There were more than seventy numbered casas scattered around the three hundred forty square miles of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. The term casa, meaning “house,” was somewhat misleading. There was always more than just a house. There were stables and barns and all the other facilities required to operate what were in effect the seventy farming subdivisions of the estancia. And on each casa there was always more than one house; sometimes there were as many as four.
Some of them were permanently occupied by the supervisor—and, of course, his family—of the surrounding area, the people who worked its land. And some of them were used only when there was a good deal of work to be done in the area, and the workers were too far from their houses or the village near the Big House to, so to speak, commute.
House Number 23 was one of the larger houses. It looked—probably by intention—like a small version of the Big House. Built within a stand of trees, against the winds of the pampas, it was surrounded on three sides by four smaller houses. The casa itself had a verandah on three sides. Inside, there was a great room, a dining room, an office, a kitchen, and five bedrooms. It had, as did the two- and three-bedroom smaller houses, a wood-fired parrilla and a dome-shaped oven. One building housed a MAN diesel generator, which powered the lights, the water pumps, the freezers, and the refrigerators. El Patron had taken good care of his workers.
It was an ideal place for Team Turtle to make their home. Comfortable and far from prying eyes.
When Frade and Graham rode up to it, the members of Team Turtle were waiting for them, looking much like they had the previous day, except that Graham suspected that when they “went home” from the Big House last night, more than one of them had had a nightcap or three. Or more.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll gather around me,” Graham said, “I’ll explain what’s going on.”
He delivered that lecture much as he had practiced it in his head on the ride over. And was pleased that everybody was paying attention, and there were no looks of displeasure.
“And under this new system,” he concluded, “Major Frade has been made area commander. Chief Schultz has been appointed—because of the nature of his cryptographic duties, primarily, but for other reasons as well—as senior agent. All the rest of you will be special agents.”
And nobody seems to object to that either. Or be surprised.
“So now, gentlemen, if you’ll form a rank and come to attention, I will administer the oath of office and present you with your credentials. Which you don’t get to keep, by the way. Area Commander Frade will keep them for you.”
They formed a ragged line.
Graham barked, “Atten-hut!” and they came to attention and the line straightened out. When it had, Graham barked, “Attention to Orders. Headquarters, War Department, Washington, D.C., General Orders No. 150, 25 June 1943. Paragraph 117. First Lieutenant Madison Sawyer, 0567422, Cavalry, is promoted Captain, with date of rank 25 June 1943.”
Captain Sawyer’s response was not what Graham expected. He smiled broadly. Captain Ashton reached over and shook his hand. The others applauded.
Graham had another fey thought.
What the hell, why not? God knows they deserve it.
And when I get back to Washington, I’ll make it legal if I have to intercept General George Catlett Marshall on his morning canter through Rock Creek Park.
“Paragraph 118,” Graham bellowed. Everyone looked at him in confusion. “The following enlisted men, Detached Enlisted Man’s List, are promoted as follows: Technical Sergeant William Ferris to be Master Sergeant; Staff Sergeant Jerry O’Sullivan to be Technical Sergeant; Sergeant Sigfried Stein to be Staff Sergeant.”
Since I thought of it only sixty seconds ago, those promotions came as a surprise. But their faces show how much they’re pleased.
So what do I do now for the chief?
“This is unofficial,” Graham went on, “but shortly—promotion processes seem to take longer in the Naval Service—I expect there will be a communication from the chief of Naval Operations informing Chief Schultz that he has been commissioned Lieutenant, USN (Reserve) (Limited Duty) with immediate effect, and concurrent call to active duty.”
“I’ll be a sonofabitch!” Chief Schultz said.
And there will be such a message, if I have to go to the commander in chief to get him to personally order the chief of Naval Operations to send it.
“Raise your right hand and repeat after me: ‘I—state your name and rank—’ ”
There was a jumbled muttering of names and ranks.
“ ‘—do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the OSS officers appointed over me; that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; that I will guard with my life until my death, unless sooner relieved of this obligation by competent authority, all classified material entrusted to me, or which I acquire through the execution of my duties; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion whatsoever; so help me God.’ ”
When he was finished, Graham walked down the line and handed everybody their leather folder that held the gold badge and photo identification card.
Everybody looks pleased.
More than pleased. This fraudulent little exercise of mine is for them a solemn occasion.
I should be ashamed of myself, but I’m not, and not only because I thought it was necessary to make the fraud, but because it’s made these guys feel important and necessary.
And they damn sure are.
Chief Schultz’s Dorotea—a pleasantly plump thirty-five-year-old Argentine who supervised the servants of Casa Número Veintidós and whom he perhaps ungallantly but accurately described as his live-in dictionary—served coffee and croissants that had been baked in the wood-fired outdoor oven. Graham collected letters that he would make sure were mailed in the United States when he got home. Frade collected the credentials and put them into his saddlebag.
Graham shook everybody’s hand, then he and Frade got on their horses and rode back across the pampas to the Big House.
At four-thirty in the afternoon, Graham was back at El Palomar, where he boarded the Lockheed Lodestar that was Varig Flight 107 for Pôrto Alegre, Brazil.
