The Honor of Spies

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

  "Alejandro, I put Pedro on that," General Nervo said. "He had a talk with one of our more prominent kidnappers who said--and Pedro believes him--that neither he nor any of his friends had been approached, nor had he or they heard anything about kidnapping any of the Mallin family."

  "And you believe that, Comandante?" Wattersly asked.

  Nolasco nodded. "The man I talked to, Coronel, depending on what the general tells the court, is facing either five years or twenty-five behind bars. He is motivated to be as cooperative as he possibly can. And while we're on the subject, he volunteered the information that he's reliably heard that the assassination community is reluctant to work for our German friends, especially when that is connected with Don Cletus. They prefer to deal with people who don't shoot back . . . or at least don't shoot back as well as Don Cletus and Rodriguez do."

  "Carrying that further," General Nervo said. "The people I have in the German Embassy have heard nothing about this kidnapping plot either. So what's it all about?"

  Frade thought: So he has people in the German Embassy? Why don't I believe that?

  Someone in his position would almost be expected to have "people" in the German Embassy.

  But for some gut reason, I don't believe him. For one thing, it would be the last thing someone like him would volunteer without reason.

  Martin shrugged and held both hands up.

  "You're saying there never was a plan to kidnap my mother-in-law?" Clete asked.

  "We're saying we don't know," General Nervo said. "If I were you, I wouldn't take your people off any of them. It's always easier to keep people than to get them back."

  "Returning to Senor von Gradny-Sawz," Martin said. "Yesterday, he called to tell me that he had just spent several days with von Deitzberg, who was in Argentina covertly and using the identity of a deceased ethnic German-Argentine named Jorge Schenck; that von Deitzberg had told him that Hitler has personally ordered him to destroy South American Airways' new aircraft--"

  "I want to hear about that," General Nervo said. "What the hell that whole thing is all about, as well as the plans to destroy the airplanes."

  "--I misspoke a moment ago. Von Gradny-Sawz said that Hitler had personally ordered Himmler to have von Deitzberg 'deal with the airplanes.' "

  "If you take that as being true," Wattersly said. "And I find it difficult to believe that Herr Hitler even knows about South American Airways. He has a pretty full plate before him at the moment. But if that is the case, one must then assume that Hitler knows von Whatsisname is here. And if that is true, one must assume that von Whatsisname is up to something important."

  "Von Deitzberg," Martin said somewhat impatiently. "SS-Brigadefuhrer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg."

  "Thank you," Wattersly said politely.

  "Von Gradny-Sawz also said that von Deitzberg told him he is to 'eliminate' the Froggers wherever and whenever found, and do the same to Don Cletus," Martin went on. "And then he told me that von Deitzberg was going to be on this afternoon's SAA flight to Montevideo."

  "He's really being helpful, isn't he?" Nervo said. "What do you make of that?"

  "Generally, I have the feeling that he's trying to ingratiate himself with me so that he can find asylum here. So far as von Deitzberg flying to Montevideo is concerned, I had the feeling--feeling only, nothing to back it up--that he would not have been distressed had von Deitzberg been arrested at the border."

  "Why didn't you have him arrested?" Nervo asked.

  "I want to arrest him--if it comes to that--for something more than having illegally entered Argentina. Blowing up airplanes, for example. Or hiring members of our criminal community to have another go at my friend Cletus."

  Nervo grunted.

  Martin went on: "The thought occurred to me that once I had arrested him, what would I do with him? The president would have to be informed immediately, of course. And he would have questions. 'How did he get into Argentina? ' I would then have the choice between pretending I had no idea--in other words, lie--or telling the president about U-405."

  "Which would make the president then wonder both how you knew about U-405," Capitan Lauffer said, "and why you didn't arrest him on the beach at Samborombon Bay."

  "And that would involve el Coronel Schmidt and his Mountain Troops," Nervo said. "And the German SS men who also came ashore, whom Schmidt took with him to San Martin de los Andes. And why didn't you arrest the lot?" He turned to Lauffer. "Tell me, Roberto, what would El Presidente do if this was laid before him? Seek the wise counsel of el General de Division Manuel Frederico Obregon, the director of the Bureau of Internal Security, to see what he made of it?"

