The Honor of Spies

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

  "I see the Pipers have yet to arrive," Rawson said.

  "Pipers"? What Pipers?

  "Excuse me, sir?"

  "They should be here by now," Rawson said. "I ordered el Coronel Pereitra to send them immediately."

  Rawson saw the confusion on Clete's face and explained to him what had happened, what orders he had issued, and what he hoped would happen.

  The Pipers had not arrived when he had finished.

  "Well, I don't intend to stand around here waiting for them; they'll arrive sooner or later," Rawson said. "What I think we should do now is send Subinspector General Nolasco to San Martin to deal with el Coronel Peron . . ." He stopped when he saw the look on Nervo's face.

  "If, of course," Rawson said, more than a little sarcastically, "this meets with General Nervo's approval. Cletus, you would be surprised at how helpful General Nervo has been. One would think he went to the Military Academy and into the army instead of becoming a simple policeman."

  "Actually, mi general," Nervo said. "I thought about going to the Military Academy, but I couldn't. My parents were married."

  Father Welner, Subinspector General Nolasco, Capitans Lauffer and Delgano, and the copilot whose name--Garcia--Clete suddenly remembered looked horrified.

  There was a hushed silence, broken only when Cletus chuckled and then laughed out loud.

  "You think that's funny, Cletus?" Rawson asked, as if torn between indignation and curiosity.

  "General, it's what reserve Marine Corps officers, like me, who didn't go to the Naval Academy, say to regular Marine Corps officers, who did."

  "Mi general," Nervo said, "I should not have said that. It just slipped out. Apparently, I cannot handle my newfound freedom to say what I'm thinking without considering the consequences."

  "General Nervo believes he is about to be thrown into the River Plate with his hands tied behind him," Rawson said. "And if he ever says something like that again to me, I'll throw him into the River Plate myself."

  "And I will help, mi general," Capitan Lauffer said.

  "Bobby," Frade said. "We call people like you 'ring knockers.' "

  "A reference, no doubt, to a wedding ring?" Rawson asked.

  "No. Naval Academy graduates wear Naval Academy rings. When someone who is not 'Regular Navy' says something they don't like, they knock their rings on a table, or whatever, to remind us amateurs that we are challenging regulars who went to the Academy and therefore know everything about everything and are never wrong."

  "How interesting," Rawson said. "'People like you' would obviously include me. Your father, Cletus, had the odd notion that the Ejercito Argentino was making a serious mistake in restricting the officer corps to graduates of the Military Academy."

  "Well, I have to agree with that, sir," Cletus said.

  "Perhaps we are," Rawson said, his tone suggesting he didn't believe that for a moment. "So tell me, General Nervo, what--as an amateur--it is that you find wrong with my idea of sending Subinspector General Nolasco to San Martin to deal with Peron?"

  "Sir, I don't think we should arrest Peron until we know more about his involvement in this," Nervo said. "Send Nolasco to San Martin to locate Peron and keep an eye on him, but not arrest him until he hears from you."

  Rawson nodded but did not reply.

  "General," Clete said. "We don't know if the Pipers will arrive--"

  "I ordered el Coronel Pereitra to send them," Rawson said impatiently, then heard what he had said. "And if they don't?"

  Clete said, "Even if the Husares de Pueyrredon's Pipers do arrive, we won't know if they'll work until I have a look at them. And without the Pipers, we're just pissing in the wind. Which means we're going to have to think of something else, like commandeering a couple of those."

  He pointed across the airfield to hangars in which at least four privately owned Piper Cubs were parked.

  "And what is your suggestion in that regard, Cletus?" Rawson asked.

  "Send the general over there with me to commandeer those airplanes."

  "And what would you suggest regarding el Coronel Peron?"

  "I agree with the general, sir. Don't arrest my beloved Tio Juan until we know more than we do."

  "All right," Rawson said. "Here's what we are going to do: Subinspector General Nolasco, get back on the airplane. Find and keep your eye on el Coronel Peron in San Martin, but take no action until you hear from either General Nervo or me."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Capitan Lauffer, you, General Nervo, Coronel Martin, and I are going to walk over there with Don Cletus to select which of those airplanes are to be commandeered into the service of the Argentine Republic."

