"Tell us now," Clete said.


"I can't prove this. I can't get anybody to come out and say this is being done—all I get is doors slammed in my face, conversations suddenly ended—"


"Prove what?" Clete asked in exasperation as he put another piece of bife de chorizo in his mouth.


"I think, if you have a relative in Sachsenhausen, or Belsen—probably any concentration camp, but those are the only names I've heard—" Ettinger said, "that, if you go to the right man in Uruguay, carrying with you a lot of dollars or Swiss francs, you can get him, her, the whole family out."


"I'll be damned," Clete said. "Are you sure about this?"


"No. Not in the sense that I can prove it. But I believe it."


"Who's the right man in Uruguay? Somebody at the German Embassy? Do you have a name?"


"No. No name. But I don't think it's someone at their Embassy. I think the connection is from the right man in the Jewish community here, to the right man in the Jewish community in Montevideo, or maybe Colonia, and from there to whoever they're dealing with in the German Embassy. Or, for that matter, the Spanish Embassy or the Swedish Embassy. I told you, Clete. Nobody wants to talk about it."


"Not even to you?" Clete said. "Sorry, I had to ask that."


Ettinger's entire family had been taken into concentration camps in Germany . . . except for his mother, who had managed to escape from Germany with her son because they still had their Spanish passports. There had been official word from the SS that his grandfather and grandmother had "died of complications from pneumonia," but there had been no other word of anyone else.


"I picked up on this whole operation when an old man I knew in Berlin told me it was a pity I went to New York instead of here, 'where something might have been done.'"


"You think he meant you could have brought your family out?"


"This fellow was brought out," Ettinger said. "I saw the SS tattoo, the SS numbers, on his arm."


"And he won't tell you anything more?"


Ettinger shook his head, "no."


"The big mistake I made when we first came down here was telling Ernst Klausner, somebody else I knew in Berlin, that I was in the American Army; he's apparently spread the word. My feeling is that they have this system going, and they don't want anything to happen that will threaten it."


"Christ, don't they know we're fighting the goddamn Krauts?" Tony said.


"They don't want whatever is going on to be threatened," Ettinger repeated. "American interest in what's happened, is happening, to European Jews, Tony, is a relatively new thing."


"What happens to the people who get out of the concentration camps?" Clete wondered aloud.


"Apparently, they're provided with documents that take them out of Germany. To Sweden, maybe, or Spain. And then either to here or Uruguay. I don't know. The old man is here; he got out of a concentration camp, and then out of Germany somehow. He couldn't have done that without papers."


"Have you said anything to Leibermann at all about this?" Clete asked.


"No," Ettinger said, and added: "I was waiting for you to come back, and to find out more, if I can."


"I don't want you to say anything at all about this to Leibermann, David."


Ettinger nodded, accepting the order.


"I think we have to pass this to Colonel Graham," Clete said.


"I was afraid you'd say that," Ettinger said.


"That bothers you?"


"It's a moral problem for me," Ettinger said. "If there is a system, and people are getting out, I don't want to be the one responsible for shutting that system down."


"There may be, almost certainly is, something here that you and I don't know how to deal with," Clete said.


Ettinger, looking very unhappy, shrugged.


"What David just told us doesn't go anywhere," Clete said, looking at Tony and Chief Schultz in turn. Both nodded.


"There's something I have to tell you. I just got, from a source I trust—"


"Meaning you're not going to tell us who, of course?" Tony interrupted.


"No, I'm not," Clete said sharply. "And you know why. We operate on the premise that if any one of us is interrogated by a professional, sooner or later, and probably sooner, we'll tell him everything he wants to know. If you don't know something, you can't give it up, OK?"


"Sorry, Clete," Tony said, sounding genuinely remorseful.


"A German officer, an SS colonel named Goltz, came here on the Lufthansa flight the same day I did—"


"SS, or SS-SD?" Ettinger interrupted.


"SD. Does that mean something to you?"


"SD means Sicherheitsdienst. The Secret Police, so to speak. The real bastards."


"OK, this guy is SD. And we already have the proof that he's a bastard. This morning, this bastard issued orders to have you killed."


"No shit?" Tony asked. "Just Dave?"


"That would suggest, wouldn't it," Ettinger said, "that maybe I'm asking the right questions?"


"Just for the sake of argument, yes," Clete said. "And it would also suggest that this Colonel Goltz is connected with this business. He comes here, somebody tells him you're asking questions, and he says, 'eliminate him.'"


"I've been operating on the premise that such an order would be standard operating procedure. Eliminate anybody who's asking the wrong questions. Or stumbles onto something," Ettinger said. "The Sicherheitsdienst is ruthless, and killing someone to keep a secret like this would be normal routine. You think this is something new?"


"According to my source—who I think is reliable—the order to eliminate you was issued this morning, by this Colonel Goltz. Maybe it's a coincidence— they didn't know you were asking questions until just now—but I don't think so."


"No," Ettinger said after a moment, "neither do I."


"Dave, do you have a gun?" Clete asked.


Ettinger nodded.


"He's got a little .38," Chief Schultz said. "I tried to get him to carry a .45, but he says he can't shoot a .45."


"I can't," Ettinger argued. "And a .45 is hard to conceal."


"It's your neck, Dave," Clete said. "Do what you think you should."


Ettinger nodded.


"Are we on the air, Chief?" Clete asked.


"Five by five," Chief Schultz replied.


"David, write down everything you know or suspect about this ransoming operation. Right now. Before I ride back to the estancia, I want to send this out."


Ettinger nodded his acceptance of the orders.


"Everything, David," Clete emphasized. "I want to tell Colonel Graham everything you know. And ask him if you should look deeper. For all we know, as far down on the totem pole as we are, they already know about this. They may just tell us to butt out."


"I've considered the possibility that Leibermann is aware of it. He's a very clever fellow."


Clete nodded in agreement.


"In the meantime, you don't go back to Buenos Aires until I tell you to."


"I can't ask very many questions here," Ettinger replied.


"We may get orders telling you not to ask any more questions, period."


"Clete, if you're right that the order to kill me was issued only this morning, I don't think they'd have time to set anything up. And I have a couple of people I'd like to talk to."


Christ, he simply does not know how to take an order!


"And there may be two guys outside your apartment this minute, waiting for you to show up. I don't want you killed. I need you. You stay here until I tell you otherwise, you understand?"


Ettinger threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender.


Clete turned to Chief Schultz. "Chief, in Washington they were really concerned about losing the station. I must have had six lectures on triangulation."


"No problem here, Mr. Frade," Chief Schultz said. "You know how that works?"


Clete nodded, and started to say "Yes, a little," but Chief Schultz went on without giving him the chance.


"First of all, they have to catch us on the air," he explained. "By two, preferably three, directional antennae mounted on trucks. One receiver won't cut the mustard. If they do happen to catch us, they won't be close. To really pinpoint a transmitter, you have to get close."


"And they can't get close here?"


"You know how big this place is? I got a map of it. And Mr. Pelosi stole an almanac from the embassy for me. This place takes in more than eighty thousand hectares. A hectare is about two point seven acres. That makes it more than two hundred thousand acres. That's three hundred twenty-five square miles. You know how big Manhattan Island is? Twenty square miles. This place is one-quarter the size of Rhode Island."


"We've got counties in Texas that big," Clete heard himself arguing. "Hell, I think the King Ranch takes in more than two hundred thousand acres."


Chief Schultz looked at him for a moment with the tolerant look a veteran chief petty officer gives young officers who cannot seem to grasp a simple explanation.


"Without coming on the property, Mr. Frade—and they can't do that without us hearing about it—they can't get close enough to us to get a good triangulation fix," he said. "In addition to which, I made the transmitter mobile."


"What?"


"I mounted one of the transmitters and a receiver on one of the Model A's, and a generator on another one. So what I can do is go three, four miles from here, rig a straight-wire antenna, fire it up, send the traffic, and then haul ass. Even if they got a triangulation fix on that site—which, like I say, is damned unlikely—by the time they got there there'd be nothing there but trees and cows."


"What about the antenna I saw in the trees?"


"That's a receiver antenna, Mr. Frade," Chief Schultz said tolerantly. "What we hear people calling us over."


Clete looked at Ettinger, who was an electrical engineer. Ettinger nodded. Chief Schultz was telling the truth.


"Well, perhaps not all chief petty officers are as retarded as Marine officers are led to believe," Clete said. "Could I have a look at this mobile transmitter of yours?"


"You don't want to hear what Chiefs have to say about Marine officers, Mr. Frade," Chief Schultz said. "You just want a look at it, or do you want me to fire it up for you?"


"A look now, and after Mr. Ettinger has finished his report, I'd like to see it in operation."


"They're right out in back, Mr. Frade."


"Tell me about radar, Chief," Clete said after Schultz had completed his demonstration of his truck-mounted radio station.


"They're really sending one down here?"


"It's in Brazil, with a team to set it up and operate it."


"I think they're pissing into the wind," Schultz said.


"Tell me why."


"You know how it works?"


"Tell me."


"They found out—at Bell Labs, in New Jersey—that at the higher frequencies, radio waves bounce. So they send out directional radiation. You know what I'm talking about?"


Clete shook his head, "no."


"You try to narrow the radiation field. Like, a civilian broadcasting system tries to get a wide radiation pattern. Like a stone dropped in the water, you know? Expanding circles? So the signal can be picked up by as many receivers as possible?"


Clete nodded.


"With radar, you try to do the opposite. Send out as narrow a field of radiation as you can. Then you've got a receiving antenna. It looks like a great big saucer. The signals from the transmitter bounce back to the saucer. Still with me?"


Clete nodded again.


"The antenna moves, sometimes through a 360-degree circle, sometimes just through a part of the circle. OK. So if you're using the radar at sea, for example, the signals will not bounce back to the antenna, unless they hit something—a ship—that they can bounce off. When that happens, and the signals bounce back, all you have to do is figure how long it took them to do that."


"How do you do that?"


"Radio signals move at the speed of light. That's the constant. The radar can tell—this is the theory—how far away whatever the signal bounced off of is by how long it took the signal to come back. Then they can put that up on a cathode-ray tube. You know what that is?"


Clete shook his head, "no."


"Remember at the 1940 World's Fair in New York, when they broadcast pictures of people? What you saw the pictures on was a cathode-ray tube. So anyway, you mark on the screen the distances. So many microseconds for the signal to bounce back from whatever it hits—they call that the 'target'—and it's, say, two miles away. So many more microseconds, and it's, say, five miles away. And because you're pointing the receiving antenna—like the radio direction finder on airplanes—you know in what direction the target is. That's the theory, Mr. Frade."


"What's the reality?" Clete asked.


"They had radar at Henderson Field, right?"


"Yeah."


"What did it do?"


"When it worked, it told us when Jap airplanes were coming."


"That it'll do. And it'll tell you the direction. But not the distance with any precision. Mr. Pelosi said they told him they can locate something within a hundred yards. I'll believe that when I see it."


"And you don't expect to see it?"


Schultz shook his head, "no."


"Chief, what if the radar they sent down is absolutely the latest thing?"


"I'll believe it can locate something within a hundred yards when I see it."


"Where are we going to put it?"


"It works line of sight," Schultz said. "Which means the target has to be between the transmitter and the horizon. So it has to be on the highest ground you can find. On ships, they mount it as high aloft as they can get it. That's another problem here. The land here, by Samboromb?n Bay, is flat. There are only a couple of hills. If the Germans anchor their ship more than thirty miles offshore, then it will be over the horizon, and the radar won't work."


"The radar at Henderson Field spotted Jap planes a lot further away than thirty miles."


"When you aim at the sky, there's no horizon," Schultz explained. "The limiting factor there is really the strength of the bounced-back signal."


"In other words, you don't think this thing will work?"


"I'll believe it when I see it."


"If we can get it into the country, have you located a place where they can put it up?"


"Yes, Sir. And I got everything we need—concrete, timber, even a generator—to put it in operation."


"I really hope you're wrong, Chief," Clete said. "I don't want to have to locate that damned ship with a Piper Cub."


"Yeah," Chief Schultz said. "Well, I been wrong before, Mr. Frade."


Clete sensed that this was one of those times when Chief Schultz did not think he was wrong.


"Let's go back and see if Dave's finished his report," he said.




Chapter Thirteen




[ONE]


Office of the Minister of War


Edificio Libertador


Avenida Paseo Colon


Buenos Aires


1445 11 April 1943


Major Pedro V. Querro pushed open the left of the twelve-foot-tall double doors leading to the office of Teniente General Pedro P. Ramirez, waited until he had the attention of the Minister of War and then announced, "El Teniente Coronel Mart?n is here, mi General."


Like Querro, Ramirez was in civilian clothing. An hour before, Mart?n had called to tell him that it was important to see him immediately, and Ramirez directed Mart?n to meet him in his office. His home in the suburb of Belgrano— like those of other senior government officials—was patrolled by the Polic?a Federal, and he thought it likely that a note would be made if anyone saw the BIS counterintelligence chief paying him a Saturday-afternoon visit. He had been waiting for Mart?n for fifteen minutes, and he didn't like to wait for anyone.


Ramirez impatiently signaled for Querro to show him in. Mart?n marched into the office, his brimmed cap under his left arm. At the last moment, he remembered his right hand was holding a briefcase, making it difficult to render the called-for salute.


Ramirez smiled as Mart?n hastily transferred the briefcase to his left hand, therefore causing the brimmed cap to be dislodged. Mart?n managed to catch it with the side of his arm before it fell to the carpet, and saluted. The maneuver fell somewhat short of the precision expected.


"Good afternoon, mi Coronel," Ramirez said as he returned the salute.


"May I suggest, mi General, that we close the door?" Mart?n said.


Ramirez again made an impatient gesture with his hand.


Querro started to close the door.


"Will my presence be required, mi General?" he asked.


"Martin?" Ramirez asked.


"I think it would be best, mi General," Mart?n said.


Querro closed the door, then marched across the room and took up a position behind Ramirez's desk.


"May I?" Mart?n said, holding the briefcase above Ramirez's desk.


Ramirez signaled that he could.


Mart?n set the briefcase on the desk, opened it, and handedOutline Blue to Ramirez.


Ramirez openedOutline Blue to the first page to confirm it was what he thought it was, then looked up at Martin.


"Where did you get this, Coronel?"


"From Se?or Frade, mi General."


"I thought he was supposed to have gone to his estancia?"


"He did, mi General. I went down there."


"And the money?" Ramirez asked.


"In the safe at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, mi General."


"He wouldn't give it to you?"


"I thought it best to leave it in the safe, mi General."


"Your reasons?"


"I thought the money would be secure there until arrangements can be made to transport it. I went down there in a Fieseler."


"Hence the uniform? We don't often see you in uniform, Coronel."


“S?, Se?or."


"Two questions: Are you sure we can have the money when we want it, and how would you recommend transporting it?"


"I am sure the money will be available when we ask for it, mi General, and I would recommend transporting it by auto, suitably protected."


"When?"


"I don't think there would be time to make the necessary arrangements today. So tomorrow, during the memorial service for el Coronel Frade."


"Mi General," Querro said. "I can take half a dozen men down there this afternoon. I could be back by perhaps ten."


"And you don't think questions would be asked if my aide showed up down there, accompanied by half a dozen soldiers?" Ramirez said patiently. "Thank you, but no, Pedro. Let's leave this in the hands of an expert. Please go on, Coronel Martin."


"My recommendation, Se?or, would be to send two officers—"


"Your men, Coronel?"


"No, Sir. I had in mind officers, majors or teniente coronels, who are members of Grupo de Oficiales Unidos. Officers who knew el Coronel Frade and whose presence at the memorial service would not attract curiosity. They would travel in one auto, and be accompanied by two other automobiles, each containing an officer and three men, preferably senior sub-Oficiales who are reliable, and who would of course be armed."


"You think Frade would turn the money over to an officer he's never met before, mi Coronel?" Querro asked.


Mart?n gave him a mildly sarcastic look that suggested he did not like to be questioned by any officer junior to him. Ramirez picked up on this and extended his left hand, palm outward, as a signal for Querro to shut up.


"I frankly didn't think that Frade would just turnOutline Blue over to me, mi General," Mart?n said. "My hope was that I could convince him to give it, and the money, to either General Rawson or Coronel Per?n."


"I want to talk about that in a moment," Ramirez said. "But go on."


"In that circumstance, I presumed that General Rawson would have made provision for the safe transport of bothOutline Blue and the money."


"Are you familiar, Pedro, with anything like that?"


"No, Se?or."


Ramirez looked at Mart?n and shrugged.


"When Se?or Frade gave meOutline Blue, mi General, I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I broughtOutline Blue here, and I left the money in the safe. By now General Rawson has learned that I haveOutline Blue and that the money is in the safe."


"They're at Se?ora Carzino-Cormano's estancia. Did you go there?"


"No, Se?or. But I sent word to General Rawson."


"How?"


"One of the pilots at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo is a retired officer. I saw him just before I took off to come back to Buenos Aires."


"A retired officer who works for you, you mean?"


Mart?n didn't reply to that question.


"I now suggest, mi General—presuming you agree with my suggestion that the money should be entrusted to G.O.U. officers?"


Ramirez nodded. Mart?n went on: "I suggest that late tonight, or very early in the morning, we send the officers I mentioned to Estancia Santo Catalina with instructions to report to General Rawson. When I left Se?or Frade, I suggested that he give the money to either General Rawson or his aide, Capitan Lauffer, if either should ask for it. Both General Rawson and Coronel Per?n are more familiar with Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo than I am; and they will be there in any event for the memorial service."


"Leave the method up to them, right?"


“S?, Se?or."


"Very shortly, Major Querro and I will pay a surprise visit to the First Regiment of Cavalry at Campo de Mayo," Ramirez said, "where I will have a discreet word with several officers of my acquaintance. They will be at Estancia Santo Catalina first thing in the morning, in the manner you propose, in other words, accompanied by armed and trustworthy personnel, and will report to General Rawson for specific orders."


“S?, Se?or."


"General Rawson will give them specific instructions about how to carry out their mission, and, in one way or another, they will go to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and take charge of the funds in question."


“S?, Se?or."


"There is one potential problem area in this outline, Coronel. Do you know what it is?"


"I don't think I understand, mi General," Mart?n said.


"It all depends on your faith in Frade. How do we know that he will turn the money over to us tomorrow? That he will not, for example, change his mind tonight? For that matter, remove the money from the safe tonight?"


"We have no way of knowing that for sure, mi General."


"I can go down there and get it myself, mi General, and be back by ten tonight," Major Querro offered again.


Ramirez ignored him completely.


"Tell me why you believe that Frade will not change his mind, Coronel."


"In my business, mi General, it is sometimes necessary to trust your intuition," Mart?n said.


"In the Infantry, we use our intuition based on the facts we have," Ramirez said. "I'm curious about Frade's motives. Why did he turn it over to you? For all he knew, you could be working for Castillo. What did he want in return?"


"I believe his primary motivation was that he saw his father's signature on the Purpose Page ofOutline Blue, mi General."


"That might explain his turning it over to me, or General Rawson, or Juan Domingo Per?n, but not to you. From all we've heard of him, he's a professional intelligence officer."


“S?, mi General, he is that."


"And professional intelligence officers, I have been told, don't trust anyone without reason. Good reason. Does Frade have some reason, some good reason, to trust you?"


“S?, Se?or."


"Would you like to tell me what that is?"


"I would prefer not to, mi General."


Ramirez considered that for a long moment.


"Very well, Coronel. But can you assure me Frade's cooperation was not based on your promise of cooperation in the future?"


"Mi General, it is not at all uncommon for intelligence officers to make arrangements with their counterparts," Mart?n said. "But I have offered Frade nothing more than that. I would not tell him anything I don't think he should know, and he would not expect me to."


"He asked for nothing?"


"He asked about an import permit for an airplane to replace the Beechcraft which is missing."


Ramirez grunted. "This 'arrangement' between intelligence officers fascinates me. Could you give me an example?"


"It has come to my attention that the Germans have ordered the assassination of one of Frade's men. I told him that."


"How did you come by that?" Querro asked.


Mart?n did not reply to Querro but looked at Ramirez.


"I would say, Pedro," Ramirez said, "that you don't have the need to know that," he said, and turned to Mart?n and asked, "You believe the Germans will kill this man?"


“S?, Se?or, I believe they will try."


"Certainly, you can do something to keep that from happening?"


"Not very much, Se?or. Only by providing him with protection, overtly, or covertly, mi General. And there would be no guarantee at—"


"Do so."


"Excuse me?"


