Victory and Honor

[ONE]

Val de Cans Airfield Belém do Pará, Brazil 0218 17 May 1945

Brigadier General Robert G. Bendick, U.S. Army Air Forces, walked into the flight-planning room five minutes later, trailed by his aide-de-camp. He was a trim, intelligent-looking man in his midthirties; the aide looked like he had just finished high school.

“Good morning,” General Bendick said. “I’m afraid my Spanish is awful.”

“Not a problem, General,” Frade said. “I speak English. Thank you for coming so quickly. We’re a little pressed for time.”

Frade handed him the spurious credentials.

“Oh,” the general said.

“I never showed you those, sir. This is an out-of-school meeting.”

“To what end?”

“We’re headed for Berlin to relieve the Argentine diplomatic staff there. The aircraft has been chartered by the Argentine Foreign Ministry.”

“I saw the notification of that,” General Bendick said. “And?”

“Before we get into ‘and,’ why don’t you tell me about the other Constellation on the tarmac?”

“Before we get into ‘the other Constellation,’ why don’t you tell me about those Naval Aviator Wings you’re sporting?”

Their eyes locked. Frade had a sudden epiphany.

I am not going to get away with bullshitting this guy.

So, what do I do now?

“In another, happier life, I was a Marine fighter pilot,” Clete said.

Bendick’s eyes remained on his.

“Oh, really? And where exactly were you a Marine fighter pilot?”

He doesn’t believe me.

“They called it the Cactus Air Force, General.”

“In another, happier life, I was a B-17 pilot,” General Bendick said. “On one memorable day, I was saved from winding up in the drink off Guadalcanal by three Marine Grumman F4F Wildcats of VMF-221. Half a dozen very skilled Zero pilots had already taken out two of my engines and most of my vertical stabilizer when the Marines showed up. After dealing with the Zeros—the Marine F4Fs shot two down and scattered the others—the Marines then led me to Guadalcanal.”

He’s calling my bluff.

And he didn’t just make up that yarn.

“The name Dawkins mean anything to you?” General Bendick then asked.

Clete nodded. “If the general is referring to Lieutenant Colonel Clyde W. Dawkins, I had the privilege of being under his command.”

“At Fighter One? VMF-221?”

“Yes, sir,” Clete said.

“You were then a what?”

“A first lieutenant, sir.”

“And now?”

“I’m a lieutenant colonel, sir.”

“So, what’s this, Colonel?” Bendick asked, holding up the spurious OSS credentials. “I never saw anything like this before. What’s an OSS area commander? And this makes you area commander of exactly what area?”

“Argentina and Uruguay, primarily.”

Bendick’s eyes showed he wasn’t satisfied with that answer.

Bendick said: “Let’s go back down Memory Lane, Colonel. What did Colonel Dawkins’s officers call him?”

“‘Sir,’” Clete blurted.

Clete thought he saw the hint of a smile on Bendick’s lips.

“And behind his back?”

“‘The Dawk,’ sir.”

“And so they did,” Bendick said, “something that would be known only to his officers.”

He handed Frade the spurious OSS credentials.

“We had been briefed, of course,” he said, “on using Henderson Field in an emergency. We had also been briefed on Fighter One, and told it was not suitable for emergency landings of B-17 aircraft. As I approached Guadalcanal, I came to the reluctant conclusion that I had neither the altitude nor the controls to make Henderson, so I put it down on Fighter One.

“I was a pretty good B-17 pilot, but not good enough to land on only one main gear, so shortly thereafter I found myself sitting at the side of the runway with, thank God, all of my crew. We were watching my aircraft burn when a feisty tall drink of water showed up. He was wearing shorts and shoes—no shirt, no cap—and in each hand he had four of those little bottles of medicinal bourbon.”

Bendick met Frade’s eyes. Frade nodded.

Bendick went on: “I shall never forget what he said to me on that memorable occasion: ‘When we saw you coming in, son, the odds were ten-to-one that nobody was going to walk away from your landing. You do know this isn’t Henderson Field?’”

“That sounds like The Dawk,” Clete said, smiling. “And fists full of medicinal bourbon bottles? Getting more than one little bottle from Colonel Dawkins meant he thought you had done good.”

“So I later learned,” General Bendick said. “So, welcome, welcome to Val de Cans. What do I call you?”

Colonel Dawkins, wherever you are, you have just saved my ass again.

How many times does that make?

“My name is Cletus Frade. My friends call me Clete. I wish you would.”

The general offered his hand. “Bob Bendick, Clete.”

Clete, pointing to them as he did so, said, “Peter von Wachtstein, Karl Boltitz, Enrico Rodríguez. My commo guy, Siggie Stein, is already in your radio shack; we have a Collins 7.2 aboard that needs fixing.”

“An airborne Collins 7.2?”

“Siggie Stein is an amazing commo guy,” Clete said.

“So, what can I do for you?”

“Tell me about the other Connie.”

“It’s classified Top Secret,” General Bendick replied.

“Manhattan Project?”

“Excuse me?”

