“What makes you think I was worried about them?”
“Weren’t you worried they’d have another shot at you?”
“That’s a given. If the SS-SD guys in the embassy ever have the chance to kill any of us, and one of Martín’s men isn’t actually watching them that moment, they’ll take it. That’s another reason I don’t let anybody leave the estancia. Tony Pelosi’s safer with his diplomatic passport. We don’t try to kill their guys with diplomatic status, and they don’t try to kill ours.”
“That doesn’t apply to what happened to Grüner and Goltz?”
“I think the Germans think they were killed by Argentines, getting revenge for my father. The proof seems to be that no Americans at the embassy have been killed, tit-for-tat. I was sort of hoping they’d get Delojo.”
“Your mouth sometimes—often—runs away with you, Frade. You can’t really mean that.”
“Yeah, I can. I don’t trust him. You want to hear the rest of this?”
Graham nodded.
“Where was I?” Frade said.
“Where were you? Himmler was sending his adjutant over here masquerading as a Wehrmacht general—”
“Von Deitzberg,” Frade confirmed, “who decided that somebody reliable should talk to the captain of the Reine de la Mer. So he went to Canaris and Canaris loaned him his liaison officer to the foreign ministry, a submarine officer slash intelligence officer named Boltitz, Korvettenkapitän Karl Boltitz. Boltitz speaks Portuguese, which was important because the captain of the Reine de la Mer didn’t speak German.
“So off von Deitzberg and Boltitz go to Portugal and talk to the captain of the Reine de la Mer. Boltitz smells a rat about von Wachtstein walking away— actually rowing away, I suppose—from the beach unhurt, but has no proof of anything. Von Deitzberg is very impressed with the way Boltitz has dealt with the Portuguese captain, and with the fact that Boltitz speaks Spanish; he doesn’t. So he goes back to Canaris and tells him that he wants to borrow him a little longer, to take him to Argentina with him. Canaris isn’t happy with that, but von Deitzberg is Himmler’s adjutant, and Canaris decides not to fight.
“So, off to Argentina, where Boltitz noses around—he’s clever as hell—and finds out that von Wachtstein tipped us off as to where the Reine de la Mer was going to put the money ashore. That he’s the traitor, in other words. Now, here’s where it gets interesting—”
“Interesting? So far this tale of yours sounds like a screenplay for a cheap spies-and-robbers movie.”
“Yeah, I know. Let me finish. Now, Boltitz is an officer and a gentleman. His father is a vice admiral. And he knows that so is von Wachtstein—that his father is a generalmajor. Now, when two officers and gentlemen are involved in something like this, there’s a set of rules, based on their code of honor.
“So Boltitz goes to von Wachtstein and tells him he knows what’s going on, and that he expects von Wachtstein to behave like an officer and a gentleman is supposed to in these kind of situations.”
“You’re not going to tell me he handed him a pistol with one cartridge and then left him alone?”
“It was a little more complicated than that,” Frade replied. “Boltitz went to von Wachtstein and told him that if he had a fatal crash—spread himself all over the runway—at El Palomar when he came back from Uruguay, Boltitz would not turn him in; the family’s honor would not be sullied, and his father would not be sent to a concentration camp. And von Wachtstein agreed to do it.”
“This is so bizarre I’m beginning to believe it,” Graham said.
“Of course, I’m only a temporary officer and gentleman by act of Congress for the duration plus six months,” Frade said, “but if it had been me . . .”
Graham chuckled.
“. . . I’d have said, ‘Heil Hitler, Herr Korvettenkapitän!’ then killed him and tossed his body into the River Plate.”
“What did he do?”
“He went to Lutzenberger.”
“The ambassador?”
Frade nodded and said, “Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger, ambassador of the German Reich to the Republic of Argentina.”
“To confess? What?”
“Lutzenberger is also one of the good guys,” Frade said. “He and General von Wachtstein went to college together. He knows that von Wachtstein brought a hell of a lot of money here—and is getting more from Switzerland— for after the war.”
“What do you mean for after the war?”
“To send back to Germany, after we win the war, to make sure they don’t lose their land.”
“This General von Wachtstein thinks Germany’s going to lose?”
Frade nodded, and said, “More than that.”
“What more than that?”
“You speak German, right?”
“I can read and write it, but when I try to speak it, German-speaking people have a hard time trying not to laugh.”
Frade stood up and walked to the bookcases on one wall of the study. He took a firm grip on a shelf and tugged mightily. With a squeak, a section of the bookcase swung outward, revealing a wall-mounted safe. He worked the combination, spun a large stainless-steel wheel, and pulled the door open. From an inside drawer, he took an envelope and handed it to Graham.
“No, you can’t have this,” he said. “But I think you should read it. When my father read it, it brought tears to his eyes, and when I read it last week, it did the same thing to me.”
Graham took the envelope. The lined envelope was fine vellum, and so were the two sheets of paper it held.
Schloss Wachtstein
Pomern
Hansel—
I have just learned that you have reached Argentina safely, and thus it is time for this letter.
The greatest violation of the code of chivalry by which I, and you, and your brothers, and so many of the von Wachtsteins before us, have tried to live is of course regicide. I want you to know that before I decided that honor demands that I contribute what I can to such a course of action that I considered all of the ramifications, both spiritual and worldly, and that I am at peace with my decision.
A soldier’s duty is first to his God, and then to his honor, and then to his country. The Allies in recent weeks have accused the German state of the commission of atrocities on such a scale as to defy description. I must tell you that information has come to me that has convinced me that the accusations are not only based on fact, but are actually worse than alleged.
The officer corps has failed its duty to Germany, not so much on the field of battle, but in pandering to the Austrian corporal and his cohorts. In exchange for privilege and “honors,” the officer corps, myself included, has closed its eyes to the obscene violations of the Rules of Land Warfare, the Code of Honor, and indeed most of God’s Ten Commandments that have gone on. I accept my share of the responsibility for this shameful behavior.
We both know the war is lost. When it is finally over, the Allies will, with right, demand a terrible retribution from Germany.
I see it as my duty as a soldier and a German to take whatever action is necessary to hasten the end of the war by the only possible means now available, eliminating the present head of the government. The soldiers who will die now, in battle, or in Russian prisoner of war camps, will be as much victims of the officer corps’ failure to act as are the people the Nazis are slaughtering in concentration camps.
I put it to you, Hansel, that your allegiance should be no longer to the Luftwaffe, or the German State, but to Germany, and to the family, and to the people who have lived on our lands for so long.
In this connection, your first duty is to survive the war. Under no circumstances are you to return to Germany for any purpose until the war is over. Find now some place where you can hide safely if you are ordered to return.