"Do so, Coronel. Do whatever you have to do to keep Frade's man from being assassinated."


"Se?or, I couldn't provide one-fourth the protection that would be the minimum required without it coming to el Almirante Montoya's attention. It would require many people, and a good deal of money."


"The last Bureau of Internal Security budget I saw, Coronel, was anything but parsimonious."


"Se?or, what I was suggesting is that I could not order such an operation on my own authority. And to report that I was doing so on your orders . . ."


"Would tell Montoya that we have been in touch? Is that what you're saying?"


"S?, mi General."


Ramirez considered that for a moment.


"Pedro, get el Almirante on the telephone, please. I'll tell him, Martin, that I have learned of this threat and authorize him to authorize you to do whatever is necessary to reduce the threat to zero."


"Se?or? Permission to speak, mi General?" Mart?n said.


"Frankly, Coronel, I am rapidly tiring of debating this with you. But go ahead."


"Se?or, I have reason to believe that the Germans have someone in BIS. If Almirante Montoya is aware that we know about this German decision, the Germans will learn that he knows."


"The Germans have someone inside BIS?" Ramirez asked incredulously.


"I believe so, Se?or."


"Well, so what if the Germans know we know? It might make them reconsider."


"It would also let them know we have someone in ... in their embassy, Se?or. My source would be compromised."


"An important source? Important to the security of Argentina?"


“S?, Se?or."


"Shall I get el Almirante on the phone for you, mi General?" Querro asked. He had a telephone in his hand.


Ramirez waved his hand, "no," and Querro replaced the receiver in its cradle.


"With Argentina's interests as the criterion, Coronel, is this source worth this man's life?"


“S?, Se?or. That would be my very reluctant conclusion."


"You have no one you could assign to this?"


"I had already planned to increase the surveillance on Frade and the others, mi General. But beyond that. . ."


"And you have warned him, haven't you?"


“S?, Se?or. And if anything else comes to my attention that I can tell him without putting my source at risk, I intend to tell it to him."


"That would seem to be about all you can do under the circumstances," Querro volunteered.


"Thank you very much, Mayor, for that astute observation," Mart?n said, icily sarcastic.


Ramirez looked between them.


"About this aircraft import license Frade asked for," he said. "Would the import of an airplane for him, his use of an airplane, pose a serious threat to Argentine security?"


"No, Se?or. And there are other aircraft available to him."


"Can you obtain the permit for him?"


"It might be difficult, mi General," Mart?n said. "And it would be impossible to keep quiet. There would be curiosity about BIS asking for an aircraft import permit for Se?or Frade."


"So you're saying it would be ill-advised."


"On the way here from the estancia, in the airplane, I thought of an irregular way to accomplish it."


"By 'irregular' you doubtless mean 'illegal,'" Ramirez said.


“S?, Se?or."


"How illegal?"


"Aircraft registration numbers are painted on the tail and on the wing. When an aircraft lands somewhere, the airport authorities write down these numbers and put them in a file. Afterward, they are seldom, if ever, seen again by human eyes."


"Oh?"


"It occurred to me that if someone wished to paint the registration numbers of an already registered aircraft on another aircraft—in other words, to substitute aircraft—I very much doubt anyone would notice."


"Unless the original aircraft showed up," Ramirez said thoughtfully.


"I don't think that's likely in this case," Mart?n said.


"Wouldn't the name of the manufacturer of the aircraft appear somewhere?"


"Both el Coronel Frade's missing aircraft and the aircraft Se?or Frade wishes to bring into Argentina were manufactured by Beech."


"Then there would be no problem at all, is that what you're saying?"


"There is one small problem. El Coronel Frade's missing airplane had one engine. The other aircraft has two."


"Well, you're a very resourceful fellow, Coronel," Ramirez said. "A little thing like the number of engines shouldn't be too difficult for you to deal with."


"Another thought occurred to me, mi General: If something goes wrong whenOutline Blue is executed, an aircraft that can fly six, and in a pinch, eight, people to Uruguay might be nice to have."


"Your resourcefulness never ceases to amaze me, Coronel," Ramirez said.




[TWO]


Office of the Director


The Office of Strategic Services


Washington, D.C.


1930 11 April 1943


"Come on in, Alex," Colonel William J. Donovan, a stocky, well-tailored man in his fifties, said, looking up from his desk. "What have you got?"


Colonel A. (Alejandro) F. (Fredrico) Graham, USMCR, laid a large, torn-open manila envelope on Donovan's desk and settled himself in a green leather armchair.


Donovan went into the envelope and extracted a slightly smaller envelope, also recently torn open. It was stamped TOP SECRET in red letters, top and bottom, on both sides. From this he extracted three stapled-together sheets of paper.


The first sheet of paper was a U.S. Government Inter-Office Memorandum. It was from the Chief of Naval Intelligence and addressed to the Deputy Director for Western Hemisphere Operations, Office of Strategic Services, and announced that transmitted herewith by officer courier was nondecrypted message N-45-7643 (no copies made) of a communication received from Station Aggie at 1505 hours 13 April 1943.


The second sheet of paper contained many lines of apparently meaningless five-letter words (e.g., AKLQE MXCBI PISLA TDEQF).


The third sheet of paper was stamped TOP SECRET in red, top and bottom, and was headed: DECRYPTION OF USN # N-45-7643. Donovan tore that from the top two sheets and dropped them, plus the two manila envelopes, into one of two wastebaskets at the side of his desk. This one held a white paper bag on which was printed in several places, in four-inch-high red letters, the phrase BURN TOP SECRET BURN.


Donovan's expression clearly intended to convey to Graham the idea that his time was too valuable to waste tearing unimportant pieces of paper from important pieces of paper, and that Graham should have performed this bureaucratic task himself.


If Colonel Graham felt rebuked, he offered no apology. And there was no sign on his face that he regretted annoying Colonel Donovan.


Donovan started to read the decrypted message:




TOP SECRET


DECRYPTION OF USN #N-48-?643


URGENT TOP SECRET


PROM STACHIEP AGGIE 1555 GREENWICH 11APR43


MSG NO 0001


TO ORACLE WASHDC


EYES ONLY FOR DDWHO GRAHAM


1. SARNOFF HAS DEVELOPED HIGHLY RELIABLE INFORMATION THAT AT LEAST ONE GERMAN-JEWISH MALE INCARCERATED IN SACHSENHAUSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP WAS RELEASED AND PERMITTED TO LEAVE GERMANY AND PROCEED TO ARGENTINA POSSIBLY VIA URUGUAY FOLLOWING PAYMENT OF SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF MONEY TO GERMAN AGENT, OR REPRESENTATIVE OF GERMAN AGENT, IN URUGUAY.




"This is from Argentina, right? Judging from that very cute 'Station Chief Aggie' business?" "Right."


"This just came in?" "It was sent at five minutes to four Greenwich time. That's one in the afternoon Buenos Aires time, and eleven in the morning our time. For once the Navy brought it over here in a hurry."


"You're not going to change that 'Aggie' business now that we have a new station chief down there?"


"(a) We don't have a new station chief down there, for one thing, (b) I don't think I'd change it if we did. What's wrong with it?"


"What do you mean we don't have a new station chief down there? What's Delojo?"


"Commander Delojo is the titular station chief," Graham said. "And I have—we have—complied with Roosevelt's order that we identify the station chief to the Ambassador and the FBI, also known as the Legal Attach?."


"And Frade?"


"Frade is Frade. I was a little vague about who has the actual authority. If the Ambassador and the FBI think Delojo's the station chief, fine. I think we can also safely assume that someone down there will let the Argentines know— by accident or on purpose—that the Naval Attach?, Delojo, is the OSS station chief. With a little bit of luck, the Argentines may decide he really is, which would take some of the pressure off Frade. But I want Frade running things."


"You can't do that, for God's sake, Alex. You can't be a 'little vague' about who has the actual authority."


"Wait a minute, Bill," Graham said coldly. "After the fiasco your pals caused running their own war down there, we made a deal. So long as I tell you everything I'm doing down there, which is what I'm doing now, Argentina is my pie, and nobody—including you—puts their fingers in it. I either run it, or you get somebody else to run it, and I go back to running my railroad."


Before he went on active duty, Colonel Graham was the president of either the second- or the third-largest railroad in the United States—depending on the factors used to make the determination. While he had a good deal of respect for Colonel Donovan, he was no more awed by him than by any other lawyer who had made a fortune on Wall Street.


"Don't be touchy, Alex," Donovan said.


"Sometimes you have a short memory span," Graham said. "Read on."


Donovan dropped his eyes to the message, and almost immediately asked, "Who's Sarnoff?"


"His name is Ettinger. Detailed to us from the Army's CIC. He's a Spanish Jew whose family had a Berlin branch. Or vice versa. Before he went into the Army, he worked for Dave Sarnoff at RCA. Electrical engineer, and according to Dave, a damned good one."


"Yeah," Donovan said, and resumed reading.




2. SARNOFP HAS REASON TO BELIEVE THAT AS MANY AS SEVERAL THOUSAND JEWS HAVE BEEN RANSOMED. DEVELOPMENT OP INFORMATION IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. MEMBERS OF REFUGEE AND PREEXISTING ARGENTINE JEWISH COMMUNITIES ARE EXCEEDINGLY RELUCTANT TO TALK, EVEN THOUGH MEMBERS OF REFUGEE COMMUNITY WERE WELL KNOWN TO SARNOFF IN GERMANY, AND ARE AWARE MOST OF HIS FAMILY HAS GONE INTO CONCENTRATION CAMPS.




" 'Several thousand' have been gotten out?" Donovan said. "You believe this, Alex?"


"Ettinger is a very clever fellow," Graham said. "Yeah, I believe it, and so does Cletus Frade, or he wouldn't have sent that."


"If Mr. Hoover has heard anything about this, he hasn't felt the urge to say anything about it to me," Donovan said.


"Or anybody here I asked—at least anyone here who felt I had the need to know," Graham said.


Donovan dropped his eyes to the message again.




3. INFORMATION DEVELOPED SO FAR INDICATES RANSOM OPERATION (HEREAFTER LINDBERGH) OPERATING WITH SACHSENHAUSEN (POSITIVE) AND BELSEN (PROBABLE) BUT SARNOFF BELIEVES OTHER (PERHAPS ALL) CONCENTRATION CAMPS MAY BE INVOLVED.


4. INASMUCH AS VACUUM HAS CLOSE TIES TO BUENOS AIRES JEWISH COMMUNITY STRONG POSSIBILITY EXISTS THAT VACUUM IS AWARE OF LINDBERGH. POSSIBILITY EXISTS THAT FURTHER INVESTIGATION BY SARNOFF MIGHT HINDER VACUUM INVESTIGATION. REQUEST DIRECTION.




"Vacuum is Hoover, right?" Donovan asked. "The FBI?"


"Right," Graham said. "As in Hoover vacuum cleaner, sucking things up down there. That very cute code name was your idea, as I recall."


This earned him a dirty look from Donovan, who for a moment seemed about to respond, then changed his mind and resumed reading.




5. SS-SD STANDARTENF?HRER JOSEF GOLTZ (HEREAFTER BLACKSUIT) ARRIVED BUENOS AIRES BY LUFTHANSA 9 APRIL. SARNOFF BELIEVES HIGHLY PROBABLE THAT BLACKSUIT MISSION INVOLVES LINDBERGH WHICH COULD NOT OPERATE WITHOUT INVOLVEMENT OF HIGHLY PLACED GERMAN

OFFICIALS.


6. RELIABLE SOURCE (HEREAFTER CAVALRY) INFORMED STACHIEF BLACKSUIT TODAY ORDERED ELIMINATION OF SARNOFF ONLY REPEAT SARNOFF ONLY AS PRIORITY PROJECT. CAVALRY BELIEVES BLACKSUIT PROBABLY ORDERED ASSASSINATION OF WHITEHORSE.




"Whitehorse is ... was . . . Frade's father, right?" Donovan asked. "Who's this reliable source, 'Cavalry'?"


"I can only guess. The Ambassador messaged that the red carpet was really rolled out for Frade when he arrived in Argentina. The War Minister, General Ramirez, met his plane and took him to the place where they had his father laid out in state. It could be Ramirez, but I doubt it. Ramirez was Infantry, and Frade's calling whoever it is 'Cavalry.' Maybe General Rawson. He was Cavalry, and he and Colonel Frade were close. Whoever it is, it's somebody high enough up to have access to their intelligence about German activities. Which also means they must have somebody in the German Embassy."


Donovan considered that, nodded, and went on reading.




7. STACHIEF BELIEVES BLACKSUIT SPECIAL INTEREST IN SARNOFF MAY ALSO BE DUE SARNOFF'S QUESTIONING SHIPPING INTERESTS WHICH MIGHT INVOLVE NEW GROCERYSTORE ACTIVITIES.


8. IF FURTHER INVESTIGATION OF LINDBERGH BY SARNOFF IS DIRECTED REQUEST AUTHORITY TO DISCUSS AND POSSIBLY EXCHANGE INFORMATION WITH VACUUM. ABSENT DIRECTION TO CONTRARY SARNOFF WILL CONTINUE INVESTIGATION OF LINDBERGH.


9. STACHIEF BELIEVES OPERATION OVERTURN WILL CONTINUE DESPITE LOSS OF WHITEHORSE. MEETING OF OVERTURN LEADERS THIS WEEKEND SUGGESTS STRONG POSSIBILITY OF EXECUTION IN NEAR FUTURE.




STACHIEF END




"Do we have anything on this Blacksuit?" Donovan asked.


"We have Goltz listed as Himmler's liaison officer to Mart?n Bormann—to the Nazi party," Graham replied. "Longtime Nazi. I think we have to presume that (a) Frade's source is reliable and (b) this fellow has given orders to take out Sarnoff. . . Ettinger. I'm surprised."


"Why are you surprised? They took out the entire team we sent down there before we sent Frade's team."


"I'm surprised that Blacksuit ordered the elimination of Ettinger only. You picked up on that?" Donovan nodded. "Why not the whole team? The team poses the same threat it did before to their replenishment vessel. So why only Ettinger?"


"You tell me."


"By meeting Frade with that delegation of brass hats—which included Rawson, who is likely to become President if Ramirez doesn't—it looks to me that Ramirez went out of his way to send a message to the Germans that he (a) didn't like what happened to Colonel Frade, (b) he's not afraid of the Germans, and (c) neither are a great big bunch of the other brass."


"I wish we knew who 'Cavalry' is," Donovan said. "I don't like this."


"You believe this ransoming business?"


•Donovan nodded.


"Neither Frade nor Ettinger are investigators," he said. "Ettinger is a radio engineer. Frade is a pilot. If they turned this up, I think we have to presume that the FBI guy down there already knows all about it. More about it than Ettinger does. Would you agree?"


Graham nodded.


"I can just see J. Edgar going in to see the President with this ransom business—that is, if he hasn't already been in to see him," Donovan said: "T told you all along, Franklin, that the only thing the Oh So Social ( So called by detractors of the OSS, a reference to the fact that many OSS senior officers and agents had been recruited from the upper echelons of business, the Ivy League schools, and society.) is doing down there is spending money and assets and spinning its wheels. My trained investigators, following my mandate to handle all intelligence gathering in the Western Hemisphere, have known about this business from the beginning. The nation would be better served if you left this sort of thing to the professionals, to the FBI.'"


Graham smiled and chuckled.


"We took out the Reine de la Mer" he said. "How will Hoover get around that?"


"In the Gospel according to Saint Edgar, the Navy took out the Reine de la Mer. If it hadn't been for the subcommander's After Action Report, we would have had a hard time getting Frade and Pelosi Good Conduct Medals, instead of what they got."


Graham nodded again, remembering the words: When the President read them—Graham had personally taken the After Action Report to him—he ordered the award of the Navy Cross to Frade, and the next-highest award for conspicuous valor, the Silver Star, to Pelosi.




19. The undersigned desires to state in conclusion that accomplishment of this mission would have been impossible had it not been for both the professional skill and personal valor of First Lieutenant C. H. Frade, USMCR, and Second Lieutenant A. J. Pelosi, AUS, who, in order to illuminate the target, flew their small unarmed aircraft deliberately into range of the heavy machine gun and automatic cannon antiaircraft weaponry aboard theReine de la Mer in the certain knowledge that their aircraft would be hit, and probably destroyed, which in fact proved to be the case. Their dedication to duty and personal courage in the face of what appeared to be near-certain death was inspirational, and in keeping with the highest traditions of the Naval Service and the United States Army.


Bryce J. Stevens


Commander, USN


Commanding, USS Devil-Fish




"What do you want me to tell Frade, Bill?" Graham asked.


"What do you think? (a) Continue the investigation as a matter of the highest priority, (b) Do not communicate to the FBI in any manner whatsoever anything remotely involved with the ransoming, (c) Identify the source he calls 'Cavalry.'"


"What do you think this whole thing is all about, Bill? You think it's a matter of policy? And if so, why haven't we heard anything about it here in the United States?"


"I really don't know. My suspicion is that it's some sort of a private operation. Some high-ranking SS sonofabitch has decided there's money to be made, personally, and is in a position to make it. Why not here? Because it's not German policy, and he doesn't want his private operation to get back to the top-level people in the SS. Or maybe they're involved, the top-level Nazis, and are worried about public opinion. I just don't know, Alex. The only thing I know is that the more we learn about this, and the quicker, the better." Graham grunted again.


"We call it 'Lindbergh,' right? And how do we classify it?" "Top Secret—Lindbergh. Eyes Only, you and me. And 1 mean that. Just you and me. We can't afford somebody with a large mouth on this one." "Right," Graham said, and stood up.


"When I go to the President with this, Alex, I want facts, not suppositions." "Right," Graham repeated, and walked out of his office.




[THREE]


Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo


Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province


1730 11 April 1943


As Clete and Rudolpho rode back to the main house, Clete's mind kept jumping back and forth—


I probably should not have givenOutline Blue to Mart?n before reading it thoroughly. I am, after all, an intelligence officer, and there was certainly something inOutline Blue which would interest Graham. Consciously, I know everything is the OSS's business, but did I decide, unconsciously, that since the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos are not any kind of a threat to the United States, it's really none of our business. And just to satisfy Graham's idle curiosity does not justify putting Ramirez and Rawson at risk?


What the hell is Henry Mallin going to do when that Jesuit shows up at his door with Claudia and Humberto and tells him the Virgin Princess is pregnant. And who did it?


1 have to get in touch with Peter and tell him I have his father's letter and the records. I didn't tell Graham about that, either, and I know damned well the OSS would be interested in a German general who plans to assassinate Hitler.


But there are some dangerous sonsofbitches in the OSS, like the two who sent me down here hoping the Germans would kill me so that my father would be pissed off. Those two are gone, but there are probably others who would want to help assassinate Hitler, and that "help" just might get Peter's father killed. If they didn't worry about getting me killed, for the greater good, they certainly wouldn't worry about getting a German general killed. If Peter's father wanted American help, he would have asked for it.


Is marrying Dorotea really the right thing to do, presuming the Jesuit can do something? Or is marrying me going to get her killed? Her and the child she's carrying ?


What the hell is going on with this ransoming of Jews from concentration camps'? Is Ettinger onto something? Is that the reason that Nazi bastard ordered him killed?


Maybe, if the Jesuit can fix things with Henry Mallin, and we can get married, I can send Dorotea to the States to have the baby, and to wait there until this fucking war is over. Martha would be happy to have her, and she wouldn't be in the line of fire on Big Foot Ranch.


There was something very unreal about thinking all of these thoughts while he was cantering across the pampas on a beautiful afternoon, with nothing in sight but cattle and groves of trees.


He remembered the Solomon Islands. It was beautiful and peaceful there too, at 15,000 feet over Guadalcanal. Blue sky and white clouds, with the blue ocean and the nice bright green vegetation of the island far below.


Until the first Japanese planes appeared. Then, all of a sudden, there was no more peace or beauty.


That's going to happen here, too. All of a sudden everything here is going to turn to shit, too. The difference was that in the Solomons, I was at least a pretty good Wildcat pilot. Here I didn't know shit from Shinola.


When they rode up to the house Enrico was waiting for them, sitting in one of the rattan chairs on the verandah. A nice-looking blond-haired kid, thirteen or fourteen years old, sat below him on the wide verandah steps. Each was wearing a loose, white, long-sleeved shirt, black vest, billowing black trousers, and a wide leather belt; and each had a silver-handled knife in the small of his back. Enrico also had a .45 automatic jammed inside his belt, and his shotgun was resting against one of the pillars.


