The Honor of Spies

XI

[ONE]

2404 Calle Bernardo O'Higgins

Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina

0815 1 October 1943

SS-Brigadefuhrer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg, first deputy adjutant to Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, awoke sweat-soaked in the bedroom of his apartment in the petit-hotel at O'Higgins and Jose Hernandez in the up-scale Belgrano neighborhood.

Worse, he knew that he was going to be sick to his stomach again. He padded quickly across the bedroom to the bathroom and just made it to the water closet before he threw up.

First, an amazing volume of foul-smelling green vomitus splashed into the water. This was followed moments later by a somewhat lesser volume of the green vomitus.

Von Deitzberg now desperately wished to flush the toilet but knew from painful past experience that this was not going to be immediately possible. For reasons known only to the gottverdammt Argentines, the water reservoir was mounted so high on the wall, with a flushing chain so short, it was damned near impossible to pull it when sitting on the toilet, and absolutely impossible to do so when one was on one's knees hugging the toilet.

It would be out of reach until he managed to recover sufficiently to be able to get off his knees and stand up with a reasonable chance of not falling over; that, too, had happened.

The entire sequence had happened so often--this was the fourth day--that von Deitzberg knew exactly what to expect, and that happened now. There were two more eruptions--this varied; sometimes there were three or more--after which von Deitzberg somehow knew that was all there was going to be. Then he could very carefully get to his feet, stand for a moment to reach the gottverdammt flushing chain handle, and then quickly hoist the hem of his nightgown and even more quickly sit on the toilet seat in anticipation of the burst of vile-smelling, foul-looking contents of his bowels that most often followed the nausea.

Baron von Deitzberg was suffering from what August Muller, M.D., described as "a pretty bad cold, plus maybe a little something else."

Doctor Muller was on the staff of the German Hospital. A Bavarian, he had been in Argentina for ten years. More important, he was a dedicated National Socialist, two of whose sons had returned to the Fatherland and were now serving in the SS.

For these reasons, Dr. Muller could be trusted to understand that there were reasons why SS-Brigadefuhrer von Deitzberg was secretly in Argentina under the name of Jorge Schenck and, of course, why von Deitzberg could not go to the German Hospital, where questions would certainly be asked.

Dr. Muller would treat the brigadefuhrer in his apartment and would tell no one he was doing so.

Von Deitzberg was not surprised he was ill. He was surprised that it took so long--until he was in his new apartment--for it to show up. He believed he had contracted some illness--probably more than one; Dr. Muller's "a little something else"--on U-405 during that nightmare voyage.

And he knew where he had caught Dr. Muller's "pretty bad cold." Fifty meters from the shore of Samborombon Bay, the rubber boat in which von Deitzberg was being taken ashore had struck something on the bottom. Something sharp. There had been a whooshing sound as the rubber boat collapsed and sank into the water.

The water was not much more than a meter deep. There was no danger of anyone drowning, and--giving credit where credit was due--the U-405's sailors quickly got von Deitzberg and his luggage ashore. By then, however, von Deitzberg was absolutely waterlogged and so were the two leather suitcases he'd bought on his last trip to Argentina, and of course their contents.

The result had been that von Deitzberg had been soaking wet during the four-hour trip in First Secretary Anton von Gradny-Sawz's embassy car from the beach to his new apartment. There was simply nothing that could be done about it.

By the time they reached the apartment, von Deitzberg had been chilled and was sneezing. Von Gradny-Sawz obligingly arranged for an Old Hungarian Solution to the problem--a hot bath, then to bed after drinking a stiff hooker of brandy with three tablespoons of honey--and said when he returned in the morning he would have with him Dr. Muller. "To be sure things were under control," he'd said.

Von Deitzberg almost refused the physician's services--the more people who knew about him being in Buenos Aires, the greater the chances the secret would get out--but after von Gradny-Sawz had explained who Dr. Muller was, he agreed to have him come.

Dr. Muller was there at nine the next morning, oozing Bavarian gemuetlichkeit and medical assuredness. By then von Deitzberg's eyes were running, his sinuses clogged, he was sneezing with astonishing frequency and strength, and he was running a fever. He was delighted to have the services of a German physician, even one who proudly proclaimed himself to be a "herbalist," a term with which von Deitzberg was not familiar.

He soon found out what it meant.

As soon as von Gradny-Sawz had returned from the nearest pharmacy and greengrocer with the necessary ingredients, Dr. Muller showed one of the petit-hotel's maids--actually, she was the daughter of one of the maids; he later learned she was fifteen and that her name was Maria--how to prepare a number of herbal remedies.

He started with showing Maria how to peel and chop four cloves of garlic and then put them in a cup of warm water, making a remedy that von Deitzberg was to take three times a day.

Dr. Muller then showed Maria how to chop ten grams of ginger into small pieces, which were then to be boiled in water and strained. Von Deitzberg was to drink the hot, strained mixture two times a day.

Maria and von Deitzberg were then introduced to the medicinal properties of okra. She was shown how to cut one hundred grams of the vegetable into small pieces, which were then to be boiled down in half a liter of water to make a thin paste. During the boiling process, von Deitzberg was to inhale the fumes from the pot. The boiled-down okra, when swallowed, Dr. Muller said, was certain to relieve von Deitzberg's throat irritation and to help his dry cough.

And finally came turmeric: Half a teaspoon of fresh turmeric powder was to be mixed in a third of a liter of warm milk, and the mixture drunk twice daily.

This was von Deitzberg's fourth day of following the herbal routine.

Dr. Muller further counseled von Deitzberg that, in order to keep his strength up, he was to eat heartily, even if he had to force himself to do so.

Von Deitzberg had little appetite from his first meal, and that hadn't changed much either. The meals were delivered from a nearby restaurant. Breakfast was rolls and coffee. Lunch was a cup of soup and a postre, which was Spanish for "dessert." Dinner was the only real meal he could force down, and he had trouble with that.

