The Honor of Spies

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

  "We have some SS troopers here, don't we?"

  "The last time we sent SS troopers to deal with Frade, they vanished from the face of the earth," Raschner said. "Leaving behind only a great deal of their blood in Frade's country house."

  "Well, as I said, it may be necessary for me to remain here for some time."

  "And what if either Raschner or I am ordered home?" Cranz asked.

  "Well, I'll do my best, of course, to see that doesn't happen."

  "But if it does?"

  "If it does, then I wouldn't be surprised if we had to ask ourselves what was really more important. Returning to God only knows what--the Eastern Front, perhaps--or staying here to prepare Operation Adler. I would tend to think the latter."

  "What about Frau von Tresmarck?" Raschner asked.

  "She is at the moment in the Alvear Palace Hotel, where she tells me she is going to have a facial, a massage, and a hair-curling. Then she will go shopping--leaving a message to that effect with the hotel telephone operator. And then she will walk out onto Avenida Alvear and vanish from the face of the earth."

  "How did she get to the Alvear Palace?"

  "Von Gradny-Sawz was kind enough to meet the ship from Montevideo. He put her into a taxi."

  "Von Gradny-Sawz?" Cranz asked. He was not able to mask his surprise.

  Von Deitzberg nodded and said, "Von Gradny-Sawz will meet her somewhere on Avenida Alvear and take her to my flat in Belgrano, where she will become Senora Schenck."

  "What's that all about?" Raschner blurted, quickly adding, "If I am permitted to ask."

  "Are you curious about von Gradny-Sawz's role in all this, or about my new wife?"

  "Both," Cranz answered for him. He tried to temper the immediacy of his answer with a smile.

  "Von Gradny-Sawz has been wondering for some time about where he will go should the unthinkable happen. He knows the Russians will seize his estates, either before or after hanging him. Or perhaps skinning him alive; they like aristocrats only a bit less than they like SS officers.

  "He managed to get quite a bit of money and jewels out of Austria--e xcuse me, Ostmark--and has, so to speak, set up his own small, personal, Operation Phoenix. This, of course, came to my attention. I decided his knowledge of the culture and geography--and the people he has cultivated--here would be of great value to Operation Adler, and have conferred on him sort of an honorary membership in the SS.

  "So far as Frau von Tresmarck is concerned: She knows all about the investments of the former confidential fund, both those von Tresmarck told us about and those that he didn't.

  "Since she has nothing to go back to in Germany, family or property, I thought perhaps she might consider helping herself to some of Operation Adler's assets and disappearing. Obviously, I can't take the risk of that happening. A man and a good-looking blonde traveling around together, buying property, that sort of thing, causes curiosity and talk. A man and his wife doing the same thing causes less.

  "God only knows when I can get my wife and children out of Germany, but until I can arrange that--and it might not be until after the war--I will not have the problem of having two wives."

  "And when that happens?" Cranz asked. "It's none of my business, I realize . . ."

  "No, Karl. It is none of your business. All I can tell you is that Frau von Tresmarck fully understands that this is a temporary charade, and that I am a happily married man and an honorable SS officer not at all interested in her physical charms."

  "I didn't mean to suggest--"

  Von Deitzberg silenced him with a raised hand.

  "Sometime late this afternoon, Hauptsturmfuhrer Forster is going to seek an audience with Ambassador Schulker in Montevideo. He will tell the ambassador he's very afraid something is very wrong: Sturmbannfuhrer Werner von Tresmarck had told him that he and his wife were going to take a week's vacation at someplace called Punta del Este. Forster will report that that is not the case; they are not in the hotel where they said they were going to stay. Frau von Tresmarck booked passage on the overnight steamer last night--

  "Actually," von Deitzberg interrupted himself, "that's a rather nice trip. You board, have a very nice dinner, go to bed, and when you waken, the ship is docking in Buenos Aires--"

  Von Deitzberg took a sip of his Kaffee mit schlagobers and then went on. "Frau von Tresmarck did not tell him she was doing so. Inquiry of their neighbors revealed that von Tresmarck himself has not been seen for a week or more.

