The Honor of Spies

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

  "There is no choice," Schultz agreed. "Well, there's one good thing."

  "What?"

  "That guy is smart, Clete. But he doesn't have any balls. He's not going to call your bluff."

  "You don't think so?"

  "It doesn't come out often like it did just now, but when it does, it's really impressive."

  "What doesn't come out often?"

  "With all possible respect, Major, sir, the major is a stainless-steel hard-ass. And that really got through to Moller. Hell, it even got to me; I was already wondering: What happens to the wives and kids when Clete blows this sonofabitch away? "

  "Let's see if we can keep that from happening," Clete said. "Okay, go get Father Pedro. And then call Cortina and tell him about having Martin and Nervo at the airport."

  [THREE]

  Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade

  Moron, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

  1325 2 October 1943

  As he landed in the Piper Cub, Cletus Frade saw that there were four Lodestars and two Constellations on the field.

  He also saw that the extra security he had ordered after learning that Hitler had ordered von Deitzberg to destroy the Constellations was in place.

  He was still having trouble really accepting that Adolf Hitler himself even knew about the Connies, much less had ordered their destruction, but all the cliches from "Be Prepared" to "Better Safe Than Sorry" seemed to apply.

  He was not surprised that the extra protection was in place. He'd told Enrico to set it up, and that the old soldier knew all about what the military called "perimeter defense."

  There were more peones than he could easily count--at least twenty--on horseback, every one of them a former trooper of the Husares de Pueyrredon, moving slowly and warily around the field, with either a Mauser rifle or a Thompson submachine gun resting vertically on his saddle.

  As he taxied past the Constellations, it seemed as unreal to consider that he had just flown the Ciudad de Rosario back and forth across the Atlantic as it was to consider that they personally annoyed Adolf Hitler.

  He looked at his passenger to see how he had survived the flight. Father Francisco Silva's smile was nowhere near as strained as it had been when Clete had strapped him into the Piper Cub at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

  Then the priest had confessed a bit shyly that their flight to Buenos Aires was going to be his first flight in an airplane.

  Hearing this, Clete had made a decision. Instead of flying to Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade as he usually did--that is, direct cross-country to Moron at about three hundred feet off the ground, which afforded him the opportunity to look at his own fields and cattle and those of his neighbors--he had climbed to fifteen hundred, flown to Dolores, picked up Ruta Nacional No. 2 there, and flown up it to Buenos Aires, where he flew over the Casa Rosada and the National Cathedral, and from there to the airport outside Moron.

  For some reason, he liked the young Jesuit and suspected that, whatever other satisfactions the priest found in his vocation, he didn't have much personal fun or any little luxuries. Fun and luxuries, for example, like Father Kurt Welner S.J.'s Packard convertible, bejeweled gold cuff links, luxury apartment in Recoleta, and box for the season at the Colon Opera House.

  And Frade had thought that they had plenty of time for the aerial tour. While there was no question in his mind that Martin would eventually show up at Jorge Frade in response to Schultz's call, he was equally convinced that Martin would not be there when the Cub landed, if for no other reason than to impress on Cletus that the head of the Bureau of Internal Security did not dance to Don Cletus Frade's whistle.

  This assumption proved to be wrong.

  As he got closer to the passenger terminal building, he saw that el Coronel Martin indeed was waiting for him, and in uniform. Martin was standing beside another uniformed officer, whom Clete recognized after a moment as General Nervo. His military-style uniform was brown. They were standing beside a black 1941 Buick Roadmaster.

  "That's General Nervo, Don Cletus," Father Pedro said.

  "We've met," Clete replied. "Well, what we'll do now is get you a ride into town."

  "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," Clete said at the passenger terminal building.

  Martin and then Nervo embraced Clete cordially.

  For the moment, I am a good guy. That may change in the next two or three minutes.

  "Not a problem," Martin said. "The general and I were here anyway. Your friend had a reservation on the eleven-thirty flight from Montevideo. Santiago had never seen him, and I thought this would give him the chance."

