The Honor of Spies

by W. E. B Griffin

  He ordered her to strip. When she hesitated, he slapped her again. The clothing came quickly off. He humiliated her both verbally—he told her that her breasts sagged and that her ugly buttocks—he used the word “ass”—were unpleasant to look at—and then physically. Ten minutes after entering his room, Inge von Tresmarck was naked, on her knees, tears running down her face, crawling across the room to him under a command to take his penis into her mouth.

  The incident was the most satisfying sexual experience von Deitzberg could ever remember experiencing.

  Von Deitzberg had not quite finished shaving when Maria showed up in his room with his breakfast and Dr. Müller’s herbal medications. First Secretary Anton von Gradny-Sawz came in a moment later as von Deitzberg was gathering his courage to take the first of his three daily doses of chopped garlic in warm water.

  “You’re a little early, Gradny-Sawz,” von Deitzberg accused.

  “I came as quickly as I could,” von Gradny-Sawz said. “There was a Condor flight at two this morning.”

  This somewhat mystifying statement was explained when von Gradny-Sawz ceremoniously opened his briefcase, took an envelope from it, and handed the envelope to von Deitzberg.

  He’s treating that like a message from God!

  When he took the envelope and glanced at it, von Deitzberg saw why von Gradny-Sawz was impressed. On the front of the envelope it simply read DER REICHSFÜHRER-SS BERLIN. On the back, where the envelope was sealed, was Himmler’s handwritten signature, his method of ensuring that the envelope could not be opened undetected.

  “This has been opened,” von Deitzberg accused.

  “The ambassador opened it,” von Gradny-Sawz said, “and then sent me to deliver it to you.”

  Von Deitzberg took the two sheets of paper on which the message had been typed and read them:

  It had been von Deitzberg’s intention to return to bed when he had finished shaving. Now, without really thinking about it, he went to the chest of drawers where his linen was now stored, freshly washed after its bath in Samborombón Bay.

  When he’d selected underwear, a shirt, and stockings, and started for the bathroom, von Gradny-Sawz asked, “Feeling a little better, are you? Good news from Berlin, I gather?”

  Maria said, “Señor Schenck, you are supposed to do the garlic water before breakfast.”

  “Get that goddamned garlic water out of here,” von Deitzberg snapped. “Get all of those lunatic remedies out of here.”

  “Is something wrong?” von Gradny-Sawz asked.

  “Go find a public telephone,” von Deitzberg ordered. “Call Cranz. Tell him to come here immediately. In a taxi, not an embassy car.”

  “Something is wrong,” von Gradny-Sawz proclaimed.

  Von Deitzberg thought: I am surrounded by idiots!

  He ordered: “And when you’ve done that, station yourself at the door downstairs. If that lunatic Müller gets past you and up here, I’ll throw both of you out of the window!”

  He turned to the maid. “Maria, after you throw all of that herbal junk away, go to the restaurant and get me some scrambled eggs—four scrambled eggs—toast, ham, and a pot of coffee.”

  She looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

  “My God, didn’t you hear me?”

  Maria began to cry.

  Von Gradny-Sawz gave von Deitzberg a dirty look, put his arm around Maria’s shoulders, and led her out of the room, speaking softly to her. Von Deitzberg went into the bathroom, took a cold shower, and then dressed.

  When Maria returned with his scrambled eggs, von Deitzberg apologized to her for raising his voice and whatever else he had done to cause her to be uncomfortable.

  While doing so, for the first time since they’d met, he looked at her as a female. He’d heard somewhere that Latin women—or was it Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese?—matured earlier than Aryans. It was apparently true so far as Maria was concerned. She had an entirely mature and quite attractive bosom.

  He did not permit his thoughts to wander down that path.

  My God, she’s fifteen!

  Any mature man taking carnal advantage of a fifteen-year-old female child should be lashed at the stake first, and then castrated.

  And Perón likes them even younger! That’s obscene!

  Unfortunately, I don’t think I will ever be able to watch el Coronel Perón as he is lashed or castrated.