The appetizer was invariably an empanada, a meat-filled pastry. One bite of one of them was invariably quite enough. The first entree had been a pink-in-the-middle filet of beef accompanied by what the Argentines called papas fritas. The second day had been baked chicken accompanied by mashed potatoes; and the third, a pork chop that came with papas fritas.

None of them seemed, in von Deitzberg's judgment, to be the sort of thing someone in his delicate condition should be eating. But Dr. Muller's orders were orders, and von Deitzberg tried hard to obey. He had to get well, and as quickly as possible. He had a great deal of work to do, and the sooner he got at that, the better.

The postres, however, were something else. They immediately reminded von Deitzberg of Demel, the world-famous pastry shop in Vienna to which his grandfather had taken him when he was a boy.

If anything, the pastry chef here in Argentina had used more fresh eggs and more butter and more confectioners' sugar than even Demel would have used. There of course were very few confectioners' fresh eggs, hardly any butter, and no confectioners' sugar at all these days in Berlin, even in the mess of Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler.

On the first day, von Deitzberg had sent Maria back to the restaurant for an additional postre, and then, on second thought, told her to fetch two. Dr. Muller had told him he had to eat to keep up his strength. Maria had since routinely brought two postres with his lunch, and three for his dinner.

Many were new to him, and they were invariably really delicious. One became his favorite: pineapple slices with vanilla ice cream, the whole covered with chocolate syrup. He sometimes had this for both lunch and dinner.

On two of the four nights he had been in the apartment--the first night, he had simply collapsed and slept until von Gradny-Sawz showed up with Dr. Muller the next morning--something occurred that hadn't happened to him in years: On both nights, following an incredibly realistic erotic dream, he awakened to find he had had an involuntary ejaculation.

His first reaction--annoyance and chagrin--was quickly replaced by what he perceived to be the reason. It was clearly a combination of his condition--whatever gottverdammt bug he had caught on the gottverdammt U-405--and Dr. Muller's herbal medications to treat it.

And then his mind filled with both the details of the erotic dreams and the facts and memories on which the dreams were obviously based, and he allowed himself to wallow in them.

His carnal partner in the dreams had been Frau Ingeborg von Tresmarck, a tall slim blonde who was perhaps fifteen years younger than her husband--Sturmbannfuhrer Werner von Tresmarck--who was the security officer of the Embassy of the German Reich in Montevideo, Uruguay.

One of the things von Deitzberg thought he would probably have to do while in South America was eliminate Werner von Tresmarck, and possibly Inge as well, as painful as that might be for him in her case.

When the lucrative business of allowing Jews--primarily American Jews, but also some Canadian, English, and even some South American--to secure the release of their relatives by buying them out of the Konzentrationslagern to which they had been sent en route to the ovens--one of the problems had been to find someone to handle things in South America.

In August 1941, shortly after Adolf Hitler had personally promoted Reinhardt Heydrich--Himmler's Number Two and the Reich Protector of Bohemia-Moravia, as the former Czechoslovakia was now known--to SS-OBERGRUPPENFUHRER and von Deitzberg--newly appointed first deputy adjutant to Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler--to obersturmbannfuhrer, von Deitzberg had confided to Heydrich that, although the promotion was satisfying for a number of reasons, it was most satisfying because he really needed the money.

Two days later, Heydrich handed him an envelope containing a great deal of cash.

"You told me a while ago you were having a little trouble keeping your financial head above water," Heydrich said. "A lot of us have that problem. We work hard, right? We should play hard, right? And to do that, you need the wherewithal, right?"

"Yes, sir," von Deitzberg said.

"Consider this a confidential allowance," Heydrich said. "Spend it as you need to. It doesn't have to be accounted for. It comes from a confidential special fund."

And a week after that, Heydrich told him the source of the money in the confidential special fund.

"Has the real purpose of the concentration camps ever occurred to you, Manfred?" Heydrich asked.

"You're talking about the Final Solution?"

"In a sense. The Fuhrer correctly believes that the Jews are a cancer on Germany, and that we have to remove that cancer. You understand that, of course?"

"Of course."

"The important thing is to take them out of German society. In some instances, we can make them contribute to Germany with their labor. You remember what it says over the gate at Dachau?"

" 'Work will make you free'?"

"Yes. But if the parasites can't work, can't be forced to make some repayment for all they have stolen from Germany over the years, then something else has to be done with them. Right?"

"I understand."

"Elimination is one option," Heydrich said. "But if you realize the basic objective is to get these parasites out of Germany, elimination is not the only option."

"I don't think I quite understand," von Deitzberg had confessed.

"There are Jews outside of Germany who are willing to pay generously to have their relatives and friends taken from the concentration camps."

"Really?"

"For one thing, it accomplishes the Fuhrer's primary purpose--removing these parasitic vermin from the Fatherland. It does National Socialism no harm if vermin that cost us good money to feed and house leave Germany and never return."

"I can see your point."

"And at the same time, it takes money from Jews outside Germany and transfers it to Germany. So there is also an element of justice. They are not getting away free after sucking our blood all these years."

"I understand."

"In other words, if we can further the Fuhrer's intention to get Jews out of Germany and at the same time bring Jewish money into Germany while we make a little money for ourselves, what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing that I can see."

"This has to be done in absolute secrecy, of course. A number of people would not understand; and an even larger number would feel they have a right to share in the confidential special fund. You can understand that."

"Yes, of course."

"Raschner will get into the details with you," Heydrich went on. "You know him, of course?"

"I know who he is, Herr Gruppenfuhrer."

Von Deitzberg knew that Sturmbannfuhrer Erich Raschner was one of the half-dozen SS officers--many of them Sicherheitsdienst--who could be found around Heydrich, but he didn't know him personally, or what his specific duties were.

"He's not of our class--he used to be a policeman, before he joined the Totenkopfverbande--but he's very useful. I'm going to assign him to you. But to get back to what I was saying, this is the way this works, essentially:

"As you know, the Jews are routinely transferred between concentration camps. While they are en route from one camp to another, members of the Totenkopfverbande working for Raschner remove two, three, or four of them from the transport. Ostensibly for purposes of further interrogation and the like. You understand."

