“This made sense to the lunatics—they could see themselves being marched off to the slam while people cheered them, where they would be tried, jailed for a couple of months, and then be remembered all their lives as the heroes who brought Nazism to Chile with their bravery.
“So off they went to the health insurance building, where they talked the other lunatics into surrendering. When the others put down their weapons, the lunatics from the university were marched into the building, chased up the stairways, and then shot and/or bayoneted.”
“All of them?”
“Mother Superior was there with the ambulances from the hospital. She saw officers going around making sure they were all dead.” Stein mimed someone holding a pistol. “Pop. You’re dead.”
“After they surrendered, they were killed?” Frade said.
“Somebody with power—I’d like to think it was a Jew, but there’s no telling—thought, ‘Now, wait a minute. If we just arrest these people, they’ll be back. On the other hand, if they resist and they all die, that would be unfortunate, but that would mean they won’t be causing any more trouble.’”
“Mother Superior agrees with that theory?”
“She knows that’s what happened. What she can’t understand is why I think it was a good idea.”
“Neither can I. That sounds like cold-blooded murder.”
“Colonel, what were you thinking when you turned your Thompson on Colonel—whatsisname? Schmidt?—and his officers?”
“I was thinking if any one of them managed to get their pistols out, they were going to shoot me.”
“That’s all?”
“Look, later, when I was trying to justify to myself shooting Schmidt, I managed to convince myself that I had also saved General Farrell’s life, and Pedro Nolasco’s.”
“And that’s all?” Stein pursued.
It took Frade a moment to reply.
“Okay, Siggie. I’m apparently very good when it comes to justifying what I’ve done that I’m not especially proud of. I told myself that I was responsible for turning the Tenth Mountain Regiment around, which meant they would not get into a firefight with the Húsares de Pueyrredón and that meant a lot of Schmidt’s troops and a lot of Húsares would not get killed. And that—I just said I’m really good at coming up with justifications—there wouldn’t be a civil war where a lot of innocent people would get killed. By the time I was finished, I had just about convinced myself that I was really Saint George and Schmidt was the evil dragon.”
Stein nodded. “Don’t be hard on yourself, Colonel. You did the right thing, and so did whoever ordered that the Chilean Nazis be killed. That stopped the Nazi movement in its tracks in Chile. God knows how many people would have been killed if the Nazis had taken over the country.”
“Why does this massacre make you want to go to Germany?”
“I told you, Colonel, I don’t understand it, but it does.”
“You’re not thinking of doing something more than pissing in the Rhine?”
“Say, shooting Nazis so they can’t rise Phoenix-like from the ashes?”
“That thought did run through my mind, Siggie.”
“No, sir,” Stein said, then went on: “Don’t look for some nice explanation why I can’t go with you, Colonel. All you have to say is ‘No way.’”
“Whatever happened to that Leica camera you used at Tandil?”
“I’ve still got it. You want it?”
“I don’t know who Perón is sending to Germany with me, and I don’t know who I’m going to bring back from Germany. And he’s not going to tell me. But if I had photographs I could show Nolasco, Martín, and as far as that goes, Körtig . . .”
“I’ll go get the camera.”
“No. You can just bring it with you when we go to Germany. You’ll go as the radio operator. In an SAA uniform.”
“Yes, sir. And thank you.”
“When we finish this bottle of wine, Sergeant, get on the radio to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. Tell Schultz what’s going on. Tell him to get blank OSS ID cards out of the safe and have them made out for von Wachtstein and Boltitz by the time we get there tomorrow. You still have yours, right?”
“Yes, sir. But you told me those IDs are not real . . .”
“They’re not. But people don’t know that. And in our business, Sergeant Stein, what people don’t know usually hurts them.”
[THREE]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province 1305 15 May 1945
As the Red Lodestar, with Peter von Wachtstein at the controls, made its approach to the airfield, then smoothly touched down, Clete thought, There are some people born to be pilots, and ol’ Hansel is one of them.
“Don’t worry,” Clete said, “with a little practice—four, five hours shooting touch-and-gos, you’ll eventually get the hang of it. I’ll show you the tricks.”
It went right over von Wachtstein’s head.
His face showed he thought he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Just kidding, Hansel.”
“Alicia and I are going to Doña Claudia’s,” von Wachtstein then said. “What about Karl and Beth?”
“That depends on where Beth’s mother is,” Clete said. “That’s where they’ll go.”
One of the drivers of the cars waiting for them told them that “las señoras” were all at Estancia Santa Catalina.
“Karl,” Frade said, “your call. When we get there, you and Beth can try to look innocent, or hang your heads in shame. Doesn’t matter. Martha Howell will see through it and make you both pay for your lewd and lascivious behavior.”
“Screw you!” Beth said.
There was a 1942 Chevrolet Master Deluxe sedan with diplomatic license plates parked in front of the Big House when Clete and Siggie Stein rolled up in one of the estancia’s station wagons.
Probably Tony Pelosi and/or Max Ashton, Clete decided, just before he decided, I guess Doña Alicia has been dropped from the roll of las señoras.
His wife was sitting on the side verandah with the U.S. Embassy “military attachés” Pelosi and Ashton, and someone he was surprised to see—Milton Leibermann, the “legal attaché” of the embassy. Their children were nowhere in sight.
“I thought you’d be with las señoras,” Clete said to his wife when all the handshaking and kissing were done.
“I didn’t think Milt came all the way out here from Buenos Aires just for the hell of it,” Dorotea said matter-of-factly.
Leibermann laughed.
“She’s good, Clete,” he said. “I didn’t. And neither did these two.”
“Excuse me?”
“When I asked Tony if I could borrow his embassy car to come out here, he said he’d drive me. And then Max sniffed something was up and found the time in his busy schedule to join us.”
“So, what’s up, Milt?”
“I got a letter from an old pal, a fellow Gangbuster, that I thought might be of interest to you.”
“A fellow Gangbuster?” Clete asked.
“That’s what we called ourselves when we were going through the FBI Academy,” Leibermann said. “There was a radio program at the time called Gangbusters. Allegedly based on the exploits of the New Jersey State Police under Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf.”
“I don’t understand,” Clete confessed.
“Read this,” Leibermann said, handing Frade a sheaf of typewriter paper. “I will then entertain questions.” Dear Milt: