“And you sent this coded message?”
“No, I didn’t. I told him to give me his codebook, and that if I heard he’d sent any messages to anybody, I’d have him shot.”
Nervo glanced at Martín and said, “Our OSS friend really is a lot smarter than he looks, isn’t he, Alejandro? And I’ll bet he doesn’t get any friend of his involved in something that’ll probably get him shot.”
Martín looked at Frade. “Go on, Cletus.”
“Well, after we prove we did what we promised to do, it’s Gehlen’s turn to give us something of value. Presuming he does that, we get some more wives and children of Gehlen’s people out of Germany and over here.”
“Just the wives and children?”
“For now. The officers will come later.”
“What’s that all about?” Nervo asked.
“Again, I don’t know what I’m talking about here. Just guessing.”
“So guess,” General Nervo said.
“Most of these people are dedicated Nazis. I know for sure that Möller is. They are going to keep on fighting godless Communism and keeping their oath of personal loyalty to the Führer until the Russians are in Berlin.”
“Gehlen, too?” Martín asked.
“No. Not Gehlen. But please don’t ask me any more about that, Alejandro.”
“If I did, would you tell me?” Martín asked.
Nervo said: “Apropos of nothing whatever, Cletus, what comes to your mind when you hear the term ‘Valkyrie’?”
Jesus Christ, they know about that?
Well, Martín did tell me he had a BIS guy in the Argentine Embassy in Berlin he really wanted to keep there.
Sure they know.
“Blond, large-breasted Aryan women who fool around with the braver soldiers? Carry them off for carnal adventures on their horses?”
“Yeah, right,” Nervo said, chuckling. “The SS guy at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo doesn’t like Valkyries?”
“I know he thinks that anyone who is not going to keep his vow of personal loyalty to Hitler is a traitor.”
“Like Galahad, for example?” Martín said.
“Like who?” Frade said.
“You did hear that he flew his little airplane to Montevideo this morning, and came back about an hour ago?”
“Who did what?”
“He brought back with him a package for Señor Gradny-Sawz,” Martín said.
He demonstrated with his hands the size of the package; about that of a shoe box.
“Cletus,” Nervo said. “Would you be shocked to hear that I don’t think fighting godless Communism is such a bad idea?”
“I’d say you sound like my boss and my grandfather,” Clete said.
Nervo chuckled. He patted Clete on the arm and then turned to Martín.
“Alejandro, decision time. You have thirty seconds to decide what we’re going to do about all these people violating the sacred neutrality of Argentina.”
Martín shook his head.
“Twenty-five seconds,” Nervo said, looking at his wristwatch. “Do you want to report to General Obregón that we have reason to believe that the American OSS with the connivance of the Papal Nuncio has just smuggled into Argentina two SS people and their wives and children? And plans to smuggle in more?”
Martín stared icily at him.
“Or that you watched, but did not arrest, an SS general as he was smuggled into Argentina from a German submarine?”
“Christ, Santiago!” Martín protested.
“Or that we have reason to believe that Don Cletus Frade has been concealing two Germans who either ran from their embassy—or who he might have kidnapped—at his Estancia Don Guillermo in Mendoza?”
“I didn’t kidnap the Froggers,” Clete said.
“Does Father Kurt know about you and the Froggers?” Nervo asked.
Clete nodded.
“Or, Alejandro, do you wish to join with Don Cletus and me in this noble—and I might add, endorsed by Holy Mother Church—battle against godless Communism?”
Nervo glanced at his wristwatch. “Fifteen seconds.”
“Goddamn you, Santiago!”
“I would ask if you want to join with Don Cletus and me in the equally—as far as I am concerned—noble battle against more-or-less godless Nazism, but I’m not sure how you and Holy Mother Church really feel about the Nazis.”
“You sonofabitch!” Martín said, but he could not restrain a chuckle.
“May I interpret that to mean you’re with us?”
“What other choice do I have?”
