“Who is in this mess up to his nostrils. Tell me what you think of the inspector general’s proposal.”
“The only thing I was thinking, sir, was two things. The first was that if we had the Piper Cubs you say the Húsares de Pueyrredón has sent to Mendoza, they would be useful to find el Coronel Schmidt.”
“Good idea!” Rawson said. “And?”
“If the president would give me permission to accompany Inspector General Nervo and el Coronel Wattersly when they go to meet el Coronel Schmidt, I think it would lend weight to their position. If I was there, your aide-de-camp, el Coronel Schmidt . . .”
“If I sent you with these two, Bobby, what would happen would be that all three of you would be shot to death,” Rawson said. He turned to Martín. “Okay, Martín, what have you got to say?”
For fifteen seconds Martín almost visibly formed his reply.
“I was thinking—I realize this might be construed the wrong way; that I’m trying not to go out there—I would be of more use staying here in Buenos Aires with you, Señor Presidente. If things go bad when Edmundo and Santiago meet Schmidt, or with el Coronel Perón when Subinspector General Nolasco goes to San Martín to deal with him, I think it would be useful for you, sir, to have at your side at least one man whose loyalty to you is known.”
“In other words, you would prefer to be shot against a wall here with me than on some country road with Edmundo and the inspector general. Is that what you’re saying?”
Nervo laughed. Rawson gave him a dirty look.
“Well, you’ll be with me, Martín, but in Mendoza, not here,” Rawson said. “Now, here’s what’s going to happen: just about everything Nervo proposed, with one major exception. Edmundo is going to stay here at the Edificio Libertador, and I’m going to meet with Schmidt wherever the Húsares de Pueyrredón’s Piper Cubs find him.
“I am going from here to the Edificio Libertador, where I am going to get on the military telephone to el Coronel Pereitra of the Húsares de Pueyrredón. I am going to order him to move—immediately, in secrecy—his regiment to Mendoza, in three stages. First the observation aircraft, second the Immediate Reaction Force, and then the balance of the regiment.
“I am then going to dictate and have typed the orders Inspector General Nervo suggested that I issue. Then I am going to Aeropuerto Jorge Frade and get on the airplane Martín ordered them to hold for him and fly to Mendoza.”
“Señor Presidente, everyone will know you’ve left Buenos Aires,” Martín protested.
“Possible, even probably,” Rawson agreed. “But so what? Bobby, let’s go. The car should be at the door by now.”
[FOUR]
Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade
Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
1120 16 October 1943
When the president of the Argentine Republic stepped out of the official presidential limousine in front of the passenger terminal, a familiar face was there to greet him.
“Well, Father Kurt,” El Presidente said. “What an unexpected pleasure! Whatever are you doing here?”
“I would think I’m here for the same reason you are, Arturo.”
“And what would that be?”
“To try to keep some smoldering embers in Mendoza from turning into a conflagration.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, of course.”
“Lying to a priest—especially to the priest who is your confessor—is a sin, Arturo. I’ve told you that before.”
Rawson didn’t reply.
“I think I might be of some help, Arturo.”
Rawson gestured toward the Lodestar sitting on the tarmac.
“Why don’t we take a little ride, Father? And, on the way, perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell me how you found out about this.”
“I’d love to, Arturo, really I would. But that would violate a priestly confidence, and that, too, would be a sin. I’m sure you understand.”
[FIVE]
Casa Montagna
Estancia Don Guillermo
Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
1210 16 October 1943
Don Cletus Frade opened his eyes and saw Mother Superior’s face very close to his.
“Try not to move,” she said. “This will sting a little.”
He tried to raise his head.
“Hold him,” Mother Superior ordered.
A massive hand pushed his head back against the floor.
He saw Mother Superior’s hands approaching his head. One hand held a pad of surgical gauze, the other a curved needle laced with a black thread.
He felt his forehead being mopped, then saw the needle getting close.
“Jesus H. Christ!” he exclaimed as the needle penetrated the skin on his fo rehead.
“Is he all right?” Doña Dorotea asked.
“I told you bringing him in here would be a mistake,” Mother Superior replied.
The needle penetrated his skin again.
“What the hell happened?” Clete asked.
Dorotea groaned in pain and took the Lord’s name in vain.
Clete tried to rise. The massive hand again pushed him back against the floor.
That has to be the hand of Sister Suboficial Mayor.
What the hell is going on?
The needle struck again.
“That should hold it for the time being,” Mother Superior said. “Stay there until I say you can get up.” She added, “Don’t let him move.”
“Yes, Mother Superior,” Sister Suboficial Mayor said.
“Oh, God!” Dorotea groaned loudly.
“Push,” Mother Superior said. “I can see the head.”
Clete tried and failed to raise his head.
“Dorotea? Are you all right, baby?”
“No, goddamn it, I’m not. . . . Oh, God!”
“Stop blaspheming and push, Dorotea,” Mother Superior said.
“Well, that’s a shame,” Mother Superior said.
“What’s a shame?” Clete asked in horror from the floor.
“I was sort of hoping for a future postulant for the Order of the Little Sisters of Santa María del Pilar. But what we have here is what looks like a healthy male.”
