W E B Griffin - Honor 2 - Blood and Honor

by Blood

  He heard what I said to Peter. And so did the Jesuit.

  "When it's convenient, I would like to take that material off your hands."

  "Just as soon as this is over."

  And Welner heard that, too. I wonder how much he knows?

  It was half an hour before the last of the guests and estancia workers had made their way through the line, and Father Welner could tug on the Bishop's vestments.

  "Se¤or Frade suggests that you might like to have a coffee with him when-ever you're ready," Welner said.

  The Bishop beamed at Clete and then went into the house, trailed by the others.

  "Thank God that's over," Dorotea said. "I need to find a loo in the worst way."

  "The worst way is probably blindfolded," Clete said solemnly.

  It took her a moment to understand what he considered to be humor.

  "And I'm going to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you?" she asked incredulously, and went quickly into the house.

  When Clete saw Beatrice turn to him, a dazzling smile on her face, he moved quickly after Dorotea.

  The house was full of people; each of them had something to drink in one hand and something to eat in the other. He saw General Rawson and Colonel Per¢n.

  I don't remember Per¢n coming through the line.

  He saw Lauffer, who inclined his head in the direction of the safe and asked with his eyebrows if Clete was free to go there. Clete nodded.

  Two well-dressed men-Army officers? Clete wondered, majors, maybe- were in civvies standing in the corridor by the door of the private study. Two large leather briefcases rested on the floor beside them. And both men obvi-ously carried pistols under their jackets.

  Clete was fishing through his pockets for the key to the room when Enrico walked past him, his key in his hand.

  Lauffer did not introduce Clete to the two officers, and they did not volun-teer their names.

  "Open it, Enrico," Clete ordered, and Enrico pulled the bookcase away from the safe and worked the combination. Then he spun the spoked wheel and pulled the safe door open.

  Clete looked at Lauffer and saw one of the briefcases in his hand.

  "Help yourself," Clete said.

  "I wouldn't wish to take anything I shouldn't," Lauffer said.

  Clete went to the safe and handed Lauffer bundles of currency. They all would have fit easily into one of the briefcases, but when Lauffer apparently de-cided Clete had handed him about half, he put out his hand to stop Clete, then motioned for the second briefcase.

  The entire business didn't take two minutes.

  "That's it," Clete said.

  "Gracias, Mayor Frade," one of the two men said.

  "I will inform el Coronel that we have finished our business," Lauffer said.

  OK, el Coronel is obviously Per¢n. The reason I didn't see him in the re-ception line, or, for that matter, in church, either, now that I think about it, is that he and these two guys were sitting on the safe.

  "You're leaving, Roberto?" Clete asked.

  That was dumb. Both of these guys picked up on my calling him by his first name.

  "When it pleases el General Rawson to leave, Se¤or Frade."

  "Well, if I don't see you again, thank you for everything you have done for me in the past few days, Roberto."

  "It has been my privilege to be of service, Se¤or Frade." I think we did that perfectly. Roberto was properly formal with me, and I was the typical ill-mannered norteamericano who calls people he hardly knows by their first names.

  The two men nodded to him and left the room. Clete now had no doubt they were officers. Lauffer left last.

  Why do I have the idea I've made friends with that guy? Trust him? Feel comfortable that he's not going to run off at the mouth to anyone about Peter? Is that what you call masculine intuition? Or gross stupidity?

  He gave in to his curiosity ten seconds after they left the room. He went out into the corridor in time to see them leaving the house by a door at the end of the corridor. He went into one of the rooms on the corridor and started to haul quickly on the canvas strip that raised the vertical wooden shutters.

  He gave it one quick pull, and was about to give another, when Enrico stopped him.

  "What?" Clete demanded impatiently.

  Enrico gave him his El Winko Famoso, as Clete now thought of it, then showed him that if you pulled the canvas strip just a few inches, the shutter rose enough so you could see through the cracks. The message was clear. He could see out, and no one would notice an open shutter, or one being opened.

  "Gracias," Clete said, and peered through a crack.

  Three cars were parked on the service road that ran past the kitchen, two 1941 Chevrolets and a car of about the same size sandwiched between them- he thought it was an Opel. The Chevrolets each held four men.

  The two officers with the briefcases got in the backseat of the Opel. For two or three minutes, nothing happened. Then a Mercedes sedan appeared on the road. Clete saw the lanky form of el Coronel Juan Domingo Per¢n in the back-seat. It drove on the lawn to move around the three cars on the road. Then they started after it.

  Soon what was now a small convoy-a small, armed convoy, Clete thought-disappeared around the corner of the house.

  "Where are they taking that money?" Clete asked.

  Enrico shrugged.

