The Honor of Spies

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I remember that. But I don’t remember hearing what it was that el Coronel Perón was supposed to tell the Germans that would make them reluctant to harm you.”

  “Well, for one thing, there’s photographs of my Tío Juan with the SS just before they shot up my house in Tandil. I don’t think the Germans would like to see them plastered all over the front pages of La Nación, La Prensa, et cetera.”

  Martín’s eyebrows rose.

  “Uh-huh,” Frade said, nodding. “And then there are photographs of boats trying to smuggle crates from the Spanish-registered merchantman Comerciante del Océano Pacífico onto the beach at Samborombón Bay. Taken from up close with one of those marvelous German Leica cameras. Some of those pictures show the German assistant military attaché for air . . . What’s his name?”

  “Galahad, maybe?”

  Frade, looking forward and showing no reaction, said, “‘Galahad’ ? Never heard that name, either. Now I remember: von Wachtstein. The photos—remarkably clear photographs, as I said—show von Wachtstein loading the bodies of the German military attaché, Oberst Grüner, and his assistant, Standartenführer Goltz, onto the Océano Pacífico’s boats. Very graphic photographs. Both men had been shot in the head. Blood and brain tissue all over them. And von Wachtstein.”

  Martín exhaled audibly. He said, “Well, I suppose keeping those photographs out of the newspapers would tend to make the Germans reluctant to really make you angry.”

  “And there are more.”

  “If you have these photographs . . .”

  “I have them, and there’s more.”

  Martín raised his hand to interrupt him.

  “I can’t help but wonder why you just don’t give them to the press.”

  “Next question?”

  Martín shrugged his acceptance of the rules.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Frade said thoughtfully a moment later. “But this is really off the record, Alejandro.”

  Martín nodded.

  “President Roosevelt made the decision that as outrageous as Operation Phoenix is, and as despicable and disgusting as the SS-run Buy-the-Jews-Out-of-Extermination-Camps Operation is, as much as he would like to expose both operations to the world, the bottom line is that some Jews are being saved from the ovens. If it came out, no more Jews could be saved, and the Germans would probably kill the rest of the Jews as quickly as possible so there would be no proof, no witnesses.”

  Martín exhaled audibly again. This time it sounded like a groan.

  “My orders are to keep track of where that money is going,” Frade said. “So that when the war is over—”

  “That’s an admission, you realize . . .”

  “Yeah. I realized that when I decided you had a right to know what’s going on.”

  “And the Froggers are giving you information, or at least names—that sort of thing—regarding the money from both Operation Phoenix and the other one? Does the other one have a name?”

  “The who? Never heard of them. And, no, the other filthy operation doesn’t have a name.”

  “Do the Germans know you know about the unnamed operation?”

  “They don’t know how much we know about it.”

  “How much do you know?”

  “A good deal. And when the war is over, when faced with the alternative of either telling us what we don’t know or a hangman’s noose, I suspect the slimy SS bastard running the operation in Montevideo will sing like a canary.”

  “Montevideo?”

  Frade nodded.

  “Your sergeant was killed in Montevideo,” Martín said.

  “Technical Sergeant David Ettinger,” Frade said. “They stuck an ice pick in his ear in the garage of the Hotel Casino de Carrasco. More precisely, the SS bastard hired a local assassin—probably assassins—to do it. Ettinger was getting too close to that unnamed operation.”

  “Has the ‘SS bastard’ a name?”

  “Why do you want his name?”

  “For my general fund of knowledge, Cletus.”

  “There is a man in Montevideo who was offended by what happened to David Ettinger . . .”

  “An American, perhaps?”

  Frade nodded.

  “Maybe in the OSS?”

  “Next question?” Frade said, and then went on: “This man believes in the Old Testament adage about an eye for an eye. But he was refused permission to take out the SS bastard. That’s when they told us FDR had decided that he wanted the unnamed operation to continue, to save as many Jews as possible. To keep an eye on this SS bastard, but keep him in place. If you had his name, Alejandro, I don’t know what you’d do with it.”

