“Which may get him shot,” Clete said.
“Indeed. But that’s the best I can do right now. I have to repeat what I told you a while ago, Cletus. If there is to be a civil war, the first battle will not be between the 10th Mountain Regiment and the Gendarmería Nacional.”
“Understood,” Clete said. “Thank you, Santiago.”
General Nervo made a Don’t be silly gesture.
“What time did you say the plane will be here?” Clete asked.
“It should be here now,” Martín said. “Delgano said that the earlier we get on it, the better we’ll be.”
“Go pack your bags, darling,” Clete said to Dorotea.
“I beg pardon?”
“You are going with the nice policeman . . .”
“I am not.”
“. . . who is going to take you from Aeropuerto Jorge Frade in that Buick of his to the Hospital Británico, where your condition will be evaluated. Depending on that evaluation, you will either stay in what will be the best-guarded room in the Hospital Británico, or go to the house on Libertador, or your mother’s house—your choice—which will look like the site of a Gendarmería convention.”
“I am not,” Dorotea said.
“Doña Dorotea, I am old enough to be your father,” Nervo said. “Listen to your husband. Listen to me.”
“Dorotea—” Martín began.
“Listen to me,” Dorotea interrupted him. “I’m the one about to have this child. I don’t know exactly when that will happen. But I do know that if I got in a car and rode down the hill on that bumpy road toward the airport, you would have to take me directly to the Convent Hospital instead. And if that didn’t happen and I were insane enough to get onto an airplane, I would have this baby at ten thousand feet over the pampas. I don’t want to try that, thank you just the same. Thank you all for your kind interest. Discussion closed.”
With a great effort, Doña Dorotea hoisted herself out of her chair.
“Have a nice flight,” she said. “Give my regards to Capitán Delgano.”
Then she walked back into the house.
[FIVE]
Departamento 5B
Arenales 1623
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1835 15 October 1943
El Coronel Juan Domingo Perón crossed the apartment and opened the door to the elevator landing. He was wearing his uniform. But his tie was pulled down and the tunic unbuttoned, revealing worn baggy braces that had seen long service. He obviously had been drinking.
SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg stood there.
As Perón offered his hand, he said, “A pleasant surprise, Manfred. I wondered why I hadn’t heard from you.”
“But you knew I was here?”
Perón closed the door to the apartment.
“Cranz told me you were coming, and how,” Perón said. “And also that von Gradny-Sawz had told him he’d bought you a car and that you had driven out to San Martín de los Andes to see our friend Schmidt. What was that all about?”
“You’re always one step ahead of me, aren’t you, Juan Domingo?”
“I try to stay that way.”
“Never travel by submarine, Juan Domingo. I am still recovering.”
“What was that all about?” Perón asked. “Why didn’t you fly on the Condor? Why all the secrecy?”
“So far as the submarine is concerned, the Führer himself wanted to know if that transport system will actually work if needed. . . .”
“Things don’t seem to be going very well in the war, do they?”
“As a senior officer, I cannot agree with you. That would constitute defeatist talk. As a friend, in confidence between us, that’s an understatement. You heard the Americans are in Naples?”
Perón nodded.
“And things aren’t going too well in the east either,” von Deitzberg said. “Anyway, I was the guinea pig to check out transportation by submarine. It was a long, long voyage.”
“And driving all the way to San Martín de los Andes to see Schmidt?”
“Well, there were two reasons for that. The first was that I wanted to check on our Operation Phoenix properties out there. . . .”
“And the second?”
“Reichsführer-SS Himmler himself told me to do something nice for you, and Schmidt has been working on that for me.”
“What would doing something nice for me entail, exactly?” Perón asked suspiciously.
“The Reichsführer wants you to know how much we appreciate all that you have done for us,” von Deitzberg said.
“And?”
“How about a nine-room villa on two hundred and fifty hectares on the shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi in Bariloche? Does that sound nice to you?”
“It sounds like something I would have a hard time explaining.”
“We’ll talk about it. Believe me, Juan Domingo, it can all be handled with the greatest discretion.”
“Discretion is very important,” Perón said. “And speaking of which, there’s someone I want you to meet. And here discretion is really the watchword.”
Perón put his index finger below his left eye, closed the right eye, and then pulled down the loose flesh below his left eye.
He pulled the door open and waved von Deitzberg into the apartment.
Von Deitzberg thought: What’s this? I am about to be introduced to his latest conquest from the cradle?
Perón gestured at a line of liquor bottles.
“A little of that Johnnie Walker would go down nicely, thank you very much,” von Deitzberg said.
Perón made the drinks, and as he was handing one to von Deitzberg a not-unattractive blond woman walked into the room and smiled a little uneasily at them.
This one’s not thirteen! She has to be at least eighteen.
Eighteen, hell! She’s twenty-four, twenty-five, trying to look like she’s eighteen.
Who the hell is she?
“Evita,” Perón said, “say hello to my good friend Manfred.”
“It is always a pleasure to meet any acquaintance of el Coronel,” the young blonde said.
“I am enchanted, señorita,” von Deitzberg said.
