There were several Kriegsmarine officers on the aft platform and in the smaller area atop the conning tower. He could tell because they were wearing officer’s brimmed caps and sweaters. The SS asshole was wearing a white shirt and tie.
The officers waved—broad, wide-spread arms—but not one saluted.
When von Wachtstein was past the submarine, he dumped the flaps and shoved the throttle to full emergency power. The Storch quickly gained speed and altitude . . . Like a goosed stork, he thought with a grin, imagining Schmidt’s pucker factor reflex to the maneuver.
As soon as he could, he turned and dropped back to the surface of the sea.
Now the Kriegsmarine battle flag was gone, as were all the men but one— an officer, on the conning tower, who waved a final time, then disappeared into the boat as the U-405 began to submerge.
Thirty seconds later, the submarine was gone.
Von Wachtstein turned the nose of the Storch due west.
After crossing the coastline, he flew low and slow enough over the trucks so that he could signal with an upraised thumb that they’d made the rendezvous with U-405. Then he flew for several kilometers over the beach and finally flew several kilometers inland.
There were three dirt roads leading from a paved road to where the trucks sat on the rise overlooking the beach. Each road had been blocked by a truck and soldiers. These men were in uniform, not in the blue workman coveralls that all the others wore beside the beach.
When he returned to the landing strip, as he was landing, he saw two things he hadn’t seen on his flyovers. One was a large four-door sedan, which had to be the American Packard in which Sturmbannführer Erich Raschner and Fregattenkapitän Karl Boltitz had driven from Buenos Aires. The other was that there were now two machine guns and their crews—in uniform, not blue coveralls—in position so they could cover the beach.
He recognized the model of the machine guns.
I didn’t know the Argentines had Maschinengewehr 34s; I thought they were still using World War I Maxims.
And why are some of these mountain troops in uniform, and the rest in blue coveralls?
Okay. Civilians in coveralls with Maschinengewehr 34s would really make people, like the local authorities, curious.
This way Herr/Oberst Schmidt can get away with saying he’s running some sort of repel-the-invaders field exercise.
But, that being the case, why the coveralls on the others?
Then he saw where he was relative to the ground, made the necessary corrections to his flight path, and softly set down the Storch.
[FIVE]
Near Necochea Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1705 23 July 1943
“I thought I made it clear that your role in this was to fly along the beach,” Standartenführer Cranz said when von Wachtstein walked up to him.
“Sir, I landed for several reasons, among them being that I thought the Herr Standartenführer would want confirmation from Herr Schmidt that we made rendezvous—”
“Quite right.”
“—and that we saw nothing out of the ordinary. And I thought Herr Schmidt wanted to be here—”
“Very well.”
“—and I wanted to top off my tanks, and I thought you might have further orders for me, Herr Standartenführer.”
“Only those that I gave you earlier: to maintain an alert observation and to return to the field the moment you see the rubber boats leave the submarine.”
“Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer. Sir, am I permitted to make a suggestion?”
Cranz made an impatient gesture for him to go on.
“Sir, if you flew with me, you would be much better able to see what’s going on than you can from here.”
Cranz considered that for a full fifteen seconds—which seemed longer—in the process looking at Schmidt and almost visibly deciding that he had survived the flight without permanent damage, then said, “Good thinking, von Wachtstein. What was it you said, ‘top off’ your tanks?”