  "Yes, sir."

  [NINE]

  Estancia Don Guillermo

  Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60

  Mendoza Province, Argentina

  1525 16 October 1943

  Hauptsturmfuhrer Sepp Schafer--on detached service from the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler--had his Schmeisser at the ready as he moved as rapidly and as quietly as he could down the area between long rows of grapevines.

  He and the five men following him were wearing brown coveralls over their black SS uniforms. It was Hauptsturmfuhrer Schafer's intention, should anything go wrong--and it looked at this moment as if that had happened--to shed the coveralls, which would permit him and his men to claim the protection of the Geneva Convention and POW status.

  He wasn't sure if that was the case.

  How did the Geneva Convention feel about armed soldiers of a belligerent power being discovered--possibly after having taken some lives--roaming around a neutral country?

  At the very least, Schafer had decided, it would buy them some time until SS-Brigadefuhrer von Deitzberg and the Argentine oberst, Schmidt, found out they had been arrested and could start working on getting them freed.

  He could now see the end of the row of grapevines. There was nothing in it. He held up his hand for the men behind him to stop, then gestured for them to move to the left and right, into the spaces between adjacent rows of vines.

  A minute later, he heard the soft chirp of a whistle, telling him that one of his men had found something.

  Reminding himself that stealth was still of great importance, he moved quietly through two rows to the left.

  One of his troopers pointed to the end of that row.

  Another of his men was standing there holding what looked like an American Thompson submachine gun. His legs straddled a body on the ground.

  Schafer ran down the path to him.

  The man came to attention when Schafer got close.

  "Report!" Schafer snapped.

  "I had no choice, sir. He was coming through the vines toward me. When he came into this one, I shot him."

  Something will have to be done with the body. I can't just leave it here.

  It will fit in the trunk of one of the cars.

  But what if one of the gendarmes at one of their checkpoints doesn't just wave us through in the belief that a sedan belonging to the 10th Mountain Regiment poses no threat to anything?

  How the hell would I explain a body?

  He pointed to one of his men. "In the back of one of the cars is a shovel," Schafer ordered. "Go to it, get the shovel, and come back here. The rest of you move the body farther away from the road. Move quickly!"

  "That's deep enough," Schafer announced. "It only has to serve for a short time. Put him in it, and then start spreading the earth around."

  "Tamp it down. I don't want anybody looking down the row and wondering why it's not level."

  Schafer handed the Thompson, which he had decided was not nearly as good a submachine gun as the Schmeisser, to one of his men and then stepped gingerly onto the tamped-down dirt on the grave.

  "Hande hoch!" a voice barked.

  This was immediately followed by a very loud burst of automatic weapons fire. The man holding the Thompson fell backward, still holding the Thompson.

  Schafer now saw that a very large man was
pointing a Thompson at him.

  And then a smaller man who appeared to be wearing an American uniform--there were chevrons on the sleeve of his shirt that looked American--pushed down the barrel of the larger man's submachine gun.

  "Enrico," the smaller man flared, "you stupid sonofabitch!"

  Then he turned to Schafer and repeated, "Hande hoch!" and then added, in fluent German, "My friend would like nothing better than to shoot all of you."

  Schafer now saw there were half a dozen men, in addition to the big one who had fired the Thompson and the little one, the sergeant obviously in charge, in the passage between the rows of vines, three on each side of the grave.

  They were all in civilian clothing. Three of them held Thompsons and the rest had Mauser cavalry carbines.

  Schafer raised his hands over his shoulders.

  "I surrender. I am an officer of the Waffen-SS--" Schafer began, then paused when he saw that the large man had trained the muzzle of the Thompson back at him.

  "Enrico, we need to question them," Staff Sergeant Stein said in Spanish.

  The big man nodded. "I was wrong," he said.