“Suicide would be an option, but I seem to recall that’s a mortal sin.”
“What are we going to do?” Martín asked.
“What I’m going to do is get in Don Cletus’s airplane . . . the little one . . . and fly to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo with him to have a word with el Señor . . . what’s his name, Cletus?”
“Möller. Alois Möller. We kept their real Christian names.”
“. . . with Señor Alois Möller.”
“About what?”
“I’ll decide that after I talk with him,” Nervo said. “But right now I’m thinking along the lines of suggesting to him that his only option—presuming he wants to stay alive—is to do nothing that might in any way annoy Don Cletus or myself.”
“What about Edmundo Wattersly?” Martín asked.
“Tell him we need a daily report on el Coronel Schmidt’s activities. We can’t have that Nazi sonofabitch going to Casa Montagna looking for the weapons cache. . . . Or, now that I think of it, for the Froggers.”
“Okay. But what I meant is: Do we tell him about this?”
Nervo didn’t reply for a long moment, before finally asking, “We don’t have to make that decision right now, do we?”
“No,” Martín said. “But sooner or later. Him and Lauffer.”
“Not now,” Nervo said.
Martín nodded.
Nervo asked: “Do you want me to send Pedro out to the estancia with your car?”
“How about this?” Clete interrupted. “Father Silva is going to bring the National Identity booklets out here at nine tomorrow morning. I’m going to make a fuel stop at the same time on my way to Mendoza. Santiago, if you want to spend the night at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo . . .”
“I accept your gracious offer,” Nervo said. “Alejandro, have Pedro bring the car here in the morning. Wait . . .” He turned to Cletus. “I’d like Subinspector General Nolasco to see Casa Montagna for himself. Would there be room for him on your airplane?”
Clete nodded. “Plenty of room. You want to send somebody else?”
“Tell Nolasco to pick two other people, who will stay there for a few days, a week. Don’t tell them where they are going. Got that?”
“Sí, mi general,” Martín said sarcastically.
“Good man,” Nervo said.
[FOUR]
Calle Martín 404
Carrasco, Uruguay
1615 2 October 1943
Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck—a somewhat portly man in his forties who wore a full, neatly manicured mustache, à la Adolf Hitler—rang the doorbell of his home a second time.
It was literally a door bell, a five-inch brass bell hanging on a chain from the roof of the house. A woven leather cord was attached to the clapper.
When there was again no answer, he turned to the person standing with him, a tall, trim, olive-skinned man in his thirties.
“Dare I hope not only that my beloved wife is still in Punta del Este, but that the maid has taken advantage of this and given herself the day off?”
“Your wife’s car is not here,” the man with him said.
“Cross your fingers,” von Tresmarck said as he took the door key from his pocket.
He pushed the door open and called, “María?”
There was no answer.
Von Tresmarck waved the man with him into the house, then closed the door.
He held up h
is hand, fingers crossed, and then called, “Inge!”
When there was no answer, he called again.
And when there was still no answer, he called loudly, “Inge, you blond slut! Answer me!”
When there was again no answer, he turned to the man with him and kissed him on each cheek and then on the mouth.
“Now, let us have a drink,” he said. “And then a bath.”
“I’m up here, Werner,” Inge von Tresmarck said.
He looked up and saw her standing in her bathrobe on the landing beside the stairwell.
“Scheisse!” von Tresmarck muttered.
“Wait for me in the sitting,” Inge said.
“What?” von Tresmarck asked incredulously. He looked at the man with him.
“Your wife said to wait for us in the sitting,” a male voice then said unpleasantly.
She’s got a man up there? She’s never done that before!
“It would seem your wife has a guest,” the man said. He obviously found this amusing.
Von Tresmarck looked up at the second floor. There was a man—also wearing a bathrobe—standing beside his wife.
Is that my bathrobe?
He recognized the man, who was indeed wearing his bathrobe.
“Oh, my God!”
“And don’t let your friend get away until I have a word with him,” the man said.
