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

They were, however, obviously the same people who had ordered the second blunder, the assassination of el Coronel Jorge G. Frade himself. The intention there was to send the message to the Argentine officer corps that just as Germany was prepared to reward its friends, it was equally prepared to punish its enemies no matter their position in the Argentine hierarchy.

That assassination had been successful. El Coronel Frade died of a double load of double-ought buckshot to his face while riding in his car on his estancia. The results of that assassination, however, were even more disastrous for Germany than the failed assassination of Frade's son.

The Argentine officer corps was enraged by Frade's murder. And during the attempted smuggling ashore of the first "special shipment"--crates literally stuffed with currency and precious jewels to be used to purchase sanctuary--from the Oceano Pacifico at Samborombon Bay, both Standartenfuhrer Goltz and Oberst Karl-Heinz Gruner--the military attache and his assistant who were there to receive it--died of high-power rifle bullets fired into their skulls. Only good luck saw that the special shipment made it safely back to the Oceano Pacifico .

Who actually did the shooting never came to light. It could have been the OSS, perhaps even Frade himself. Or it could have been Argentine army snipers sending the message to the Germans that the assassination of a beloved Argentine officer was unacceptable behavior.

It didn't matter who did the shooting. So far as Bormann, Himmler, and the other senior Nazis behind Operation Phoenix were concerned, Operation Phoenix was in jeopardy. And that was absolutely unacceptable.

And there was more: On the death of el Coronel Frade, his only child inherited everything his father had owned, which included his enormous estancia, countless business enterprises, and, perhaps most dangerous of all, what amounted to his own private army. Young Frade now had several hundred former soldiers of the Husares de Pueyrredon who had returned to their homes on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo with their devotion to their murdered commander, el Coronel Frade, intact and now transferred to his son. Including, of course, their considerable military skills.

The fury of the Argentine officer corps over Frade's assassination had finally gotten through to the inner circle at Wolfsschanze. Von Deitzberg was sent to Buenos Aires, ostensibly as a Wehrmacht generalmajor, to apologize privately to el Coronel Juan D. Peron for the absolutely inexcusable stupidity of Oberst Karl-Heinz Gruner, who had ordered el Coronel Frade's assassination. Peron had been told that Gruner had already been returned to Germany, where he would be dealt with. Von Deitzberg didn't mention that it was the bodies of both Gruner and Standartenfuhrer Goltz that had been returned to the Fatherland, and that they had made the trip in the freezer of the Oceano Pacifico .

Von Deitzberg installed SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Karl Cranz at the embassy to replace Goltz--officially as a diplomat, the commercial attache--in running both Operation Phoenix and the confidential special fund, and then he went to Montevideo to check up on Sturmbannfuhrer Werner von Tresmarck and his wife.

The von Tresmarcks met the Fieseler Storch in which Major Hans-Peter von Wachtstein had flown von Deitzberg across the River Plate. Frau von Tresmarck was at the wheel of a convertible automobile, an American Chevrolet. She was just as interesting as he remembered. He realized immediately that he wanted to get her alone, which would not be difficult as he had planned to interview them separately.

He then sent von Wachtstein back to Argentina, von Tresmarck to his home to prepare a report of what he was doing, and he took Inge von Tresmarck to the Hotel Casino de Carrasco. They went first to the bar and then to his room.

When von Deitzberg made his first advance to her, she laughed at him. Enraged, he slapped her face. He had never before in his life struck a woman. Yet he suddenly realized that he had never before in his life been so excited as he was now, looking down at her where she had fallen, and her looking at him with terror in her eyes.

He ordered her to strip. When she hesitated, he slapped her again. The clothing came quickly off. He humiliated her both verbally--he told her that her breasts sagged and that her ugly buttocks--he used the word "ass"--were unpleasant to look at--and then physically. Ten minutes after entering his room, Inge von Tresmarck was naked, on her knees, tears running down her face, crawling across the room to him under a command to take his penis into her mouth.

The incident was the most satisfying sexual experience von Deitzberg could ever remember experiencing.

Von Deitzberg had not quite finished shaving when Maria showed up in his room with his breakfast and Dr. Muller's herbal medications. First Secretary Anton von Gradny-Sawz came in a moment later as von Deitzberg was gathering his courage to take the first of his three daily doses of chopped garlic in warm water.

"You're a little early, Gradny-Sawz," von Deitzberg accused.

"I came as quickly as I could," von Gradny-Sawz said. "There was a Condor flight at two this morning."

This somewhat mystifying statement was explained when von Gradny-Sawz ceremoniously opened his briefcase, took an envelope from it, and handed the envelope to von Deitzberg.

He's treating that like a message from God!

When he took the envelope and glanced at it, von Deitzberg saw why von Gradny-Sawz was impressed. On the front of the envelope it simply read DER REICHSFUHRER-SS BERLIN. On the back, where the envelope was sealed, was Himmler's handwritten signature, his method of ensuring that the envelope could not be opened undetected.

"This has been opened," von Deitzberg accused.

"The ambassador opened it," von Gradny-Sawz said, "and then sent me to deliver it to you."

Von Deitzberg took the two sheets of paper on which the message had been typed and read them:

It had been von Deitzberg's intention to return to bed when he had finished shaving. Now, without really thinking about it, he went to the chest of drawers where his linen was now stored, freshly washed after its bath in Samborombon Bay.

When he'd selected underwear, a shirt, and stockings, and started for the bathroom, von Gradny-Sawz asked, "Feeling a little better, are you? Good news from Berlin, I gather?"

Maria said, "Senor Schenck, you are supposed to do the garlic water before breakfast."

"Get that goddamned garlic water out of here," von Deitzberg snapped. "Get all of those lunatic remedies out of here."

"Is something wrong?" von Gradny-Sawz asked.

"Go find a public telephone," von Deitzberg ordered. "Call Cranz. Tell him to come here immediately. In a taxi, not an embassy car."

"Something is wrong," von Gradny-Sawz proclaimed.

Von Deitzberg thought: I am surrounded by idiots!

He ordered: "And when you've done that, station yourself at the door downstairs. If that lunatic Muller gets past you and up here, I'll throw both of you out of the window!"