“May I let him up, Mother Superior?” Sister Suboficial Mayor asked.
“Give me a minute to clean up the baby,” Mother Superior said.
[SIX]
Casa Montagna
Estancia Don Guillermo
Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
1240 16 October 1943
Subinspector Estanislao Nowicki found Don Cletus Frade and Enrico Rodríguez in the bar. Frade was holding a brandy snifter in his hand. There was a bandage on his head, and his shirt was bloody. Nowicki looked at Enrico for an explanation and Enrico shook his head: Don’t ask.
Frade looked at Nowicki.
“Go ahead, ask,” Clete said.
“What happened?”
“Ten minutes ago, my wife was delivered of a healthy baby boy.”
“That’s wonderful, Don Cletus!”
“I was at the time on the floor. Estanislao, never be present when your wife is having a baby.”
“You passed out,” Nowicki said. “That happened to me.”
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that,” Clete said. “Maybe that will wipe the smirk off Enrico’s face. Enrico doesn’t have any children.”
“Having a baby, Enrico,” Nowicki said, “is something a woman should do alone. Or at least with other women. Or with a doctor. But not with her husband anywhere around. When my wife had her first child, she swore at me with words I didn’t even know she knew.”
“So what’s up, Estanislao?” Clete asked.
“You heard that that Nazi bastard Schmidt and ten 10th Mountain Regiment trucks are moving toward General Alvear?”
Frade nodded. “Segundo Comandante Garcia told me.”
“Garcia
just told me there’s been a message from General Nervo. An important person will arrive at El Plumerillo around two-thirty or three and suggests you be there.”
“He say what important person?” Clete asked.
Nowicki shrugged.
“Maybe the general. And/or somebody else.”
Clete looked at his watch.
“Well, I guess I better go change my shirt. Never meet an important person at an airport in a bloody shirt. Enrico, I can really change my shirt without help. Go get the Lincoln.”
The Lincoln, two Gendarmería Nacional Fords, and a truck were lined up in front of the house when Clete came out ten minutes later. Enrico was standing beside the Lincoln, holding the door open for Clete.
“With your permission, Don Cletus, I will not go. I want to have a look around the perimeter. You will not be alone.” He gestured at the gendarmes. “And you will have more room in case there is more than one important person at the airport.”
“Try not to fall down the mountain, Enrico,” Clete said, and got behind the wheel.
[SEVEN]
Edelweiss Hotel
San Martín 202
San Carlos de Bariloche
1505 16 October 1943
“It is a great honor to have you in our hotel, Coronel Perón,” the manager said, “and a pleasure to see you back so soon, Señor Schenck.”
“I’m here privately,” Perón said.
“We’re thinking very seriously of buying a small estancia here,” Evita said.
“Now, as I’m sure you can understand, we don’t want that getting out,” Perón said.
“I understand completely. You may trust my discretion and that of everybody in the Edelweiss.”
“Thank you.”
“How much trouble will it be to get my car from the garage?” Señor Schenck asked.
“I can have it at the door in five minutes,” the manager said.
“Oh, good!” Evita said. “I’m so anxious to see this place!”
“I’d like to clean up a little . . . ,” Perón said.
“Me too,” Evita said happily. “My back teeth are floating, as they say.”
Perón looked as if he wanted to choke her.
And she’s not talking in that stilted language anymore. I suppose she figures she doesn’t have to impress me with her culture now that we’re all such good friends.
When Señor and Señora Schenck got to their room, she beat him into the bathroom and he waited impatiently for her to come out.
“Teeth no longer floating?” he asked sarcastically as he brushed past her.
“What does he see in her?” Inge said, ignoring it.
“I don’t know, but I’m glad he sees whatever it is. With a little luck, I’ll have his signature on that deed this afternoon—because of her.”
When he came out of the bathroom, he went directly to the telephone and, consulting a business card, asked the hotel operator to get him a number.
“Señor Suarez, this is Jorge Schenck,” von Deitzberg said. “I managed to convince el Coronel Perón to have a look at the property. I have reason to believe he’ll like it. I’d like to strike, so to speak, when the iron is hot, by which I mean later today.
“What do you mean it’ll take longer than that?”
Señor Suarez took forever to explain the bothersome details of completing such a transaction, the Argentine bureaucracy being what it was.
“Bribe somebody,” von Deitzberg snapped. “Now, this is what I want done. I want you to be having a drink in the Edelweiss Hotel bar from five o’clock—make that half past four—until I get there.
“I will express surprise at seeing you, and I will tell you that I have been showing Perón Estancia Puesta de Sol, and one thing will lead to another and you will ultimately say something to the effect that there’s no reason the deed can’t be transferred right there in the bar if that’s what he wishes to do.”
Señor Suarez asked how sure could Señor Schenck be that Perón would want to do that.
“Trust me, he’ll want to do that,” von Deitzberg said. “You just be in the bar when we walk in.”
