“No disrespect was intended, sir,” von Wachtstein said to Cranz. “I had the privilege of the fregattenkapitän’s friendship before he became a fregattenkapitän. ”
“So you did. So what did you ask your friend the fregattenkapitän?”
“Sir, I asked him if he knew and wouldn’t tell me, or whether he didn’t know anything himself.”
“And the fregattenkapitän’s response?”
“The fregattenkapitän told me that was none of my business, sir, and that I should have known better than to have asked him something like that.”
Cranz smiled broadly and laughed.
“And indeed that’s what Karl should have told you, Hans,” he said. “But you are forgiven. And Karl didn’t know any more than you did. What he was doing was what most officers—including this one—do: give their subordinates the erroneous impression they know more than they actually do.”
Boltitz chuckled dutifully.
“It is not kind to make fun of a simple fighter pilot,” von Wachtstein said.
Cranz and Boltitz both laughed.
“Speaking of flying,” Cranz said, and motioned for von Wachtstein to come around the desk.
Von Wachtstein did. There was a map of the Argentine coast laid out on it. He saw that the map had come from the Ejército Argentino’s Topographic Service.
Cranz took a pencil from a jar on his desk and pointed at the map, to a point on the Atlantic Ocean von Wachtstein estimated to be about two hundred kilometers south of Samborombón Bay.
If that isn’t where they intend to bring that special cargo ashore, I can’t imagine what it is.
“If I told you I wanted you to fly me there, von Wachtstein, what would be your reply?” Cranz asked softly.
“ ‘Yes, sir, with qualifications.’ ”
“Meaning?”
“If you wanted to land there, sir, I would need somewhere I could put down the Storch.”
“And?”
“If you wanted to come back, I would need fuel. I can make it there with a comfortable margin of safety, but to get back . . .”
“A smooth field would suffice, am I correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And two hundred liters of aviation-grade gasoline? Would that be enough?”
“Yes, sir. More than enough.”
“And how long would it take us to get there?”
“I would guess,” von Wachtstein said, and made a compass with his fingers, and then put them on the map scale, “that that’s about five hundred kilometers from El Palomar . . .”
“Four hundred eighty-three, to be precise,” Cranz corrected him, just a little smugly.
“Then a few minutes more than three hours, Herr Cranz.”
“It’s now twenty-two past nine,” Cranz said. “If we left here now, and it takes us an hour to get to El Palomar and to take off, that’s ten-thirty. Plus three hours. That means we could be at Necochea at one-thirty. Correct?”
Von Wachtstein made a rocking gesture with his hand that meant more or less.
“How much is . . . ?” Cranz mimicked von Wachtstein’s gesture.
“No more than thirty minutes, perhaps even less, either way, sir. Depending on weather, winds, et cetera.”
“Then that, as I said, would put us down there at a little after one, wouldn’t it?” Cranz said, and without waiting for a reply turned to Boltitz: “A car will pick you up at half past nine at the door, Boltitz. An American Packard. It will take you and Sturmbannführer Raschner to meet us at Necochea.”
“Yes, sir,” Boltitz said, then added, “An American Packard?”
“A dark blue one,” Cranz said.
There was a moment’s silence.
“Neither of you has any questions?” Cranz said.
“None that I dare ask,” von Wachtstein confessed.
“Correct, von Wachtstein,” Cranz said, smiling, then grew serious: “What we’re about to do is important business both to the Reich and to ourselves. If we succeed, we can take pride in having successfully performed our mission. If we fail, I would have to report our failure to Reichsprotektor Himmler, something I really would be loath to do. I came here to Argentina determined not to fail. Do you understand me, gentlemen?”
Both said, “Yes, sir.”
