The Honor of Spies

by W. E. B. Griffin; William E. Butterworth; IV

  "Take it easy, Wertz," von Dattenberg said seriously. "You don't want anyone hearing you talk like that."

  Now there was concern on Wertz's face.

  "Except another U-boat skipper, of course," von Dattenberg added to ease his mind. "And now that you've told me the brigadefuhrer suffers terribly from mal de mer, I'll do my best to stay on the surface until we're nearly where we're going with him."

  "Where are you going?"

  "They didn't tell you?"

  "No, and sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

  "I'd love to tell you, just to piss him off, but that would be dangerous for both of us."

  Wertz nodded his understanding.

  "Go have your shower," von Dattenberg said. "There's fresh clothing on the bunk, and while you're doing that, I'll order your breakfast. Ham and eggs?"

  [FOUR]

  Wardroom

  MV Ciudad de Cadiz

  0915 11 September 1943

  SS-Brigadefuhrer Manfred von Deitzberg, now attired in an ordinary seaman's blue shirt and trousers, was eating--wolfing down--his breakfast of ham steak and eggs and fried potatoes at the master's table in the wardroom.

  "You were hungry, weren't you?" Capitan de Banderano asked, smiling.

  Von Deitzberg, obviously making an attempt to pour some oil on what he recognized as troubled waters, smiled at both von Dattenberg--who was sitting across from him at the table--and de Banderano, who was tilted back in his chair at the head of the table.

  "Obviously, I am not cut out to be a mariner," he said. "I haven't had much to eat but crackers and tea for days."

  "So Capitan Wertz said," de Banderano said. "Well, you can make up for that now."

  "You have a dry cleaning facility on here? The steward said something . . ."

  "There is a dry cleaning machine aboard," de Banderano said. "And a laundry. And stocks of uniforms for the men from the Unterseebooten. Unfortunately, no SS uniforms. We don't see many SS men."

  "And the food! This is marvelous ham! And fresh eggs! Where do you get all this?"

  "Either in Montevideo or Buenos Aires. We enter those ports, usually alternately, every two weeks or so. We top off our fuel tanks and take on stocks of fresh food."

  "With which you replenish the Unterseebooten," von Deitzberg said.

  "We do."

  "And you have no trouble getting into and out of those ports?"

  De Banderano shook his head.

  "Let me ask you this, Kapitan. Could I leave your ship in either port without being noticed?"

  "My orders--you gave them to me, didn't you read them?--say that I am to land you and your men and that crate at Samborombon Bay in the River Plate estuary."

  "I'm not talking about the SS men. I meant just me."

  "I'm not saying it would be impossible, but I don't think I want to take that risk. The authorities watch me pretty close in both places. They suspect--know--what we're doing. But so long as I don't violate their neutrality, they leave me alone. If I was caught smuggling something ashore--you, for example--they wouldn't let me into their ports again. That would mean there would be no fresh food, and, more importantly, no diesel fuel for the Unterseebooten."

  When von Deitzberg didn't reply, de Banderano went on: "And then we have our orders. You and your men are to be put ashore on Samborombon Bay."

  "Orders are subject to change," von Deitzberg said. "Presumably you are in radio contact with Berlin?"

  "Let me explain how that works," de Banderano said, a touch of impatience in his voice. "With rare exceptions, we do not communicate with the station. It's in Spain, by the way. It used to be in North Africa, but now the Americans are there. There was such a transmission today. One word. The code word for 'shipment received; proceeding.'

  "We don't want anyone finding us out by triangulation, which they would most likely do if we sent long messages. We receive our orders, which are encrypted by an Enigma machine, from the station in Spain. The enemy cannot locate a radio receiver by triangulation.

  "Tomorrow, when you and your men are aboard U-405, and she has sailed for Samborombon Bay, and U-409 resumes patrol, I will transmit a two-word message. One will be the code word for U-405 proceeding according to orders, and the second the code word for U-409 resuming patrol.

  "En route to Argentina, the station will transmit specific orders to Capitan von Dattenberg giving him the details regarding where you and your men are to be put ashore in the rubber boats.

  "I don't intend to jeopardize this system by transmitting a long message in which you will attempt to justify to Admiral Canaris putting you ashore in Montevideo or Buenos Aires despite the risks that would pose to not only your mission, but also mine. Do you understand, Senor von Deitzberg?"

