“An airline pilot, señora.”
Cletus Frade thought: In a pig’s ass you’re not a soldier; Lufthansa is entirely owned by the Luftwaffe.
And who’s the other guy? He obviously doesn’t speak Spanish. His smile is more than a little strained.
“And how should I call you?”
Try “Oberst,” Claudia.
They don’t let second lieutenants fly the Condor.
“I would be honored, señora, if you bring yourself to call me Dieter.”
“And you will please call me Claudia,” she said, and turned to Cranz. “Welcome to our home, señor. And you are?”
“I regret, madam, I do not speak Spanish,” Cranz said in German.
“He says he’s sorry he doesn’t speak Spanish, Claudia,” Frade offered helpfully in English.
“That’s not a problem, Cletus,” she said in German. “Because I do speak a little German.”
“My name is Karl Cranz, gnädige Frau,” Cranz said. “I’m newly assigned to the German embassy here. As the commercial attaché. Please forgive our intrusion.”
Frade glanced at Major Delgano and saw in his eyes that he didn’t believe that “commercial attaché” announcement, either.
Doña Claudia said, “And your mother is Austrian or you have spent some time there. Gnädige Frau is pure Viennese.”
“Guilty, gnädige Frau. My mother is a Viennese. You know Vienna?”
“I once spent a wonderful month there while visiting a friend who was in school in Germany. Let me introduce the others. . . .”
When they went in to dinner, Clete saw that Claudia had not only given some thought as to who would sit where but had also somehow arranged for name cards—even for the unexpected guests—to be placed on the table in silver holders so that everybody would know where to sit.
She sat at one end of the long table. As the guest of honor, Perón was seated at her right. Peter von Wachtstein was seated at the other end, apparently signifying his new role as the man of the house, separated from his mother-in-law by two candelabra and an enormous bowl of flowers.
Cranz was seated across from Perón, and von und zu Aschenburg was seated next to von Wachtstein, with Father Welner next to him, and Isabela next to him. Clete was near the middle of the table, beside Alicia von Wachtstein and across the table from his Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Humberto. Dorotea was next to Humberto, and Delgano sat beside her.
Clete was impressed with Claudia’s seating arrangements. They were designed, he decided, to provide an ambiance where polite conversation would be encouraged, and the opposite—verbal battles between, for example, himself and Isabela—be made difficult.
The only interesting thing Clete noticed during the course of dinner was that Cranz was really charming both Claudia and Perón and that both seemed to like it.
There’s something about that sonofabitch that bothers me.
After dinner, the gentlemen retired to the library for brandy and cigars. Over the fireplace hung a huge oil portrait of a tall, heavyset man in the full dress uniform of the Colonel Commanding the Húsares de Pueyrredón Cavalry Regiment.
“Would it be indiscreet of me to guess that’s the late Señor Carzino-Cormano? ” Cranz asked. “And what is that marvelous uniform?”
“That’s my father, Señor Cranz,” Clete said in German. “The late Oberst Jorge Guillermo Frade.”
“A fine-looking man,” Cranz said.
“What’s that phrase? ‘Tragically cut down in the prime of his life’?”
“In one of those interesting coincidences, Captain von und zu Aschenburg, ” Colonel Juan D. Perón said hurriedly and in Spanish, changing the direction of the conversation, “we were talking, just before you arrived, about airlines.”
“Really?”
“We just started one,” Perón said. “South American Airways.”
This was translated by von und zu Aschenburg for Cranz.
Cranz replied, “How interesting!”
Von und zu Aschenburg smiled, then made the translation of that for Cranz into Spanish: “Herr Cranz said he’s a bit surprised that aircraft would be available to start an airline.”
Clete smiled warmly at Cranz.
“Actually, that’s why I’m going to start an airline,” Frade said. “I found out that we—that’s my American half talking; I’m half American, half Argentine— that is to say, we North Americans have a bunch of brand-new Lockheed Lodestars that nobody wants and that South American Airways can buy cheap.”
That translation was made. Cranz smiled but did not reply.
“Forgive me for saying this, Señor Frade,” von und zu Aschenburg said, “but I would be just a little wary of airplanes that can be had cheaply because nobody wants them. Are you a pilot?”
“I’ve flown a little,” Clete said.