  “I understand,” Martín said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t trust me with it either. Even if I gave you my word that I would keep it to myself, and pass on to you anything that came my way about him. And the unnamed operation.”

  They locked eyes for a long moment.

  “Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck,” Frade said. “He has diplomatic cover, of course. He’s a homosexual. His wife is involved in it up to her eyeballs . . .”

  “I thought you just said he was homosexual.”

  Frade nodded. “He is. That’s how they keep him in line. He either does what they tell him, with absolute honesty, and keeps his mouth shut, or he winds up in a concentration camp with a pink triangle pinned to his suit.”

  “And the wife?”

  “Inge. She is not homosexual. That’s what they call an understatement. She was sort of a high-class hooker in Berlin after her first husband was killed in Russia. She was given the choice between marrying this guy and keeping an eye on him, or going to work in a factory. Inge is feathering her own nest with what she can skim from the unnamed operation money.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone—Galahad probably—also knows Señora von Tresmarck and has been gossiping about her to you.”

  “I don’t know anybody named Galahad. I thought I told you that.”

  Martín smiled. He was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly, he said, “If I understand you, Cletus, until I told you about this kidnapping of the Mallíns, you thought you had sort of an arrangement, an armistice, with the Germans.”

  “An uneasy armistice, but yeah. They would be very unpopular in Berlin if they got themselves declared persona non grata and got kicked out of Argentina. So—I thought—they’d be willing to just let things stand as they are while they’re waiting for their ultimate victory.”

  “Then what’s this kidnapping about?”

  “Now you sound as if you believe it’s serious.”

  “I’m not prepared to ignore it. Are you?”

  “So if you’re not prepared to ignore it, what are you doing about it?”

  Martín, obviously considering his answer, took a long moment before re plying.

  “I’ve got people on them,” he said finally. “All of them. Including your fa ther-in-law.”

  “Which might tip our German friends that you know of the plan, and wonder where you got your information,” Frade said.

  Martín did not reply, but after a moment shrugged his agreement.

  “How about this?” Frade suggested. “Tomorrow morning, I take my mother-in-law and the boy to Mendoza . . .”

  “I heard you had Doña Dorotea at Casa Montagna,” Martín said. “What’s that all about?”

  “Next question? And how come you know about Casa Montagna?”

  “Next question?”

  “As I was saying, I’ll put some people from the estancia on my father-in-law,” Frade said. “Conspicuously. Four guys—all ex-Húsares—in a station wagon with ‘Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo’ painted on the doors. He won’t like it, but I don’t think he wants to go to Mendoza, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to be kidnapped.”

  “Is he going to be at Doña Claudia’s little party?”

  “Reluctantly, I think.”

  “This is none of my business, but why doesn’t he like you?”

/>   “You mean, what prompted him to tell his wife—he didn’t know I was in the house, of course—‘I curse the day that depraved gringo sonofabitch walked through our door!’?”

  “He actually said that?”

  “It may have something to do with me going to be the father of his first grandchild.”

  “But why ‘depraved’?”

  “That probably has something to do with me marrying his daughter.”

  “His opinion of you doesn’t seem to bother you much.”

  “It bothers me a lot, even when I think that a married man—married to a really great woman like Dorotea’s mother—who had a mistress doesn’t have a hell of a lot of right to ride up on the high horse of righteousness.”

  “You know the mistress? Ex-mistress?”

  “Why does that make me think you know her?”

  “I wouldn’t know her, Cletus, if she walked into Doña Claudia’s party on the arm of a diplomat.”

  Frade nodded at Martín. Somehow, the nod expressed thanks.

  [FIVE]

  Office of the Ambassador

  The Embassy of the German Reich

  Avenida Córdoba

  Buenos Aires, Argentina

  0930 20 September 1943

  Major Hans-Peter von Wachtstein walked into the office carrying a thick sheaf of eight-by-ten-inch photographs. He was in civilian clothing. Günther Loche, carrying a nearly identical stack of photographs, followed him.