  "Forster will ask the ambassador for direction. Schulker, being Schulker, will almost certainly decide on patience and calm. Which means it will probably be tomorrow, or even the day after, before he informs the local police and of course our own Ambassador von Lutzenberger.

  "Your slow and careful investigation will then begin. You will after some time--two days, perhaps three--learn from von Gradny-Sawz that he received a telephone call from Frau von Tresmarck asking him to make reservations at the Alvear Palace for her--alone--for a week, and to meet her at the pier when the ship arrived. He will tell you he did so, took her by taxi to the hotel, saw her inside, and has not seen or heard from her again. She offered no explanation for her being in Buenos Aires. You will believe him.

  "Your investigation will continue, but when you can spare a few minutes from your relentless search for the missing Frau von Tresmarck, I want you to get me maps--detailed maps--of Frade's estancia near here, the airfield where these airplanes are parked, and of his estancia in Mendoza."

  "That's not going to be easy," Raschner said.

  "I didn't ask for your opinion of the difficulty of the task, Erich, I told you to do it."

  "Jawohl, Mein Herr."

  "Perhaps von Wachtstein could be of assistance," von Deitzberg said. "Ae - rial photos of the airfields and the estancias?"

  "With respect, Mein Herr. The airfield at Moron, certainly. The estancia near here, Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, is as large as Berlin or Munich. What should I photograph? And at this moment, I don't have any idea where Frade's estancia in Mendoza is."

  "You're a good man, Raschner. You'll figure it out."

  Von Deitzberg reached for another jelly-filled roll.

  [TWO]

  Rio Hermoso Hotel

  San Martin de los Andes

  Neuquen Province, Argentina

  2035 5 October 1943

  SS-Brigadefuhrer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg was frankly astonished--pleased but astonished--that he had any energy left for that sort of thing after that incredibly long drive from Buenos Aires, but when he came out of the bathroom, Inge, waiting to have a shower herself, had stripped down to her underwear and one thing had quickly--very quickly--led to another.

  They could have come by train. Von Gradny-Sawz had told him that while the Argentine rail system was nothing like the Deutsche Reichsbahn--the prewar Deutsche Reichsbahn--the British-built system here left little to be desired. The trouble was that San Martin de los Andes was literally in the middle of nowhere, and he would have had to change trains and then take a bus.

  That ended the pleasing notion of rolling across Argentina in a first-class railway compartment with Inge. He didn't want to get on a bus, and he thought an automobile would probably turn out to be useful.

  Von Gradny-Sawz had bought a car for him, paying an outrageous price for a two-year-old American Ford "station wagon"--von Deitzberg had no idea what that meant--with not very many miles on the odometer. The Automobile Club of Argentina had provided excellent road maps free of charge when he went to their headquarters to personally buy the required insurance. Von Gradny-Sawz said that the Automobile Club was a law unto itself, and that they demanded to see in person the individual the Caja Nacional de Ahorro Postal was about to insure.

  On the map, San Martin de los Andes did not look to be very far from Buenos Aires until he looked at the scale of the map, then checked the chart of distances on the reverse.

  It was about fifteen hundred kilometers from Buenos Aires to San Martin de los Andes. He re
membered that a little more than five hundred kilometers was all that separated Berlin and Vienna.

  There was no way, he decided, that he was going to be able to drive a distance three times that between Berlin and Vienna in the "fairly easy two days" von Gradny-Sawz estimated it would take.

  The silver lining to that dark cloud was the prospect of spending three nights--perhaps even four--in some of the bucolic roadside inns the ACA recommended on their maps. He was in no particular hurry, and after that gottverdammt submarine, he was entitled to a little rest and relaxation.

  It didn't turn out that way. Once they were fifty kilometers or so from Belgrano, they were into the pampas. The road stretched in a straight line to the horizon. There was very little traffic, and the American Ford V-8 engine propelled the station wagon easily at eighty miles per hour, which translated to about 130 kph.