“Excuse me, but are you saying ‘Excuse me’ because you don’t want to admit knowledge of the Manhattan Project?” Clete asked with a smile.

“I never heard of it,” General Bendick said. “What is it?”

“I can’t tell you. But it’s the only thing I know that would justify classifying a passenger flight Top Secret.”

General Bendick looked at Frade for a long moment.

“How about a planeload of Secret Service agents bound for Frankfurt?” he asked finally.

“Is that what it is?”

Bendick nodded.

“What would be so secret about that?” Clete asked.

“President Truman going to Germany?”

“I don’t think that’s very likely,” Clete said. “Why?”

Bendick shrugged.

“The Secret Service is under the Treasury Department,” Clete then said. “And the secretary of the Treasury suspects that Nazis are being smuggled out of Germany to Argentina.”

“I know,” Bendick said.

“You know that Nazis are being smuggled out of Germany, or that Morgenthau thinks they are?”

“These Secret Service agents have been nosing around the base flashing their badges and asking my junior officers and enlisted men if they know anything about Nazis being smuggled through here. Or even of mysterious airplanes passing through here. They are even threatening them with what happens when you lie to a Secret Service agent.” He chuckled, and added: “I wonder what they’re going to think about your mysterious airplane.”

“If they ask, what will they be told?”

“Same that we were told. That it’s a charter flight to rescue Argentine diplomats from Germany. Unless . . .”

“No. That’s fine. And it has the advantage of being the truth. Did these Secret Service people talk to you, tell you what they’re looking for?”

“No. I must look like somebody who would smuggle Nazis.”

“If they had asked you, General—”

“I thought we were on a first-name basis.”

“Sorry. Bob, if they had asked you . . .”

“What would I have told them? The truth. I’ve heard the rumors, and I think there’s something to them, but I don’t have any personal knowledge, and my counterintelligence people haven’t come up with anything concrete.”

“The rumors are true. One of my jobs is to try to stop fleeing Nazis trying to get to South America from getting there, or catch them. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. But before I get into that, how long has this planeload of Secret Service agents been here?”

“About forty-eight hours. All they were supposed to do was take on fuel, but there was a message saying ‘delay departure until further notice.’”

“Which conveniently provided time for their people to ask questions of your people.”

“That thought ran through my mind. What the hell is that all about?”

“I don’t know,” Clete said. “Maybe we’ll find out when we get to Germany. Let’s get back to the reason I wanted to see you. We have some pretty good intelligence that a number of German submarines are headed for Argentina. The number ranges from three we’re very sure about, to a fleet—as many as twenty-odd. A fleet seems unlikely but can’t be dismissed out of hand. The Nazis have a program called the Phoenix Project—”

“That’s real?” Bendick asked.

“I don’t know what you heard about it, so let me tell you what I know about it. Starting in 1943, the Nazis started sending money and things that can be easily converted to money—gold, diamonds, other precious stones, et cetera—to Argentina. The idea was to set up sanctuaries in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil to which senior officers could flee, both escaping the trials we plan for them and using their new home as a base from which they can rise, rested and with large amounts of money, phoenix-like, and keep National Socialism going. Or bring it back to life.”

“That’s pretty much what I heard, but it sounded like the plot for a bad movie,” Bendick said.

“They sent a lot of money—hundreds of millions of dollars—to Argentina, plus some senior SS officers to run the program. We’ve managed to stop a lot of it, but by no means all.”

“What kind of senior SS officers?”

“Himmler’s adjutant, for one. Actually, the Reichsführer-SS’s First Deputy Adjutant. SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg. He came by submarine.”

“And this guy is already in Argentina?” Bendick asked incredulously.

“Yeah, but he’s no longer a problem,” Clete said.

“How so?”

“He was taking a leak in the men’s room of a charming little hotel in the charming little village of San Martín de los Andes, when someone blew his brains all over the urinal with a Ballester-Molina—an Argentine copy of our .45.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know who did that, would you, Clete?”

“Of course not,” Clete replied not very convincingly.

“And what are the Argentines doing about all these Nazis running loose in Argentina? Looking the other way?”

“You ever hear that money talks, Bob?”

“Is that what it is?”

“There is also an element—perfectly serious people—who feel the Nazis were a Christian bulwark against the Communist Antichrist. Unfortunately, to some odd degree, I’m afraid they may be right.”

“You think the Communists are going to be a threat?”

It took Clete a moment to consider the wisdom of what he wanted to say. In the end, he decided to say it.

“I’m reliably informed that J. Edgar Hoover thinks they’re the new enemy.”

“And you agree with Hoover?”

“Yeah, I guess I do. I never was able to regard Stalin as Friendly Uncle Joe, and I know for a fact the Russians are trying very hard to break into the . . . one of our most important secrets.”

“Which secret would that be?”

“Sorry, I just can’t tell you.”

“Which brings us back, I suppose, to why you wanted to see me.”

“I don’t know this for sure, but I have the feeling that just as soon as I get to Germany, there will be a meeting about the submarines headed this way.”

“A meeting between whom?” Bendick asked.