  I have other plans for that degenerate sonofabitch!

  Von Deitzberg, to ensure he hadn’t missed anything, read Himmler’s letter a third time as he ate his scrambled eggs.

  He knew that while everything Himmler had written was true, it was not a complete report of what had happened at Wolfsschanze. Himmler was too smart to write that down, and he knew that von Deitzberg—who not only was privy to the backstabbing of the senior Nazis but personally had witnessed at least a dozen of the Führer’s legendary tirades—would be easily able to fill in the blanks.

  Himmler had not considered it necessary to suggest that Goebbels, the clubfooted propaganda minister, had brought South American Airways’ accomplishment to Hitler’s attention, not in order to keep the Führer up-to-date, but rather it would direct the Führer’s rage at Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, of whose power he was jealous and whom he loathed.

  It wasn’t at all hard for von Deitzberg to picture the scene around the map table at Wolfsschanze with Hitler ranting at a cowering Göring. The Führer was wont to stamp his foot. His tirade was often accompanied by a shower of spittle. And a supply of spectacles was kept available to replace those he threw at the floor or at whoever was the target of his rage.

  And von Deitzberg could clearly see the concern in Goebbels’s eyes when Hitler was on the edge of ordering that the Constellations be shot down, then that concern replaced with relief when Canaris, with his usual skill, kept that from happening.

  My God! I’m thinking clearly!

  Twenty minutes ago, all I was thinking of was what those gottverdammt concoctions that that moron Müller has been feeding me are doing to my stomach and bowels. Or daydreaming like a sixteen-year-old with raging hormones about Inge von Tresmarck.

  It’s as if I’ve been asleep, or drugged, and suddenly woken up.

  Why? What happened? What woke me up?

  After a moment’s thought, he knew what had happened.

  He was terrified because of the last paragraph of Himmler’s letter: “The discussion ended somewhat abruptly at that point when the Führer turned to me and said, in effect, ‘Von Deitzberg is over there; have him take care of this.’ ”

  I have been personally given the task of destroying SAA’s aircraft, and in such a manner that the finger of suspicion cannot be pointed at Germany.

  Every one of those Sohns der einer Hündin at Wolfsschanze must have been delighted.

  Canaris, because Hitler hadn’t ordered him to do it.

  Goebbels, because there would not be an uproar in the world’s press over Germans shooting down a civilian airline of a neutral power carrying a load of priests and nuns.

  Göring, because Hitler hadn’t ordered the Luftwaffe to do the shooting down. And Heinrich Himmler, because he hadn’t been ordered to put the Sicherheitsdienst to work destroying the airplanes.

  Not one of them—but me, personally!

  “Have von Deitzberg take care of this.”

  All Himmler was doing was relaying the Führer’s orders.

  Yet if I somehow succeed in destroying the airplanes, Himmler will of course take all the credit.

  And if I fail, I will have Hitler personally furious with me. And I am a lowly SS-brigadeführer, not a senior general. Hitler doesn’t scream at unimportant people like me; he just has the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler stand them in front of a wall.

  Unless he’s really angry, and orders the Leibstandarte to hang me from a butcher’s hook with Goebbels’s movie cameras filming so the Führer can watch my agony at his leisure and over and over again.

  And it’s not as i
f I don’t already have my hands full.

  I still have no idea how I’m going to do what else I have to do here—eliminate that gottverdammt American Frade of the OSS, locate and eliminate the Froggers, find out how much damage the Froggers have done to Operation Phoenix, and check on both how the confidential special fund is being handled in Uruguay and whether that miserable deviate von Tresmarck has been able to keep his mouth shut.

  And now this!

  And I am absolutely alone!

  Cranz and Raschner are incompetent—not only did they fail to eliminate Frade but they managed to lose an SS officer and half a dozen of his men while shooting up an empty house. Only a fool would not consider that they will shortly receive a letter from Himmler—now that I think about it, it probably came in the same pouch as Himmler’s letter to von Lutzenberger and me—ordering them to secretly report on how I am carrying out my assignments.