“My decision not to make either of you privy to the details of the landing of the special cargo was based on several factors, including the fact that we suspect—but do not know—that Herr Frogger was the traitor in our midst. In your case, von Wachtstein, there are those who felt your escaping from the debacle at Samborombón Bay without a scratch was a little suspicious. I did not share in this suspicion, of course, but it was there. Now, since I have not taken even Fregattenkapitän Boltitz into my confidence, he could not possibly have taken you into his. If there is trouble today, I will know—and can inform the reichsprotektor—that neither of you could possibly be the traitor.
“If it goes well—and Sturmbannführer Raschner and I have worked very hard to ensure that it will—it will tend to give some credibility to my belief that Frogger is, was, our traitor. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that it will not wipe completely from his mind what suspicions the reichsprotektor has about you, von Wachtstein.”
“Excuse me?” von Wachtstein said.
“You could hardly have informed your friend Major Frade—or anyone else—of the planned landing of the special shipment, could you, since you didn’t know, still don’t know, what those plans are, could you? That’s not quite the same thing as saying you would not have, had you been aware of them. And you won’t, now, have that opportunity.”
Von Wachtstein didn’t reply.
“You’re not going to stand there with a look of indignation on your face, are you, Hans? Pretending you didn’t know you were—indeed, still are—under suspicion?”
“I knew I was, Herr Standartenführer,” von Wachtstein said coldly. “At first. But in my naïveté, I thought I had been cleared by both you and Boltitz.”
“Neither Boltitz nor I think you’re our traitor, Hans. But there are those— Raschner among them, I’m afraid, as well as the people in Berlin—who still wonder about you. We live in that kind of world, I’m sorry to say.”
Von Wachtstein didn’t reply.
“If there are no further questions, gentlemen, I suggest we be on our way,” Cranz said. He looked at von Wachtstein. “No questions, Hans?”
“No questions, sir.”
“You called me Herr Standartenführer a moment ago.”
“I apologize, sir.”
“You were a little upset,” Cranz said. “Understandably.”
“It won’t happen again, sir.”
“Actually, I’m glad it happened. When we get to Necochea, and while we’re there, I think that if you and Boltitz addressed me by my rank, it would have a salutary effect on the people who will be there. God knows, it’s hard to work up a lot of respect for a commercial attaché in his new suit.”
Cranz stood, then took a 9mm Luger P-08 pistol from his drawer, ejected the magazine, then after ensuring it was full put it back in, worked the action to chamber a cartridge, clicked on the safety, and finally slipped the weapon inside his waist band.
Von Wachtstein had several thoughts:
Ready to do battle for the Thousand-Year Reich, are you, Standartenführer?
Why am I not surprised he’s got a P-08?
Most of these SS bastards never have heard a shot fired in anger; for them a Luger’s like those stupid daggers they wear on their dress uniform—a symbol, rather than a tool.
The first thing that Dieter von und zu Aschenburg did when I showed up with a Luger in Spain was take it away from me and give me a .380 Walther PPK.
“A Luger’s for looks, Hansel, my boy. If you’re going to shoot somebody, you’ll need something that doesn’t jam after the first shot. Or before the first shot.”
As he and Cranz walked across the sidewalk to get into the embassy Mercedes, he had three more thoughts
:
I still have the PPK; it’s in the bedside table in my apartment.
Cranz didn’t say anything about me taking a gun.
My God! Was there some sort of threat in him making sure I saw he had the P- 08 ready to fire?
[TWO]
El Palomar Airfield Campo de Mayo Military Base Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1035 23 July 1943
“Tell me something about the radio in the Storch, von Wachtstein,” Cranz said as they walked up to the aircraft.
“What would you like to know, Herr Standartenführer?”
“How do they work? What do they do?”
“Well, this one has the latest equipment. There’s a transmitter-receiver—”
“Which does what?”
“Permits me to communicate with the control tower here, to get permission to taxi, to take off and land, to check the weather, things like that.”
“Can you communicate with anyone else?”
“If there were other German aircraft here, and within range, I could talk to them.”
“Not to an Argentine aircraft?”
“We use different frequencies, Herr Standartenführer. Theoretically, yes; actually, no.”