There's no question in his mind that sooner or later he's going to need a gun to protect me. And he's probably right.


Jesus, why couldn’t we just keep riding ? But I can't do that, any more than I could have just kept circling 15,000 feet over Guadalcanal.


The nice-looking kid rose to his feet and came off the steps.


"Buenos tardes, Patron," he said, reaching up to take Julius Caesar's bit.


Clete swung out of the saddle. The kid mounted Julius Caesar—who, Clete noted with some chagrin, immediately sensed an expert horseman and behaved like a lamb—and reached over to take the reins of Rudolpho's roan. Rudolpho slipped easily out of his saddle, and the kid rode toward the stables.


Even in that gaucho suit,Clete thought, that kid looks more like an Englishman or a German — or maybe a Pole or some other kind of Slav, a Latvian or something— than a Spaniard or an Italian.


He remembered his father telling him there was a massive immigration of Germans at the turn of the century, and another wave of immigrants after World War I—Germans running from the postwar depression in Germany, and Lithuanians, Latvians, Poles, and Russians fleeing the Russian Bolshevik revolution.


Antonio was also waiting for him to return.


"Are Se?or Duarte or Se?ora Carzino-Cormano here?"


"No, Se?or," Antonio replied as he opened the door to Clete. "Se?or and Se?ora Duarte are expected any moment."


"Well, that gives me time for a shower," Clete thought aloud. "Where did you put my things, Antonio?"


"In your room, Se?or," Antonio said. There was a slight tone of disapproval in his voice.


Ask a dumb question, get a dumb answer. Where else would he put my things?


Oh, God! My room is not where I stayed before. My room is el Coronet's room.


Well, that's the way it is. I better get used to it. El Coronel 's gone, and what used to be his is now mine. Including his room and his bed.


Clete turned to look at Enrico. He was pushing himself out of his chair.


With effort, Clete saw. And tough old soldier or not, you 're in pain, pal. And tough old soldier or not, are you in any shape to try to protect me? Am I going to get you killed, too, just because you 're around me ?


Antonio led him to the apartment of the late el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade—unnecessarily, since Clete knew where it was. It consisted of a bedroom, a sitting, and a bath at the rear of the house. The windows opened on a garden.


In the room there was another sign of Antonio's none-too-subtle snobbery. A clothes tree held a tweed jacket, an open-collared shirt— that's apolo shirt, a real polo shirt, for people who play real polo—and a pair of gabardine riding breeches. A pair of highly polished riding boots stood beside it.


Christ, I hope that stuff's not my father's!


"Your father intended that clothing as a Christmas present for el Capitan Duarte," Antonio said. "He never had a chance to wear it. El Capitan was about your size. . . ."


I would just as soon not wear any clothing made for my dead cousin, not to mention clothing which would make me look like an Englishman about to go chase a fox, but thank you very much, Antonio, just the same.


"Thank you," Clete said. "I'll see if it fits."


The seeds of curiosity were sown, however, while he was taking a shower and shaving: / wonder how I would look in that outfit? The Princess would probably think it made me look — what's that Limey word she uses?—smashing!


And why not wear it? It's new. And you're wearing Uncle Jim's Stetson. And you brought Sullivan's Half Wellingtons home from Guadalcanal and you wear them. So why not wear Cousin Jorge Alejandro's fancy English riding boots and the rest of it? Waste not, want not, as Aunt Martha always says.


A sudden, very clear, and very painful image came into his mind and was still there when he came out of the bathroom in his underwear: First Lieutenant Francis Xavier Sullivan, 167th Fighter Squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps, flying his P-40 in support of the Marine Raiders; going into Edson's Ridge on fire from the nose to the vertical stabilizer.


As Clete walked into the bedroom, he was startled—even frightened for a moment—to find Capitan Roberto Lauffer, in civilian clothing, sitting in an armchair near the bed, his very nice, highly polished jodhpurs crossed on a matching footstool. Clete then noticed that Enrico was also there, leaning on the wall beside the closed door to the sitting.


Lauffer quickly pushed himself out of the chair and offered Clete his hand.


"I thought, mi Mayor," Enrico said, "that it would be all right to bring el Capitan here. Se?or and Se?ora Duarte are in the reception."


One Cavalryman taking care of another, huh? Spare a fellow horse soldier from Beatrice ? Well, it least it shows Enrico likes him.


Clete nodded at Enrico to show him he approved, and then looked at Lauffer.


Very sporty,Clete thought, that's a damned nice tweed jacket, a classy polo shirt, and he's even got one of those whatchamacallits around his neck.


"Of course," Clete said. "How are you, Roberto?"


"I'm afraid you're stuck with me again," Lauffer said. "General Rawson wants me to stay close to something you're holding for him . . ."


"The money, you mean?" Clete said, but it was not a question.


". . . until he can make arrangements, tomorrow, to safely transport it elsewhere. Se?ora Carzino-Cormano said you would understand the necessary imposition this will cause."


"Sure," Clete said. "No imposition at all. When can I expect her?"


"She said that you would understand why she can't call today, but that she looks forward to seeing you tomorrow."


I wonder what that's all about?


Clete started to get dressed.


Cousin Jorge Alejandro's—the late Capitan Duarte's—polo shirt fit him perfectly. The breeches were maybe half an inch too large in the waist, and the jacket was a little loose. But once he managed to work his feet into them, the boots also seemed to fit perfectly.


One other item of clothing was left on the clothes horse, a whatchamacallit like Roberto Lauffer was wearing. Roberto's was yellow. Cousin Jorge Alejandro's whatchamacallit was red.


Foulard! It's afoulard!


Maneuvering the silk foulard in place, and making it stay in place, proved more difficult than he thought looping some red silk around his neck would be, but he finally made the thing work.


"Very elegant," Lauffer said.


"I'd feel a lot more comfortable in it if my father's butler hadn't told me my father bought it as a Christmas present for my cousin, the late Capitan Duarte."


"I'm the youngest in a large family," Lauffer said. "I think I was sixteen before I received anything but shoes that weren't previously 'hardly worn at all' by one or more of my brothers. Be grateful it fits. And it is elegant!"


"You look pretty elegant yourself. I never saw you in civvies before."


"One never knows, does one, where one might come across an attractive member of the gentle sex with an eye for a man's clothes," Lauffer said.


"And then, all dressed up, you get yourself screwed by the fickle finger of fate? You get sent over here, where the only female is going to be my Aunt Beatrice."


"'Fickle finger of fate'? That's good," Lauffer chuckled. "Well, there's always tomorrow." Then, visibly embarrassed: "Forgive me, I was not thinking of what will happen tomorrow. No disrespect was intended."


"I know that," Clete said. "I'm just going through the motions. I'm told the people who work here expect it." He turned to Enrico. "You did find the Capitan someplace to sleep. Enrico?"


"I told Antonio you would wish for el Capitan to be well cared for," Enrico said. "He is the third door to the left."


"Speaking of Aunt Beatrice," Clete said, "Antonio said she'll be here any minute, Enrico. I think el Capitan and I need a little liquid courage before we face her. Is there anything—strong—in here we can drink?"


"Scotch whiskey, mi Mayor?"


Clete looked at Lauffer, who nodded.


"Please, Enrico."


"My pleasure, mi Mayor," Enrico said, and walked out of the bedroom.


He'snever going to stop calling me "Major," Clete thought. To hell with it. And then he had another thought: "It's liable to be worse with my aunt than you think," Clete said.


"She is a very charming lady."


"Tonight, she will almost certainly regale you with the details of a wedding we hope will be held here sometime in the near future."


"Oh, really? Whose?"


"Mine."


Lauffer's eyebrows went up.


"I didn't know you ... I hadn't heard that you were engaged."


"At the moment, actually, I'm not," Clete said.


"I don't understand," Lauffer confessed, a little uncomfortably.


Enrico came back into the room carrying not the expected whiskey glasses, but a telephone, a large French-looking instrument.


"It is Padre Welner, Se?or," he said as he walked to a plug mounted on the wall beside the bed and plugged it in.


He took the receiver from its cradle and held it out to Clete. Clete walked to the bed, sat down, and took the receiver from Enrico.


"What can I do for you, Father?"


"I have been busily taking care of my pastoral duties, and I thought you might he interested in learning the result," the priest announced cheerfully.


If he had bad news, he wouldn't be so cheerful!


"Absolutely!"


"First of all, I called on the Bishop, to explain the role you and Father Denilo would like him to take in the mass tomorrow. And the subject somehow turned to the waiving of the banns of marriage, which is permitted under canonical law when a bishop determines there are extraordinary circumstances. In these extraordinary circumstances—"


"You told him the circumstances?" Clete interrupted.


"Not in specific detail. I think the Bishop formed the impression that I had learned of the extraordinary circumstances through the confessional booth; and of course, he could not ask me to reveal matter I had learned in my role as confessor. In any event, the Bishop feels that he can in good conscience permit your marriage in fourteen days. He also indicated that if you asked him to officiate, he would grant your request."


"And what do we do about her father?"


"That proved less of a problem than I thought. After I spoke to Claudia, she telephoned him and asked him to reconsider his decision not to come to Estancia Santo Catalina. She told him that I was here and wanted to speak to him about you and Dorotea." The priest laughed.


"That's funny?"


"Se?or Mallin responded that Claudia should thank me very much indeed for my interest, but to tell me there was no longer cause for my concern. He was already aware of your regrettable and impossible interest in Dorotea and had taken the necessary steps to bring the situation under control."


"And?" Clete asked, chuckling.


Why am I laughing?


"At that point, Claudia told him that I was standing beside her, and why didn't he tell me that himself?"


"And?"


"He did so. I had to correct his belief that the situation was under his control, and to explain his options, as I saw them."


"Which are?"


"The one he chose is to accept your invitation to stay with you at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo tonight. Tomorrow, his family will be seated in the family pews—to the right of the altar—of La Capilla Nuestra Se?ora de los Milagros. With the exception, of course, of Dorotea."


"They're coming out here?"


Welner ignored the question.


"During the mass, Dorotea will be seated beside you on the chairs—in front of the family pews—reserved for el Patron of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and his wife. When the service is over, she will take your arm and the two of you will lead the exit procession of the laity. Immediately afterward, she will stand beside you at the head of the reception line, as you greet your guests."


"He went along with this?" Clete asked incredulously. "You said they're coming out here today?"


"They are at this moment en route and should be here within the hour. But let me finish. I told Se?or Mallin that Dorotea's prominent role in the ceremony should suggest to just about everyone present that the relationship between you and Dorotea is long-standing, has had all along the approval of the respective families, and that because of your recent loss, there is nothing really extraordinary in your electing to have a small, private wedding in two weeks here at the Estancia."


"You're an amazing fellow, Padre."


"So I have been told. I prefer to think of myself as a simple priest, a simple shepherd, encouraging the erring members of my flock to do the right thing," Welner said with outrageous piety, then added: "And Se?or Mallin didn't really have much of a choice, did he?"


"He could have said no." Clete said, laughing. "Not only no but 'over my dead body.’"


"But that, my son, might have been misinterpreted by some people—as matters of this kind often are. The word might have been whispered around the Jockey Club that 'there goes poor Henry Mallin. Foolish chap, thinking he was onto a good thing, practically threw his daughter at Cletus Frade, who, after sampling the merchandise decided he'd rather not endow the young lady with all his worldly goods.' He would, I knew, find something like that hard to take."


"Good God! You didn't say anything like that to him, did you?"


"Let us say that I suggested to Se?or Mallin that it would really look better all around if you appeared eager to take his daughter as your bride. You are prepared to do that, aren't you, Cletus? To eagerly endow Dorotea with all your worldly goods?"


"Of course," Clete said, chuckling.


"Good. Now that you've had a chance to consider how many worldly goods you now possess, I was a little concerned that you might have had second thoughts."


"I hope you're kidding."


"Another reason I called, Cletus, is that Claudia suggested there is probably a ring which might be suitable for Dorotea in your father's strongbox."


"What strongbox?" Clete asked, and turned to Enrico. "Is there a strongbox around here?"


"In the library, Se?or Clete."


"Enrico says there's a strongbox in the library."


"That's probably it. Why don't you have a look? I think it would be nice when I come for dinner— Did I mention that Claudia suggested you ask me to dinner?"


"Why don't you have dinner with us, Father?"


"Thank you very much. Very kind of you. It would be nice, as I was saying, if when I come over there, Dorotea had an engagement ring on her finger. And even more for people to notice tomorrow morning."


"Christ, you're something."


"I'll be over there, probably, before your fianc?e and her family arrive," the priest said, and the line went dead.


Clete put the receiver back in its cradle and stood up.


"Show me the strongbox, Enrico," he said, and then turned to Lauffer. "I have just been informed that my fianc?e and her family will be joining us for dinner. I know, a moment ago, I told you I was not engaged. A moment ago, I wasn't. Now I am."


"Well, then let me be the first to offer my congratulations," Lauffer said.




Chapter Fourteen




[ONE]


Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo


Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province


1805 11 April 1943


The strongbox turned out to be just that, a metal box reinforced with thick wrought-iron bands, and closed with two enormous padlocks. It was concealed in a huge leather trunk set against one wall of the library. After Enrico showed it to Clete, he retrieved the padlock keys from behind a set of Compton 's Picture Encyclopedia.


The strongbox held two small wooden boxes, resting on top of what appeared to be legal documents. Clete picked up the first box and started to open it.


"Where's that whiskey you promised us, Enrico?" he asked.


Inside was a collection of discarded male jewelry, cuff links, studs, pocket watches, wristwatches, tie pins, tie clips, and rings. The watches and rings had tags tied to them, identifying their owners. Clete looked at several of them. There was one huge gold ring with maybe a dozen half-carat diamonds surrounding a deeply engraved Frade family crest; its tag readGuillermo Jorge Frade.


That looks just like something Uncle Willy would wear.


He put the ring back in the box and picked up the second box. It contained discarded female jewelry—broaches, necklaces, rings, pendants, and wrist watches. Rolling around loose on the bottom of box were what looked like several hundred pearls. He saw the rotted-through strings they had escaped. More than two dozen rings were each tagged with a name. But only three could pass for engagement rings. He read the tags. Only one name—Maria Elena Pueyrred?n de Frade—meant anything to him, and that tag was attached to the least impressive of the three rings. It was old and worn thin, and the stone was tiny compared to the stones in the other rings.


That's a pity. It would have been nice if that one, in particular, had been the sort of thing I could give Dorotea. The reason "the blood of Pueyrred?n "flows through my veins. And now of our baby.


Well, hell, I'll show her these, and tell her to pick one just for the circus tomorrow. I'll tell her I'll buy her any damned ring she wants later.


He untied the tags and slipped the three rings in his pocket. Enrico was holding out a whiskey glass to him. Clete took it. "Close it up, Enrico," he ordered.




Thirty minutes later. Antonio came into the library to announce the arrival of the Mallin family.


Clete rose quickly out of his chair and started to walk to the library door. The action caused him to realize that his belief thirty-five minutes earlier that Cousin Jorge Alejandro's English riding boots fit perfectly was grossly in error.


"Christ!" he exclaimed, surprised at the intensity of the pain in his feet.


"New boots, eh?" Roberto asked innocently.


By the time he reached the foyer, maids were carrying in the Mallin luggage, Enrico Mallin was himself in the doorway, and Clete was hobbling in pain.


Enrico Mallin's eyebrows rose questioningly as Clete limped across the tile floor and put out his hand to him.


"Thank you for coming, Se?or Mallin," he said.


"How good of you to ask us," Mallin replied, with a smile that Clete thought deserved the all-time, all-category prize for insincerity. The handshake conveyed the same message.


"Have you met el Capitan Lauffer?" Clete asked as Pamela Mallin came through the door.


She laid her hands on his arms and moved her face to his ear.


"I don't know whether I want to kiss you or kill you," she said. "How could you, Cletus?"


His attention was distracted when he saw Dorotea pass through the door. She was wearing a sweater and a skirt, and her hands were folded modestly in front of her. Her head was bent shyly. She looked very quickly at Clete and then lowered her head again.


Christ, she's beautiful!


"How could I what?" Clete asked absently.


"You know very well—" Pamela said, and then, blushing, interrupted herself.


Little Henry came in the door.


"Little Mr. Big Mouth," Clete said.


That earned a faint smile from Dorotea.


"May I see you a moment, Dorotea?" he asked.


Her father glowered at him.


He walked to her, fishing for the rings in his pocket. He held the three of them out to her, displayed in his palm.


"Pick one," he said. "Just for tonight and tomorrow. I'll get you another one later."


"Are you trying to give me a ring or loan me one?" Dorotea demanded.


"They're all yours, if you want them," he said. "I didn't think you'd like—"


"This is exquisite!" she said, picking up one of the rings. "You can be such a bloody fool, Cletus!"


She slipped the ring on her finger, met his eyes defiantly for a moment, and then called, "Daddy, look at the exquisite ring Cletus gave me."


Her father examined the ring for all of half a second.


"How nice," he said.


"That's old," Pamela Mallin said, an observation, not a criticism.


"It belonged to my great-grandmother," Clete said. "Maria-Elena Pueyrred?n de Frade."


"Then it belongs in a museum," Pamela said. "The National Museum, not on Dorotea's finger."


"It's mine," Dorotea said. "Cletus gave it to me. It'll go into a museum over my dead body!"




[TWO]


Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo


Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province


2010 11 April 1943


Humberto and Beatrice Duarte arrived twenty minutes after the Mallin family. By then Enrico Mallin had had two stiff drinks of whiskey.


It was a very long twenty minutes.


Once Enrico Mallin had inquired into the well-being of el Capitan Lauffer and his wife, little seemed available to talk about, at least that either he or his wife had to say to Cletus H. Frade, at least in front of Lauffer.


Sensing this, Lauffer raised an eyebrow and gave his head a tilt, asking Clete if he should leave the library. Clete placed his hands together as if in prayer and shook his head, meaning that he would very much prefer for Lauffer not to leave him alone with his father-in-law-to-be.


When Humberto came through the door, Clete felt an enormous sense of relief. That, however, did not last long.


With tears in his eyes, Humberto wrapped his arms around Clete and wetly kissed both his cheeks. Feeling another male's stubble against his own made Clete uncomfortable.


"God is good," Humberto announced emotionally. "The Lord taketh away, and the Lord giveth. A new life! I will pray that it will be a son."


Dorotea looked very uncomfortable.


The face of Roberto Lauffer, who was standing beside Clete, made it quite clear that he understood the meaning of the term "new life."


At the same moment, Enrico Mallin's face made it quite clear that he did not regard the new life as a manifestation of the generosity of the Supreme Being. He allowed himself to be embraced by Humberto, then held out his glass to one of the maids for a refill.


"I found those documents you were concerned about," Clete said.


It took a long moment for understanding to register on Humberto's face.


"Oh, good," he said finally.


Since he is anything but stupid, he must be drunk. I didn't think that was aftershave I smelled when he kissed me. And that "God is Good!" speech!


"What documents are those?" Beatrice asked.


"Some business dealings I have with von Wachtstein," Humberto replied, "nothing to concern yourself about, my dear."


And he has a big mouth. My God!


"Oh," she said, and put the subject out of her mind.


As soon as she walked in, it was immediately apparent to Clete that Beatrice was again—still?—detached from reality, heavily dosed with what Humberto euphemistically called her medicine. The odds were remote that she would ever remember the exchange, Clete decided.


But Enrico Mallin and Roberto Lauffer both heard von Wachtstein's name, and it caught their attention.


It soon became apparent that while Father Welner had apparently told both Humberto and Beatrice that Clete and Dorotea were to be married, he apparently told them separately, and left Dorotea's pregnancy out of the version for Beatrice.


The minute the priest showed up, just before they were going into dinner, Beatrice went after him.


"I don't want to talk about it at dinner," Beatrice said, "but I don't want to hear one more word about a small wedding here, and in the next few weeks. That's simply out of the question. What would people think?"


The faces of Se?or and Se?ora Mallin made it clear they had already considered what people were going to think.


"I agree," Welner said, "that it is not a matter we should talk about at dinner."


Beatrice then talked about nothing at dinner but the wedding she thought Dorotea and Clete should have, starting with a detailed account of her own wedding, and moving through weddings she thought had been "done well," and then on to the relative merits and disadvantages of celebrating the Frade-Mallin nuptials at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo or in the city.


Hardly touching her food, Dorotea sat through it all with her head bent.


It was only with a great effort, buttressed with pity, that Clete was able to keep himself from taking Humberto into the corridor and asking him, for Christ's sake, to shut his blabbering wife up.