  "I'm afraid, sir, that's just what he would do," Lauffer said.

  "I don't swim well with my hands tied," Nervo said. "So confiding in El Presidente doesn't seem to be an option."

  "If SS-Brigadefuhrer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg . . ." Wattersly began, and then stopped. "Was that right, Martin?"

  "That was correct, Coronel."

  ". . . is the major problem, the solution seems obvious. Any suggestions, Rodriguez?"

  Frade thought: What's he talking about? What obvious solution?

  Certainly, he's not suggesting . . .

  Enrico popped to his feet, came to attention, and barked, "If Don Cletus approves, mi coronel, the Nazi bastard will be dead before the sun sets tomorrow."

  "Good chap!" Wattersly said.

  "Let's see what the Nazi bastard is up to before we do that," Clete said evenly.

  "But, my dear fellow, you heard what Alejandro said. What he's up to is blowing up your airplanes and then killing you and the Froggers, not necessarily in that order. I say nip the whole bloody thing in the bud."

  "I'd like to see who he contacts here, people we don't know about," Frade said.

  Nervo grunted.

  "So would I," Nervo said. "We can always kill him later."

  "Well, now that that's come up," Wattersly said, "I am a bit curious to see if he tries to contact Coronel Schmidt."

  "The Mountain Troops guy?" Clete said. "I thought he was Juan Domingo Peron's good buddy."

  "Not exactly, Old Boy," Wattersly said. "You're really not aware of the di chotomous feelings Erich has toward your Tio Juan?"

  "That's Schmidt's name, 'Erich'?"

  "Erich Franz Schmidt. His mother and mine are cousins," Wattersly said. He paused and looked between Martin and Nervo. "We're getting off the track a bit here, but I think he should hear this. Agreed?"

  Martin nodded. Nervo said, "I agree."

  "Erich believes--he's from Bavarian Roman Catholic stock; they tend to be devout and nonquestioning--that Stalin, Communism, embodies the Antichrist, and that Hitler and the Nazis are fighting on the side of God.

  "He is not a fool. Foolish, sometimes, but not a fool. He fully understands that Juan Domingo Peron's fascination with Fascism and National Socialism is based not so much on religious conviction but on what's good for Juan Domingo Peron.

  "Erich is offended by Peron's morality, as manifested in his sexual tastes. He was one of the colonels who went to discuss them with him. You've heard about that, of course?"

  "No," Frade said simply.

  "A number of his fellow coronels went to Juan Domingo and asked him, in essence, 'Juan Domingo, what about this thirteen-year-old girl?' To which he replied, 'What's wrong with that? I'm not superstitious.'"

  "Jesus Christ!" Clete said. "Is that true?"

  "Unfortunately," Wattersly said. "I know because I was a member of the delegation."

  "That degenerate sonofabitch!" Inspector General Nervo said bitterly.

  "Now," Wattersly went on, "when furthering the interests of the Germans--protecting the landing site at Samborombon Bay, for example, or shooting up your Casa Chica in Tandil--coincides with what Peron wants, Erich will do it. He is sure God wants him to.

  "But, and this is the point of this, he does not want Peron to become president--and will do whatever he thinks is necessary to see that P
eron doesn't."

  "That's not in the cards, is it?" Frade asked.

  "Edmundo hasn't touched on this, Cletus, so I will," Inspector General Nervo said.

  That's the first time he's called me by my first name.

  Does that mean he's starting to like me?

  Or just a slip of the tongue?

  "What all of us in this room are doing is trying to prevent a civil war," Nervo said. "None of us wants what happened in Spain to happen here. Brother killed brother. A half-million people died. Her cities lie in ruins. The Communists took the national treasury to Russia to protect it--then kept it. Priests were shot in the street. Nuns raped. Need I go on?"

  "No, sir. I'm aware of the horrors of the Spanish Civil War."