Von Deitzberg nodded.

Heydrich went on: "Having been told the inmates have been removed by the Totenkopfverbande, the receiving camp has no further interest in them. The inmates who have been removed from the transport are then provided with Spanish passports and taken by Raschner's men to the Spanish border. Once in Spain, the Jews make their way to Cadiz or some other port, where they board neutral ships. A month later, they're in Uruguay."

"Uruguay?" von Deitzberg blurted in surprise. It had taken him a moment to place Uruguay; and even then, all he could come up with was that it was close to Argentina, somewhere in the south of the South American continent.

"Some stay there," Heydrich said matter-of-factly, "but many go on to Argentina."

"I see," von Deitzberg said.

"Documents issued by my office are of course never questioned," Heydrich went on. "Now, what I want you to do, Manfred, is take over the administration of the confidential special fund--I should say 'supervise the administration' of it. The actual work will continue to be done by Raschner and his men. Raschner will explain the details to you. You will also administer dispersals; Raschner will tell you how much, to whom, and when. Or I will."

"Jawohl, Herr Gruppenfuhrer."

"Raschner has suggested that we need one more absolutely reliable SS officer, someone of our kind, as sort of a backup for you. Any suggestions?"

Von Deitzberg had hardly hesitated: "Goltz," he said, "Standartenfuhrer Josef Goltz. He's the SS-SD liaison officer to the Office of the Party Chancellery."

Heydrich laughed.

"Great minds run in similar channels," he said. "That's the answer I got when I asked Raschner for his suggestion. Why don't the two of you talk to him together?"

On their third meeting Raschner had another suggestion to offer. They needed an absolutely trustworthy man--someone with sufficient rank to keep people from asking questions about what he was doing--to handle things in Uruguay. And someone who could be sent there without too many questions being asked.

"Does the Herr Obersturmbannfuhrer know Sturmbannfuhrer Werner von Tresmarck?"

Von Deitzberg did know von Tresmarck, didn't think highly of him, and told Raschner so.

"He does follow orders, and he would be absolutely trustworthy," Raschner argued.

"Absolutely trustworthy? What do you know about him that I don't, Raschner?"

Raschner had laid an envelope filled with photographs on the desk. They showed Werner von Tresmarck in the buff entwined with at least ten similarly unclad young men.

"Because the alternative would be going to Sachsenhausen wearing a pink triangle on his new striped uniform," Raschner explained unnecessarily.

When von Deitzberg went to Heydrich with the idea, he thought the probable outcome would be von Tresmarck's immediate arrest and transport to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Homosexuality was one of the worst violations of the SS officer's code of honor, topped only by treason.

Heydrich surprised him.

"I can see a certain logic to this, Manfred," Heydrich had said. "Von Tresmarck would certainly be motivated to do what he was told and to keep his mouth shut about it, don't you think?"

"That's true, Herr Gruppenfuhrer."

"Tell you what, Manfred. See if Raschner can come up with a female in similar circumstances we can marry him to. Make the point to her that if she can't make sure that von Tresmarck keeps his indiscretions in Uruguay behind closed doors, both of them will wind up in Sachsenhausen."

"Jawohl, Herr Gruppenfuhrer."

Raschner was prepared to deal with Heydrich's order. Von Deitzberg realized Raschner had expected Heydrich's reaction.

Raschner showed von Deitzberg the Sicherheitsdienst dossier of a woman believed to pose a threat to the sterling reputation of the SS officer corps.

She was the widow of Waffen-SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Erich Kolbermann, who had given his life for his Fuhrer and the Fatherland at Stalingrad. Officers' ladies in these circumstances were expected to devote their lives to volunteer work for the war effort by working in hospitals, that sort of thing.

If they didn't do what was expected of them, a friendly word from the local SS commander reminded them that their exemption from labor service had ended with the demise of their husband. In other words, either behave or report to the Labor Office, which will find some factory work for you to do.

When Inge--who had been raising eyebrows in Hamburg with her hospitality to young SS officers on leave, not infrequently with two or more at once--was given the friendly word from the local SS man, she disappeared.

She turned up in Berlin, one of the thirty or more attractive young women who congregated in the bars of the Hotel Am Zoo and the Hotel Adlon, where they struck up conversations with senior officers--or Luftwaffe fighter pilots--who were passing through the capital and were able to deal with the prices of the Am Zoo and the Adlon.

The attractive young women were not prostitutes, but they did take presents and accept loans.

Raschner brought Frau Kolbermann to von Deitzberg's office for a friendly chat. Von Deitzberg was drawn to her from their first meeting. Not only was she very attractive, but he thought her eyes were fascinating; naughty, even wicked, a la Marlene Dietrich. He restrained himself, knowing that Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler was not only something of a prude but expected the highest moral standards to be practiced by his officers.

Frau Kolbermann readily accepted the proposition Raschner offered. She said she knew where Uruguay was, had even visited it, and spoke passable Spanish, which confirmed what the dossier suggested: a well-bred woman who'd fallen on hard times.

She was formally introduced to von Tresmarck the next day, became Baroness von Tresmarck two days after that, and was on a Condor flight to Buenos Aires ten days after that.

From then on, things had run smoothly for almost a year. But then they began to fall apart.

On May 31, 1942, Gruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, "Protector of Bohemia and Moravia," had been fatally wounded in Prague when Czech agents of the British threw a bomb into his car.

Before leaving Berlin to personally supervise the retribution to be visited upon the Czechs for Heydrich's murder, Himmler called von Deitzberg into his office to tell him how much he would have to rely on him until a suitable replacement for the martyred Heydrich could be found.

Von Deitzberg was now faced with a serious problem. On Heydrich's death, he had become the senior officer involved with the confidential special fund and the source of its money--yet never had learned from Heydrich how much Himmler knew about it.

He quickly and carefully checked the fund's records of the dispersal of its money before he had taken over. He found no record that Himmler had ever received anything.