  Von Wachtstein laid the photographs on Ambassador von Lutzenberger’s desk and motioned for Loche to do the same thing. Then von Wachtstein came to attention, clicked his heels, gave the Nazi salute, and said, “Heil Hitler!”

  Loche tried and almost succeeded in doing the same simultaneously.

  Ambassador von Lutzenberger returned the salute.

  Commercial Attaché Karl Cranz glowered at von Wachtstein.

  Anton von Gradny-Sawz demanded, “Where in the world have you been?”

  There was no expression on the face of the naval attaché, Kapitän zur See Karl Boltitz.

  Von Wachtstein pointed to the two stacks on von Lutzenberger’s desk.

  “Since six this morning, Herr von Gradny-Sawz, I have been up to my ears in chemicals in the photo lab. As you can see, there are a great many photographs.”

  “There were a great many photographs in the press, von Wachtstein,” Cranz said. “Presumably you’ve seen them?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Have a look, von Wachtstein,” Cranz said, and pointed to the conference table. There were at least a dozen newspapers spread out on it. On the front pages of all of them were photographs—sometimes just one, more often two and even three or four—of what had happened at Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade the previous afternoon.

  Just about all of them had a photo of the SAA Constellation coming in for a landing. And there were shots of the Constellation as it taxied up to the hangar with Argentine flags flying from holders at the cockpit windows. Others showed Gonzalo Delgano saluting General Rawson, of Rawson embracing Delgano, of Rawson, hands on hips, looking up with admiration—maybe even awe—at the enormous airplane.

  “Take a look at that one, von Wachtstein,” Cranz said, pointing to a photo of a beaming General Rawson embracing Cletus Frade. He then read aloud the cutline under one of the photos:

  “ ‘The President of the Republic embraces Don Cletus Frade, Managing Director of South American Airways. Frade is the son of the late and beloved Coronel Jorge G. Frade, whose monument is now the airport named in his memory, from which the new aircraft will soon begin to fly to Europe.’ ”

  He paused, looked at von Wachtstein, and challenged, “Well?”

  “Excuse me, Herr Cranz?”

  “Wouldn’t you say you’ve been wasting your time, ‘up to your ears in chemicals ,’ printing photographs that were already spread across the front page of every goddamn newspaper in Argentina?”

  Von Wachtstein’s face tightened, but his voice was under control when he said, “With respect, Herr Cranz, I don’t think our engineers could do much with newspaper photographs of the Constellation.”

  “What did you say?” asked von Gradny-Sawz.

  “I’m sure our engineers will be very interested in the photographs I took of the Constellation.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is the fastest, largest long-range transport aircraft in the world,” von Wachtstein said.

  “You’re not suggesting that it is a better aircraft than our Condor?” von Gradny-Sawz pursued.

  Help came from an unexpected source:

  “Obviously, von Gradny-Sawz, it is,” Cranz said. “Von Wachtstein is suggesting our engineers will want to know as much about it as they can learn.”

  “I didn’t think about that,” von Gradny-Sawz said.

  “Obviously,” Cranz said dryly. “And he’s right. It is going to be a problem for us in several areas. Propaganda Minister Goebbels is going to be very unhappy when this story—these pictures—appears in newspapers all over the world. And the Americans will make sure that it does.”

  “But it’s not a new airplane,” von Gradny-Sawz argued.

  “Yes, it is, you Trottel !” Cranz snapped. “And it has never before (a) been in the hands of anyone but the Americans or (b) used to transport people across the Atlantic from a third-rate country—”

  “More people and faster,” von Wachtstein interjected.

  Cranz nodded and went on: “Suggesting that the Americans have so many of them they can spare some for Argentina.”

  If von Gradny-Sawz took offense at being called a Trottel—which translated variously as “moron,” “clown,” but most often as “blithering idiot”—there was no sign of it on his face.

  Cranz continued: “If this comes to the attention of the Führer—they try to spare him distractions, but I suspect this distraction will come to his attention—I suggest that it is entirely likely that the Führer will order that it be shot out of the sky . . .”