  After a long moment, von Deitzberg smiled. "Of course. I simply didn't understand. As I said before, I am not a mariner."

  [FIVE]

  ABC Restaurant

  Lavalle 545

  Buenos Aires, Argentina

  1320 18 September 1943

  "There it is, on the left," Anton von Gradny-Sawz said, pointing as he leaned forward in the rear seat of the embassy's Mercedes.

  "Jawohl, Herr von Gradny-Sawz," Gunther Loche said crisply.

  "Pick me up in an hour and a half, Gunther," von Gradny-Sawz ordered as Loche pulled into the curb. "At ten minutes before three."

  "Jawohl, Herr von Gradny-Sawz."

  "Get yourself some lunch during that time, but before, before you eat, find a public telephone--there's a booth at the intersection of Lavalle and Carlos Pellegrini--and call the embassy and tell Ambassador von Lutzenberger or Fraulein Hassell--no one else; keep trying until you get one or the other--that I am taking lunch with el Coronel Martin and possibly someone on his staff at the ABC; that I expect to be finished before three and will then go to the embassy."

  "Jawohl, Herr von Gradny-Sawz."

  "Now, Gunther, who are you going to call, and when, and what are you going to say?"

  "Before I eat, Herr von Gradny-Sawz, I am to find a public telephone, and call the ambassador or Fraulein Hassell and tell them you're having lunch with el Coronel Martin at the ABC restaurant, and expect to be finished before three, and after that will go to the embassy."

  "And, Gunther, and?"

  "Excuse me, Herr von Gradny-Sawz?"

  "And who are you going to give that message to if neither Ambassador von Lutzenberger nor Fraulein Hassell is available?"

  Gunther was visibly confused for a moment, but then said, "Herr von Gradny-Sawz, you said I was to keep trying until I got one of them; not give the message to someone else."

  "Correct," von Gradny-Sawz said, and got out of the car.

  As he crossed the sidewalk and pushed open the door to the restaurant, von Gradny-Sawz thought, somewhat smugly: What that zealous but none-too-bright would-be Sicherheitsdienst agent is going to do is go to the pay phone, call Commercial Counselor Karl Cranz or, failing to get him on the phone, Deputy Commercial Counselor Erich Raschner--

  "Deputy Commercial Counselor" Raschner, my left foot's big toe!

  Does SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Cranz really think people don't know SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Raschner's not a diplomat? Raschner is crude, ignorant, and a peasant!

  --and tell one or the other of them that I'm having lunch in the ABC with Martin.

  Only then--or perhaps even after he has his lunch--will he try to call Ambassador von Lutzenberger and tell him what I'm doing.

  Which is exactly what I want him to do.

  Cranz and Raschner will think both that (a) Gunther is keeping a close eye on me and (b) that I don't even suspect that he is.

  Von Gradny-Sawz felt a little light-headed.

  He was, he realized, about to cross the Rubicon.

  There was something surreal about it, even though this would not be the first time he had realized that he had had to, so to speak, cross the Rubicon.

  From the moment Ambassador von Lutzenberger had shown him the message from Canaris about the
"senior officer to be later identified" and told him to set up the identity card, driver's license, and the rest of it, von Gradny-Sawz had known he was going to have to do whatever was necessary to keep himself from being identified as the traitor everyone--certainly including the "senior officer to be later identified"--knew was in the embassy.

  That he wasn't the traitor was irrelevant.

  They were going to find a traitor, he well knew, even if they had to invent one.

  Actually, von Gradny-Sawz wasn't sure who "they" were, only that the senior officers of the embassy--Ambassador von Lutzenberger, "Commercial Attache" Cranz, and Naval Attache Boltitz--who were all, of course, under suspicion themselves, were understandably not going to find themselves and their families in Sachsenhausen or Dachau as long as they could throw someone else to the Sicherheitsdienst.

  But von Gradny-Sawz recognized that First Secretary Anton von Gradny-Sawz could easily be that sacrificial lamb.

  When Wilhelm Frogger, the commercial attache of the embassy, had gone missing with his wife, there had been a brief moment's hope that they had been the traitors. Yet that hope had been shattered when "they" had decided the Froggers had been kidnapped by the American OSS.