“It will be under Eisenhower—probably under his G-2—but it won’t all be under SHAEF. Someone from General Marshall’s staff will probably be there, and certainly someone from Army Intelligence. And the Office of Naval Intelligence. And, of course, the OSS. And probably, come to think of it, the Secret Service agents here.”

Clete then said: “Whatever intelligence is available about the German submarines will be presented, discussed, and it will be agreed that something has to be done about them. And, finally, it will be decided who exactly will have to do something about them.

“The one thing senior brass hates to do is take on a mission that will probably end in failure. Or about which they know very little, which would cause them to fail. So they will look around for someone who is an expert in the area of dealing with German submarines in South America. There are only two people who meet that criterion, Bob. You and me.”

“I think I know where you’re going, Clete,” Bendick said, “but there is one flaw in your argument. I don’t have any idea how to find these German submarines.”

“You and I have something else in common,” Frade said. “If we can’t find the submarines, that’s not the fault of G-2, or Naval Intelligence—it’s our fault. ‘What do you expect? While we’ve been fighting the Wehrmacht across Europe, Bendick and Frade have been sitting in beautiful South America drinking rum and Coca-Cola and chasing senoritas.’”

“Do you know how many aircraft we’ve lost over the South Atlantic?” Bendick asked.

“How many were actually shot down?”

“I take your point,” Bendick said after a moment.

“I think they call that ‘pilot error,’” Clete said. “You don’t get no Air Medals or Distinguished Flying Crosses for pilot error.”

Bendick shook his head.

“Here’s how I see it,” Frade went on. “OSS will be given the mission, and your wing will be among our many assets.”

“As I said, this particular asset doesn’t have a clue where to look for these submarines.”

“Maybe we can give you a little help there. Out of school.”

“Out of school? I don’t understand.”

“I have some intel that I know is reliable, and when we get to Germany and start to talk to the crews of U-boats, I think we’re going to have some more intel, maybe a good deal more. The problem is I can’t tell G-2, or Naval Intelligence, and certainly not the Secret Service about it, because they will want to know where it came from, and I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Bendick asked almost automatically, and then, before Frade had a chance to answer, said, “You have spies in Germany, is that what you’re saying?”

“Not spies, General,” Boltitz offered. “One is an anti-Nazi former U-boat officer.”

Bendick looked at Boltitz, then back at Frade. “And you’re going to see this anti-Nazi U-boat officer in Germany? Is that what you’re saying? And he’s going to help you find these submarines?”

“What this anti-Nazi U-boat officer is going to do, Bob, is tell you all he knows about how U-boat crews are trained to cross the South Atlantic, what courses they followed in the past and presumably will follow now, their schedules of on-the-surface and submerged operations—that sort of thing. And then, when we get to Germany, he’ll see what he can find out from U-boat crews now in POW cages.”

“I’m a little slow sometimes,” Bendick said. Then he looked at Boltitz. “Why should I trust you?”

Frade answered for him: “You’ve heard of the failed attempt by Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg to kill Adolf Hitler?”

Bendick looked at Frade, nodded, but said nothing.

“At the time, Kapitän zur See Boltitz was the German naval attaché in Buenos Aires and”—he gestured at Peter—“Major von Wachtstein was the assistant military attaché for air. The day after the bomb failed to kill Hitler, the embassy got a radio message ordering their arrest for high treason.”

“They were involved in the bombing?”

“In the plot of the bombing,” Frade explained, “as were Peter’s father, Generalleutnant Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein, and Karl’s father, Vizeadmiral Kurt Boltitz. General von Wachtstein was arrested, tried by a people’s court, and hung from a butcher’s hook.”

“My God!”

“Vizeadmiral Boltitz, who worked for Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the chief of German Military Intelligence, was not immediately arrested, nor was Admiral Canaris. We don’t know where Vizeadmiral Boltitz is, only that the SS was looking for him until the last day of the war.”

“He ran?” Bendick asked.

Frade nodded.

“On April twenty-third—just over two weeks ago—the 97th Infantry Division of the Third U.S. Army liberated the Flossenberg Concentration Camp in Bavaria. They found Admiral Canaris’s naked, decomposing body hanging from a gallows. It had been left there as a gesture of contempt following the admiral’s execution on April ninth for his role in the failed attempt to kill Hitler.”

“Jesus Christ!” Bendick said, then asked, “And these two German officers ran from the arrest order to Argentina?”

“No. What happened—both had been working for me—was that I flew them to Canoas, where they surrendered to the commanding officer. They were then flown to the senior enemy officer interrogation facility at Fort Hunt, outside Washington.”

“If they had been working for you, why didn’t you just keep them in Argentina?”

“Argentina was then neutral. Leaning strongly toward the Axis, but neutral. If von Wachtstein and Boltitz had stayed there, there was a good chance that some Argentine Nazi would learn where they were, tell the German Embassy, and the SS would go after them. Try to kill them.”

“They’d actually do something like that?”