  And Cranz will do a good job on that. That Sohn der einer Hündin would like nothing better than to get me out of the way so he could become first deputy adjutant to the Reichsführer-SS.

  Well, as I always say about facing a difficult task: “You need good men and a lot of money.”

  And I have all the money I could possibly need—or will just as soon as I can get to Uruguay.

  But men? Where am I going to find good men?

  There’s no one at all, except that fat slob—Anton von Gradny-Sawz, the grosse Weinerwurst—and he’s stupid and as useless as teats on a boar hog.

  Or . . .

  Wait a minute! I don’t think he’s really stupid. He was certainly smart enough to know when to change sides just before the Anschluss. And he’s done a remarkable job of covering his Gesäss since he joined the German diplomatic service.

  And he’s afraid of me!

  And what other choice do I have?

  Anton von Gradny-Sawz and August Müller, M.D., were standing in the foyer of the petit-hotel when von Deitzberg came quickly down the stairway.

  Dr. Müller looked at von Deitzberg curiously. Von Gradny-Sawz had a look of concern, as if he were afraid that von Deitzberg would attack the physician.

  “Ah, the Bavarian medical genius!” von Deitzberg then cried happily. “What are you doing here in the foyer? Come up to the room and we’ll send Maria out for a little schnapps. We can find schnapps here, right, Anton?”

  “I’m not sure if we can,” von Gradny-Sawz said uneasily.

  “Nothing to drink for me at this hour,” Dr. Müller said. “Thank you just the same. I have to go to the hospital.”

  “Of course, of course,” von Deitzberg said. “I understand. But I really wanted to celebrate.”

  “You’re feeling better, I gather?” Müller asked.

  “I woke up this morning feeling better than I’ve felt in years,” von Deitzberg said. “Doctor, you are a genius!”

  “Oh, I’m just a simple physician trying to do my best.”

  “You’re too modest,” von Deitzberg said. “Much too modest. I am deeply in your debt. And at the risk of immodesty, the SS is grateful to you, as well. You have returned this officer to full duty.”

  “If that is so, I am honored to have been of service,” Müller said.

  “I wish I could proclaim your genius to the world,” von Deitzberg said. “But under the circumstances, you understand, that is not possible.”

  “I understand,” Dr. Müller agreed solemnly.

  “But as soon as I can get through to Reichsführer-SS Himmler,” von Deitzberg went on, “I’ll see that your son’s commanding officers are made aware of your contribution to the SS.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Müller said emotionally.

  “But now our duty calls,” von Deitzberg said solemnly. His right arm shot out in the Nazi salute.

  “Heil Hitler!” he barked.

  Dr. Müller returned the salute.

  “After you, mein lieber Gradny-Sawz,” von Deitzberg said, and grandly bowed him ahead of him up the stairway.

  [TWO]

  Von Deitzberg’s judgment that von Gradny-Sawz was afraid of him was something of an understatement. Terrified would have been more accurate. Von Gradny-Sawz had known von Deitzberg’s reputation within the SS before “Generalmajor” von Deitzberg had come to Argentina the first time. And that reputation was that he was at least as ruthless and cold-blooded as Reichsführer-SS Himmler himself.

  Part of von Deitzberg’s mission then—aside from apologizing to the Argentine officer corps for el Coronel Frade’s murder, and von Gradny-Sawz would not have been surprised if that order had actually come from SS-Brigadeführer von Deitzberg in the first place—was the detection of the spy, or spies, everyone knew operated in the embassy.

  Von Deitzberg had brought three people with him to help him find the spy or spies or traitors, and three people—Major von Wachtstein, Sturmbannführer von Tresmarck, and First Secretary von Gradny-Sawz—were rushed onto the next Condor flight to Berlin “to assist in the investigation.”

  From the moment the SS-Obersturmbannführer had picked him up at his apartment to take him to the airfield, von Gradny-Sawz had been convinced they were all en route to Sachsenhausen or Dachau.