“Wernie, who is that man?” the man asked.
Von Tresmarck grabbed the man’s elbow and propelled him into the sitting room.
“What’s going on here, Wernie?” the man quickly asked, his tone now one of concern.
“Just sit there and be quiet,” von Tresmarck ordered. He went to the bookcase, removed four books, put his hand in the space where they had been, and rummaged around.
“What are you doing?” the man asked.
“For the love of God, be quiet!”
When his now frantic search in the space behind the books proved fruitless, von Tresmarck went to the desk and started pulling open drawers.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” SS-Brigadeführer Manfred von Deitzberg asked.
Von Tresmarck looked up. Von Deitzberg was lowering himself onto a small couch. He held von Tresmarck’s 9mm Luger P08 pistol in his left hand. Not threateningly; he wasn’t holding it by the grip, ready to fire, but in his palm, as if it were a pocket watch or a handful of coins he wished to examine.
Von Tresmarck did not reply.
Von Deitzberg turned to the man who was now standing beside von Tresmarck, visibly uncomfortable with the introduction of the pistol.
“You must be Ramón,” von Deitzberg said. “Did you two have a pleasant time in Paraguay, Ramón?”
“Who are you?” Ramón asked.
“You may call me señor,” von Deitzberg said. “Both of you may call me señor. Answer my question, Ramón!”
“Tell him,” von Tresmarck said softly.
“We had quite a nice time, thank you,” Ramón said.
“Did Sturmbannführer von Tresmarck tell you that he was under orders not to leave Uruguay—not even to go to Argentina, much less to Paraguay—without specific permission?”
Inge von Tresmarck came into the sitting room. It was evident to her husband that she was wearing nothing under her bathrobe. She walked to von Deitzberg and sat beside him on the couch.
She’s obviously fucking von Deitzberg.
Well, why not? She was one of the whores in the Hotel Am Zoo and the Adlon. She’d fuck an elephant to save her skin!
“No, he didn’t.”
Von Tresmarck began: “Herr Brigadeführer, I went to Paraguay—”
With a sudden swift motion, von Deitzberg tossed the pistol from his left hand to his right, grabbed the grip, and fired a round into the bookcase beside von Tresmarck and Ramón.
The noise in the confined area was deafening, as von Deitzberg knew it would be. He had also fired enough pistols to know that a 9mm bullet would not go far through a line of books on a shelf. And he knew that when most people hear a gunshot, they decide it is the sound of an automobile engine backfiring.
This time, Inge said, “Scheisse!”
“I would really prefer not to shoot you, Werner,” von Deitzberg said. “But the next time you use my rank or my name, or try to lie to me, I will.”
Everyone—Inge included—was now looking at von Deitzberg with terror in their eyes.
“And if I have to shoot you, it will be necessary for me to shoot Ramón, too. Many times, especially in the face, so that it will look like a lovers’ quarrel, something both the German Embassy and the Uruguayan government will want to quickly cover up.”
He let that sink in.
“You were about to tell me what you were doing in Paraguay, Werner,” he went on finally.
Von Tresmarck, visibly nervous, launched into an elaborate explanation of the trip, saying that he had grown afraid that questions would be asked about all the property he’d already bought in Uruguay, and that Ramón, a business-man, had suggested that they begin making investments in Paraguay.
Von Deitzberg let him finish.
“Ramón,” von Deitzberg then said, “I’m afraid that Werner also forgot that he was under orders not to share any detail of the confidential special fund with anyone. You understand, of course, how your acquiring that knowledge has reduced your chances of staying alive?”
“I have to go to the toilet,” Ramón stammered.
“Certainly,” von Deitzberg said. “But hurry back. And don’t think of running away. Hauptsturmführer Forster is sitting in his car outside. Werner, tell Ramón who Hauptsturmführer Forster is.”
“He’s with the Geheime Staatspolizei,” von Tresmarck said.