[EIGHT]
El Plumerillo Airfield
Mendoza, Mendoza Province, Argentina
1505 16 October 1943
The first person to stand in the open door of SAA’s Ciudad de San Miguel was Inspector General Santiago Nervo of the Gendarmería Nacional. He took a quick look around, which caused the dozen gendarmes from the truck to pop to attention, then got off the airplane.
Next to get off, surprising Clete, was Capitán Roberto Lauffer, and then, surprising Clete even more, the president of the Argentine Republic appeared in the door and got off. He was followed by Subinspector General Nolasco, el Coronel Martín, and the Reverend Kurt Welner, S.J.
What the hell is he doing here?
Finally, two men in the powder blue uniforms of SAA pilots came through the door. One of them was Capitán Gonzalo Delgano. The other—obviously Delgano’s copilot—he recognized but could not remember his name.
“Cletus, what did you do to your head?” Rawson asked, even before saying “hello” or embracing him.
“Like President George Washington, Señor Presidente, I cannot tell a lie. I passed out as Dorotea was giving birth to our son, and cracked my head on the floor.”
He realized that was the first time he had ever used the term “our son,” and the sound of it produced a strong and unexpected reaction: His eyes watered and his throat tightened.
“When did that happen?” Rawson asked. “The baby. Not your head.”
“Just after noon, sir,” Clete said.
“Well, then, I will be able to say I was among the first to be able to offer my congratulations. How is Dorotea?”
“Very well, sir. Thank you.”
“And I will have the happy privilege of baptizing your son,” Father Welner said.
First things first, right? Sprinkle my son with water before some heathen Episcopalian can get to him?
“I see the Pipers have yet to arrive,” Rawson said.
“Pipers”? What Pipers?
“Excuse me, sir?”
“They should be here by now,” Rawson said. “I ordered el Coronel Pereitra to send them immediately.”
Rawson saw the confusion on Clete’s face and explained to him what had happened, what orders he had issued, and what he hoped would happen.
The Pipers had not arrived when he had finished.
“Well, I don’t intend to stand around here waiting for them; they’ll arrive sooner or later,” Rawson said. “What I think we should do now is send Subinspector General Nolasco to San Martín to deal with el Coronel Perón . . .” He stopped when he saw the look on Nervo’s face.
“If, of course,” Rawson said, more than a little sarcastically, “this meets with General Nervo’s approval. Cletus, you would be surprised at how helpful General Nervo has been. One would think he went to the Military Academy and into the army instead of becoming a simple policeman.”
“Actually, mi general,” Nervo said. “I thought about going to the Military Academy, but I couldn’t. My parents were married.”
Father Welner, Subinspector General Nolasco, Capitáns Lauffer and Delgano, and the copilot whose name—Garcia—Clete suddenly remembered looked horrified.
There was a hushed silence, broken only when Cletus chuckled and then laughed out loud.
“You think that’s funny, Cletus?” Rawson asked, as if torn between indignation and curiosity.
“General, it’s what reserve Marine Corps officers, like me, who didn’t go to the Naval Academy, say to regular Marine Corps officers, who did.”
“Mi general,” Nervo said, “I should not have said that. It just slipped out. Apparently, I cannot handle my newfound freedom to say what I’m thinking without considering the consequences.”
“General Nervo believes he is about to be thrown into the River Plate with his hands tied behind him,” Rawson said. “And if he
ever says something like that again to me, I’ll throw him into the River Plate myself.”
“And I will help, mi general,” Capitán Lauffer said.
“Bobby,” Frade said. “We call people like you ‘ring knockers.’ ”
“A reference, no doubt, to a wedding ring?” Rawson asked.
“No. Naval Academy graduates wear Naval Academy rings. When someone who is not ‘Regular Navy’ says something they don’t like, they knock their rings on a table, or whatever, to remind us amateurs that we are challenging regulars who went to the Academy and therefore know everything about everything and are never wrong.”
“How interesting,” Rawson said. “‘People like you’ would obviously include me. Your father, Cletus, had the odd notion that the Ejército Argentino was making a serious mistake in restricting the officer corps to graduates of the Military Academy.”
“Well, I have to agree with that, sir,” Cletus said.
“Perhaps we are,” Rawson said, his tone suggesting he didn’t believe that for a moment. “So tell me, General Nervo, what—as an amateur—it is that you find wrong with my idea of sending Subinspector General Nolasco to San Martin to deal with Perón?”
“Sir, I don’t think we should arrest Perón until we know more about his involvement in this,” Nervo said. “Send Nolasco to San Martín to locate Perón and keep an eye on him, but not arrest him until he hears from you.”
Rawson nodded but did not reply.
“General,” Clete said. “We don’t know if the Pipers will arrive—”
“I ordered el Coronel Pereitra to send them,” Rawson said impatiently, then heard what he had said. “And if they don’t?”
Clete said, “Even if the Húsares de Pueyrredón’s Pipers do arrive, we won’t know if they’ll work until I have a look at them. And without the Pipers, we’re just pissing in the wind. Which means we’re going to have to think of something else, like commandeering a couple of those.”
He pointed across the airfield to hangars in which at least four privately owned Piper Cubs were parked.
The Honor of Spies Page 55