Out of Mecklenburg

by James Remmer

  Von Menen picked up the envelope. He was about to take his leave when Vidal reached out and lightly took hold of his arm.

  ‘There’s just one other thing,’ he said solemnly. ‘Something I should have mentioned earlier; a bit of news which you would certainly not have picked up from the radio or the newspapers. It’s to do with Kaltenbrunner’s Reich Security Administration, the RSHA.’

  Von Menen stiffened his gaze. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Kaltenbrunner’s taken control of the Abwehr,’ replied Vidal, in a kind of sardonic throw-away. ‘Hansen, who succeeded Canaris, was kicked out some time ago. My understanding is that he and Canaris have been arrested in connection with the plot against Hitler.’

  Von Menen’s eyebrows shifted up a notch. In the weeks leading to the severing of diplomatic relations, there had been unconfirmed reports that Canaris had been sacked and that Hitler was about to sanction the unification of the Abwehr and the foreign intelligence element of the RSHA, placing the Abwehr under the control of Himmler’s SS. ‘How do you know this?’ he pressed Vidal.

  ‘Herr Schellenberg. He’s now running the whole of your foreign intelligence service.’ Vidal stood up, a wry smile on his face. ‘If you’ll excuse me for a couple of minutes…’

  Von Menen waited until the bathroom door closed, then rose quietly to his feet and slipped away.

  Outside, an unmarked chauffeur-driven Chrysler was parked in Ayacucho. In the back was a man wearing a distinguished uniform of the Argentine navy, shoulder epaulets braided with a gold crossed anchor and a single star.

  Von Menen knew the face instantly. It was Rear Admiral Ricardo Ortiz, a man with an ardent disdain for the GOU and burning hatred of Juan Domingo Perón, a malice born of the bitter memory of what had happened at the Navy’s Mechanical Training School in June 1943.

  Von Menen walked on, side-stepped into a doorway and waited, a hunch playing on his mind. Minutes later, Vidal appeared, made along Ayacucho and climbed into the back of the Chrysler. Von Menen’s jaw dropped like a lead weight. Vidal and Ortiz? It didn’t ring true.

  As the Chrysler roared away, a light dawned – Schmeissers for Vidal, periscope prisms for Ortiz, a very cosy conspiracy. The veil of mystery had lifted. Everything was beginning to make sense: Perón was holding the GOU’s strings, but the shadowy and anonymous Vidal had been pulling them.

  It wasn’t Peronism at all. It never had been. It was Vidalism. But Vidal had been marginalised, pushed aside by “that woman”, as he’d vehemently described her. Now, he wanted control back, only this time, he wanted everything, even if it did mean enlisting the help of Ricardo Ortiz. To hell with Perón and to hell with Eva Duarte.

  The GOU’s ideology was Vidal’s ideology. No doubt he felt it was his providence, too, just like his hero, Hitler; the people’s impostor, half-crazed, half-demented, the supreme broker of power, wanting to rule the whole damn world. But Vidal wasn’t so greedy; he only wanted part of it – South America!

  Back at the Plaza Hotel, von Menen was full of hushed panic, his face a tortured mess, Vidal’s words grinning at him insidiously – ‘I get what I want, you get what you want.’

  Maria wasn’t his only worry. If Vidal’s wild and adventurous scheme wasn’t crazy enough, his bombshell statement about the Abwehr was nothing short of a nightmare. Just as Heydrich had thrived on malevolence, Kaltenbrunner flourished on hatred and the darker side of mischief. If he had seized control of the Abwehr, then next on his shopping list would be… Information Department Three!

  The very notion of it sent von Menen’s mind into deeper turmoil. The Abwehr had been an integral part of the German military which, like the Foreign Office, was, and always had been, a government organisation. But the RSHA was different. It was strictly Nazi.

  Von Menen’s mouth went dry, a strange nausea reaching into his stomach. He felt like a man in a lead suit who’d just bought the Devil’s own jigsaw puzzle; two puzzles, mixed up in the same box!

