Blood and Honor

"My God, Enrico, that girl was only fourteen, fifteen years old."

After a significant pause, Enrico said, "Your father, Se?or Clete, used to say that to have true friends, you must accept in each one a character flaw of some kind."

"I'll be goddamned," Clete said, chuckling. "El Coronel Juan Domingo Per?n is a dirty old man!"

Enrico was not amused. Clete wondered why he himself—he was still smiling—had thought it, literally, laughable.

"Enrico, you don't think there's something strange about somebody his age fooling around with young girls?"

"It is not for me to judge, Se?or Clete."

"Has he been doing this long?" Clete asked, naughtily.

He got a look from Enrico that told him there would not be a reply.

[FOUR]

23 Calle Acros

Belgrano, Buenos Aires

193Q 19 April 1943

Enrico pulled the Rolls Royce up and stopped before the door of the Italian-style mansion that occupied the eastern corner lot at the intersection of Calle Arcos and Virrey del Pino. He did not get out of the car, as he usually did, to open the door for Clete. He sat, both hands on the wheel of the Rolls, looking straight ahead out the window.

He's pissed at me. Jesus, why? Because I think there is something funny— sick but funny — that the oh, so dignified Coronel Juan Domingo Per?n has got a thing for little girls?

"Norteamericanos are different, Enrico," Clete said. "We think there is something funny—"

"It is not funny, Se?or Clete," Enrico said, dead serious, and still not looking at him. "God made him that way."

"Did God make you that way, too?" Clete asked gently, thinking he had a sudden insight.

"You have to ask me a question like that?" Enrico demanded indignantly.

"Well, what the hell was I supposed to think?"

"El Coronel Per?n was your father's best friend. Your father never laughed at—"

"Well, get this straight, Enrico. El Coronel Per?n is not my best friend, and I think he ought be ashamed of himself!"

He had to smile when he heard what he had said.

"I am sure he is," Enrico said, seriously, rationalizing: "I would be. But he was el Coronel's best friend, and you should not mock him."

"OK. I'm sorry."

"No, you are not, Se?or Clete."

"No, I am not," Clete said. "Screw you, Enrico."

He got out of the car and walked to the double doors of the Mallin mansion. Failing to find a doorbell, he raised the clapper and let it fall.

It sounds like somebody knocked over a garbage can.

A maid answered the door, but Dorotea came running past her.

"Hey, Princess!"

"Cletus, damn you, I've been frantic!"

"I'm sorry."

"Where have you been?" she demanded, then she saw the Rolls. "Where did you get that?"

"It's mine. It was the only thing available." He had a sudden thought. "Would you like to go for a ride? Before your parents learn I'm here and we get all involved with the wedding?"

"They're not here," she said. "Why should we go for a ride?"

"Because we have to talk," he said. "Where are your parents?"

"They went to dinner. I refused to go."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want to miss your call, if you called. I've been out of my mind, not knowing where you were, not that you give a damn."

"I'm sorry, Princess."

"A Colonel Mart?n called Daddy and told him that you were all right. All that did was convince Daddy that you were up to your ears in this damned revolution. Were you?"

"Yes."

"I don't think you should see Daddy tonight," she said. "He's furious with you."

"Why?"

"At the moment, because he thinks you went off and got yourself killed just so our baby won't have a name and he'll be embarrassed. When he finds out you're still alive, he'll think of something else. What do we have to talk about?"

"Excuse me?"

"You just said we have to talk."

"Well, I was thinking about Father Whatsisname . . ."

"Father Matthew, you mean?" Clete nodded. "What about him?"

"Well, I know how important—"

"Don't lie to me, Cletus."

He looked at her helplessly, then blurted the truth: "Honey, I just want to be alone with you."

She threw herself into his arms, put her mouth to his ear, and whispered, "Me too."

He thought his heart was going to jump out of his chest.

"Can we go to your place on Libertador?" she asked, her mouth still at his ear.

"No."

"I don't want to go to the other house," she said, now pulling her face back so that she could look at him. "Why can't we go to Libertador?"

"You don't want to know," he said.

"Yes, I do," she said.

"Because Coronel Per?n is there with a lady friend," he said.

"A lady friend, or one of his little girls?"

"You know about that?" he asked incredulously.

"Everybody knows about that, silly," she said. "What about going to the estancia?"

"I suppose we could. I have some things I've got to do at the estancia . . ." He paused as reality interjected itself into his mental image of the last time she was in his bed at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo: "How the hell would you explain being with me at the estancia to your father?"

"I'll leave a note saying that I'm spending a few days with Claudia."

"Your father won't believe that," Clete argued.

"No. But he'll pretend he does. Mother will understand why I have to be with you."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Of course I'm serious. Give me a few minutes to throw some things in a bag," she said.

"I told you, I have some things to do at the estancia," Clete said. "I won't—"

"Things you have to do tonight?"

"Not tonight. But in the morning . . ."

"Then we'll have tonight, at least," she said. "Before you showed up here, I had convinced myself that I was never going to see you again. I asked God to please, please let me see you just once more, just for a little while. . . ."

"Baby . . ."

She kissed him very gently on the lips.

"I'll only be a minute," she said. "And if you're not here when I come back down, I swear, I'll kill you!"

She turned and ran into the house and up the stairs.

Chapter Twenty-Four

[ONE]

Puerto Magdalena

Samboromb?n Bay

Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

2115 19 April 1943

The voyage of the good ship Coronel Gasparo from El Tigre to Magdalena took just over seven hours. They tied up at five minutes to six, as darkness was falling.

During the voyage, there was plenty of time for Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, holder of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, to consider the morality of what he was doing and of what he intended to do.

It was, of course, a question of honor. Intellectually, from the day he received the letter from his father, there was no question in his mind that he was honor bound, as an officer, as a von Wachtstein, to follow the path his father had decided honor required.

Germany was in the hands of a collection of unbelievably evil men. These men were not only guilty of unspeakable crimes against the Jews and other people—including Germans—but were also prepared to see Germany itself destroyed. Clearly, a Christian nobleman of the officer class was honor bound to do whatever was required to take Germany back from the Nazis.

That was the intellectual argument, and he had no doubt that it was valid.

Emotionally, however, he had a good deal of trouble personally engaging in activity that was clearly treason, and would very likely cause the deaths of other Germans who were no more Nazis than he was.

It wasn't simply a question, either, of the Americans' moral justification— of his friend Cletus Frade's, in particular—in sinking the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico. By replenishing German U-boats in protected neutral waters, while flying the flag of neutral Spain, the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico had given up any claim to be other than what it was, a vessel in the service of a combatant power.

And when he helped the Americans sink the Oceano Pacifico, which they obviously intended to do, it would obviously hurt the German ability to wage war, and in some measure contribute to the ending of the war, and thus the Nazi regime.

Peter von Wachtstein intellectually understood this, and was intellectually prepared to accept the inevitable death of much of the Oceano Pacifico's crew.

On the other hand, the submarine crews bothered him. There were a dozen or more submarines somewhere in the South Atlantic who were depending on being refueled and resupplied by the Oceano Pacifico.

An hour or so out of El Tigre, as he steered the Coronel Gasparo through nasty choppy waters far enough offshore to avoid being clearly visible, a number of Untersee officers he knew came to mind. And one—Kapitanleutnant Wilhelm von Dattenberg—in particular.

He knew von Dattenberg at Philip's University in Marburg an der Lahn, and ran into him again in Berlin at the Adlon Bar after he himself had just returned from a tour on the Eastern Front. At that time he had the private belief that fighter pilots had seen as much of the horror of war as could be reasonably expected of any human being, including one whose family had been fighting Germany's wars for centuries.

Von Dattenberg quickly disabused him of that notion. From the moment he saw von Dattenberg's eyes, Peter knew that he had seen more than his fair share of horror. And Peter saw even deeper into that horror as they got drunk and von Dattenberg talked about service in U-boats.

It didn't take Peter long to realize that he simply did not have the courage, the moral fiber, to endure what von Dattenberg had endured, and what he would again endure when his fifteen-day End of Patrol leave was over and he would take his boat out again.

Like Peter, Willi von Dattenberg was a member of the officer class whose family had been either admirals or generals for generations. Willi shared Peter's moral values, including the sense of responsibility he felt for the men placed under his command.

The moral responsibility for the lives of other men was obviously greater for a U-boat commander than it was for a fighter pilot, even for a fighter pilot given command of a Jaeger Squadron. It had occurred to Peter that he was able to discharge his responsibility to the pilots of his squadron—and in the Luftwaffe, only those who flew fought—by doing his best to see they were properly trained and that their equipment was properly maintained.

. He of course regretted the loss of any of his pilots—often he privately wept for them. But—because it was at least partially true—it wasn't hard to rationalize their deaths by thinking it was either simple bad luck or a bad decision on their parts that had caused them to go down.

On the other hand, literally during every waking moment, Willi von Dattenberg was aware that any decision he made was liable to cause not only his own death but the deaths of every member of his crew.

And it was entirely possible that Willi von Dattenberg was now floating around somewhere in the South Atlantic, low on fuel, running out of food, and praying for word over the radio that it was now safe to head for the River Plate estuary for replenishment.

From a ship that his old friend was about to help the Americans sink.

It was his own crew on the Coronel Gasparo, blissfully unaware that they were doing so, who caused Peter to emotionally understand what he was doing, what he would do, what he was honor bound to do, even though that might mean the death of Kapitanleutnant Wilhelm von Dattenberg and any number of other good Germans.

Peter's first reaction to Herr Gustav Loche, G?nther’s father, was unkind, if understandable, given that Peter had been raised to never forget he was a member of the aristocracy. If anything, he thought the father was even more of a fool than the son, a typical member of the German laboring class.

This perception stemmed from the first time Peter met Herr Loche, when he was both embarrassed and repelled by the man's servility. The plump, balding, ruddy-cheeked sausage maker did everything but tug at his forelock as he made it clear that he felt deeply honored to be in the very presence of a man who was not only Baron von Wachtstein but also a hero of German National Socialism who had received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from the hands of the F?hrer himself.

Loche fancied himself a loyal German, honored to make whatever contribution he could to the furtherance of German Nationalism as defined by Der F?hrer Adolf Hitler. He was thus deeply appreciative of the generosity of an important man like Standartenf?hrer Josef Goltz of the SS-SD, manifested in Goltz's offer to send G?nther to Stuttgart. It never entered his mind that Goltz could entertain an ulterior motive.

Peter's contempt for Herr Gustav Loche grew at first, as the idiot prattled on and on while the Coronel Gasparo moved down the shoreline of the River Plate into the ever-widening mouth of the estuary; but gradually, the contempt turned to pity.

They weren't bad people, he realized, simply stupid. The father obviously loved the son and presumably had Christian morals. For instance, even though it was financially difficult for him—as he proudly informed Peter—he saw to it that G?nther had a Catholic education under the good Jesuit fathers in San Carlos de Bariloche, as opposed to the free, secular education offered by the government.

It therefore followed, Peter reasoned, that Gustav Loche would be outraged if he became aware that the Nazis were rounding up human beings in Russia and forcing them to dig pits, and then standing them on the edge of those pits and shooting them in such a way that their dead and dying bodies fell back into them . . . not to mention gassing women and children by the thousands.

But Loche was unable to accept that anything like this was possible. He regarded as Anglo-American propaganda the stories about concentration camps and death squads and the rest of it that had begun to appear in newspapers and on the radio, ludicrous tales the Allies designed to keep the world in the hands of the Jews from whom the F?hrer intended to rescue it.

Thus it would simply be beyond Gustav Loche's ability to comprehend that the benevolent Standartenf?hrer Goltz was involved in a scheme wherein people who had done nothing to harm Germany (yet were nevertheless being starved to death—or awaiting murder—in Nazi extermination camps) could, on payment of a sum of money, be released. Much less could he realize that the money raised was to be used to buy sanctuary for high-level Nazis so they would escape being called to account for their monstrous crimes when the war was lost.

Neither could Loche believe that the so correct Oberst Gr?ner and the so charming Gradny-Sawz could also be involved in such a fantastically evil undertaking.

Loche saw himself simply as a good, patriotic German doing all he could for the Thousand Year Reich. Of course, in its gratitude for his loyalty, the Thousand Year Reich was going to advance him the money to expand his business, acquire an estancia, and send his beloved son to the Fatherland to further his education.

To his surprise, Peter found with little difficulty the mouth of the harbor at Magdalena, and then the pier of the fisherman—Lothar Steuben, another good, loyal, expatriate German who was going to charter his boat to Oberst Gr?ner. By then Peter had decided that while Loche and his son could not really be held accountable for what they were doing, Standartenf?hrer Goltz—and by extension, all Nazis—could. And there was no longer any question in his mind whether what he would do next was honorable or not.

The problem then became how.

Steuben, a large sunburned man, was a second-generation Argentinian whose family came from near Hamburg. If anything he was more obsequious than Gustav Loche.