  That first day, they reached an idyllic roadside inn near Santa Rosa in time for cocktails and dinner, during which he checked the map and saw they were halfway to San Martin de los Andes.

  The next day, although they came out of the pampas and had to travel winding roads through what he supposed were the foothills of the Andes Mountains, they made just about as good time.

  He was pleased that he had decided to bring Inge with him for several reasons, in addition to the carnal. He had decided, telling himself he had to be honest about it, that her enthusiasm was probably because she was both afraid of him and needed him, rather than because of his masculine charm and good looks.

  It didn't matter why she was willing to do all sorts of things the instant he ordered them--or even suggested them--only that she was.

  But aside from that, Inge proved to be a fountain of information regarding the investments of both the Operation Phoenix funds and those of the confidential fund. She had spent a good deal of the trip explaining details to him, often taking the appropriate documents from those he'd liberated from von Tresmarck's safe, as well as the ones he had ordered Cranz to bring him from the embassy in Buenos Aires.

  He had learned that Oberst Schmidt had been very useful in locating and dealing with the middlemen necessary to the acquisition process. Until Inge had uncovered this, he had thought Schmidt had been useful only in the military matters, providing security at Samborombon Bay and putting up the SS men Himmler had insisted on sending to guard the special shipments.

  Von Deitzberg had come to San Martin de los Andes primarily to avail himself of Schmidt's military assets; eliminating the Froggers had to be accomplished as quickly as possible. But what he had learned driving across the pampas made him think very seriously about the whole operation.

  What had been done from the beginning of Operation Phoenix, when Oberst Gruner, the military attache, had been running things, was first to hide the cash and gemstones and gold in the safety-deposit boxes of reliable ethnic Germans who held Argentine citizenship.

  Step two was to systematically turn the gemstones and gold into cash and then, slowly, so as not to attract attention, get the cash out of the safety-deposit boxes and into the bank accounts of the ethnic Germans.

  Step three, using the money now in the ethnic Germans' bank accounts, was to purchase the businesses and real estate that were the rock upon which Operation Phoenix would stand. The deeds to all the property were held by the same reliable ethnic Germans.

  The ethnic Germans could be trusted for two reasons. First, it was jokingly said that the Auslandischer Deutsch tended to be better Nazis than, say, Goring or Goebbels, if not the Fuhrer himself.

  Second, perhaps of equal importance, the Auslandischer Deutsch knew that Oberst Gruner, in addition to his military attache duties, had been secretly the highest-ranking member of the Sicherheitsdienst in South America. That meant they knew that anything less than total honesty when dealing with the assets of Operation Phoenix would be rewarded with the painful death of everybody in the family in Argentina, and with the even more painful deaths of any relatives of the Auslandischer Deutsch who happened to be fortunate enough to be still living in the Fatherland.

  Gruner's death on the beach at Samborombon Bay had of course taken some of the glitter from the notion of German invincibility, and with that the certainty of punishment. Cranz was good, but not nearly as menacing a figure as Gruner had been.

  The current situation would prevail, of course, but only until it looked to the Auslandischer Deutsch that the Germans were about to lose the war--or, God forbid, had actually lost it--when they would begin to consider that the property and money placed into their care was now theirs.

  The honesty of people depends in large part on their judgment of whether or not they will be caught stealing.

  The next step in that line of thinking, should the unthinkable happen, would be for them to ask themselves, "How likely is it that Hermann Goring will show up at my door and ask for directions to, and the keys to, the estancia I bought for him? Bought for him in my name."

  I have already transferred all of the Operation Adler property in Uruguay to Herr Jorge Schenck--in other words, to me. It doesn't matter that I did so because I frankly didn't know what else to do with it. I had to take it away from von Tresmarck, and obviously I couldn't, even as fond as I am growing of Inge, risk putting it in her name.

  What I will do here, right now, is take a look at the various real-estate properties owned by the former confidential fund and transfer one of them--perhaps two, but I don't want to move too quickly and draw attention to Herr Schenck--to me.

