The Honor of Spies

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

  "Of course," Schultz said, just a little warily.

  "As one professional officer to another," Nervo said, "your gaucho costume is complete except for one small detail."

  "What's that?"

  "I was raised on an estancia in Patagonia," Nervo said. "And never can I remember a gaucho who did not have, very close by--"

  "She's visiting her mother," Schultz interrupted, smiling knowingly. "She should be back sometime today."

  Nervo literally convulsed; he stood up, spilled his drink, and then, laughing heartily, wrapped his arm around Schultz.

  They're buddies, delighted with themselves!

  When Nervo finally sat down and was pouring himself another drink, Frade said, "Santiago, tell Casanova what it is that you are also having a hard time believing."

  Nervo pointed with his glass at one of the manager's houses, into which the Mollers and the Kortigs and their families had been taken. Clete knew that both Dorotea and Claudia were there "to help with the children" and also that there were enough peones discreetly watching the house to make sure everything remained under control.

  "Something smells with those two," Nervo said.

  Schultz met his eyes. "Yeah," he said softly.

  That's interesting. What have I missed that these two see?

  "Look, Cletus," Nervo said, as if he'd read his mind. "I'm a policeman. I'm not like you and Martin, into politics and espionage and all that. Just a simple policeman."

  Like hell you're just a simple policeman. You didn't get to be Inspector General of the Gendarmeria by being simple.

  What is he doing now? Schmoozing me?

  "But . . . ?" Frade said.

  "Like most old policemen, I have learned to know when people are lying. And those two are."

  "About what?"

  Nervo shrugged. "You tell me. What have they got to lie about?"

  Clete shrugged.

  "They're either not who they say they are," Schultz said, "or they're not telling you something, or both."

  "What do you mean, they're not who they say they are?"

  Now Schultz shrugged.

  "Tell me about this Gehlen guy," Nervo said. "He must be pretty smart, would you say?"

  Smart enough to run the Russian Intelligence branch of the Abwehr, and smart enough to deal with Allen Dulles.

  Yeah, I'd say he has to be pretty smart.

  "He'd have to be," Frade said, "wouldn't he?"

  "And he knows about Valkyrie, right?"

  Frade sipped his drink, then nodded. "Yeah. Knows about--and is involved in--Valkyrie."

  "Which makes a simple policeman like me think Gehlen doesn't think Adolf Hitler is God's sword against the Antichrist, and believes the best thing for Germany is to kill the bastard. Or am I wrong?"

  "I think you're absolutely right," Clete said.

  "So why did he send Moller?"

  "I don't know where you're going," Clete admitted.

  "Moller was not lying when he told me I should understand that he considers himself a serving officer who has taken a personal oath of allegiance to Hitler," Nervo said.

  "And he made a point of telling you that. And he made a point of telling me that earlier today when we first met," Clete thought aloud. "So what?"

  "And this guy comes as a trusted assistant to Gehlen?" Nervo said. "That smells, Cletus."

  "What are you suggesting?" Clete asked.

  "Well, I'm just a simple policeman, Cletus. But that phone call I made when we first came here, right after we landed?"

  "What about it?"

  "I told Subinspector General Nolasco to send two of my people to Santa Rosa--that's just about in the middle of the pampas--with orders not to come back until they have the cattle robbers--"

  "Rustlers," Clete corrected him without thinking.

  Nervo gave him a dirty look, then went on: "--operating down there in handcuffs. They're good people, Cletus, but they like Nazis and don't like Americans, and I didn't want them around to be curious about you and Alejandro and me suddenly becoming good friends. And talking about it."

  "You think Gehlen sent Moller here to get rid of him?"

  "Maybe to do both things," Nervo said. "To set things up to bring the rest of the Abwehr Ost people here, and to get him out of the way while he works on Valkyrie. But you're the intelligence officer. What do I know?"

  What do you know? You knew about Valkyrie, didn't you?

  And you didn't have to search your memory very hard to come up with Abwehr Ost, did you?