  Clete thought it interesting that el Coronel Per¢n had assumed responsibil-ity for the money. That fixed Per¢n's place in the G.O.U. hierarchy; he was somewhere near the top.

  Enrico lowered the shutter all the way and followed Clete into the corridor.

  Peter von Wachtstein was standing by the open door to the private office.

  "Captain Lauffer said he thought you would be back here," Peter said.

  "'Go on in," Clete said. "Don't let anybody else in here, Enrico."

  He followed Peter into the study and closed the door.

  "Lauffer came looking for me," Peter said. "To tell me you would be back here. What was that all about? How much does he know, in other words?"

  "He was being a nice guy," Clete said. "He knew where I was, and that I wanted to see you. He doesn't know anything he shouldn't, and what he sus-pects he will keep to himself."

  Peter did not seem convinced.

  "Your father's letter is in there," Clete said, pointing over his shoulder to-ward the safe. When Peter looked confused, Clete turned and saw that the mov-able section of the bookcase was back in place.

  He went to it and swung it outward.

  "You saw it?" Peter asked.

  "And the documents."

  "Then you might as well leave it where it is," Peter said. "I certainly don't have a better place to hide it."

  "Maybe Alicia does," Clete said. "You can leave it here, of course. But..."

  "I'll ask her," Peter said. "I hadn't thought about her."

  "Or Claudia may have a place," Clete said as he swung the bookcase closed.

  "Claudia's up to her ass in this coup d'‚tat," Peter said. "Half the General Staff of the Argentine Army is, or has been, at her place in the last twenty-four hours."

  "I don't suppose you heard anything interesting?"

  "Is that personal curiosity, or is the OSS interested?"

  "Both."

  "I'll tell you something I heard," Peter said, meeting his eyes. "That should get your personal attention. We have a visitor. A Standartenf�hrer-do you know what that is?"

  Clete nodded.

  "Yesterday morning Standartenf�hrer Goltz ordered Gr�ner to have your man Ettinger killed. As soon as possible."

  "Who told you that?"

  "Von Lutzenberger. You better tell your man to watch his back, Clete."

  I wonder if von Lutzenberger also told Mart¡n ?

  And do I tell Peter I already heard about it?

  No. I don't know why no, but no.

  "I'm interested in this SS guy. Why is he here?"

  "That sounds like the OSS asking," Peter said.


  "You sound like you're trying to straddle a fence, Peter," Clete said softly.

  "You have to understand, my friend, that I have this large yellow streak run-ning down my back," Peter replied. "I don't want Goltz finding out about it, as he's likely to do if he learns you-the Americans-are onto him, and starts wondering who could have told you. He's SS-SD. They follow the charming Nazi philosophy that it's better to garrote, or castrate, one hundred innocent men than have one guilty one get away."

  Clete didn't reply.

  "Not only am I not used to-what's that charming phrase in international law? 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy?'" Peter went on, "but I don't like the odds that Goltz will hear about it and order Gr�ner to have somebody cut my throat and blame it on burglars. Not only would it foul up what my father wants me to do, but I think it might hurt."

  "So what's the SS guy up to?" Clete asked.

  Peter looked at him and chuckled.

  "Believe it or not, according to von Lutzenberger, the same thing I am. We are. Making safe investments in Argentina. For different people, I'm sure, but the same thing."

  "Tell me more," Clete said.

  "As Mata Hari said to the nice young Spad pilot?"

  Clete chuckled.

  "I thought what Mata Hari said to the young Spad pilot was 'why don't you let me play with your joystick?'"

  "God, that's terrible!" Peter said. "Your sense of humor is not only juve-nile, but vulgar beyond-"

  "So what's the SS guy up to?" Clete asked again.

  "I don't know much-von Lutzenberger didn't have time to tell me much-but there's apparently a lot of money on the way here-plus jewelry and negotiable securities."

  "How on the way here? And how much is a lot of money?"

  Peter hesitated.

  "This is difficult for me, you understand," he said. "There is a difference in being philosophically opposed to what the Nazis are doing and in giving infor-mation to the enemy who will use it in such a manner as to cause the deaths of one's countrymen, many of whom are not Nazis, and some of whom are as op-posed to Hitler as I am."

  Clete did not reply.

  "A replacement for the Reine de la Mer is en route," Peter said, finally. "A Spanish ship called the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico."

  "If it makes you feel any better, we already knew that," Clete said.

  That's not the truth. What the OSS knows is that a replacement ship is en route. This is the first I've ever heard her name. Why did I lie-and so automat-ically-to Peter? As a good intelligence officer, wanting to keep his source feel-ing less guilty? Or as his friend?

  "You did?" Peter asked, surprised.

  Clete ignored the question. "The money you're talking about is aboard that ship?"

