Secret Honor
Page 63
“El Palomar Six Two Nine. Understand and will comply. Beginning descent at this time.”
Two minutes later, Lufthansa Six Two Nine called again. “El Palomar, Six Two Nine. At one thousand meters. Due north. Indicating four hundred kilometers. Estimate maybe twenty-five kilometers from your station.”
“Six Two Nine, Palomar, continue your approach,” the tower said.
“Oh, shit!” Don Cletus Frade said.
Dorotéa looked at him with concern. He pointed out the cockpit window.
El Coronel Bernardo Martín and Manuel Lascano were walking across the tarmac toward them. Both were in uniform. Leica 35-mm cameras hung from their necks.
Enrico put his head in the cockpit. “Señor Clete…”
“I saw them.”
“What do I do?”
“Open the door and smile,” Clete said. “What else can we do?”
“Sí, Señor,” Enrico said, and turned and went into the passenger compartment.
A minute later, Martín put his head into the cockpit. “Señora Frade,” he said, “how delightful to see you.”
“Mi Coronel,” Dorotéa said. “Since we’re going to be friends, why don’t you call me Dorotéa?”
“I would be greatly honored to do so, Dorotéa,” Martín said. “My Christian name is Bernardo.”
“And what brings you to El Palomar, mi Coronel?”
“I would be honored if you would also use my Christian name, Don Cletus.”
“And I would be pleased if you called me Clete, without the Don, Bernardo,” Clete said. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Lufthansa Six Two Nine,” Clete heard over his earphones, “you are cleared to land on Runway One Eight. There is no other traffic. The winds are from the north gusting to thirty kilometers.”
“Understand, One Eight. Winds north gusting to thirty. I have the runway in sight.”
“I would hazard the guess that I’m here for the same reason you are, Clete,” Martín said, and knelt, and then pointed out the side cockpit window. Lufthansa Six Two Nine had its wheels down and was making its final approach to El Palomar.
“Good-looking bird, isn’t it?” Clete asked.
“Beautiful,” Martín agreed. “For my general fund of aviation knowledge, which is faster, this or the Condor?”
“I think I’m a little faster,” Clete said.
“I hope you won’t mind,” Martín said, “but I asked the authorities to have him park his machine to your right.”
“Why should I mind?”
“I thought it would give us a chance to see who’s getting off, without appearing too obvious,” Martin said.
And make a few snapshots for the family scrapbook, right?
“I’m sure you will be both be delighted to see Major von Wachtstein again,” Martín said. “I just wonder which of you is more delighted.”
“You think he’ll be on that plane?” Clete asked innocently.
“Well, we’ll see in a minute, won’t we?” Martin asked, and went into the cabin.
“How did he know that?” Dorotéa asked.
“He has someone in the German Embassy.”
“Do you think he knows about Peter?”
“I think he suspects.”
“And if he finds out for sure?”
Clete held his hands up in a gesture of helplessness.
Ground handlers and customs and immigration officers marched across the tarmac. A moment later, Ambassador von Lutzenberger and Generalmajor von Deitzberg, both in civilian clothing, came out of the terminal and walked quickly after them.
“That’s Ambassador von Lutzenberger,” Dorotéa said.
“The other one is von Deitzberg, who is an SS officer pretending to be a soldier.”
“How do you know that?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, Clete decided. “Martín gave a picture to Leibermann. Leibermann made a copy for me.”
“Is Martín on our side?”
“Martín is on Argentina’s side. And I suspect that he is just as adept at getting cozy with the Krauts as he is with me.”
The Condor taxied onto the tarmac and the pilot skillfully parked it beside the Lodestar. The cockpits were separated by the length of the right wing of the Lodestar and the left of the Condor.
The pilot of the Condor looked down with shameless curiosity at the blonde sitting in the copilot’s seat of the Lodestar with earphones over her soft blond hair.
Stairs were wheeled up to the door of the Condor as it opened. The delegation of Argentine officials climbed them and entered the aircraft.
A moment later, a plump man got off.
“Gradny-Sawz,” Clete said.
“I know.”
“That’s von Tresmarck,” Clete said as a second man appeared in the door. “He’s from Montevideo, where he runs the ransom operation. He’s queer.”
“Really?” Dorotéa replied, then: “Oh, there’s Peter! Thank God!”
Peter, who was in uniform, glanced at the Lodestar.
For Christ’s sake, Peter, don’t wave!
He was followed by a man in a German naval officer’s uniform. He followed Peter down the stairs, where they both gave von Lutzenberger and von Deitzberg stiff-armed Nazi salutes, shook their hands, and then followed them across the tarmac to the terminal building.
“Who was he?” Dorotéa asked.
“I never saw him before,” Clete said. From a nearly forgotten portion of his brain, information he thought he would never have to use popped to the top. “He’s a Korvettenkapitän.”
“A what?”
“It’s the same rank as lieutenant commander. The equivalent of major.”
“Nice-looking man,” she said.
“He’s a goddamned Nazi,” Clete snapped.
“Cletus, you’re jealous!”
A moment later, other passengers began to leave the airplane.
Four or five minutes later, Martín appeared in the cockpit again.