He conducted everyone to his small but comfortable home overlooking the harbor. There his wife had laid out coffee and pastry. After introductions—she was a stout woman with blond hair braided and coiled at her ears and she was holding a child on each hip, which made her look like one of the oil paintings Hitler had commissioned to honor Fertile German Womanhood—she shyly inquired if the Herr Baron happened to like sauerbraten, which is what she had prepared for supper. He told her he did.

Despite his promise to contact Peter by six, there was no word from Gr?ner. And there was none by seven, or by eight. By the time the sauerbraten was eaten, Peter began to wonder whether something had gone wrong.

Maybe the Americans decided the smartest thing to do was sink theOceano Pacifico before she got into Argentine waters? The Spanish would howl in outrage, but what could they actually do about it9Send another division to the Eastern Front? Bomb Washington, D.C. ?

At 8:25, the telephone rang.

"Herr Baron Major," Steuben said, handing the telephone to Peter. "It is Herr Oberst Gr?ner."

Peter took the telephone and said one word: "Yes?"

"I doubt if it would do any good, Peter," Gr?ner said. "But when we get off the line, why don't you see if you can't at least ask him to consider the possibility that sometimes people listen to other people's telephone calls?"

"I'll certainly do that."

"He has a map," Gr?ner said. "Tell him to bring it to you."

"One moment," Peter said, covered the mouthpiece with his hand, and asked Steuben for "the map."

"Apparently what you asked for is being stored under the bed," Peter reported. "But I am promised it will appear momentarily."

"Ach, Gott! How was your ride down there? Get plenty of fresh air? Your mount didn't throw you?"

"Actually it was very pleasant. The horses ran well, and G?nther was only slightly sick to his stomach. He hasn't had much chance to do much riding."

Steuben appeared with a map, a sheet of paper, and a freshly sharpened pencil.

Without explanation, Gr?ner gave a list of letters and numbers, which Peter wrote down. He then compared these with the map, the markings on which had been changed.

"That make sense to you, Peter?" Gr?ner asked.

Obviously, he had been given the position where the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico had been ordered to drop anchor in Samboromb?n Bay.

"Yes."

"They may not be valid until later than we thought, if you take my meaning, but they should be good by, say, midnight, and certainly by the morning."

"I understand," Peter said.

"There has been a slight change in plans."

"Oh?"

"Frankly, I prevailed in this," Gr?ner said, a smug tone in his voice. "I suggested to our friend that there was merit in the principle that the fewer people who know—or think they know—what's going on, the slighter the chance that it will become public knowledge."

"I agree with that completely," Peter said.

"You will therefore have a companion when you take your ride in the morning. Which I suggest should be at first light."

What the hell is that all about? Oh. Either he or Goltz is going with me.Goltz. Goltz has to go out to the Oceano Pacifico. The captain won't turn over the "special materiel" to anyone else. So now Steuben remains in the dark. Even if the BIS grabs him, they can't get any information from him, because he won't know.

"I think I know who you mean," Peter said. "And therefore, we will need one less horse, am I right?"

"Absolutely. You really are becoming quite good at this game, Peter."

"Thank you very much, I'm trying."

"Somewhere along the path, I'll probably meet up with you and take your companion off your hands."

"I think I understand."

"I'd be more comfortable if I knew you understood."

"The only thing I'm a little fuzzy about is what happens to me after we meet up with you."

"With a little bit of luck, some of the people you will have with you will be able to lead your horse back to the stable, and then you and I can lunch together."

The translation of that is if theOceano Pacifico turns out to be able to take the Coronel Gasparo aboard after we unload the "special materiel" — if they have the right kind of davits for that, and, of course, if she can take the strain of being lifted out of the water— her crew will take her from the beach to the ship and take her aboard. In that case, I can stay on shore and go with Goltz and Gr?ner.

If theOceano Pacifico can't take the Coronel Gasparo aboard, then G?nther and I will have to take her back here.

"What I suggest is that you have your dinner and get some sleep, and be ready to start out there at first light. Our friend will be there as soon as he can."

"Certainly."

"The truck is ready?"

"I have been assured, a half-dozen times, that everything, including the truck, is in readiness."

"Don't fault enthusiasm, Peter. It is to be encouraged. But, of course, at the same time, controlled. Don't let it get out of hand."

"I assure you I won't."

"Well, then I look forward to seeing you, perhaps even to have lunch with you, tomorrow."

"I'm looking forward to it."

The line went dead.

Peter put the handset back into its cradle.

"There has been a change of plans," he announced. "You, Herr Steuben, will, from fivea.m., hold yourself in readiness to comply with any orders Oberst Gr?ner may issue."

"Jawohl, Herr Baron Major!"

"You, Herr Loche, will make sure the truck, ready for operation, is at the prescribed place at the prescribed hour. I suggest you leave shortly to make sure all is in readiness."

"Jawohl, Herr Baron Major!" Gustav Loche replied, taking his cue from Steuben.

Peter picked up the map, motioned for Herr Loche to follow him, and walked across the room to a floor lamp.

"Indicate where your part in this operation is to take place, if you please, Herr Loche."

Loche's face went white and showed acute discomfort.

"Excuse me, Herr Baron Major," he began hesitantly.

"You have forgotten already? You are not sure, is that what you're saying?"

"Herr Baron Major, both Herr Standartenf?hrer Goltz and Herr Oberst Gr?ner made it quite clear to me that the landing site was not—"

"—to be revealed to anyone who did not have a need to know?" Peter interrupted.

"Yes, Herr Baron Major."

"Herr Steuben does not have the need to know," Peter said. "Which is why I brought you over here with me, so that he cannot see where you will point at the map. And your diligence is appreciated, Herr Loche, and I will mention it to Standartenf?hrer Goltz. But did you really think that I was not privy to this information? That the Herr Standartenf?hrer would send me down here not knowing where I am to meet you and the truck? What I am doing here, Loche, is making sure there is no confusion in your mind about where you are to be."

"Excuse me, Herr Baron Major," Loche said. "I was not thinking. You will have to understand that I am . . ."

"Where, Loche?" Peter demanded impatiently.

Loche pointed to a small inlet on the shoreline of Samboromb?n Bay. There were no villages near it, but the coastal highway was no more than half a mile away.

"There, Herr Baron Major. Right there."

"There is no question in your mind?"

Loche considered that.

"None, Herr Baron Major."

"Very well," Peter said.

He folded the map and put it in his pocket and walked back across the room to G?nther.

"You, G?nther . . ."

"Yes, Herr Baron Major?"

"You and I will take the Coronel Gasparo on our mission."

"Jawohl, Herr Baron Major!"

"I have some other business in Magdalena," Peter announced. "If you will be so good, Herr Steuben, you will wait for me to return in case I need you. G?nther, you may go to bed."

"Of course, Herr Baron Major," Steuben said.

"Thank you, Herr Baron Major," G?nther said.

"Presumably, Herr Loche, you have a car here to take you to the rendezvous site?"

"Yes, of course, Herr Baron Major. Actually a small truck."

"You can take me partway to my destination, then," Peter said.

"It will be my pleasure, Herr Baron Major."

"If by chance, Herr Steuben, either the Herr Standartenf?hrer or the Herr Oberst calls, you will tell them I am about our business, and will return their call on my return."

"Jawohl, Herr Baron Major."

"Let's go, Herr Loche," Peter said.

No questions will be asked. These are good Germans. Authority— me— has spoken, and good Germans do not question authority.

Now all I have to do is figure out where I'm going.

Two kilometers from Steuben's house, they came to a truck stop.

Truck stops have telephones.

"You can drop me there, Loche," he ordered.

With a great deal of difficulty, he reached Buenos Aires three times.

The butler at the Frade mansion on Avenida Coronel Diaz told him that Se?or Frade was not at home, and politely refused to say any more than that.

The housekeeper at the house on Libertador told him that Se?or Frade had been there earlier but had left, and suggested he try to call the mansion on Avenida Coronel Diaz.

Se?or Humberto Valdez Duarte told him that he had no idea where Cletus was, but if he wasn't' at the house on Coronel Diaz or the Libertador house, the only thing he could think of was that he might be at the estancia. He added that he knew Cletus was back from Brazil, because there was a telephone call from Capitan Lauffer, General Arturo Rawson's aide-de-camp, telling him privately, and not for publication, that Cletus had been a hero of the revolution.

Although it was only sixty or seventy kilometers from Magdalena, he got through to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo with much greater trouble. Se?or Frade was not at home, but there was a possibility he might be at home later.

"You might try again in an hour or two, Se?or, or perhaps in the morning."

Does that mean Clete is going to be there, or not?

If Standartenf?hrer Goltz arrives at Steuben's house and I'm not there . . .

What if somehow, I can get to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and Cletus is not there ?

I know his men are there, probably at the radio station. If that is the case, and Cletus is not there, I could give this information to his deputy; if his deputy is there. Butwhere is there? / have no idea where on the estancia Cletus has placed his radio station — and I doubt very much that anyone will tell me. Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo is about as big as Pomerania, and I can't just wander around looking for it.

What is left?

Getting to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo somehow. If Cletus is not there, I'll write down the position where theComerciante del Oceano Pacifico will drop anchor, and the place on the shoreline where I will unload the Coronel Gasparo, and leave it for him. If he's not there, they will probably deny knowing where he is; but after I leave — and I will have to leave, praying that I can get back to Magdalena before the good Standartenf?hrer shows up— they will very likely make an effort to reach him or his deputy. Getting in touch with the deputy would be just about as good as getting my message into Cletus's hand.

That suggests the very real possibility that an American submarine, having been provided withOceano Pacifico'.? location by Kapit?nmajor Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, will arrive at the scene at just about the moment Kapit?nmajor Hans-Peter von Wachtstein sails the good ship Coronel Gasparo up to the Oceano Pacifico, and that she will fire her torpedoes just as the master of the Oceano Pacifico, Standartenf?hrer Goltz, and I are exchanging pleasantries.

Maybe that would be appropriate.

How do I reach Estancia San Pedroy San Pablo from here?

He made one more telephone call, getting through on the fourth attempt.

"Estancia Santo Catalina."

"Se?orita Alicia Carzino-Cormano, please. Se?or Condor is calling."

"One moment, por favor, Se?or. I will see if the lady is at home."

"Oh, my God, Peter, where are you?"

"Magdalena."

"Magdalena?" she parroted incredulously.

"I need some help, Liebchen. If there was any other—"

"What do you need?"

"I need you to come here and pick me up, take me to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, and then bring me back here."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you."

"Where are you in Magdalena? The Hotel San Martin?"

"I'm at the truck stop on the highway."

"I know it," Alicia said. "It will take me an hour. Is that all you have to say to me?"

"Liebchen, if I knew any other way . . ."

"I was thinking along the lines, of Te amo, Alicia.'"

"Te amo, Alicia," he said, and for some reason his voice broke.

"An hour, mi vida," she said, and hung up.

[TWO]

Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

2245 18 April 1943

When el Patron arrived at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo in the rear seat of the ancient Rolls Royce, he was in a state of sexual excitement and frustration. He also felt somewhat ashamed of himself.

After they drove away from her father's house, their several minutes of tender embraces quickly turned passionate. And Se?orita Dorotea Mallin realized that unless she took immediate action, there was going to be activity on the leather seats that would not only be improper but that could not escape the attention of Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, who was driving.

"Stop, Cletus!" she firmly ordered. "Not here!"

They broke apart and took up positions at opposite ends of the wide, dark-red leather seat. Dorotea placed her hand in the space between them, and Clete took it.

They rode along that way for perhaps half an hour. Then Clete became aware that Dorotea had dozed off. He thought this was very sweet but quickly changed his mind. The way she was sitting, every time her head dropped below a certain position it clearly caused her discomfort, and she would suddenly snap her head erect.

With absolutely innocent motivation, Clete gently pulled the dozing Dorotea to him and let her head rest in his lap. He gently and lovingly stroked her hair for several minutes, marveling that this sweet and gentle creature loved him, was bearing his child, and—as soon as they received that goddamned counseling from the Very Reverend Matthew Cashley-Price—was going to be his bride, his wife, to have and to hold from that day forward until death did them part.

With that certainly decent and arguably perhaps even noble line of thought in his mind, he then dropped off to sleep himself.

He awoke two hours later to find Dorotea's head still innocently in his lap, but its weight was delivering surprisingly sharp pain to what was the father of all erections.

He tried to endure the pain. He looked out the window. He couldn't see much.

"Where are we?"

"About five minutes from the house," Enrico replied, adding. "You were snoring again, Se?or Clete."

"Thank you very much, Enrico," Clete said, and then yelped in pain.

"Se?or?"

"It is nothing," Clete said.

He tried to gently waken Dorotea. All that did was make her shift her head, with a concomitant painful reaction in the physiological symbol of his gender.