  He paced about his room, cursing the idea that he couldn’t get a message to Maria. That Vidal was having her watched, even in Córdoba, was no wild conjecture. Her phone would be tapped, her mail censored.

  His mind was full of aching questions. Was it safe to use the radio? Who had he been signalling these past six months, Information Department Three or the RSHA?

  He thought about Werner’s security code, an air of hope settling over him. If what von Bauer had told him about Werner all those years ago – ‘he’s not a member of the Party; in fact, he seems a very decent sort’ – was true, and Kaltenbrunner had seized control, Werner would have left out the code. But the code was still there and he had received the last message just two weeks ago.

  The thought half-calmed him, but his limited composure was soon overshadowed by the daunting prospect of returning to Germany – if, indeed, he could get back to Germany. With the mess the Kreisau Circle was in, the odds that he would be picked up by the Gestapo had increased dramatically. It was a risk he would have to take. There was no alternative.

  The envelope which Vidal had given him remained unopened on the bedside table. Weighing it in the palm of his hand, von Menen sat down, recounting Vidal’s words. ‘And if things do go drastically wrong for Germany, which I doubt, I’m prepared to throw in a little sweetener – some additional benefits, if you like, for anyone who might be interested in, shall we say, relocating.’

  Inside, there was a second envelope, together with a message in Vidal’s own hand.

  If you’re wondering where I got the photograph from, I “borrowed” it from Maria!

  Von Menen tore open the flap and tipped out the contents. Six blank identity cards fell onto the bed, along with a pristine Argentine passport. Leafing through the pages, he noted that it had been “issued” in Buenos Aires four days previously. It contained Spanish, Portuguese and Swiss visas and a blank descriptive page. Fill in whatever details you like.

  Vidal had thought of everything.

  12

  Tuesday 29th August 1944

  Von Menen sat by the bedroom window, eyes dancing between his watch, a plateful of scrambled eggs and the gloomy front-page headlines of the Buenos Aires Herald.

  ALLIED FLOOD LAPS AT WEHRMACHT’S HEELS.

  US “Fliers” Reportedly 90 Miles from Reich Frontier.

  He shaved off his beard, slipped into a sober grey suit and placed a call to the newspaper, which was also a useful source of shipping movements.

  ‘Good morning, Buenos Aires Herald,’ said a female voice.

  ‘I’d like to know if there are any sailings to Europe within the next week or so,’ enquired von Menen.

  ‘Just a moment, please… If you hear a click, don’t hang up. I’ll be answering another call.’

  Von Menen held his breath, crossed his fingers and prayed.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yes, I’m still here.’

  ‘Sorry, but I can’t find anything.’

  ‘You’re sure? Only it really is very urgent,’ he pressed.

  ‘Absolutely. Oh, just a moment…’ She sounded less sure – which was potentially promising. ‘Still there?’

  ‘Yes,’ said von Menen anxiously.

  ‘This is all very confusing,’ she said, her reply punctuated with uncertainty. ‘I’ve found something which suggests that Cabo…’

  Without warning, the line went dead, then came back again.

  ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t quite catch what you said… “Cabo” something?’

  ‘Yes, Cabo Espartel, part of the Ybarra Line… scheduled to depart for Lisbon on 5th September.’

  ‘That’s next Tuesday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, a week today. Strangely, though, I can’t find any reference to when she arrives.’

  ‘But she’s part of the Ybarra
Line, you say?’

  ‘Yes. I can give you the name of their agent in Buenos Aires, if you like.’

  He assented and scribbled down the details.

  Von Menen planned to leave Argentina in exactly the same way as he’d left Buenos Aires seven months previously – disappear like the snow in spring and leave Vidal guessing – only this time, it would not be so easy.

  Vidal would be keen to know when, and under which pseudonym, von Menen had left the country. A blank passport was all very well, but the unique number on every page would be a sure giveaway, and that same number would be in the hands of every official at the Port of Buenos Aires – except, perchance, those at the Uruguay ferry terminal.