  But it hadn’t turned out that way. After four days of thorough questioning, he and von Tresmarck had been returned to Buenos Aires. Von Wachtstein had stayed in Germany, not because he was suspected of treason but because he had gone to Augsburg to learn how to fly the new Me-262 jet-propelled fighter.

  In the end, he, too, was returned to Argentina. It came out that the young fighter pilot had caused Alicia, the youngest daughter of Señora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano, to be with child. It had been decided that young von Wachtstein would be of greater value to National Socialism married to the daughter of the richest woman in Argentina than he would be flying, and he was sent back to Argentina under orders to “do the right thing.”

  Von Gradny-Sawz had not forgotten his terror on being ordered to Berlin, and had vowed then that it would never happen again. He had established—in addition to what he’d talked about with el Coronel Martín—three different places to which he could disappear with reasonable safety should his presence again be demanded in Berlin.

  As he walked ahead of von Deitzberg up the stairway to the apartment he had rented for Señor Jorge Schenck, von Gradny-Sawz seriously considered the possibility that the tall, slim, blond Westphalian had gone out of his mind. Rapid mood changes were almost a sure sign of schizophrenia.

  And there seemed to be more indications that the war was going to be lost. The newspapers that day carried the story of the bombing on Hamburg of the night of 27 July—it had taken that long to get the story out. According to the correspondent of the Stockholm Dagens Nyheter, who had no reason to lie, the bombing had created so much heat that a “firestorm” had been created, a monstrous inferno with winds of more than 240 kilometers per hour and temperatures so high that asphalt streets began to burn. More than twenty-one square kilometers of the city had been incinerated and more than 35,000 people had been burned to death. The Dagens Nyheter report said the British had named the raids “Operation Gomorrah.”

  The Italians had surrendered, although most of northern Italy—including Rome—was under German control. Von Gradny-Sawz thought that Mussolini’s declaration of a new Fascist state that was going to drive the English and the Americans from the Italian peninsula was what sailors called “pissing into the wind.”

  Since the war was almost surely lost, the question to von Gradny-Sawz then became: What would he have to do to protect himself from what was going to happen when that actually happened?

  He had no intention of going back to Europe, which would be not much more than a pile of rubble. Going “home” was absolutely out of the question. The Russians were going to seize Hungary, and the first thing they were going to do was confiscate all the property of the nobility. And then, presuming they didn’t hang them first, the nobility would be shipped off to a Siberian labor camp.

  He
was going to have to find refuge in Argentina, just as Bormann, Himmler, and the others intended to. The difference there was that they had access to money—mind-boggling amounts of money—and he didn’t. He had managed to get some money out of Hungary, and there were some family jewels. But if he had to buy refuge in Argentina—which seemed likely—that wasn’t going to be cheap, and he wasn’t going to have much to live on until he could, so to speak, come out of hiding and get a job.

  He thought that after a while he could get a job as a professor at the University of Buenos Aires—or perhaps at the Catholic University—teaching history or political science. He had a degree in history from the University of Vienna. He had already begun to cultivate academics from both institutions.

  But right now the problem was SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg, and von Gradny-Sawz really had no idea how he was going to deal with that.

  The moment they were in the apartment, von Deitzberg went to his chest of drawers, picked up the bottle of brandy that von Gradny-Sawz had brought him as his home remedy for von Deitzberg’s “cold,” poured some into two water glasses, and handed one to von Gradny-Sawz.

  “It’s absolutely true, Anton,” von Deitzberg said, smiling charmingly, “that Winston Churchill begins his day with a glass of cognac. ‘Know thy enemy,’ right? Maybe he’s onto something.”

  Von Gradny-Sawz thought: Good God, he’s insane and now he’s going to get drunk?

  “Final Victory,” von Deitzberg said as he tapped their glasses.

  “Our Führer,” von Gradny-Sawz responded, and took a small sip of the cognac.

  “You don’t really believe in the Final Victory, do you, Anton?” von Deitzberg asked. “Or, for that matter, in the Führer?”

  Von Gradny-Sawz felt a chill. He had no idea how to respond.