Death and Honor

“I think the Germans think they were killed by Argentines, getting revenge for my father. The proof seems to be that no Americans at the embassy have been killed, tit-for-tat. I was sort of hoping they’d get Delojo.”

“Your mouth sometimes—often—runs away with you, Frade. You can’t really mean that.”

“Yeah, I can. I don’t trust him. You want to hear the rest of this?”

Graham nodded.

“Where was I?” Frade said.

“Where were you? Himmler was sending his adjutant over here masquerading as a Wehrmacht general—”

“Von Deitzberg,” Frade confirmed, “who decided that somebody reliable should talk to the captain of the Reine de la Mer. So he went to Canaris and Canaris loaned him his liaison officer to the foreign ministry, a submarine officer slash intelligence officer named Boltitz, Korvettenkapitän Karl Boltitz. Boltitz speaks Portuguese, which was important because the captain of the Reine de la Mer didn’t speak German.

“So off von Deitzberg and Boltitz go to Portugal and talk to the captain of the Reine de la Mer. Boltitz smells a rat about von Wachtstein walking away— actually rowing away, I suppose—from the beach unhurt, but has no proof of anything. Von Deitzberg is very impressed with the way Boltitz has dealt with the Portuguese captain, and with the fact that Boltitz speaks Spanish; he doesn’t. So he goes back to Canaris and tells him that he wants to borrow him a little longer, to take him to Argentina with him. Canaris isn’t happy with that, but von Deitzberg is Himmler’s adjutant, and Canaris decides not to fight.

“So, off to Argentina, where Boltitz noses around—he’s clever as hell—and finds out that von Wachtstein tipped us off as to where the Reine de la Mer was going to put the money ashore. That he’s the traitor, in other words. Now, here’s where it gets interesting—”

“Interesting? So far this tale of yours sounds like a screenplay for a cheap spies-and-robbers movie.”

“Yeah, I know. Let me finish. Now, Boltitz is an officer and a gentleman. His father is a vice admiral. And he knows that so is von Wachtstein—that his father is a generalmajor. Now, when two officers and gentlemen are involved in something like this, there’s a set of rules, based on their code of honor.

“So Boltitz goes to von Wachtstein and tells him he knows what’s going on, and that he expects von Wachtstein to behave like an officer and a gentleman is supposed to in these kind of situations.”

“You’re not going to tell me he handed him a pistol with one cartridge and then left him alone?”

“It was a little more complicated than that,” Frade replied. “Boltitz went to von Wachtstein and told him that if he had a fatal crash—spread himself all over the runway—at El Palomar when he came back from Uruguay, Boltitz would not turn him in; the family’s honor would not be sullied, and his father would not be sent to a concentration camp. And von Wachtstein agreed to do it.”

“This is so bizarre I’m beginning to believe it,” Graham said.

“Of course, I’m only a temporary officer and gentleman by act of Congress for the duration plus six months,” Frade said, “but if it had been me . . .”

Graham chuckled.

“. . . I’d have said, ‘Heil Hitler, Herr Korvettenkapitän!’ then killed him and tossed his body into the River Plate.”

“What did he do?”

“He went to Lutzenberger.”

“The ambassador?”

Frade nodded and said, “Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger, ambassador of the German Reich to the Republic of Argentina.”

“To confess? What?”

“Lutzenberger is also one of the good guys,” Frade said. “He and General von Wachtstein went to college together. He knows that von Wachtstein brought a hell of a lot of money here—and is getting more from Switzerland— for after the war.”

“What do you mean for after the war?”

“To send back to Germany, after we win the war, to make sure they don’t lose their land.”

“This General von Wachtstein thinks Germany’s going to lose?”

Frade nodded, and said, “More than that.”

“What more than that?”

“You speak German, right?”

“I can read and write it, but when I try to speak it, German-speaking people have a hard time trying not to laugh.”

Frade stood up and walked to the bookcases on one wall of the study. He took a firm grip on a shelf and tugged mightily. With a squeak, a section of the bookcase swung outward, revealing a wall-mounted safe. He worked the combination, spun a large stainless-steel wheel, and pulled the door open. From an inside drawer, he took an envelope and handed it to Graham.

“No, you can’t have this,” he said. “But I think you should read it. When my father read it, it brought tears to his eyes, and when I read it last week, it did the same thing to me.”

Graham took the envelope. The lined envelope was fine vellum, and so were the two sheets of paper it held.

Schloss Wachtstein

Pomern

Hansel—

I have just learned that you have reached Argentina safely, and thus it is time for this letter.