The small room gradually filled with the officers who had been following them around since Clete had gotten off the plane. When Capitan Lauffer had provided each of them a brandy snifter, Ramirez raised his own glass high.
"Gentlemen, I give you our late comrade-in-arms, friend, and distinguished Argentinian, el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade."
They all raised their glasses and drained them-surprising Clete, who thought they would take a small ceremonial sip. Then, apparently in order of rank, with Ramirez doing so first, they each shook Clete's hand, expressed their condolences a final time, and left the room.
"Capitan, what did you do wrong?" Clete asked Lauffer. "You seem to be stuck with me."
"It is my privilege, Se¤or. I served under your father."
"Well, I think you can go home after you take me back to the house. All I'm going to do, frankly, is have another stiff drink and go to bed."
Capitan Lauffer looked uncomfortable.
"I don't think that's what you had in mind, is it?" Clete said.
"I thought perhaps you might wish to call on your aunt and uncle, Se¤or."
Christ, I forgot all about them!
"La Se¤ora de Duarte left here only minutes before you arrived," Lauffer said. "She asked me to tell you that she waited as long as she could, but she had an appointment with Monsignor Kelly, some final points about the Mass and in-terment tomorrow."
"Thank you," Clete said. "The embarrassing truth is I completely forgot about my aunt and uncle."
"Under the circumstances..." Lauffer said.
"And so, if you would be so kind, I would appreciate a ride over to the Av-enue Alvear."
"My car is out in back," Lauffer said. "It will save you passing through the crowd in front."
I also forget Dorotea. Jesus Christ! And Tony and Dave Ettinger. And Pe-ter. I really want to see him. And with Capitan Lauffer hanging around, how am I going to be able to?
And-Jesus H. Christ!-Claudia! She wasn't married to him, but if any-body feels worse about my father than I do, it's Claudia, and I didn't even think of her until just now.
[THREE]
Alvear Palace Hotel
Avenida Alvear
Buenos Aires
1930 9 April 1943
Anton von Gradny-Sawz, First Secretary of the Embassy of the German Reich to the Republic of Argentina, was wearing his heavily gold-encrusted diplo-matic uniform when the top-hatted doorman pulled open the door of the Em-bassy's Mercedes sedan in the arcade of the hotel.
Gradny-Sawz was more than a little annoyed that he had learned only an hour before that the "distinguished personage" who had arrived on the Lufthansa Condor was Standartenf?hrer Josef Goltz. It was another instance of Ambassador von Lutzenberger not electing to tell him information he believed he was entitled to know. In this instance, it was particularly galling because he and Josef Goltz were not only old friends but had worked together in the unit-ing of Germanic Austria with the Reich.
He could only hope that his old friend would believe him when he said he would have been at the airport to greet him when he arrived, and to take him into his home, if only he had known he was coming.
Early on, when he was a relatively junior officer in the Foreign Ministry of the Austrian Republic, Gradny-Sawz decided that Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists were the one hope of the Deutsche Volk, and that Austria should "re-turn" to the German fatherland.
After he had made this judgment, a visiting German officer, a Sturmbannf?hrer (SS Major) by the name of Josef Goltz, somewhat delicately brought up the subject of Austria becoming part of the Reich, and of the way this might be accomplished. Gradny-Sawz understood that this was that opportunity which comes but once in one's lifetime, and took the chance. He assured Goltz that he was in complete agreement with Adolf Hitler's plans for the German people and would do whatever he could to bring Austria into the Thousand Year Reich as soon as possible.
He had bet on the right horse, he liked to somewhat smugly think. In 1938, with not a little assistance from Anton Gradny-Sawz, the Austrian Republic fell in an almost bloodless coup d'‚tat, the Wehrmacht marched on Vienna, and Austria became Ostmark.
Grateful for his services, the German Foreign Ministry "absorbed" Gradny-Sawz-with a promotion and decoration "for services rendered." In January 1940, he was assigned to the Embassy in Rome as Third Secretary for Commercial Affairs. In 1941, he was assigned to Buenos Aires as First Secre-tary.
In Buenos Aires, he saw it as his mission to do whatever he could to see that Argentina declared war on the Allies, and if that proved impossible, that Ar-gentine neutrality be tilted as much as possible to the advantage of Germany.