  Schafer went on: "--under the protection of Oberst Sch--"

  "Shut your mouth, you sonofabitch, before I shoot you," Stein barked in perfect German. He pointed to one of the SS troopers. "Start digging him out of there."

  Then Enrico gave an order of his own. "Rafael, send someone for the horses."

  "Si, Suboficial Mayor," one of the natives said.

  [TEN]

  El Plumerillo Airfield

  Mendoza, Mendoza Province, Argentina

  1635 16 October 1943

  Clete had just finished his inspection of the fourth Piper Cub in the hangar when he heard the familiar sound that the Continental A-65-8 flathead, four-cylinder, 65-horsepower engine made.

  He looked at his hands, which were covered with grease.

  "Why am I not surprised?" he asked.

  "Is that them, Cletus?" General Rawson asked.

  "It's either them," Clete said as he walked to the hangar door, "or somebody else has two Cubs."

  A Piper painted in Ejercito Argentino olive drab touched down on the runway. A second was a thousand meters behind it.

  Clete ran across the tarmac and made the appropriate arm signals, telling the pilot to come to where he was standing. The pilot ignored him and taxied toward the passenger terminal. And so did the pilot of the second Cub when he landed.

  The president of the Argentine Republic, the senior officer of the Gendarmeria Nacional, the chief of the Ethical Standards Office, and the aide-de-camp to the president followed Don Cletus Frade as he walked across the airfield toward the passenger terminal, trailed by six gendarmes.

  By the time they got there, Father Kurt Welner, S.J., who had been left with the cars and trucks, had told the pilots who was who, and the pilots--both young tenientes--were now standing, visibly uncomfortable, waiting for the sword of presidential wrath to fall.

  "Good afternoon, gentlemen," Rawson said courteously, returning their salute. "Please stand at ease."

  "Where the hell have you been?" General Nervo inquired, far less courteously.

  "Mi general, we had to stop at Cordoba to refuel," one of the pilots said.

  A civilian wearing a bloody bandage on his forehead and in a grease-stained polo shirt and khaki trousers, went to one of the Cubs and with grease-stained hands opened the engine compartment. Neither pilot thought this was the appropriate time to ask questions.

  The civilian turned from the engine.

  "I don't think I have ever seen such a clean engine," he said.

  "Gentlemen, may I introduce Don Cletus Frade, who is an experienced Piper pilot. He is the son of the late Coronel Jorge Frade, whose last active duty command was of the Husares de Pueyrredon."

  Neither lieutenant seemed to know quite how to deal with that revelation. An indelicate sophistry from Major Frade's own military experience popped into his mind: Those poor bastards don't know whether to shit or go blind.

  He took pity on them.

  "Tenientes," he said, "are these aircraft in as good shape as they appear to be?"

  One of them found his voice.

  "Sir, so far as I know, they are in perfect shape."

  "May I ask how much experience you have in short-field landing?"

  "Sir, we practice that technique regularly."

  "In other words, you would have no trouble with putting one of these down on a field a little longer than a polo field?"

  After a moment's thought, one of the lieutenants said, "No, sir."

  Clete unkindly suspected that their practice had been trying to put a Piper down as close to the end of a runway as they could, then trying to see how short they could make the landing roll.

  Well, there's nothing that can be done about that.

  "What we're going to do now is: I am going to take one of these and fly it to my house. One of you will take the other one and follow me. All I can tell you is to suggest you make your approach as slowly and carefully as you know how."

  "Yes, sir."

  Frade turned to Rawson.

  "Well, sir, I'll see everybody at Casa Montagna," he said, and then made a little joke. "Unless, of course, you want to ride up there with me and save yourself an hour's drive."

  "I'll go with you," Rawson announced. "General Nervo can go in the other airplane."

  "Sir, I was kidding."

  "I wasn't," President Rawson said. "Father Kurt tells me you have a radio there capable of talking to Buenos Aires."

  "To Jorge Frade, sir. The airfield and Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. Only."

  "Whatever its limitations, we'll have more communication than we have now standing around here. How soon can we leave?"

