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

Clete said, "Even if the Husares de Pueyrredon's Pipers do arrive, we won't know if they'll work until I have a look at them. And without the Pipers, we're just pissing in the wind. Which means we're going to have to think of something else, like commandeering a couple of those."

He pointed across the airfield to hangars in which at least four privately owned Piper Cubs were parked.

"And what is your suggestion in that regard, Cletus?" Rawson asked.

"Send the general over there with me to commandeer those airplanes."

"And what would you suggest regarding el Coronel Peron?"

"I agree with the general, sir. Don't arrest my beloved Tio Juan until we know more than we do."

"All right," Rawson said. "Here's what we are going to do: Subinspector General Nolasco, get back on the airplane. Find and keep your eye on el Coronel Peron in San Martin, but take no action until you hear from either General Nervo or me."

"Yes, sir."

"Capitan Lauffer, you, General Nervo, Coronel Martin, and I are going to walk over there with Don Cletus to select which of those airplanes are to be commandeered into the service of the Argentine Republic."

"Yes, sir."

[NINE]

Estancia Don Guillermo

Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60

Mendoza Province, Argentina

1525 16 October 1943

Hauptsturmfuhrer Sepp Schafer--on detached service from the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler--had his Schmeisser at the ready as he moved as rapidly and as quietly as he could down the area between long rows of grapevines.

He and the five men following him were wearing brown coveralls over their black SS uniforms. It was Hauptsturmfuhrer Schafer's intention, should anything go wrong--and it looked at this moment as if that had happened--to shed the coveralls, which would permit him and his men to claim the protection of the Geneva Convention and POW status.

He wasn't sure if that was the case.

How did the Geneva Convention feel about armed soldiers of a belligerent power being discovered--possibly after having taken some lives--roaming around a neutral country?

At the very least, Schafer had decided, it would buy them some time until SS-Brigadefuhrer von Deitzberg and the Argentine oberst, Schmidt, found out they had been arrested and could start working on getting them freed.

He could now see the end of the row of grapevines. There was nothing in it. He held up his hand for the men behind him to stop, then gestured for them to move to the left and right, into the spaces between adjacent rows of vines.

A minute later, he heard the soft chirp of a whistle, telling him that one of his men had found something.

Reminding himself that stealth was still of great importance, he moved quietly through two rows to the left.

One of his troopers pointed to the end of that row.

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.