“I now believe it,” Kortig said. “I never thought you’d get away with getting them. Clete, you are truly an amazing man.”
“Please tell that to my wife, Otto,” Clete said.
Frade sat down beside Kortig, offered his hand to Pedro Nolasco and then to Stoll.
“If you would be so good, Ludwig,” he said. “Hand me that bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon before Pedro gets into it again.”
When the hugs and back-patting were over—as if suddenly remembering their manners—Boltitz and von Wachtstein, with their women following them, came to the table where Clete sat with Kortig.
Kortig and Stoll stood up.
“I know who you are, of course,” Kortig said. “But not which is who.”
Peter came to attention, clicked his heels, nodded, and said, “Peter von Wachtstein, Herr Oberstleutnant.”
Pedro Nolasco’s eyebrows rose.
Clete thought:
Kortig put out his hand. “I was privileged to be a friend of both your father and Claus von Stauffenberg, von Wachtstein. I’m very glad to see you here.” He paused and added, “Where we rarely come to attention and click our heels.”
“And where I am known as el Senor Kortig,” Niedermeyer finished.
“That was stupid of me, wasn’t it?” von Wachtstein asked after a moment’s reflection.
After pausing long enough to make it clear that he agreed with von Wachtstein’s assessment of his own behavior, Kortig then gestured at Stoll. “My deputy at Abwehr Ost, the former Hauptmann Ludwig Wertz, now known as el Senor Stoll.” Kortig paused, then asked, “And by what name are you now known?”
“His own,” Clete answered for him. “When he and Boltitz got off the plane from the United States, Father Silva’s boss—the Black Pope’s nuncio to Argentina, otherwise known as Father Welner—”
Subinspector General Nolasco laughed. He had told Clete the head of the Society of Jesus was known as “The Black Pope.”
“—handed them
“How do you do, Senor Kortig?” Boltitz asked.
“And I knew your father, too. I presume this charming young woman is la Senora Boltitz?”
“The
“I can’t believe you said that!” Beth said. And then added, “You sonofabitch!”
Nolasco laughed again.
All the Germans—especially Boltitz—looked uncomfortable.
“She loves me unconditionally, as you may have just heard,” Clete said. “Beth, see if you can say ‘hello’ nicely to the gentlemen.”
“Before we get down to serious drinking,” Frade announced when the handshaking was over, “I think we have to get into how the surrender in Europe is going to affect things here. There have been some interesting developments, some concerning U-boats that may or may not be headed here. Karl and Peter have already heard all this; there’s no reason for them to hear it again. Enrico, why don’t you give them a tour of the place and show them what’s changed while they were in Fort Hunt? Give us two hours or so.”
Frade exchanged glances with Boltitz.
[TWO]
Casa Montagna Estancia Don Guillermo Mendoza Province, Argentina 1810 14 May 1945
It had taken all of the two hours that Frade had guessed it would, but the conclusion drawn by all was essentially that nothing, for the moment, was really changed by the unconditional surrender of the Thousand-Year Reich. Until they heard from Colonel Gehlen and learned what was going to happen to what they now called the “Gehlen organization,” they would have to wait and see what happened next. And the U-boats were a wild card that they could do nothing about—even if they did exist—until more intel could be collected.
For now at Casa Montagna, the Gehlen Nazis would remain in their comfortable imprisonment. Father Silva would continue his efforts to see that the wives and their children who didn’t wish to be eventually returned to Germany were absorbed into the society of Argentina. And Subinspector General Nolasco would continue to ensure that the Gehlen Nazis didn’t try to vanish into Argentine society.
Clete found himself at the bar with a glass of Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon in hand, wondering about the moral implications of his having arranged for Beth to finally jump into bed with Karl Boltitz. And wondering what was going to happen to them.
Unlike Peter von Wachtstein, who had a marketable skill—he would go to work for SAA as a pilot—and had successfully moved to Argentina most of his family’s portable assets, Karl Boltitz had neither marketable skills nor a nest egg. Karl was a naval intelligence officer, and not only were the vessels of the Kriegsmarine—what was left of them—almost certainly going to be scuttled, but the Kriegsmarine no longer would need an intelligence officer.
Clete knew that, while Boltitz didn’t have a dime, money itself wasn’t a problem. Beth was independently wealthy, although he didn’t think her mother had told her just how wealthy.
The problem was Karl’s honor. He was a proud man. It had never entered Clete’s mind that Karl had considered Beth’s finances when making his first pass at her—or, perhaps more correctly, when she, which seemed entirely likely, had made her first pass at him. But he was entirely capable of being able to refuse to enter a marriage in his penniless status. And even if Beth could get him to the altar, Karl would feel ashamed.
While Boltitz was a very good intelligence officer, the only places where he could use those skills now would be in something like the Gehlen organization or the OSS. But the OSS was going down the toilet, very possibly taking the Gehlen organization with it.
Frade had just decided that about the only thing that could be done was for him to talk to Otto Kortig and see if he had any ideas when he became aware that Siggie Stein had joined him at the bar.
Stein came right to the point.
“Colonel, can I go to Germany with you?”
“Why the hell would you want to do that?” Frade said.
“I’ll tell you, sir. But it doesn’t make much sense, even to me.”
“Give it a shot, Siggie.”
“I started to think about Germany a couple of weeks ago, after I saw that picture of General Patton taking a leak in the Rhine.”
