The White Vixen

by David Tindell

  Blandford passed the top photograph to Jo. It showed a dark-haired man in the black uniform of the Waffen-SS, unsmiling, with intense eyes. “Dieter Baumann,” Blandford said. “Born in Hamburg, 1907. Joined the Nazi Party in ’31, rose through the ranks, and when war came he became an officer in the SS. Rose to the rank of SS Standartenführer, or colonel, saw action in France and Russia. In mid-’43, he was personally selected by Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and one of the leaders of the group that was interested in Argentina, to go to that country and set up what became the Siegfried Bund.”

  “I was posted in Buenos Aires in ’43,” Joseph Geary said. Jo was surprised; she had always thought her father had spent the war in the Far East. “It was my first assignment for OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of CIA. I worked with our people there, and Sir David’s people, to try to figure out what the Germans were up to. I met Baumann at a dinner party one evening. A very smooth operator.”

  Blandford took up the story again. “Himmler and his partners began shipping the booty from the death camps to Argentina on U-boats. It was a critical phase of the operation and Baumann built up the contacts in Buenos Aires to receive the cargo, convert it to cash and deposit the money in various banks.” The MI6 man consulted a sheet from the file. “The Germans were meticulous record-keepers. They extracted a great deal of wealth from the Jews and others they murdered in the camps. This part of the plan used six U-boats to ship over half a million ounces of gold, thirty-five hundred ounces of platinum, over four thousand carats of diamonds, and millions in gold Reichsmarks, British pounds, American dollars and Swiss francs, as well as hundreds of works of art. The submarines all arrived safely in Argentina in early 1945. The Argentines took the crews into custody, but the loot managed to somehow get past the authorities.”

  “That wasn’t all of the money,” Joseph said. “A lot of the Nazi money went to banks in neutral European countries, and from them to Argentina. We believe they worked largely through Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland.”

  Blandford consulted his list again. “The biggest deposit was by the Banque Nationale Suisse, the national bank of Switzerland. In November 1944, it deposited twenty gold bars in Buenos Aires. Less than two years later, early ’46, the bank’s holdings in Argentina were up to 470 bars. That was more than six tons of gold.”

  “My Lord,” Jo said, trying to grasp the enormity of that much money.

  Casey spoke for the first time since asking Jo to commit to the mission. “With the financial base established, the Nazi big shots started making plans to escape from Europe and get to Argentina before it was too late. Baumann had done a masterful job of creating close ties with Juan Perón, an Argentine Army colonel who was part of a junta that took over the country in ’43. By ’46, Perón was the president. Much of his financial support came from the Nazis. After he was elected, we believe he created some ten thousand blank passports and identity cards for Nazi fugitives.”

  “Ten thousand!” Jo exclaimed.

  “Not nearly that many managed to escape,” Blandford said. “The last few months of the Thousand-Year Reich were very chaotic. The Western Allies were invading Germany from the west and south, the Russians from the east. Things were falling apart quickly. The escape routes they’d planned were starting to break down. Some were afraid to leave for fear Hitler would have them hunted down and shot as traitors, which of course they were. Others were captured by the Allies before they could get out of Europe. But several hundred did make it, and they wasted no time in establishing themselves as businessmen, using the money to finance their purchases. They invested heavily in industry, the media and real estate. They were very shrewd, very circumspect.”

  “Where did the name come from?” Jo asked.

  Blandford pulled another paper from his file. “Bund is the German word for ‘union’, as applied in this case. Siegfried harks back to German mythology. The Nibelungenlied is an epic poem from the thirteenth century. The main character is the warrior Siegfried, who has captured a hoard of gold from the Nibelungs, an evil family. It is rather involved, but the condensed version, one might say, finds Siegfried betrayed by his relatives and murdered. His wife seeks vengeance for him and there’s a great deal of mayhem and death, but in the end Siegfried’s chief, Etzel, is one of the few survivors. The poem is said to be a classical representation of the German ideals of fate and loyalty to the chief.”