  By taking the overnight steamer to Montevideo and waiting for Cabo Espartel to arrive from Buenos Aires, von Menen hoped it would lessen the risk of being identified by some vigilant immigration official. Even then, the passport would not see him beyond the borders of Switzerland, since Kaltenbrunner’s frontier police would be naturally sceptical about an Argentine travel document. Somehow, he had to get a second passport, to which extent Werner was his only hope.

  Navegación Transatlántica – Agents for Ybarra & Compañia, Companhia Colonial de Navegação, Naviera Aznar – so read the relief inscription across the length of the plate-glass window. Von Menen stepped inside, made his way down a long, narrow corridor and knocked on the door marked Navegación Transatlántica.

  ‘It’s open,’ called a voice from within.

  He pushed open the door and saw a relic of a teleprinter chattering incessantly in the far corner, churning out an endless stream of paper. A man of at least seventy, with silvering hair, gold-rimmed spectacles and wearing a pair of black mufflers over the cuffs of his crisp white shirt, stood before it, collecting and folding the paper as it jerked from the carriage.

  The clerk raised his sad sensitive face, etched with lines of worry. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘The sign outside says you handle Ybarra & Company…’ began von Menen.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I believe Cabo Espartel is due to arrive from Europe within the next few days.’

  ‘You believe correctly, señor. She should be steaming towards the River Plate right now.’ He peered over the top of his spectacles. ‘Are you expecting a consignment?’

  ‘Er, no,’ replied von Menen, feigning sadness. ‘I’m trying to get back to Spain. It’s my grandfather… he’s seriously ill.’

  The clerk smiled sympathetically and moved towards his desk, pointing to a stack of letters impaled on a thin, six-inch spike. ‘Sorry, but these are just a few of the letters we receive from people who want to reach Europe. Would you believe, there was a lady in here the other day offering four thousand pesos to get to the top of the queue? It’s the war, you see.’ Supposing that to be the end of the conversation, he buried his head in a thick leather-bound ledger and began writing.

  ‘I’d pay twice as much!’ said von Menen.

  The gold nib pen, hitherto moving at a purposeful pace along a faint red line, came to an abrupt halt; the clerk was motionless for a while, the notion of eight thousand pesos soothing the thought of his forthcoming retirement. Slowly, he raised his head, a dubious look on his face.

  ‘My, you must be desperate, señor. That’s a great deal of money.’

  ‘I’m anxious to see my grandfather, before it’s too late.’ Von Menen cast a long, quizzical gaze around the office, walked his fingers along the edge of the clerk’s desk and looked nonchalantly towards the ceiling. ‘I’d hazard a guess it would take a hard-working man some considerable time to earn that kind of money.’

  ‘A very considerable time,’ agreed the clerk, wondering how many more days he would have to spend in his cluttered office, filling in ledgers, answering queries, sifting and filing papers ten hours a day. He glanced at the inner door to check it was closed. ‘How would you pay this, er… eight thousand pesos?’

  ‘Cash, of course. Four thousand for the ticket and four thousand for…’

  ‘You do realise that, even at that price, you would have to use the pilot’s cabin?’

  ‘I wouldn’t much care if I had to sleep in the hold,’ replied von Menen.

  ‘I’d have to telex Ybarra and get their approval…’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And most importantly, as far as this agency is concerned, you would deal only with me. Not a word to anyone else, understand?’

  ‘Certainly. And your name?’

  ‘Cueto, Marcelo Cueto.’

  ‘Seems like a fair arrangement, Señor Cueto. But there’s just one thing I need to clarify… I have some business to attend to in Uruguay. It would be useful if I could join the ship in Montevideo. Can you arrange that?’

  ‘Yes, though it will mean you boarding a day later.’ Cueto cast a wary eye at the closed door. ‘Look,’ he whispered nervously, ‘it will take me a day or two to sort things out. If you could leave me your name and a number where I can contact you…?’

  ‘Of course. My name’s Carlos Menendez and you can reach me at the Hotel Toscano, at Dolores.’

  ‘Good. With luck, I should have some news for you tomorrow afternoon. I take it you have a passport?’

  ‘Yes, an Argentine passport,’ said von Menen, and quickly furnished Carlos Menendez with a suitable backstory. ‘I was born here. My grandfather was a Spanish immigrant. He settled here in 1880, but returned to Spain just before the Great War.’