It was of course possible that the enormous disbursements to Heydrich had included money that Heydrich had quietly slipped to Himmler; that way there would be no record of Himmler's involvement.

Three months later, however, after Himmler had neither requested money--not even mentioned it--nor asked about the status of the confidential special fund, von Deitzberg was forced to conclude that Himmler not only knew nothing about it, but that Heydrich had gone to great lengths to conceal it from the Reichsprotektor.

It was entirely possible, therefore, that Himmler would be furious if he learned now about the confidential special fund. If the puritanical Reichsprotektor learned that Heydrich had been stealing from the Reich, he would quickly conclude that von Deitzberg had been involved in the theft up to his neck.

When von Deitzberg brought up the subject to Raschner, Raschner said that as far as he himself knew, Himmler either didn't know about the fund or didn't want to know about it. Thus, an approach to him now might see everyone connected with it stood before a wall and shot. Or hung from a butcher's hook with piano wire.

They had no choice, Raschner reasoned, but to go on as they had . . . but taking even greater care to make sure the ransoming operation remained secret.

No one was ever selected to replace Heydrich as Himmler's adjutant. But Himmler gave von Deitzberg the title of "first deputy adjutant" and a week later took him to the Reichschancellery, where a beaming, cordial Adolf Hitler personally promoted him to SS-brigadefuhrer and warmly thanked him for his services to the SS and himself personally.

Von Deitzberg immediately arranged for Goltz to be promoted to sturmbannfuhrer, and Raschner to hauptsturmfuhrer. And he arranged for both to be sent to Buenos Aires. The risk of someone new coming into the Office of the Reichsprotektor and learning about the confidential special fund seemed to be over.

All of this had been going on simultaneously with Operation Phoenix.

Phoenix was of course the plan concocted by Bormann, Himmler, Ribben trop, and others at the pinnacle of the Nazi hierarchy to establish a sanctuary for senior Nazis in South America, from which they could rise phoenixlike from the ashes of the Thousand-Year Reich when the war was lost.

It had been no trouble for von Deitzberg to arrange for Standartenfuhrer Goltz to be sent to Buenos Aires as the man in charge of Operation Phoenix. That posting conveniently placed him in a position to be the confidential special fund's man in South America.

By then, curiously, there actually was a problem with the financial success of the fund. There was far more cash floating around than could be spent--or even invested--without questions being raised. It followed that the confidential special fund's leadership--von Deitzberg, Goltz, and Raschner--decided that setting up their own private version of Operation Phoenix was the natural solution. After all, von Tresmarck was already in place in Montevideo; it would pose no great problem for him to make investments for the confidential special fund. He was already doing that for Operation Phoenix.

And then there were the blunders. Von Deitzberg took little pride in being able to recognize a blunder when one occurred. Or an appalling number of them.

The first had been the failed assassination attempt on the American son of el Coronel Jorge G. Frade. When it became known that Cletus Frade--who had ostensibly "come home" to Argentina--was in fact an agent of the Office of Strategic Services and whose purpose in Argentina was to turn his father against Germany, the decision had been made to kill him. His murder would send the message to the man who almost certainly was going to be the next president of Argentina that even his son could not stand up to the power and anger of the Thousand-Year Reich.

But that hadn't worked. Young Frade, clearly not the foolish young man everyone seemed to have decided he was, killed the men sent to kill him. His outraged father then had loaned his pilot son an airplane with which young Frade located the Spanish-flagged--and thus "neutral"--merchant ship that had been replenishing German submarines in Samborombon Bay. Soon thereafter, a U.S. Navy submarine had torpedoed the vessel and the German U-boat tied alongside.

Von Deitzberg never learned who among the most senior of the Nazi hierarchy had ordered young Frade's assassination. And because that attempt had failed, no one was going to claim that responsibility.

They were, however, obviously the same people who had ordered the second blunder, the assassination of el Coronel Jorge G. Frade himself. The intention there was to send the message to the Argentine officer corps that just as Germany was prepared to reward its friends, it was equally prepared to punish its enemies no matter their position in the Argentine hierarchy.

That assassination had been successful. El Coronel Frade died of a double load of double-ought buckshot to his face while riding in his car on his estancia. The results of that assassination, however, were even more disastrous for Germany than the failed assassination of Frade's son.

The Argentine officer corps was enraged by Frade's murder. And during the attempted smuggling ashore of the first "special shipment"--crates literally stuffed with currency and precious jewels to be used to purchase sanctuary--from the Oceano Pacifico at Samborombon Bay, both Standartenfuhrer Goltz and Oberst Karl-Heinz Gruner--the military attache and his assistant who were there to receive it--died of high-power rifle bullets fired into their skulls. Only good luck saw that the special shipment made it safely back to the Oceano Pacifico.

Who actually did the shooting never came to light. It could have been the OSS, perhaps even Frade himself. Or it could have been Argentine army snipers sending the message to the Germans that the assassination of a beloved Argentine officer was unacceptable behavior.

It didn't matter who did the shooting. So far as Bormann, Himmler, and the other senior Nazis behind Operation Phoenix were concerned, Operation Phoenix was in jeopardy. And that was absolutely unacceptable.

And there was more: On the death of el Coronel Frade, his only child inherited everything his father had owned, which included his enormous estancia, countless business enterprises, and, perhaps most dangerous of all, what amounted to his own private army. Young Frade now had several hundred former soldiers of the Husares de Pueyrredon who had returned to their homes on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo with their devotion to their murdered commander, el Coronel Frade, intact and now transferred to his son. Including, of course, their considerable military skills.

The fury of the Argentine officer corps over Frade's assassination had finally gotten through to the inner circle at Wolfsschanze. Von Deitzberg was sent to Buenos Aires, ostensibly as a Wehrmacht generalmajor, to apologize privately to el Coronel Juan D. Peron for the absolutely inexcusable stupidity of Oberst Karl-Heinz Gruner, who had ordered el Coronel Frade's assassination. Peron had been told that Gruner had already been returned to Germany, where he would be dealt with. Von Deitzberg didn't mention that it was the bodies of both Gruner and Standartenfuhrer Goltz that had been returned to the Fatherland, and that they had made the trip in the freezer of the Oceano Pacifico.