“What kind of airplanes?”
“Mostly Piper Cubs, planes like that—”
“Cletus, I just can’t let that pass,” Perón interrupted. He turned to von und zu Aschenburg. “The truth, Captain von und zu Aschenburg, is that before he was medically discharged from the American Corps of Marines, Cletus distinguished himself as a fighter pilot in the war in the Pacific. His late father”—he waved his arm dramatically at the oil portrait of the late Colonel Frade—“my best friend, may he rest in peace, was very, very proud of him.”
“You weren’t flying Piper Cubs in the Pacific, were you, Señor Frade?” von und zu Aschenburg asked.
“Actually, yeah. Sometimes I did. We used them like you use your Storch, for artillery spotting, things like that. Other times, I flew Grumman F4F Wildcats.”
“He was an ace,” Perón proclaimed. “And, in a situation the details of which I’m not at liberty to discuss, he recently applied his extraordinary flying skills and demonstrated his courage here in Argentina, the land of his birth. His father would be, as I am, very proud to say that he has earned the respect and admiration of many senior officials, including our president.”
As von und zu Aschenburg translated this for Cranz, Cranz looked between Frade and von Wachtstein.
Frade thought: I’m sure I’m right. The airline pilot is a good guy, and the diplomat a bad one. A bad one and a dangerous one. Why do I know that?
And thank you, Tío Juan Domingo, for that passionate little speech.
While I am tempted to blush, the bottom line is that you have told these guys, and one or the other of them—probably both—is going to pass it on to somebody in the German embassy that Don Cletus Frade has many friends in high places, and that should be taken into consideration the next time somebody suggests killing him would solve a lot of problems.
Cranz spoke to von und zu Aschenburg, who then translated: “Mr. Cranz . . . Karl . . . remains curious about the availability of transport aircraft for a civilian enterprise in . . . in the present conditions.”
“The present conditions” meaning the war, right?
Oh, I’ll love answering this one.
“From what I’ve been told,” Frade said, “what aircraft are available are those the Air Forces or our airlines don’t need. I don’t think there’s any DC-3s or -4s available, is what I mean. What is available are some Lockheed Lodestars nobody really has any need for. And our airlines don’t need them either. They’re pretty much settled on the DC-3. But the Lockheed’s fine for our purposes.”
Cranz said something else in German. Frade understood him to ask “How soon?” but waited before replying until von und zu Aschenburg had paraphrased what Cranz had said in Spanish. The delay was ostensibly for the benefit of the others, though it also allowed Frade to fully consider an appropriate answer.
Frade looked at Cranz and said: “Right away, as a matter of fact. El Señor Delgano and I will start looking for facilities in Mendoza and Uruguay in the next couple of days.”
“You already have the airplanes?” von und zu Aschenburg asked.
“No. But I have a Lodestar, which I will rent to Through and Around— excuse me, South American Ai
rways—to get us started.”
Then he stood up.
“I have to be going,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Captain, and Mr. Creez, was it?”
“Cranz,” Cranz said carefully.
Frade shook hands with Father Welner and Delgano, then kissed Claudia, Perón, and Duarte, and then nodded at the Germans as he walked out of the library.
He stopped in the corridor outside the library.
“You have to understand, Herr Cranz,” he overheard Juan Domingo Perón say in German, “that he lost his father to a very cruel and unwise decision by one of your SS officers.”
“I had no idea,” Cranz said, mustering a tone that he hoped sounded like genuine surprise.
“I think the best way to deal with that subject,” Doña Alicia said, “which is painful to all of us, is not to discuss it.”
VI
[ONE]
Office of the Director Office of Strategic Services National Institutes of Health Building Washington, D.C. 0930 29 June 1943
“Why is it, Alex,” OSS Director William J. Donovan said, looking up from his desk to meet Colonel Alejandro Graham’s eyes, “that I suspect I’m not going to like that cat-who-has-just-swallowed-the-canary smile on your face?”
“Bill, you know that I always love to bring you proof that one of your orders has been carried out with alacrity.”
“Try telling that to your man Frade.”
“As a matter of fact, I have just heard from Major Frade.”
“And you’re smiling. So what’s the bad news?”