"Sweetheart," he cried cheerfully—trying to sound cheerful required a good deal of effort—"wake up, we're almost there!"

He had to repeat the message three times before he broke into Dorotea's peaceful slumber. By then, he could see the lights of the big house.

She then pushed herself erect, and in doing so, her hand quite innocently found the source of his discomfort.

"Cletus," she said naughtily. "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

For reasons he could not imagine, she then gave it a good squeeze.

"Jesus, Dorotea!"

Enrico blew three short blasts on the horn.

As they turned onto the drive before the big house, the verandah lights came on. Clete saw Rudolpho, his short-barreled cavalry Mauser carbine slung from his shoulder, come quickly off the verandah toward the car.

Good. I can send him to the radio station and have him tell Tony I need to see him. Maybe he knows more about David Ettinger than Mart?n did. And in any event, I should radio Graham that the airplane is here, and, for that matter, that the new President of Argentina is General Rawson.

Come to think of it, I don't know how much attention Rawson will pay to anything I have to say, but I don't think there's much doubt that he'll listen to me. We became buddies in the Piper Cub.

"Buenos tardes, Patron," Rudolpho said. "Se?orita."

Clete shook Rudolpho's hand.

"Could you go out to the radio station and tell Teniente Pelosi I have to see him?"

"El Teniente is in the house, Patron."

Great. And that explains what he's doing here carrying the carbine, doesn't it?

"Honey, do you want something to eat?" Clete asked.

Dorotea smiled sweetly at him.

"It's been a long day," she said. "Why don't we just turn in?"

One of the maids came down to the car.

Thank God, nobody's here but Tony. We don't have to go through that nonsense of pretending we 're not sleeping together.

"Put the Se?orita's luggage in my room, please, and draw a bath for her."

"Cletus!" Dorotea protested.

"Nobody's here, why not?"

Dorotea shook her head but did not protest any further.

"I need a minute or two with Tony, and then I'll be right along."

"You'd better be," Dorotea said. "I'm going to hold you to the promise you made in the car."

"What promise?"

"You've forgotten already?" she asked.

He finally took her meaning, and his face reddened.

"Where's el Teniente?" Clete asked.

"In the library, Patron."

"I'll just say hello to him," Dorotea said, and followed Clete to the library. He held the door open for her and she walked in ahead of him.

"Ah, Se?orita Mallin," a familiar male voice. "What an unexpected pleasure! How nice to see you again."

Jesus, who the hell is that? Whoever it is, he sounds just like Colonel Graham.

"And Major Frade himself!" Colonel A. F. Graham, USMCR, said. "What a coincidence! We were just talking about you."

"I told the Colonel you'd probably show up here sooner or later, Tex," Mr. Milton Leibermann said. "And tell us all about the revolution."

"What's going on?" Clete said.

"You'll have to excuse my bad manners, Se?orita Mallin," Graham said, ignoring the question. "You've met Lieutenant Pelosi, I know. But not these other gentlemen, I believe. May I present Commander Delojo, our Naval Attach? here, and Mr. Milton Leibermann, who is the Legal Attach? of the American Embassy in Buenos Aires?"

What the hell is all this about?

Commander Delojo and Milton Leibermann shook Dorotea's hand. Leibermann told her that she was even more beautiful than Pelosi had told him she was.

". . . and Mr. Ralph Stevenson, who is the Cultural Attach? of our Embassy in Montevideo, and Captain Maxwell Ashton III. Gentlemen, Se?orita Dorotea Mallin, Major Frade's fianc?e." He paused and looked at Clete. "When Tony told us that wonderful news, Clete, frankly I was a little hurt that you hadn't let me know. I would have sent a present, or something."

Clete didn't reply.

Enrico came into the room, looked around, and then at Clete.

"And this gentleman," Graham said, "is Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, Argentine Army, Retired, sometimes introduced as Colonel Rodriguez."

Graham has obviously heard from that Air Corps Colonel at Porto Alegre,Clete thought.

Or maybe he's been there ?

And obviously, behind that little mask of perfect manners he's wearing, he's pissed at me.

Why?

What the hell have I done wrong, except getting one of my men killed?

Well, if that's what's pissing him off, he's entitled.

"I realize this is an imposition, Se?orita Mallin," Graham said, "but I'm afraid that we have to speak to Cletus now, and alone."

She looked at Clete, then at Graham, then turned and left the library without a word.

Clete looked at Graham.

"I accept full responsibility for the death of Sergeant Ettinger," Clete said. "I should have made sure that he would not leave the estancia."

"I'm not surprised that you would say that, Clete," Graham said, "but I am surprised that you know. Who gave you that information?"

"It's not important."

"I decide what's important."

"I decide what I tell you."

"That's not the way it works."

"Yes, it is," Clete said.

Commander Delojo looked at Graham, anticipating a satisfactory reaction to Clete's insubordination.

"If you tell me what you know, about Ettinger, I mean," Graham replied, the reply disappointing Delojo, "I—or Stevenson—will fill in any blanks from what we know."

"In front of Milton Leibermann?" Clete asked.

"In front of Milt," Graham said.

"Including why Ettinger felt he had to go to Montevideo?"

"Yes," Graham said simply. "Milt knows what Ettinger was up to; I told him."

Maybe, if the OSS had been talking to the FBI all along, David would still be alive,Clete thought angrily.

He looked at Leibermann.

"I was told that Ettinger was found dead of stab wounds in the sand dunes on the River Plate beach north of Carrasco. The murder was probably done for hire, by Uruguayan gangsters, and the murder was paid for by Standartenf?hrer Goltz, or somebody working for him. But at Goltz's orders. Goltz is also the guy who gave the orders to have my father killed."

"You must have a pretty good source of information," Graham said. "That's about all we have. Except why the Uruguayan police believe the murderers were Uruguayan criminals. Do you want to hear that?"

"Please."

Graham looked at Stevenson and gestured for him to furnish the information.

"They severed Sergeant Ettinger's penis and placed it in his mouth," Stevenson said. "In the ... How do I put this? This is what the gangsters down here do to stool pigeons. The idea, apparently, was to send a message to people."

"What kind of message? To who?"

"To the German Jewish community in Montevideo and here," Stevenson went on. "That Ettinger—in his role as a German Jew, not an OSS agent—had talked too much, which means at all, about the ransoming operation the Germans are running. The message is that anyone who talks about it will be killed, and in that manner."

"I think we ought to send the Germans a message," Clete said. "That anybody who orders the killing of one of us gets a rifle bullet between the eyes."

"Shoot Standartenf?hrer Goltz, you mean?" Graham asked.

"Or blow his brains out," Tony Pelosi said. "If Clete had let me do that when I wanted to, maybe Dave would still be alive."

"Tell me about that," Graham said evenly.

There was something in his voice Clete didn't like, and he tried to signal Tony to button his mouth, but Tony had his attention focused on Graham and didn't see him.

And probably wouldn't have understood me anyhow.

"I came up with a way, Colonel," Tony said, not at all reluctant to show off his expertise, "to blow the bastard's brains out his ear. I even tested it on a cow's head Enrico got me from the slaughterhouse. All you need is a piece of plastic explosive about as big as the first joint on your thumb. You put it in the earpiece of a telephone. I can rig it to blow five seconds, whatever, after you pick the phone up, or on command, sending house current down the existing telephone wire pair. Two-twenty-volt current fucks up the whole phone system, but who cares?"

"This testing you did, Lieutenant Pelosi," Graham asked, and now there was ice in his voice, "was that before or after Major Frade told you you were not to try to kill Standartenf?hrer Goltz?"

Tony now sensed he was in trouble.

"I thought maybe I could talk Cl—Major Frade into changing his mind, Sir," he said.

"Let me tell you something, Lieutenant Pelosi," Graham said, and paused, framing what he was about to say. "First, Sergeant Ettinger is dead because he disobeyed Major Frade's order to stay on the estancia. Get that clear in your head. Second, you are an officer in the United States Army, not a thug working for Al Capone in Chicago. Standartenf?hrer Goltz is not an Italian gangster who may be killed according to the Mafia Code of Honor as it applies to revenge. Are you with me so far?"

"Yes, Sir," Tony said, coming to attention. He was now on the carpet and knew it.

"Good!" Graham went on. "Third, the OSS is a military organization. On occasion it may be necessary for us to eliminate people, but we only do so when there is an unmistakable military necessity to do so—and revenge never meets that criterion. In this situation, the elimination of Standartenf?hrer Goltz would be counterproductive."

"What did he say, Se?or Clete?" Enrico asked.

"He says Tony cannot blow Goltz's brains out his ears," Clete said.

There was something in Major Frade's flippant sarcasm—which was enough to cause Captain Maxwell Ashton to chuckle—that caused Colonel Graham to turn his wrath tot Major Frade.

"This applies to you, too, Frade," he said angrily. "I find it difficult to believe that you are unaware of the importance of Operation Lindbergh to the degree that you would even think, much less seriously suggest, that we assassinate the man who is the key to it, Standartenf?hrer Goltz."

Enrico glared at Graham.

"What did he say?"

Clete's mouth ran away with him.

"He says I can't shoot Goltz between the eyes, either," Clete replied.

Captain Ashton chuckled again, which was enough to ignite the Latin temper of Alejandro Fredrico Graham, Colonel, USMCR.

"I've had about all I intend to take from you, Frade!" Graham flared, turned to Ashton, pointed his finger at him, and nearly shouted, "This is not funny, goddamn it, Ashton!"

"Sorry, Sir," Ashton said, but he did not seem genuinely contrite.

Commander Delojo looked pleased, having decided that Major Frade was about to receive his long-overdue comeuppance.

But when Graham turned back to Clete, he had regained control of his temper.

"I should not have to spell this out for you, Clete, but I will," he said reasonably. "The elimination of Goltz would cause the people he works for to ask themselves who did that and why. They would quite logically conclude that it was probably you. Since they are aware that you are OSS, they probably would wonder how much you—and the OSS— have learned about what we are calling Operation Lindbergh. They would therefore take greater pains in the future to ensure the secrecy and security of Operation Lindbergh, which, of course, they will continue to operate. Are you with me so far?"

"Yes, Sir."

"The way things are now. we know—and the Germans do not know, or at least aren't sure that we know—about the operation, and that Goltz is running it, with the assistance of whatsisname—what's Bagman's name?"

"Von Tresmarck, Sir," Clete said.

". . . of von Tresmarck in Montevideo," Graham went on. "Between you here, and Stevenson in Montevideo, plus Milt and Milt's people here, and the FBI in Montevideo, we can keep an eye on Lindbergh and von Tresmarck until the decision is made what to do about it."

"I don't understand that, Colonel," Clete said. "What decision?"

"That'll come from the President," Graham said. "Who so far hasn't been told about it. We're dealing with the lives of thousands of Jews in the concentration camps as well as the sanctuaries the Germans are trying to set up here and, maybe, in Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, and who knows where else. Deciding what to do about it is a decision I'm glad I don't have to make."

"Why hasn't the President been told?" Clete wondered aloud.

"Because Director Donovan doesn't wish to go to the President without more facts. Including the identity of Galahad, how come Galahad has knowledge of Lindbergh, and his motivations for telling us. I was sent down here specifically to obtain that information, Clete. That's how important Donovan thinks it is."

"Milton, you didn't know about this before?" Clete asked.

"I heard whispers," Leibermann said. "I asked around. The Jews know I'm from the Embassy, and almost certainly who I work for. A wall is up. And I'm the only Jew in the FBI down here, and the Jews here are not about to tell some norteamericano Irisher or Mormon about something like this."

"You heard what I said, Clete, about the primary reason I'm down here?" Graham asked.

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you any more about Galahad than I already have."

"We have to talk about that," Graham said without rancor, which almost visibly disappointed Commander Delojo.

Clete shrugged.

"Or, for that matter, Cavalry, either," he said.

"We'll have to talk about him, too," Graham said. "But right now, we have to radio Oracle and report what we know about the new government. Where the hell were you, Clete, when the revolution was going on? I think you'd better start with telling me about the arrangements you made to get that airplane into the country so easily."

"It wasn't easy," Clete said. "It was supposed to be a C-45, not a Lockheed Lodestar."

"I heard about that." Graham chuckled. "What I was talking about, though, is how did you arrange for the Argentine Army to allow you to land it at Santo Tome? Your friend Cavalry have anything to do with that?"

"OK. Yeah."

"And where did you go with it when you left here?"

"The deal I made was that in exchange for getting the airplane into Argentina, I would make it available to the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos to take them out of the country in caseOutline Blue went bad. So I took the airplane from here to Campo de Mayo."

"Obviously, they didn't need it. Which is fortunate. The Ambassador would have had a hard time explaining to President Castillo why an American OSS agent flew a planeload of traitors out of the country. Presumably you thought about that?"

"No, they didn't need the airplane, and no, I didn't think about what would happen if they had to. I had to have the airplane to deal with the Oceano Pacifico; and getting Ashton and his radar into the country seemed important."