Von Deitzberg installed SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Karl Cranz at the embassy to replace Goltz--officially as a diplomat, the commercial attache--in running both Operation Phoenix and the confidential special fund, and then he went to Montevideo to check up on Sturmbannfuhrer Werner von Tresmarck and his wife.

The von Tresmarcks met the Fieseler Storch in which Major Hans-Peter von Wachtstein had flown von Deitzberg across the River Plate. Frau von Tresmarck was at the wheel of a convertible automobile, an American Chevrolet. She was just as interesting as he remembered. He realized immediately that he wanted to get her alone, which would not be difficult as he had planned to interview them separately.

He then sent von Wachtstein back to Argentina, von Tresmarck to his home to prepare a report of what he was doing, and he took Inge von Tresmarck to the Hotel Casino de Carrasco. They went first to the bar and then to his room.

When von Deitzberg made his first advance to her, she laughed at him. Enraged, he slapped her face. He had never before in his life struck a woman. Yet he suddenly realized that he had never before in his life been so excited as he was now, looking down at her where she had fallen, and her looking at him with terror in her eyes.

He ordered her to strip. When she hesitated, he slapped her again. The clothing came quickly off. He humiliated her both verbally--he told her that her breasts sagged and that her ugly buttocks--he used the word "ass"--were unpleasant to look at--and then physically. Ten minutes after entering his room, Inge von Tresmarck was naked, on her knees, tears running down her face, crawling across the room to him under a command to take his penis into her mouth.

The incident was the most satisfying sexual experience von Deitzberg could ever remember experiencing.

Von Deitzberg had not quite finished shaving when Maria showed up in his room with his breakfast and Dr. Muller's herbal medications. First Secretary Anton von Gradny-Sawz came in a moment later as von Deitzberg was gathering his courage to take the first of his three daily doses of chopped garlic in warm water.

"You're a little early, Gradny-Sawz," von Deitzberg accused.

"I came as quickly as I could," von Gradny-Sawz said. "There was a Condor flight at two this morning."

This somewhat mystifying statement was explained when von Gradny-Sawz ceremoniously opened his briefcase, took an envelope from it, and handed the envelope to von Deitzberg.

He's treating that like a message from God!

When he took the envelope and glanced at it, von Deitzberg saw why von Gradny-Sawz was impressed. On the front of the envelope it simply read DER REICHSFUHRER-SS BERLIN. On the back, where the envelope was sealed, was Himmler's handwritten signature, his method of ensuring that the envelope could not be opened undetected.

"This has been opened," von Deitzberg accused.

"The ambassador opened it," von Gradny-Sawz said, "and then sent me to deliver it to you."

Von Deitzberg took the two sheets of paper on which the message had been typed and read them:

It had been von Deitzberg's intention to return to bed when he had finished shaving. Now, without really thinking about it, he went to the chest of drawers where his linen was now stored, freshly washed after its bath in Samborombon Bay.

When he'd selected underwear, a shirt, and stockings, and started for the bathroom, von Gradny-Sawz asked, "Feeling a little better, are you? Good news from Berlin, I gather?"

Maria said, "Senor Schenck, you are supposed to do the garlic water before breakfast."

"Get that goddamned garlic water out of here," von Deitzberg snapped. "Get all of those lunatic remedies out of here."

"Is something wrong?" von Gradny-Sawz asked.

"Go find a public telephone," von Deitzberg ordered. "Call Cranz. Tell him to come here immediately. In a taxi, not an embassy car."

"Something is wrong," von Gradny-Sawz proclaimed.

Von Deitzberg thought: I am surrounded by idiots!

He ordered: "And when you've done that, station yourself at the door downstairs. If that lunatic Muller gets past you and up here, I'll throw both of you out of the window!"

He turned to the maid. "Maria, after you throw all of that herbal junk away, go to the restaurant and get me some scrambled eggs--four scrambled eggs--toast, ham, and a pot of coffee."

She looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

"My God, didn't you hear me?"

Maria began to cry.

Von Gradny-Sawz gave von Deitzberg a dirty look, put his arm around Maria's shoulders, and led her out of the room, speaking softly to her. Von Deitzberg went into the bathroom, took a cold shower, and then dressed.

When Maria returned with his scrambled eggs, von Deitzberg apologized to her for raising his voice and whatever else he had done to cause her to be uncomfortable.

While doing so, for the first time since they'd met, he looked at her as a female. He'd heard somewhere that Latin women--or was it Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese?--matured earlier than Aryans. It was apparently true so far as Maria was concerned. She had an entirely mature and quite attractive bosom.

He did not permit his thoughts to wander down that path.

My God, she's fifteen!

Any mature man taking carnal advantage of a fifteen-year-old female child should be lashed at the stake first, and then castrated.

And Peron likes them even younger! That's obscene!

Unfortunately, I don't think I will ever be able to watch el Coronel Peron as he is lashed or castrated.

I have other plans for that degenerate sonofabitch!

Von Deitzberg, to ensure he hadn't missed anything, read Himmler's letter a third time as he ate his scrambled eggs.

He knew that while everything Himmler had written was true, it was not a complete report of what had happened at Wolfsschanze. Himmler was too smart to write that down, and he knew that von Deitzberg--who not only was privy to the backstabbing of the senior Nazis but personally had witnessed at least a dozen of the Fuhrer's legendary tirades--would be easily able to fill in the blanks.

Himmler had not considered it necessary to suggest that Goebbels, the clubfooted propaganda minister, had brought South American Airways' accomplishment to Hitler's attention, not in order to keep the Fuhrer up-to-date, but rather it would direct the Fuhrer's rage at Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring, of whose power he was jealous and whom he loathed.