IV
[ONE]
Aboard the Motor Vessel Ciudad de Cádiz 48 Degrees 85 Minutes South Latitude 59 Degrees 45 Minutes West Longitude 1200 7 July 1943
El Capitán José Francisco de Banderano, a tall, slender, hawk-nosed, somewhat swarthy forty-five-year-old wearing a blue woolen, brass-button uniform with the four golden stripes of his rank on the sleeves, stood on the flying bridge of his ship with binoculars to his eyes. He was making a careful scan of as much of the South Atlantic Ocean as he could see.
There’s nothing out there—not even whitecaps. Just a smooth expanse of ocean.
De Banderano over the years had seen his share of action—had damn near been killed—and knew that an enemy man-o’-war quickly could turn a peaceful patch of ocean violent. Thus he was on a high alert, acutely aware—certainly in broad terms, if not in detail—that while elsewhere in the world the war raged more dramatically, it just as easily could literally explode here.
Indeed, the three-day-old Battle of Kursk—it would last till 23 August— was pitting about three thousand Soviet tanks against roughly that many German tanks. It would become the largest tank battle ever, with the Germans and Russians each losing almost all of their tanks.
Meanwhile, on that very day of 7 July, an Allied fleet of 2,760 ships— primarily from Norfolk, Virginia, and Scotland’s River Clyde—was converging on a rendezvous point in the Mediterranean Sea near Malta. Three days hence, American troops under Lieutenant General George S. Patton and British troops under General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery would exec
ute Operation Husky—the invasion of Sicily.
It would be the first Allied assault on German-occupied Europe.
De Banderano went back on the bridge, set the binoculars in their rack by his chair, and rubbed his hands. The high seas of the South Atlantic in July were cold.
“Herr Kapitän!” announced a young man wearing the white jacket of a steward. He offered a tray on which sat a china mug of steaming coffee.
De Banderano took it.
“Danke,” he said.
As he started sipping from the cup, he thought:
It is highly unlikely that luncheon will be interrupted by a signal from the U-405. It is entirely possible that we will never hear from the U-405, period. The rendezvous was supposed to be within a forty-eight-hour window. That ran out twelve hours ago.
My options are (1) head for Buenos Aires now, or (2) go at midnight, which will mean I give them another twenty-four hours beyond the window, or (3) go at first light, which will mean I will have stayed on station for thirty or so hours beyond the window.
I want this mission to be successful, but I can’t keep making slow circles in the South Atlantic forever.
I will decide over lunch. If not, then at dinner.
“You may serve luncheon whenever it is convenient,” de Banderano ordered.
“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän,” the young blond steward replied, clicked his heels, and marched off the bridge.
Capitán de Banderano, with some disgust, watched him leave. He was aware that the steward spoke little Spanish—and that he was neither a steward nor much less a seaman.
The day before the Ciudad de Cádiz had sailed from Cádiz, the steward— eighteen-year-old Rottenführer Paul Plinzer—was one of fifteen Germans who had boarded the ship. There was “special cargo” aboard, and it had been decided that it needed the special protection that only the Schutzstaffel could provide.
There were three officers, Sturmbannführer (Major) Alfred Kötl and Obersturmführers (Lieutenants) Willi Heitz and Ludwig Schmessinger. They wore their uniforms and lived in officer’s country.
And there were twelve enlisted men, under an oberscharführer (sergeant); two unterscharführers (corporals); and nine rottenführers (lance corporals). They wore civilian clothing and were berthed with the crew.
Sturmbannführer Kötl had volunteered Plinzer’s services as steward almost as soon as they had left port, saying that the young Dresdener might as well do something to earn his keep.
De Banderano suspected that Plinzer’s real function was to report to Kötl what happened on the bridge. He had given freedom of the bridge to Kötl alone, and Kötl obviously could not be there all the time. A steward did not have to explain his presence.
De Banderano did not like Kötl. He thought him to be arrogant and more self-important than he had any right to be. The situation was exacerbated because Kötl did not know what the special cargo was, or what it was for, or where it was going, only that he was to protect it; he understandably suspected that de Banderano knew the answers and was not telling him.
De Banderano in fact knew only where the special cargo was going. His secret orders, sealed until they were at sea, were to rendezvous with the submarine U-405 at sea, about 220 nautical miles due north of the Falkland Islands, which were some 260 nautical miles east of the southern tip of Argentina. There he would replenish the U-405’s fuel, food, and torpedoes, hand her captain his sealed orders, and, as the last step, transfer to the U-405 the crates of special cargo with Sturmbannführer Kötl, an officer of Kötl’s choice, and five of Kötl’s men.
He had not told Kötl about that, and was looking forward to doing so. He doubted the SS officer would be happy to get on a submarine, destination unknown.
Once the transfer had taken place, the Ciudad de Cádiz was to proceed to Buenos Aires, where she was to take onboard as much fuel as they would sell him, and as much frozen meat and fresh produce as possible. In Buenos Aires, he would be provided with a chart overlay marking half a dozen rendezvous points in the South Atlantic Ocean. Once he had sailed from Buenos Aires, he would be advised by a radioed coded phrase at which of the rendezvous points and on what day and at what time he was to rendezvous with other submarines.