“They already had done something like that. They tried to kill the commercial attaché of the German Embassy, who had deserted his post. Boltitz and von Wachtstein were no longer of any use to me inside the German Embassy, so getting them into a POW enclosure in the States seemed to be the right thing to do.”

“But they’re not in a POW enclosure, are they?”

“No. They are now OSS special agents—show him your ID, Hansel.”

Peter did.

Bendick nodded his acceptance.

Frade went on: “I knew I was going to need them, so last week—on May tenth—I flew to Washington and got them.”

General Bendick looked at von Wachtstein and, shaking his head in disbelief, asked, “And you were the air attaché of the German Embassy?”

“Tell him, Hansel,” Frade ordered.

“Before that,” von Wachtstein said, “I was commanding officer of Jagdstaffel 232—Focke-Wulf 190s—defending Berlin against B-17s.”

Bendick shook his head again and then asked Frade, “They were turned over to you—is that what you’re saying?”

“No, what I said was that I needed them, so I went and got them. I didn’t have the time to deal with the bureaucracy.”

“You just took them from a POW camp on your own authority?”

Frade nodded.

Bendick again shook his head in disbelief.

Frade said: “Your original question, Bob, was something like ‘Why should I trust Boltitz?’”

Bendick met Frade’s eyes. “Has it occurred to you, Colonel Frade, that the smart thing for me to do is pick up that telephone and tell my provost marshal to come running? That two escaped German POWs and the guy who helped them escape are in flight planning?”

Frade held the gaze and said, “You could do that, General. It’s known as ‘covering your ass.’ But you won’t.”

“And why won’t I?”

“Two reasons. One is that you know that if you did, you’d be helping the Nazis get away with sending their submarines to South America, and you don’t want to do that. Two, you’re not that kind—the CYA kind—of an officer.”

“How do you know? Was telling me all this smart?”

“Probably not. But in my business, every once in a while you have to take a chance. I took it. I’d take it again.”

“Taking a chance like putting a shot-up B-17 down on a fighter strip? Because it wasn’t really an option?”

“Yes, sir.”

General Bendick turned to his aide-de-camp.

“Jimmy,” he ordered, “get on the horn and get Colonel DuBois and Colonel Nathan down here. Tell them I’m running a middle-of-the-night training program in how to find submarines.”

[TWO]

Transient Mess Val de Cans Airfield Belém do Pará, Brazil 0405 17 May 1945

SAA Chief Pilot Gonzalo Delgano, Captain Mario Peralta, and a flight engineer whose name Clete could never remember—he thought of him as “the chubby flight engineer, who, three-to-one, also works for the BIS”—were sitting over coffee at a table near the door when Clete and the others walked in.

The diplomats were sitting at various tables around the nearly empty mess.

“We wondered where you were,” Delgano greeted them.

“We all set to go?” Clete replied.

“Anytime you are. Weather looks good, and we may even get that tailwind.”

“Just as soon we have some breakfast,” Clete said.

“You haven’t eaten?” Delgano asked.

“No. That’s why we’re going to eat now,” Clete said.

If you’d have come out and just asked, “What have you been up to?” I probably would have told you.

“El Señor Nulder wondered what had happened to you,” Delgano said.

“And asked you?”

Delgano nodded.

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth. I didn’t know.”

Clete ordered: “Enrico, why don’t you go ask Señor Nulder if he can spare a moment for me?”

* * *

It was the first time that Frade had gotten a good look at Rodolfo Nulder, the director of security at the Secretariat of Labor and Retirement Plans. He thought there was something about him—his carriage, a hint of arrogance—that suggested a military background.

Nulder smiled and put out his hand as he approached the table.

“I’m Rodolfo Nulder, Señor Frade,” he announced with a charming smile.

“So Capitán Delgano has been telling me.”

“Did he also tell you that I was at both the military academy and the Kriegsschule with your father?”

“No, as a matter of fact, he didn’t,” Frade lied, somewhat deflating Nulder’s arrogance, if only for a moment. “But he did tell me, when I asked him who was in charge of our cargo of diplomats, that you probably were. True?”

“When I left the army, I became involved with governmental security. I’m presently the director of security for the Secretariat of Labor and Retirement Plans—”

“The Secretariat of Labor and Retirement Plans?” Frade interrupted. “Or the Secretary of Labor and Retirement Plans?”

Nulder raised his eyebrows, then said, “Actually, I suppose one could say that both are true. I sometimes assist el Coronel Perón in security matters outside the Secretariat of Labor and Retirement Plans. This is one of those occasions. Actually, Señor Frade, I was hoping to have a word with you, to explain my role in this mission, when we arrived here. But then no one seemed to know where you were.”

“No one did,” Frade said.

Nulder’s charming smile flickered off and then came back on.

He said: “I was going to tell you that in his role as vice president, el Coronel Perón thought, because I know Germany, that I would be useful in carrying out the mission President Farrell had assigned to the Foreign Ministry, and asked me to participate.”

“Does that mean you’re the man in charge?” Frade asked, not very pleasantly.

“Let me put it this way. Think of me as the liaison officer between yourself, as the managing director of SAA, and the senior Foreign Ministry officer, Ambassador Giménez, on this mission.”