"You don't think you should have asked for guidance, for authorization, before making a decision like that?" Commander Delojo asked.

"Who was I supposed to ask?" Clete flared. "You?"

"Take it easy, Clete," Graham said warningly, and then went on, "What did they do, just keep you waiting out there, away from a telephone, until they were sure they wouldn't need the plane? And where is it now, by the way?"

"Not exactly," Clete said.

"Not exactly what?"

"I'm not sure that you want to know," Clete said.

"Oh, but I do!"

"They had a little problem communicating with the columns that were moving from Campo de Mayo to the Casa Rosada. So I helped them with it."

"Don't be evasive."

"I flew a Piper Cub for them."

"You participated in the coup d’?tat?" Delojo asked incredulously. "Took an active role in it?"

Graham ignored him.

"Where did you fly the Piper Cub?" he asked.

"I flew General Rawson around," Clete said. "One of the columns was stalled at the School of Naval Engineering. So we landed there, and he told them to bypass it. And then we flew to the other column, which had stopped because the first column was stalled, and dropped a message to them telling them to start moving. And then we flew over the Casa Rosada and watched both columns converge on it."

"General Rawson was with you?" Graham asked.

"Yes, he was," Clete said, and then added, "They offered me a commission. I turned it down."

"You would have lost your citizenship. You would have . . . ," Delojo fumed.

"I thought about that," Clete said. "Which is why I didn't take the commission."

"Where's the airplane now?" Graham asked.

There was a knock at the door. Clete thought that it was very likely Dorotea, wondering what was holding him up.

It was a maid.

"Se?or Frade," she announced. "Se?orita Carzino-Cormano is here and asks to see you."

"Enrico, see what that's all about, will you?" Clete said, and then replied to Graham. "I wasn't turned loose until after dark. I didn't want to try to land the Lockheed here at night. So I asked them to take me into town, picked up the car. and came out here."

"Stopping only long enough, correct, to pick up your fianc?e?" Commander Delojo asked sarcastically.

"Why didn't you stay in Buenos Aires?" Graham asked quickly, in time to shut off Clete's reply to Delojo. "So that you could deal with the plane in the morning?"

Clete hesitated, obviously considering the wisdom of saying something rude to Delojo, and then replied, his voice showing that his temper was simmering close to the surface:

"The reason I came out here was to see if anybody here knew any more about what happened to Dave Ettinger than I did. And I thought Ashton might need me for something. And I even thought about messaging you, back in the States, to tell you thatOutline Blue worked. I'll fly over there in one of the Cubs in the morning and pick up the plane."

Enrico put his head in the door—surprising Clete, for he had been gone only a moment.

"Se?or Clete?" he said, and motioned for him to leave the room.

Clete walked through the door and closed it after him.

"If you don't mind my saying so, Colonel, I don't like his attitude," Commander Delojo said.

"I don't mind you saying so, Commander—frankly, I'm not thrilled with it myself—but when he comes back in here, you're directed not to open your mouth until I tell you to," Graham said.

"If your purpose in sending Frade down here, Alejandro," Leibermann said, "was to see if he could get close to the new government, that has certainly succeeded."

Graham nodded.

"If he hadn't flown us here on that plane," Ashton said, "my team and I and the radar would still be in Porto Alegre."

"Sir," Tony Pelosi said, "I want to make it clear that when I told Major Frade I wanted to rig Goltz's telephone, he told me right away to forget it."'

"Apparently the Cletus H. Frade Fan Club is holding its annual convention?" Graham said, but there was a smile on his lips. He then added. "God, wait till I tell Donovan that he was flying Rawson around during the revolution."

Clete and Enrico came back in the room three minutes later.

"What was that all about?" Graham asked.

"I have the position where the Oceano Pacifico will drop anchor in Samboromb?n Bay. If she's not already there."

"Where did you get that?" Graham asked.

"And the location of the place where Goltz will land what is probably all that money we've heard about from the Oceano Pacifico."

"What's your source?" Graham asked.

"The landing will take place tomorrow morning. A boat will leave Magdalena at first light, go out to the Oceano Pacifico, take on the cargo, and then head to shore. So it will land however long after daybreak it takes the boat to go out to the Oceano Pacifico and back. Figure forty minutes each way, eighty minutes, an hour and twenty minutes, make it an hour and a half, make it any time between an hour and a quarter to two hours after sunrise."

"I need to know your source, Clete, " Graham said.

"This is from the horse's mouth, Colonel, but that's all I can tell you and still look myself in the mirror when I shave."

Graham looked as if was about to reply, then changed his mind.

"How long will it take you to fly that airplane here ... or over this position in Samboromb?n Bay in the morning?"

"About an hour from here to Campo de Mayo, figure twenty, thirty minutes on the ground there, and then thirty minutes to fly the Lockheed back here."

"And over the Oceano Pacifico?"

"About the same time."

"One thing I know for sure is that we have to have our hands on that airplane. So that's settled. You be ready to take off at first light for Campo de Mayo."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"That's all, Clete," Graham said. "Get a good night's sleep. Set your alarm so you're up in time to have breakfast and be ready to take off at first light."

Clete nodded.

Christ, I've been dismissed!

He looked at Graham, who made it official.

"That will be all, Major, thank you," Graham said. "You are dismissed."

Clete's face reddened, but he kept his mouth shut and walked out of the room. Enrico followed him.

THREE

Colonel A. F. Graham glanced in turn at all the officers remaining in the room, and finally settled his gaze on First Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi.

"I think you should take one more trip out to the radio station, Pelosi," he ordered, "to see if anything new has come in. After that, I don't think we'll need you any more tonight. Set your alarm early, too. I want you up when Frade gets up."

"Yes, Sir."

"So far as you're concerned, Commander, I can't see any reason for you to stay out here, now that we've found Frade. Or vice versa. So you can go back to Buenos Aires."

"Yes, Sir. Sir, I'm willing to stick around—"

"What I want you to do is make sure that I can get in contact with the Ambassador at any time tomorrow," Graham cut him off. "It's entirely possible that it will be necessary to do just that."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"Both of you can go," Graham said, and they left the room.

"Ashton, presumably your radar can verify the existence of a vessel—not necessarily the Oceano Pacifico —at the position we got from Frade?"

"Yes, Sir, if there's a vessel there, we will have already picked it up."

"Where's the camera?"

"At the radar site, Sir."

"OK. You go out there, check to see if a vessel is where Frade says it is— stick around until say oh three hundred if there isn't one there when you get there—and then come back here with the camera. You can use the camera in the Lockheed?"

"Yes, Sir. I'll have to take a side window out for the best results."

"But you can use the camera in the Lockheed?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Be prepared to do so."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"You're dismissed, Captain."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

Graham waited until he had left the room and then turned to Mr. Ralph Stevenson, the Cultural Attach? of the Embassy of the United States of America in Montevideo, Uruguay.

"I want to ask you an off-the-record question, Ralph," he said, "which I promise you I will never remember asking. If I weren't here, and because of the three team chiefs we have down here, you're the only one who comes close to being what a team chief should be, you were faced with making the decision, what would you do?".

"Decision about what?"

"'Let's give Frade the benefit of the doubt a moment. Let's say his source is good. Early tomorrow, the Germans will attempt to smuggle into Argentina a large sum of money—I have trouble with that one-hundred-million-dollar figure, but let's say a very large sum of money. Five million. Ten million. This money we know has been stolen in some despicable way from Jews in Germany. Not only that, but it will be used to purchase safe houses for—an infrastructure designed to give sanctuary to—any number of characters for whom skinning alive is too good. What do we do about that? Try to prevent them from smuggling it in? Try to grab the money? If we do that, we are probably also going to interfere with Lindbergh. Lindbergh is filthy, but on the other hand, people otherwise doomed to be shot in the head or gassed or starved to death, including, of course, women and children, are getting out of the camps. The third option is to do nothing, let them bring the money into the country and try to keep an eye on what happens to it, in the hope that when the war is over we can make things right."

"I'd rather not answer that question, Colonel," Stevenson said immediately.

"Answer it. What would you do in my shoes?"

Stevenson met Graham's eyes for a moment, then shrugged.

"Let it in," he said. "Try to keep an eye on it. Spend whatever it takes to have enough FBI accountants and whatever else is needed to follow the money trail sent down here. Otherwise the people in the camps won't get out. Isn't life worth more than money?"

Graham didn't reply directly.

"This conversation never took place," he said. "You're welcome to stick around, of course, Ralph. But if you want to return to Montevideo . . ."

"I think I'll wait and see what happens tomorrow morning," Stevenson said.

"In that case, good night, Ralph," Graham said. "Sleep well."

Graham walked with him to the door and then turned to face Milton Leibermann.

"That makes it two to one, doesn't it?" Leibermann said.

"Maybe three to one. But I have other thoughts. If we grabbed this money, wouldn't it let them know we're onto them?"

"To what end?"

"It might make them consider that this sanctuary nonsense is a dream," Graham said.

"I'm not sure it is," Leibermann said. "Money talks, to coin a phrase."

"Could you follow the money trail Stevenson talked about?"

"Yes and no. Yes, if I had enough people, and we could—the U.S. government could—put sufficient pressure on the government of Argentina—on all the governments down here—to let us into their banking records. I don't think either is likely."

"So your objection to grabbing the money is based on this filthy scheme saving some lives?"

"Yeah. But I'm not sure if that's Milton Leibermann, Philosopher, talking, or Milton Leibermann, Jew."

"That doesn't make it two to one, Milton. It makes it one for letting the money in because it saves lives; one for letting it in because things can be made right later—which is unlikely; and one for grabbing the money and letting the bastards know we know what they're up to."

"I still count that two to one for letting it in," Leibermann said. "So what are you going to do about Frade?"

"You mean about Galahad and Cavalry?"

Leibermann nodded.

"Galahad is obviously the Luftwaffe pilot. The confirmation of that we got tonight. Frade leaves the room to see the Carzino-Cormano girl. He comes back three minutes after seeing her with the location of the Oceano Pacifico and the information that the Germans are going to smuggle the money ashore in the morning, and where they're going to land it. And you tell me she is running around with a Luftwaffe pilot—what's his name?"

"Hans-Peter von Wachtstein."

". . . named von Wachtstein."

"Yeah," Leibermann agreed.

"Von Wachtstein tipped Frade that they were going to try to kill him, and Frade figures he owes him his life. He doesn't want to give me his name because—with good reason, I'm sorry to say—he doesn't trust Donovan, and figures if the OSS was willing to consider him expendable, they wouldn't hesitate to use von Wachtstein to manipulate his father, which is likely to get von Wachtstein, pere etfils, killed. You heard that couldn't-look-himself-in-the-mirror business."

Leibermann shrugged, clearly meaning he agreed with the identification.

"And Cavalry?"

"I'm not sure about Cavalry. One moment I think it's the BIS guy, Martin, and the next moment I think, really think, that it's Rawson. He and Frade's father were great buddies. . . ."

"So were Frade's father and el Coronel Juan Domingo Per?n."

"Rawson obviously trusts Frade enough to let him get close to the coup d’?tat, not to mention letting him fly him around during the revolution. And who but somebody like Rawson would have the authority to let Frade land his airplane at Santo Tome?"

"Martin," Leibermann said. "Either at Rawson's bidding, or on his own authority."

"Bringing me back to square one," Graham said. "Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars."

"So what happens if you take a chance—you understand Frade is not going to identify either one of them, don't you?"

"You'll notice I didn't stand him at attention and order him to tell me," Graham said.

"So what happens if you take a chance and tell Donovan what you think, that Galahad is von Wachtstein . . ."

"I know von Wachtstein is Galahad."

". . . and Cavalry is Rawson. Or Martin. And Frade finds out about it?"

"You tell me."

"You know what I really think? That it would be the first time in history that a Marine major with the Navy Cross told you 'fuck you all, I quit.'"

"You really think he'd do that? That would be desertion in time of war. That would mean he could never go back home."

"Where's home. Alejandro? Down here he's a great-grandson of Pueyrred?n, which is like being the great-grandson of Washington or Jefferson. And this is all his. . . ." Leibermann gestured around the library. "And, very important, he's going to marry that gorgeous blond."

"He's an honorable man. He swore an oath as a Marine officer," Graham argued.

"He's an honorable man with a clear conscience. He didn't get all those medals running away from the Japanese. And he came down here and did his Marine officer's duty— afterhe found out the OSS considered him expendable—and nearly got himself killed lighting up the Reine de la Mer so the sub could torpedo it."

"It would still be desertion. Maybe even treason."

"Yeah. And none of the usual things that happen to deserters in time of war would happen to him. Even if you could get him back to the States to try him— and I don't see how you could; among other things, the Argentines consider him a citizen—even if you did, do you really want to try for desertion or treason a man who won the Navy Cross? You couldn't keep it out of the papers. And his grandfather would hire a half-dozen U.S. Senators to defend him. The whole story would come out."