  Von Gradny-Sawz thought what had happened was that Frogger--or, for that matter, his wife, who was sub rosa working for the Sicherheitsdienst--had decided that he was going to be the sacrificial lamb and had gone to the Americans to save his life.

  That scenario had not sat well with Cranz--and with his superiors in Berlin--because it would have meant that one of their own, Frau Frogger, had been a traitor. That would have damaged the image of the Sicherheitsdienst, and that couldn't be tolerated.

  The arrow was again pointing at Anton von Gradny-Sawz, and, having come to that conclusion, he had understood he really had no choice in the matter; he had to do what he was about to do.

  El Coronel Alejandro Martin, chief of the Ethical Standards Office of the Bureau of Internal Security, was sitting in a booth halfway down the right side of the ABC, buttering a chunk of rye bread.

  He was wearing a tweed suit that von Gradny-Sawz thought was "cut on the English style" and didn't look much like what came to mind when thinking of someone who was Argentina's senior intelligence--and, for that matter, counterintelligence--officer.

  "I hope I haven't kept you waiting, el Coronel?"

  Martin rose and offered von Gradny-Sawz his hand.

  "Actually, I came a bit early. How are you, Mister Secretary?"

  "I thought we'd agreed you weren't to call me that?"

  "At the time, we agreed you wouldn't call me 'Coronel.' "

  "Touche, Alejandro," von Gradny-Sawz said. "Shall I go out and come back in and do it right?"

  "Sit down, Anton, and as soon as we decide which of our governments is paying for our lunch, we'll have a look at the wine list."

  Von Gradny-Sawz managed to slide onto the opposing bench, and he reached for the red-leather-bound wine list.

  "Before we allow the subject to get in the way of our lunch, Anton," Martin said, "I regret that I have been unable to turn up any trace of Senor Frogger. Or Senora Frogger."

  "They seem to have simply fallen off the edge of the earth, haven't they?" von Gradny-Sawz said. "But now that we have talked business, diplomatic protocol gives me no choice in the matter. Our luncheon is on the Foreign Ministry of the German Reich."

  "I will not argue with diplomatic protocol," Martin said. "And since I know nothing of German wines, I'm happy to bow to your expertise."

  "Have you thought of what you would like to eat?"

  "They do a marvelous sauerbraten here."

  "Yes, they do," von Gradny-Sawz agreed cheerfully. "And that would call for a red." He looked up from the wine list, smiled happily at Martin, and announced, "And here it is!"

  He pointed. Martin looked.

  "That's Argentine," Martin said.

  "Yes, I know," von Gradny-Sawz said. "And since, with all modesty, I am something of an expert on German wines--which range from the tolerable to the undrinkable--I will confess--trusting in your discretion--that I never drink them unless it is my diplomatic duty to do so."

  Martin smiled at him but didn't reply.

  "Hungarian wines are marvelous," von Gradny-Sawz began, interrupting himself when a waiter appeared. Then, switching to German, he ordered: "Be so good, Herr Ober, as to bring us a bottle of the Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon 1939 if you have it. If not, 1941."

  "Jawohl, Exzellenz."

  "And then make sure there is another; I suspect it may be necessary."

  "Jawohl, Exzellenz."

  The waiter bowed and backed away from the table.

  "An ethnic German, I would suppose," von Gradny-Sawz said, switching back to Spanish. "What is it they say about converts to Roman Catholicism? 'They become more Papist than the Pope.' I suspect we are being served by a devout follower of the Fuhrer."

  Martin chuckled.

  "Where was I? Oh. Hungarian wines. They really are wonderful. Something else the Bolsheviks are going to wind up with. Including a vineyard that's been in my family since the Romans."

  "That sounds as if you think the Allies are going to win the war," Martin said carefully.

  "As a loyal German, I of course have absolute faith in the ultimate Final Victory."

  Martin smiled and shook his head. Von Gradny-Sawz smiled back.

  "Changing the subject," Martin said, "I know something about that Don Guillermo Cabernet I suspect you don't."

  "The initial pressing is by the bare feet of nubile virgins?"

  "The 'Don Guillermo' makes reference to Don Guillermo Frade, granduncle of the present owner, Don Cletus Frade. He established the vineyard in Mendoza."

  "And now it's in the hands of an American! War is really hell, isn't it, Alejandro?"

  "Yes, I think it is," Martin said seriously. "But speaking of the war, may I ask you a question, friend to friend?"