Frade considered that, nodded, and said: “Then I guess you’re the man I’m looking for. You can pass this on to Ambassador Giménez. . . . Wait. I just thought of something: How can you be an ambassador to a country that no longer exists? What used to be Germany is now territory held by force of arms by the Allied Powers and under martial law. Can you accredit an ambassador to a military headquarters?”

Nulder’s face showed both that he had not expected the question and that he had no answer to it.

“I really don’t know,” he confessed. “Why don’t we leave such questions to the Foreign Ministry?”

“Okay. But the reason I wanted to see the man in charge—and the reason I’m just now having my breakfast—is that the commanding general of this base sent for me. When I got to his office, he had several officers of the United States Secret Service with him. Are you familiar with the Secret Service?”

“Somewhat,” Nulder said.

“Well, their primary duty is to protect the President. I knew that. But what I remembered just now is that they’re under the secretary of the Treasury.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Nulder admitted.

“Well, the secretary of the Treasury is a man named Morgenthau. He’s Jewish. He doesn’t like Nazis. He’s heard that some Nazis are going to try to avoid trial for war crimes by escaping to South America. So he’s put the Secret Service on it.”

“I don’t quite follow you,” Nulder said.

“They were subtle, if you know what I mean,” Frade said. “They didn’t come right out and say they suspect the Foreign Ministry of doing anything they shouldn’t, like smuggling Nazis into Argentina, but they did tell me that any diplomats going into occupied Germany could forget diplomatic immunity. Anybody caught trying to help Nazis get out of Germany will find themselves standing in front of a court-martial.”

“I don’t think they can do that,” Nulder said.

“I don’t know if they could or not, Señor Nulder. But that’s what they told me. It was sort of a word to the wise, if you know what I mean.”

Nulder did not reply.

“They also told me the Secret Service has authority on any U.S. base—like this one, and Canoas. Which means, if they wanted to, they could search the airplane and check everybody’s identity.

“What they were saying, without coming right out and saying it, was that we can expect to be searched pretty carefully on our way home.”

After a long moment, Nulder said: “Interesting. Have you any idea when we’ll be taking off?”

“Ten minutes after I finish my breakfast.”

“Well, then, I’ll see you aboard,” Nulder said, offered his hand, and then began walking away.

“Pass that on to Ambassador Whatsisname, will you, Señor Nulder?” Clete called after him.

Nulder acknowledged the call with an impatient wave of his hand, but neither replied nor turned around.

Clete looked at Delgano.

“Gonzo, why do I think I just ruined Señor Nulder’s day? And why doesn’t that bother me?”

“You’re crazy, Cletus, that’s why,” Delgano said.

But Delgano was smiling.

And when Frade looked at Captain Peralta and the chubby flight engineer and saw their smiles, he knew it wasn’t probable they were officers of the BIS—but certain.

[THREE]

Portela Airport Lisbon, Portugal 1850 17 May 1945

The weather had not been good. And there had been no tailwind. There had been turbulence—some of it severe—several times.

Delgano had flown the entire leg with Peralta as his copilot. Frade knew that the smart thing for him to do was take over from Delgano to give him a rest. He also knew—although it wasn’t true—that Delgano would take being relieved as proof that Frade found his piloting wanting. And so would the other SAA pilots and flight engineers.

So he had let him fly.

There was also some electrical disturbance; they didn’t pick up Portela’s Radio Direction Finding signal until thirty-five minutes after the dead-reckoning flight plan said they should. Worse, when they finally heard it, it showed them to be about one hundred miles south of where they should have been.

They had been in no unusual danger. They had a little more than an hour’s fuel remaining when they touched down at Portela Airport in a driving rain.

Still, it had been anything but a pleasant flight, and Delgano’s face showed his fatigue when he looked up at Clete.

“Nice job, Gonzo,” Clete said.

The grateful look Delgano then made told Clete he had made the right decision in not trying to relieve him.

A FOLLOW ME pickup truck led them to the passenger terminal.

It was raining so hard that Clete ordered that they leave the cockpit door closed and exit the aircraft by the passenger door, up to which had been rolled a covered stairway.

When they walked into the terminal, Frade immediately saw Fernando Aragão—ostensibly the SAA director in Portugal but, more important, the Lisbon OSS station chief. He was in his fifties and chubby, with slicked-back black hair and a neatly kept pencil mustache.

With Aragão was a well-dressed, tall, slender, olive-skinned man with an arrogant air about him.

Frade disliked him on sight.

Aragão began: “Señor de Hernández, this is—”

“I am Claudio de Hernández, the ambassador,” the man cut him off. “Who’s in charge of the charter aircraft?”

Frade pointed to Delgano.

Delgano pointed to Frade.

“Well,” the ambassador immediately and more than a little arrogantly demanded, “which is it?”

Then, before anyone could reply, he demanded of Frade, who was wearing his Naval Aviator’s leather jacket, “Who are you, señor?”

“Who did you say you were?” Frade replied.