  Nervo nodded, then went on: "The reason I looked away when your father--and of course Edmundo--were setting up Operation Blue was that I knew your father would not permit that to happen here. With him in the Casa Rosada and Ramirez as minister of war, there would be no civil war. Nor would Argentina become involved in the war itself. At the time, I thought the war was not Argentina's business.

  "Things changed, of course, when your father was assassinated. I assumed that General Ramirez would step into your father's shoes and become president. That didn't happen. Ramirez decided that as minister of war he could keep a tighter grip on things--I'm talking about the armed forces, of course--than he could from the Casa Rosada. He put General Rawson into the Casa Rosada. I now believe that was the right decision.

  "What I should have seen and didn't--Martin did; Wattersly did; others did; I didn't--was that as it becomes apparent to the German leadership that they have lost the war, they are becoming increasingly desperate. Desperate is the wrong word. Irrational? Insane? Insane. That's the word.

  "I should have seen that when they tried to assassinate you. The first time. Trying to assassinate the son of the man who was about to become president of the nation was insanity! And I certainly should have seen it when they assassinated your father. But I didn't.

  "It was only when el Coronel Martin brought to me proof of Operation Phoenix and then this other unbelievable operation of ransoming Jews out of concentration camps that my eyes were really opened.

  "Do they really believe the Americans are going to stand idly by while Hitler and Himmler and the rest of the Nazis--thousands of them--thumb their noses at them from their refuge in neutral Argentina?

  "What the Americans would do is sail a half-dozen battleships up the River Plate and tell us to hand over the bastards. At which point proud and patriotic Argentines would set out to do battle with our pathetic little fleet of old de stroyers! I don't want the Edificio Libertador taken down by sixteen-inch naval cannon.

  "Unfortunately, this is life, not a movie. A bugle is not going to sound and the cavalry will not charge across the pampas to set everything right overnight.

  "I would estimate that from sixty to seventy percent of the officer corps of the army think all those stories about concentration camps and the murder of hundreds of thousands of people in them are propaganda in the newspapers, which are all controlled by Jews. They believe it is only a matter of time before the godless Communists are driven back into Russia, and the American and British are driven out of Italy and North Africa by the Germans, who have secret weapons they will unleash on the forces of the Antichrist, if not tomorrow, then next week."

  He stopped.

  "Sorry, I got a little carried away." He passed his whisky glass to La Valle. "May I have some more of Don Cletus's scotch, please, La Valle?"

  "You're doing fine, General," Clete said.

  "Hear, hear," Wattersly said.

  Nervo didn't reply. He just looked between Frade, Martin, and Wattersly as he took several deep swallows from a whisky glass that La Valle had handed him so quickly that Clete decided La Valle must have had it waiting.

  Finally, Nervo took a last sip, signaled La Valle for another, and went on, his voice now very calm.

  "Within the officer corps of the Armada Argentina, I would estimate twenty- or twenty-five percent are German sympathizers. What that translates to mean, come the civil war, is that the navy--after the Nazis are hung, or forced to walk the plank, or simply shot--will be firmly in the hands of the pro-British forces, which means they will be able to bring the Casa Rosada, the Retiro train station, and Plaza San Martin under naval gunfire.

  "At those locations, proud and patriotic soldiers--after standing the anti-Germans in the officer corps against a wall and shooting them for treason--will engage the Armada Argentina with field artillery.

  "I'm not sure if you know this, Cletus, but everybody else in your library knows that this has happened before in the history of the Argentine Republic. I don't intend to let it happen again," Nervo said softly, then took another sip of his fresh drink.

  "None of us do," Martin said.

  "I'd say the general has summed up the situation rather well," Wattersly said.

  Lauffer nodded.

  "All right, Cletus," Nervo said. "Your turn. Tell us--the truth--about your airline."

  Frade looked at him.

  And now I'm going to have to lie.

  Frade then bought a moment of thought by passing his empty glass to La Valle.

  I really don't want to lie to Nervo--to any of these people--but I certainly can't tell them that SAA has already begun to infiltrate Gehlen's men into the country.