  "What did you think?" Clete asked.

  "He missed the flight," Martin said. "And changed his reservation until tomorrow."

  "This is Father Silva, General," Clete said.

  "I know the Father," Nervo said. "And aren't you lucky to have Don Cletus fly you to Buenos Aires, Father? And spare you the return trip with Father Kurt at the wheel?"

  Okay. As if I needed proof, Nervo, as well as Martin, knows just about everything that happens on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

  "Yes, it was very kind of Don Cletus," Father Silva said.

  "Cletus, in the Gendarmeria," Nervo said, "they say that if Father Kurt wasn't the president's confessor, he would have lost his driving license years ago. Have you ever ridden with him?"

  Frade shook his head.

  "Don't! He thinks that Packard of his has two speeds, fast and faster. And they know that the more he's had to drink, the faster he drives. The Gendarmes along Route Two call him 'Padre Loco.'"

  "Oh, I can't believe that's true!" Father Silva said loyally.

  "Would I lie to a priest?" Nervo asked righteously.

  Martin took pity on the priest.

  "He's pulling your leg, Father," he said. "Can we give you a lift into town? We're headed for Plaza San Martin."

  "That would be very kind," Silva said. "I'm going to the cathedral."

  "Right on our way," Martin said.

  "I need ten, fifteen minutes of your time, maybe a little more," Clete said. "Father, would you mind waiting?"

  "No, of course not."

  "Then why don't you go in the passenger terminal and have a cup of coffee while the general, the colonel, and I take a little walk?"

  They walked across the tarmac toward one of the Constellations, the Ciudad de Buenos Aires. It was being prepared for its flight to Lisbon the next day; mechanics and technicians swarmed all over it.

  About halfway, Cletus touched Martin's arm, a signal for him to stop.

  Martin looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

  "Are you going to tell us why you're flying a Jesuit priest around?" Nervo asked.

  "Well, he's getting me National Identity booklets for two SS men and their wives and children, and the sooner he can do that, the better."

  "Somehow, I don't think that's your odd sense of humor at work," Martin said.

  "So that's who was in that Little Sisters of the Poor bus," Nervo said. "What's this all about? Who are these people? Where did they come from?"

  I can't--I don't want to, and I can't--play any more games with these two. It is now truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth time.

  "They were on the plane from Lisbon," Clete said.

  "And you knew about that?" Martin said.

  "I knew they were probably going to be on the plane. I didn't know for sure, and I didn't know who they were, until Father Welner brought them to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo."

  "Who are they?" Nervo asked.

  "One of them is an SS major, the other an SS sergeant major. . . ."

  "Traveling as priests, nuns, and orphans on Vatican passports," Nervo said bitterly. "Sonofabitch! I knew something smelled when I saw the Papal Nuncio at the airport!"

  "What's this all about, Cletus?" Martin asked.

  Clete had a clear mental image of himself and Colonel A. F. Graham in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel the day he met Graham and heard
for the first time of the United States Office of Strategic Services.

  Graham, whom he had never seen before, came to Clete's room in civilian clothing, showed him his Marine Corps identification, and came right to the point: "Are you willing to undertake a mission involving great personal risk outside the continental limits of the United States?"

  When, after thinking it all over for perhaps twenty seconds, Clete--who was literally willing to do anything to get off what he was doing, which was a Heroes on Display War Bond Tour to be followed by a tour as a basic flying instructor--said that he would, Graham handed him a sheet of paper and said, "Read it and then sign it."

  He had signed it, and only then asked, "What's the 'Office of Strategic Services'?"

  Clete looked between Martin and Nervo, and began: "The OSS has made a deal with a German intelligence officer named Gehlen . . ."

  "And the goddamn Vatican is involved in this up to the Pope's eyeballs," Nervo said when Clete had finished.

  "What are you supposed to do with these people, Cletus?" Martin asked.

  "Nobody told me this," Clete replied, "but I have the feeling that this is step one."

  "What is 'this'?" Martin asked.