It wasn't at all hard for von Deitzberg to picture the scene around the map table at Wolfsschanze with Hitler ranting at a cowering Goring. The Fuhrer was wont to stamp his foot. His tirade was often accompanied by a shower of spittle. And a supply of spectacles was kept available to replace those he threw at the floor or at whoever was the target of his rage.

And von Deitzberg could clearly see the concern in Goebbels's eyes when Hitler was on the edge of ordering that the Constellations be shot down, then that concern replaced with relief when Canaris, with his usual skill, kept that from happening.

My God! I'm thinking clearly!

Twenty minutes ago, all I was thinking of was what those gottverdammt concoctions that that moron Muller has been feeding me are doing to my stomach and bowels. Or daydreaming like a sixteen-year-old with raging hormones about Inge von Tresmarck.

It's as if I've been asleep, or drugged, and suddenly woken up.

Why? What happened? What woke me up?

After a moment's thought, he knew what had happened.

He was terrified because of the last paragraph of Himmler's letter: "The discussion ended somewhat abruptly at that point when the Fuhrer turned to me and said, in effect, 'Von Deitzberg is over there; have him take care of this.' "

I have been personally given the task of destroying SAA's aircraft, and in such a manner that the finger of suspicion cannot be pointed at Germany.

Every one of those Sohns der einer Hundin at Wolfsschanze must have been delighted.

Canaris, because Hitler hadn't ordered him to do it.

Goebbels, because there would not be an uproar in the world's press over Germans shooting down a civilian airline of a neutral power carrying a load of priests and nuns.

Goring, because Hitler hadn't ordered the Luftwaffe to do the shooting down. And Heinrich Himmler, because he hadn't been ordered to put the Sicherheitsdienst to work destroying the airplanes.

Not one of them--but me, personally!

"Have von Deitzberg take care of this."

All Himmler was doing was relaying the Fuhrer's orders.

Yet if I somehow succeed in destroying the airplanes, Himmler will of course take all the credit.

And if I fail, I will have Hitler personally furious with me. And I am a lowly SS-brigadefuhrer, not a senior general. Hitler doesn't scream at unimportant people like me; he just has the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler stand them in front of a wall.

Unless he's really angry, and orders the Leibstandarte to hang me from a butcher's hook with Goebbels's movie cameras filming so the Fuhrer can watch my agony at his leisure and over and over again.

And it's not as if I don't already have my hands full.

I still have no idea how I'm going to do what else I have to do here--eliminate that gottverdammt American Frade of the OSS, locate and eliminate the Froggers, find out how much damage the Froggers have done to Operation Phoenix, and check on both how the confidential special fund is being handled in Uruguay and whether that miserable deviate von Tresmarck has been able to keep his mouth shut.

And now this!

And I am absolutely alone!

Cranz and Raschner are incompetent--not only did they fail to eliminate Frade but they managed to lose an SS officer and half a dozen of his men while shooting up an empty house. Only a fool would not consider that they will shortly receive a letter from Himmler--now that I think about it, it probably came in the same pouch as Himmler's letter to von Lutzenberger and me--ordering them to secretly report on how I am carrying out my assignments.

And Cranz will do a good job on that. That Sohn der einer Hundin would like nothing better than to get me out of the way so he could become first deputy adjutant to the Reichsfuhrer-SS.

Well, as I always say about facing a difficult task: "You need good men and a lot of money."

And I have all the money I could possibly need--or will just as soon as I can get to Uruguay.

But men? Where am I going to find good men?

There's no one at all, except that fat slob--Anton von Gradny-Sawz, the grosse Weinerwurst--and he's stupid and as useless as teats on a boar hog.

Or . . .

Wait a minute! I don't think he's really stupid. He was certainly smart enough to know when to change sides just before the Anschluss. And he's done a remarkable job of covering his Gesass since he joined the German diplomatic service.

And he's afraid of me!

And what other choice do I have?

Anton von Gradny-Sawz and August Muller, M.D., were standing in the foyer of the petit-hotel when von Deitzberg came quickly down the stairway.

Dr. Muller looked at von Deitzberg curiously. Von Gradny-Sawz had a look of concern, as if he were afraid that von Deitzberg would attack the physician.

"Ah, the Bavarian medical genius!" von Deitzberg then cried happily. "What are you doing here in the foyer? Come up to the room and we'll send Maria out for a little schnapps. We can find schnapps here, right, Anton?"

"I'm not sure if we can," von Gradny-Sawz said uneasily.

"Nothing to drink for me at this hour," Dr. Muller said. "Thank you just the same. I have to go to the hospital."

"Of course, of course," von Deitzberg said. "I understand. But I really wanted to celebrate."

"You're feeling better, I gather?" Muller asked.

"I woke up this morning feeling better than I've felt in years," von Deitzberg said. "Doctor, you are a genius!"

"Oh, I'm just a simple physician trying to do my best."

"You're too modest," von Deitzberg said. "Much too modest. I am deeply in your debt. And at the risk of immodesty, the SS is grateful to you, as well. You have returned this officer to full duty."

"If that is so, I am honored to have been of service," Muller said.

"I wish I could proclaim your genius to the world," von Deitzberg said. "But under the circumstances, you understand, that is not possible."

"I understand," Dr. Muller agreed solemnly.

"But as soon as I can get through to Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler," von Deitzberg went on, "I'll see that your son's commanding officers are made aware of your contribution to the SS."

"That's very kind of you," Muller said emotionally.

"But now our duty calls," von Deitzberg said solemnly. His right arm shot out in the Nazi salute.

"Heil Hitler!" he barked.

Dr. Muller returned the salute.

"After you, mein lieber Gradny-Sawz," von Deitzberg said, and grandly bowed him ahead of him up the stairway.

[TWO]

Von Deitzberg's judgment that von Gradny-Sawz was afraid of him was something of an understatement. Terrified would have been more accurate. Von Gradny-Sawz had known von Deitzberg's reputation within the SS before "Generalmajor" von Deitzberg had come to Argentina the first time. And that reputation was that he was at least as ruthless and cold-blooded as Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler himself.