Apparently he’s satisfied that everyone who’s going to get off is off.
“Thank you for your kind hospitality, Dorotéa and Clete,” he said.
“It’s nothing, Bernardo,” Dorotéa said.
“Our pleasure,” Clete said. “I don’t suppose you know who the naval officer was?”
Martín hesitated before answering. “His name is Boltitz. He’s to be an assistant naval attaché.”
“I owe you one.”
“Are we still keeping score?”
“I’m sure you are,” Clete said.
They shook hands, and Martín left.
“Enrico!” Clete called, and when he appeared in the cockpit, “Get the extinguisher, please.”
“Sí, Señor.”
“What you do, honey,” Clete said to his student, “is turn on the MASTER BUSS. It’s already on, because I wanted to use the radios. Then you put the mixture to FULL RICH, the throttle to LOW IDLE, punch the ENGINE PRIME button, then the LEFT ENGINE START.”
“OK.”
He glanced out the window. Enrico was standing by a large fire extinguisher on wheels.”
Clete gave him the “winding it up” sign, and Enrico nodded.
“Do it, baby,” Clete said.
“Really?” she asked, and set the controls as he had explained. The left engine ground, coughed, and came to life.
“Let it warm a second, until it smoothes out, then get off FULL RICH, and when you see Enrico is ready with the extinguisher, start the right engine.”
A minute later, she looked at him happily.
“El Palomar, Lockheed Zebra Eight Four Three,” Clete said, “on the tarmac in front of the terminal. Request taxi and takeoff, visual fli
ght rules to Pila.”
Dorotéa looked at him curiously.
He pointed to her microphone.
She smiled and picked it up. “El Palomar, Lockheed Zebra Eight Four Three,” Dorotéa said into it, “on the tarmac in front of the terminal. Request taxi and takeoff, visual flight rules to Pila.”
A long moment later, the tower replied, disbelief evident in the man’s voice.
“Say again, Señor?”
“That’s Señora, Señor,” Dorotéa said. “I say again, Lockheed Zebra Eight Four Three on the tarmac in front of the terminal. Request taxi and takeoff, visual flight rules to Pila.”
There was an even longer wait for El Palomar’s reply. “Zebra Eight Four Three, make a left turn from your parking position. Take Taxiway Left Four to Runway Two Eight. Report when you are on threshold of the runway.”
“That’s enough instruction for one day,” Clete said, and took Dorotéa’s microphone from her hand to reply to the tower. There was a look of disappointment on her face.
Enrico put his head in the cockpit. “Ready, Señor Clete.”
“I’ll tell you what, baby, when we’re ready to go, put your feet on the pedals and your hands on the wheel, and follow me through.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She smiled at him.
What the hell, Amelia Earhart was a pretty good pilot, and women are ferrying everything up to B-17s from the factories. There’s no reason she can’t be taught to fly.
XX
[ONE]
Estancia Santo Catalina
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
1530 12 June 1943
The wedding of Señorita Alicia Carzino-Cormano to Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein posed many of the same problems as the wedding of Señorita Dorotéa Mallín to Señor Cletus Howell Frade…and also some additional ones.
For one thing, the thatch roof was in bad shape on La Capilla de Santo Catalina, which (like La Capilla Nuestra Señora de los Milagros on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo) served as the parish church for its estancia. The roof had been up for twenty-five years, and was leaking. Though Doña Claudia Carzino-Cormano had directed its replacement, until that was completed, a tent was used as a chapel to serve the workers.
When the need for the chapel for the wedding became known, that process was one-third completed—the old roof and its rotting supports had been removed. There was no way the repairs could be completed in less than a month, which was of course out of the question. As was a marriage ceremony in Buenos Aires. There was no time for that, either. A six-weeks-premature baby would be credible, while a three-months-premature baby would not.
As was to be expected, Señora Dorotéa Mallín de Frade offered Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo’s La Capilla Nuestra Señora de los Milagros for the wedding, as well as whatever else Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo had to offer.
Doña Claudia accepted the offer of the chapel but not the Casa Grande. Her daughter would have her wedding reception in her own home. That was only fitting. Furthermore, a reception in Dorotéa’s Casa Grande would be awkward. Clete might agree to entertaining the Germans, but he would not like it; and Clete, like his father, was unpredictable when forced to do anything he didn’t want to do.
It was in fact not at all easy for Claudia herself to be charming to the Germans, for she agreed with Cletus that they had been responsible for the murder of Jorge Guillermo Frade. Cletus was a North American and could get away with not bothering to conceal his contempt for the Germans, but Cletus was not the mother of a girl about to bear a half-German baby. And perhaps, she tried to tell herself, the time had come to put that awful tragedy behind.
Claudia arranged for six Mercedes buses to be brought from Buenos Aires to transport the wedding guests and the Estancia Santo Catalina workers to La Capilla Nuestra Señora de los Milagros, on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, and back. The trucks of both estancias would be put to the same use.
Peter, thank God, did not get on his high horse about having a Protestant clergyman participate in the ceremony; and Father Kurt dealt with the Right Reverend Manuel de Parto, bishop of the Diocese of Pila, who waived the usual routine for wedding banns and was pleased to be the celebrant, assisted by Father Welner.