  "Getting the officers out of Russia and their families out of Germany, then into Italy, then to Portugal, and finally established here. . . ."

  "Established here?" Nervo repeated.

  "I am supposed to set them up to disappear in Argentina."

  "How are you going to do that?"

  "I don't know. We have agreed to provide money. I suppose Welner will help. . . ."

  "Let me give you a little friendly advice, my OSS friend," Nervo said. "Never put yourself in debt to Holy Mother Church, especially when it's being represented by a Jesuit, and especially, especially when that Jesuit is the beloved Father Kurt Welner, S.J."

  "Finish what you were saying, Cletus, about this being step one," Martin said.

  "Well--and I'm just guessing--when Gehlen hears that these two made it here and that I've set them up--"

  "They have names?" Nervo interrupted.

  "The major is Alois Strubel. The sergeant major is Otto Niedermeyer. I went along with Strubel's idea for new names. He's now Moller and Niedermeyer's Kortig. The Mollers have two children, a boy and a girl, ten or eleven, and the Kortigs have a boy about the same age. I've been told the women and children were killed in air raids; that German records show that they were. The men were supposedly killed on the Eastern Front."

  "Well," Nervo said, "this Gehlen fellow could have arranged for the men to die that way. But the women and children . . . no one would question a Catholic hospital reporting the death of a mother and her child any more than Alejandro here would suspect that a nun had a kilo of flawless diamonds in her underwear. Holy Mother Church was involved in that, and in getting the women and children out of Germany."

  "Let Cletus finish what he was saying, Santiago," Martin said.

  Nervo gestured for Clete to go on.

  "What I'm guessing is that when Gehlen learns everything went as promised--"

  "How's he going to learn that?" Nervo said.

  "Moller had a coded message all prepared to do that."

  "And you sent this coded message?"

  "No, I didn't. I told him to give me his codebook, and that if I heard he'd sent any messages to anybody, I'd have him shot."

  Nervo glanced at Martin and said, "Our OSS friend really is a lot smarter than he looks, isn't he, Alejandro? And I'll bet he doesn't get any friend of his involved in something that'll probably get him shot."

  Martin looked at Frade. "Go on, Cletus."

  "Well, after we prove we did what we promised to do, it's Gehlen's turn to give us something of value. Presuming he does that, we get some more wives and children of Gehlen's people out of Germany and over here."

  "Just the wives and children?"

  "For now. The officers will come later."

  "What's that all about?" Nervo asked.

  "Again, I don't know what I'm talking about here. Just guessing."

  "So guess," General Nervo said.

  "Most of these people are dedicated Nazis. I know for sure that Moller is. They are going to keep on fighting godless Communism and keeping their oath of personal loyalty to the Fuhrer until the Russians are in Berlin."

  "Gehlen, too?" Martin asked.

  "No. Not Gehlen. But please don't ask me any more about that, Alejandro."

  "If I did, would you tell me?" Martin asked.

  Nervo said: "Apropos of nothing whatever, Cletus, what comes to your mind when you hear the term 'Valkyrie'?"

  Jesus Christ, they know about that?

  Well, Martin did tell me he had a BIS guy in the Argentine Embassy in Berlin he really wanted to keep there.

  Sure they know.

  "Blond, large-breasted Aryan women who fool around with the braver soldiers? Carry them off for carnal adventures on their horses?"

  "Yeah, right," Nervo said, chuckling. "The SS guy at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo doesn't like Valkyries?"

  "I know he thinks that anyone who is not going to keep his vow of personal loyalty to Hitler is a traitor."

  "Like Galahad, for example?" Martin said.

  "Like who?" Frade said.

  "You did hear that he flew his little airplane to Montevideo this morning, and came back about an hour ago?"

  "Who did what?"

  "He brought back with him a package for Senor Gradny-Sawz," Martin said.

  He demonstrated with his hands the size of the package; about that of a shoe box.

  "Cletus," Nervo said. "Would you be shocked to hear that I don't think fighting godless Communism is such a bad idea?"

