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

Frogger met his eyes, then nodded. "I understand, Major."

Dorotea asked, obviously surprised, "He knows Peter? And Karl? And what's Operation Valkyrie?"

"I'll explain later," Frade said.

Her face showed she didn't like the response, but she didn't challenge it.

"I have to be absolutely sure we understand each other, Colonel," Frade said.

"I know the rules of the game we're playing, Major."

"That's a poor choice of words. It isn't a game."

"We understand each other, Major," Frogger said. "When will I be permitted to see my parents?"

"They're about three kilometers from here. But it's late, and I think it would be better if we went there first thing in the morning."

Frogger nodded but did not reply.

"Can you ride?" Frade asked.

"Of course."

"All right, then. I'll have Rodriguez have horses brought here at first light. Too early?"

"First light will be fine with me."

"Rodriguez and I'll go with you. I think that you should know that if it wasn't for Rodriguez, your parents would be dead, at the hands of some SS troops who came ashore from the U-405. He saved your parents' lives at no small risk to his own."

"Then I am, of course, grateful beyond--"

Frade silenced him by raising his hand.

"Rodriguez is a retired Argentine sergeant major who is not very fond of Germans. This is largely--but not entirely--because he was seriously wounded in the successful assassination attempt on my father, with whom he served all of his adult life. The assassination was ordered by either Himmler himself or someone close to him. Argentines carry grudges a long time."

What the hell, I'm going to have to tell her sooner or later--why not now?

Get it over with. . . .

"But while we're on the subject, Colonel, the Germans have twice attempted to assassinate me, most recently a couple of hours ago."

"Cletus, my God!" Dorotea exclaimed.

Frade looked at her and said, "All they managed to do was shoot up the Ford station wagon pretty badly."

He turned back to Oberstleutnant Frogger.

"I've just jumped on you, Colonel, for using the word 'game.' This is why; this isn't a game."

"Where did they try to kill you?" Dorotea asked softly.

"In front of the house on Avenida Coronel Diaz. I went there to take a shower. Three guys in a stolen Peugeot. Now deceased." He paused, looked between them, and went on: "In a massive understatement, I've had a busy day. What I want to do now is get a sandwich or something, then go to bed. We can talk some more in the morning, if you'd like."

"Fine," Frogger said.

"Rude question: How well do you ride? We have gentle mounts and the other kind; mostly the other kind."

"I think one of the gentle mounts, please. I really would prefer to wait for a Valkyrie maiden to carry me to Valhalla than get there--after having come all this way--by breaking my neck falling off a horse here."

He smiled shyly at Frade, and a hint of a smile crossed Frade's lips.

[SIX]

The Embassy of the German Reich

Avenida Cordoba

Buenos Aires, Argentina

0845 13 August 1943

Kapitan zur See Karl Boltitz had been told by Fraulein Hassell that the meeting had been called by Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger. Lutzenberger was a small, very thin, slight, balding--he wore what was left of his hair plastered to his skull--fifty-three-year-old who served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the German Reich to the Republic of Argentina. But the moment Boltitz walked into the ambassador's elegantly furnished office and saw "Commercial Attache" Karl Cranz, he knew the meeting had been called by Cranz.

Boltitz, a tall, rather good-looking blond man of thirty-two, was the embassy's naval attache.

"I am so glad that you could find time in your busy schedule for us, Herr Kapitan zur See," Cranz greeted him, smiling.

"Am I the last to arrive?"

"Rather obviously, wouldn't you say?" a man's voice asked just on the edge of nastily.

Boltitz turned toward the voice and saw Anton von Gradny-Sawz. A tall, almost handsome, somewhat overweight forty-five-year-old with a full head of luxuriant reddish-brown hair, von Gradny-Sawz was the embassy's first secretary. Boltitz considered him the typical Austrian: charming to superiors, condescendingly arrogant to those lower on the ladder. Boltitz also privately thought of him as "Die Grosse Wienerwurst."

"Mr. Ambassador," Boltitz said, looking back at Lutzenberger, "I am truly sorry to be late. I didn't know of the meeting until I came in, on time for my nine o'clock appointment with you."

Lutzenberger smiled--barely--but said nothing directly in reply.

"This meeting has been called at the request of our commercial attache," von Lutzenberger said, and gestured toward Cranz.

"This is going to be one of those meetings that never happened," Cranz said with a smile.

This got the expected and dutiful polite laughter.

"Everyone is, of course, aware that our distinguished co-worker, Foreign Service Officer Grade 15 Wilhelm Frogger, and the charming Frau Frogger are among the missing," Cranz began. "There are a number of theories about this, to which we will turn in a moment, but before that, I'm afraid that I must inform you that we must add Obersturmfuhrer Wilhelm Heitz and five of his fine men to the list of the missing."

"What happened to them?" von Gradny-Sawz asked in great surprise.

"The good news is they were not guarding those things placed into their hands when they went missing, and that those things are, as of--as of when, Raschner?"

"Oh eight fifteen, Mein Herr," Erich Raschner, a short, squat, phlegmatic Hessian, replied.

Boltitz thought that Raschner, at forty-five, was the second-oldest and second-most-dangerous man in the room--second in longevity to Ambassador von Lutzenberger and second in capacity for ruthless cruelty and cold-blooded murder only to Cranz.

And between those two, it's almost a tie.

"The special shipment was safe as of quarter past eight this morning," Cranz continued.

"I don't understand," von Gradny-Sawz said.

"That's the purpose of this meeting, Anton," Cranz said softly. "To, as well as I am able to do so, make you understand. May I continue?"

Von Gradny-Sawz flushed but didn't reply.

"This situation involves our good friend Oberst Juan Domingo Peron," Cranz went on. "To whom I went to see if he could be of some help in locating Herr and Frau Frogger for us.

"You will recall that when they went missing, several theories were floated about. One held that they didn't wish to be returned to Germany, that they suspected there were those who believed they were the traitors here in the embassy. Another was that they were in fact the traitors. I frankly never gave the latter much credence.

"Still another theory was that they had sold out to Herr Milton Leibermann, the 'legal attache' of the American Embassy. Although we have nothing concrete to support this theory, I haven't completely discounted it. That obscene Hebrew is not nearly as stupid as he appears, and God only knows what he has been able to learn about our Uruguayan operation from the local Jews.

"And, of course, the name of Don Cletus Frade came up. I think we should all be prepared to admit that in judging this enemy of the Third Reich we all erred. That flamboyant cowboy act of his fooled us all. He is a very skilled and dangerous intelligence officer, and worse, very well connected with the president of Argentina and many of its senior army officers. In that regard, I think we must be objective and admit that the elimination of Oberst Frade was ill-advised; all it did was antagonize the Argentine officer corps and permit young Frade to ingratiate himself with them."