Graham grunted.

"You can't even eliminate him," Leibermann said. "And not only because of Cletus Marcus Howell. Rawson—if you're right about him being Cavalry, and I think you are—would be furious. Not only would Frade's window into what's going on down here be slammed shut, but there's no telling the damage that would do to Franklin Roosevelt's diplomatic plans for South America. And we would get not one more item, period, from von Wachtstein. And Frade's family here . . ."

"Eliminating Frade was never one of my options," Graham said.

"So what are you going to do?"

"The President of the United States wants to know the identity of Cavalry and Galahad. What do I do about that?"

"You know what I do when I have problems like this?" Leibermann said. "Problems with no solution? I go to bed and get a good night's sleep. Then in the morning, when you wake up, the problems might still be there, but you've had a good night's sleep."

"What is that, Yiddish wisdom?"

"Go to bed, Alejandro," Leibermann said. "Let's see what happens tomorrow."

Chapter Twenty-Five

[ONE]

Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

0445 19 April 1943

Se?orita Dorotea Mallin came into the library with Clete. She was wearing a man's silk dressing robe, and her hair was done up demurely in a loose braid hanging down her back.

Beautiful girl.Colonel A. F. Graham thought. Even at this hour of the morning, with no makeup, just out of bed, she sort of glows.

With that came insight: My God, she's pregnant! Of course. That's why Clete's marrying her, and now, rather than after the expected year of mourning for the late el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade.

And home for Clete Frade,he thought, remembering his conversation with Leibermann, is where the woman who will bear his child is.

"I didn't mean to disturb your sleep, Miss Mallin," Colonel A. F. Graham said. "Only Marines have to rise at this ungodly hour."

She met his eyes.

"I don't mind, Colonel. I thought I'd see that everybody had breakfast," Dorotea said.

"I'm sure Clete's—"

"I don't mind, Colonel," Dorotea repeated, smiling sweetly. "In fact, I insist."

Clete Frade looked amused.

"How much does Dorotea know?" Graham asked.

"We had a long talk last night," Clete said.

"That wasn't wise, Major," Graham said.

"Well, it occurred to me that since Goltz and Gr?ner might try to kill her, I thought she had the right to know why."

He didn't say "Sir" or "Colonel." Obviously, he has been thinking about the same things Milt Leibermann talked about. He may already have made up his mind—certainly, that pregnant young woman has not spent the night encouraging him to go out and do something that may get the father of their unborn child killed—and the worst thing I can try to do right now is order either one of them around. Or even order her out of the room. This is his house, and she's, for all practical purposes, his wife. All I can do is hope that when 1 tell him what I want him to do, he's willing to do it.

"On the strength of your assurance that your information about German activities this morning is accurate, Major, I've developed our plan of action," Graham said.

"My information is good," Clete said.

"In addition to the radar Captain Ashton brought with him, there is an aerial camera," Graham said. "The latest word in aerial cameras, and in high-resolution film."

Clete didn't reply.

Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez entered the library.

What took you so long, Sergeant Major?Graham wondered. You usually appear no longer than sixty seconds after your master. Oh, I see now, you stopped for a quick shave.

"Good morning, Suboficial Mayor," Graham said.

"Buenos dias, mi Coronel," Enrico replied, and took up what Graham had come to expect as his usual stance, leaning against the wall.

"If at all possible," Graham went on, "the United States government does not wish to again violate Argentine neutral waters by sending in a submarine to sink a ship flying a neutral flag," Graham said. "Even a ship like Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico that is itself violating Argentine neutrality."

Clete nodded.

"If I have to say this, this operation was decided upon before we learned about Lindbergh, and about your source's information that the Germans intend to bring into Argentina an enormous sum of money."

"One hundred million dollars, according to my source," Clete said.

Captain Maxwell Ashton III and First Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi of the Army of the United States entered the room, both in civilian clothing.

"Have a seat, gentlemen," Graham said. "Se?orita Mall?n’s arranging for breakfast."

Dorotea smiled sweetly at him again.

"I asked the housekeeper to lay a buffet," she said. "I hope that will be all right?"

"That will be perfect, thank you," Graham said. "I was just telling Major Frade about the camera," Graham said. "You've checked it out, I hope?"

"Seems to be working perfectly, Sir," Pelosi said.

"When did you become an expert?" Clete asked.

"I don't know about being an expert, but I know how to operate it," Tony said. "I told you I went to photo school in Washington."

"Let's talk about the camera a moment," Graham said. "The problems with aerial photography are threefold. First, the vibration of the aircraft causes obvious problems, in proportion to the distance between the camera and the subject being photographed. Second, the instability of the camera is magnified by aircraft movement, again in proportion to the distance between the camera and the subject being photographed. The third problem is enlargement of the negative. The more enlargement necessary, the more the granules of silver on the film become apparent. The term used is 'grainy.'" He paused and looked at Dorotea.

"I'm afraid I'm boring you with this, Dorotea."

"Not at all. I'm fascinated."

"Nice try, Colonel," Clete said. "But you might as well give up, she's not going to leave."

"That was the furthest thought from my mind. Major," Graham said.

Clete chuckled. "Yes, Sir," he said. "I'm sure it was."

"As I was saying," Graham went on. "Eastman Kodak's experimental laboratory has come up with two kinds of new film. Both considerably reduce the granularity problem in enlargement. The slower film we have is really extraordinary in that regard. But that's daylight film. The second film is much more sensitive; it can record an image in very little light, in almost total darkness. It works well, for example, in moonlight. But the price paid for that is higher granularity. You understand all this, Major?"

"I get the general idea."

"Now, the Signal Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, working with Sperry-Rand, the gyroscope people, have come up with a platform for the camera which is both heavily damped against aircraft vibration and gyroscopically stabilized. The camera platform is designed to mount on a standard U.S. Army Air Corps fuselage floor."

"I remember that," Clete said. "But the floor we were talking about was a C-45 floor. What about the floor in the C-56?"

"Captain Ashton checked the floor in the Lockheed," Graham said. "There is no problem there. A window will have to be removed, however. Will that be a problem?"

"I don't know," Clete said after a moment. "Can it be unscrewed?"

"We can cut a hole, I suppose, if it won't," Tony said.

"What this gives us, then, is the capability to photograph the Oceano Pacifico from a considerable distance."

"How do you define 'considerable distance'?" Clete asked.

"Two miles," Ashton replied. "Maybe a little more."

"The idea was to keep the aircraft far enough away from the Oceano Pacifico so it won't appear to be a threat," Graham sand.

"But not beyond the range of its antiaircraft, right?" Clete challenged.

"If they don't consider the airplane a threat, they won't fire on it," Graham said.

Clete said nothing, but shook his head in either resignation or, possibly, contempt.

"To continue," Graham went on. "From a two-mile distance, using telephoto lenses and the new film, we have the capability of making photographs, which, when enlarged, will permit us to see a man's mustache."

"Where do you plan to develop and enlarge this super film of somebody's mustache?" Clete asked. "Did anybody think of that?"

"The original idea was to have it developed at Porto Alegre," Graham said. "The Navy has a photo lab there. Ashton brought a supply of the special chemicals with him. The original idea, of course, was to have photographic evidence that we were aware of the location of the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico. This would be presented to the Argentine government in the hope that they would then order the Oceano Pacifico to leave its waters."

"Simply for anchoring in Samboromb?n Bay?" Dorotea asked. "Why would we do that?"

"Why wouldwe do that" is what she said.

"Because, Dorotea," Graham said, desperately trying to keep his annoyance at her question out of his voice, "because they would correctly infer that it was a subtle warning that unless they ordered the ship from their waters, the United States would take other action."

"'Other action' meaning what you did—as Cletus did—with the first ship?"

"Yes."

"That might work," Dorotea said.

Thank you very much. It warms the cockles of my heart to know that a nineteen-year-old girl approves of the best idea the Assistant Director for Western Hemisphere Operations of the OSS— and a half-dozen other people all old enough to be your father— could come up with after a hell of a lot of thought. And your beloved, Little Lady, didn't sink theReine de la Mer all by himself. There was a destroyer and a submarine who made a little contribution to sending the Reine de la Mer down.

"I said, before, 'the original idea.' All of this planning, of course, was before we became aware of Lindbergh, and of the intelligence Clete came up with last night," Graham went on. "Now there are two issues involved here. The, quote, neutral status, unquote, of the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico, and the money Clete's source says they are going to smuggle ashore this morning."

"I don't quite understand," Dorotea said.

Graham glanced at Clete.

"What's the new idea?" Clete said.

"Maybe killing two birds with one stone," Graham said. "Or at least with one set of photographs. Tell me about this Air Service Captain . . . Delgano?"

"Delgano," Clete confirmed. "What about him?"

"I have the feeling he's more than just a pilot," Graham said.

"He's BIS," Clete said. "He works for Coronel Martin."

"You're sure?"

"He told me."

"OK. New plan. Tell me what you find wrong with it," Graham said. "You go pick up the Lockheed. Digression: Presumably Captain Delgano is going to help you fly it here, right? You cannot fly the Lockheed alone?"

"No. I mean, yes, I can fly the Lockheed alone. And I got Mart?n to agree that I didn't need Delgano's help. It took some doing. He wanted Delgano to see what I planned to do with the Lockheed."

Is that one more proof,Graham wondered, that Cavalry is el Coronel Martin?

"So do I," Graham said. "Damn!"

"I'm not following any of this," Dorotea announced.

"What I wanted to do, Dorotea," Graham said, "was have Capitan Delgano aboard the Lockheed when we took the pictures of a boat leaving the Oceano Pacifico to smuggle something into Argentina. Of the boat leaving the Oceano Pacifico, of the boat landing on the shore of Samboromb?n Bay, and returning to the Oceano Pacifico. Lieutenant Pelosi would take two photographs of everything, giving us a duplicate set of negatives. One set of negatives would be given to Capitan Delgano, together with the necessary special chemicals to develop them."

"Yeah," Clete said appreciatively. "He goes to Mart?n and says, 'I know these are legitimate. I was there when they were taken.'"

"And the Americans have copies," Graham said. "So they couldn't simply ignore them—'What photographs?' Actually, it gives them a way out. Nobody has mentioned the other reason why the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico is in Samboromb?n Bay resupplying German submarines. The Argentines could then go to the Spanish ambassador and tell him they were ordering the Oceano Pacifico out of Argentine waters because it was caught in the act of smuggling, and here's the photographs to prove it."

"Delgano's probably still at Campo de Mayo," Clete said. "For two reasons: to keep people from getting curious about the Lockheed being there in the first place, and because I told Mart?n I would probably fly over there in one of the Cubs here to pick it up. I'm sure, to be a nice guy, he was planning on flying the Cub back here to see if the Lockheed was here. And/or see what else he could find out."

"And you could politely ask him to help you fly the Lockheed?" Graham asked.

"Yeah."

"You'll have to come here to load the camera platform on the Lockheed," Graham said. "Will you have any trouble persuading him to go with you from here?"

"Oh, I don't think I'll have any trouble at all," Clete said.

"And then you'll go out and photograph this ship, the same way you photographed the first one, when you were shot down?" Dorotea asked.

Uh-oh,Graham thought, this is where she's going to say, "Over my dead, pregnant body you will!"

"If we're two miles away, honey," Clete said, "I don't think they'll start shooting at us."

"And if they do?" Dorotea asked.

"Then I leave," Clete said, as much to Graham as to Dorotea.

"You promise?" she challenged.

Clete hesitated before replying. "Honey, I promise you I won't do anything stupid out there."

Please, God,Graham thought, let that be enough to satisfy her.

"You understand, Colonel," Dorotea said, "that this is the last time Cletus is doing anything like this?"

"If this works, Dorotea," Graham said, hoping he sounded far more sincere than he felt, "there won't be anything more like this for him to do."

"You could be expected to say something like that," she said.

"The truth, Dorotea, is that Clete is far more valuable to the United States government for his influence on General Rawson—on the new Argentine government—than as an OSS agent. If something like this comes up again, we'll send other people in to do it."

"You don't know my . . . Cletus very well, obviously, Colonel," she said. She almost said "my husband," Graham realized. "If 'something like this comes up again,' Cletus will play the damn fool again. I want you to understand, Colonel, that the next time, I'm fighting you tooth and nail."

"Fair enough," Graham said.

"And in Dorotea, mi Coronel," Clete said, smiling, obviously proud of her, "you can expect to meet your match."

"I have already figured that out, Major Frade," Graham said. "OK, let me get into the rest of it. The materiel the Germans will unload from the Oceano Pacifico."

"We're letting them unload the money?" Clete asked, surprised.

Graham didn't reply directly.

"Leibermann has the entire staff of the Office of the Legal Attach? of the Embassy—and some of their local hires—on the way out here. They'll follow the materiel from the beach to its ultimate destination."