“I am Claudio de Hernández, the Argentine ambassador.”

“Good. I was wondering how I was going to find you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Have you got something that says you’re the ambassador? A diplomatic passport, a carnet, something like that?”

“I don’t think I like your attitude or tone of voice, señor.”

“I don’t like yours much, either,” Frade said. “We’re back to how do I know you’re who you say you are?”

“Señor Aragão has told you who I am.”

“He’s told me who he thinks you are.” Frade looked at Aragão. “Has this fellow ever shown you his identification, Fernando?”

“Actually, no,” Aragão replied. “But—”

“There you go,” Frade said.

Coldly furious, de Hernández said, “I asked you before, señor. Who are you?”

“If you can show me something that says you’re the Argentine ambassador, I’ll tell you. Otherwise, I’m going to get in a taxi and go to the hotel. It’s been a long flight, and I’m tired.”

The ambassador came up with a diplomatic carnet and shoved it at Frade.

Frade examined it.

“This is in Portuguese,” he said. “I don’t speak Portuguese. You don’t have a passport?”

The ambassador produced his diplomatic passport. “I hope you find that satisfactory, señor,” he said sarcastically.

“Well, it’s a step in the right direction. Have you got our overflight clearances, Mr. Ambassador?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “There is a problem. A small problem—”

“In other words, you don’t have them?”

“You said that once I established my bona fides you would identify yourself.”

“My name is Frade. General Farrell sent word to me that you—the Argentine Foreign Ministry anyway; I don’t recall that he specifically mentioned the Argentine ambassador to Portugal—would have the necessary overflight permission waiting for me when we arrived in Lisbon. And now you’re telling me you don’t have them. I can’t believe that General Farrell would tell me something he didn’t believe. Exactly what’s going on here, Mr. Ambassador?”

“Would you be so kind, Señor Frade, to tell me your function in this mission?”

“I’m the managing director of South American Airways. When General Farrell asked me to set this up, I was of course, as a patriotic Argentine, anxious to do what I could to rescue our diplomats from Germany, and I decided the best way I could do that was to fly the mission myself.”

“You’re a pilot?”

“How could I possibly fly this mission if I wasn’t a pilot, Mr. Ambassador?”

“I wasn’t told any of this,” the ambassador said.

“Why should you have been? And there is another problem, Mr. Ambassador. When we were at the North American Val de Cans Airfield in Brazil, I was summoned by the general in command. He made two things clear to me. First, that he suspects this flight is a cover under which senior former German officials—Nazis, to put a point on it—will be allowed to escape Germany under Argentine diplomatic protection—”

“That’s outrageous!”

“That’s what the North American general suspects. Second, he told me that if we are caught smuggling Nazis out of Germany, not only will we be tried by a U.S. Military Tribunal and put in prison for at least ten years, but they will confiscate the airplane.”

“They couldn’t do that,” Ambassador Hernández said. “We have diplomatic immunity!”

“I tried to tell him that. In effect, he said, ‘He who has the power to grant immunity has the power to take it away.’ I believe him. He was very serious. Now, I told Señor Nulder all this, and I told him to tell Ambassador Giménez, and now I’m telling you.”

“The whole idea is preposterous!”

“Be that as it may, I am not going to risk arrest by the Americans, nor the loss of an SAA aircraft by confiscation. Not only did it cost SAA right at half a million dollars—half a million dollars, Mr. Ambassador!—but if they caught us trying to smuggle Nazis out of Germany on an airplane they sold us, they certainly wouldn’t sell us another one.”

“I give you my word of honor, Señor Frade, that I know nothing about any of this,” Ambassador Claudio de Hernández said, his tone suggesting that he really hoped Frade would take his word.

Gotcha!

“What I would like you to do, Mr. Ambassador, is send a cable to the foreign minister in Buenos Aires, telling him that absent any clear denial from him that this rescue mission has absolutely nothing to do with rescuing Nazis from the wholly justified outrage of the Allies—and I will point out to you that Argentina has now become one of the Allies—that I intend to return to Argentina, flyover clearances or not.”

“I’m not sure I can do that,” Ambassador Hernández said.

“That, of course, is your decision. I can no more tell you what to do than you can tell me what to do.” He turned to Aragão. “Fernando, where’s the station wagon?”

“Just outside, Señor Frade.”

“Then let’s go to the hotel,” Frade said. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Ambassador.”

[FOUR]

The Bar, Hotel Britania Rua Rodrigues Sampaio 17 Lisbon, Portugal 1935 17 May 1945

“Why do I think you’re planning something evil?” Gonzalo Delgano asked Cletus Frade even before the bartender came to serve them. They were seated with Mario Peralta and Pedro Vega, the chubby flight engineer, as Fernando Aragão caught up to them.

“Did you see the dirty looks we got from our passengers as they were getting on that bus?” Frade replied.

“That’s probably because that bus has been in service since the First World War and we were getting into Fernando’s nice, nearly new American station wagon,” Delgano said.

“Glad to be of some service,” Aragão said.

The bartender approached them.

Frade gasped and otherwise mimed that he was dying of dehydration.