  So what to do?

  "When in doubt, tell the truth" isn't going to work here.

  What about "The truth, part of the truth, but nothing about Gehlen"?

  La Valle delivered a fresh drink to Clete, who took a sip, then began: "You're going to find this hard to believe, General, but here's what I know. President Roosevelt wanted to punish Juan Trippe of Pan American Airways because of Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh."

  "The first man to fly across the Atlantic?" Nervo asked.

  "Yes, sir. What happened is . . ."

  It took five minutes--which seemed longer--for Clete to relate the story. Nervo never for a second took his eyes off Clete's while he listened.

  "That's what I know, General," Clete finished.

  "And you believe this story?"

  "Sir, the proof is at Aeropuerto Jorge Frade: three Lockheed Constellation aircraft."

  "Edmundo?" Nervo asked.

  "That story is so incredible, I'm tempted to believe it," Wattersly said.

  "Why was Father Welner on the first flight to Portugal?" Martin asked Frade.

  "Yes," Nervo added. "Why?"

  "He came to me just before we took off," Frade immediately answered. "He said that the Vatican wanted him to carry a message to the cardinal archbishop here that they didn't want to trust to their usual communications channel."

  "And I'm sure that's true," Nervo said. "Jesuits don't lie. The message probably said, 'Bless you, my son, go and sin no more.' But I'd like to know why else Welner wanted to go to Portugal."

  "We brought back a flock of nuns and priests and orphans," Clete said. "And the Papal Nuncio in Lisbon arranged for a block of seats on every flight and paid in advance."

  "When was the last time, Alejandro, that Customs officers strip-searched a nun entering the country?" Nervo said. "Or even a Jesuit priest?"

  Martin shook his head and chuckled.

  "The Germans are occupying Rome," Nervo said. "Do you think the Holy Father has decided it's time to move the treasury? Or at least the larger diamonds in the vaults?"

  "You're only saying that," Martin said, "because you're a Saint George's Old Boy and you've been corrupted by all those terrible things Father Kingsley-Howard told you about Holy Mother Church."

  Nervo and Lauffler chuckled.

  "Well, I'll tell you this, Alejandro," Nervo said. "We'll never find out why the Vatican is flying all these nuns and priests. Holy Mother Church--and especially Jesuits like Welner--has been in our business much longer than we have and is much better at it than we are."

  "I daresay you're
right," Wattersly said.

  "You said something before, Coronel," Clete said. "Said you'd get back to it. Something involving Casa Montagna?"

  "Oh, yes! I'm glad you remembered. About a week ago, my first cousin once removed Erich Franz Schmidt happened to bump into me at the Circulo Militar and told me that he had been thinking about the weapons cached at Estancia Don Guillermo. He told me he had been running some road movement exercises with his regiment and he had been thinking of sending one of them over there to see if the weapons were still there and, if so, to take possession of them. So they wouldn't fall into the wrong hands."

  "Why would he tell you this?" Clete asked.

  "I'm the deputy chief for operations on the General Staff," Wattersly replied. "And I might have heard one of his road movement exercises coincided with the attack on Casa Chica in Tandil."

  "What did you tell him?" Nervo asked.

  "I told him I was sure the weapons cache had been removed when General Rawson became president, but that I would look into it for him."

  "Are they still there?" Nervo asked.

  "Yes, they are," Clete said.

  "And you left it at that, Edmundo?" Nervo asked.

  "Except for telling him not to send troops to Estancia Don Guillermo until I got back to him. It might offend Don Cletus, and Cousin Erich knew how close Don Cletus was to El Presidente."

  "Maybe you should get them out of there," Martin suggested. "God might tell Schmidt to go get them."

  "They're not going anywhere," Clete said evenly. "I need them. My wife lives there."

  "And the Froggers, right?" Martin asked.

  "And the Froggers," Clete admitted.

  "If Schmidt goes there, it would be with at least one company of Mountain Troops."

  "I can hold that mountain against his entire regiment," Clete said, unimpressed.