And seeing the looks she was getting from Enrico Mallin, he was surprised that Mallin didn't say something to her.


It was Mallin, however, who finally ended it.


The coffee had just been served, and with it snifters of cognac. Antonio moved to each of the men, offering cigars from a humidor.


Mallin suddenly pushed himself away from the table and lurched to his feet, knocking over his chair, his wineglass, his water glass, and his untouched cognac snifter. The heavy crystal water glass fell onto the snifter, smashing it. He didn't seem to notice; but his wife's humiliation showed on her face. Little Henry giggled.


"With your kind permission, Cletus," Se?or Enrico Mallin said, carefully pronouncing each syllable, "we will ask to be excused. It has been a long day, and we have a busy day tomorrow."


"Of course," Cletus said, rising to his feet.


The perfect end,Clete thought, to a perfectly lousy dinner.


The Mallins left the dining room. Dorotea didn't even look at Clete.


"I think Beatrice and I should get our rest too," Humberto said.


"But I'm talking to Cletus about his wedding!" she protested.


"You can talk to him tomorrow, darling," he said, and stood behind her chair until finally she got up.


"Poor woman," Father Welner said after they were gone. And then he rose out of his chair. "I'll pass on the brandy, Cletus. I've had a busy day myself."


He touched Cletus's shoulder, nodded at Roberto Lauffer, and walked out of the dining room.


"It would appear, mi amigo," Clete said, "that we get all the cognac."


"I don't think, mi amigo, that we should drink all of it, but one ... a stiff one . . ."


"Thank you for . . ."


"Poor woman," Roberto said, obviously quoting the priest.


He raised his glass to Clete, and Clete clinked glasses with him.


"Roberto, I would like to ask you a favor."


"Anything within my power."


"Could you forget hearing the name von Wachtstein here tonight?"


Lauffer's eyebrows rose.


"It's very important to me," Clete said.


"Whose name?" Lauffer said. "I have such a hard time remembering names. . . ."


"Thank you."


"May I say that I admire your taste? Dorotea is quite beautiful."


"I noticed," Clete said.


Lauffer stood up.


"It should go without saying that I wish you every happiness," he said.


"Thank you," Clete said, and then chuckled. "That was the first word of congratulations I've received, incidentally."


"Then I'm glad it came from me," Lauffer said, and put out his hand. "We're all going to have a busy day tomorrow. Thank you for a ... I was about to say 'memorable,' but that wouldn't be accurate. Thank you for your hospitality."


"Good night, Roberto."


Lauffer left Clete alone in the room.


Clete picked up his snifter and took a sip.


Jesus,he thought. I'm going to have to tell the Old Man and Martha, before they hear about it someplace else.


He put the glass down and stood up.


"Will that be all, Se?or?" Antonio asked.


"Yes, thank you, Antonio," Clete said. "Please thank the cook for a ... wait a minute. Is there a typewriter around here someplace?"


"A typewriter, Se?or?"


"A typewriter."


"The housekeeper has—"


"Will you bring it, and some paper and envelopes, and a pot of coffee, to my room, please?"


"Of course."


Writing the Old Man was even more difficult than Clete imagined, and not only because the venerable Underwood had a Spanish keyboard with the keys in the wrong places.


He had just ripped from the typewriter his sixth failed attempt to write the Old Man a letter when there was a knock at the door.


Now what?


"Come!"


The door opened. One of the maids was standing there. Behind her, in his gaucho costume, stood Chief Schultz.


"The Se?or, Se?or insisted on . . ."


"We got a reply to your radio, Major," Chief Schultz said. "I thought I'd better bring it over."


"Come on in, let's have it. You want a cup of coffee? Something stronger?"


"I never turn down a little taste," Schultz said.


"Scotch?"


"You wouldn't have a little cognac around here someplace, would you?"


"Bring cognac, please," Clete said. "There's a bottle on the table in the dining." He turned to Schultz.


"How'd we get this reply so quick?" he asked. "I thought you said you had an oh one thirty net call?"


"Oh one thirty, oh nine thirty, and seventeen thirty, three times a day," Schultz explained. "But we monitor the frequency all the time when someone's there. We just don't acknowledge, unless they ask for it special. Once a day, at oh nine thirty, if they've sent something, we acknowledge. Or, if we have something for them—like your 0001—we acknowledge everything we got, starting with their oh one thirty. The idea is for us to go on the air as little as possible. You understand?"


"They monitor us all the time?"


"Sure. And when we send something off the schedule, I add a service message to any Navy station asking them to copy and relay. I did that with your 0001."


Clete opened the envelope Schultz had handed him and read the message.




TOP SECRET


LINDBERGH


URGENT


DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN


PROM ORACLE WASHDC


MSG NO 2545 DDWHO 0030 GREENWICH 12 APRIL 1943


TO STACHIEF AGGIE


REFERENCE YOUR NO. 0001




1. PROCEED WITH LINDBERGH INVESTIGATION AS HIGHEST PRIORITY.


2. LIAISON WITH VACUUM IN ANY ASPECT OF LINDBERGH IS FORBIDDEN REPEAT FORBIDDEN.


3. INTELLIGENCE DEVELOPED IS TO BE CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET LINDBERGH EYES ONLY DDWHO AND TRANSMITTED BY RADIO ONLY. FACILITIES OF USEMBASSY ARE NOT REPEAT NOT TO BE UTILIZED.


4. IDENTIFY SOURCE CAVALRY, INCLUDING MOTIVATION FOR HIS COOPERATION.


5. PERSONAL TO SARNOFF FROM ORACLE QUOTE GOOD JOB UNQUOTE.


6. ACKNOWLEDGE DELIVERY THIS MESSAGE TO STACHIEF BY TRANSMISSION OF PHRASE GOT IT. REPEAT GOT IT.




GRAHAM END




"I wonder why we're not supposed to use the Embassy's radio?" Clete asked. "Or the diplomatic pouch?"


"I guess Graham figures the FBI gets its nose in just about everything around the Embassy," Schultz said. "Tony . . . Mr. Pelosi . . . got to the Army crypto guy, I guess he told you. That place is a fucking sieve, security-wise."


Clete grunted.


"Do you write home, Chief?"


Schultz looked at him strangely for a moment.


"I got a sister in Milwaukee," he said. "Once a month, like, I drop her a note. Send her a couple of bucks. She's married to a bum."


"How?"


"Through the Embassy. They put a pouch—you know this—on all the Pan American flights. You just write your name and serial number and 'free' where the stamp is supposed to go on the envelope, and that's it."


"I'm no longer in the service. . . ."


"Yeah, so you keep saying."


"Would you put your name and serial number on a couple of letters and get them in the mail for me?"


"Sure. You got 'em?"


"I'm going to have to write them. Is Tony still out there?"


"He said he would stick around in case you wanted to say something about it when you got this."


"Then he's going back to Buenos Aires?"


"Right."


"Make sure Ettinger does not go to Buenos Aires, Chief. If you have to chain him to a tree. He's a good man, but he hasn't quite grasped the idea that an order is an order. He ignores those he doesn't like."


"Well, Mr. Frade—" the Chief interrupted himself. "I was about to say he's got a personal interest in this war we don't have. But now you've got one too, don't you?"


"Ettinger told you about his family?"


"His family, and a lot more. I hate to admit it, but before I got to know Dave, I thought all this business about the shit the Nazis are doing was propaganda bullshit—the concentration camps, putting people in rooms and gassing them, just because they're Jews. You know, like in World War One, they said the Germans were bayoneting babies in Belgium."


"It's not bullshit. What they do is so bad your mind doesn't want to accept it. And when it hits you personally ... I understand Dave, Chief. But I can't permit him to wage a private war. For one thing, we can't afford to lose him. You keep him out here until you personally get the word otherwise from me."


"Aye, aye, Sir."


"Have another little taste, Chief. This won't take long. And tell Mr. Pelosi to make sure they go out with tomorrow's pouch."


He sat down at the venerable Underwood with the Spanish keyboard, rolled a piece of paper into it, and started to type.


Clete walked Chief Schultz through the house and out to where he had parked his Model A on the drive.


"I thought maybe you would have learned to ride while I was gone," Clete said.


"Don't hold your fucking breath, Mr. Frade," Chief Schultz said. "Horses is dangerous."


He put the car in gear and drove off.


Clete walked back to his apartment. There was an untouched cognac snifter on the desk in the sitting.


Well, it's done now. In three, four days the Old Man'll have that letter, and what will happen will happen.


He picked up the snifter and drained it, then pushed open the door to his bedroom.


Just enough light was coming through the open window to make out the bed, so he didn't turn on the light.


He sat down at the bed and grunted as he pulled off the boots.


/ wonder what happened? The goddamned things weren't so tight when I first put them on. But then I couldn't walk. Did I have that much to drink? Or was it the charming company?


"I wondered if you were ever coming to bed," a voice behind him said. "What in the world were you doing out there anyway with that bloody typewriter? And who was that with you?"


He turned. His eyes had now adjusted to the light.


"Hello, Princess," he said.


She was sitting up in the bed, wearing a white nightgown.


"Hello, yourself, and don't call me that, please."


She sat up suddenly, then started to bounce on the mattress.


"I think I'm going to like sleeping here," she said. "This mattress is wonderful!"


"What did you do, climb in through the window?"


"I could hardly walk down the corridor, could I?" she asked reasonably. "What would people think?”


Then she held her arms open for him.




[THREE]


La Capilla Nuestra Se?ora de las Milagros


Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo


Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province


0940 12 April 1943


A large, badly hand-tinted photograph of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade in a gilded wooden frame sat on an easel in the center aisle of the chapel.


It was probably taken, Clete decided, shortly before his father retired from command of the Husares de Pueyrred?n. His father—wearing a ribbon-bedecked green tunic and a brimmed cap with an enormous crown—was photographed standing beside a horse, holding its reins. The saddle blanket carried the Husares de Pueyrred?n regimental crest and the insignia of a colonel.


Without conscious disrespect, he wondered where his father had gotten all the medals, and remembered Tony's crack that the Argentine Army passed out medals for three months' perfect attendance at mass.


There was plenty of time to examine the photograph, for two reasons. For one thing, the requiem mass had begun at eight. That was because work on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo had to go on, and no one was going to work until the mass and the reception following it were over.


The second reason was that Clete had only limited success keeping his eyes off Dorotea. The best he could do was focus his attention on either his father's photograph or the ceremony itself. Dorotea was sitting beside him, her legs modestly crossed, on a slightly smaller version of his own thronelike, high-backed, elaborately carved chair.


She was wearing a black suit with a white lacy blouse, the lace covering most of her neck. She wore a black hat with a veil, and her black-gloved hands held a missal in her lap. In other words, she was the picture of respectable, demure, virginal young Christian womanhood.


Whenever he glanced at her, and she smiled demurely at him, his mind's eye flooded with images of Dorotea wearing absolutely nothing at all, cavorting with enthusiastic carnal abandon in his father's bed.


While it was probable that they at least dozed off momentarily sometime between the moment she held her arms open to him and the time she crawled out the bedroom window as the first light of day began to illuminate the bed (which would be rightfully theirs in the sight of God once the goddamned wedding was over and done with), he could not remember it.


These kinds of thoughts—not to mention the physiological reaction they caused in the area of his groin—did not seem appropriate within the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miracles during a service honoring his father's life, so he tried to hard to devote his attention to his father's portrait and the ceremony.


Behind what he thought of as his and Dorotea's thrones, Humberto and Beatrice Duarte and the honored guests were seated in red-velvet-upholstered pews. The honored guests were Se?ora Claudia Carzino-Cormano and her two daughters; Suboficial Mayor (Retired) Enrico Rodriguez; Antonio LaValle, el Coronel Frade's lifelong butler; Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, a houseguest of Se?ora Carzino-Cormano; and el Capitan Roberto Lauffer, aide-de-camp to General Arturo Rawson, who had been assisting the late el Coronel Frade's son during the final services honoring his father.


Finally, the Bishop—who spoke after Fathers Denilo, Pordido, and Welner—concluded his "talk." Clete was not sure if it was a homily, a eulogy, or a thinly veiled plea for the new Patron of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo to continue the generous support of the diocese and its clergy that had been a longstanding tradition of previous God-fearing and commendably devout Patrons of the estancia.


The Bishop climbed down from the pulpit and took his place to lead the recessional parade. Father Welner, taking his place behind Fathers Denilo and Pordido, discreetly signaled Clete that it was time for him and Dorotea to stand up and be prepared to join the recessional, immediately behind the crucifer.


The crucifer was the nice-looking blond kid who had taken Julius Caesar and Rudolpho's roan back to the stables the day before. Clete was reminded of his own service as a crucifer at Trinity Episcopal in Midland, Texas. He had been "promoted" to crucifer following an unfortunate incident in which he, functioning as one of two acolytes, had lost the taper from the candle-lighting device and set the altar cloth gloriously aflame.


The procession moved through the church, out, and then down the paths of the English garden until it reached the house. There the Bishop, the priests, and the deacon lined themselves up on the lower step of the verandah. The crucifer and the other acolytes marched off down the drive.


Clete and Dorotea, and then Beatrice and Humberto, joined the clergy on the wide verandah step. Father Welner shifted position so that he was standing next to Clete.


Not on the ground,Clete thought, but on the step. Was that on purpose? I've had about all of this I can take.


First the Mallin family shook everybody's hand in the reception line.


That handshake and smile, Henry, are even more magnificently insincere than yesterday. Have you been practicing, or are you just hungover?


Henry Mallin next kissed his daughter, then subjected himself to the effusive greeting of Beatrice Frade de Duarte, who was obviously enjoying the reception line.


Pamela Mallin kissed him.


It's nice when Pamela kisses me that way, sort of motherly.


El Kid Brother is a little sheepish. He knows I'm pissed. Good. I am. Nobody likes a squealer.


"A beautiful service, I thought," Claudia Carzino-Cormano said, both shaking his hand and kissing him. "And the two of you were handsome."


You've lost just as much as I did, Claudia. Maybe more. You spent most of your life with him, and he never married you. Because of me. And then he got killed, also because of me. If I were you, I don't think I'd like me. You should have been sitting where Dorotea sat, and we both know it.


"I'd like to talk you, if we can find time, Claudia."


"We'll make time."


Isabela Carzino-Cormano kissed his cheek with about as much enthusiasm as Henry Mallin shook his hand.


The feeling is mutual, Se?orita. Go fuck yourself.


"I felt a little better when I saw Dorotea sitting there with you," Se?orita Alicia Carzino-Cormano said.


"You're very sweet. Did I ever tell you that?"


"Again, my condolences, Se?or Frade," Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein said, clicking his heels and bowing as he shook Clete's hand.


"I found that letter we were looking for," Clete said softly. "Don't leave before we have a chance to talk."


Peter nodded and moved on. El Capitan Roberto Lauffer was next in line.


He heard what I said to Peter. And so did the Jesuit.


"When it's convenient, I would like to take that material off your hands."


"Just as soon as this is over."


And Welner heard that, too. I wonder how much he knows?


It was half an hour before the last of the guests and estancia workers had made their way through the line, and Father Welner could tug on the Bishop's vestments.


"Se?or Frade suggests that you might like to have a coffee with him whenever you're ready," Welner said.


The Bishop beamed at Clete and then went into the house, trailed by the others.


"Thank God that's over," Dorotea said. "I need to find a loo in the worst way."


"The worst way is probably blindfolded," Clete said solemnly.


It took her a moment to understand what he considered to be humor.


"And I'm going to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you?" she asked incredulously, and went quickly into the house.


When Clete saw Beatrice turn to him, a dazzling smile on her face, he moved quickly after Dorotea.


The house was full of people; each of them had something to drink in one hand and something to eat in the other. He saw General Rawson and Colonel Per?n.


I don't remember Per?n coming through the line.


He saw Lauffer, who inclined his head in the direction of the safe and asked with his eyebrows if Clete was free to go there. Clete nodded.


Two well-dressed men— Army officers?Clete wondered, majors, maybe — were in civvies standing in the corridor by the door of the private study. Two large leather briefcases rested on the floor beside them. And both men obviously carried pistols under their jackets.


Clete was fishing through his pockets for the key to the room when Enrico walked past him, his key in his hand.


Lauffer did not introduce Clete to the two officers, and they did not volunteer their names.


"Open it, Enrico," Clete ordered, and Enrico pulled the bookcase away from the safe and worked the combination. Then he spun the spoked wheel and pulled the safe door open.


Clete looked at Lauffer and saw one of the briefcases in his hand.


"Help yourself," Clete said.


"I wouldn't wish to take anything I shouldn't," Lauffer said.


Clete went to the safe and handed Lauffer bundles of currency. They all would have fit easily into one of the briefcases, but when Lauffer apparently decided Clete had handed him about half, he put out his hand to stop Clete, then motioned for the second briefcase.


The entire business didn't take two minutes.


"That's it," Clete said.


"Gracias, Mayor Frade," one of the two men said.


"I will inform el Coronel that we have finished our business," Lauffer said.


OK, el Coronel is obviously Per?n. The reason I didn't see him in the reception line, or, for that matter, in church, either, now that I think about it, is that he and these two guys were sitting on the safe.


"You're leaving, Roberto?" Clete asked.


That was dumb. Both of these guys picked up on my calling him by his first name.


"When it pleases el General Rawson to leave, Se?or Frade."


"Well, if I don't see you again, thank you for everything you have done for me in the past few days, Roberto."


"It has been my privilege to be of service, Se?or Frade." I think we did that perfectly. Roberto was properly formal with me, and I was the typical ill-mannered norteamericano who calls people he hardly knows by their first names.


The two men nodded to him and left the room. Clete now had no doubt they were officers. Lauffer left last.


Why do I have the idea I've made friends with that guy? Trust him? Feel comfortable that he's not going to run off at the mouth to anyone about Peter? Is that what you call masculine intuition? Or gross stupidity?


He gave in to his curiosity ten seconds after they left the room. He went out into the corridor in time to see them leaving the house by a door at the end of the corridor. He went into one of the rooms on the corridor and started to haul quickly on the canvas strip that raised the vertical wooden shutters.


He gave it one quick pull, and was about to give another, when Enrico stopped him.


"What?" Clete demanded impatiently.


Enrico gave him his El Winko Famoso, as Clete now thought of it, then showed him that if you pulled the canvas strip just a few inches, the shutter rose enough so you could see through the cracks. The message was clear. He could see out, and no one would notice an open shutter, or one being opened.


"Gracias," Clete said, and peered through a crack.


Three cars were parked on the service road that ran past the kitchen, two 1941 Chevrolets and a car of about the same size sandwiched between them— he thought it was an Opel. The Chevrolets each held four men.


The two officers with the briefcases got in the backseat of the Opel. For two or three minutes, nothing happened. Then a Mercedes sedan appeared on the road. Clete saw the lanky form of el Coronel Juan Domingo Per?n in the backseat. It drove on the lawn to move around the three cars on the road. Then they started after it.


Soon what was now a small convoy—a small, armed convoy, Clete thought—disappeared around the corner of the house.


"Where are they taking that money?" Clete asked.


Enrico shrugged.


Clete thought it interesting that el Coronel Per?n had assumed responsibility for the money. That fixed Per?n's place in the G.O.U. hierarchy; he was somewhere near the top.


Enrico lowered the shutter all the way and followed Clete into the corridor.


Peter von Wachtstein was standing by the open door to the private office.


"Captain Lauffer said he thought you would be back here," Peter said.


"'Go on in," Clete said. "Don't let anybody else in here, Enrico."


He followed Peter into the study and closed the door.


"Lauffer came looking for me," Peter said. "To tell me you would be back here. What was that all about? How much does he know, in other words?"


"He was being a nice guy," Clete said. "He knew where I was, and that I wanted to see you. He doesn't know anything he shouldn't, and what he suspects he will keep to himself."


Peter did not seem convinced.


"Your father's letter is in there," Clete said, pointing over his shoulder toward the safe. When Peter looked confused, Clete turned and saw that the movable section of the bookcase was back in place.


He went to it and swung it outward.


"You saw it?" Peter asked.


"And the documents."


"Then you might as well leave it where it is," Peter said. "I certainly don't have a better place to hide it."


"Maybe Alicia does," Clete said. "You can leave it here, of course. But. . ."


"I'll ask her," Peter said. "I hadn't thought about her."


"Or Claudia may have a place," Clete said as he swung the bookcase closed.


"Claudia's up to her ass in this coup d’?tat," Peter said. "Half the General Staff of the Argentine Army is, or has been, at her place in the last twenty-four hours."