  "You said before that both Moller and Kortig were lying. What's Kortig lying about?"

  Schultz now spoke up. "Well, for one thing, I don't think he's really a sergeant major."

  Frade looked at him without replying.

  Schultz went on: "Clete, I'm certainly no intelligence officer. I spent all my life, from the time I was sixteen until a couple of months ago, as an enlisted sailor. But a lot--most--of that time I was a chief petty officer, and I know another senior noncommissioned officer when I see one, and Kortig ain't one. I have the gut feeling he's the OIC."

  "You'll recall, el Jefe," Frade challenged, "that I had to tell you that Jose Cortina, Martin's sergeant major, is really a lieutenant colonel."

  Schultz didn't back down.

  "I've never seen Cortina, Clete. All I did was talk to him on the telephone--and only a couple of times. If I'd have seen him, he wouldn't be able to pull that sergeant major bullshit on me."

  " 'OIC'?" Nervo asked.

  " 'Officer-in-Charge.' Or maybe 'Officer-in-Command,' " Clete furnished.

  Nervo nodded his agreement and said: "That would make some sense."

  "So you think Moller knows?" Clete asked.

  "Sure he does," Nervo said.

  Schultz nodded his agreement.

  "What would all that be about?" Clete asked. "And spare me that I'm Just an Old Chief and Simple Policeman crap."

  "If you're watching Moller, you're probably not going to be watching Kortig. Or at least as closely," Schultz said. "If Kortig has another mission, one you don't know about . . ."

  "Do you think either one of them knows about Valkyrie?" Clete asked.

  "I don't know about Moller," Nervo said. "But I'll bet Kortig does. Gehlen may have sent him here to make sure Moller--if he doesn't already know about Valkyrie--doesn't find out; or if he does, that he doesn't blow the whistle on Valkyrie to the German Embassy or von Deitzberg. You told me Kortig didn't seem all that surprised to hear that von Deitzberg is here."

  Schultz was nodding. "Clete, I think you have to find out what the fuck these two Krauts are really up to."

  "Yeah," Frade said. He pushed himself out of his chair. "And the sooner the better."

  Nervo stood. Clete waited until he had drained his glass, then said, "Tell me, Simple Policeman. In the Gendarmeria, how would you do this? By pulling fingernails?"

  Nervo looked at him stonefaced.

  "Actually," the inspector general then said, "I've found the best method is to drag people across the pampas behind a horse for fifteen minutes before beginning the interrogation."

  [TWO]

  Approaching El Plumerillo Airfield

  Mendoza, Mendoza Province, Argentina

  1410 3 October 1943

  Dona Dorotea Frade, in the copilot seat of the Lodestar, pushed the intercom button on her microphone and said, "Let me land it, Cletus, please."

  Frade glanced at her, then returned his attention to outside the aircraft as he said, "No. You shouldn't even be sitting there."

  "Nonsense. There's nothing an eight-months-and-some-days pregnant woman can't do except lead anything that comes close to a normal life."

  "You all right, baby?"

  "No woman eight months pregnant is all right, Clete. But I can land this, and I want to. This will be my last flight for a while."

  He glanced at her again. "You just decide that?"

  "No, I decided it on the plane on the way to Buenos Aires. Once I got back to Mendoza
, that was it."

  He saw the airfield ahead and started to make a shallow descent to the right.

  "I gather that means you are not going to grant the humble request of the mother of your unborn child?"

  "No, it means I want to make a low pass over Casa Montagna."

  "Why?"

  "It's known as terrifying the natives. Puts a little excitement into their lives."

  "They know we're coming, Cletus."

  "Let's make sure," he said as he headed for Estancia Don Guillermo.

  He made two low-level passes over the house on the mountain side, one to the south and one to the north, and then raised the nose.

  I could get a Piper Cub in there easily. I wonder if my father had that in mind?

  It couldn't have been cheap to dynamite all that rock out of the way and then make everything level.

  He climbed to twelve hundred feet, leveled off, then picked up his microphone and pressed the intercom button.