"You're letting those bastards bring that dirty money into Argentina?" Clete demanded incredulously. "You know what they're going to do with it!"

"I decided there was a strong possibility that if we grabbed the money today, there would be several unfortunate consequences," Graham said. "And I don't mean only that the only escape route I've ever heard of from German extermination camps would probably be closed for good."

Clete considered that a moment and grunted.

"And, aside from that, I decided that it posed an unacceptable risk to Galahad," Graham went on. "There would be questions asked, on their side, about how we knew precisely where and when the materiel—the money—was to be landed. Only a few people were privy to that information, among them, obviously, Galahad. The Germans have the nasty habit of eliminating people they suspect are guilty. I don't want Galahad eliminated."

"So you can use him again, right?" Clete said bitterly.

"Right."

Their eyes met for a moment, and then Graham went on: "When Lieutenant Sawyer was at Yale—"

"Lieutenant Sawyer?" Dorotea interrupted. "Who's he?"

"Lieutenant Madison R. Sawyer the Third," Clete furnished, his tone mocking Sawyer's Oh, So Social-sounding name. "He's on Ashton's team. Ashton calls him 'the gorilla.'"

"When Lieutenant Sawyer was at Yale, he was a photographer for the Yale Daily News," Graham went on. "He tells Ashton, and we have no choice but to take him at his word, that he will have no problem photographing, on the ground, the landing of the materiel from the Oceano Pacifico. With a little bit of luck, we will furnish your friend Mart?n not only photographs of the materiel actually being unloaded on the beach, but of our friend Standartenf?hrer Goltz and/or Colonel Gr?ner supervising the unloading. That will give the Argentine government sufficient cause to persona non grata either of them, hopefully both."

"What does that mean?" Dorotea asked.

The idea of having Gr?ner booted out of the country didn't seem to bother Clete at all,Graham thought, thereby eliminating Gr?ner as Galahad, and confirming, if it needed confirming, that Galahad is von Wachtstein.

"When someone on a diplomatic passport does something wrong," Graham said, "such as smuggling, the host government declares him persona non grata—a person not welcome—and asks him to leave the country."

"It will also tip the Germans that we know about the money," Clete challenged.

"Why? So far as they're concerned, the money will have safely arrived, still in its crates, wherever they take it."

"They will wonder how someone just happened to be taking pictures where they were landing the money," Clete argued.

"Look," Graham said, "an amateur photographer is walking along the beach and happens to see the strange activity of people unloading crates from a boat and takes pictures of it with his Brownie. If Lieutenant Sawyer's photographs don't naturally look like the work of an amateur photographer, they can be made to look that way." He paused, then went on. "Actually, Leibermann has a local cop on his payroll who can turn them in. That's just between us."

"Why don't we just tell Leibermann's cop what's about to happen? Let them grab the money?"

"I thought about that. I decided that one cop stumbling across the unloading would not arouse undue suspicion; a dozen cops waiting for the boat would."

Clete shrugged. He could not fault Graham's logic.

"There are several problems involved with getting Lieutenant Sawyer to the proper place at the properly appointed time in the properly appointed uniform—civilian clothing—to take his pictures," Graham said. "For one thing, he's in Argentina illegally. For another, despite his protestations to the contrary, the Germans are liable to see him. He would not be able to defend himself, because I don't want him carrying a weapon."

"I could send Enrico with him," Clete thought aloud. "Enrico and Rudolpho."

"Se?or Clete?" Enrico asked, having heard his name.

Clete switched to Spanish.

"This morning, Enrico, you and Rudolpho are going to go riding along the beach."

"Where will you be, Se?or Clete?"

"I'll be flying the airplane," Clete said. "And you can't go with me." He waited to deal with the expected objections to that; and when—surprising him—there were none, went on. "You will take el Teniente Gorilla with you. He will be taking photographs of the Germans unloading crates from a boat."

"And what do we do about the Germans?"

"Nothing, absolutely nothing. We don't even want them to see you. If they do see you, you're to leave immediately. But I don't want them to see you. This is very important. What I want you to do is put el Teniente Gorilla in a position to take his photographs, and when he's finished, bring him back here. Only if necessary, and I mean absolutely necessary, are you to use your guns to protect el Teniente Gorilla. No dead Germans, you understand, Enrico?"

“S?, Se?or Clete," Enrico agreed with obvious reluctance.

"If you do what Se?or Clete asks you to do, Suboficial Mayor," Graham said, "it will result in the deaths of far more Germans than the ones you will see on the beach."

Enrico considered that idea and seemed to like it.

“S?, mi Coronel," he said.

"Unless anyone has anything else?" Graham asked, looking around the room, and then finished, "I think we should, quickly, take advantage of Dorotea's buffet breakfast."

[TWO]

Aboard Motor Vessel Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico

Samboromb?n Bay

River Plate Estuary, Argentina

0810 19 April 1943

Capitan Jose Francisco de Banderano, master of the Oceano Pacifico, was, of course being generously compensated for his services—as was his crew. There had been a generous sign-on bonus, and a promise of an equal amount at the conclusion of the voyage, even if the ship was lost. In addition, each month an amount equal to, and in addition to, his monthly pay would be delivered to his wife, in cash—and thus tax-free. If things should go really wrong, his wife would receive a generous death benefit, plus a pension for the rest of her life. The German Naval Attach? in Madrid had made similar provisions for every member of his crew.

But the generous pay was not the reason he had accepted the commission. He believed in the German cause.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Capitan de Banderano was a graduate of the Spanish Royal Navy Academy. He graduated at eighteen, was appointed a midshipman, and then, on attaining his twenty-first birthday, was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Royal Spanish Navy.

By the time the Communists started the revolution, he had risen to Lieutenant Commander and was in command of the frigate Almirante de Posco. Before the revolution, he hoped to rise in rank to Capitan—as his father had—or possibly even to Almirante—as his grandfather had.

The revolution changed all that. He was early on detached from the Almirante de Posco to serve on the staff of General Francisco Franco, El Caudillo, when that great man saw it as his Christian duty to expel the godless Communists from Spain and restore Spain to her former greatness.

As the Civil War dragged on and on, his duties had less and less to do with the Navy, but they took him to all fronts and gave him the opportunity to see what the Communists had in mind for Spain. And they were godless, the Antichrist. He saw the murdered priests and the raped nuns.

Hitler, "Der F?hrer," and Benito Mussolini, "El Duce," were deeply aware of the nature of the Communists, and of the threat communism posed to the very survival of Christian civilization; and they sent help. Der F?hrer more than El Duce, to be sure, but both came to the aid of a Christianity that once again had infidel hordes raging at her gates.

Without the help German weapons provided to General Franco's army, without the aerial support of the German Condor Legion, it was entirely possible that the war could have been lost.

The English and the Americans remained "neutral," but that in practice meant they were helping the loyalists. The Americans even sent soldiers, formed into the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, to aid the Communists.

Capitan de Banderano was frankly baffled by the behavior of the English and the Americans. The usual answer to this conundrum was that they were not Roman Catholic, and their "churches" had been infiltrated and corrupted by Communists; but he thought that was too simple an answer. A large number of the Germans who came to help Spain were Protestant. He also thought the other answer was too simple: that the Jews controlled both England and America.

Too many good Spanish Jews had fought as valiantly as anyone on the side of El Caudillo to believe that all Jews were allied with the Antichrist.

But whatever their reasons for opposing Hitler, for refusing to accept that the war Hitler was waging against the Communists was their own war, the fact was that England and America were fighting Germany, and that was sufficient cause for him to do whatever he could to oppose them.

The notion of violating the Rules of Warfare by violating Argentine neutrality would have deeply offended him before the Civil War. Now it seemed only right. The actions of the English during the Civil War were blatantly antagonistic to neutrality. And later, the actions of the Americans after the beginning of the current war, but before they themselves joined the hostilities, were equally contrary to neutrality.

There was no command for Capitan de Banderano in the post-Civil War Royal Spanish Navy. Spain was destitute—and not only because the Communists stole literally tons of gold, almost the entire gold stocks of the kingdom, and took it to Russia. There was hardly enough money to operate—much less construct—men-of-war. The once proud Spanish navy was on its knees, again, thanks to the Communists.

Thus, his service during the Civil War was rewarded with a command in the Spanish merchant navy. He saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears American Navy ships roaming the North Atlantic searching for German submarines—which had every right under international law to sink vessels laden with war materiel and bound for England. When the American ships found one, they reported their positions by radio, in the clear. "In the clear" meant that radios aboard English men-of-war were given the positions of their enemy by "neutral" American men-of-war.

In Capitan de Banderano's opinion, the English and the Americans were absolutely hypocritical in their denunciation of anyone else who violated neutrality.

And it was the further judgment of Capitan de Banderano that the captain of the American destroyer Alfred Thomas deserved to be brought before an international tribunal for reckless endangerment on the high seas and put in prison.

He almost wished the American destroyer put a shot across his bows then, or took some other action. He thought there was a good chance he could have blown her out of the water with naval cannon carried aboard the Oceano Pacifico in false superstructure.

He had always been skilled with naval artillery. He suspected—but did not know—that someone who knew him in the Admiralty had recommended him to the Germans for command of the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico because of this skill.

In any event, he was approached about taking command of the Oceano Pacifico on a "special mission"—and of course he suspected that mission was to replace the Reine de la Mer that the Americans had sunk. When the command was offered, he made up his mind to accept the commission even before the generous emoluments were mentioned.

Even if there was, so to speak, no command of the Royal Navy available to him, even if he was technically a civilian, he knew in his heart that he would be fighting the Antichrist, the godless Communists.

Capitan de Banderano was in his cabin shaving when the Second Officer knocked and announced that a small boat was approaching the Oceano Pacifico from the port.

"How far?"

"A mile or so, Sir. I would say she will come close in five minutes."

"Thank you, I will be there directly."

Capitan de Banderano finished shaving, put on his tunic, and went to the bridge. He picked his binoculars from its rack and walked out on the flying bridge, where he found the binoculars unnecessary. He could quite clearly read the gold-lettered name of the vessel on its bow with his naked eye— Coronel Gasparo.

His first thought was that a boat of that type had no business so far out in the bay. She was a river craft, lean, narrow, and long. In a moment he recognized her for what she was: one of the river craft that plied the maze of waters of El Tigre, north of Buenos Aires.

What in the name of all the saints is she doing out here in the first place, so far from the sheltered waters of El Tigre? And in the second place, why is she pulling alongside me ?

She had neither bridge nor wheelhouse. She was controlled internally by her coxswain—or more likely by some sheltered water seaman who proudly called himself "Capitan"—from inside her superstructure.

She took water over her bow as she turned to draw alongside—not enough to be dangerous, he judged. And when the light was right, he could see into the interior of her single cabin.

A young blond-haired man was at her wheel. Beside him, hanging on for dear life, was a man very likely wearing the uniform of the SS.

"Capitan, our accommodation ladder is half-raised," his Second Officer informed him.

"Have it lowered. Have someone on the platform throw her a line. Have an officer arm himself and be prepared on my orders to deny the use of the ladder to anyone."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

It took five minutes for the accommodation ladder to be lowered to the surface of the water, then for an officer—de Banderano was surprised to see it was the Second Engineer—to find a submachine gun and come to the rail, and finally for two seaman to find a coil of line and descend to the ladder's platform with it.

During this period, the Coronel Gasparo circled, dipping her bow in the swells and leaning almost alarmingly as she waited for the completion of the preparations to receive her.

The first time she approached the ladder, only a last-second desperate maneuver kept her from colliding with the Oceano Pacifico. This, of course, forced her to make yet another dipping and swaying turn.

Two of her crew—a middle-aged man and a younger one, who looked like his son—were now outside the cabin. The middle-aged man aft caught the second tossed line, tied it to a stanchion that was not very substantial-looking, and the two sailors on the ladder physically dragged the Coronel Gasparo back to the ladder.

The SS officer appeared on the aft deck. De Banderano could now see him clearly. He was not only an SS officer, but a Standartenf?hrer. De Banderano had been told he would be contacted by a senior German official, but had expected this would be someone from the German embassy, a diplomat, not a Standartenf?hrer.

Very carefully, the Standartenf?hrer jumped from the Coronel Gasparo onto the ladder and started up it.

When he reached the deck, he looked around until he saw Captain de Banderano.

His arm shot out in the Nazi salute.

"Heil Hitler!" he barked in German. "You are Captain de Banderano?"

De Banderano nodded. His German was adequate but not fluent; he used it only when he had to.

"Standartenf?hrer Goltz," Goltz announced. "I am the officer you were told to expect."

"What can I do for you, Standartenf?hrer?" de Banderano asked in his halting German.

"This is my authority," Goltz said, and handed him the letter on the stationery of the Nazi party and signed by all the senior members of the German government except Adolf Hitler himself.