“Anything else?”
“It has an RDF receiver, Herr Standartenführer. That round antenna on top?” He pointed to it and, when Cranz nodded, went on: “It rotates. There’s a control in the cockpit, and a dial. First you tune in the frequency of the airfield. You hear a Morse code signal. Here, that’s PAL: Dit dah dah dit. Dit dah. Dit dah dit—”
“I know Morse code, von Wachtstein.”
“Yes, sir. I should have known that. No offense intended, sir.”
“None taken. And?”
“When I hear that repeated, I rotate the antenna. Signal strength is shown on a dial. When the dial shows the strongest signal strength, it does so on a compass. That shows me the direction of the field.”
“Very interesting.”
“It’s effective, sir.”
“Just as soon as we get into the air, von Wachtstein, I want you to turn off the transmitter-receiver.”
“Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer.”
Jesus Christ! He thinks I’m going to get on the radio and tell somebody where we’re going!
“Does that answer your question, Herr Standartenführer?”
“Yes, it does, thank you. I have one more.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Will our route take us over your wife’s farm? Let me rephrase: Is it necessary that we fly over your wife’s farm, or that of your friend Frade?”
“I had planned to fly down National Route Three, Herr Standartenführer. It goes all the way to Necochea. My mother-in-law’s estancia touches Route Three.”
I don’t think he’s angling for an invitation to call on Doña Claudia.
“Can you avoid doing so?”
“Certainly, Herr Standartenführer.”
“Do so,” Cranz ordered curtly.
“Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer!”
Does he really think I’ll try something to tell somebody what’s going on?
He’s too smart for that.
Then is he trying to scare me?
If so, why?
What the hell is going on here?
Jesus Christ!
My vivid imagination has just gone into high gear:
When we get to the beach at Necochea, he’s going to use that Luger on me.
“As you suspected all along, Herr Reichsprotektor, von Wachtstein was our traitor. As soon as he learned where the special cargo was to be brought ashore, he attempted to tell our enemies again. I would have preferred that he could have been brought for trial before a People’s Court—traitors don’t deserve an Officer’s Court of Honor—but with the safety of the special cargo at risk, I decided it was necessary to eliminate him then and there. And did so. Heil Hitler!”
Von Wachtstein began his preflight walk-around inspection of the Storch.
You’re paranoid, Hansel! Absolutely out of your fucking mind!
Maybe not.
Or I am paranoid—which really wouldn’t surprise me—but that doesn’t mean that Herr Standartenführer Cranz isn’t prepared to kill me to make himself look good with Himmler . . . and incidentally get rid of someone who really might be a traitor.
Which of course I am.
As he worked the rudder back and forth with his hand, he glanced at Cranz, who was watching him with some interest.
Well, one thing is for sure. He’s not going to shoot me while we’re in the Storch. He doesn’t know how to fly, and the Herr Standartenführer is very good at protecting his ass.
If I live through this, I will have to remember to get my PPK out of the damn drawer and start carrying it with me.
Why didn’t I think of that before? I know these people are murderers.
Clete goes around armed to the teeth, as if he’s on the way to that gunfight in the Wild West. What was it called—“The Easy Corral”?
No. The O.K. Corral. That’s it. The O.K. Corral.
What the hell is a corral?
Just when the elapsed-time clock mounted at the top of the Storch’s windscreen showed that they had departed El Palomar two hours and fifty-five minutes earlier, Major von Wachtstein felt something push at his shoulder. He turned and saw that Standartenführer Cranz was holding a celluloid-covered map out to him.
He took it and saw that it was another Argentine Army Topographic Service map, this one of a smaller scale. It was centered on Necochea and showed little else. Arrows indicated that some place called General Alvarado was to the north, near the Atlantic Ocean, and a place called Energia was to the south, what looked like a kilometer or two inland from the ocean.
The reason it doesn’t show much more than a couple of dirt roads is that there probably isn’t anything else down there.