"I don't suppose you heard anything interesting?"


"Is that personal curiosity, or is the OSS interested?"


"Both."


"I'll tell you something I heard," Peter said, meeting his eyes. "That should get your personal attention. We have a visitor. A Standartenf?hrer—do you know what that is?"


Clete nodded.


"Yesterday morning Standartenf?hrer Goltz ordered Gr?ner to have your man Ettinger killed. As soon as possible."


"Who told you that?"


"Von Lutzenberger. You better tell your man to watch his back, Clete."


I wonder if von Lutzenberger also told Mart?n ?


And do I tell Peter I already heard about it?


No. I don't know why no, but no.


"I'm interested in this SS guy. Why is he here?"


"That sounds like the OSS asking," Peter said.


"You sound like you're trying to straddle a fence, Peter," Clete said softly.


"You have to understand, my friend, that I have this large yellow streak running down my back," Peter replied. "I don't want Goltz finding out about it, as he's likely to do if he learns you—the Americans—are onto him, and starts wondering who could have told you. He's SS-SD. They follow the charming Nazi philosophy that it's better to garrote, or castrate, one hundred innocent men than have one guilty one get away."


Clete didn't reply.


"Not only am I not used to—what's that charming phrase in international law? 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy?'" Peter went on, "but I don't like the odds that Goltz will hear about it and order Gr?ner to have somebody cut my throat and blame it on burglars. Not only would it foul up what my father wants me to do, but I think it might hurt."


"So what's the SS guy up to?" Clete asked.


Peter looked at him and chuckled.


"Believe it or not, according to von Lutzenberger, the same thing I am. We are. Making safe investments in Argentina. For different people, I'm sure, but the same thing."


"Tell me more," Clete said.


"As Mata Hari said to the nice young Spad pilot?"


Clete chuckled.


"I thought what Mata Hari said to the young Spad pilot was 'why don't you let me play with your joystick?'"


"God, that's terrible!" Peter said. "Your sense of humor is not only juvenile, but vulgar beyond—"


"So what's the SS guy up to?" Clete asked again.


"I don't know much—von Lutzenberger didn't have time to tell me much—but there's apparently a lot of money on the way here—plus jewelry and negotiable securities."


"How on the way here? And how much is a lot of money?"


Peter hesitated.


"This is difficult for me, you understand," he said. "There is a difference in being philosophically opposed to what the Nazis are doing and in giving information to the enemy who will use it in such a manner as to cause the deaths of one's countrymen, many of whom are not Nazis, and some of whom are as opposed to Hitler as I am."


Clete did not reply.


"A replacement for the Reine de la Mer is en route," Peter said, finally. "A Spanish ship called the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico."


"If it makes you feel any better, we already knew that," Clete said.


That's not the truth. What the OSS knows is that a replacement ship is en route. This is the first I've ever heard her name. Why did I lie— and so automatically— to Peter? As a good intelligence officer, wanting to keep his source feeling less guilty? Or as his friend?


"You did?" Peter asked, surprised.


Clete ignored the question. "The money you're talking about is aboard that ship?"


Peter nodded. "He didn't say—von Lutzenberger didn't say—how much money. But he did say Goltz told him they already have twenty million of your dollars in Uruguay. That reminds me of something my father told me—"


"Tell me about the twenty million dollars in Uruguay," Clete interrupted.


"That's all I know about it," Peter said. "Why are you interested?"


"There's a story going around that for enough money, paid in Uruguay, you can ransom people out of concentration camps."


"Where'd you hear that?"


Clete held up hands, palms outward, to show that he didn't want to reveal his source.


"If they have twenty million in Uruguay, it could be ransom money."


"I don't believe it."


"Keep your ears open."


"You're serious about this, aren't you?" Peter asked, surprised.


"Yes, I am."


"I don't believe it," Peter said. "Not that they aren't capable of it morally; they are. Most of the SS would sell their mothers. But I just can't believe it could be done. The risks would be enormous."


"Unless it was being done by some very senior people, or under their authority," Clete said. "Does this guy Goltz fit those shoes?"


Peter looked thoughtful. "Von Lutzenberger told me he's the liaison between Himmler and Bormann."


"I don't know what—"


"Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler runs just about everything in Germany connected with the SS, the police, the Gestapo, counterintelligence . . ."


"Including concentration camps?"


"Including, of course, concentration camps. Mart?n Bormann is the Party Chancellor."


"What's that?"


"He runs the Nazi party. He's Hitler's private secretary. I don't mean he takes shorthand. It's half a dozen one way and six the other who is second in power to Hitler between them."


"I thought Goring was Hitler's Number Two."


"The last time I saw Der Grosse Hermann, he was wearing his uniform as Chief Hunter of the Reich, which included lederhosen—short leather pants— and a Robin Hood hat with a long feather. . . ."


"You're kidding!"


Peter spread his hands to show the length of the feather.


"Not at all. And more makeup than Marlene Dietrich."


"In public?" Clete asked, not sure if he should believe Peter or not.


"I saw him dressed that way at his estate. Karin Hall. The Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe has the custom of inviting all pilots who earn anything more than the Iron Cross First Class for a weekend at Karin Hall, where, more often than not, he tries to get them in bed."


"He's homosexual?" Clete asked incredulously.


"You really are naive, aren't you?" Peter said. "Queer as he can be. And he's also a drug addict."


"And Hitler knows this?"


"Of course, which is why Goring is not Hitler's Number Two, no matter what is being put out for public consumption. Bormann and Himmler are swine, but they don't make themselves up like women, and, more important, they don't take drugs. Whatever else my F?hrer is, he's not a fool."


"You ever meet Hitler?"


"Oh, yes. Many times. When he hung my Knight's Cross on me, he told me I was the future of Germany. Fascinating man. Charming. Spend ten minutes in his presence, and you'd volunteer to follow him into Hell. Which is, of course, what has happened to a lot of people. They have done just that."


"The Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe didn't find you attractive, Peter? Or did he?"


Peter smiled. "I'm sure he did. Why not? I'm a handsome fellow."


"Jesus!"


"My father is on the OKW staff," Peter said, turning serious. "Making advances to me might have had consequences. Goring, and others like him, generally leave the aristocracy and the officer class alone. They have thousands of others to choose from."


"If this guy, Goltz, is connected to Bormann and . . . what was the other one's name?"


"Himmler," Peter said, his tone making it clear he found it odd Clete could not remember the name. "I take your point. Between those two, anything could be arranged in Germany. But why? They all have more money than they know what to do with. What would they do with more money if they had it?"


"Buy property in Argentina," Clete said. "Wait a minute. . . ."


Peter looked at him curiously.


"Whywould they want to buy property here?" Clete asked. "Think about it."


Peter looked at him without comprehension.


"You tell me," he said, finally.


"Why are you buying property here?"


"So that something can be salvaged from the ashes," Peter said.


"You just said your F?hrer is no fool. Maybe he's figured out he's already lost the war and is looking for a place to go when it's over."


Peter considered that.


"If he wanted to do that—just for the sake of argument—he'd simply send money to von Lutzenberger and tell him to buy property."


"There would be a record of that," Clete said. "Roosevelt and Churchill called for unconditional surrender at the Casablanca Conference. We would find the records of something like that, declare that it was property of the former German government, and therefore belonged to us."


Peter considered that a long moment.


"I'm not saying that's impossible, but it's hard to believe."


"I find it hard to believe that the Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe is a drug addict and a faggot who goes around seducing his pilots dressed up like Robin Hood."


Peter looked at him again for a long moment, and Clete saw acceptance come into his eyes.


"I'll see what I can find out."


"If I'm right, that means that you and Uncle Humberto will have to be damned careful to make sure what you're doing here isn't lumped together with the Nazi property."


"I'll see what I can find out," Peter repeated.


"When are you going back?"


"Tonight," Peter said. "Von Lutzenberger said Goltz will probably want to go to Uruguay first thing Monday morning. I told you he wants me to fly him over in the Storch.


"When are you coming back?"


"Maybe the same day. But I'd bet no later than Tuesday."


"I'd like to know who Goltz sees in Uruguay."


"I'll see what I can find out."


"I won't be back in Buenos Aires before Tuesday at the earliest. You want to meet at The Horse—The Fish—Wednesday night?"


"We better set up a time now," Peter said. "That would save a telephone call. Ten o'clock? If either of us can't make it, say by ten-thirty, we'll try something else."


"Ten's fine with me," Clete said.


"Is a personal question in order?" Peter asked.


"Certainly."


"Dorotea?"


"The idea of having Dorotea sit beside me on the royal thrones—that is what you're asking?" Peter, smiling, nodded. ". . . was to convey the idea to our loyal subjects and the upper strata of Argentinian society that we have been engaged for some time, with the blessing of our parents. That will further explain why we will be married here, quietly, in about two weeks."


"I heard that much from Alicia, who heard it from her mother," Peter said, but it was a question.


"She's pregnant, Peter."


"In that case, congratulations."


"Yes, it was, Peter."


"Yes, it was what?"


"Grossly irresponsible of me."


"I didn't think that."


"Yes, you did."


"Yes, I did," Peter confessed. "And it puts me on a hell of a spot, you understand."


"Alicia wants to get married?"


"Yes."


"I'm in no position to offer anyone any advice."


"Or me," Peter said, and put out his hand. "Good luck, my friend."




Chapter Fifteen




[ONE]


The Reception


Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo


Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province


1645 12 April 1943


Clete was standing with Humberto Duarte, holding a cup of coffee, in a circle of seven men. Each of them, he had come to understand, either managed one Frade enterprise or another or had business dealings with it. They had come from all over Argentina to pay their final respects to el Coronel, and of course to meet the new Patron.


It was something like a one-man reception line, the difference being that those passing through it felt they had either the right or the obligation—he wasn't sure which—to join the half dozen or so standing around el Patron for a cup of coffee and four or five minutes of conversation. As one man joined the group, and a maid offered him a tiny white gold-rimmed coffee cup and saucer, another left the group and placed his coffee cup and saucer on the maid's tray.


There was a steady stream of them all afternoon, either employees of what Clete had started to think of as El Coronel Incorporated, or representatives of businesses that bought from, or sold to, one El Coronel Inc. subsidiary or another.


Humberto, for example, introduced him not only to the man who ran the San Bosco vineyards in Cordoba, but the men who sold San Bosco the wine bottles; the corks that sealed San Bosco's bottles; and the bottle labels—this one also sold San Bosco the cases in which the wine bottles were packed. One man told him his father had begun carting San Bosco wine with horse-drawn wagons. And a somewhat effete gentleman told him that with the exception of Buenos Aires Province, he handled distribution of San Bosco products throughout the country.


The same thing was true of the people connected with Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo itself, and with the other estancias and enterprises of El Coronel Inc. around the country. In some place called Bariloche—he had never previously heard of it—he learned El Coronel Inc. owned both a trout farm and a dairy farm, which also manufactured cheese. He found the trout farm fascinating, for he had previously believed the only way to harvest trout was by standing in a stream with a fly-casting rod.


Several people blurted that they had not known that el Coronel had a son. Yet there was an almost universal surprised relief that el Patron spoke Spanish. Which meant, of course, that everyone knew that he was a norteamericano. He wondered if any of them had heard the rumors that el Coronel was killed by the Germans because his son was an American OSS agent. If anyone had, no one was tactless enough, or careless enough, to make reference to it.


Humberto stood at his side throughout the ordeal. Claudia had left an hour after the requiem mass with what Clete thought of as the Military Delegation . . . but only after telling him what was expected of him in "receiving" the managers and the businesspeople. Humberto, she went on to explain, would suggest how to deal with "the people in Buenos Aires"—he inferred she meant lawyers and bankers and their ilk. He would have to start doing that no later than Wednesday.


He had only a rare glimpse of Dorotea. She and her mother mingled in the reception with the wives of the men who spoke to Clete. But he didn't have a chance to talk to her. Earlier he had sent Little Henry off riding with the good-looking kid—whose name, he learned, was Gustavo, which almost certainly confirmed that Gustavo was German. He firmly admonished Gustavo to put Little Henry on a horse he would have minimal chance of falling from. He didn't see Henry Mallin, and wondered if this was because Dorotea's father didn't want to see Cletus H. Frade, or whether he was sleeping off the effects of the night before.


Clete sensed that Antonio had walked up behind him.


"Se?or, your guests are leaving," Antonio said.


"Excuse me, gentlemen, please," Clete said, and placed his coffee cup on the maid's tray.


When Clete reached them, the Mallin family was already on the verandah, their luggage stacked around them, waiting for someone to bring their car. Little Henry, Clete noticed, showed no signs of a fall from a horse. Dorotea had changed from the black suit she had worn all day into a skirt and blouse.


"Thank you for coming, Henry," Clete said.


"So kind of you to have us," Mallin replied with a smile that would freeze a West Texas water hole in the middle of August.


"I suppose we'll see you very soon, Cletus," Pamela said. "We really have no time at all, do we?"


"I'm going into the city either Tuesday or Wednesday," Clete said. "Claudia said she'd help with things out here."


"That's my responsibility—mother of the bride—but it was sweet of you to think of asking her, and I will need her."


"Thank you for the ride, Clete," Little Henry said.


"What ride?" Henry Mallin asked.


"Clete sent Henry riding with one of his gauchos," Pamela replied. "Wasn't that nice of him?"


Henry did not reply.


Rudolpho pulled up before the verandah in the Mallins' Rolls Royce drop-head coupe, stepped out, and started to load the luggage in the trunk.


"Thank you for my ring, Cletus," Dorotea said, and with her father watching in evident discomfort, kissed him on the lips with slightly less passion than she might have kissed Little Henry.


Henry Mallin walked around the front of the car. Clete went to the passenger side with Dorotea, ushered Little Henry into the backseat, and waited for an opportunity to kiss Dorotea again. It did not present itself. She slumped against the seat and smiled at him demurely.


"Oh, damn," she said. "I think I left my compact on the roof!"


"Great!" her father said.


Clete surveyed the roof. Dorotea moved forward on her seat to see if he could locate the compact. This movement placed her close to Clete's midsection in such a way that her body concealed the movement of her hand, which she used to possessively squeeze Clete's reproductive apparatus.


"It's not here!" Clete cried, referring to Dorotea's compact.


"Well, perhaps I was mistaken," Dorotea said, sliding back onto the seat. From there she smiled demurely at Clete again, waved her fingers at him, and admonished him to "be a good boy, Cletus."


"Goddamn," Clete blurted, "you're really something!"


"Would you please close the door?" Henry Mallin asked impatiently.


Clete watched the Rolls Royce until it was out of sight, then turned to reenter the house.


"Excuse me, Se?or Frade," a short, muscular man of about forty asked. "Do you remember me? Capitan Delgano?"


Oh, yeah, I remember you, you sonofabitch! You were my father's pilot, and he trusted you, and you were all the time working for Mart?n and the goddamned BIS!


"I remember you," Clete said.


"I wonder if I might have a moment of your time, Se?or Frade?"


"I can't think of a thing we might have to say to one another, Capitan," Clete said coldly.


There was hurt in Delgano's large dark eyes.


"I would prefer to talk with you somewhere we would be less likely to be overheard," he said, and gestured toward the English garden.


"I have nothing to say to you," Clete repeated, and started up the steps. Enrico was standing by the door.


"I am here at the direction of Coronel Martin," Delgano said softly.


Clete turned and looked at him, then gestured toward the garden.


Delgano walked down the red-gravel path until almost at the center of the garden, then stopped.


"Mart?n sent you? You're still working for him?"


Delgano did not reply directly, but the question was answered.


"I would ask you to consider that people in our profession are sometimes required to do things that are personally repugnant, Mayor Frade. Your father, for whom I had the greatest respect, came to understand that I was, and am, a serving officer, carrying out my orders."


"I thought you were supposed to be retired," Clete challenged.


Why am I talking to this sonofabitch?


"And you are supposed to have been discharged from the Corps of Marines, mi Mayor."


"What did Mart?n send you out here to say, Delgano?"


"I have been here all along, mi Mayor."


Clete's surprise, or disbelief, showed on his face.


"Your father reemployed me a week after you went to the United States," Delgano said. "At the request of Coronel Martin, after your father understood that Coronel Mart?n had allied himself with the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos."


That's what Enrico meant when he said "Mart?n is now one of us."


"What's on your mind, Capitan?"


"I have two missions," Delgano said, "which should make you believe me. The first is to provide any protection I can for your man Ettinger against the German problem."


"How will you do that?"


"If you will let me know when he leaves the estancia, I will see that he is not alone," Delgano said. "The more notice you can give me, of course, the better. The second is to deal with the problem of the aircraft you wish to import. We have to reach an understanding about the airplane."


He could have heard about the assassination order someplace else, but the only place he could have heard about the airplane is from Martin.


"What's the understanding? That every time I get in it, you're my copilot?"


Delgano smiled.


"I'm sure our mutual friend would like that, and I am equally sure he realizes that would not be possible," he said. "My orders are to assist you in bringing the airplane here from Brazil, on condition that you teach me how to fly it, and that the airplane be placed at Coronel Martin's disposal at a time he has specified—he has a three-day period in mind."


What the hell is that all about? OK!


"In caseOutline Blue goes wrong? To take certain people out of the country in a hurry?"


Delgano held up both hands, palms outward, and shrugged.


What did I expect him to say ?


"Are those conditions acceptable, mi Mayor?"


Clete nodded.


"Then let's try to bring the airplane here," Delgano said. "Where is it now?"


"Somewhere in Brazil."


"You don't know where?"


Clete shook his head, "no."


"But you can find out? We'll need to know that."


"I can find out."


"The scheme is to put the registration numbers of the stagger-wing on the new plane. And then to change the fuselage serial number—and the number of engines—on the Argentine registration documents. The numbers can be put on here, or where the aircraft is now. The question then becomes how to fly the aircraft from where it is in Brazil to an airfield in Argentina. That airfield will obviously depend on where the aircraft is in Brazil and its range."


"Changing the registration papers will be that easy?"


"I don't know how easy, but I'm sure Coronel Mart?n can arrange it."


"I don't know the stagger-wing's numbers."


Delgano reached in his pocket and handed him a slip of paper. "If it could be done, it would be helpful to have the aircraft painted the same color—which I understand is called 'Beechcraft Stagger-wing Red.'"


"Yeah," Clete said. "Let me look into that."


Delgano put out his hand. Clete looked at it.


"The sooner this can be done, the better," Delgano said. "Can I tell Coronel Mart?n that I expect to hear from you soon?"


"We're about to have a revolution, are we?" Clete asked.


Then he took Delgano's hand.


"I really didn't expect you to answer that," he said, then turned and walked away from Delgano.


Enrico was standing at the entrance to the path through the garden. "Why didn't you tell me Delgano was here?" Clete asked.


"You didn't ask me," Enrico replied.




[TWO]


Office of the Director


The Office of Strategic Services


Washington, D.C.


0830 13 April 1943


"This came in overnight, Bill," Colonel A. F. Graham, USMCR, said to OSS Director William J. Donovan, and laid a large manila envelope on his desk. "I thought you better have a look at it."


Donovan took the manila envelope, removed from it a slightly smaller white envelope stamped TOP SECRET in large letters, from that took two sheets of neatly typed paper, and then started to read them.


To judge by his expression, his initial reaction was not favorable.




TOP SECRET LINDBERGH


URGENT


PROM STACHIEP AGGIE


1605 GREENWICH 12APR43


MSG NO OOO2


TO ORACLE WASHDC EYES ONLY


FOR DDWHO GRAHAM




1. IN RE LINDBERGH.


A. RELIABLE SOURCE (HEREAFTER GALAHAD) REPORTS REINE DE LA MER REPLACEMENT IS SPANISH REGISTERED COMERCIANTE DEL OCEANO PACIFICO (HEREAFTER GROCERYTWO) EN ROUTE ARGENTINA CARRYING LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY AND VALUABLES (UNCONFIRMABLE FIGURE 100 REPEAT 100 MILLION DOLLARS) PURPOSE ACQUIRING SAFE HAVEN FOR FUNDS AND/OR ACQUIRING REAL ESTATE FOR POSSIBLE POSTWAR HAVEN FOR SENIOR NAZIS. INVESTIGATING.


B. POSSIBILITY EXISTS LINDBERGH RANSOM FUNDS INTENDED FOR SAME PURPOSE. INVESTIGATING.




"There he goes again," Donovan said.


"Excuse me?"


"Another unidentified 'reliable' source. Who the hell is 'Galahad'?"