“Welcome back to Lisbon, Señor Frade,” the bartender said, and without orders set two glasses, a siphon bottle of water, and a wine bottle on the bar.

As the barman pulled the cork from the wine bottle, Frade poured and drank two glasses of the soda water.

“I was thinking,” Frade said, “that if there is one thing diplomats really need and seldom get it’s a lesson in humility.” He paused, went through the ritual of testing the wine, then said to the bartender, “Very nice. After you fill my glass, give small quantities to my friends.”

“Humility? Such as getting on the ancient bus?” Peralta asked.

“That was a start, but what I’m thinking right now is to ask Fernando to have a word with the hotel manager, which will result in all of them being placed in no more than three or four rooms.”

Peralta laughed.

“Don’t laugh, Mario,” Delgano said. “He’s serious.”

“Moot point,” Pedro Vega, who Clete was now sure was a BIS agent, said. He pointed to the lobby. “Too late. They’re here.”

“Damn!” Clete said. “Well, I guess we could ask Fernando to forget re-icing the food containers.”

“Don’t do that, Clete,” Delgano said. “José Ruiz is the exception to the rule about diplomats, and it’s been a long time since he’s had a decent bife de chorizo.”

“You’re running me out of ideas, Gonzo,” Frade said. “But . . . how about having Fernando tell the headwaiter they’re all lousy tippers?”

“Maybe they could forget to put towels in those three rooms,” Peralta offered.

“Better yet,” Pedro Vega said, “have them pour water on the rolls of toilet paper in their baños. We used to do that at the Academy, remember?”

“Pedro, you’re as evil as Cletus,” Delgano said.

“I consider that a compliment, mi coronel,” Vega said.

“Or we could have Mario fly the next leg, presuming we get clearances. That way they would be airsick all the way,” Frade said.

“And I was just starting to like you,” Peralta said.

“Speaking of clearances,” Frade said. “Fernando, what’s with the no clearances?”

“What’s interesting,” Aragão replied, “is that there were—yesterday—clearances. But five hours ago they were canceled. I asked London about it, and they said it was probably the Russians being difficult, but that’s all they knew.”

“The Russians?” Delgano asked incredulously.

Aragão looked at Clete for permission to answer the question.

“Tell them,” Clete said. “They’re friends.”

Aragão nodded and said: “The story I got is that the Russians, after talking Eisenhower into letting them take Berlin, had no intention of allowing anybody else in, the agreements dividing Berlin into American, English, French, and Russian zones to the contrary notwithstanding.

“General White screwed that up for the Russians when he (a) took the Second Armored Division into Berlin without Russian permission—or Eisenhower’s—and (b) threw the Red Army out of what was agreed to be the American zone. Our guy in London suspects the Russians don’t want us to have any control over the airports, or even fly into Berlin unless we ask for permission. Eisenhower, finally realizing the Russians are trying to screw him, has no intention of asking their permission, as that would imply they have the right to say no.”

If Delgano, Peralta, or Vega was curious how it was that the Portuguese station chief for SAA could call London and come up with that sort of information, they were too prudent to ask.

“Is there an airport in our zone?” Frade asked.

Aragão nodded. “Tempelhof.”

“The Americans have Tempelhof?” von Wachtstein asked.

“London told me General White has it surrounded by tanks and has been flying his Piper Cubs into it from his Division Rear, which is still at the other side of the Elbe River. You know something about Tempelhof?”

“It’s—it used to be—Lufthansa’s terminal. Good airport. I could get the Connie into it with no trouble.”

If Aragão was curious to know how an SAA pilot knew so much about Tempelhof, he was too prudent to ask. But von Wachtstein saw the look on his face. And so did Frade.

“Fernando,” Clete said, “say hello to Special Agent Peter von Wachtstein of the OSS, formerly major of the Luftwaffe. Peter, Fernando is the OSS station chief here.”

Aragão didn’t reply but looked at Boltitz.

Clete went on: “And Special Agent Karl Boltitz used to be Kapitän zur See of the Kriegsmarine. When we get to Germany, he’s going to see what his U-boat buddies can tell us about all these submarines that Mr. Dulles tells us are supposed to be headed for Argentina.”

“Damn it,” Aragão suddenly exclaimed.

Clete looked on curiously as Aragão stabbed his right hand into his suitcoat and came out with a sealed envelope.

“This came for you earlier, Clete. There’ve been fifty different stories making the rounds about those subs, each harder to swallow than the other. And I’m not sure this helps.”