  “Did Baumann become the leader of the Bund?” Jo asked.

  “No,” Blandford said. “What I’m about to tell you is something I have not yet shared with Director Casey.” He turned to the DCI. “My apologies, sir, but I was under strict orders not to discuss this aspect of the situation until we had secured the services of the agent.”

  Casey nodded understanding. “Go ahead, Sir David.”

  Blandford fished in the file for another photograph. He looked it over, took a breath, and passed it to Casey. “Good God in heaven,” the DCI said. “Not him. Are you sure?”

  “Quite certain,” Blandford said.

  Casey passed the photo to Joseph. “Oh, Lord.”

  “Who is it?” Jo asked. Her father passed her the picture. It was of a man in a slightly different style of uniform, but definitely Third Reich-era German. This man was stocky, with a thick neck, thin slicked-back hair, a protruding chin, and eyes that were almost hidden by a thick-boned brow, but they were eyes that held a particular cunning. Jo didn’t recognize the photo.

  Blandford spoke in a voice that had seemingly taken on a darker timbre. “That, my dear, is one of the few surviving photographs of Martin Bormann, the Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party, personal secretary to Hitler himself. When the Nazi regime collapsed he became the most wanted man in Europe. He was thought to be dead, shot by the Russians as he tried to escape Berlin in the final days of the war. He was not shot. He escaped, and today he is living in Argentina, and he is the head of the Siegfried Bund. As we speak, he and his men are preparing to launch a nuclear weapon against the British fleet when it arrives at the Falklands. He is the reason we are sending you to Argentina, to find him and eliminate him, before they can attack.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Langley, Virginia

  March 22nd, 1982

  The enormity of Blandford’s words slammed into Jo with almost physical force. Her heart began to race. She forced herself to calm down, drawing upon her inner ki, and within a few seconds she felt fine, physically. Emotionally, that was another thing.

  “Why me?” she managed to ask. “Surely you have more experienced agents who can carry out an assassination. For that matter, why can’t you just launch a military strike?”

  “A military operation is out of the question,” Blandford said. “Regrettably, I might add. Bormann lives near the city of Bariloche, in western Argentina near the Chilean border. There are serious political obstacles in the way of a strike, either by air or on the ground. Launching an operation from Chile might very well ignite hostilities between the two countries, which we do not want to see, and most surely your government do not, either. An air strike from the east would require an overflight of Argentine territory that would be most hazardous, and short of using a nuclear weapon of our own, which of course is completely out of the question, a bombing run would not guarantee success. The decision has already been made on Downing Street that our forces shall refrain from any action against the Argentine mainland. Let me amend that: any overt action. There are other cards we can play to preclude a nuclear strike, should it come to pass.”

  “As to your inclusion in this mission, Jo Ann, you’re not going in alone,” Casey said. Jo sensed that the DCI was a bit miffed, perhaps at the way he learned about Bormann. Casey had acted surprised to learn about the Reichsleiter. She knew there was a friendly rivalry between CIA and SIS, and surely neither side liked to be one-upped by the other.

  Blandford was fingering another photo from his file. “At the Firm, we had decided to send a man to Buenos Aires to
infiltrate the Siegfried Bund and lead us to Bormann. At that time, we would employ other assets to complete the job. This is the man we chose.” He handed the photo to Jo. It was a color portrait of a middle-aged man, obviously of Nordic stock, but otherwise undistinguished. “He is Walter Schröder, age fifty-two, an assistant to the Economic Minister of the East German government. He has been working for us for six years, since his first wife and two children died in the crash of an Aeroflot airliner. They were on their way home from holiday on the Black Sea. Schröder had been called back to East Berlin two days earlier, but insisted that his family remain to finish their visit. The official cause of the crash was mechanical failure, but the actual cause was shoddy work by the ground crew preparing the flight. Like just about everything else in the Soviet Union, their airline is horribly inefficient and prone to such tragedies. Really, it’s amazing there haven’t been more. In any event, we found Herr Schröder to be, shall we say, receptive to the idea of providing us with information.”