Capitan de Banderano had just finished reading it—and being suitably impressed by it—when Peter stepped off the ladder onto the deck.

"Buenos dias, Capitan," Peter said, and rendered a military salute.

"Major Freiherr von Wachtstein, Captain," Goltz said. "My assistant in this undertaking."

There was something about the young major that de Banderano liked.

"You apparently have had a rather rough voyage," de Banderano said in Spanish. "Could I offer coffee? Perhaps with a little something to sweeten it?"

"The Capitan's understatement is exceeded only by his generosity," Peter said. "I accept with the most profound thanks."

Goltz looked at Peter for a translation.

"The Capitan has just offered us coffee," Peter said.

"I think that would be a splendid idea," Goltz said.

"If you'll come this way, gentlemen?" de Banderano said, and then added: "You speak Spanish very well, Mayor."

"Thank you. I spent some time in Spain," Peter said.

"During the war?"

"With the Condor Legion," Peter said.

Goltz picked up on the Condor Legion and guessed what they were talking about.

"Major von Wachtstein received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from the hands of the F?hrer himself," he offered.

"For service in Spain?" de Banderano asked.

"For service in the East," Peter said.

De Banderano now had the satisfaction of confirming his snap judgment of the young officer. He was a fellow warrior in the war against the Antichrist Communists.

He waved them to seats around the wardroom table and ordered the steward to bring coffee, sweets, and brandy.

"Curiosity overwhelms me," he said. "What are you doing in that river craft out here?"

"What did he ask?" Goltz asked.

"It was all we could find on short notice," Peter said, and then translated for Goltz both de Banderano's question and his reply.

"We are pressed for time," Goltz said to de Banderano.

"How may I be of service?" de Banderano asked.

"Shortly before you sailed from Sweden, Captain, several crates were loaded aboard your vessel by Obersturmbannfuhrer Hasselmann. . . ."

Goltz paused until this was acknowledged—de Banderano nodded his head—and then continued.

"I tell you now, in confidence, Captain, that they contain certain materiel which will be used to repatriate the officers of the Graf Spee now interned in Argentina. These officers will be brought—probably in groups of twenty or so— from their place of internment to your ship, and then transferred to submarines."

De Banderano had been very curious about the crates brought aboard the Oceano Pacifico under heavy guard at the last moment before he sailed. And once they were under way he went so far as to enter the hold to look at them. He actually considered opening them for a look. But they had been sealed with lead-and-wire seals that could not be broken without detection.

"Major," he said in German, "my German is not that good. This is obviously of great importance. Would you please translate what the Herr Standartenf?hrer just said?"

Peter did so.

"The Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico is at your disposal, Herr Standartenf?hrer," he said when Peter finished. "And may I say, as a former Naval officer, that I am delighted to make a contribution to such an undertaking?"

"This project, of course," Goltz said, "has the personal support of Admiral Canaris, who was himself interned in Argentina—and escaped—during the First World War. And I have reason to believe that the F?hrer himself has a personal interest."

"What would you like me to do?" de Banderano asked.

Goltz took a map from his pocket and laid it on the table.

The steward arrived with the coffee, pastry, a bottle of Spanish brandy, and three gold-rimmed crystal glasses. He filled the glasses.

"Have we time for a toast?" de Banderano asked, picking up his glass.

"Of course," Goltz said.

"To Adolf Hitler, our leader in the war against godless communism," de Banderano offered.

They sipped their cognac.

"To El Caudillo, Der F?hrer's ally in that noble enterprise," Goltz said.

They sipped again.

"To my comrades in the war against the Communists in Spain," Peter said.

De Banderano was touched by the young major's toast.

Goltz pointed to the map.

"I have arranged for a truck to be at this point, Captain," he said, and interrupted himself. "Hans, you better have a look at this. It's time for you to see where we're going."

"Jawohl, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Peter said, and looked at the map.

"By now, Captain," Goltz said, "Oberst Gr?ner and the others are already in position. All that remains is for us to bring those special materiel crates ashore and into their hands."

In that absurd little river craft? It wouldn't be exactly landing through the surf—this is, after all, a bay—but that boat probably draws a meter or a meter and a half and they're very likely to run aground fifty meters offshore. If they can make it in without capsizing.

"I have aboard a boat, Herr Standartenf?hrer, which is probably more suitable to land on a beach than your vessel."

'"Splendid!" Goltz said. "Now let me ask you this: Can you take our boat aboard your vessel?"

"I don't know. I'd have to look at it," de Banderano said. "Why would you want me to do that, if I may ask?"

"I thought it would be useful when we bring the Graf Spee officers from shore," Goltz said.

"With respect, Herr Standartenf?hrer, the Oceano Pacifico's boat could do that more efficiently," de Banderano said. "All I would have to know is where and when you wanted our boat available."

"In that case, Hans," Goltz said. "We would not need your boat. You could return it to El Tigre. If we weren't using it, obviously, it would not arouse suspicion."

"You're absolutely right, Herr Standartenf?hrer."

"Let me propose this course of action, Hans, and you tell me what you think is wrong with it. We will use the Oceano Pacifico's boat—" He interrupted himself. "I presume your offer, Captain, includes a crew for your boat?"

"Of course. I will send my First Officer . . . No, I will take you ashore myself."

"That's very gallant of you, Captain."

"It is the very least I can do."

"Let me continue," Goltz said thoughtfully. "We will land the materiel in Captain de Banderano's boat. I will stay ashore. You will then return to the Oceano Pacifico, pick up your boat, and return it to El Tigre. I will have a word with Herr Loche and see if we can't sell the boat back. Or perhaps it might be a good idea to hold it in reserve. That can be decided later."

"I hesitate to ...," de Banderano said.

"If you have something to say, Captain, by all means do so."

"There is no reason for Major von Wachtstein to go with us. What I meant to suggest is that if anyone sees your river craft tied alongside, it might seem odd. There was an airplane flying over earlier. . . ."

"What kind of an airplane?" Goltz asked quickly.

"Oh, I am sure this airplane is no cause for alarm," de Banderano said. "It was an airliner, painted bright red, and it passed at least a mile away, probably at five thousand feet or more. But it made me think that the Argentines probably have patrol aircraft."

"I understand your concern," Goltz said after a minute. "That sort of problem was the reason why I asked if our boat could be taken aboard." He hesitated again. "But I still would like Major von Wachtstein to go with us."

"Of course," de Banderano said.

"But as soon as you return here, Hans," Goltz ordered. "You start for El Tigre."

"Jawohl, Herr Standartenf?hrer."

"How long will it take, Captain, for you to prepare your boat? And to load the crates aboard it?"

Capitan de Banderano smiled.

"In my professional judgment," he said. "It will take almost exactly as long as it will take for you to have a nice breakfast."

[THREE]

Samboromb?n Bay

River Plate Estuary, Argentina

0940 19 April 1943

Although he had been standing on the roof of the truck looking out into Samboromb?n Bay through very good 7 x 57-mm Ernst Leitz-Wetzlar binoculars for fifteen minutes, Oberst Karl-Heinz Gr?ner did not see the power launch of the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico until after it was seen—and photographed—by First Lieutenant Madison R. Sawyer III, USAR.

This was primarily because Sawyer, Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, Argentine Army, Retired, and Sarjento Rudolpho Gomez, Argentine Army, had stationed themselves just behind the military crest ( The military crest of terrain is that point closest to and immediately below the actual crest at which soldiers cannot be seen (and thus fired upon) by the enemy) of a rise in the land that placed them sixty feet above the beach.

They were thus able to see farther out into the bay. And they, too, were equipped with very fine optical viewing devices. Enrico was looking out into the bay with an 8 x 75 binocular el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade had personally purchased at the Leitz plant in Wetzlar while he was in Germany attending the Kriegsschule. Enrico spotted the power launch first.

Lieutenant Sawyer was equipped with Bausch and Lomb 8 x 57-mm binoculars Enrico had found in Se?or Clete's luggage when he returned from the United States. Se?or Clete told him that this instrument had been stolen from the U.S. Navy and that he had bought it in New Orleans.

After finding the boat with the stolen U.S. Navy binoculars, Lieutenant Sawyer then found the boat in the viewfinder of his telescopic lens-equipped, tripod-mounted, Leica Model I-C camera, also a product of the Leitzwerk.

When the boat came closer to the beach, Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez changed his means of surveillance to the adjustable 2-10-power Zeiss telescopic sight mounted on the Lowe-Berlin Model 95 7-mm sporting rifle, which was also a souvenir of el Coronel Frade's time in Germany.

There were only a few telescopically equipped rifles in el Coronel Frade's gun room. Rudolpho was furnished with the next best, a Remington Model 70 caliber .30-06 sporting rifle equipped with a nonadjustable Bausch and Lomb 4-power telescopic sight. It took him a little longer than Enrico to clearly see the power launch approaching the beach.

But shortly after Colonel Gr?ner spotted the launch in his binoculars, Rudolpho, too, was able to see it. And shortly after that, when Enrico asked him if he could identify the German pilot who came to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo the night before, Rudolpho was able to reply in the affirmative. The launch moved closer to shore.

Lieutenant Sawyer exhausted the thirty-six-image roll of 35-mm film in the Leica and changed film. For reasons he could not imagine, this caused him a good deal of difficulty finding the launch again in the Leica's viewfinder. The mystery was explained when he saw that one telescoping leg of his tripod—not properly tightened—had closed on itself while he was changing film cartridges. He tightened the leg firmly and had no further trouble.

He very carefully conserved his film, so that by the time the launch ran aground on the shore he had twenty-eight remaining images to photograph the actual off-loading of the crates from the boat, and the loading of the crates aboard the waiting truck.

He was very pleased with himself. He was going to get everything Colonel Graham had asked him to get. When the film was processed and printed, there would be absolute proof that a boat from the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico —the legend was clearly painted in black on her sides—had landed on the shore of Samboromb?n Bay, and had there off-loaded what appeared to be six wooden crates. And all of this activity was clearly under the supervision of an officer wearing an SS uniform and another in civilian clothing; but whom Enrico had identified as the German Military Attach?.

Since there was no amplification in the viewfinder of the Leica, Sawyer raised the binoculars to his eyes with his right hand and watched the SS colonel jump out of the boat and wade the last few feet ashore. There he triumphantly gave that absurd Nazi salute before enthusiastically pumping the hand of the German Military Attach?.

The Leica was equipped with an automatic film-advance device that permitted him to make shot after shot simply by pressing a thumb-operated shutter-triggering device.

Sailors from the Oceano Pacifico then jumped out of the boat and started to manhandle the first of the crates out of the boat.

There was a sudden, wholly unexpected, painfully loud explosion in Lieutenant Sawyer's ears, followed immediately by another.

Sawyer looked at the two Argentinians who had escorted him here. Both were quickly working the actions of their just-fired rifles.

"What in the name of God are you doing?" Sawyer asked in both surprise and indignation.

They both took fresh sight pictures.

"Stop that!!" Sawyer ordered as he put the binoculars to his eyes again.

He saw that both the SS officer and the Military Attach? were down on the beach. Both looked as if their heads had exploded.

A blond-headed man jumped out of the launch and ran to one of the downed men. Sawyer decided he was probably an officer from the Oceano Pacifico.

There came again the crack of the rifles, and Lieutenant Sawyer saw the body the officer was kneeling over jump as a second high-powered bullet struck it.

"My God, what have you done?" Sawyer asked.

Both old soldiers had pulled themselves down from their firing positions at the military crest of the hill.

Sawyer looked at the beach again. But not for long. He was knocked off his feet by the Argentine called Enrico, and dragged off the crest of the hill.

"We go now," Enrico said in heavily accented English.

"My God, man, do you realize what you have done?"

Enrico did not speak English, but he understood the question nevertheless.

"My Coronel, mi Teniente," he said, "and my beloved sister may now rest among the saints in peace throughout eternity. Their murders have been avenged."

"What? What?"

"We go now, Teniente," Enrico repeated, and started to walk down the hill to where they had tethered their horses.

[FOUR]

The Embassy of the German Reich

Avenida Cordoba

Buenos Aires, Argentina

1G50 19 April 1943

"Captain, we have of course spoken with Major von Wachtstein," Ambassador Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger said, "but he is—with good reason—upset about the tragic events of this morning, and we thought you might be able to tell us something he didn't."

And I pray God that your story won't give Gradny-Sawz grounds to suspect that Peter is somehow involved in what happened.

"There really isn't much to tell, Herr Ambassador," Capitan de Banderano said. "We had just reached the shore. Major von Wachtstein wasn't even out of the boat when the Communists struck—"

"The Communists?" Gradny-Sawz interrupted.

"You don't think this is the work of the Communists?" de Banderano asked.

"I'm prone to think the Americans are the ones responsible," Gradny-Sawz said, just a little sarcastically, and then had a thought: "Tell me something, if you please. Captain. Did Major von Wachtstein do anything at all to suggest he expected trouble when you landed?"