  Peter nodded. "He didn't say-von Lutzenberger didn't say-how much money. But he did say Goltz told him they already have twenty million of your dollars in Uruguay. That reminds me of something my father told me-"

  "Tell me about the twenty million dollars in Uruguay," Clete interrupted.

  "That's all I know about it," Peter said. "Why are you interested?"

  "There's a story going around that for enough money, paid in Uruguay, you can ransom people out of concentration camps."

  "Where'd you hear that?"

  Clete held up hands, palms outward, to show that he didn't want to reveal his source.

  "If they have twenty million in Uruguay, it could be ransom money."

  "I don't believe it."

  "Keep your ears open."

  "You're serious about this, aren't you?" Peter asked, surprised.

  "Yes, I am."

  "I don't believe it," Peter said. "Not that they aren't capable of it morally; they are. Most of the SS would sell their mothers. But I just can't believe it could be done. The risks would be enormous."

  "Unless it was being done by some very senior people, or under their au-thority," Clete said. "Does this guy Goltz fit those shoes?"

  Peter looked thoughtful. "Von Lutzenberger told me he's the liaison be-tween Himmler and Bormann."

  "I don't know what-"

  "Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler runs just about everything in Ger-many connected with the SS, the police, the Gestapo, counterintelligence..."

  "Including concentration camps?"

  "Including, of course, concentration camps. Mart¡n Bormann is the Party Chancellor."

  "What's that?"

  "He runs the Nazi party. He's Hitler's private secretary. I don't mean he takes shorthand. It's half a dozen one way and six the other who is second in power to Hitler between them."

  "I thought Goring was Hitler's Number Two."

  "The last time I saw Der Grosse Hermann, he was wearing his uniform as Chief Hunter of the Reich, which included lederhosen-short leather pants- and a Robin Hood hat with a long feather...."

  "You're kidding!"

  Peter spread his hands to show the length of the feather.

  "Not at all. And more makeup than Marlene Dietrich."

  "In public?" Clete asked, not sure if he should believe Peter or not.

  "I saw him dressed that way at his estate. Karin Hall. The Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe has the custom of inviting all pilots who earn anything more than the Iron Cross First Class for a weekend at Karin Hall, where, more often than not, he tries to get them in bed."

  "He's homosexual?" Clete asked incredulously.

  "You really are naive, aren't you?" Peter said. "Queer as he can be. And he's also a drug addict."

  "And Hitler knows this?"

  "Of course, which is why Goring is not Hitler's Number Two, no matter what is being put out for public consumption. Bormann and Himmler are swine, but they don't make themselves up like women, and, more important, they don't take drugs. Whatever else my F�hrer is, he's not a fool."

  "You ever meet Hitler?"

  "Oh, yes. Many times. When he hung my Knight's Cross on me, he told me I was the future of Germany. Fascinating man. Charming. Spend ten minutes in his presence, and you'd volunteer to follow him into Hell. Which is, of course, what has happened to a lot of people. They have done just that."

  "The Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe didn't find you attractive, Pe-ter? Or did he?"

  Peter smiled. "I'm sure he did. Why not? I'm a handsome fellow."

  "Jesus!"

  "My father is on the OKW staff," Peter said, turning serious. "Making ad-vances to me might have had consequences. Goring, and others like him, gen-erally leave the aristocracy and the officer class alone. They have thousands of others to choose from."

  "If this guy, Goltz, is connected to Bormann and... what was the other one's name?"

  "Himmler," Peter said, his tone making it clear he found it odd Clete could not remember the name. "I take your point. Between those two, anything could be arranged in Germany. But why? They all have more money than they know what to do with. What would they do with more money if they had it?"

  "Buy property in Argentina," Clete said. "Wait a minute...."

  Peter looked at him curiously.

  "Why would they want to buy property here?" Clete asked. "Think about it."

  Peter looked at him without comprehension.

  "You tell me," he said, finally.

  "Why are you buying property here?"

  "So that something can be salvaged from the ashes," Peter said.

  "You just said your F�hrer is no fool. Maybe he's figured out he's already lost the war and is looking for a place to go when it's over."

  Peter considered that.

  "If he wanted to do that-just for the sake of argument-he'd simply send money to von Lutzenberger and tell him to buy property."

  "There would be a record of that," Clete said. "Roosevelt and Churchill called for unconditional surrender at the Casablanca Conference. We would find the records of something like that, declare that it was property of the for-mer German government, and therefore belonged to us."

  Peter considered that a long moment.

  "I'm not
saying that's impossible, but it's hard to believe."

  "I find it hard to believe that the Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe is a drug addict and a faggot who goes around seducing his pilots dressed up like Robin Hood."