“All right. You developed the intelligence. You give it to your ambassador. What’s wrong with that?”
“Ambassador Alexander came to see me. After he told me that our meeting never took place, he told me that I was never to go anywhere near the embassy.”
“Because of your Operation Ost?”
Frade nodded.
“It would be bad enough if we were caught bringing Gehlen’s people—some of whom are really nasty Nazis—here. Imagine the damage if it came out after we were self-righteously demanding the Argentine government stop doing the same thing.”
Martín exhaled audibly.
“You’re right,” he said finally.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and the people who want to take out Juan Domingo will,” Frade said.
“You don’t mean that,” Martín said.
“I don’t know if I do or not,” Frade said.
“And you weren’t listening to what I said about starting a civil war,” Martín said.
“I don’t want a civil war,” Frade said.
“I was in Spain for theirs,” von Wachtstein said. “No, you don’t.”
“So, what do we do?” Frade asked.
“I don’t know, but I still think going to Villa General Belgrano—having Peter fly me there—and seeing what we can find out is a good idea.”
Frade nodded.
“Hansel,” he said, “do not, repeat not, let Bernardo fly.”
[FIVE]
General Villa Belgrano
Córdoba Province, Argentina
1520 13 October 1945
Oberleutnant zur See Rudolf Wechsler and Oberfähnrich zur See Erwin Vogel, who were interned members of the Panzerschiff Graf Spee, sat drinking beer at an outside table of the Café Wietz. They watched as the flaming red Storch taxied to the far end of the ad hoc runway—the road—turned, accelerated toward them, then took off.
In the U.S. Navy, Wechsler would have been a lieutenant (junior grade) and Vogel a chief petty officer. But they had other, secret, ranks as well. When they had been interned Wechsler had held the rank of obersturmführer of the Sicherheitsdienst and Vogel had held that of an SS-sturmscharführer.
On the Graf Spee, they had looked for any signs of disloyalty to the Führer or talk of defeatism. They had continued to do so in internment. Wechsler had been promoted to SS-obersturmführer and Vogel had been commissioned as an untersturmführer for their services in helping Graf Spee officers escape and return to Germany. And they had, of course, continued to look for disloyalty and defeatism among their former shipmates.
They had passed this information to the resident Sicherheitsdienst officer, SS-Oberst Karl-Heinz Grüner, the military attaché of the German embassy, whenever Major von Wachtstein had come to General Villa Belgrano.
Or they thought they had.
Now they knew better. Von Wachtstein had probably—laughing while he did—tossed their reports out of the Storch and Grüner had never seen them.
“Gottverdammter Verräter,” Vogel said, sliding his beer mug on the table.
“Von Wachtstein certainly is a traitor,” Wechsler agreed. “But we don’t know that von Dattenberg is, do we?”
“With respect, he was ordered to scuttle his U-boot and instead surrendered it,” Vogel said. “And he was not loaded onto that Storch in handcuffs, was he?”