W. IV - Honor Bound 05 - The Honor of Spies

"What's this all about, Cletus?" Martin asked.

Clete had a clear mental image of himself and Colonel A. F. Graham in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel the day he met Graham and heard for the first time of the United States Office of Strategic Services.

Graham, whom he had never seen before, came to Clete's room in civilian clothing, showed him his Marine Corps identification, and came right to the point: "Are you willing to undertake a mission involving great personal risk outside the continental limits of the United States?"

When, after thinking it all over for perhaps twenty seconds, Clete--who was literally willing to do anything to get off what he was doing, which was a Heroes on Display War Bond Tour to be followed by a tour as a basic flying instructor--said that he would, Graham handed him a sheet of paper and said, "Read it and then sign it."

He had signed it, and only then asked, "What's the 'Office of Strategic Services'?"

Clete looked between Martin and Nervo, and began: "The OSS has made a deal with a German intelligence officer named Gehlen . . ."

"And the goddamn Vatican is involved in this up to the Pope's eyeballs," Nervo said when Clete had finished.

"What are you supposed to do with these people, Cletus?" Martin asked.

"Nobody told me this," Clete replied, "but I have the feeling that this is step one."

"What is 'this'?" Martin asked.

"Getting the officers out of Russia and their families out of Germany, then into Italy, then to Portugal, and finally established here. . . ."

"Established here?" Nervo repeated.

"I am supposed to set them up to disappear in Argentina."

"How are you going to do that?"

"I don't know. We have agreed to provide money. I suppose Welner will help. . . ."

"Let me give you a little friendly advice, my OSS friend," Nervo said. "Never put yourself in debt to Holy Mother Church, especially when it's being represented by a Jesuit, and especially, especially when that Jesuit is the beloved Father Kurt Welner, S.J."

"Finish what you were saying, Cletus, about this being step one," Martin said.

"Well--and I'm just guessing--when Gehlen hears that these two made it here and that I've set them up--"

"They have names?" Nervo interrupted.

"The major is Alois Strubel. The sergeant major is Otto Niedermeyer. I went along with Strubel's idea for new names. He's now Moller and Niedermeyer's Kortig. The Mollers have two children, a boy and a girl, ten or eleven, and the Kortigs have a boy about the same age. I've been told the women and children were killed in air raids; that German records show that they were. The men were supposedly killed on the Eastern Front."

"Well," Nervo said, "this Gehlen fellow could have arranged for the men to die that way. But the women and children . . . no one would question a Catholic hospital reporting the death of a mother and her child any more than Alejandro here would suspect that a nun had a kilo of flawless diamonds in her underwear. Holy Mother Church was involved in that, and in getting the women and children out of Germany."

"Let Cletus finish what he was saying, Santiago," Martin said.

Nervo gestured for Clete to go on.

"What I'm guessing is that when Gehlen learns everything went as promised--"

"How's he going to learn that?" Nervo said.

"Moller had a coded message all prepared to do that."

"And you sent this coded message?"

"No, I didn't. I told him to give me his codebook, and that if I heard he'd sent any messages to anybody, I'd have him shot."

Nervo glanced at Martin and said, "Our OSS friend really is a lot smarter than he looks, isn't he, Alejandro? And I'll bet he doesn't get any friend of his involved in something that'll probably get him shot."

Martin looked at Frade. "Go on, Cletus."

"Well, after we prove we did what we promised to do, it's Gehlen's turn to give us something of value. Presuming he does that, we get some more wives and children of Gehlen's people out of Germany and over here."

"Just the wives and children?"

"For now. The officers will come later."

"What's that all about?" Nervo asked.

"Again, I don't know what I'm talking about here. Just guessing."

"So guess," General Nervo said.

"Most of these people are dedicated Nazis. I know for sure that Moller is. They are going to keep on fighting godless Communism and keeping their oath of personal loyalty to the Fuhrer until the Russians are in Berlin."

"Gehlen, too?" Martin asked.

"No. Not Gehlen. But please don't ask me any more about that, Alejandro."

"If I did, would you tell me?" Martin asked.

Nervo said: "Apropos of nothing whatever, Cletus, what comes to your mind when you hear the term 'Valkyrie'?"

Jesus Christ, they know about that?

Well, Martin did tell me he had a BIS guy in the Argentine Embassy in Berlin he really wanted to keep there.

Sure they know.

"Blond, large-breasted Aryan women who fool around with the braver soldiers? Carry them off for carnal adventures on their horses?"

"Yeah, right," Nervo said, chuckling. "The SS guy at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo doesn't like Valkyries?"

"I know he thinks that anyone who is not going to keep his vow of personal loyalty to Hitler is a traitor."

"Like Galahad, for example?" Martin said.

"Like who?" Frade said.

"You did hear that he flew his little airplane to Montevideo this morning, and came back about an hour ago?"

"Who did what?"

"He brought back with him a package for Senor Gradny-Sawz," Martin said.

He demonstrated with his hands the size of the package; about that of a shoe box.

"Cletus," Nervo said. "Would you be shocked to hear that I don't think fighting godless Communism is such a bad idea?"

"I'd say you sound like my boss and my grandfather," Clete said.

Nervo chuckled. He patted Clete on the arm and then turned to Martin.

"Alejandro, decision time. You have thirty seconds to decide what we're going to do about all these people violating the sacred neutrality of Argentina."

Martin shook his head.

"Twenty-five seconds," Nervo said, looking at his wristwatch. "Do you want to report to General Obregon that we have reason to believe that the American OSS with the connivance of the Papal Nuncio has just smuggled into Argentina two SS people and their wives and children? And plans to smuggle in more?"

Martin stared icily at him.

"Or that you watched, but did not arrest, an SS general as he was smuggled into Argentina from a German submarine?"

"Christ, Santiago!" Martin protested.

"Or that we have reason to believe that Don Cletus Frade has been concealing two Germans who either ran from their embassy--or who he might have kidnapped--at his Estancia Don Guillermo in Mendoza?"

"I didn't kidnap the Froggers," Clete said.

"Does Father Kurt know about you and the Froggers?" Nervo asked.

Clete nodded.

"Or, Alejandro, do you wish to join with Don Cletus and me in this noble--and I might add, endorsed by Holy Mother Church--battle against godless Communism?"

Nervo glanced at his wristwatch. "Fifteen seconds."

"Goddamn you, Santiago!"

"I would ask if you want to join with Don Cletus and me in the equally--as far as I am concerned--noble battle against more-or-less godless Nazism, but I'm not sure how you and Holy Mother Church really feel about the Nazis."

"You sonofabitch!" Martin said, but he could not restrain a chuckle.

"May I interpret that to mean you're with us?"

"What other choice do I have?"

"Suicide would be an option, but I seem to recall that's a mortal sin."