  "I'd say you sound like my boss and my grandfather," Clete said.

  Nervo chuckled. He patted Clete on the arm and then turned to Martin.

  "Alejandro, decision time. You have thirty seconds to decide what we're going to do about all these people violating the sacred neutrality of Argentina."

  Martin shook his head.

  "Twenty-five seconds," Nervo said, looking at his wristwatch. "Do you want to report to General Obregon that we have reason to believe that the American OSS with the connivance of the Papal Nuncio has just smuggled into Argentina two SS people and their wives and children? And plans to smuggle in more?"

  Martin stared icily at him.

  "Or that you watched, but did not arrest, an SS general as he was smuggled into Argentina from a German submarine?"

  "Christ, Santiago!" Martin protested.

  "Or that we have reason to believe that Don Cletus Frade has been concealing two Germans who either ran from their embassy--or who he might have kidnapped--at his Estancia Don Guillermo in Mendoza?"

  "I didn't kidnap the Froggers," Clete said.

  "Does Father Kurt know about you and the Froggers?" Nervo asked.

  Clete nodded.

  "Or, Alejandro, do you wish to join with Don Cletus and me in this noble--and I might add, endorsed by Holy Mother Church--battle against godless Communism?"

  Nervo glanced at his wristwatch. "Fifteen seconds."

  "Goddamn you, Santiago!"

  "I would ask if you want to join with Don Cletus and me in the equally--as far as I am concerned--noble battle against more-or-less godless Nazism, but I'm not sure how you and Holy Mother Church really feel about the Nazis."

  "You sonofabitch!" Martin said, but he could not restrain a chuckle.

  "May I interpret that to mean you're with us?"

  "What other choice do I have?"

  "Suicide would be an option, but I seem to recall that's a mortal sin."

  "What are we going to do?" Martin asked.

  "What I'm going to do is get in Don Cletus's airplane . . . the little one . . . and fly to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo with him to have a word with el Senor . . . what's his name, Cletus?"

  "Moller. Alois Moller. We kept their real Christian names."

  ". . . with Senor Alois Moller."


  "About what?"

  "I'll decide that after I talk with him," Nervo said. "But right now I'm thinking along the lines of suggesting to him that his only option--presuming he wants to stay alive--is to do nothing that might in any way annoy Don Cletus or myself."

  "What about Edmundo Wattersly?" Martin asked.

  "Tell him we need a daily report on el Coronel Schmidt's activities. We can't have that Nazi sonofabitch going to Casa Montagna looking for the weapons cache. . . . Or, now that I think of it, for the Froggers."

  "Okay. But what I meant is: Do we tell him about this?"

  Nervo didn't reply for a long moment, before finally asking, "We don't have to make that decision right now, do we?"

  "No," Martin said. "But sooner or later. Him and Lauffer."

  "Not now," Nervo said.

  Martin nodded.

  Nervo asked: "Do you want me to send Pedro out to the estancia with your car?"

  "How about this?" Clete interrupted. "Father Silva is going to bring the National Identity booklets out here at nine tomorrow morning. I'm going to make a fuel stop at the same time on my way to Mendoza. Santiago, if you want to spend the night at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo . . ."

  "I accept your gracious offer," Nervo said. "Alejandro, have Pedro bring the car here in the morning. Wait . . ." He turned to Cletus. "I'd like Subinspector General Nolasco to see Casa Montagna for himself. Would there be room for him on your airplane?"

  Clete nodded. "Plenty of room. You want to send somebody else?"

  "Tell Nolasco to pick two other people, who will stay there for a few days, a week. Don't tell them where they are going. Got that?"

  "Si, mi general," Martin said sarcastically.

  "Good man," Nervo said.

  [FOUR]

  Calle Martin 404

  Carrasco, Uruguay

  1615 2 October 1943

  Sturmbannfuhrer Werner von Tresmarck--a somewhat portly man in his forties who wore a full, neatly manicured mustache, a la Adolf Hitler--rang the doorbell of his home a second time.