“I didn’t catch the name, señor,” Evita said.
“My name is Jorge Schenck, señorita.”
“I thought el Coronel just said your name is Manfred,” Evita said.
“What this is, my dear,” Perón explained, “is state business. That’s not his real name, and you’ve never seen him.”
“Oh!” Evita said. “It’s like that, is it?”
Perón repeated the earlier gesture, this time closing his left eye and pulling the skin below the right eye down with his finger.
“Might one guess that you’re not a Porteño, Señor Schenck?”
“Only if you call me Jorge,” von Deitzberg said. “Actually, I live in Río Negro. Outside Bariloche. I’m what they call an ‘ethnic German.’ I’m a German who now calls Argentina his home.”
“And what, if one may inquire, do you do in Bariloche?”
She talks very strangely, stiltedly formal. What the hell is that all about?
“Well, I have a number of business interests—May I call you Evita, señorita?”
“Of course you may, Jorge.”
“I’m glad you raised the question, Evita. Among my interests is real estate. I’ve come to see Juan Domingo about a property in which I think he will be interested.”
“What’s that all about?” Evita asked.
“Well, as I’m sure you can appreciate, Evita, a man in Juan Domingo’s position here in Buenos Aires is always in the public eye. Sometimes that’s bothersome.”
“Absolutely,” Perón agreed. “Just between us and the wallpaper, just before you came, Manfred, I was explaining to Evita . . . again, I have to say . . . why we have to be careful where we are seen together. I have a number of enemies.”
“You also have a lot of friends, including this one, Juan Domingo,” von Deitzberg said. �
�And all of us are sympathetic to your problem.”
“You see, Evita?” Perón said. “That’s just what I was telling you.”
“Sometimes I get the idea you’re ashamed of me,” she said more than a little petulantly.
“Don’t be silly,” Perón said. “What you should know, Man . . . Jorge, is that Evita herself is in the public eye. She is a radio actress on Radio Belgrano.”
“Oh, really?” von Deitzberg said. “I should have guessed. You have a lovely voice, Evita.”
“Why, thank you.”
“So when we go out to dinner, there is usually someone who sees us and says to their friends, ‘Oh, look, there’s Evita Duarte, the radio actress, out with some officer.’ Or: ‘Oh, look at the beautiful blonde with el Coronel Perón.’ Or, worst of all: ‘Oh, look, there’s that beautiful blond radio actress Evita Duarte out with the Secretary of Labor, el Coronel Perón.’ ”
“It’s really not that bad, sweetheart,” Evita said. “And it’s the price you just have to pay for being prominent.”
“Sweetheart”? Suspicion confirmed.
Maybe it’s finally occurred to him that there would be objections to a president known to have an affinity for adolescent girls.
This may go easier than I thought it would.
“Well, all I know is that it’s a problem even for someone like me,” von Deitzberg said. “Who is not in the public eye. Just between us and the wallpaper, I have a lady friend, and we have the same problem.”
“You’re married, Jorge, is that what you’re saying?” Evita asked.
“We haven’t lived together for some time,” von Deitzberg said. “It just didn’t work out, and then it turned nasty. We can’t go to dinner anywhere in Buenos Aires. My lady friend and I, I mean. If we do, my wife hears about it by breakfast and—Well, you can imagine.”
“I understand,” Evita said sympathetically. “So what do you do?”
“We do what I came here to suggest to Juan Domingo—and this was, of course, before I had the pleasure of your acquaintance, Evita—that he seriously consider doing himself.”
“Which is?” Perón asked.
“Have a vacation retreat in Bariloche,” von Deitzberg said. “And I think I have found just the place for you. For you both.”
“Oh, really?” Evita said.
“I left my briefcase by the door,” von Deitzberg said. “Let me go get it.”
“Well, there it is,” von Deitzberg said, pointing to a dozen or more large photographs laid out on Perón’s dining room table. “Estancia Puesta de Sol, two hundred and fifty hectares on the shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi. A nine-room villa, plus servants’ quarters, with most of the land in forest. Harvestable forest. What do you think, Juan Domingo?”
“I love it,” Evita said. “Oh, sweetheart!”
I should have been a real-estate salesman.
“Again between us and the wallpaper, I’m a little strapped for cash,” Perón said.
“That’s not a problem,” Von Deitzberg said. “I took title to this place when it came on the market, and your credit is good enough with me.”
Perón obviously was trying to come up with the words to squirm out of it.
“But this is something you would want to consider at your leisure,” von Deitzberg said. “Not just jump into.”
“Yes, I would agree with that,” Perón said. “Haste does make waste.”
“So what I would suggest you and Evita do is go have a look at it.”
“I’d love to,” Evita said.
“How would we do that?” Perón quickly objected. “It’s three days by train out there. If we only spent a day there, we’d be gone a week. I don’t have the time for that.”
“And eight hours by air,” von Deitzberg said. “I know because I just came back to Buenos Aires by air.”
“Really?” Evita asked.