The question visibly surprised de Banderano.

"No," he said. "He didn't know where we were going until Standartenf?hrer Goltz told him."

"And when was that"

"At the time he showed me his map," de Banderano said, "he said something to the effect that it was time von Wachtstein should know where they were going."

Gradny-Sawz grunted.

"You're not suggesting that Major von Wachtstein had something to do . . ." de Banderano said.

"I made no such suggestion," Gradny-Sawz said.

"Baron von Gradny-Sawz is simply doing his duty, Captain. Until we find out who is responsible for this, all are suspect."

"All I know is that Major von Wachtstein risked his life to aid Standartenf?hrer Goltz and Oberst Gr?ner," de Banderano said. "And to guard the special materiel. I could not leave the helm of the launch, of course, and I am ashamed to say that my crew did not behave admirably. It was von Wachtstein—"

"How do you mean, your crew did not behave admirably?" Gradny-Sawz interrupted.

"When Standartenf?hrer Goltz was struck, it was in the forehead. The shot—forgive the indelicacy—opened his head like a ripe melon. There was blood and brain tissue all over. My men jumped back into the boat. Major von Wachtstein, on the other hand, jumped out of the boat while the firing was still going on, and rushed to help."

"How many shots were fired?" Gradny-Sawz asked.

"I don't know. At least six, possibly eight or more."

"Odd," von Lutzenberger said. "Von Wachtstein said there were only four shots."

"How exactly did von Wachtstein help?" Gradny-Sawz asked.

"He went first to Standartenf?hrer Goltz, saw that he was dead, and called that fact to me. Then he went to the other officer. . . ."

"Oberst Gr?ner," von Lutzenberger supplied.

"Yes. And while he was bent over him, there was another shot. In my mind clearly intended for von Wachtstein. He didn't let it bother him. He showed great presence of mind."

"What did you mean the second shot was 'clearly intended for von Wachtstein'?" von Lutzenberger asked.

"The Oberst had been shot in the head also. And was clearly dead. There would have been no point in shooting him again. And the shot didn't miss von Wachtstein by the width of my hands when it struck the Oberst for the second time."

"And the great presence of mind?" von Lutzenberger asked.

"Again, excuse the indelicacy. But von Wachtstein, who had every reason to be terrified—this was moments after the bullet missed him by the width of my hands—never let the importance of the special materiel out of his mind. Before he carried the bodies to the launch—and I am ashamed to say not one of my men had the courage to leave the launch to help him—he reloaded the one crate that had been off-loaded. A lesser man, knowing the two were dead, would have been content to leave them on the beach. But von Wachtstein insisted that we had to take them with us."

"He is a courageous officer," Gradny-Sawz said. "He received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from the hands of the F?hrer himself, you know."

"Standartenf?hrer Goltz told me that. I had the feeling that they were fond of one another. I could tell how difficult it was, on the way back to my ship, for von Wachtstein to retain his composure."

"The special materiel is intact?" von Lutzenberger asked. "Berlin will want to know about that."

"It is safe in my hold," de Banderano said.

"Well, Anton, what do you think?" von Lutzenberger asked after de Banderano had left.

"I think we have a spy in our office, a traitor. The Americans knew where that boat was going to land."

"And you think it's von Wachtstein? Is that it?"

"Herr Ambassador Graf, I said nothing of the kind."

"You gave me that impression, I'm afraid."

"That was not my intention. I mean, after all, Herr Ambassador Graf, one does not quickly question the courage or loyalty of a holder of the Knight's Cross. And then we have Captain de Banderano's testimony to von Wachtstein's courage under fire."

"Well, that may be. I find it quite difficult to even wonder if the traitor is von Wachtstein, but you're right, Anton, we have one."

"We will smoke him out. Or her out."

"You really think it could be Fraulein Hassell?"

"As you yourself said, Herr Ambassador Graf, until we know for sure, everyone is suspect."

"Yes, that's so."

"I wonder what Berlin's going to say?" Gradny-Sawz asked.

"I suppose, Anton, they will most likely name you to replace Standartenf?hrer Goltz in carrying out this project. They'll probably send in another military Attach?—"

"Do you really think so?" Gradny-Sawz interrupted. "Place me in charge of this operation?"

"Yes, I do," von Lutzenberger said.

"They'd almost certainly ask for your recommendation about that."

"And I would certainly give it."

Praying, meanwhile, that they would be so stupid as to actually do it.

What they will do, probably, is send in someone to take Gr?ner's place as Attach?, and someone else to be the security officer, and keep an eye on Gradny-Sawz. And, of course, on me and von Wachtstein.

[FIVE]

Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

1730 19 April 1943

Colonel A. F. Graham replaced the telephone handset in the cradle and turned to Major Cletus Frade and the Legal Attach? of the United States Embassy, Mr. Milton Leibermann.

"The Ambassador—that was his Excellency himself—has been given an appointment to see the Foreign Minister at nine-thirty tomorrow morning," he said. "He was unofficially given to understand that the Foreign Minister has seen some photographs in the possession of Colonel Mart?n of the BIS, and was led to believe that the Foreign Minister wishes to personally inform him that the new government of Argentina intends to scrupulously observe the provisions of neutrality."

"Which means, of course," Leibermann said, "that the Oceano Pacifico will sail off into the sunset with all that money on board."

"Which they will find another way to bring into the country," Clete said.

"Having a lot of money on board does not give us the right to sink her, unfortunately," Graham said. "And I think—I know—they will bring it in some other way. I think when I go back to Washington I can get Milton some more money, some more people, to keep track of it. We're that much ahead.

"And if the Oceano Pacifico is ordered out of Argentine waters, she won't be able to supply any submarines. It'll take the Germans another six weeks, maybe longer, to get another replacement here. So we won, maybe."

"Dave Ettinger is dead," Clete said. "How's that winning?"

"So are Standartenf?hrer Goltz and Colonel Gr?ner," Leibermann said.

"And my father and Enrico's sister. That makes it three to two. Does that mean I can send Enrico out to even up the score?"

"Don't do that, please," Graham said. "I wouldn't want him to shoot von Wachtstein—excuse me, Galahad—by mistake."

Clete looked at him coldly.

"Relax," Graham said. "That goes no further than this room. I have decided that since Milt and I know who Galahad is, and can guess at his motives, Donovan doesn't have to know. I won't tell him."

"Thank you," Clete said sincerely.

"There's a hook in that," Graham said.

"I should have known," Clete said, his relief instantly replaced with bitter anger.

"If something happens to you, Clete, the deal is off. So don't do anything dangerous—like falling out of your wedding bed—or anything else risky down here. Go on the canap?-and-small-talk circuit. Keep your ears open. Say a kind word for our side when you get the chance."

"Get rid of Delojo," Clete said.

"We have enough on an Argentine in Washington to persona non grata him," Graham said. "We will. They will tit for tat, and Commander Delojo gets sent home from here. I think Ashton's the man to replace him, but I'm going to have to sell that to Donovan."

The door opened and a maid put her head in the door.

"Excuse me, Patron," she said. "But the Se?ora insists on seeing you this very moment."

"Jumping the gun a little, isn't she?" Graham said.

"What's the word for that?" Leibermann chuckled. "Hen-pecked?"

"Tell Se?orita Mallin I am occupied and will be with her directly," Clete said.

"Patron, the lady says her name is Se?ora Howell."

"And that's what it is," Martha Williamson Howell said, pushing into the room, "Nice spread you have here, Clete. How are you, honey?"

"I'll be goddamned!"

"Watch your mouth!"

He ran to her and put his arms around her.

"God, I'm glad to see you!" Clete said.

"Where is she?" Martha asked.

"Where's who?"

"Who do you think?"

"Would you ask Se?orita Mallin to come in here, please?" Clete said to the maid.

"Well, look who's here," Martha said, spotting Graham. "What brings you down here?"

"Clete's wedding, what else? How nice to see you, Mrs. Howell."

The door opened again and the Misses Howell passed through it, followed by Cletus Marcus Howell.

He spotted Graham.

"God, what are you doing here? What the hell's going on around here?"

"Not much," Graham said. "How are you, Mr. Howell?"

"I've spent thirty-six hours on an airplane without sleep and four hours in a twenty-year-old Ford taxi driving here. How do you think I am?"

He looked at Cletus.

"Have you nothing to say to your grandfather, Cletus?"

"That depends on what you're doing down here."

Dorotea Mallin entered the room.

"This must be her," the Old Man said.

"That's her."

The Old Man fished in his pocket.

"This is what I'm doing here," he said to Clete, and then turned to Dorotea. "Miss Mallin, I am Cletus Marcus Howell."

"I know who you are," Dorotea said. "Cletus has told me all about you, and so has my father."

"This is now properly yours," the Old Man said, and handed her a square of folded tissue.

She unfolded it. It was an engagement ring, with what looked like a four-carat emerald-cut diamond.

"I don't understand," Dorotea said.

"What the hell is that?" Clete asked suspiciously.

"It's your mother's engagement ring," the Old Man said. "Jorge Guillermo Frade gave it to your mother, and now I'm giving it to this young lady. What she sees in you is beyond me, but if she's going to marry you, she damned well deserves it, and a lot more."

"Thank you," Dorotea said, and then kissed him.

The Old Man looked embarrassed. But pleased.

A HALF CENTURY LATER WE HAVE YET

TO COME TO THE END OF THE STORY

Priebke Extradited to Italy Today

San Carlos De Bariloche

On the eve of his extradition to Italy to stand trial for allegedly participating in a massacre of 335 civilians, former SS Captain Erich Priebke said in an interview yesterday the Vatican had tried to stop the killings.

"The Vatican requested clemency in every way possible and even appealed to the German Embassy," Priebke told the La Mariana del Sur daily.

Priebke, 82, will be extradited to Rome today to await trial. The massacre, in the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome in 1944, was ordered by Hitler to avenge the killing of 32 German soldiers in an ambush.

Priebke has been under house arrest in Bariloche for 17 months since admitting a role in the killings. He has said his task was to cross out the names of victims as they were led into the caves to be executed.

"I was just obeying orders," he said in the interview. "All I knew was that they (the victims) belonged to the Italian Resistance in some way."

Argentina's Supreme Court ordered Priebke's extradition to Rome on November 2.

An Italian delegation, including Interpol officers and a military doctor, arrived yesterday in Bariloche.

According to unconfirmed local press reports, the officials were expected to fly back to Rome with Priebke today at 8 am. Argentine authorities will hand over Priebke to Italian authorities at the local airport, the reports said.

Priebke had lived openly in Argentina since escaping from a British prison camp in 1946. He worked as a waiter in Buenos Aires before moving to Bariloche, where he ran a delicatessen.

"Between March 23 and 24 (1944), Pope Pius XII tried to avoid the reprisal. A great number of Vatican envoys were sent everywhere," Priebke told La Mahana del Sur. He said the Vatican appealed to the German Embassy in Rome and to military leaders, including himself and his superior Herbert Kappler. (DYN-Reuter)

Priebke's attorney Pedro Bianchi said yesterday that the case was historically significant because it involved "the last Nazi." Today marks the 50th an niversary of the Nuremberg trials in which Nazis were tried for committing crimes against humanity during World War II. (Reuter-NA)

The Buenos Aires Herald, Buenos Aires, Argentina

November 20, 1995

Priebke Gone, Hugs Cops, Latter in Trouble

San Carlos de Bariloche

Argentina extradited former Nazi officer Erich Priebke to Italy yesterday to face trial for his role in that country's worst World War II atrocity—the Ardeatine Caves massacre of 335 men and boys.

The former SS captain, now 82, was taken from his home in Bariloche to an airplane sent by Italy to take him to Rome.

He looked serene as he smiled and waved goodbye from the tarmac before boarding the Falcon DA 90 aircraft.

A preliminary committal hearing to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to proceed to a full trial is scheduled in Rome for December 7.

Priebke shook hands with police and hugged some of those who escorted him to the local airport, witnesses said. Interior Minister Carlos Corach later asked that the young officer who was caught by television cameras hugging Priebke be stripped of his police duties. The police suspended him and the officer in charge.

In an interview published yesterday by a local newspaper Priebke expressed grief at having to leave his family behind and hope that his captors will set him free.

He said his wife Alicia was not accompanying him because of her poor health. "She suffered a shock the day I was arrested," he said.

Several Italian Interpol members and at least two doctors also boarded the plane. Priebke has a heart condition but an Argentina judge ruled last week he was fit for the flight.

He has been under house arrest in Bariloche since confessing his part in the atrocity to a US television interviewer last year. The extradition put an end to a year and a half of legal wrangling.

Priebke, who spent the weekend with relatives and friends, said in a newspaper interview on Sunday that he had rejected repeated Vatican pleas to avoid the massacre.

The Buenos Aires Herald, Buenos Aires, Argentina November 21, 1995

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