  "Just as soon as I top off the fuel tanks," Clete said, and motioned for General Nervo to get into one of the Cubs. "I'm sure you will find this interesting, Simple Policeman. In Texas, they use these airplanes to catch speeders on the highways."

  [ELEVEN]

  Edelweiss Hotel

  San Martin 202

  San Carlos de Bariloche

  1635 16 October 1943

  Although Senor Jorge Schenck and Senor Otto Kortig arrived at the Edelweiss within minutes of each other, they didn't see each other for some time.

  When Schenck, his wife, el Coronel Juan D. Peron, and Senorita Evita Duarte returned from their visit to Estancia Puesta de Sol Schenck, they had parked the Ford station wagon in front of the hotel on Calle San Martin. Then they had gone to the bar via the lobby.

  As they were being shown to a table, Schenck saw Senor Suarez, the real-estate man, sitting with another man he correctly guessed to be the bureaucrat who was going to be necessary to witness Peron's signature on the deed. Schenck made a simple series of gestures telling Senor Suarez not to recognize him and to stay where he was until summoned.

  Then he followed the others to a table, where he announced he needed a drink, a real drink.

  Senorita Duarte thought that was a splendid idea, and said so. El Coronel Peron said that he would have a little taste of Johnnie Walker Black himself. When the waiter came, Senor Schenck ordered Johnnie Walker Black, doubles, all around.

  Two or three rounds like that and Casanova, if encouraged by Senorita Evita, will happily sign the menu or anything else she puts in front of him.

  When Senor Pablo Alvarez, the Reverend Francisco Silva, S.J., and Senor Otto Kortig arrived at the hotel about fifteen minutes later, after a full and exhausting day of examining the Hotel Lago Vista in detail, they parked the 1940 Ford Fordor from Casa Montagna in the parking lot behind the hotel, as they would have no further need for it until the morning.

  Then they started to enter the hotel from the parking lot. But as they did, they came to sort of an adjunct of the hotel bar, a glass-roofed area outside the more formal inside bar. It had a dozen or so cast-iron tables with umbrellas, six or seven of which were occupied by people having a drink and munchin
g on cheese and salami.

  "Am I the only one who's tempted?" Senor Alvarez asked.

  "How's the beer in Argentina?" Senor Kortig inquired. "I haven't had a decent glass of beer in months."

  "I think you will be pleased, Otto," Father Silva said.

  "Are you a beer drinker, Father?"

  "On occasion," the priest confessed.

  Three liters of Quilmes lager later, Senor Kortig excused himself to visit the gentlemen's rest facility.

  "It's right inside the lobby to the right, Otto," Father Silva said.

  "Thank you. Order another liter of the Quilmes while I'm gone, will you?"

  "It will be my pleasure," Senor Alvarez said.

  In the main bar, Senor Schenck looked up from stuffing his copy of the just executed change-of-owner documentation for Estancia Puesta de Sol into his briefcase.

  That Johnnie Walker is getting to me. If I didn't know better, I'd swear I just saw Oberstleutnant Otto Niedermeyer walk past.

  Ridiculous!

  He works for Canaris in Abwehr Ost. What could he possibly be doing here in the Andes mountains of Argentina?

  And if you do something foolish, like chase some strange man into a men's room and . . .

  "Excuse me, please," Schenck said, and got up from the table and followed a strange man toward the men's room.

  Rather than porcelain urinals mounted to a wall, the urinal in the Hotel Edelweiss lobby men's room was the wall itself. Below waist height, the wall was tiled. A copper pipe just above the tiles fed a never-ending stream of water gently down the white tiles toward a sort of trough at the bottom.

  When Senor Schenck entered the men's room, the strange man was facing the wall.

  Schenck waited until the man turned, and he had a chance for a good look.

  "Wie geht's, Otto?" he asked cordially, smiling.

  "Ach, Gott!" Oberstleutnant Otto Niedermeyer, visibly surprised, said.

  "What in the world are you doing here?"

  Niedermeyer put his index finger before his lips and looked quickly at the water closet stalls--all of which were empty.