Another set of problems for Claudia came in the person of Juan Domingo Perón. On one hand, he had arranged to have Peter returned from Germany. The baby would have a father. A good father, from everything Claudia had seen of Peter.
On the other hand, Perón was close to the Nazis who had ordered Jorge’s murder.
Not to mention his disgusting behavior. His sick interest in very young girls was at least private. But he had now focused his public interest on that dreadful Radio Belgrano “actress,” Eva Duarte, whom he had taken as a mistress.
Worse, the sale of Radio Belgrano had come through. Eva Duarte and her sleeping partners were no longer Cletus’s problem, but Claudia’s. And the little tramp had already been making noises about being grossly underpaid.
Doña Claudia was a nervous wreck by the time it was over, but the wedding went off without a hitch.
As it turned out, Don Cletus Frade managed to avoid the whole thing, claiming a serious problem at one of his vineyards, San Bosco, in Córdoba Province. He telephoned his profound regret that he would be unable to attend the wedding or the reception.
Claudia saw him, however, peering through the slats of the cloakroom blinds at La Casa Grande, as Major and Señora Hans-Peter von Wachtstein left La Capilla Nuestra Señora de los Milagros between an honor guard of dress-uniformed officers, Army, Navy, and Diplomatic, of the German Embassy.
The only thing that went wrong after that was that the wedding trip didn’t go as planned…and that wasn’t really such a problem. Claudia had arranged for a suite in the Provincial Hotel in Mar del Plata, but the newlyweds never went there.
Instead, they flew in one of the Piper Cubs to God Only Knew Where. Someone, either Peter or Clete, had left it on the pampas for a getaway after they left the reception at Estancia Santo Catalina.
Alicia left her a note: They would be back in seven days.
[TWO]
Avenida Pueyrredón 1706
Piso 10
Buenos Aires
1605 20 June 1943
Having received no response to the ringing of the bell, Major Hans-Peter von Wachtstein let himself into his apartment. “Hey, anybody home?”
“In here, Peter,” a familiar voice called.
Peter went into his sitting room, where he found Korvettenkapitän Karl Boltitz, in civilian clothing, behind his desk. His hand was resting on a folded copy of La Nación.
“Hello, Karl,” Peter said. “What are you doing here? Where’s my maid?”
“After she let me in, I gave her the rest of the day off,” Boltitz said.
“What’s going on?”
“Sit down, Peter,” Boltitz ordered coldly, pointing to a leather armchair.
“I’ll stand, thank you,” Peter said, his temper starting to flare.
Boltitz pushed the newspaper to one side. It had concealed a Luger 9mm Parabellum pistol. “Sit down, Peter,” Boltitz repeated.
“What’s going on?” Peter replied, but sat down.
“It says here—if we are to believe Reuters, and I do—that Rome was bombed by five hundred American planes last night. Is that what happened, Peter, you decided we will lose the war? And wanted to be on the winning side?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Peter said.
“While you were flying off on your honeymoon, I took a trip by car,” Boltitz said. “To Puerto Magdalena. There I spoke with Lothar Steuben and other members of his family. Now do you know what I’m talking about?”
Peter didn’t reply.
“Herr Steuben
reported that you left his home, ‘to conduct business,’ after you had convinced Herr Loche that you needed to know where exactly the boat from the Océano Pacífico would land on Samborombón Bay. That’s how the Americans—or the Argentines, it doesn’t really matter—knew where to be, and when. You told them, Major Freiherr von Wachtstein.”
Peter didn’t reply.
“Do you deny this, Peter?”
“No,” Peter said simply.
“Did you know the intention of your friends, vis-à-vis Oberst Grüner and Standartenführer Goltz?”
“No.”
“Why, Peter?”
“You know what they are bringing ashore, of course?”
“Radios to assist in the repatriation of the Graf Spee officers, you mean?”
“No, I mean cash, and gold taken from the mouths of Jews after they had been murdered in concentration camps, intended to provide sanctuary for the Bavarian corporal and his filthy friends after Germany loses this war.”
“You swore a personal oath, on your honor, to the Führer.”
“That was a terrible mistake. I spent time in Russia. I know what the Nazis really are.”
“The point is, Peter, I took the same oath you did, and I am honor-bound to adhere to it. By your own admission, you are a traitor.”
“All right,” Peter said, “now what?”
“Your treason, among other things, has kept German submariners on the high seas, starving, in great risk of being discovered and sunk, because the Océano Pacífico could not resupply them. Some of them are friends of mine.”
“Some of them are friends of mine, too.”
Boltitz shrugged. “I suppose that’s true,” he said. “A generation ago, Peter, if this confrontation occurred between your father and mine, this would have solved the problem.” He tapped the Luger with his fingertips. “My father would have left your father alone with one cartridge in the pistol, and your father would have done the honorable thing, and that would have been the end of it.”
“My father would probably have tried to take the pistol away from you,” Peter said.
“I wouldn’t try that,” Boltitz said. “I have a full clip in here, and I could get off three shots before you got out of the chair.”