Graham extended a message fresh from the radio room. Donovan snatched it from his hand and scanned it. His eyes widened and his eyebrows rose as he read it more thoroughly:
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM TEX
MSG NO 205 0405 GREENWICH 13 JULY 1943
TO AGGIE
REFERENCE AIRLINE
HUMBERTO DUARTE, HEREAFTER TÍO HANK, MANAGING DIRECTOR, BANCO DE INGLATERRA Y ARGENTINA, HEREAFTER BANK, ADVISED ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE TO OBTAIN PERMISSION TO FORM AND OPERATE AIRLINE WITHOUT PARTICIPATION OF SENIOR ARGENTINE OFFICER, ENTIRELY ARGENTINE FLIGHT CREWS, AND APPOINTMENT OF BUREAU OF INTERNAL SECURITY OFFICER, HEREAFTER BIS, AS CHIEF PILOT TO ENSURE AIRLINE DOES NOT CARRY OUT OSS ACTIVITIES.
SOUTH AMERICAN AIRWAYS, S.A., HEREAFTER SAA, FORMED LAST NIGHT WITH INITIAL CAPITALIZATION OF $3,432,000. TEX SIXTY PERCENT MAJORITY STOCKHOLDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR WITH INVESTMENT OF $2,200,000 OBTAINED FROM BANK WITH LOAN AGAINST LOCAL PROPERTIES.
BANK HOLDS FIFTEEN PERCENT OF REMAINDER. SEÑORA CLAUDIA CARZINO-CORMANO, HEREAFTER TÍA CLAUDIA, AND TÍO HANK 12.5 PERCENT EACH. THEY WILL SIT ON BOARD OF DIRECTORS WITH COLONEL JUAN DOMINGO PERÓN, HEREAFTER TÍO JUAN. MAJOR GONZALO DELGANO, BIS,
QUOTE RETIRED END QUOTE, HEREAFTER HAWK, HAS BEEN NAMED CHIEF PILOT.
PLEASE ARRANGE FOR FOURTEEN PARROTS PLUS SIXTY-DAY SUPPLY OF SPARES TO BE SENT TO BIRDCAGE FOR PICKUP BY TEX AND HAWK. ONE PARROT NEEDED IMMEDIATELY, OTHERS AT SEVEN- TO FOURTEEN-DAY INTERVALS.
ALSO URGENTLY NEED SIX REPEAT SIX 500-WATT COLLINS MODEL 295 TRANSCEIVERS AND ADEQUATE REPEAT ADEQUATE SPARES FOR SAME.
ADVISE HOW YOU INTEND TO PAY FOR ALL THIS.
FISHING NONPRODUCTIVE
ACKNOWLEDGE
TEX
“You believe this?” Donovan asked.
“I have no reason not to.”
Donovan shook his head unbelievingly.
“What does he mean by that ‘fishing nonproductive’ remark?”
“Presumably, that he has found no replenishment ships in the River Plate.”
“Okay. I presume ‘parrots’ means airplanes—”
“Lockheed Lodestars,” Graham confirmed.
“Does he have enough money to buy fourteen of them?”
“They go for about a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Fourteen would be one and three quarters million.”
“I know who Perón is, but who are these other people?”
“Aunt Claudia was Frade’s father’s . . . how do I put this? . . . great and good friend.”
“You mean ‘mistress’?”
“ ‘Mistress’ means to me some young tootsie being supported by a sugar daddy. Señora Carzino-Cormano is just about as well off as Frade was. As our Frade now is. I’m guessing that she’s an investor and on the board, because if she is, there won’t be some other Argentine. Same thing for Uncle Hank, whose wife is the late Colonel Frade’s sister. Or, equally possible, both of them saw it as an interesting investment. The bank’s in for fifteen percent.”
“Presuming we send him the airplanes—”
“I think we are morally obliged to send him the airplanes. We told him the President wanted an airline, and he’s set up one.”
Donovan ignored the interruption, and went on: “—what good is this airline going to do the OSS? With an Argentine intelligence officer as the chief pilot? With all pilots Argentine?”
“I don’t know. Do you think in his Machiavellian way Roosevelt had another purpose besides helping the OSS when he ordered the OSS to set up an airline?”
“Like what?”
“Like sticking it in Juan Trippe.”
“If he did, he’d never admit it.”