  “We became aware of Schröder ourselves a few years ago,” Joseph said. “By and large the information he’s been supplying to our British friends has been solid stuff. Not spectacular, but useful. Here at CIA we had some doubts about him, though. One of our people reported a contact between Schröder and an upper-level officer of Stasi, the East German intelligence service. We had previously confirmed a connection between this officer and the Siegfried Bund.”

  “CIA informed us of this contact,” Blandford said. “We’ve no other reason to believe Schröder is involved with the Bund. However, when this particular operation was in the planning stage, this raised a flag. Our CIA liaison in London suggested that an American agent be sent to Buenos Aires along with Schröder, to ensure his loyalty, so to speak.” The MI6 man pulled yet another photo from the file and passed it to Jo. This one showed a casually dressed Schröder with a dark-haired, Asiatic-looking woman.

  “His wife?” Jo guessed.

  “His current one,” Blandford said. “Schröder remarried in 1980. His wife is of Armenian heritage. They met while he was on a trip to that area of the Soviet Union. Their courtship was rather swift and she was allowed to immigrate to East Germany once they married. Her name is Larisa, maiden name Kocharian. No children, age thirty. She works in a small office that manages cultural exchange missions between East Germany and the Armenian Republic. As you might imagine, she is not very busy.”

  “SIS has already tasked Schröder for the operation,” Joseph said. “In exchange, they will help him to defect to our side once the op is done. For now, he’s managed to arrange an official visit to Argentina for himself and his wife. The two of them will go to Budapest, where you will meet him. The real Larisa will be taken in hand by our people and smuggled into Yugoslavia and then here.”

  “Major, your assignment is to accompany Schröder to Buenos Aires, posing as his wife,” Casey said. “While there, you will monitor Schröder’s activities and alert us or SIS if it appears he is indeed involved with the Bund, and if so, you will try to learn as much about their nuclear plan as possible. It appears that Sir David’s people hope he can lead you to Bormann. It’s a long shot, but time is of the essence, so it’s the only shot we really have.”

  “Our latest intelligence estimates place an Argentine invasion of the Falklands within one week,” Blandford said. “I regret to say that we will not be able to oppose the landing. We have only a small garrison of marines on the islands and no appreciable naval assets in the area. By the time we have assembled our own fleet and sent it to the war zone, several weeks will have elapsed. Our intelligence indicates that the Bund is planning to strike the fleet when it is within two hundred miles or so of the Falklands.”

  Jo turned to Casey. “I’m assuming that there are reasons why we can’t really use our own assets to do this, Director.”

  Casey nodded solemnly. “Unfortunately, that’s true, Major. The President is in a delicate political situation. Argentina is a nation friendly to the United States. We have some serious concerns about human rights violations there in recent years, but they are, after all, a nation of our own hemisphere. Their president, General Galtieri, visited here last year and made quite a few friends in Congress. We anticipate that he will ask us to invoke the Monroe Doctrine to prevent European interference in this hemisphere. We won’t, of course; officially, I expect, we’ll remain neutral as long as possible. Certainly no American military forces will be employed on either side. We’re quite confident the British can defeat the Argentines in a conventional conflict. It goes without saying, however, that we simply cannot allow the Argentines to launch a nuclear attack on the Royal Navy.”

  “We have to worry about the Russians,” Joseph said. “Right now we’re very concerned about what they’re up to in Nicaragua, El Salvador, elsewhere in Central America and the Caribbean. If we take up arms alongside a European power against a Latin American nation, the Russians will exploit that and make things quite difficult for us. The last thing in the world the Latin American countries want is for the Yankees to come down there and take over, and frankly, we don’t want that, either. But the destruction of the British fleet would be catastrophic. The Royal Navy is vital to NATO defense plans. Its sudden loss could very well prompt a Soviet move in the Mediterranean. The political turmoil might even give them ideas about doing something on the continent, such as seizing West Berlin. So we have to play this very carefully.”

