W.E.B. Griffin - Victory and Honor

God, Clete thought admiringly, you’re a good officer!

“His own,” Clete answered for him. “When he and Boltitz got off the plane from the United States, Father Silva’s boss—the Black Pope’s nuncio to Argentina, otherwise known as Father Welner—”

Subinspector General Nolasco laughed. He had told Clete the head of the Society of Jesus was known as “The Black Pope.”

“—handed them libretas de enrolamiento in their own names, stating they’d immigrated here before the war,” Clete finished.

“How do you do, Señor Körtig?” Boltitz asked.

“And I knew your father, too. I presume this charming young woman is la Señora Boltitz?”

“The charming young woman is the Baroness von Wachtstein,” Clete said, then pointed. “ That one is my sister, Beth, who has high hopes that Boltitz will eventually make an honest woman of her.”

“I can’t believe you said that!” Beth said. And then added, “You sonofabitch!”

Nolasco laughed again.

All the Germans—especially Boltitz—looked uncomfortable.

“She loves me unconditionally, as you may have just heard,” Clete said. “Beth, see if you can say ‘hello’ nicely to the gentlemen.”

“Before we get down to serious drinking,” Frade announced when the handshaking was over, “I think we have to get into how the surrender in Europe is going to affect things here. There have been some interesting developments, some concerning U-boats that may or may not be headed here. Karl and Peter have already heard all this; there’s no reason for them to hear it again. Enrico, why don’t you give them a tour of the place and show them what’s changed while they were in Fort Hunt? Give us two hours or so.”

Frade exchanged glances with Boltitz.

That should be enough time for you and Beth to figure out how to be alone.

Casa Montagna Estancia Don Guillermo Mendoza Province, Argentina 1810 14 May 1945

It had taken all of the two hours that Frade had guessed it would, but the conclusion drawn by all was essentially that nothing, for the moment, was really changed by the unconditional surrender of the Thousand-Year Reich. Until they heard from Colonel Gehlen and learned what was going to happen to what they now called the “Gehlen organization,” they would have to wait and see what happened next. And the U-boats were a wild card that they could do nothing about—even if they did exist—until more intel could be collected.

For now at Casa Montagna, the Gehlen Nazis would remain in their comfortable imprisonment. Father Silva would continue his efforts to see that the wives and their children who didn’t wish to be eventually returned to Germany were absorbed into the society of Argentina. And Subinspector General Nolasco would continue to ensure that the Gehlen Nazis didn’t try to vanish into Argentine society.

Clete found himself at the bar with a glass of Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon in hand, wondering about the moral implications of his having arranged for Beth to finally jump into bed with Karl Boltitz. And wondering what was going to happen to them.

It’s a given that they will get married, probably as soon as Cletus Marcus Howell can get down here from the States.

But then what?

Unlike Peter von Wachtstein, who had a marketable skill—he would go to work for SAA as a pilot—and had successfully moved to Argentina most of his family’s portable assets, Karl Boltitz had neither marketable skills nor a nest egg. Karl was a naval intelligence officer, and not only were the vessels of the Kriegsmarine—what was left of them—almost certainly going to be scuttled, but the Kriegsmarine no longer would need an intelligence officer.

Clete knew that, while Boltitz didn’t have a dime, money itself wasn’t a problem. Beth was independently wealthy, although he didn’t think her mother had told her just how wealthy.

The problem was Karl’s honor. He was a proud man. It had never entered Clete’s mind that Karl had considered Beth’s finances when making his first pass at her—or, perhaps more correctly, when she, which seemed entirely likely, had made her first pass at him. But he was entirely capable of being able to refuse to enter a marriage in his penniless status. And even if Beth could get him to the altar, Karl would feel ashamed.

While Boltitz was a very good intelligence officer, the only places where he could use those skills now would be in something like the Gehlen organization or the OSS. But the OSS was going down the toilet, very possibly taking the Gehlen organization with it.

Especially if Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau hears about the Gehlen organization.

Frade had just decided that about the only thing that could be done was for him to talk to Otto Körtig and see if he had any ideas when he became aware that Siggie Stein had joined him at the bar.

Stein came right to the point.

“Colonel, can I go to Germany with you?”

“Why the hell would you want to do that?” Frade said.

“I’ll tell you, sir. But it doesn’t make much sense, even to me.”

“Give it a shot, Siggie.”

“I started to think about Germany a couple of weeks ago, after I saw that picture of General Patton taking a leak in the Rhine.”

And now you want to take a piss in the Rhine?

Well, why the hell not?

You’re certainly entitled to a little revenge.

“And then Mother Superior told me a story about Nazis in Chile,” Stein said.

“Go over that again, Siggie?”

“Truth being stranger than fiction, we’ve become pretty close. She comes up here a couple of nights a week and we kill a couple of bottles of wine.”

“A couple of bottles of wine? In here?”

“Yeah, Colonel, a couple of bottles of wine. But not here in the bar; we go to the radio room. I moved in there . . .”

The radio room was a small apartment on the upper floor of the Big House.

Frade raised an eyebrow and said, “I didn’t know that you moved out of the BOQ.”

“I think the officers were glad when I did.”

“Polo included?”

Frade sipped his wine and thought, If he’s been looking down his commissioned officer’s nose at Stein, I’ll ream him a new asshole.

“No. Not Major Sawyer. When I moved out of the BOQ, he even asked me if I had a problem. I told him no, that I moved out because I wanted to.”

“Any Kraut officer in particular?”

“It’s not what you’re suggesting, Colonel. Nothing overt. They were just as uncomfortable as officers having me in there as I was at a sergeant being in the BOQ.”

Stein saw the angry look on Frade’s face.

“Let it go, Colonel, please,” he said.

“You were telling me about Mother Superior’s drinking problem,” Frade said.

Stein laughed. “Her problem is that she thinks it sets a bad example for the nuns if they see her having a couple of glasses of wine. So she’s been doing it alone in her room at the convent. Drinking alone is no fun.”

“The officers didn’t like drinking with you, either? Is that where you’re going, Siggie?”

“I didn’t like drinking with the officers, so I did most of my drinking in the radio room. Then, one time she came to see me and I was having a little sip. Nice polite Jewish boy that I am, I offered her one. She took it, then took another one. The next time she came to the radio room, she brought some cheese and salami. We had another couple of belts together. That’s the way it started.”

“You said she said something about Nazis in Chile?”

“According to her, she was working at the Little Sisters’ Hospital in Santiago when this happened.”