And von Tresmarck wasn’t really in the same league as von Deitzberg, Raschner, and Cranz. He wasn’t really a senior SS officer, for one thing. And for another: his sexual orientation.
Von Tresmarck had come to von Deitzberg’s attention when a Sicherheitspolizei report of his relationship with a young SS officer had come to his desk for action.
At the time, von Deitzberg had needed someone reliable in Uruguay. Reasoning that someone whose choices were doing precisely what he was told to do—and keeping his mouth shut about it—or swapping his SS uniform and the privileges that went with it for the gray striped uniform of a Sachsenhausen concentration camp inmate—with a pink triangle on the breast—would be just the man he needed.
And von Dattenberg had spelled it out to von Tresmarck in just about those terms.
If von Tresmarck would marry someone suitable immediately, his Sicherheitspolizei dossier would remain in von Deitzberg’s safe while he went to Uruguay and did what he was told to do.
He even defined someone suitable for him.
“One of the ladies who spends a good deal of time around the bar in the Adlon Hotel is a Frau Kolbermann. Inge Kolbermann. She is the widow of the late Obersturmbannführer Kolbermann, who fell for the Fatherland in Russia and left her in pretty dire straits financially. And there are other reasons she will probably accept a proposal of marriage. You had better hope she accepts yours.”
She indeed had accepted von Tresmarck’s proposal, as von Deitzberg thought she would. He knew a good deal about Frau Kolbermann, both professionally and personally. She was no stranger to his bed. If she was in Uruguay, she posed far less of a threat to embarrass him.
And so far, both of them had performed adequately.
Almost visibly thinking, Raschner hadn’t replied for a long moment.
“I don’t believe in good luck,” he said finally. “But sometimes things happen randomly that others might consider good luck.”
“Meaning?”
“The pie, with Goltz gone, can now be sliced into three parts, not four.”
“Yes, that’s true. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“The weak links in the chain are von Tresmarck in Uruguay and those I think of as the worker bees in Germany, those who—”
“I take your point.”
“You will be there. You can arrange things so the worker bees about whom you have any suspicions, or who know too much, can be sent to work in other hives or otherwise disposed of. And von Tresmarck can continue accepting contributions to the confidential fund as he has been doing, with Cranz keeping a close eye on him. And me keeping a close eye on both of them.”
“And Cranz,” von Deitzberg said, “as commercial attaché, will be able to make the right kind of investments.”
“With me watching him,” Raschner said.
“And me watching you,” von Deitzberg said smiling. “Keep in mind always, Erich, that you work for me, not Cranz.”
“Of course,” Raschner said. “Are you going to tell him that?”
“Of course. As a matter of fact, I’ll tell him right now. Go get him, would you, please? He’s with Frogger.”
[SIX]
Army Security Agency Facility Vint Hill Farms Station Near Warrenton, Fauquier County, Virginia 1940 13 July 1943
As the black 1942 Buick Roadmaster approached the small frame guard shack, floodlights came on and a large military policeman—one of three on duty— came out of the shack. He held up his right hand in an unmistakable Stop right there! gesture.
When the car had stopped, he walked to the driver’s window.
“You didn’t see the sign, ‘Do Not Pass—Restricted Military Area’?”
“We’re expected, Sergeant,” Colonel A. J. Graham said from the backseat of the Buick.
The MP sergeant shined his flashlight in the backseat and saw a well-dressed civilian.
“My name is Graham, Sergeant.”
“Colonel Graham?” the MP asked dubiously.
“That’s right.”
The flashlight went off.
“Lieutenant!” the MP sergeant called.
Graham saw a barrel-chested young Signal Corps officer push himself off the hood of a jeep where he had been sitting. He marched purposefully toward the Buick.
“Is there a problem?” the lieutenant asked in a booming voice.
“Sir, there’s a civilian in the backseat of the Buick, says he’s Colonel Graham.”
“ ‘Civilian’?” the lieutenant parroted, making it clear he thought that what he had been told was highly unlikely.
He marched to the Buick and boomed, “Colonel Graham?”
“That’s right.”
“We expected a Marine colonel,” the lieutenant boomed.
“And that’s what you got,” Graham said, and held out his identity card.
The lieutenant examined the card, and then Graham, very carefully.
Then he handed the card back, came to attention, saluted, and boomed, “Good evening, sir. Sir, I am Lieutenant McClung, the officer of the day. If the colonel will have his driver follow me, I will take you to the colonel, who is waiting for you, sir.”
“Thank you,” Graham said.
“The colonel will understand that when I said we expected a Marine colonel, we expected one in uniform, sir.”
“That was reasonable,” Graham said. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, Colonel?” Colonel Raymond J. Scott, Signal Corps, commanding Vint Hill Farms Station, asked as he shook Graham’s hand.
“I didn’t mean to make waves, Colonel,” Graham said. “But I had to come out here as soon as I could, and I’d never been here before, so I asked our commo officer, Colonel Lemes, to set it up.”
“Well, what he did was call the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, and his deputy called here and said you—Colonel Graham of the Marines and the OSS—was on his way out here and to give him—you—whatever you wanted. So I sent Iron Lung to the gate—”
“ ‘Iron Lung’?” Graham chuckled. “I can’t imagine why you call him that.”
“He does give new meaning to the phrase ‘voice of command,’ doesn’t he? Actually, he’s a fine young officer.”
“That was the impression I formed,” Graham said. “He’d have made a fine drill instructor at Parris Island.”
“Actually, before he came here, he was a tactical officer at Signal Corps OCS at Fort Monmouth.”
“What was that, the round peg in the round hole?”
Scott laughed.
“So how can we help the OSS?” Scott said, waving Graham into a chair.
“I’ve got a team in the field that needs better radios than they have to communicate with Washington.”
“Where are they?”
“South America. They’ve asked for six Collins Model 295 Transceivers.”
“Well, they know what to ask for, but . . .”
“There’s a problem?”
“How skilled is your commo sergeant?”
“He’s a long-service Navy chief radioman. About as smart as they come. As a matter of fact, he’s about to be commissioned.”
“Then no problem. They’re great radios, but they need people who know what they’re doing when they go down. And, as matter of fact, to set them up. When do you want them?”
“Would tomorrow morning be too soon?”
“You’re serious?”
“Within the next couple of days.”
“How are you going to ship them?”
“By air. In an airplane that’s also going down there.”
“Can you give me forty-eight hours?”
“That would work fine.”
“Happy to be able to oblige,” Colonel Scott said. “Where do you want them?”
“We’re in the National Institutes of Health complex on—”
“I know where it is. I’ll have Iron Lung personally check them out and deliver them himself.”