Part of von Deitzberg's mission then--aside from apologizing to the Argentine officer corps for el Coronel Frade's murder, and von Gradny-Sawz would not have been surprised if that order had actually come from SS-Brigadefuhrer von Deitzberg in the first place--was the detection of the spy, or spies, everyone knew operated in the embassy.

Von Deitzberg had brought three people with him to help him find the spy or spies or traitors, and three people--Major von Wachtstein, Sturmbannfuhrer von Tresmarck, and First Secretary von Gradny-Sawz--were rushed onto the next Condor flight to Berlin "to assist in the investigation."

From the moment the SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer had picked him up at his apartment to take him to the airfield, von Gradny-Sawz had been convinced they were all en route to Sachsenhausen or Dachau.

But it hadn't turned out that way. After four days of thorough questioning, he and von Tresmarck had been returned to Buenos Aires. Von Wachtstein had stayed in Germany, not because he was suspected of treason but because he had gone to Augsburg to learn how to fly the new Me-262 jet-propelled fighter.

In the end, he, too, was returned to Argentina. It came out that the young fighter pilot had caused Alicia, the youngest daughter of Senora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano, to be with child. It had been decided that young von Wachtstein would be of greater value to National Socialism married to the daughter of the richest woman in Argentina than he would be flying, and he was sent back to Argentina under orders to "do the right thing."

Von Gradny-Sawz had not forgotten his terror on being ordered to Berlin, and had vowed then that it would never happen again. He had established--in addition to what he'd talked about with el Coronel Martin--three different places to which he could disappear with reasonable safety should his presence again be demanded in Berlin.

As he walked ahead of von Deitzberg up the stairway to the apartment he had rented for Senor Jorge Schenck, von Gradny-Sawz seriously considered the possibility that the tall, slim, blond Westphalian had gone out of his mind. Rapid mood changes were almost a sure sign of schizophrenia.

And there seemed to be more indications that the war was going to be lost. The newspapers that day carried the story of the bombing on Hamburg of the night of 27 July--it had taken that long to get the story out. According to the correspondent of the Stockholm Dagens Nyheter, who had no reason to lie, the bombing had created so much heat that a "firestorm" had been created, a monstrous inferno with winds of more than 240 kilometers per hour and temperatures so high that asphalt streets began to burn. More than twenty-one square kilometers of the city had been incinerated and more than 35,000 people had been burned to death. The Dagens Nyheter report said the British had named the raids "Operation Gomorrah."

The Italians had surrendered, although most of northern Italy--including Rome--was under German control. Von Gradny-Sawz thought that Mussolini's declaration of a new Fascist state that was going to drive the English and the Americans from the Italian peninsula was what sailors called "pissing into the wind."

Since the war was almost surely lost, the question to von Gradny-Sawz then became: What would he have to do to protect himself from what was going to happen when that actually happened?

He had no intention of going back to Europe, which would be not much more than a pile of rubble. Going "home" was absolutely out of the question. The Russians were going to seize Hungary, and the first thing they were going to do was confiscate all the property of the nobility. And then, presuming they didn't hang them first, the nobility would be shipped off to a Siberian labor camp.

He was going to have to find refuge in Argentina, just as Bormann, Himmler, and the others intended to. The difference there was that they had access to money--mind-boggling amounts of money--and he didn't. He had managed to get some money out of Hungary, and there were some family jewels. But if he had to buy refuge in Argentina--which seemed likely--that wasn't going to be cheap, and he wasn't going to have much to live on until he could, so to speak, come out of hiding and get a job.

He thought that after a while he could get a job as a professor at the University of Buenos Aires--or perhaps at the Catholic University--teaching history or political science. He had a degree in history from the University of Vienna. He had already begun to cultivate academics from both institutions.

But right now the problem was SS-Brigadefuhrer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg, and von Gradny-Sawz really had no idea how he was going to deal with that.

The moment they were in the apartment, von Deitzberg went to his chest of drawers, picked up the bottle of brandy that von Gradny-Sawz had brought him as his home remedy for von Deitzberg's "cold," poured some into two water glasses, and handed one to von Gradny-Sawz.

"It's absolutely true, Anton," von Deitzberg said, smiling charmingly, "that Winston Churchill begins his day with a glass of cognac. 'Know thy enemy,' right? Maybe he's onto something."

Von Gradny-Sawz thought: Good God, he's insane and now he's going to get drunk?

"Final Victory," von Deitzberg said as he tapped their glasses.

"Our Fuhrer," von Gradny-Sawz responded, and took a small sip of the cognac.

"You don't really believe in the Final Victory, do you, Anton?" von Deitzberg asked. "Or, for that matter, in the Fuhrer?"

Von Gradny-Sawz felt a chill. He had no idea how to respond.

"The Fuhrer is, as Churchill would say, 'as mad as a March hare,'" von Deitzberg said. "And the war is lost. And we both know it."

Von Gradny-Sawz felt faint.

"Let's clear the air between us, Anton," von Deitzberg said, looking into von Gradny-Sawz's eyes. "I have studied your dossier carefully and made certain inquiries." He let that sink in for a long moment, and then went on. "I know, for example, that your own deviation from the sexual norm is that you like to take two--or three--women into your bed."

Jesus Christ!

"Which frankly sounds rather interesting," von Deitzberg continued. "And I also know that you have violated the law by illegally exporting from the Fatherland some $106,000 plus some gold and diamond jewelry--family jewelry. How much is $106,000 worth in pesos, Anton?"

After a moment, von Gradny-Sawz said, "With the peso at about four to the dollar, a bit more than 400,000 pesos."

I have just confessed my guilt!

What the hell is going on here?

"And how far do you think that will take you when you try to find a new life here? You'll have to buy an apartment or a house, and buy groceries, in addition to what it's going to cost you to grease the necessary Argentine palms."

Von Gradny-Sawz did not reply.