"He doesn't say," Graham said.


Donovan ran his eyes down the rest of the message.


"And he hasn't identified the other one, 'Cavalry,' either. You did ask for that information, didn't you?"


"Yes, I did."


"Do you think he forgot to send it?" Donovan asked sarcastically. "I would hate to think he's ignoring you, Alex."


"Frade may have his reasons."


"For example?"


"It comes immediately to my mind that he doesn't want the others on the team to know the identities of these people in case they find themselves interrogated."


"And what if something happens to Frade and nobody else knows who Cavalry or Galahad are? They would then be lost to us."


"I'm sure he's considered that."


"And decided not to tell you?"


Graham nodded. "That's possible. Maybe even likely. I think I have to give Frade the benefit of the doubt on something like this."


"You understand the implications of that 'safe haven,' Alex?"


"It suggests someone high up in Berlin isn't quite as sure of the 'Final Victory' as they would have people believe?"


"I'd like to go to the President with this safe haven business, but I'm not doing that on the basis of a 'reliable source' without a name."


"I'll ask him again," Graham said.


"No. You will tell him again."


They locked eyes for a long moment, then Graham shrugged. "You're the boss," he said.


"Yes, I am," Donovan said, and resumed reading.


"Are you going to the President with the name of the German vessel?" Graham asked.


"If we board, much less sink, a Spanish ship on the high seas," Donovan said, visibly annoyed at the interruption, "we'll have to have a more reliable source than somebody we know only as 'Galahad.' No. I'm not going to the President with that."


"The Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico is one of the ships on our list," Graham said.


"You're not listening, Alex. We need to know who Galahad is, how he came by this information, and why he's telling us. Now, can I finish reading this, please?"




2. IN RE AIRCRAFT: REQUIREMENTS TO MOVE AIRCRAFT HERE FOLLOW:


A. ENTIRE AIRCRAFT IS TO BE PAINTED IN COLOR KNOWN AS BEECHCRAFT STAGGER WING RED.


B. REGISTRATION NUMBERS Z DASH 5 8 4 3 REPEAT Z DASH 5 8 4 3 ARE TO BE PAINTED


(1) EIGHT INCH BLACK BLOCK LETTERS ON OUTWARD FACING SURFACES VERTICAL STABILIZERS APPROXIMATELY ONE FOOT FROM TOP.


(2) TWENTY-FOUR INCH BLACK BLOCK LETTERS CENTERED ON TOP SURFACE RIGHT WING


(3) AS (2) ABOVE EXCEPT UNDER SURFACE LEFT WING


C. LOCATION OF AIRFIELD FROM WHICH COVERT TAKEOFF PREFERABLY IN HOURS OF DARKNESS CAN BE MADE. WOULD APPRECIATE ONE HOUR OF COCKPIT FAMILIARIZATION AND TOUCH AND GOES.


D. AIRCRAFT SHOULD BE AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY ON ARRIVAL OF UNDERSIGNED AT AIRFIELD THEREFORE WILL NEED NAME OF 24 HOURADAY CONTACT OFFICER WITH AUTHORITY TO TRANSFER AIRCRAFT TO UNDERSIGNED AND CLEAR COVERT TAKEOFF.


E. WILL REQUIRE 48 TO 72 HOURS FROM RECEIPT YOUR NOTIFICATION FOR TRAVEL TO AIRFIELD. URGE SOONEST POSSIBLE ACTION YOUR PART.




STACHIEF END


TOP SECRET


LINDBERGH




"Well, it looks as if he's figured out how to take the airplane into Argentina, doesn't it?" Donovan asked. "Can we handle what he wants, painting it?"


"That shouldn't pose a problem," Graham said.


"He wants it painted. Painted red. 'Beechcraft Stagger-wing Red.' That's a color? What the hell's that all about?"


"I have no idea. But I'm sure he has his reasons."


"Wait a minute, " Donovan said. "There was something about that airplane!"


"What about it?'"


"Helen!" Donovan raised his voice. "Can you lay your hands on the file about that airplane we sent to Brazil, Direction of the President?"


Donovan's middle-aged but still very attractive secretary laid a file folder stamped TOP SECRET on his desk two minutes later. Donovan flipped through it quickly.


"Yeah, I knew there was something," he said, a slight triumphant tone in his voice. "It was not a Beechcraft. They couldn't come up with a Beechcraft on such short notice."


"And?"


"When we asked the goddamned Air Corps for an airplane, they said they could give us a C-45. We said fine. Then they said they couldn't give us a C-45, after all, how about a C-56?"


"What's a C-56?" Graham asked. "I can't keep those model numbers straight."


"The Air Corps man I asked," Helen offered, "said they were about the same thing. Both twin-engine small transports."


"How small?" Donovan asked. "Compared to the C-47, for example?"


"Smaller," Helen said. "The Air Corps man, I can't think of his name offhand, he was a brigadier general, it should be in there somewhere, said they were both smaller than the C-47."


"Is that a problem?" Graham asked.


"Not for me, Alex," Donovan said. "For you. You'll have to find this Air Corps general's name, and then, without telling him why, tell him he has to arrange for the Air Corps in Brazil to paint this C-56, or whatever the hell it is, fire-engine red, and then have somebody available around the clock down there who can show Frade how to fly it. But you can't, of course, tell him who Frade is, when he's showing up, or where he's going with the airplane. Good luck!"


"Thank you," Graham said, chuckling.


"I'm not really trying to be funny," Donovan said. "After we go through all this, how do we know that Frade can really fly this airplane? Have you considered that?"


"He's a Marine aviator, Bill," Graham said. "Of course he can fly it!"


"Oh, God!" Donovan groaned. "Get out of here, Alex, and let me do some work."




[THREE]


Above Nueva Helvecia


Uruguay


1105 13 April 1943


Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein turned and looked into the backseat of the Storch to see if Standartenf?hrer Josef Goltz was awake.


He was. He was wearing a gray flight suit, a coverall-like garment that he had reluctantly crawled into at La Palomar airfield an hour and a half before. He had earphones on his head.


Peter gestured with his hand out the window and down. When he saw that Goltz was looking at the small town under their right wing, he picked up his microphone.


"New Switzerland, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Peter said.


It took Goltz some time to locate his microphone and push its transmit button.


"What?"


"New Switzerland, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Peter repeated. "They call it Nueva Helvecia. A little further up the river, there is Nueva Berlin."


Goltz did not seem grateful for this recitation of travel lore.


"How far to Montevideo?" Goltz asked impatiently.


"Approximately fifty-minutes, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Peter replied, then gave in to the impulse and added, "unless we pick up some more headwinds, which may delay us another twenty minutes or so."


There were no headwinds. Peter had invented them for the same reason he'd made a full-flaps, full-power takeoff from La Palomar, which he knew would cause an unpleasant sinking feeling in the Herr Standartenf?hrer's stomach. Likewise, whenever he'd glanced in the rear seat and noticed that the Herr Standartenf?hrer was about to doze off, he'd made sudden small attitude and directional changes that he knew would wake him up.


We would be touching down right about now at Carrasco, Schiesskopf, if you hadn't insisted we fly the overland route.


He'd taken off from La Palomar and headed north—Montevideo was to the east. Avoiding the Restricted Zone around Campo de Mayo, he'd flown over El Tigre and the Delta, then turned east and crossed the Rio Uruguay into Uruguay, south of a small town called Carmelo.


"Have we sufficient fuel?" Goltz asked.


Peter looked at the fuel gauges and did the mental arithmetic. They had at least two hours to make the airfield at Carrasco, ten miles or so east of Montevideo.


"I'm sure we'll make it all right, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Peter said with what he hoped was a detectable lack of conviction in his voice. "But there's nothing to worry about, Herr Standartenf?hrer. I can set this thing down almost anywhere, on the road or in a field."


He then picked up his chart and studied it carefully—and wholly unnecessarily. He was going to use Uruguay's Route Nacionale Number One, below him, to find Montevideo. But with a little bit of luck, Herr Schiesskopf might think they were lost.


When he lined up with the one paved runway of Carrasco's airfield, it occurred to Peter that this was the ninth time he had been to Uruguay. But it would be the first time—Goltz said he was going to spend the night—that he would be able to see more of it than the airport.


Most of his previous flights had been to deliver or pick up a diplomatic pouch or other correspondence between the Embassy in Buenos Aires and the German Embassy here. There had been only a few passengers. Most of the Embassy staff of sufficient importance to have access to the Storch preferred the comfort of the overnight ship to Montevideo to the un-upholstered backseat of the Storch. Always before, Peter had landed at Carrasco, turned over or picked up his cargo, refueled, and flown back to Buenos Aires.


The Condor Dieter von und zu Aschenburg had flown in on Friday carried a pouch for the German Embassy in Montevideo. Ordinarily, Peter would have flown it across the river the same day; but Gradny-Sawz's insistence that Peter attend the services for Oberst Frade had delayed that until today. That pouch was now under Goltz's seat. And tomorrow, when he returned to Buenos Aires, he would almost certainly have a pouch—two or more pouches, he hoped, heavy ones that he could look at with great concern as Goltz watched—to take to Buenos Aires and put aboard the Condor when it returned to Germany tomorrow afternoon.


He taxied to the terminal, and Uruguayan Customs and Immigration officers came out to the plane. There was no problem. They had diplomatic status and were immune to all local laws.


"Your orders, Herr Standartenf?hrer?" Peter asked as he waited for Goltz to take off the flight suit.


"What do you normally do, von Wachtstein?"


"Ordinarily, Herr Standartenf?hrer, I exchange packages with whoever comes out here from the Embassy, refuel the aircraft, and fly back to Buenos Aires."


"So you will need someplace to stay tonight, is that it?"


"Oberst Gr?ner suggested I stay at the Casino Hotel here in Carrasco, Herr Standartenf?hrer."


"And the diplomatic pouch, what do you plan to do with that?"


"Ordinarily, Herr Standartenf?hrer, someone from the Embassy is here to take it off my hands."


"I wish I had given thought to that damned pouch before this," Goltz said. "Arranged for someone to meet you here."


"Is there a problem, Herr Standartenf?hrer?"


"I hadn't planned to visit the Embassy. My business here is with the Security Officer of the Embassy, an old friend. My plan was to conduct our business at his home, and then spend the night with him."


"I'm sure I could take a taxi to the Embassy, Herr Standartenf?hrer, and then another to the Casino Hotel, if that meets with your approval."


"No. I know what to do. I'll telephone him that I'm here. He will come out to meet me. Presumably, you can turn over the pouch to him?"


"To the Security Officer? Of course, Herr Standartenf?hrer."


"And then he can drop you at the hotel, we can go about our business, and we will pick you up at the hotel in the morning. How does that sound?"


"Whatever the Herr Standartenf?hrer wishes."


"Where is a telephone?"


"Just inside the terminal, Herr Standartenf?hrer."


"Well, I'll make the call, and you do whatever you have to do to the airplane."


"Jawohl, Herr Standartenf?hrer!"


While they waited, Peter took the opportunity to refuel the Storch. As he was doing that, he wondered why Goltz's old friend the Embassy Security Officer, or at least someone from the Embassy, was not waiting for them at the airport when they landed. Thirty minutes later a canary-yellow 1941 Chevrolet convertible, roof down, raced up to the entrance of the terminal building.


A nattily dressed, somewhat portly man in his forties, sporting a neatly manicured full—a la Adolf Hitler—mustache jumped from behind the wheel and walked quickly to Goltz.


"Herr Standartenf?hrer, how good it is to see you!"


"Werner, how are you?" Goltz said, enthusiastically shaking his hand, then asking admiringly, "Where did you get that car?"


"Inge saw it," the portly man said, gesturing to the woman stepping out of the car. "Said it matched her hair, and absolutely had to have it."


"My dear Inge," Goltz said. "As lovely as ever!"


Christ, I know her!


"Josef, how good to see you. Welcome to Uruguay."


"May I present Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein?" Goltz said. "Sturmbannf?hrer von Tresmarck and his lovely bride."


"I believe," Frau von Tresmarck said coyly, "that the Major and I have met. Isn't that so, Herr Major?"


Frau von Tresmarck was a tall, slim blonde perhaps fifteen years younger than her husband.


Indeed, we have met— if memory serves, in the bar at the Hotel am Zoo— and then spent two days in the Hotel am Wansee, leaving bed only to meet the calls of nature. I returned to the Squadron with just barely enough energy to crawl into the cockpit.


"I believe we have, Frau Sturmbannf?hrer," Peter said, bobbing his head and clicking his heels. "I've been trying to recall where."


"Me too," she said. "It'll come to me, where we met."


Peter offered his hand to von Tresmarck, who smiled when he took it but looked at him oddly.


Are you aware, Herr Sturmbannf?hrer, that your wife has probably taken to bed one in four of the fighter pilots in the Luftwaffe? Is that why you're looking at me that way ?


"We have a small problem, Werner," Goltz said. "Von Wachtstein has a pouch for the Embassy, and presumably there will be another for him to take back to Buenos Aires tomorrow. . . ."


"That shouldn't be a problem, Josef," Inge von Tresmarck said. "When we reach the house, Werner can call the Embassy and have someone come for it."


"Unfortunately, Inge," Goltz said, "arrangements have been made for von Wachtstein to stay at the Casino Hotel. He has business of his own to transact."


You either know the Gn?dige Frau von Tresmarck fucks like a mink and are trying to avoid Inge and me causing a social problem, or you don't want me around with you and von Tresmarck. One or the other. Or both.


"What a pity," Inge said.


"I can take the pouch off your hands, von Wachtstein," von Tresmarck said. "And we can drop you at the Casino Hotel. It's not far from here."


"You're very kind, Herr Sturmbannf?hrer."


"And we'll work out how to deal with the outgoing pouch sometime today," Goltz said.


"I am at your orders, Herr Standartenf?hrer."


Peter took the receipt form for the pouch from his jacket pocket and gave it to von Tresmarck to sign. When he put the signed receipt in his pocket, he saw that Inge had climbed back into the car, into the rear seat.


"My dear Inge," Goltz said, "I will ride in the back with von Wachtstein."


"No, you're our honored guest," Inge said.


Von Tresmarck gave Peter another strange look as he climbed in the back with Inge.


As soon as they were moving, Inge slid forward on her seat and rested her elbows on the back of the seat between her husband and Goltz.


"I can't tell you how delighted I am to see you, Josef," she said. "Now, don't go running to the Ambassador to tell him I said this, but those Foreign Ministry people are dull, dull, dull."


"This isn't Berlin, is it?"


"And one feels ... oh, I don't know how to say this, and I know Werner is doing important things, but I feel. . . guilty I guess is the word . . . guilty about being away from the home front, where I could do something for the cause!"


"But my dear Inge," Goltz said. "You are doing something for the cause! Your very presence here helps Werner in the accomplishment of his responsibilities."


"I wish I could do more," Inge said.


She pushed herself off the seat back and slid back into the rear seat. The fingers of her right hand moved slowly and provocatively up Peter's leg.


With a little bit of luck, we are almost at the Casino Hotel and I can bidauf wedersehn to the lovely Frau Sturmbannf?hrer von Tresmarck before anything happens.


Ten minutes later, after passing through a residential area that reminded Peter of the Zehlendorf section of Berlin, they came to a large, ornate, stone, balconied, turn-of-the-century building. It sat alone, where three streets converged in a half-circle.


"There it is!" Inge announced, squeezed his inner thigh almost painfully, and withdrew her hand.


As von Tresmarck drove up to the main entrance, Peter saw a sandy beach and a large body of water on the other side of a four-lane divided highway.


Muddy brown water, which probably means that's still the Rio de la Plata.


A doorman and a bellboy—a boy; he looked about twelve or thirteen— came down the wide marble stairs to the car.


Goltz opened his door for Peter to get out, and von Tresmarck went to the trunk to reclaim Peter's small canvas bag.


"I will leave word what time I'll be here in the morning," Goltz said.


"Thank you, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Peter said, and clicked his heels. "And thank you, Sturmbannf?hrer." Von Tresmarck nodded but did not say anything. "It was a pleasure to see you again, Frau Sturmbannf?hrer," Peter concluded, clicked his heels again, and marched up the stairs after the bellboy.


He did not look back at the car.


The lobby of the hotel was crowded with well-fed, well-dressed, prosperous-appearing people. There seemed to be fewer blond, fair-skinned people here than in Buenos Aires, but he wondered if this was just his imagination.


He was shown to a suite on the second floor, a foyer, a sitting room and room with a large double bed. When he opened the vertical blinds, he saw there was a balcony overlooking the water. He went out on it.


A few moments later he left the room, descending to the main-floor corridor by a wide flight of carpeted marble stairs, rather than by the elevator. He had just decided that the place reminded him somewhat of the gambling casino in Baden-Baden when, glancing down a side corridor, he saw the hotel casino.


He went in. He was not a gambler, but he was curious. Three-quarters of the casino's tables were in use. He watched roulette for a few minutes, then baccarat, and that was enough.


When he left the casino, he passed through the hotel dining room, which was in the center of the building. It was a large, somewhat dark room from whose three-story-high ceiling hung four enormous crystal chandeliers. There was a grand piano at one end of the room, beside the bar, and a pianist was playing Johann Strauss. The bar was crowded.


A headwaiter offered him a table but he declined.


He left the hotel and walked around the street across from it. The smell of burning beef caught his nostrils, and he followed it to a small restaurant where an amazing amount of beef was cooking over glowing wood ashes.


He had a steak, french fried potatoes, a tomato and lettuce salad, and washed it down with a bottle of the local beer. He was surprised that the bill was so small.


On the way back to the hotel he stopped at a newsstand, where there was an array of American magazines. There was nothing in German except for yesterday's Buenos Aires Frei Post. He bought copies of Time, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, and a man's magazine, with a racy picture of a woman in a bathing suit on the cover, called Esquire.


He carried them back to the Casino Hotel, nobly decided against quenching the thirst his first beer had caused by having a second in the bar, and walked back up the stairs and down the wide corridors to his suite.


There, he called room service and ordered three bottles of the local beer on ice in a wine cooler. That much beer would last him until he finished reading the magazines. By then it would be time for supper. He would then go back to the small restaurant, have another steak and perhaps another beer. He would then return to the hotel stuffed and sleepy.


He took off his trousers and shirt and hung them neatly in the closet beside his jacket. He jerked the bedspread off the bed, arranged pillows against the headboard, took off his shoes and socks, laid the magazines out, and settled himself comfortably in the bed to wait for room service.


The knock came just as he opened Esquire.


"Come," he said as he reached for the money on the bedside table to tip the waiter.


"You must have been rather sure that I would come!" Inge von Tresmarck called from the door.


He turned to look at her.


"The last thing I expected you to do was come," he said, truthfully.


"But you are glad to see me?"


"Delighted," he lied.


She walked to the bed and sat down on it. She laid her hand on the magazines.


"You really didn't expect me, did you?"


"No. What about your husband?"


"I don't think we have to worry about him," Inge said. "Not this afternoon, anyway. They went right in Werner's study and closed the door."


"They may have already opened the door and are wondering where you are."


"I'm shopping," she said. "Where else would I be?"


"Your husband looked at me strangely at the airport."


"Werner looks that way at every good-looking young man," she said.


There was a knock at the door.


"Oh, you were expecting someone," Inge said petulantly. "Not me. But someone''


"That's probably my beer."


"Your beer?”


"I ordered beer."


"Well, let him in, and order champagne," she said. "I don't drink beer. Don't you remember?"


She stood up and walked to the bathroom.


"Come!" Peter ordered.


A waiter entered carrying three bottles of beer in an ice-filled silver cooler.


"I've changed my mind," Peter said. "What I really need is a bottle of champagne. Is that going to cause any problem?"


"No, Se?or," the waiter said, and walked to the desk, taking from it a leather-bound wine list. He opened it and handed it to Peter.


Over the waiter's shoulder, Peter could see Inge in the bathroom. Smiling naughtily, she was working her skirt down over her hips.


He didn't recognize one name among the twenty different champagnes on the list. He ordered by price, selecting one twice as expensive as the cheapest listed, but considerably cheaper than the most expensive.


Inge ducked behind the bathroom door a split second before the waiter turned to leave. When she heard the door close, she reappeared, now naked, posing in the door with her hand on her hip.


He felt a stirring in his groin.


She is a good-looking woman. And it is apparently true that a stiff prick has no conscience.


"Please tell me you don't think I'm fat," she said.


"I don't think you're fat," Peter said. "Foolish, perhaps, but not fat."


"Why foolish?" she said, walking to the bed.


