenas tardes, Señorita Isabela,” Peter said, repeating the heel clicking and bowing to her, and then repeating the gesture to Monsignor Kelly and Dr. Sporazzo. “Padre, Doctor.”
“How nice to see you, Major von Wachtstein,” Isabela said very formally, almost coldly.
“I don’t believe you know Antonio—Tony—Pellechea, do you, Peter?” Claudia said.
“I have not had the honor,” Peter said, and clicked his heels and bowed his head again.
The young Argentine rose halfway from his seat and offered Peter his hand.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an airplane like yours before,” Pellechea said. “What is it?”
“It’s a Fieseler Storch. What we call an ‘Army Cooperation’ airplane.”
“My Jorge was riding in one just like it when God called him to heaven to be with Him and the Holy Angels,” Beatrice announced brightly. “Isn’t that so, Peter?”
Tony Pellechea looked at her in amazement. Isabela looked embarrassed.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Peter said.
“Please sit down, Peter,” Claudia said. “We’re having a simple lomo”—filet mignon—“I hope that’s all right.”
“I am second to no man in my appreciation of Argentina beef,” Peter said.
Claudia chuckled.
“Is that the diplomat speaking?” she asked.
“The man, Señora,” Peter said.
Beatrice Frade de Duarte was not through: “Since Peter brought our Jorge home, Tony,” she said, making it sound as if they had shared a taxi, “he’s become almost a member of the family. Not almost—he has become family. Isn’t that so, Humberto?”
“Yes, indeed,” Humberto agreed.
“You are too kind, Señora,” Peter said.
Tony Pellechea smiled uncomfortably.
“And not only of our family, Tony,” Beatrice went on. “But of the Carzino-Cormano family as well. What would you say, Claudia, if I told you—judging from the way Alicia looks at him—that it looks very much to me as if Cupid has fired a second arrow from his quiver? And scored another bull’s-eye?”
“I would say your imagination is running away with you again, Beatrice,” Claudia said.
Unfortunately, you poor lunatic, Claudia thought, I’m afraid you’re right on the money.
“But wouldn’t it be nice if that were the case—and I think I’m right, no matter what you say? Alicia and Dorotéa have been friends since they were babies, and I’m sure that Peter and Cletus could be friends, if only they had the chance.”
“Mi querida,” Humberto Duarte said in a desperately transparent attempt to get his wife off the subject. “Weren’t you telling Tony that you were at school with his mother?”
“Yes, I was,” she said. “She was right down the corridor from me at St. Teresa’s. I had a room with Elisa Frondizi—now Elisa Frondizi de Galeano, of course—and your mother shared one with Carmela Burmeister—now Carmela Burmeister de Manasaro, of course—and we were the dearest of friends, all of us.”
She paused thoughtfully.
Tony Pellechea smiled uncomfortably.
Peter smiled gratefully at the maid who offered to fill his wineglass.
“Our favorite sister was Sister Maria Margareta,” Beatrice resumed. “She was strict, but she was fair. You really couldn’t say that about all the sisters. Sister Maria-Elena, for example…”
[THREE]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
1425 1 May 1943
The Horch was parked on the red gravel on the curved drive in front of the main house. The roof was down, and the second windshield, which rose behind the front seat, had been raised.
“It looks good, Clete,” Martha Howell said.
“Thank you,” Clete said.
“God, it’s big, isn’t it?” Martha added wonderingly. “It’s one and a half times the size of the Caddy.”
“You want to drive it?” Clete asked.
“Give me a rain check. That was an enormous lunch. The Old Lady needs a nap.”
“OK,” he said.
He kissed her cheek. The gesture was somehow different, perhaps more intimate, than an Argentine cheek-kissing.
“Be careful,” Martha sai
d.
Clete walked off the veranda. Enrico, carrying his Browning shotgun, walked quickly ahead of him and opened both driver’s-side doors.
“Let me drive it a little first, Marjorie,” Clete said.
“OK,” she said, and got in the front and slid across to the passenger side.
Clete got in beside her. Enrico waited until Beth had climbed into the rear seat, and then, after closing the driver’s door, got in beside her.
“Hey, Adolf,” the Old Man called, and when Clete looked at him, Cletus Howell raised his arm in the Nazi salute. “Sieg Heil, Adolf!”
“Dad!” Martha protested, but when Clete and the girls laughed, she joined in too.
Enrico looked confused.
Clete started the engine, watched the oil-pressure gauge for a long moment, and then tapped the horn and drove off.
“That horn sounds like a bull in heat,” Marjorie said.
Two minutes later, as Clete turned onto the macadam road, she said, “I thought so.”
“You thought what so?”
“We’re going to the radio station, aren’t we?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And Grandpa was right, wasn’t he? That was a Nazi airplane, right?”
“Butt out, Squirt,” he said.
Then he put his foot on the brake and stopped the car, pulled on the parking brake, and got out. Marjorie slid over behind the wheel.
“You think you can find it?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said. “I was a Girl Scout, remember?”
He did in fact remember. Both Marjorie and Beth had been Girl Scouts. Beth had loved it; Marjorie had hated it from her first meeting. She had envisioned riding out on the prairie on horseback, pitching a tent, building a fire, and cooking supper under the stars. What the Girl Scouts wanted her to do, she had announced indignantly, was sell cookies that came from a factory.
She had absolutely no trouble driving the Horch, as enormous as it was. Since she had been driving tractors and trucks on Big Foot Ranch from the moment her feet could reach the pedals, this should not have been surprising.
Secret Honor Page 15