  "Certainly."

  "What's going on with Mussolini? What was that all about?"

  "You saw the story in La Nacion?"

  "And we heard from our embassy in Berlin that the newspapers there reported that after his brilliant rescue he's on his way to see Hitler."

  "King Victor Emmanuel had him confined in a ski resort not far from Rome in the Gran Sasso. Lovely place; I often skied there. The Campo Imperatore Hotel. He was in the hands of the Carabinieri. The only way to get to the hotel is by cable car. It was therefore believed his rescue was impossible. Even if his rescuers parachuted onto the mountaintop, or landed there in gliders, which is what they ultimately did, Mussolini could be shot by the Carabinieri rather than waiting for the trial the king planned for him after the Americans take Italy. The king was determined that Il Duce should not be freed to attempt to resume control of the government."

  "I saw that the Allies have landed . . ."

  "At Anzio," von Gradny-Sawz confirmed. "And Italy has surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. The Wehrmacht is in the process of disarming the Italian army."

  The waiter appeared with two bottles of Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon, apologized for not having the 1939, but reported that he had a bottle of both 1938 and 1937, and hoped His Excellency would approve.

  They went through the opening, tasting, and pouring ritual.

  They ordered sauerbraten mit Kartoffelknodel und sauerkraut.

  They raised their glasses.

  "To good friends, good food, and good wine," Martin offered.

  "In the best of all possible worlds, a Hungarian Bikaver, as red as the blood of a bull, but failing that, this magnificent Don Guillermo," von Gradny-Sawz responded.

  They sipped, swallowed, and smiled.

  "So what was the purpose of rescuing Il Duce?" Martin asked.

  "I'm sure the Fuhrer had his reasons. Our Fuhrer doesn't always explain his decisions, but we are all agreed that he is virtually incapable of making a mistake."

  Martin did not reply.

  "Ac
cording to the story our commercial counselor, Senor Cranz, got from some friends of his in Germany," von Gradny-Sawz went on, "what the SS did--and I think this was brilliant--was kidnap a senior Carabinieri officer, a colonel or a general, I didn't get his name. They loaded him on one of the gliders and took him to the hotel. Under a flag of truce, the senior SS officer present--most of the attackers were parachutists, but this was an SS captain named Skorzeny--went to the senior Carabinieri officer and told him he had a choice. Either release Mussolini and no one would be hurt, or shoot Mussolini, whereupon the SS would shoot the Carabinieri colonel and then all the Carabinieri.

  "Il Duce was released. Not a shot was fired. A Storch and a pilot were waiting nearby . . ." He waited to see on Martin's face that he knew what a Storch was, then went on: "Then Captain Skorzeny squeezed Il Duce and himself into the plane and flew to Rome."

  Martin said: "I thought the Storch--you have one at the embassy, right?"

  Von Gradny-Sawz nodded.

  "--was a two-place airplane?"

  "I wondered about that, too," von Gradny-Sawz said. "But I have found it wise never to question Herr Cranz about any detail of an SS operation."

  "I understand," Martin said.

  "Herr Cranz was inspired by the kidnapping," von Gradny-Sawz said.

  "Excuse me?"

  The waiter appeared with their sauerbraten mit Kartoffelknodel und sauerkraut.

  "In Germany, you understand, Alejandro, where they don't have your magnificent Argentine beef, the meat sometimes has the consistency of shoe leather. I don't find that a problem. I love the sauce. If I were facing execution, I think I would request for my last meal the Kartoffelknodel and the sauce, hold the sauerbraten. And, of course, a bottle of Bikaver and some hard-crusted bread."

  Martin chuckled.

  "You were saying something about Senor Cranz being inspired by the ki dnapping?"

  By the time he asked the question, von Gradny-Sawz had a mouthful of the sauerbraten. When he finally had it all chewed and swallowed, he said:

  "If I was guaranteed Argentine beef like this, I would add sauerbraten to my last meal." And then, without a perceptible pause, he continued, "What SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Cranz plans to do is kidnap Senora Pamela Holworth-Talley de Mallin, Dona Dorotea Mallin de Frade's mother. He also plans to kidnap Dona Dorotea's fifteen-year-old brother Enrique--and possibly Senor Mallin himself. And then he plans to exchange them all for the Froggers."