W.E.B. Griffin - Victory and Honor

“The rumors are true. One of my jobs is to try to stop fleeing Nazis trying to get to South America from getting there, or catch them. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. But before I get into that, how long has this planeload of Secret Service agents been here?”

“About forty-eight hours. All they were supposed to do was take on fuel, but there was a message saying ‘delay departure until further notice.’”

“Which conveniently provided time for their people to ask questions of your people.”

“That thought ran through my mind. What the hell is that all about?”

“I don’t know,” Clete said. “Maybe we’ll find out when we get to Germany. Let’s get back to the reason I wanted to see you. We have some pretty good intelligence that a number of German submarines are headed for Argentina. The number ranges from three we’re very sure about, to a fleet—as many as twenty-odd. A fleet seems unlikely but can’t be dismissed out of hand. The Nazis have a program called the Phoenix Project—”

“That’s real?” Bendick asked.

“I don’t know what you heard about it, so let me tell you what I know about it. Starting in 1943, the Nazis started sending money and things that can be easily converted to money—gold, diamonds, other precious stones, et cetera—to Argentina. The idea was to set up sanctuaries in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil to which senior officers could flee, both escaping the trials we plan for them and using their new home as a base from which they can rise, rested and with large amounts of money, phoenix-like, and keep National Socialism going. Or bring it back to life.”

“That’s pretty much what I heard, but it sounded like the plot for a bad movie,” Bendick said.

“They sent a lot of money—hundreds of millions of dollars—to Argentina, plus some senior SS officers to run the program. We’ve managed to stop a lot of it, but by no means all.”

“What kind of senior SS officers?”

“Himmler’s adjutant, for one. Actually, the Reichsführer-SS’s First Deputy Adjutant. SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg. He came by submarine.”

“And this guy is already in Argentina?” Bendick asked incredulously.

“Yeah, but he’s no longer a problem,” Clete said.

“How so?”

“He was taking a leak in the men’s room of a charming little hotel in the charming little village of San Martín de los Andes, when someone blew his brains all over the urinal with a Ballester-Molina—an Argentine copy of our .45.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know who did that, would you, Clete?”

“Of course not,” Clete replied not very convincingly.

“And what are the Argentines doing about all these Nazis running loose in Argentina? Looking the other way?”

“You ever hear that money talks, Bob?”

“Is that what it is?”

“There is also an element—perfectly serious people—who feel the Nazis were a Christian bulwark against the Communist Antichrist. Unfortunately, to some odd degree, I’m afraid they may be right.”

“You think the Communists are going to be a threat?”

It took Clete a moment to consider the wisdom of what he wanted to say. In the end, he decided to say it.

“I’m reliably informed that J. Edgar Hoover thinks they’re the new enemy.”

“And you agree with Hoover?”

“Yeah, I guess I do. I never was able to regard Stalin as Friendly Uncle Joe, and I know for a fact the Russians are trying very hard to break into the . . . one of our most important secrets.”

“Which secret would that be?”

“Sorry, I just can’t tell you.”

“Which brings us back, I suppose, to why you wanted to see me.”

“I don’t know this for sure, but I have the feeling that just as soon as I get to Germany, there will be a meeting about the submarines headed this way.”

“A meeting between whom?” Bendick asked.

“It will be under Eisenhower—probably under his G-2—but it won’t all be under SHAEF. Someone from General Marshall’s staff will probably be there, and certainly someone from Army Intelligence. And the Office of Naval Intelligence. And, of course, the OSS. And probably, come to think of it, the Secret Service agents here.”

Clete then said: “Whatever intelligence is available about the German submarines will be presented, discussed, and it will be agreed that something has to be done about them. And, finally, it will be decided who exactly will have to do something about them.

“The one thing senior brass hates to do is take on a mission that will probably end in failure. Or about which they know very little, which would cause them to fail. So they will look around for someone who is an expert in the area of dealing with German submarines in South America. There are only two people who meet that criterion, Bob. You and me.”

“I think I know where you’re going, Clete,” Bendick said, “but there is one flaw in your argument. I don’t have any idea how to find these German submarines.”

“You and I have something else in common,” Frade said. “If we can’t find the submarines, that’s not the fault of G-2, or Naval Intelligence—it’s our fault. ‘What do you expect? While we’ve been fighting the Wehrmacht across Europe, Bendick and Frade have been sitting in beautiful South America drinking rum and Coca-Cola and chasing senoritas.’”

“Do you know how many aircraft we’ve lost over the South Atlantic?” Bendick asked.

“How many were actually shot down?”

“I take your point,” Bendick said after a moment.

“I think they call that ‘pilot error,’” Clete said. “You don’t get no Air Medals or Distinguished Flying Crosses for pilot error.”

Bendick shook his head.

“Here’s how I see it,” Frade went on. “OSS will be given the mission, and your wing will be among our many assets.”

“As I said, this particular asset doesn’t have a clue where to look for these submarines.”

“Maybe we can give you a little help there. Out of school.”

“Out of school? I don’t understand.”

“I have some intel that I know is reliable, and when we get to Germany and start to talk to the crews of U-boats, I think we’re going to have some more intel, maybe a good deal more. The problem is I can’t tell G-2, or Naval Intelligence, and certainly not the Secret Service about it, because they will want to know where it came from, and I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Bendick asked almost automatically, and then, before Frade had a chance to answer, said, “You have spies in Germany, is that what you’re saying?”

“Not spies, General,” Boltitz offered. “One is an anti-Nazi former U-boat officer.”

Bendick looked at Boltitz, then back at Frade. “And you’re going to see this anti-Nazi U-boat officer in Germany? Is that what you’re saying? And he’s going to help you find these submarines?”

“What this anti-Nazi U-boat officer is going to do, Bob, is tell you all he knows about how U-boat crews are trained to cross the South Atlantic, what courses they followed in the past and presumably will follow now, their schedules of on-the-surface and submerged operations—that sort of thing. And then, when we get to Germany, he’ll see what he can find out from U-boat crews now in POW cages.”

“I’m a little slow sometimes,” Bendick said. Then he looked at Boltitz. “Why should I trust you?”

Frade answered for him: “You’ve heard of the failed attempt by Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg to kill Adolf Hitler?”

Bendick looked at Frade, nodded, but said nothing.

“At the time, Kapitän zur See Boltitz was the German naval attaché in Buenos Aires and”—he gestured at Peter—“Major von Wachtstein was the assistant military attaché for air. The day after the bomb failed to kill Hitler, the embassy got a radio message ordering their arrest for high treason.”