  "First Officer, you have the aircraft." He pointed out the windscreen. "The airfield's over thataway."

  She put her hands on the yoke and he took his off.

  "Thank you, my darling," the first officer said.

  "That was a good landing," Clete said.

  "Well, thank you, darling."

  "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing."

  "You bah-stud!"

  He saw she was smiling.

  If anything had gone wrong, I could have taken it away from her.

  I think.

  Looking out the windscreen, Clete Frade saw that a considerable number of vehicles were on hand to meet them. He was not surprised to see the four-door Lincoln Continental his Aunt Beatriz had rebodied or even the two dark green army-style trucks and two 1941 Ford sedans painted the same color that obviously went with the maybe a dozen members of the Gendarmeria Nacional standing near them. And he had expected the small bus parked beside the gendarmes. There were in all seven Mollers and Kortigs, plus the suitcases now holding the clothing Rodriguez and the nun had bought for everybody.

  But he was surprised to see that the Little Sisters of Santa Maria del Pilar were also on hand, represented by their Mother Superior. She was standing by a small bus, much like the one the Little Sisters of the Poor had had at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

  I wonder what that's all about?

  "Don Cletus?" a male voice behind him at the cockpit door said.

  Clete turned and saw Inspector Peralta, one of the two Gendarmeria Nacional officers who had been waiting for him at Jorge Frade when he'd "refueled." The other officer was Subinspector Navarro. The best that Clete could figure was that Peralta was roughly the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel and Navarro a major. Inspector General Nervo's orders to them had been simple: "Place yourself at Don Cletus's orders and keep me posted--twice a day--on what's going on."

  Frade made the introduction between Dona Dorotea and Inspector Peralta.

  Then Peralta said: "With your permission, Don Cletus, rather than go directly to Estancia Don Guillermo, I will go to the Mendoza headquarters of the Gendarmeria and have a talk with Subinspector Nowicki--he came to meet us; I see his car--and join you later. May I bring Subinspector Nowicki with me when I do?"

  He's being polite as hell, but he's sure running the show.

  "Of course."

  "Subinspector Navarro will escort you now with the trucks and men you see. If you would be good enough to show him the weapons cache, that would be helpful."

  Does that mean the weapons will then get loaded on the trucks, and bye-bye weapons cache?

  Oh, stop it, for Christ's sake! The next thing, you'll be eyeing Mother Superior suspiciously.

  What other choice do I have?

  "I'll have Rodriguez show him the cache as soon as we arrive."

  "Do you think four of my men will be sufficient to guard the aircraft, Don Cletus? Or shall I arrange for more?"

  I never even thought about that. The Constellations in Buenos Aires, yeah. But not the Lodestar here.

  You're really on top of things, Senor Superspy!

  "I'm sure that will be enough."

  "Then I'll see you shortly," Peralta said, saluted, and backed out of the cockpit door.

  Clete looked at Dorotea.

  "Good man," he began before being interrupted by the voice of Mother Superior at the cockpit door.

  "What in the world are you doing up here and in there?" she asked of Dona Dorotea, then turned to Don Cletus. "You really can be, can't you, quite as stupid as your father?" She looked at Dorotea. "Well, come on!"

  "Where am I going?" Dorotea said.

  "To the convent. The original idea was to examine the German women and children. Now I'll have to see what damage this husband of yours has caused to you."

  Dorotea nodded. "I told him that I didn't think I should be sitting up here in my delicate condition."

  She waited until Mother Superior was glaring at Cletus and couldn't see her face. Then, looking very pleased with herself, she smiled warmly at him and stuck out her tongue.

  And then, with great difficulty, she started to hoist herself out of the copilot's seat.

  [THREE]

  Casa Montagna

  Estancia Don Guillermo

  Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60

  Mendoza Province, Argentina

  1525 3 October 1943

  Captain Madison R. Sawyer III had been playing polo--sort of--to pass the time when "Frade's Lodestar," as Sawyer thought of it, had buzzed the polo field.