  “My government also have some serious political considerations,” Sir David said. “Besides the obvious, of course, that the Falklands are sovereign British territory and a foreign occupation of them cannot be tolerated. We are concerned about indications that Guatemala may want to move on Belize, to whom we granted full independence last year. The Spaniards have been talking about wanting Gibraltar back. We simply must make a stand over the Falklands. At the same time, the prime minister’s position is not completely secure. Should it become known that the Argentines have nuclear weapons and may be willing to use them, there will be many in Parliament who will argue that the Falklands are simply not worth that cost. And should she then proceed anyway, and should the worst happen, her government would fall.” He spread his hands. “We are, as you can see, in somewhat of a bind.”

  Jo nodded her understanding. She looked at the Englishman. Was there a plaintive look in his eyes? She thought of Ian, preparing to go back in harm’s way to help the people on some faraway islands who would soon have their freedom taken away. “I’m honored that you have asked me to help, Sir David. But I do have a question. If I remember, wasn’t Bormann’s body found in Germany several years ago?”

  Blandford shrugged his shoulders. “Everyone thought so,” he said. “The historical record is fairly clear about Bormann’s attempted escape from the Führerbunker at the Reich Chancellery. Around midnight on May first, 1945, Bormann and several others decided to make a break for it, through the Russian lines to German units in the outskirts of the city that were still engaging the enemy. From there, it is assumed they would try to contact one or both of the escape organizations. Witnesses have placed Bormann near the Admiralpalast when, supposedly, he was killed when the German tank he was walking behind was hit by Russian shells. One of the other Germans in the escape party claimed to have buried Bormann and the other victim, a Doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger, Hitler’s physician, very close to the site.”

  Blandford withdrew another photo from his file. This one showed human bones exposed in a crude grave. “In 1972, during construction work, the remains of two men were found. One was the correct height for Bormann, and had a collarbone that had once been broken. Bormann’s sons testified that their father had broken a collarbone in 1939 when he fell off a horse. What supposedly clinched the identification were dental records. Hitler’s personal dentist had also treated Bormann. The dentist was captured after the war by the Americans and made a chart of the teeth of both men. The lab technician who prepared bridgework for Bormann was still alive in ‘72, and when present
ed with the charts and photos of the corpse’s teeth, he confirmed that it was Bormann. The investigators went further, however, and ordered a forensic reconstruction of the face based on the skull. The result was remarkably similar to Bormann. That was enough for the West German authorities, who closed the case in 1973 by declaring the remains positively identified as those of Bormann and Stumpfegger.”

  “But they were wrong?” Jo asked.

  Casey picked it up. “Sir David knows that we’ve never really accepted that judgment. We have reason to believe that the dental records, which had been in U.S. custody since the interview with the dentist right after the war, had been altered since they were first drawn up. The forensic workup was fairly convincing—I’ve seen the pictures myself, and there’s a strong resemblance—but that alone doesn’t prove the remains were those of Bormann. What we think happened is that sometime in the early fifties a man similar in appearance to Bormann was located by the Bund in West Germany, taken to West Berlin, and murdered. They buried him at that spot, along with a corpse resembling Stumpfegger. The dental records of the victim were used to alter the records drawn up by the Nazi dentist. The broken collarbone, of course, could have been easily arranged. It was a very well-conceived and executed operation, designed to do exactly what it eventually did: provide so-called evidence that Bormann never made it out of Berlin alive.”

  “I see,” Jo said. She took a deep breath. Her fears had subsided. She had a chance to help right a wrong. She remembered what little she’d read about Bormann: an evil man, undoubtedly responsible for a great deal of suffering and death, and he was still alive, planning to cause more of it. He had to be stopped. “Tell me what you’d like me to do,” she said to the MI6 man.