The Honor Of Spies - The Honor of Spies Part 82
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The Honor of Spies Part 82

Another of his men was standing there holding what looked like an American Thompson submachine gun. His legs straddled a body on the ground.

Schafer ran down the path to him.

The man came to attention when Schafer got close.

"Report!" Schafer snapped.

"I had no choice, sir. He was coming through the vines toward me. When he came into this one, I shot him."

Something will have to be done with the body. I can't just leave it here.

It will fit in the trunk of one of the cars.

But what if one of the gendarmes at one of their checkpoints doesn't just wave us through in the belief that a sedan belonging to the 10th Mountain Regiment poses no threat to anything?

How the hell would I explain a body?

He pointed to one of his men. "In the back of one of the cars is a shovel," Schafer ordered. "Go to it, get the shovel, and come back here. The rest of you move the body farther away from the road. Move quickly!"

"That's deep enough," Schafer announced. "It only has to serve for a short time. Put him in it, and then start spreading the earth around."

"Tamp it down. I don't want anybody looking down the row and wondering why it's not level."

Schafer handed the Thompson, which he had decided was not nearly as good a submachine gun as the Schmeisser, to one of his men and then stepped gingerly onto the tamped-down dirt on the grave.

"Hande hoch!" a voice barked.

This was immediately followed by a very loud burst of automatic weapons fire. The man holding the Thompson fell backward, still holding the Thompson.

Schafer now saw that a very large man was pointing a Thompson at him.

And then a smaller man who appeared to be wearing an American uniform--there were chevrons on the sleeve of his shirt that looked American--pushed down the barrel of the larger man's submachine gun.

"Enrico," the smaller man flared, "you stupid sonofabitch!"

Then he turned to Schafer and repeated, "Hande hoch!" and then added, in fluent German, "My friend would like nothing better than to shoot all of you."

Schafer now saw there were half a dozen men, in addition to the big one who had fired the Thompson and the little one, the sergeant obviously in charge, in the passage between the rows of vines, three on each side of the grave.

They were all in civilian clothing. Three of them held Thompsons and the rest had Mauser cavalry carbines.

Schafer raised his hands over his shoulders.

"I surrender. I am an officer of the Waffen-SS--" Schafer began, then paused when he saw that the large man had trained the muzzle of the Thompson back at him.

"Enrico, we need to question them," Staff Sergeant Stein said in Spanish.

The big man nodded. "I was wrong," he said.

Schafer went on: "--under the protection of Oberst Sch--"

"Shut your mouth, you sonofabitch, before I shoot you," Stein barked in perfect German. He pointed to one of the SS troopers. "Start digging him out of there."

Then Enrico gave an order of his own. "Rafael, send someone for the horses."

"Si, Suboficial Mayor," one of the natives said.

[TEN].

El Plumerillo Airfield

Mendoza, Mendoza Province, Argentina

1635 16 October 1943

Clete had just finished his inspection of the fourth Piper Cub in the hangar when he heard the familiar sound that the Continental A-65-8 flathead, four-cylinder, 65-horsepower engine made.

He looked at his hands, which were covered with grease.

"Why am I not surprised?" he asked.

"Is that them, Cletus?" General Rawson asked.

"It's either them," Clete said as he walked to the hangar door, "or somebody else has two Cubs."

A Piper painted in Ejercito Argentino olive drab touched down on the runway. A second was a thousand meters behind it.

Clete ran across the tarmac and made the appropriate arm signals, telling the pilot to come to where he was standing. The pilot ignored him and taxied toward the passenger terminal. And so did the pilot of the second Cub when he landed.

The president of the Argentine Republic, the senior officer of the Gendarmeria Nacional, the chief of the Ethical Standards Office, and the aide-de-camp to the president followed Don Cletus Frade as he walked across the airfield toward the passenger terminal, trailed by six gendarmes.

By the time they got there, Father Kurt Welner, S.J., who had been left with the cars and trucks, had told the pilots who was who, and the pilots--both young tenientes--were now standing, visibly uncomfortable, waiting for the sword of presidential wrath to fall.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Rawson said courteously, returning their salute. "Please stand at ease."

"Where the hell have you been?" General Nervo inquired, far less courteously.

"Mi general, we had to stop at Cordoba to refuel," one of the pilots said.