“There’s one way to tell,” Graham said. “First you tell him the good news, that there’s going to be an airline down there. Then you tell him the bad news, that the OSS can’t use it for anything, because there are Argentines deeply involved in it just to keep that from happening. Then you compare his reactions. If he’s not really unhappy about the bad news . . .”
“Why don’t you tell him? I’m going to the White House for cocktails at five, and I’m sure the President would be delighted if you came. Then you could judge his reactions for yourself.”
“If I did that, he likely would be able to ask who Galahad is again, and God only knows where that would lead.”
“That thought ran through my mind, frankly. Why don’t I meet you in the lobby at, say, quarter to five? That way, we can be sure that nothing will happen to keep you from going.”
“I really don’t want to go over there, Bill.”
“Yeah, I know. But Allen Dulles is going to be there.”
Graham didn’t reply. But he certainly was curious as to why Dulles, the OSS station chief in Switzerland, was in the States.
Donovan went on: “I think Dulles is the real reason the President wants to know who Galahad is. And I think the President would like you to tell him why you won’t tell him.”
“I presume my invitation to this is in fact an order?” Graham asked coldly.
Donovan nodded. He met Graham’s eyes for a long moment, then said, “Yes, Colonel, it is. And in the meantime, why don’t you start working on getting a Lodestar on its way to Pôrto Alegre?”
“To where?”
“Our air base at Pôrto Alegre, Brazil—the ‘birdcage.’ ”
“You remembered the code name!” Graham said in mock awe.
“I forget very little, Colonel Graham. It might behoove you to keep that in mind. For example, I’m not about to forget quarter to five in the lobby.”
“What about the radios he wants?”
“I guess I’m not perfect after all. I forgot that.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Call the Army Security Agency, tell them you need the radios and some expert who’ll know how to set them up. We’ll send him and the radios down there on the first Lodestar.”
“And what do I respond to Frade?”
“Why don’t you wait until you have his reaction to the news that you’re sending the first of fourteen Lockheed Lodestars that will be of little or no use to the OSS in Argentina?”
“And what about the financing of this enterprise?”
“You can ask the President that, too. I would guess that since he would have to repay Frade that two point two million from his unvouchered funds,
he would be pleased if Frade used his own money. As you point out, he’s got lots of it.”
“That’s not fair, Bill.”
“We’re in the OSS, Alex. The word ‘fair’ is not in our lexicon.”
[TWO]
Embassy of the German Reich Avenida Córdoba Buenos Aires, Argentina 0855 13 July 1943
Manfred von Deitzberg, a tall, slim, blond forty-two-year-old wearing a brand-new gray double-breasted pin-striped suit, marched through the door of the office of Ambassador Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger. Von Deitzberg thrust out his arm. “Heil Hitler!”
Von Lutzenberger returned the salute, none too crisply, then said, “If you please, gentlemen, give the Herr Generalmajor and me a moment alone.”
First Secretary Anton von Gradny-Sawz—a tall, almost handsome, somewhat overweight forty-five-year-old with a full head of luxuriant reddish-brown hair—SS-Sturmbannführer Erich Raschner—a short, squat man of the same age—and Korvettenkapitän Karl Boltitz, the latter two also wearing obviously new suits of clothing, and all of whom had obviously intended to enter von Lutzenberger’s office, stopped so suddenly that they bumped into each other.
“And close the door, please,” von Lutzenberger said, then waited until it was before he said, “And how was the voyage, von Deitzberg?”
Von Deitzberg, unsmiling, ignored the question. “I presume there was an important reason why you summoned me here?”
“I was complying with my orders,” von Lutzenberger said, and handed him a sheet of paper.
MOST SECRET
The Foreign Ministry
Berlin
7 July 1943
By Hand
Manfred Graf von Lutzenberger
Ambassador of the German Reich
Buenos Aires
Heil Hitler!
1. On receipt of this document, you will immediately hand deliver enclosures (1) and (2) hereto to Generalmajor Manfred von Deitzberg.
2. Foreign Service Officer Grade 15 Karl Cranz is appointed commercial attaché of the embassy of the German Reich, Buenos Aires, with immediate effect. Vice Foreign Service Officer Grade 15 Wilhelm Frogger will return to Berlin to assume new duties in the foreign ministry as soon as the turnover can be effected.
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