  “It’s an Argentine aircraft,” Ambassador von Lutzenberger said.

  Cranz glared at him for a moment. Then he admitted, “Good point. Which means he’s likely to order its destruction without the services of the Luftwaffe. In other words: here, by us.”

  “Well, then, I guess that’s what we’re going to have to do,” von Gradny-Sawz said solemnly. “Destroy it here, on the ground.”

  Cranz glowered at him for a long moment but in the end did not reply directly. Instead, he turned to von Wachtstein.

  “What I’m having trouble understanding, Major von Wachtstein, is why the arrival of this airplane, this whole business of Argentina getting an aircraft capable of flying across the Atlantic Ocean, came as such a surprise to you.”

  “I’m not sure I understand the question, Herr Cranz,” von Wachtstein replied.

  “Your mother-in-law is a member of the board of directors of South American Airways, is she not?”

  “Yes, sir, she is, but—”

  Cranz shut him off with a raised hand.

  “And Herr Duarte, whose son died a hero at Stalingrad, and who is reliably reported—by Ambassador von Lutzenberger, now that I think about it—to have said he has come to look upon you as a son, is also a member of that board, is he not?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you heard nothing of this at all from either of them? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “The first I heard anything at all about what happened yesterday was when Señor Duarte telephoned me to say that something was going on at the airport—SAA’s private airport, Aeropuerto Jorge Frade—at five o’clock. Duarte had no idea what, but said that Señor Frade had suggested I be invited.”

  “Señor Frade suggested to Señor Duarte that you be invited?”

  “That’s what I was told, sir.”

  “That was very courteous of him,” Cranz said sarcastically.

  “I think he wanted to rub my nose in it, Herr Cranz.”

  “Excuse me?” />
  “When Frade returned from California, after getting the SAA pilots their certificates, or licenses, or whatever they had to have to get insurance, Señora de Carzino-Cormano gave a dinner—a supper, to be precise—at Estancia Santa Catalina. Frade made a point of telling me that he had seen the Constellation aircraft at the Lockheed factory.”

  “Why would he want to do that?” von Gradny-Sawz asked.

  “I think it was to annoy my sister-in-law.”

  “I was there,” Boltitz said, smiling. “Señorita Isabela de Carzino-Cormano is—how do I say this?—a great admirer of Lufthansa Kapitän Dieter von und zu Aschenburg. As soon as Frade began extolling the merits of the Constellation, Señorita Isabela leapt to defend the Condor. She called upon von Wachtstein for support, and, ever the gentleman, von Wachtstein did so.

  “I don’t think I understand,” Cranz said.

  “When Frade said the Constellation flew at so many kph, von Wachtstein assured everyone that the Condor was fifty kph faster; when Frade said the Constellation could fly at ten thousand meters, von Wachtstein said the Condor routinely flew at twelve thousand meters . . .”

  “Everyone at the table had seen the Condor, Herr Cranz,” von Wachtstein said. “No one had seen even a picture of the Constellation.”

  “Von Wachtstein made Frade look the fool,” Boltitz said. “No one believed him.”

  “As well they shouldn’t have. Americans are notorious for their boasting,” von Gradny-Sawz offered.

  “Unfortunately, Gradny-Sawz,” Boltitz said, “the Constellation is everything Frade said it was. And when Frade saw the chance to get his revenge on von Wachtstein, he took it.”

  “Which, of course, he may now have, on reflection, regretted,” von Wachtstein said. “Once I was invited out there, he could hardly tell me not to take photographs.”

  Cranz, who had not looked at von Wachtstein’s photographs before, now went to von Lutzenberger’s desk and picked up one of the stacks. He went through it carefully, then picked up the second stack and examined each of them.

  “I now see what you mean, von Wachtstein,” he said. “I thought I was going to see—how shall I put this?—postcard views of that airplane, like those in the press. Your photographs are of technical features, parts of the airplane. I can see where they would be of great value to an aeronautical engineer.”