The Honor of Spies

"This is the SS ausweis--identity card--of Wilhelm Heitz," he read softly, "who was an obersturmfuhrer--lieutenant--in the headquarters company of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler of the Schutzstaffeln of the National Socialist German Workers' Party."

"You think we ought to keep it?" Rodriguez asked.

"I think we ought to do more than that with it," Stein said. He walked to the corpse. The eyes were open.

He laid the identity card on the blood-soaked chest.

Click. Click.

He picked up the ausweis, now dripping blood, shook as much off it as he could, then held it somewhat delicately with his thumb and index fingers.

Rodriguez took it from him and placed it in a canvas bag.

"And then I think we should do the same with the other bodies. And then, I respectfully suggest, Sergeant Major, that we get the hell out of here."

[TWO]

4730 Avenida Libertador

Buenos Aires, Argentina

1605 5 August 1943 (six days previously)

The black Mercedes-Benz with Corps Diplomatique license plates drove north on Avenida Libertador, passed the Ejercito Argentino polo field on the left, then, on the right, started to drive past the Hipodromo until the Mercedes and all the cars behind it were stopped by a traffic policeman.

The passenger, Karl Cranz--a well-dressed, blond, fair-skinned, thirty-five-year-old who was accredited to the Republic of Argentina as "commercial attache" of the embassy of the German Reich--looked out the window and saw on his left his destination, a four-story mansion behind a tall, cast-iron fence and gate.

"There it is, Gunther," he said to the driver. "Make a U-turn."

Making a U-turn across the heavy traffic on the eight-lane Avenida Libertador was illegal. But if one had diplomatic status, and one was being driven in a vehicle with diplomatic license plates, one was immune to traffic regulations.

"Jawohl, Mein Herr," Gunther Loche said. He put his arm out the window, signaling that he was about to turn.

Loche was twenty-four years old, tall, muscular, and handsome. Cranz often joked that he was going to send Loche's photograph to Germany, where it could be used on recruiting posters enticing young men to apply for the Schutzstaffel. He was a perfect example of the "Nordic Type."

Loche, however, was not eligible for the SS, as membership in it was understandably limited to German citizens. He was an Argentine citizen, an "ethnic German" born in Argentina to German parents who had immigrated to Argentina after the First World War and prospered in the sausage business. He was a civilian employee of the German Embassy, known as a "local hire." He originally had been taken on as a driver, but now, under Cranz, had been given other, more "responsible" duties.

Like his parents, Loche believed that National Socialism was God's answer to godless Communism, and that Adolf Hitler was God's latter-day prophet--if not quite at the level of Jesus Christ, then not far below it.

"Let me out in front of the house," Cranz ordered. "I'll have someone open the gate for you so that you can park in the basement. Then go upstairs and wait for me in the foyer. I may need you."

"Jawohl, Mein Herr."

El Coronel Juan Domingo Peron, a large, tall man with a full head of shiny black hair, who was the secretary of state for labor and welfare in the government of General Arturo Rawson, received Cranz in the mansion library.

He was in civilian clothing, but Cranz nevertheless greeted him in almost a military manner.

"Mi coronel," Cranz said, and gave Peron a somewhat sloppy version of the Nazi salute; he raised his hand from the elbow, palm out, rather than fully extending his arm.

"It is always good to see you, Herr Obersturmbannfuhrer," Peron said, and then offered his hand.

"Oh, how I miss being called that," Cranz said.

Peron waved Cranz into one of two matching armchairs facing a small, low table.

A maid appeared.

"Coffee?" Peron offered. "Or something a little stronger? Whiskey, perhaps?"

"I think a little whiskey would go down well," Cranz said. "You are most kind."

Peron told the maid to bring ice and soda, then rose from his chair and went to a section of the bookcases that lined the walls of the room. He pulled it open, and a row of bottles and glasses was revealed.

"American or English?" Peron asked.

"As another secret between us, I have come to really like the sour mash whiskey," Cranz said.

Peron took a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the bar, carried it to the table, and set it down.

"Whatever secrets we have to talk about," Peron said, "I think we had best wait until after she brings the ice and then leaves. I don't know who she reports to--el Coronel Martin, Father Welner, or Cletus Frade--but to one of them, I'm sure."

"Or all three," Cranz said jocularly.