"You have a husband," Peter said. "I would guess a jealous husband."


She sat down on the bed and rested her hand on his leg, just below his shorts.


"Werner worries that I will succumb to the attentions of some tall, dark, and very rich Uruguayan rancher, and that there would be talk," Inge said. "There aren't very many blondes here, and a great many tall, dark, and very rich Uruguayan ranchers seem to be fascinated with us."


Her hand moved under his shorts.


"Oh, you are glad to see me, aren't you? I wasn't really sure."


"I don't know how soon the waiter will be back with the champagne," Peter said.


"I don't want to start something and then be interrupted," she said. "So we will just tease each other until the waiter comes and goes."


She moved her hand on him, then took it out of his shorts.


"Tell me about Werner," Peter said. "Was he around when we knew each other?"


"He's been around forever," she said. "He used to work for Goltz in the Office of the Reichsprotektor."


"You were married to him?"


"No. Let me think. Was I? No, I wasn't. I was then Frau Obersturmbannf?hrer (The SS rank equivalent to lieutenant colonel) Kolbermann," she said. "I would have thought I would have told you about Erich."


"You didn't."


"Erich was then on the Eastern Front with the Waffen-SS"—the military branch of the SS—"He was killed shortly before von Paulus surrendered the Sixth Army at Stalingrad."


"I'm sorry."


"I needed another husband, of course," Inge said, matter-of-factly. "Someone who could keep me out of the hands of the Labor Ministry."


"Excuse me?"


Inge lay down on the bed beside him.


"Liebchen, do I look like the sort of girl who should spend ten hours a day sewing shoes together—or worse, in a shoe factory?"


"No, you don't," Peter said, chuckling.


"I was safe for a while," Inge explained. "Daddy had me on the payroll at the mills. I was 'constructively employed in industry essential to the war effort.'


Then the mills were bombed out, and Albert Speer (Reichs minister for Armaments and War Production) decided they weren't worth rebuilding. Which put Daddy and me on the 'available labor' list. Daddy—who doesn't know the first thing about steel; he spent his entire life at the mills—was sent to the Saar, where he's living in one room and working as sort of a clerk in the Kruppwerke. The Labor Ministry ordered me to report to Gebruder Pahlenberg Schuhfabrik in Potsdam as a 'trainee.'"


"What kind of a trainee?"


"I never found out. Erich came along right then and swept me off my feet— he was on a twenty-day furlough from the east. A whirlwind romance. He had friends in the police side of the SS who could deal with the Labor Ministry. The wife of a Waffen-SS Obersturmbannf?hrer heroically serving the Fatherland on the Eastern Front certainly could not be expected to do something as undignified as working in a shoe factory. It would be terrible for his morale."


"An older man, was he?" Peter asked.


"Older than you and me, Liebchen, younger than Werner. Actually, he was rather nice. I felt sorry for him. He was a Hamburger, and had lost his wife and two children in the bombing. And his apartment, too, of course."


"Why the older men?"


"Well, for one thing, younger men tend to be lieutenants and captains— you're an exception, of course, Peter. And they don't seem to be able to afford drinking at the Hotel am Zoo, much less to take on the responsibility of a wife with expensive tastes."


"And Werner can, I gather?"


"I don't think he really could," Inge said. "Now, of course, it's different."


"How?" Peter asked.


There came another knock at the door.


"Ah, the champagne," Inge said, "that was quick."


She jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom. Peter went to the door, took the champagne in its cooler and two glasses from the waiter, and signed for it, without letting the waiter into the room.


Inge came out of the bathroom as he was unwinding the wire around the cork.


"The champagne's not bad here," she said. "The wine's very nice. And the food is marvelous!"


"I've noticed," Peter said.


He worked the cork out with his thumb, and poured champagne into the glasses.


"I would have preferred to marry someone like you," she said. "But you weren't available, were you?"


"No, I wasn't."


"You were my first failure," she said. "Perhaps that's why I was—am—so fascinated with you."


"How a failure?"


"You didn't fall in love with me, and beg me to be faithful to you when you went back to the war."


"Everybody else did?"


"Everybody else I took to the Hotel am Wansee did," she said. "I saved the Wansee for special people."


"I thought I took you to the Hotel am Wansee," he said.


"You usually took girls from the Hotel am Zoo to the Hotel am Wansee?"


"Only special girls," Peter said. "From the am Zoo and the Adlon."


"Was I special for you?"


"Of course."


"No, I mean, really special?"


"Of course really special."


"Tell me the truth, Peter. Was that why you loaned me the money? Because I was special?"


What money? I loaned her money? I don't remember that.


"I'm going to pay you back," Inge said. "That's the first thing I thought when I saw you. No. The second thing. The first thing was, 'Ach du lieber Gott, that's Peter. And he's alive. And here.' The second thing was, ‘I can repay the loan.'"


"I don't remember a loan, Inge," Peter said. "Truthfully, I don't."


"You probably thought of it as a payment," she said. "I showed you a good time, and then I asked for a loan, and you 'loaned it' to me."


"I really don't recall anything about money," he said. "But if I did, forget it."


"No. I'll pay you back," she said. "It's important to me. If we're going to be here for a long, long time—and thank God, it looks like we will be—I don't want you looking across a dinner table at me ten, fifteen years from now and thinking, 'That old woman was once an amateur prostitute I took to the Hotel am Wansee. I say amateur prostitute because she didn't ask for the money first, the way a professional prostitute would. She asked for a 'loan' afterward, complete with a complicated explanation of her financial predicament.'"


"Your apartment had been burned out," Peter said, remembering. "You couldn't go to the housing people for another one, because you didn't have permission to live in Berlin. You did know a place you could get on the black market, but you didn't have quite all the money you needed. . . ."


"I needed five thousand Reichsmarks," she said. "And you gave me a check."


You're right,Peter thought, remembering. I did think you were an amateur prostitute. And I felt sorry for you for having been forced into it by the war — and that was when I was having a premonition of death about once a week — so I wrote you a check, thinking I wouldn't need the money anyway.


"I didn't think you were a prostitute, Inge, amateur or otherwise," Peter said. "I thought you were a nice girl, alone, and in trouble. And I had the money, so I gave it to you. Loaned it to you."


"See?" she said. "You said 'gave' and then corrected yourself. You did think I was a prostitute, didn't you?"


"I told you what I thought."


"You never thought you'd see the money again, did you?" Inge said. "Tell the truth, Peter!"


"I didn't care if I did or not," Peter said. "And I don't care now."


"Why, then, did you think I let you pick me up? And take you to the Hotel am Wansee?"


"I thought you were dazzled by the Knight's Cross," Peter said, truthfully.


Later, when you asked for the loan, I thought you were an amateur prostitute. That was not good for my ego. Fighter pilots aren’t supposed to pay whores. So I forgot it.


"When I thought about you—and I often thought about you—I used to think that it wasn't your medal that dazzled me, or the aristocratic 'von,' or even your looks, but the fact that the bartender served you French cognac from an unmarked decanter kept under the bar and normally reserved for generals. That meant you were somebody special—the bartenders there are notorious snobs— and that was what attracted me to you."


"Really?" Peter asked. The conversation was beginning to make him uncomfortable.


"But today, on the way from the airport, I realized that wasn't it at all."


"Wasn't it?"


What the hell is she talking about?


"It was subconscious," she said. "It was because we were two of a kind."


What the hell does that mean ?


"Two of what kind?"


"Survivors," she said. "I sensed you were a survivor, too. And I was right, wasn't I? We're both here, aren't we? We're among the first survivors."


"The first survivors of what?"


"The Thousand Year Reich, of course," Inge said. "That's why I finally married Werner. There were practical considerations, of course. He told me he was being assigned here, and I think I would have married a gorilla if he promised to take me somewhere away from the bombing, somewhere with fresh eggs and meat with no ration coupon, somewhere warm. But the real reason was that I sensed—this subconscious thing—that Werner was also a survivor."


"Werner's a survivor?" Peter asked.


"If he wasn't a survivor, Liebchen, Werner would be in Sachsenhausen wearing a pink triangle, (Homosexuals in concentration camps were required to wear a pink triangle affixed to their clothing in the same manner as Jews were required to wear a yellow six-pointed star) instead of in Montevideo making himself rich getting Jews out of Sachsenhausen."


What did she say, "making himself rich getting Jews out of Sachsenhausen"?


"Werner's a little light on his feet?" Peter asked, as nonchalantly as he could.


She nodded.


"Do you think Goltz knows?"


"Of course he does," Inge said. "That's why Werner is here."


"I don't understand that."


"You can trust someone who knows you know you have something on him that can send him to the gas chambers," Inge said. "What does Herr Standartenf?hrer Goltz have on you, Peter? Or is it the other way around?"


"I don't have anything on him, God knows, and I don't think he has anything on me."


"Then how are you involved in this?"


"In what?"


"I hope you're being discreet," she said.


"Discreet about what?"


Inge looked at him intensely for a long moment.


"You don't know, do you?" she asked. "God, I think I'm going to be sick to my stomach!"


"I don't know about what?"


"Peter, tell me honestly—look into my eyes—what are you doing in Montevideo?"


"I flew Goltz here in the Embassy Storch," Peter replied. "In addition to my other duties, I'm the Storch pilot."


"And you don't know what Goltz is doing here?" she asked.


"Haven't the foggiest idea."


"You do know who Goltz is?"


"He's the liaison officer between Reichsprotektor Himmler and Parteileiter Mart?n Bormann."


"Would you believe me if I told you that if one word I said about Werner being pink, or Goltz knowing it, not to mention about Jews and Sachsenhausen, got back to Goltz, you and I would be dead?"


"Yes," Peter said simply. "I'm aware that Goltz is a very dangerous man."


"I can't believe I have been this stupid," Inge said. "I simply presumed . . . How did you get out of Germany?"


"An Argentine officer, an observer with von Paulus, was killed at Stalingrad. I brought his body home. And was assigned as Assistant Attach? for Air at the Embassy."


She looked intently into his eyes, and then he saw something in them. "You told me your father was a general, didn't you?"


"I don't remember if I did or not," he said.


"Is he?" Peter nodded.


"Where is he stationed?"


"With the OKW."


"All right. He got you out of Germany. Maybe he has something on Goltz." "I can't imagine what that could be."


"Then maybe Goltz has plans for you here, using your father in Germany to make sure you do what you're told."


"Aren't you being just a little melodramatic?"


"When I came here with Werner, Herr Standartenf?hrer Goltz told me that if I went an inch out of line, the next I would hear from my father would be one of those postcards saying Reichsprotektor Himmler desired to inform me my father had died of pneumonia in Sachsenhausen."


"You didn't think coming to my room was out of line?" Peter asked. "He wasn't talking about my sex life, so long as I don't make Werner look like a fool. He was talking about. . ."


"Making yourself rich getting Jews out of Sachsenhausen?" Peter asked.


"You'll get us both killed, Peter, and my father killed, and maybe even yours, if you ever let those words out of your mouth again. Here, or anywhere else. Do you understand that?"


"Yes. We never had any of this conversation. You were never here." She shook her head.


"I was here. I may have been followed. Or the car was seen. If I'm asked, I'll say I was here. And you too."


"All right," Peter said. "So what do we do now?"


She turned and took the bottle of champagne from the cooler, filled her glass, and walked to the bed.


"What do you think we do now, Liebchen?" Inge asked. She got into the bed, rested her back against the headboard, met Peter's eyes, and deliberately tilted the champagne glass and spilled champagne down her breast.


"Remember this, Peter?" she asked, and motioned for him to come to her.




Chapter Sixteen




[ONE]


Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo


Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province


0230 14 April 1943


The lights went on in the apartment of el Patron, startling him. He sat up quickly in bed and saw Chief Schultz and Enrico.


"You scared the hell out of me," Clete confessed. "What's up?"


"You got a reply on the oh one thirty call," Chief Schultz said. "Should I have waited until morning?"


"No, of course not," Clete said, pushing himself up against the headboard and reaching for the sheet of paper Schultz extended to him.




TOP SECRET LINDBERGH


URGENT


DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN


MSG NO 2545 DDWHO 1650 GREENWICH 13APR43


PROM ORACLE WASHDC


TO STACRTEF AGGIE


REFERENCE YOUR NO. 0002


1. ORACLE DIRECTS YOU FURNISH QUICKEST MEANS IDENTITY CAVALRY AND GALAHAD AND PROVIDE REASONS YOU BELIEVE THEY HAVE ACCESS TO INTELLIGENCE DESCRIBED.


2. AIRCRAFT (HEREAFTER PARROT) WILL BE AVAILABLE PORTO ALEGRE BRAZIL AIR STATION (HEREAFTER BIRDCAGE) AFTER 1700 GREENWICH 16 APR43. COLONEL J.B. WALLACE USAAC USAAC (HEREAFTER BIRDDOG) WILL RELEASE PARROT TO YOU ON YOUR FURNISHING HIM YOUR NEW ORLEANS TELEPHONE NUMBER.


3. BIRDDOG ADVISES PARROT WILL BE MARKED AS REQUESTED AND PAINTED APPROXIMATELY DESIRED COLOR; HAS 1600 MILE RANGE; CIVILIAN ONLY REPEAT CIVILIAN ONLY RADIO AND NAVIGATION SYSTEM. REQUESTED ON SITE TRAINING AVAILABLE FOR YOU AND COPILOT.


4. ADVISE UNDERSIGNED QUICKEST MEANS WHEN PARROT MOVEMENT COMMENCED AND COMPLETED.




GRAHAM END




"Looks like you got your airplane, Major," Chief Schultz said when Clete looked up at him.


"All I have to do is fly it into Argentina from Porto Alegre, wherever the hell that is, right?"


"It's on the Atlantic Coast, maybe a third of the way between Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo," Schultz said. "I got a chart."


He handed it to Clete.


"Is that typewriter still in there?" Clete asked, jerking his thumb toward the sitting room of the apartment.


Schultz nodded.


"Do me a favor, Chief," Clete said, swinging his feet out of bed. "While I'm getting dressed and Enrico is going to get Capitan Delgano out of bed, extract enough from this message so that I can show it to Delgano without telling him anything that's none of his business."


"Aye, aye, Sir."


"Be so kind as to present my compliments to el Capitan Delgano, Suboficial Mayor," Clete said. "And ask him to join me at his earliest convenience."


“S?, mi Mayor," Enrico said, smiling.


"See if you can rustle up some coffee on your way," Clete added.


"Coffee, mi Mayor? Not chocolate?"


"I'm glad you thought of that, Enrico. I'm jumpy enough the way I am. I don't need any coffee. Chocolate, please."


"Chocolate for me too, please, Enrico," Schultz said. "I can't handle Argentine coffee."


Enrico shook his head in disbelief and then followed Schultz out of the bedroom.


Clete went into the bathroom and took a quick shower, hoping it would wake him up.


When he came out, Schultz had already finished the extract. Clete read it, then started to get dressed.




AIRCRAFT AVAILABLE AT PORTO ALEGRE BRAZIL NAVAL AIR STATION AFTER 1200 LOCAL TIME 16 APR 1943


AIRCRAFT HAS ARGENTINE REGISTRY NUMBERS FURNISHED AND IS PAINTED SAME COLOR AS STAGGERWING.


AIRCRAFT HAS 1600 MILE RANGE AND CIVILIAN ONLY RADIO AND NAVIGATION SYSTEM.


REQUESTED ON SITE TRAINING AVAILABLE FOR YOU AND COPILOT.




"I didn't know if you were planning on taking Delgano with you or not, is why I left that training business in."


"This is just what I wanted, Chief," Clete said. "And I'm not taking Delgano with me. He's an Argentine intelligence officer. Getting the airplane is a temporary truce, nothing more. I'm sure he would be fascinated to have a look at a Brazilian Navy Base. And I don't want to piss the Brazilians off by bringing an Argentine officer with me. If I didn't have to, I wouldn't even let him know where the airplane is."


"You don't need him to help you fly it?"


"No. It's not much of an airplane. A little twin-engine aerial taxi, is all it is. I can handle it by myself."


"How about navigating it by yourself? I could go along with you."


"You stay here and make sure Ettinger stays here," Clete said. "But thanks for the offer, Chief."


Schultz shrugged to indicate thanks were not required, then asked, "While we're waiting for Delgano, you want to write your reply to the message?"


"No big deal. The next time you're in contact, tell them I expect to be at Porto Alegre shortly after the airplane is ready."


"What I meant is that they want you to identify Galahad and Cavalry," Schultz said. " 'Quickest means' is what they said."


"I'm not going to identify them," Clete said. "I don't want to run the risk of having either of them exposed."


"The Luftwaffe guy and Colonel Martin, right?"


Clete didn't answer.


"Mr. Frade, I work for you," Schultz said. "That was just to keep things straight in my mind. If anybody else asks me, I don't have a clue who Galahad and Cavalry are."


"How did you pick up on Martin?"


"I figured it had to be either him or Captain Lauffer, but Delgano works for Mart?n. Two and two usually makes four."


"Usually," Clete said, chuckling.


"I don't think you can just ignore them," Schultz said. "I think you have to tell them you have reasons not to identify them."


"You really think so?"


"Either that or make up names," Schultz said.


"Oh, shit," Clete said, and walked out of the bedroom and sat down in front of the typewriter. He rolled a sheet of paper into the machine and looked thoughtful for a long moment. Then he typed a single sentence, tore the paper from the machine, and handed it to Schultz.


Regret that to obtain absolutely reliable intelligence from galahad and cavalry it was necessary to give my word of honor that their identities will not be furnished to third parties.


"You really want me to send this?" Schultz said, chuckling.


"It's more polite than 'fuck you, I ain't gonna tell you,' isn't it? Send it word for word."


"Aye, aye, Sir."


A sleepy-eyed maid entered the room carrying pots and cups and saucers. A moment later, Capitan Delgano, in a bathrobe, and Enrico came in.


Clete handed him the extract Schultz had prepared.


"I would prefer to discuss this subject in private, Se?or Frade," Delgano said.


"I prefer that Chief Schultz stay," Clete said. "Sorry."


"Very well," Delgano said. "I rather suspected the aircraft would be at Porto Alegre. It's a major Brazilian base, and both U.S. Navy and Army Air Corps units are stationed there."


"Is that so?"


"With that in mind, I did a little preliminary planning," Delgano said. "May I show you on the map?"


"Of course."


Delgano laid Chief Schultz's map on the desk beside the typewriter and pointed with his finger.


"This is Santo Tome, in Corrientes Province," he said. Christ, Graham said Corrientes Province is where they 're going to infiltrate the new team into Uruguay!


"It's across the Rio Uruguay from Sao Borja, Brazil. It's approximately five hundred fifty kilometers from Porto Alegre to Santo Tome. Since your aircraft has a range of sixteen hundred miles, we should have no difficulty—"


"Wait a minute," Clete said. "Now that I think of it, I don't think the C-45 has a sixteen-hundred-mile range. That's probably a typo. A thousand seems more like it, and it may be as little as six hundred."


"Six hundred miles seems a short range for a transport aircraft," Delgano said.


"It's not a transport aircraft," Clete said. "It's a liaison aircraft, a small twin-engine aerial taxi."


Delgano looked at him dubiously. "In any event, even if it has a range of only six hundred miles it's no problem. Six hundred miles is nearly a thousand kilometers. We should have no trouble making it."


"I'm going alone, Capitan Delgano," Clete interrupted. "There's no way I'm taking you to Brazil with me."


Delgano considered that for a moment.


"In that case, actually," he said finally, "things may be less complicated than I thought at first. Let's talk about Santo Tome."


"Why Santo Tome?" Clete asked. "Why couldn't I just fly directly here?"


"Across Uruguay?"


Clete nodded.


"It would be better to avoid crossing Uruguay at all," Delgano said. "The Uruguayans patrol their border with Brazil, and we patrol our border with Uruguay, at least in the Rio de la Plata estuary. Your chances of being detected would be far less if you crossed directly from Brazil into Argentina, and into Corrientes Province, not into Entre Rios or Buenos Aires Province."


That's the reason Graham ordered the team to be infiltrated through Corrientes Province. They'll probably have to paddle across the river, but the idea is the same, less chance of being caught crossing the border.


"OK," Clete said. "Tell me about Santo Tome."


"The Second Cavalry Regiment is stationed at Santo Tome," Delgano said. "The commanding officer is a member of Grupo de Oficiales Unidos. More important, there is an airfield, of sorts, there."


"Of sorts?"


"When your father was a teniente coronel, Mayor Frade, he was the Deputy Commander of the Second Cavalry. It is a tradition that an officer serves as the Deputy Commander of the First or Second Cavalry Regiments before being promoted coronel."