Frade took the envelope, opened it, and extracted the single page inside. His eyes fell to it: PRIORITY

TOP SECRETDUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

FROM AGGIE

TO TEXVIA OSS LISBON STATION

MSG NO 412 1805 GREENWICH 16 MAY 1945

LAST NIGHT—15 MAY—DAVID BRUCE DISPATCHED FOUR AGENTS FROM OSS LONDON STATION TO BERGEN NORWAY TO INTERVIEW SIXTEEN (16) GERMAN POWS BEING HELD THERE. OUR INFORMATION IS THAT CAPTAIN SCHAFFER OF U-977 GAVE HIS MARRIED CREWMEN THE OPTION OF CONTINUING ABOARD OR BEING PUT ASHORE IN EUROPE TO REJOIN THEIR FAMILIES. ON 10 MAY THE TOTAL OF NINETEEN (19) WHO TOOK HIM UP ON THE OFFER WENT ASHORE BY DINGHY AT HOLSENOY ISLAND NORWAY. SIXTEEN (16) SURRENDERED TO BE REPATRIATED. THREE (3) REMAIN AT LARGE.

IN INITIAL INTERVEWS NONE OF THE POWS SAID THEY HAD SEEN ANYBODY ONBOARD OTHER THAN FELLOW SUBMARINERS.

FURTHER, MARSHAL ZHUKOV IN BERLIN REPORTS THAT RUSSIAN AGENTS HAVE THE CHARRED REMAINS OF HITLER AND HIS BRIDE AS WELL AS THE GOEBBELS FAMILY AND OTHERS. ZHUKOV SAID THE REMAINS WERE RECOVERED OUTSIDE THE FUHRERBUNKER, IN THE REICH CHANCELLERY GARDEN. WHILE THE RUSSIANS ARE NOT EXACTLY BEING PARAGONS OF HONESTY WE HAVE NO REASON NOT TO BELIEVE THEM IN THIS INSTANCE.

MEANTIME SCORES OF ATTACK U-BOATS HAVE FOLLOWED THE ORDER OF ADMIRAL DONITZ TO STAND DOWN AND SURRENDER WITH THEIR CREWS. OPERATION DEADLIGHT WILL SEE THESE VESSELS SCUTTLED. U-977 AND U-234 ARE NOT AMONG THOSE HAVING SURRENDERED AND THEIR WHEREABOUTS AND ANY POSSIBLE TANKER U-BOATS REMAIN UNKNOWN. WE CAN ONLY PRESUME THEY CONTINUE EN ROUTE TO ARGENTINA. GEN BENDICK HAS BEEN ALERTED.

WILL LET YOU KNOW WHAT WE LEARN FROM U-977 POWS IN NORWAY. LET ME KNOW WHAT IF ANYTHING YOUR U-BOAT EXPERT LEARNS THERE. THAT SAID, IT MAY OR MAY NOT MATTER—WILD BILL SUSPECTS OUR LITTLE ORGANIZATION COULD BE OUT OF BUSINESS SOONER THAN EXPECTED.

TEX

END

TOP SECRET DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

Frade shook his head, then folded the sheet and stuffed it in his pocket.

“When the hell is ‘sooner than expected’?” he said. He shook his head, then looked at Aragão and added, “Well, the only thing we know for sure now is that at least one U-boat is headed for Argentina. I never believed that Hitler was aboard. I also don’t buy the story that there’s a fleet of U-boats. Maybe one or two, and some tankers. Then again, maybe not. Karl should be able to get us some answers.”

Aragão nodded. He said: “Where did the general at Val de Cans get his intel about this ‘rescue the diplomats’ operation you’re on being a cover to get Nazis out of Germany?”

“From me,” Clete said. “I wasn’t being exactly truthful with the ambassador. Something about this smells, starting with why are these Argentine diplomats still in Berlin? Argentina declared war on Germany on March twenty-seventh—that’s almost two months ago. They could have been in neutral Sweden that night, or the next day. Or in Spain the day after that. They stayed because they wanted to, and I don’t mean for the joy of watching Russian T-34 tanks roll down . . . what’s the wonderful name of that street? The Unter den Linden. They stayed for a reason.”

“What kind of a reason?” Delgano asked.

“Any of a number of reasons. For example, suppose you were Heinrich Himmler and you had a couple of kilograms of diamonds you wanted to get to Argentina. Wouldn’t it make more sense to give a quarter of them, or even half, to some friendly Argentine diplomat in exchange for his taking them to Argentina for you? Submarines get sunk.”

“You think that’s what it is?”

“I don’t know, but if the secretary of Labor and Retirement Plans—my beloved Tío Juan—is involved, it’s entirely likely. And we know he’s involved because his good friend Nulder is in charge of the rescue mission.”

“But you implied,” Aragão said, “that they were going to try to smuggle Nazis back on your airplane.”

“They may have had that in mind. Maybe just one or two really big Nazis. Who’s going to count heads on a mercy flight? But I don’t think so, now that I’ve led Nulder and Ambassador Hernández to believe the Americans are onto them. But precious stones, or something else? That wouldn’t surprise me at all. Who’s going to search the luggage of a rescued diplomat?”

“So that’s what that was all about,” Delgano said.

“I’m an evil man, Gonzo. You’ve said so yourself.”

“So, what happens now?” Delgano asked.

“First, we finish this bottle of wine, and then maybe another, and then we have dinner and a bath, not necessarily in that order.”

“I meant tomorrow, Cletus,” Delgano said, shaking his head in resignation.

“We wait for the flyover clearances. We can’t go to Berlin without them.”