De Banderano had no idea what was in the securely sealed wooden crates of the special shipment, although he doubted that it was what he had been told. Oberst Karl-Heinz Grüner, the military attaché of the German embassy in Buenos Aires, had come aboard the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico when she was at anchor, supposedly with “engine problems,” in Samborombón Bay in Argentine waters in the Río de la Plata estuary.
He had told her master—de Banderano—that what he wanted to do was smuggle ashore the special cargo—which contained radios, civilian clothing, and other matériel—to be used to help the interned officers of the Graf Spee escape from Argentina and return to the war.
De Banderano hadn’t believed that the crates contained radios and clothing—all readily available in Buenos Aires—but had said nothing. He had believed the story about helping the Graf Spee officers escape their internment, and that had sounded like a noble effort to attempt.
Two hours later, it had been moot.
Somebody had tipped the Argentines, and as soon as the crates had been placed on the beach of Samborombón Bay from the longboats of the Océano Pacífico —de Banderano had commanded one himself—there had been a sudden deadly mass of rifle fire. Oberst Grüner and Standartenführer Goltz had been killed immediately. Only by the grace of God had the third German officer involved, Luftwaffe Major Peter von Wachtstein, and de Banderano himself escaped death. And only the grace of God had permitted von Wachtstein and de Banderano to get the crates of the special cargo back into the longboats and back aboard the Océano Pacífico.
Within hours, an Argentine navy launch had drawn alongside the Océano Pacífico and handed de Banderano orders to immediately depart Argentine waters and never return.
A week after the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico tied up at Cádiz, while de Banderano had awaited further orders regarding the special cargo still in the hold—but absent the bodies of Oberst Grüner and Standartenführer Goltz, which had been removed for shipment to Germany—he had had a visitor.
The visitor had been wearing civilian clothing but identified himself as Fregattenkapitän Otto von und zu Waching. Further, he said he served as a special assistant to Vizeadmiral Wilhelm Canaris.
De Banderano had been concerned that he was about to have trouble because the smuggling operation had failed. Although there was no way he could have known the Argentines would be waiting for them on the beach, he in fact was the master of the Océano Pacífico and therefore responsible for not having complied with his orders to land the special cargo safely.
That was only tangentially what Fregattenkapitän von und zu Waching had come to see him about. The first thing von und zu Waching had done—in the privacy of de Banderano’s cabin, with only the first officer and the chief engineer present—was to present all three officers, on behalf of Admiral Canaris and the Kriegsmarine, the award of the Iron Cross, Second Class, for their valorous service aboard the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico during an extremely hazardous and important voyage.
Then, from another oblong box covered with artificial blue leather, he took an Iron Cross, First Class, award and presented it to Capitán de Banderano. Von und zu Waching, holding the citation, read: “For personal valor on a secret mission for the German Reich during which Kapitän de Banderano demonstrated the finest characteristics of a naval officer under heavy enemy fire.”
Then Fregattenkapitän von und zu Waching asked de Banderano if he and his officers would consider undertaking another such mission to Argentina.
De Banderano had glanced at his men, then said, “I am sure I am speaking for all of my officers when I say we would be honored, Herr Fregattenkapitän. But the Argentines have made it quite clear that if the Océano Pacífico should ever again appear in Argentine waters, she will be seiz
ed as a smuggler.”
“So I understand,” Fregattenkapitän von und zu Waching replied. “I suspect that what we’ll have to do is get you another ship, won’t we?” He smiled at de Banderano, then pointed out the bridge window. “How about that one?”
De Banderano and the others had looked where he was pointing and saw tied up at the adjacent wharf a modern freighter, substantially larger than the Océano Pacífico. They had all been confused. Von und zu Waching was not the type of officer to make jokes.
He quickly made it clear that he wasn’t making a joke now.
“That’s the Ciudad de Cádiz, which arrived from Hamburg last night,” von und zu Waching said. “If you are willing to take another assignment for us, that will be your ship.”
He then went on to explain that the Ciudad de Cádiz had been launched in late 1941 at the Blohm und Voss shipyard in Hamburg, and that, until two weeks ago, had been registered as the Stadt Kassel of the Hamburg-American Line.
“From the time of her launching,” von und zu Waching said, “she’s undergone extensive conversions at Blohm und Voss. The original idea had been to convert her into a raider, a fast merchantman with armament concealed on her aft- and foredecks. The theory was that she would not raise the suspicions of an enemy merchantman until it was too late for it to take evasive or any other action. The German battle flag would be suddenly hoisted, the false bulkheads around her two 70mm and four 30mm automatic cannon would drop and while the thirties worked over the enemy ship’s radio shack and superstructure, the heavier cannon would blast her hull.
“It was a clever idea,” von und zu Waching went on, “but the Stadt Kassel never put to sea on such a mission, for many reasons, some of them intertwined. For one thing, the U-boats had done a better job of sinking Allied merchantmen in the North Atlantic than anyone had thought they would.
“There was no sense risking a valuable ship like the Stadt Kassel—and getting her through the English Channel would pose a very serious risk—when U-boats could do the job.
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