  He engaged in a few moments of small talk with Señor Cueto before leaving, just to make sure the old clerk was firmly on his side.

  Back at the Hotel Plaza, von Menen filled out the blank Argentine passport, using the name Carlos Menendez and a place and date of birth he would never forget: Córdoba, 7th December 1915 – Maria’s birthday.

  He settled his bill and set out for Dolores, taking a minor detour south of La Plata.

  It was the Telegraph sign hanging clumsily above the shop door that caught his eye. He brought the car to a halt and scribbled down a brief message.

  To: Señor Carlos Menendez… Grandfather dangerously ill…

  The bell clanged incessantly as the door scraped along the harsh flagstone floor. Inside, the air was thick with tobacco smoke and the stench of stale green vegetables, overripe fruit and strong, black coffee.

  Weaving through a stalactite mass of brushes, pans and shovels, von Menen made his way gingerly towards the far end of the store. The telegraph clerk, as the sign above the counter described him, beckoned him forward.

  ‘I’d like to send this,’ said von Menen, feeding the note through the grill. ‘It’s rather urgent.’

  The telegraph clerk – a grubby white shirt and two days of stubble adding to his dark, unkempt appearance – took a slurp of coffee from a chipped mug, reached for a pair of bifocals and studied the note with all the importance that went with his title. ‘Anything else you’d like to add?’

  ‘No thanks, but you could tell me how long it will take to get there.’

  ‘Should be there tomorrow morning.’

  Von Menen paid the fee and departed, knowing it would bypass the cottage and go straight to the camp, adding drama and substance to his contrived story about his ailing grandfather.

  He checked in at the Hotel Toscano at eight o’clock. The next day, just after breakfast, there was a knock on his bedroom door: ‘Señor Menendez, there’s a telephone call for you, downstairs.’

  Von Menen raced down to reception and picked up the phone. ‘Señor Menendez.’

  ‘This is Marcelo Cueto, from the shipping agency in Buenos Aires. I’ve got some good news. You have a passage on Cabo Espartel, boarding at Montevideo on 6th September.’

  ‘That’s wonderful!’

  ‘Does our arrangement still stand?’ Cueto’s voice was barely audible.


  ‘Yes, of course it does. When can I come and see you?’

  ‘Saturday? The office will be closed, but I’d rather meet you somewhere else, in any case. Shall we say eleven o’clock, at the Confiteria Ideal?’

  ‘At Suipacha and Corrientes?’

  ‘Yes, next to the cinema.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll be there.’

  He rang off with a sigh of relief, feeling he had moved a little closer to Germany.

  Von Menen was barely through the front door when the sound of a horse in full stride broke the routine silence of the cottage.

  Jorge Rosas leapt from his saddle, rushed up the footpath like a whirling dervish and pressed the telegram into von Menen’s hand. ‘Se…Se…Señor.’ Breathless, agitated and wholly frustrated, Rosas couldn’t get his words out.

  Von Menen tore open the envelope, studying the message with feigned despondency. Humphrey Bogart could not have done better.

  ‘It’s my grandfather, Jorge,’ he said, hand on forehead. ‘He’s seriously ill. I must return to Spain, immediately.’

  Rosas held out his hands, von Menen interpreting the signs.

  ‘Thank you, Jorge, but I don’t need any help. Maybe you could let Señor Braganza know that I’ll be leaving for Europe in a couple of days and I will not be back for quite a while.’

  Rosas shook his head.

  ‘You mean Señor Braganza and his wife are not at the house?’

  Rosas nodded furiously.

  ‘They’re in Buenos Aires?’

  Rosas nodded again, two fingers held up before him.

  ‘For two… weeks?’

  Another nod.

  ‘In that case, Jorge, you’d best tell the camp captain.’

  The following morning, von Menen called to see Enrique Rivera. He told him about his “ailing grandfather” and asked him to keep an eye on Margarita. Next, he visited the hut, where he collected a huge square of canvas and a long length of rope.