  Von Deitzberg finished dressing, examined himself admiringly in the mirror, and decided the tailors in Buenos Aires were every bit as good as the ones in Berlin, the main difference being that here the tailors' shops were full of fine woolens and the ones in Berlin had either been destroyed in the bombing or were out of material, even to those with the special SS clothing ration coupons.

  His mind turned back to the present: If I report to Himmler that I am taking the appropriate steps not only to recover the Operation Phoenix assets von Tresmarck stole, but to protect our assets in Argentina from disappearing by putting them in my name, he will understand. And that will give me an excuse--"It's not going as quickly as one would wish"--to stay here.

  It might also serve as the reason to keep Cranz and Raschner here, so that some of the properties can be transferred to them. I am going to have to give them something, enough to keep them happy. Two birds with one stone.

  He walked to the bathroom door and pushed it open. Inge, drying herself, had one foot resting on the water closet.

  "Hurry it up," he said. "Schmidt's due any minute."

  She smiled and wiggled her buttocks at him.

  He turned and went to the window and looked down at the street.

  San Martin de los Andes was really nothing more than a small village. There was hardly any vehicular traffic on the street he could see at all.

  And then he saw an olive-drab Mercedes touring car coming down the road. The canvas top was down. There was a soldier driving, and two men in the backseat. The younger of them was in civilian clothing; the other was wearing an Argentine army uniform.

  That has to be Oberst Schmidt.

  "They're almost here," he called. "I'm going to meet them in the lobby. Get rid of your underwear before you come down."

  Inge appeared in the bathroom door. Naked.

  "You want me to come down without my underwear? Or do you mean get that out of sight?"

  She pointed to her underwear on a chair.

  "If you came down without your underwear, it would give Oberst Schmidt a heart attack," he said. "And we need him."

  Von Deitzberg reached the lobby of the hotel just as el Coronel Erich Franz Schmidt of the 10th Mountain Regiment walked in from the street. The young man in civilian clothing with him, who looked like a recruiting poster for the SS, was SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Sepp Schafer of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.

  I shall have to be very careful with that young man; not say anything at all that might be construed as
defeatism.

  Oberst Schmidt did not cut a very military figure. He was portly and rather short.

  He looks more like a Bavarian party official--and don't those bureaucrats and clerks love to wear uniforms and boots?--than a soldier.

  "El Coronel Schmidt?" von Deitzberg asked, advancing on him.

  "At your service, senor," Schmidt said.

  Schafer popped to attention and clicked his heels.

  "I don't think clicking your heels in these circumstances is wise, Schafer," von Deitzberg said coldly.

  "I beg pardon."

  "We are waiting for one of my agents," von Deitzberg said. "The one thing a distinguished career in the SS-SD has not taught this agent is to be on time, probably because this SS-SD agent is a female."

  He got the expected chuckles.

  "I don't want to get into anything specific in public, of course, but to clear the air, you may feel free in Senora Schenk's presence to say anything you would say to me."

  "Excuse me, sir. 'Senora Schenck'?" Schafer asked.

  "I generally give junior officers one opportunity to ask an inappropriate question of me," von Deitzberg said icily. "That was yours."

  "I beg your pardon, Herr Schenck."

  "Men traveling with good-looking females to whom they are not married cause gossip. Men traveling with their wives do not. You might try to remember that, Schafer."

  "Yes, sir."

  Inge came tripping down the stairs.

  From their faces, it was clear that she was not what Schmidt or Schafer expected to see.

  "I apologize, sir, for keeping you waiting," Inge said.

  "Don't make a habit of it," von Deitzberg said coldly. "Gentlemen, my wife. She knows your names."

  Inge nodded at both of them.

  "I thought, Herr Schenck, that if it meets with your approval, we could have dinner at my quarters at the base."

  "You are very hospitable, Herr Oberst," von Deitzberg said.

  Schmidt waved them toward the door.