A civilian wearing a bloody bandage on his forehead and in a grease-stained polo shirt and khaki trousers, went to one of the Cubs and with grease-stained hands opened the engine compartment. Neither pilot thought this was the appropriate time to ask questions.

The civilian turned from the engine.

"I don't think I have ever seen such a clean engine," he said.

"Gentlemen, may I introduce Don Cletus Frade, who is an experienced Piper pilot. He is the son of the late Coronel Jorge Frade, whose last active duty command was of the Husares de Pueyrredon."

Neither lieutenant seemed to know quite how to deal with that revelation. An indelicate sophistry from Major Frade's own military experience popped into his mind: Those poor bastards don't know whether to shit or go blind.

He took pity on them.

"Tenientes," he said, "are these aircraft in as good shape as they appear to be?"

One of them found his voice.

"Sir, so far as I know, they are in perfect shape."

"May I ask how much experience you have in short-field landing?"

"Sir, we practice that technique regularly."

"In other words, you would have no trouble with putting one of these down on a field a little longer than a polo field?"

After a moment's thought, one of the lieutenants said, "No, sir."

Clete unkindly suspected that their practice had been trying to put a Piper down as close to the end of a runway as they could, then trying to see how short they could make the landing roll.

Well, there's nothing that can be done about that.

"What we're going to do now is: I am going to take one of these and fly it to my house. One of you will take the other one and follow me. All I can tell you is to suggest you make your approach as slowly and carefully as you know how."

"Yes, sir."

Frade turned to Rawson.

"Well, sir, I'll see everybody at Casa Montagna," he said, and then made a little joke. "Unless, of course, you want to ride up there with me and save yourself an hour's drive."

"I'll go with you," Rawson announced. "General Nervo can go in the other airplane."

"Sir, I was kidding."

"I wasn't," President Rawson said. "Father Kurt tells me you have a radio there capable of talking to Buenos Aires."

"To Jorge Frade, sir. The airfield and Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. Only."

"Whatever its limitations, we'll have more communication than we have now standing around here. How soon can we leave?"

"Just as soon as I top off the fuel tanks," Clete said, and motioned for General Nervo to get into one of the Cubs. "I'm sure you will find this interesting, Simple Policeman. In Texas, they use these airplanes to catch speeders on the highways."

[ELEVEN].

Edelweiss Hotel

San Martin 202

San Carlos de Bariloche

1635 16 October 1943

Although Senor Jorge Schenck and Senor Otto Kortig arrived at the Edelweiss within minutes of each other, they didn't see each other for some time.

When Schenck, his wife, el Coronel Juan D. Peron, and Senorita Evita Duarte returned from their visit to Estancia Puesta de Sol Schenck, they had parked the Ford station wagon in front of the hotel on Calle San Martin. Then they had gone to the bar via the lobby.

As they were being shown to a table, Schenck saw Senor Suarez, the real-estate man, sitting with another man he correctly guessed to be the bureaucrat who was going to be necessary to witness Peron's signature on the deed. Schenck made a simple series of gestures telling Senor Suarez not to recognize him and to stay where he was until summoned.

Then he followed the others to a table, where he announced he needed a drink, a real drink.

Senorita Duarte thought that was a splendid idea, and said so. El Coronel Peron said that he would have a little taste of Johnnie Walker Black himself. When the waiter came, Senor Schenck ordered Johnnie Walker Black, doubles, all around.

Two or three rounds like that and Casanova, if encouraged by Senorita Evita, will happily sign the menu or anything else she puts in front of him.

When Senor Pablo Alvarez, the Reverend Francisco Silva, S.J., and Senor Otto Kortig arrived at the hotel about fifteen minutes later, after a full and exhausting day of examining the Hotel Lago Vista in detail, they parked the 1940 Ford Fordor from Casa Montagna in the parking lot behind the hotel, as they would have no further need for it until the morning.

Then they started to enter the hotel from the parking lot. But as they did, they came to sort of an adjunct of the hotel bar, a glass-roofed area outside the more formal inside bar. It had a dozen or so cast-iron tables with umbrellas, six or seven of which were occupied by people having a drink and munching on cheese and salami.

"Am I the only one who's tempted?" Senor Alvarez asked.

"How's the beer in Argentina?" Senor Kortig inquired. "I haven't had a decent glass of beer in months."

"I think you will be pleased, Otto," Father Silva said.