What the hell. You don’t want anybody around when you’re trying to smuggle things ashore.
A long oblong had been drawn with a grease pencil on the celluloid covering the map. It was labeled Landeplatz 1,200 M. It was located, von Wachtstein estimated, about three hundred meters from the ocean, at right angles to it.
He looked over his shoulder at Cranz, and gestured to him that he should put on his headset.
Cranz nodded, and thirty seconds later, “Hello, hello, hello. Can you hear me?” came over von Wachtstein’s earphones.
“I hear you clearly, Herr Standartenführer.”
“Can you locate the airfield?”
“I will have to fly much lower, Herr Standartenführer.”
“Then do so,” Cranz ordered impatiently.
Reasoning that an SS-standartenführer was certainly a courageous man— at least in his own mind—von Wachtstein dropped the nose of the Storch almost straight down, and allowed the airspeed indicator to get very, very close to the red line before pulling out at about three hundred feet.
The wind whistled interestingly—it sounded like a woman screaming in pain—as it whipped around the gear and fuselage of the Storch at close-to-tearing-the-wings-off speed.
Five minutes later, after dropping even lower—so low that he had to go around, rather than over, various clumps of trees on the pampas—he thought he saw what had to be the so-called airfield. In the middle of nowhere, there were four Ford ton-and-a-half trucks parked in a line about three hundred meters from the South Atlantic.
Two men stepped in front of the line of trucks and began to wave their arms.
“I believe that’s it, Herr Standartenführer,” von Wachtstein said, pointing. “To our left.”
“Are you going to have enough runway to land?”
I can land this thing, if I have to, in about two hundred meters at forty kph.
“I believe I can manage, Herr Standartenführer. I presume that someone has walked the landing area to make sure there are no obstructions.”
There was a perceptible hesitation before Cranz, without much conviction in his voice, said, “I�
�m sure that’s been done, von Wachtstein.”
Von Wachtstein flew the length of the makeshift runway, could see nothing on it, and noted nothing that suggested strong crosswinds.
“It would have been helpful, Herr Standartenführer, if someone had thought to erect a windsock,” he said, then stood the Storch on its wingtip, leveled out, and landed.
[THREE]
Near Necochea Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1415 23 July 1943
When von Wachtstein taxied the Storch up to the trucks, he saw that the straight-arm Nazi salute was being rendered by perhaps a dozen men, all but one of whom were wearing the dark blue coveralls of Argentine workmen. The lone man not in coveralls wore a suit.
You are not only paranoid, Hansel, but certifiably insane.
A couple of hours ago, you were scared shitless that Cranz was going to execute you out of hand. Now you’re having a hard time keeping a straight face at the gray pallor of your passenger.
He shut down the engine.
“Well, we’re down, Herr Standartenführer.”
“I see that we are,” Cranz snapped. “Why was this flight so rough?”
“I regret that, Herr Standartenführer, but landing on a dirt strip with the winds coming off the ocean is not like landing at El Palomar. But not to worry, sir. The Storch is a splendid airplane.”
The man wearing the suit walked up to the airplane and again gave the Nazi salute as soon as Cranz had climbed out.
Von Wachtstein busied himself taking tie-down ropes from the Storch and, when he had them in hand, said, “I wonder if anyone has a hammer for the tie-down stakes, Herr Standartenführer?”
“Erich,” Cranz was saying to the man in the suit, “this is my pilot, Major Freiherr von Wachtstein, who received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross from the hands of Der Führer himself.”
Now he’s going to dazzle this guy, whoever he is, with my Knight’s Cross?
The man threw another Nazi salute and said, “A great honor, Herr Major. I am—”
Cranz silenced him midsentence with an imperiously raised hand.
“I think it better, Herr Schmidt, that the fewer facts von Wachtstein knows about you, the better. No telling who’s liable to be asking him questions. Am I right, von Wachtstein?”
Death and Honor Page 39