The Honor of Spies

"Actually, if the plan Peron and von Gradny-Sawz thought was so brilliant had played out, it would have left us with the problem of the Froggers being alive. Getting them back to Germany would have been difficult at best, and once there, God only knows what they would have said to save their miserable lives.

"As I was saying, I suggested to Oberst Peron that there was a possible flaw in what he now thought of as his plan: What if, rather than the Froggers, Casa Chica held some dear friends of Don Cletus Frade--or, for that matter, Hansel's mother-in-law, la Senora Carzino-Cormano herself? Oberst Peron and the Mountain Troops would look pretty foolish if they trained machine guns on prominent Argentines having a more or less innocent romantic holiday in the countryside.

"I also proposed a solution to the problem: that the Mountain Troops bring with them Obersturmfuhrer Heitz and half a dozen of the other SS men enjoying the hospitality of the Mountain Troops.

"They could, I suggested, since they knew--and none of the Argentines knew--what the Froggers looked like--"

"How did they know?" von Gradny-Sawz interrupted. "Heitz and his men have never been to Buenos Aires; they went directly to San Martin de los Andes from Samborombon Bay."

"Bear with me, please, von Gradny-Sawz," Cranz said. His tone was icy.

Boltitz thought: Cranz doesn't like Die Grosse Wienerwurst any more than I do. I suspect the only reason he hasn't ordered him back to Germany is that he knows he's going to need a scapegoat sooner or later, and Gradny-Sawz will be the man.

"Before I was interrupted," Cranz went on, "I was saying, I suggested to Oberst Peron that the SS men could identify the Froggers and solve that problem.

"He thought that was a splendid idea. Then, when we had the schedule, Raschner met the little convoy some fifty kilometers from Tandil and had a private word with Obersturmfuhrer Heitz.

"The plan that agreed with Peron, you will recall, was for the Mountain Troops to surround the house and put the machine guns in place. Obersturmfuhrer Heitz would then reconnoiter the house to determine if it actually held the Froggers. If it did, he would return to the road and call for the occupants of the house to give up the Froggers.

"According to the story I got from Oberst Peron, Heitz had just about reached the house when someone fired at him. He naturally returned the fire--"

"Who shot at him?" von Gradny-Sawz asked.

Cranz gave him a withering look.

"That was a little theater, Gradny-Sawz," Cranz said. "His returning the hostile fire was a cue to his men to open fire. Can you grasp that?"

Von Gradny-Sawz did not reply.

"Which they immediately did," Cranz went on. "At that point, Oberst Peron, apparently having decided discretion was the better part of valor, ordered the Mountain Troops back onto their trucks and called to the men manning the machine guns, the storm troopers, to stop firing. Considering the roar of the guns, it is not surprising that they couldn't hear him. Or didn't understand his Spanish. In any event, they continued to fire.

"By the time that was straightened out, they had pretty well shot up the house. In Oberst Peron's professional military opinion, no one in the house could possibly have lived through the machine-gun fire.

"But Oberst Peron hadn't counted on the Froggers being killed at the hands of the Mountain Troops. It would have been embarrassing for the Mountain Troops and for him, personally, if that came out.

"Obersturmfuhrer Heitz heroically volunteered to stay behind with his men when the Mountain Troops drove off. They would make sure that whoever had been in the house was in fact dead, and then deal with the bodies. Then one of the trucks would come back and pick them up.

"The truck returned for Heitz and his men when planned--that is to say, after nightfall. By then the press of his other duties had forced Oberst Peron to return to Buenos Aires, and the Mountain Troops, now all crammed into the other truck, were on their way back to San Martin de los Andes.

"The truck that went back for Heitz was under the command of a lieutenant. He reported to Oberst Peron that they found the bodies of Obersturmfuhrer Heitz and his men in several places on the approaches to Casa Chica.

"Interestingly, there were no bodies in the house, or any blood to suggest that anyone in it had been wounded. It was the lieutenant's professional opinion that the people in the house had been warned of the coming attack and were prepared for it. In the lieutenant's opinion, Don Cletus Frade's gauchos had watched from a distance as the empty house was machine-gunned and as the trucks drove away.