“Do you know what the Geheime Staatspolizei is, Ramón?” von Deitzberg asked.
“Please, I have to go to the toilet right now,” Ramón said.
“The Secret State Police. He is under orders to shoot anyone he sees leaving this house without my permission.”
“I understand,” Ramón said. “May I go?”
“Hurry back,” von Deitzberg said.
Ramón hurriedly—and walking unnaturally—left the sitting room.
“I wonder if he’s going to make it?” von Deitzberg asked rhetorically. “I tend to think not.”
“May I sit down?” von Tresmarck asked.
“I think that would be a very good idea,” von Deitzberg said. “What I think I’m going to do, Werner, is tell you what’s going to happen and have you explain it to Ramón.”
Von Tresmarck nodded.
“The operation is shut down,” von Deitzberg began. “There have been reverses in the war, as I’m sure you know, which have resulted in the unexpected transfers of some of the people involved. Others have fallen for the Fatherland. It doesn’t really matter why. Intelligent people, Werner, know when to quit.
“I have been sent here under an assumed identity—by U-boat, incidentally, to give you an idea of how important this is considered—to make sure the shutdown is conducted as efficiently and as quickly as possible. And, of course, to make sure that our investments are secure and will be available if—perhaps I should in honesty say ‘when’—they are needed.
“You are going to have to disappear from Uruguay. There are a number of reasons for this, including the very real possibility that some of the Jews are liable to make trouble when it becomes apparent to them that their relatives are not going to be coming.
“It would be best for you to disappear, rather than return to the Fatherland. One of the ways for you to disappear would be to die in tragic if sordid circumstances. As I’m sure you are aware, Werner, it is not uncommon for homosexuals to have a falling-out, resulting in the death of both. And this was before I knew about Ramón.
“Frankly, that seemed at first to be the simplest solution to the problem. And even more so when I got here and learned that you had confided all the details of the operation not only to Frau von Tresmarck but—”
&nbs
p; “I never told her a thing!” von Tresmarck blurted. “She’s a lying whore. . . .”
Von Deitzberg fired another round from the Luger into the bookcase.
“Inge, that may have frightened Ramón,” von Deitzberg said. “Make sure he doesn’t try to do anything foolish.”
Inge jumped quickly to her feet and almost ran out of the sitting room.
“As I was saying, Werner, removing you permanently from the scene seemed a quite logical and simple solution to the problem, especially after I learned you had told both Frau von Tresmarck and Ramón about the confidential special fund and its assets. That was not only very disloyal of you—after all, I’m the fellow who kept you out of Sachsenhausen by sending you here—but stupid.
“But another idea had occurred to me when I learned that—like rats leaving a sinking ship—the Froggers had deserted their post in Buenos Aires.
“I asked myself, What if Werner disappeared? What if he disappeared as soon as he learned I was back in South America? If you hadn’t been off with Ramón in Paraguay, I’m sure that someone in Buenos Aires would have told you I was here. And I wondered, What if Werner disappeared, taking all the confidential special fund assets with him?
“The downside to that would be that when I made that report, there are those who would say—in the presence of the Reichsführer-SS if they could arrange that—that they knew something like that would happen. ‘You simply cannot trust a homosexual; they think like women.’
“The upside to that would be—since you had absconded with them—no confidential special fund assets for me to account for.”
Von Tresmarck looked at von Deitzberg in utter confusion.
“You take my point, Werner?” von Deitzberg asked.
“I . . . uh . . . don’t think I quite understand, Herr Brig . . . Mein Herr.”
“It took Hauptsturmführer Forster about five seconds to appreciate the benefits of your disappearance in these circumstances: We not only need no longer to transfer large amounts of cash to Germany, but since you and the assets have disappeared, no one will be clamoring for their share of the real estate, et cetera, here. And that’s presuming any of them actually manage to get out of Germany and to South America. Are you beginning to understand, Werner?”
Von Tresmarck nodded.
The Honor of Spies Page 45