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

[FIFTEEN]

The Wansee Suite

Edelweiss Hotel

San Martin 202

San Carlos de Bariloche

19555 16 October 1943

"Sweetheart, I'd really like to go down to the bar," Senorita Evita Duarte said to el Coronel Peron.

"Out of the question," Peron snapped. "And we're going to have dinner and breakfast up here, not in the dining room."

She looked at him with hurt eyes.

"Evita," Inge Schenck said, "going into the lobby or the restaurant is not a very good idea. The press is down there. They already know Juan Domingo is here, which means that Juan Domingo's name is going to be in every newspaper in the country tomorrow."

"Listen to her, Evita," Peron said.

"It would be a lot worse if his picture, with you, was in the newspapers," Inge said.

"What about you, Inge?" Evita asked. "What would happen to you if your picture was all over La Nacion ?"

"I don't intend to let that happen. That's why I'm not going down to the bar."

"But what if it did?" Evita pursued. "How would that affect what happens to you next? And while we're on that subject, what happens to you next?"

"I haven't given that much thought," Inge said.

"Oh, the hell you haven't," Evita said. "You've not had one little itty-bitty thought about who now owns all the property of the late SS-Brigadefuhrer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg--excuse me, Jorge Schenck?"

Inge didn't reply.

"How long do you think it's going to take the Gendarmeria to find out Senor Schenck was already dead when somebody shot him?" Evita asked.

"I wonder who shot him," Peron said. "Maybe it was just a simple robbery. Manfred resisted and was shot."

"Oh, come on, Juan Domingo, you know better than that," Evita said. She let that sink in for a moment. "And that you are, too, Inge. Dead, I mean."

"Well, I still have my diplomatic passport as Frau von Tresmarck," Inge said.

"You should have thought of that when the gendarmes asked for your papers," Evita said. "You handed them Inge Schenck's Argentine National Identity booklet."

"I didn't even know Manfred had been shot when they came in," Inge protested.

"And did you notice that the gendarmes were in the hotel after the shooting before the local police were?" Evita asked. "Maybe they were sitting outside in a car."

"Why would they be doing that?" Peron asked.

Evita shrugged.

"It could be they were protecting the secretary of labor. Or wondering what he was doing in Bariloche," Evita said. "Did they ask you that, what you are doing here?"

"No."

"They will. And what are you going to tell them?"

"I don't know. That I was having a little holiday. People do that--come to Bariloche for a little holiday."

"They're questioning everybody," Evita said. "That real-estate man and the notary are going to tell them you bought Estancia Puesta de Sol from Schenck."

"So that's what I'll tell them. There's nothing illegal about that."

"Well, that brings us back to what happens to the rest of Senor Schenck's properties," Evita said, and turned to Inge. "There's a lot of property, right?"

Inge nodded.

"There's a lot of property. Hundreds of millions of pesos' worth of property. Here and in Uruguay."

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

"Very briefly, Evita," Inge explained. "The money came from the German Embassy. The real estate is to provide someplace for senior officials of the German Reich to go if they lose the war."

"You knew about this, Juan Domingo?" Evita asked.

After a moment, he nodded.

"You're going to have to learn to trust me. Tell me about things like this."

And, again, after a moment, he nodded.

"What happens to the property of a dead man? It goes to his wife, right?"

"Right."

"That would be fine, but the wife is already dead. Then what?"

Peron thought about that a moment, then said, "They would look for other relatives, who would have the right of inheritance."

"But not back to the German Embassy, right?"

"No, of course not. The Germans don't want anything about this program to come out."

"So what happens to you, Inge," Evita asked, "when the Germans find out their hundreds of millions of pesos' worth of property is now going to the Argentine relatives of a dead man they never heard of?"

"I would either be taken back to Germany and, after they tortured me enough to convince themselves I was telling the truth, executed. I know too much. Or they might just execute me here."

"Which means that the relatives get the properties," Evita said. "What about this? We go back to Buenos Aires. We find some notary we can trust and Inge transfers all the properties to someone else. Tomorrow. As soon as we get back to Buenos Aires. And then Inge Schenck disappears. You've got some cash?"

Inge nodded. "There was a lot of cash in Manfred's briefcase. It's now in my luggage."

"Perhaps it would be wise to let me keep it for you," Peron suggested.

Inge did not reply.

"So the whole thing depends on us getting to Buenos Aires before the Gendarmeria finds out Inge is dead. Can we do that, Juan Domingo?"

He took a long moment to consider the question.

"They told me that 'senior officials' will be here in the morning," he replied, "and as soon as they are here, we'll be free to go. I will suggest that Senora Schenck be allowed to fly the body to Buenos Aires for burial; that will serve to avoid the questions of a funeral service and interment here." He paused. "Yes, it can be done. Will be done."

"You know someone who can be trusted to hold this property for us?"

"Oh, yes."

"Inge," Evita asked. "Would you say that sharing half of these properties with us would be a fair price for getting you out of your predicament?"

After a moment, Inge nodded.

[SIXTEEN]

Altitude 500 meters

Above Highway 146

Five Kilometers West of Highway 146/143 Intersection

Mendoza Province, Argentina

17 October 1943

Don Cletus Frade pointed out the front window of the olive-drab Piper Cub.

Two kilometers ahead, and five hundred or so meters above, an identical Piper was flying in wide circles to the right of Highway 146.

Two minutes after that, Clete pointed out the window again, this time downward to a large cloud of dust raised by a vehicular convoy of ten large Ejercito Argentino trucks, preceded by a Mercedes sedan and followed by two pickup trucks, the bed of one filled with cans of gasoline and the other with spare tires on wheels.

The president of the Argentine Republic looked where Frade was pointing and then, cupping his hands around his mouth, shouted, "So far, so good."

Clete had taken off shortly after 0500--as soon as he had enough visibility to do so--and flown cross-country toward a guesstimate position eighty kilometers southeast from San Luis on Highway 146.

An hour and thirty minutes later, just about the time he had decided that putting a twenty-liter can of avgas in the lap of the president of the republic just before takeoff had been the right thing to do, dark smoke rising from gas-and oil-filled cans told him that gendarmes from San Luis had come through.

The smoke pots on the highway had the "runway" marked out to Clete's specifications: "No rocks and twice the length of a polo field."

He landed, took the gas can from the lap of General Rawson, and then topped off the Cub's fuel by pouring the avgas the gendarmes had brought from a can through a chamois cloth filter.

Fifteen minutes after landing, he was airborne again.

The second Husares de Pueyrredon Piper, the one he saw now, had taken off immediately after he had and flown the dirt road from Mendoza, carrying General Nervo, to its refueling point. Then it had taken off and continued down the dirt road until it intersected Highway 146, onto which it had turned to the northeast.