“South American Airways now flies there twice a day, with a stop at San Martín de los Andes,” von Deitzberg said. “The morning flight leaves Aeropuerto Jorge Frade at eight-thirty.”
“You’re not suggesting we do this tomorrow?” Perón asked, incredulous.
“Oh, darling, why not?” Evita said. “I’m so sick of this dreadful little apartment. And I’ve never flown. Please?”
“I’m not sure we could get seats on such short notice,” Perón said.
Evita said what von Deitzberg was thinking: “Of course you can. You’re on the board of directors of SAA. They’ll find seats for us. Will your lady friend be going, too, Jorge?”
“Yes, of course. I think you’ll like each other.”
Inge will be a little surprised, and probably not pleased to hear we’re going back to Bariloche. She really got airsick on the way here.
Too bad. This is all I could ask for, and more.
We came back to Buenos Aires so that I wouldn’t be anywhere near that fool Schmidt when he goes to Mendoza. Better safe than sorry.
Casanova Perón will be out of Buenos Aires and in no position to do anything about stopping what’s going to happen to his beloved godson, Don Cletus, in case he should hear about it—and if he was here, that would possibly, even likely, happen.
And once Juan Domingo takes possession of Estancia Puesta de Sol—which he will if Evita has anything to say about it, and she will—I’ll have him in my pocket. There’s no way he could satisfactorily explain how, on his army pay, he came into possession of an estancia worth half a million pesos from a man who died years ago in a car crash.
“I’ll look in the book for the number, darling,” Evita said. “And then you can call about the tickets.”
“Can I make anybody another drink?” von Deitzberg asked.
“Oh, yes, please,” Evita said. “It’s a celebration, isn’t it?”
XVI
[ONE]
Casa Montagna
Estancia Don Guillermo
Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
0430 16 October 1943
After failing to do so with several gentle nudges, Doña Dorotea Mallín de Frade awakened her husband by jabbing her elbow into his side.
Startled, he sat up and looked down at her.
“Why don’t you go get Mother Superior?” Dorotea asked.
“Is something wrong?” Clete asked.
“No. I just want to start my catechism lessons a little early today. Right after that, I’m going to have a baby. Go get her, goddamn it, Cletus!”
“Oh, shit!”
He jumped out of bed, hastily pulled on his trousers, and ran out of the room.
“You’re not needed in here, Cletus,” Mother Superior said. “Go find something useful to do. Perhaps you can come back later.”
Don Cletus Frade had been deep in thought as he watched Mother Superior and her crew—Sister Carolina, the huge nun whom Clete thought of as Mother Superior’s sergeant major; Sister Mónica; and two others whose names he didn’t know—start turning his bedroom into what was obviously going to be the delivery room.
“Excuse me?”
“I said get out. Go find something useful to do.”
“Like what?”
“Prayer comes to mind.”
He looked at her for a moment, then left the room.
What the hell, why not?
God, if anything bad is going to happen, make it happen to me, not Dorotea or her baby. Our baby.
Thank you.
[TWO]
Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade
Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
0835 16 October 1943
SAA Chief Pilot Gonzalo Delgano stepped outside the passenger terminal and watched SAA Flight 455, one-stop Lodestar service to San Carlos de Bariloche, take off, desperately—and futilely—hoping that a red warning flag would appear on the instrument panel, causing the pilot to return to the field.
When that didn’t happen, he went into his office in the passenger terminal, picked up the telephone, and dialed
a number he had been dialing at least once every five minutes since seven o’clock.
“Extension 7177,” a male voice answered.
“Is he there? Or do you know—”
“He’s here, Major,” “Suboficial Mayor” José Cortina said. “Hold on.”
Delgano heard, faintly: “It’s Delgano, Coronel.”
El Coronel Alejandro Martín came on the line: “What’s so important, Gonzalo?”
“Coronel, von Deitzberg, that blond German woman from Uruguay, el Coronel Juan D. Perón, and some other blond woman by the name of Duarte just took off for Bariloche. I didn’t know whether to stop them or not. I tried to—”
“Perón and von Deitzberg—all of them—were traveling together?” Martín interrupted.
“Yes, sir. I heard about Perón going when I came in this morning. He called last night and said he needed four seats even if that meant taking somebody off the plane.”
“When’s the next flight out there?”
“At half past one.”
“Hold four seats on that. Six. Cancel the flight.”
“That won’t be hard. It may not go anyway.”
“What?”
“It’s undergoing maintenance. They may not be finished in time. If they can’t leave at half past one, they get into San Martín de los Andes too late. The runways there are not lit. We’re working on it, but . . .”
“Is there any other way to get there in a hurry?”
“No, sir.”
“You’re going to be at the airport?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay there. I’ll get back to you.”
[THREE]
Círculo Militar
Santa Fé 750
Buenos Aires, Argentina
0915 16 October 1943
“I hope this is important,” Capitán Roberto Lauffer said as he walked into the private dining room. “My boss is going to wonder where the hell I am.”
“Maybe you’ll have the chance to tell him, Bobby,” el Coronel Edmundo Wattersly said.
The Honor of Spies Page 53