"I'm sure you read Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler's letter to Ambassador von Lutzenberger; the envelope was not sealed," von Deitzberg went on. "The last paragraph of which is significant: The Fuhrer has told the Reichsfuhrer-SS to have me deal with destroying the aircraft of the OSS airline. You saw that?"

Von Gradny-Sawz nodded but did not speak.

"In the last several weeks, for example, the Soviet army has recaptured both Smolensk and Kharkov. Not to mention what's happened in Italy. The Fuhrer doesn't like to think about those defeats. He turns his attention to something like these airplanes in Argentina. If he issues an order--'Have von Deitzberg deal with this'--he really believes it will be obeyed. His orders to his generals to not yield a meter to the Red Army or the English and Americans don't seem to get obeyed.

"My problem, Anton, is that I don't have any idea how to destroy those airplanes. I don't think Herr Frade is going to leave them sitting unprotected on a field somewhere where my SS people here can sneak up to them in the dead of night and attach a bomb. I don't even have a bomb, and my SS people here--I'm speaking of Cranz and Raschner--are bungling incompetents. They can't find the spies in the embassy. They can't even carry out the assassination of Herr Frade.

"Now, I will of course do my best to carry out the Fuhrer's orders. But I'm a realist, Anton. I don't think I'll be successful. I will get rid of Herr Frade, and I will ensure that Operation Phoenix is running smoothly and I may even be able to find the spies or traitors in the embassy.

"But the Fuhrer will not be impressed with this. All he will know is that the OSS airline is still flying back and forth across the Atlantic. And he will think that SS-Brigadefuhrer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg is no better than the other gottverdammt aristocrats with which he is surrounded. He refuses to obey his Fuhrer's orders."

Von Gradny-Sawz found his voice: "I can see the problem, Herr Brigadefuhrer."

"Call me Manfred, Anton. We are of the same class, after all. And let's talk about that, about our noble background that the Fuhrer finds so offensive. Your lands will disappear as down a flushing toilet when the Russians get to Hungary. The von Deitzberg estates disappeared in the depression following the Versailles Convention. I could not follow my noble ancestors in a military career because there was simply no money. I quite literally went hungry when I was a junior officer in the army. I transferred to the SS because I believed--and I was proven right--that I could rapidly advance in rank because my competition would be inept fools like Cranz and Raschner.

"And now even that seems at the edge of being lost," von Deitzberg said almost sadly. "I've given this a great deal of thought, Anton. One thing I asked myself is why, despite all the upheavals of history, there is still nobility, people such as ourselves. Have you ever considered that, Anton?"

"I can't truthfully say I have, Herr . . . Manfred."

"Because we have, over the centuries, adapted to changing circumstances. You've done that yourself, Anton. You were wise enough to see the Anschluss coming, and to make sure you weren't tossed into the gutter when that happened. Wouldn't you agree?"

"That's true," von Gradny-Sawz said.

"As far as I am concerned, Anton, loyalty does not mean one has to commit suicide."

"I think that's true," von Gradny-Sawz said solemnly. "There is a point at which--"

"Precisely!" von Deitzberg interrupted. "And we--you and I--have reached that point."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"We will, as our code of honor requires, do our duty to Germany to the best of our ability just as long as we possibly can. But then . . ."

"Then what?"

"How could we continue to serve Germany if we were returned to the Fatherland as prisoners, Anton?" von Deitzberg asked reasonably. "In chains? Destined for a Russian slave labor camp?"

"I take your point, Manfred."

"If . . . if everything goes wrong, and at the last possible moment we started to look out for ourselves, how would that violate our code of honor?"

"I can't see where it would."

"And what would be wrong with you and me doing what our leaders are doing with Operation Phoenix: setting up a place where we can live in safety until things settle down?"

"Nothing," von Gradny-Sawz said firmly.

"We might even be able to--almost certainly we would be able to--provide sanctuary for others who were not able to plan ahead. Widows, for example."

"I can see where that would be entirely possible."

"Now, Anton, if we were to do this, we would have to do it in absolute secrecy."

"Yes, of course."

"Cranz and Raschner must never even suspect."

"I understand."

"It happens that I have access to some funds in Uruguay. Enough funds to finance this."

"Really?"

"If I were to get these funds to you, would you know how to set this up?"

"Oh, yes. Frankly, I've been thinking along these lines myself. I have even taken some preliminary steps. There is a delightful area here, in the footsteps of the Andes, around a charming little town, San Carlos de Bariloche, where I am sure we could, with absolute discretion, acquire just the property we would need. It's very much like Bavaria. Should it come to this, of course."

"Well, I think we have to consider that possibility as being very real."

"Yes, I think we do."

"Then the thing for me to do is get to Uruguay as soon as possible. I presume that von Wachtstein still has that Fieseler Storch?"

"May I make a suggestion, Manfred?"

"Certainly."

"Why don't you fly to Montevideo?"

"I was thinking of having von Wachtstein fly me there in the Storch."

"I meant take South American Airways. They have two flights in each direction every day."

"That would mean passing through both Argentine and Uruguayan customs and immigration, would it not? Are these documents you arranged for . . ."

Von Gradny-Sawz nodded and said more than a little smugly, "Jorge Schenck and his wife--they were childless--were killed in an auto crash in 1938. The people I dealt with have removed the reports of their demise from the appropriate registers. That way, the original number of his Document of National Identity became available. Your documents, Senor Schenck, can stand up under any kind of scrutiny."

"You are an amazing man, Anton."

"What I was going to suggest, Manfred, was that you take the SAA flight this afternoon--it leaves at four and takes less than an hour--then spend the night. And when Cranz comes here--and he should be here any minute--you have him order von Wachtstein to fly to Montevideo tomorrow."

"Why should I do that?"

"Because he enjoys diplomatic privilege," von Gradny-Sawz said. "No authority--Argentine or Uruguayan--can ask to see what's inside a package he might be carrying. As either authority might--probably would--demand of Senor Schenck."

"Allow me to repeat, you are an amazing man, Anton," von Deitzberg said, and put out his hand. "I think our collaboration is going to be a success. Not to mention, mutually profitable."