  He had found eight mallets--one of them broken, all of them old--hanging at various places on the walls of Casa Montagna, which had of course cut the number of players to three on each team, leaving one spare mallet.

  Finding players and horses had posed no problem. When he had asked--at the morning formation of the former cavalry troopers of the Husares de Pueyrredon now guarding Casa Montagna--if anyone happened to know how to play polo, every hand had shot up. The horses were not, of course, the fine polo ponies he had grown used to at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. But even the worst of them seemed to have some idea what was expected of a polo pony.

  The problem of no polo balls had been solved by purchasing at a very generous price three soccer balls--what the Argentines called footballs--from the children of peones who lived in the compound. He also promised to see that they would have replacement footballs just as soon as he could send someone into town to buy them.

  The air-filled soccer balls of course behaved quite differently than a regulation solid-wood polo ball would have, but that just made the play more interesting.

  One of the soccer balls had lasted about ten minutes in play and a second just a few minutes more. The third soccer ball--and the mallets, which surprised him--had endured the stress of play for two chukkers when the flaming red Lodestar had flashed over the field.

  Sawyer had decided there was time for one--possibly two--more chukkers before Frade arrived from the aircraft, and they had played two more.

  He had just had time to dismount and reclaim his Thompson submachine gun and his web belt holding his .45 Colt when the nose of the Lincoln Continental appeared at the end of the field.

  He had not expected the brown vehicles of the Gendarmeria Nacional, and was a little worried until he saw Frade climb out from behind the wheel of the Lincoln.

  "Subinspector Navarro, this is my deputy, Capitan Sawyer," Frade began the in troductions.

  Sensing that he was expected to do so, Sawyer saluted.

  "I'll explain this all later," Frade then said to Sawyer. "But right now, I want you to show Subinspector Navarro the weapons cache and explain the perimeter defense to him--"

  "You make it sound as if we're going to be attacked," Sawyer interrupted.

  "That's a strong possibility," Frade said, then went on: "These gentlemen are Senor Kortig and Senor Moller. They will be joined shortly by their wives and children. In the meantime, Enrico's going to--where's Stein?"

&n
bsp; Sawyer looked around and then pointed. Stein was walking toward them from the house.

  Clete waited until he had joined them, then, after introducing Kortig, Moller, and Subinspector Navarro to "Major" Stein, he asked where Senor Fischer was.

  "With his father. You need him?"

  "No. What I want you to do is ask him to stay with his father until I send for him."

  Stein's raised eyebrows showed his surprise, but he didn't say anything.

  "Then," Frade continued, "find the housekeeper and tell her (a) to prepare some of the rooms in one of the outbuildings for the Kortigs and the Mollers. That's two wives and three children--adolescents. They'll be staying here awhile. And (b) to prepare something to eat for everybody; we haven't had anything since breakfast."

  "Where are the wives and children?" Stein said.

  "With Mother Superior getting a physical; they should be here in forty-five minutes or an hour."

  "Dona Dorotea didn't come with you?"

  "She's with them. Captain Sawyer is going to show Subinspector Navarro the arms cache and the perimeter defense. He and another Gendarmeria officer will need rooms in the big house, and we'll need rooms for eight gendarmes in whatever outbuilding she wants to put the Mollers and the Kortigs. Enrico is going to take Senor Moller and Senor Kortig to the bar. As soon as you can, bring any messages from Mount Sinai to me there."

  "No messages from Mount Sinai, Major," Stein said. "You expecting one?"

  A very long one. When you don't know what the hell you are doing, ask somebody who presumably does.

  And Graham has certainly had enough time to send me my orders.

  Clete said: "The SIGABA's up at Vint Hill Farms?"

  Stein nodded. "With a net check every hour."

  "Well, in that case, there's nothing for Senor Moller and Senor Kortig and me to do but have a glass of wine while we wait for the ladies," Clete said. "Or hear from Mount Sinai. Or for the sky to fall. Whichever comes first."

  [FOUR]

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