“We have a jet fighter?” Clete blurted in surprise.
Dulles nodded. “—and is nowhere near operational. The German Messerschmitt Me-262, on the other hand, is near operational status.”
“Peter flew one,” Frade said, “in Augsburg. He said it went six hundred miles an hour and has thirty-millimeter cannons.”
“Your friend Peter has flown this aircraft?”
Frade picked up on something in Dulles’s voice.
“He’s my friend. He saved my life, okay?”
“You didn’t make any sort of a report of this test flight?”
Frade shook his head.
He said, “I just presumed we knew about it. Had spies. . . .”
His voice trailed off as he realized how lame that sounded.
Dulles’s eyes narrowed.
“Well, we don’t,” he said coldly. “If you can fit it into your busy schedule when you get back to Argentina, you might consider talking some more to your friend Peter about the Me-262. I’m sure the Army Air Forces would dearly love to hear what someone who has actually flown the Me-262 thinks about it.”
Frade did not reply.
“If the Germans can build enough of them quickly enough, they can inflict bomber losses on the Air Forces and the RAF to the point where the bombing will have to be called off. That would permit them to continue the war for an extended period. Under that circumstance, your delicate feelings about asking your friend about the Me-262 aren’t really important, are they?”
“Is that what you were thinking?” Frade asked.
“Isn’t that what you were thinking?”
“I was thinking it was stupid of me not to have thought the AAF would want to hear about the Me-262,” Frade said. “And then that it really didn’t matter, because I don’t think he knows much beyond its performance, armament, and how hard or easy it is to fly. He didn’t get that much time in it, and he’s a pilot, not an engineer.”
Dulles considered that a long moment, then said, “You’re probably right. And anyway, we’ve gone off at a tangent.
“To backtrack: Putzi said that probably every senior Nazi knows the war is lost. Hitler is psychologically unable to face that, and the senior officers around him are not going to suggest it. But Bormann—who is probably the most powerful man after Hitler—does, or we wouldn’t have Operation Phoenix.
“The ransoming operation is probably simply a personally profitable sideline for senior officers of the SS, headed by von Deitzberg. Himmler—as always—is a mystery. I don’t have a clue as to whether he’s involved with the ransoming operation or not, or whether von Deitzberg is running it under his nose. The upper ranks of the SS, according to Canaris, are riddled with criminal types.
“The question of what to do about both came up at dinner, and was decided by the President, based on a number of factors. Starting with the ransoming operation, Roosevelt said the question was saving lives, however that could be done. Exposing the operation would serve only to ensure that all the Jews in the camps were exterminated.
“Similarly, exposing Operation Phoenix—which seems so incredible on its face that the Nazis could not only deny it but ridicule the accusation—would accomplish very little.”
“You’re saying you’re just going to let them continue?”
“I’m saying you are. With an important caveat. We want to know everything about it. We want the money traced from the moment it arrives in Argentina. We want to know what was bought with it, and from whom. The names of the Argentine—and Paraguayan and Uruguayan—officials who have been paid off. Everything.
“The thinking is that if we went to General Ramírez or General Rawson now with what we have, or what you might dig up, they would tell us to mind our own business. The Argentines are not convinced the Germans have lost the war.
“When Germany surrenders— How much do you know about the Casablanca Conference?”
“What I read in the newspapers, and that wasn’t much.”
“I was there,” Dulles said. “It started out almost as a propaganda stunt. Stalin didn’t want to come—which was the reason Churchill wanted it, so that he and Roosevelt could gang up on Stalin—and Chiang Kai-shek wasn’t invited.
“There was not much need for a conference between Churchill and Roosevelt; they were and are pretty much agreed on everything, which actually means just about everything Churchill wants.
“But there they were: Roosevelt—who is actually quite ill—looking chipper as he became the first President ever to leave the country during wartime, with his good friend Churchill.
“Three things were decided at Casablanca. Churchill lost two of the decisions. ”
“Excuse me?”
“Churchill wants to invade Europe through its ‘soft underbelly,’ meaning the Mediterranean coast of France. George Marshall wants to invade across the Channel. Roosevelt backed Marshall, so that’s where it will happen. Secondly, Charles de Gaulle will not meet an accident—”
“Who?”
“Colonel Charles de Gaulle. Great long drink of water? Who has appointed himself leader of the Free French?”
“Okay, I know who you mean. Accident?”
“Churchill thinks—and he’s probably right—that he’s going to be more trouble than he’s worth. But the President made it clear he would be very unhappy indeed if de Gaulle had any kind of an accident.
“And the third thing decided—the only decision made public—was that we are going to demand the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy, and Japan. I personally thought that was a bad idea, as there is a chance that if General von Wachtstein and von Stauffenberg succeed in removing Hitler, an armistice could quickly be agreed upon. But that question was decided in Churchill’s favor.
“That’s bad, because it will extend the war, especially insofar as the Japanese are concerned. The Italians, if there weren’t so many German troops in Italy, would surrender tomorrow morning. The Germans will hang on as long as possible, but ultimately, they will surrender unconditionally.
“And what that means, under international law, is that the moment the Germans sign the surrender document, everything the German government owns falls under the control of the victors. Things like embassy buildings, other real estate, bank accounts. Are you following me, Cletus?”
“I hope so.”
“The moment the Germans surrender, our ambassador will call upon the Argentine foreign minister, present him with a detailed list of all German property in Argentina—which you will have prepared, to include bank account numbers, descriptions of real estate, et cetera—and inform him that we’re taking possession of it.
“The Argentine government may not like it, but it’s a well-established principle of international law, and it really would be unwise of them to defy that law. I rather doubt they will. Nations, like people, tend to try to curry favor with whoever has just won a fight.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“That your only comment?”
“What I’m thinking is that I’m in way over my head. Why don’t they send somebody to Argentina who has experience and knows what he’s doing?”
“Ask yourself that,” Dulles said.
“Because he wouldn’t have my contacts.”
“And because he would be more carefully watched than you are.”
“They’re watching me pretty carefully right now, as a matter of fact.”
“What have you done to cause that?”
“They suspect I had something to do with the disappearance of the commercial attaché of the German embassy and his wife. On the way up here, Delgano, who is ostensibly my chief pilot but who is—and he knows I know—a BIS agent, said he wouldn’t be surprised if I had them in my suitcase.”
“I don’t quite understand. You had something to do—”
“They showed up at Milton Leibermann’s door and said they wanted to ‘surrender’—”