"Is that so?"


"'Santo Tome,' your father used to say, 'is two hundred kilometers from nowhere.' It was during his assignment at Santo Tome that he became very interested in the potential value to the army of liaison and observation aircraft. It was by then generally understood that he would be promoted, as in fact he was—when he assumed command of the Husares de Pueyrred?n. Thus, when he requested that an airstrip be built at Santo Tome, and that an Army aircraft be assigned to the Second Cavalry for experimental purposes, the request was granted. An Army aircraft, a Piper Cub, incidentally, was assigned to the Second Cavalry, together with a pilot—me—and a small detachment of mechanics. "Under my supervision, a dirt field was laid out adjacent to the Second Cavalry barracks. At your father's 'suggestion,' the runway was made somewhat longer than it had to be to accommodate a Piper Cub. He wanted it long enough for a Beech stagger-wing to use it safely. He had just purchased such an aircraft, and it was en route from the United States. When he was summoned to the Edificio Libertador, it would permit him to travel to Buenos Aires in a matter of hours, instead of the twelve or fourteen hours the trip took by automobile, or the overnight trip by train."


"The Army went along with this?" Clete asked. Delgano nodded.


"And you were the pilot of the stagger-wing?"


"The delivery pilot from Beech taught me how to fly the stagger-wing," Delgano said. "And I also found myself flying one of the Piper Cubs your father kept on his estancia—San Miguel—near Posadas."


"What was that all about?"


"Your father found the quarters provided at Santo Tome for the Deputy Commander of the Second Cavalry inadequate. He spent his weekends—the weekends he did not spend in Buenos Aires or here—at Estancia San Miguel."


"Was this before or after you went to work for Coronel Martin?"


"El Coronel Mart?n assumed his duties after your father was promoted and had assumed command of the Husares de Pueyrred?n," Delgano said. "I had worked for the man he replaced."


"In other words, you were spying on my father all the time?"


"I prefer to think of it as performing my duties as an officer of the Bureau of Internal Security," Delgano said. "Your father came to understand that, Mayor Frade."


"OK," Clete said after a moment. "So this airfield you built so my father could spend his weekends in Buenos Aires is still there?"


"It was not used much after your father was promoted and transferred, but it is still there. Recently, the commanding officer was told to make sure it is still capable of accommodating an aircraft such as the stagger-wing."


"When was he told this?"


"Immediately after we came to our understanding of the terms under which you are importing the aircraft from Brazil."


I get it. If the coup d’?tat fails, Delgano will fly Ramirez, Rawson, and the others in my airplane to this airstrip— which will be in the hands of the Second Cavalry. It will then be refueled and flown either into Brazil or, more likely, into Paraguay.


"In other words—"


"I think you understand the situation, Mayor Frade. I don't think we have to discuss the specifics."


"What about fuel?" Clete asked.


"That's been taken care of," Delgano said. "I'm suggesting that you and I drive to Santo Tome today. It's fifteen or sixteen hours from here . . ." "I have business in Buenos Aires today."


"The overnight train leaves Buenos Aires at tenp.m. and arrives in Santo Tome the next morning at nine. Can you finish your business in Buenos Aires in time to take the train?"


"Yes."


"Very well. I will drive to Santo Tome. Tonight. It's already morning, isn't it? When we finish here. I will meet your train at Santo Tome and take you out to the Second Cavalry. You and I will inspect the airstrip and ensure that the fuel is there. I will then take you to the ferry across the Rio Uruguay. I think I can pass you through Customs and Immigration without having your passport stamped, or any questions being asked. It would then be up to you to travel from Sao Borja to Porto Alegre. Would that pose any problem?"


"No," Clete said. "Wait. I'll need some Brazilian money."


"I'll have that for you in Santo Tome. I suggest you buy a ticket to Posadas and make the announcement you're bound for Estancia San Miguel, which is near Posadas, and then simply leave the train at Santo Tome."


"OK," Clete said. "I don't suppose this airstrip at Santo Tome is lighted?"


"The Brazilians, I gather, will not be aware of your flight? You have to cross the border in the hours of darkness?" Delgano asked.


Clete nodded.


"No, it's not lighted," Delgano said. "I will have a fire, in the shape of an arrow, burning during hours of darkness. When you overfly the arrow, I will have the gasoline lights ignited. We can go over this in detail together in Santo Tome."


"OK."


"Is that it for now?" Delgano said.


"I think so," Clete said.


"Anything you need me to do, Mr. Frade?" Chief Schultz asked.


"Send that radio we talked about," Clete said. "And make sure Ettinger stays here."


"Aye, aye, Sir."




[TWO]


1728 Avenida Coronel Diaz


Palermo, Buenos Aires


0815 14 April 1943


By coincidence, Clete happened to be about to descend the wide marble staircase from the "first" floor—in the States, it would be the second—to the foyer of The Museum when he saw Antonio start to open the front door, apparently in response to a ringing in the kitchen, or someplace, that Clete had not heard.


Clete stopped to see who it was. If it was not Tony and Delojo, he was going to turn and get out of sight.


It was Tony and Delojo, both in civilian clothing.


Tony looks pretty classy,Clete thought a little smugly.


In Washington, after he learned that Tony's idea of "dress-up" clothing was a two-tone jacket, pastel-colored trousers, and a colored shirt worn tieless, with its collar spread over the two-tone jacket collar, Clete took him to the Men's Store in Woodward and Lothrop and supervised the purchase of his wardrobe. Tony was now wearing a single-breasted gray flannel suit, a white, button-down-collar shirt, and a red-striped necktie.


His suit fits better than Delojo's.


"Up here," Clete called, adding to Antonio, "Bring us some coffee and rolls, will you, please?"


Tony came bounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time.


When Clete had knocked at his door in La Boca an hour before, Tony was awake, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Then Clete had the somewhat unkind thought that Tony, like a good paratrooper, has been up since oh dark hundred and has run five miles and done a hundred and fifty squat jumps before he even thought about breakfast.


Commander Delojo walked up the stairs one at a time, a wan smile on his face, looking like someone who had just reluctantly left his bed, showered, and shaved.


"You look like an advertisement in Esquire, Tony," Clete said.


"I see you took off your cowboy suit, Major, Sir."


"I had no choice. I am meeting my mother-in-law-to-be for lunch," Clete said, then offered his hand to Delojo. "Good morning, Commander. I ordered coffee. Would you like something else? It's no problem."


"Coffee will be fine, thank you, Frade," Delojo said. "I don't think we were followed, but. . ."


"There's a couple of BIS guys in an apartment across the street," Clete said. "Go on the presumption that they will know you two have been here."


"I don't understand. Shouldn't we have met someplace—"


"There would have been BIS agents on each of us. I don't think we could lose all of them. So why bother to try?"


He led them into the master's apartment.


"We can talk here," he said. "There are no microphones."


"How do you know that?" Delojo challenged.


"Enrico found the one cleverly concealed in the chandelier," Clete said. "And tells me there's no other place they could put one."


"Whose microphone?"


"Probably the BIS's," Clete said. "Tony said you wanted to talk to me."


Delojo looked dubiously around the room.


"I wish I shared your faith in your man's ability to sweep a room," he said.


"What's up?" Clete said impatiently.


"The team chief has been successfully infiltrated across the Rio Uruguay into a town called Santo Tome, in Corrientes Province."


"Just the team chief?"


"It's a five-man team. The team chief infiltrated. Two more men are in a town called Sao Borja just across the river in Brazil. The other two, and the radar and other equipment, are still at the Porto Alegre Naval Base. The team chief's infiltration was sort of a trial run, to see how difficult the infiltration was going to be. The Rio Uruguay is a wide river."


"How did he cross the river?"


"Presumably in a boat. I would guess they have a rubber boat, rubber boats."


"How much does this radar weigh? Will it fit through the door of the C-45? How much other equipment do they have? Same questions—what does it weigh, and will it fit through the door of the C-45?"


"Presumably you have a reason for asking?"


"I'm going to Santo Tome tonight. Then I'm going to Porto Alegre, and will fly the C-45 to Santo Tome. I'll be alone in the C-45. If I can get this stuff in it, that makes more sense than trying to smuggle it across the river in a rubber boat."


"This is the first I've heard any of this," Delojo said.


"Most of it just happened," Clete said. "I intended to see you sometime today—even before I heard the team chief is already in Argentina."


"Why Santo Tome?" Delojo asked.


"I've made a deal with . . . certain people. They are helping me bring the airplane into Argentina. Specifically, into an airstrip at Santo Tome."


"What kind of a deal?"


"I have the feeling, Commander, which I don't like, that you think I'm supposed to ask your approval of my actions."


"You are supposed to coordinate your actions with mine, Major. I presume Colonel Graham is aware of your plans?"


"He knows that I'm going to pick up the airplane at Porto Alegre two days from now. That's all."


There was a knock at the door, and a maid came in carrying a tray with two pots on it. She laid it on the desk.


Clete was pleased when Tony, helping himself from one of the pots, said, more in surprise than indignation, "Shit, this is hot chocolate!"


"Paratroopers don't drink sissy chocolate, right?"


"This one does. The coffee here dissolves my stomach."


Commander Delojo waited until the maid left the room, poured himself a cup of coffee, diluted it with cream and added sugar, and then asked, "You are bringing the C-45 in black, is that it?"


"Let's say 'covertly.' Not black."


"I don't think I understand the distinction."


"Let's say that I'm confident I can get the airplane from Porto Alegre into Argentina via Santo Tome, and from Santo Tome to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, without any trouble."


"This has something do with Galahad and/or Cavalry?"


"I'm surprised you're familiar with those names."


"I have a radio from Director Donovan asking me to identify them."


"When did you get that?"


"Last night."


"From Donovan? Not Graham?"


"From Director Donovan. Who are they?"


"I'm not at liberty to tell you," Clete said.


"Doesn't the fact that Director Donovan has directed me to identify these people give you the 'liberty'?"


"I'm afraid not."


"You understand that I will have to reply that I asked you for their identities, and you refused to give them to me?"


"I've already informed Oracle that I cannot identify these people," Clete said. "Look, I'm offering to help you get the team and their equipment into Argentina. If you don't want me to help, fine."


"I really can't understand your attitude, Major," Delojo said. "You're not being at all cooperative."


"Does that mean you don't want my help?"


"How do you propose to help?"


"How are you communicating with Porto Alegre? I mean, who at Porto Alegre?"


"We have an agent there."


"Birddog?"


"I never heard that name."


"Your agent does know about the C-45?"


"Of course."


“Well, then I suggest you contact your man—he's either Birddog by another name, or he knows who Birddog is—and find out if the radar and the other equipment, and the other two guys on the team, will fit on the C-45. If so, have the equipment and the two guys ready to go when I get there. If they won't, that's too bad. We tried."


"I think I would need authorization from Colonel Graham to do that."


"There's not time to ask Graham's permission."


"The ramifications of you being discovered bringing the C-45 in black, with the radar and two agents aboard . . ."


"There's not time to ask Graham's permission," Clete said. "I'm leaving here at ten o'clock tonight, and there's no way we can get a reply by then."


Delojo shook his head as he considered the ramifications of that.


"OK," Clete said impatiently. "Let's leave it this way: It's your responsibility to get Ashton's team and their equipment into Argentina, and from Santo Tome to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. You worry about that, and I'll worry about getting the C-45 to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo."


"You would fly everybody from Santo Tome to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo? Is that what you're saying?"


Clete nodded.


Delojo exhaled audibly.


"This can't be delayed a couple of days until we coordinate everything with Oracle?" he asked.


"I'm on the ten-o'clock train tonight to Santo Tome," Clete said. "Where's Ashton?"


"At the Automobile Club of Argentina hotel in Santo Tome."


"When you message Oracle, Commander," Clete said, "you can ask him to relay to Graham that I plan to cross into Brazil either tomorrow night or early the next morning."


"What makes you think I'm going to message Oracle?"


"Unless I've misread you completely, Commander, as soon as you get to the Embassy, you are going to radio Oracle all of this, so that if Oracle doesn't 'authorize' what I'm planning on doing, there will be time for him to have the whole operation stopped by the time I get to Porto Alegre."


"That would not be necessary, Major Frade, if you were willing to delay your operation for seventy-two hours," Delojo said. "We could have authorization, or denial of authorization, within that period."


"I don't have seventy-two hours," Clete said. "Have you got anything else for me?"


"I think that's all," Delojo said. "I suggest that when you meet with Ashton you make it clear to him that the pickup of his two men and the radar at Porto Alegre is a tentative plan."


"In case you can't make contact with him before I do, you mean?"


"I really don't understand you at all, Frade," Delojo said.


"Stay behind a minute, will you, Tony?" Clete said, adding to Delojo, "I mean just a minute, Commander. You can wait for him."


He went to the door and held it open for Delojo, then closed it after he had gone through.


"What the hell was that all about?" Tony asked.


"He would have liked to stand me at attention and order me to do what he thinks should be done, but he's not sure he has the authority."


"I picked up on the way he kept calling you 'Major.'"


"Tony, I don't trust Dave."


"Excuse me?"


"To stay at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, I mean."


"You want me to sit on him?"


"Can you get away from the Embassy?"


"Yeah. Delojo has apparently had a little talk with the Military Attach?. Now he disappears when he sees me, instead of handing me shitty little details."


"Go to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and sit on Dave until I get back," Clete said.


"Right," Tony said. "Unless you want me to go with you and get the airplane?"


"I thought about that. But you're on a diplomatic passport. . . ."


"Yeah," Tony said, then put out his hand. "Good luck, Clete. Don't do anything foolish."




[THREE]


The Embassy of the German Reich


Avenida Cordoba


Buenos Aires, Argentina


1025 14 April 1943


Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein had been in his small, high-ceilinged office—it was taller than it was wide, he once decided—no more than thirty seconds, just long enough to take off his jacket and start to put it on a hanger, when G?nther Loche came in.


"Good morning, Herr Major Freiherr," G?nther said cheerfully, placing a stack of newspapers and several magazines on Peter's somewhat battered desk. "Did the Major Freiherr have a pleasant flight from Montevideo this morning?"


Very nice, thank you for asking. Herr Standartenf?hrer Goltz had his balls in an uproar about flying back here in a hurry, so we flew over the water. I managed to make the engine backfire and splutter three times when we were out of sight of land, and if the Herr Standartenf?hrer didn't actually piss his pants, to look at the expression on his face, he came close.


"Very nice, thank you," Peter replied. "And you, G?nther, are disgustingly cheerful this morning. Been pulling wings off flies again, have you?"


"Excuse me, Herr Major?" G?nther asked, confusion all over his handsome, if somewhat vacant, face.


Peter took pity on him.


"I said you seem very cheerful," Peter said. "Some good news?"


"Oberst Gr?ner told me he is looking into a scholarship for me, Herr Major Freiherr," G?nther said.


"Is that so? What kind of a scholarship?"


"Diesel-engine technology, Herr Freiherr Major. In the Fatherland. The Herr Oberst says that diesel engines are the wave of the future."


"In the Fatherland"?


"And when did you have this discussion with the Herr Oberst, G?nther?"


"This morning. He told me that Standartenf?hrer Goltz talked to him about it."


"Really?"


What the hell is this all about?


"Over the weekend, I was driving the Herr Standartenf?hrer and First Secretary Gradny-Sawz, Herr Major Freiherr. The Herr Standartenf?hrer was kind enough to report to the Herr Oberst that he was favorably impressed with my performance of duty, and that I was worthy of being trained to accept greater responsibilities."


"Fascinating," Peter said.


"For a very important man, Herr Freiherr Major, the Herr Standartenf?hrer is very friendly."


What is that sonofabitch Goltz up to? Is he a faggot? God knows there's enough of them in the SS, including his good friend Werner von Tresmarck in Montevideo.


"Yes, I have noticed," Peter said.


"Oberst Gr?ner said Ambassador Graf von Lutzenberger will have to give his approval, Herr Freiherr, but he sees no problem in arranging for a scholarship. The Herr Oberst told me he will tell the Herr Ambassador that I am a reliable, hardworking employee, with promotion potential."


"And you would go to Germany on this scholarship?"


"Yes, Herr Major Freiherr. For six months or so. To the Daimler-Benz Technical Institute in Stuttgart."


"Stuttgart, eh?"


"And the Standartenf?hrer says there is even a possibility that a passenger space might be available on a Condor flight, Herr Major Freiherr."


And the minute you step off the plane, you poor idiot, you will be told there is a slight change in plans. First, you will go to the Eastern Front as a rifleman.


And later, after you have helped stem the Communist Horde,then y ou can go to the Daimler-Benz Technical Institute in Stuttgart.


What thehell is Goltz up to? Is this some sort of perverse joke? Is he really thinking of sending G?nther to Germany? Why?


"Well, good luck, G?nther."


"Thank you, Herr Major Freiherr!" G?nther said, coming to attention and then marching out of the office.


Peter sat down at his desk and took a quick look at the front pages of the Frie Presse, La Nacion, La Prensa, the Buenos Aires Herald, and several of the magazines. He opened one of the latter, La Vidal, a weekly magazine devoted mainly to rotogravure photographs of younger members of Buenos Aires's upper class attending social functions. Then he reached into his trousers pocket and came up with a three-by-five-inch file card he had been given by Humberto Duarte at the reception following the interment of the late el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade in Recoleta Cemetery.


He placed it on the open copy of La Vida! so that if someone came unexpectedly into his office, he could conceal it quickly simply by turning a page of the magazine.


Handlesbank Zurich 0405567 Privatbank Gebruder Hach Zurich 782967 Banque de Suisse et Argentina Zurich 45607 Anglo-Suisse Banque de Commerce Basel 970018


Peter wasn't at all sure that he had completely understood what Humberto had told him, although he had asked as many questions as he could think to ask. As best he could remember, Humberto told him he had experienced difficulty transferring money from Generalleutnant von Wachtstein's numbered account in the Handelsbank to the merchant banking firm of Hach Brothers. Previous transfers had gone smoothly. What happened this time, no one seemed to know.


Neither Humberto personally nor the Anglo-Argentinian Bank had a "correspondent relationship"—whatever the hell that meant—with the Handelsbank. But Humberto did have a "personal relationship" with Hach Brothers, which apparently meant they would do what he told them to do without asking questions or making records.


However, Handelsbank informed Gebruder Hach that there were "administrative problems" that would "briefly delay" the transfer of the funds requested from account number 0405567.


"I think, Peter, that they are just exercising due caution," Humberto said. "Exercising due caution also permits them to hold on to the money for, say, another two weeks. And interest accrues daily, as you know."


There was also the possibility that the Nazis were onto the secret account, which was painful to consider.


Humberto went on to explain that the Anglo-Argentine Bank had a "correspondent relationship" with both the Bank of Switzerland and Argentina and the Anglo-Swiss Bank of Commerce, as did the Handelsbank. "Less due caution," he said, "is exercised between banks which have correspondent relationships, Peter, as you can well understand, than with banks, especially private merchant banks, where no correspondent relationship is in place."


Thus, after some thought, he concluded that the best way to handle transfers in the future was for Generalleutnant von Wachtstein to instruct Handelsbank to move the funds to either the Anglo-Swiss Bank, where he—Humberto—controlled account number 970012, or to the Bank of Switzerland and Argentina, where he controlled account number 45607. Humberto would then direct those banks to transfer the funds to the Hach Brothers private bank, which would then transfer the funds to his personal account at the Anglo-Argentine Bank in Buenos Aires.


Even with Humberto leading him patiently by the hand through all this, Peter remained confused. This problem was compounded by the necessity of leading Dieter von und zu Aschenburg, the Condor pilot, through this maze. Dieter had to commit everything except the bank names and account numbers to memory, and then pass it on to Generalleutnant von Wachstein when he reached Germany.


Ordinarily, when Dieter flew a Condor into Buenos Aires, they got together—as two veterans of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War could be expected to do—and there was plenty of time to handle this sort of thing. But this time, getting together had been impossible. The only time Dieter was free of the company of Karl Nabler, the copilot, Peter was at the Carzino-Cormano estancia or in Uruguay with Goltz.


Peter had considered, and decided against, writing everything down and having Dieter smuggle it into Germany for transmission to his father. Although he knew Dieter would have done that without question—and not only because some of the funds in the Handelsbank had been entrusted to Generalleutnant von Wachtstein by-the von und zu Aschenburg family—that would have not only been too risky for Dieter and for his father, but, if the data fell into the wrong hands, for the entire operation.

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