The Honor of Spies

Hitler devoutly believed all of the above were possible, even probable. But many members of the Fuhrer's inner circle were more pragmatic and had begun to consider the ramifications of a German defeat.

"Operation Phoenix" was born. If there were temporary reverses in the fortunes of the Thousand-Year Reich--if, for example, the Russians took Berlin--all would not necessarily be lost. National Socialism and its leaders could rise phoenixlike from the ashes.

All it would take would be some place of refuge for the leaders to bide their time, and some place to conceal vast amounts of money from the victorious Allies until the time came to spend it to restore the Reich, probably immediately after the West and Russia had both been fatally weakened in the inevitable war between them.

Argentina seemed to be just the place. Argentina, ostensibly neutral, leaned heavily toward the Axis powers. The Argentine army was armed with Mauser rifles, wore German steel helmets and uniforms patterned on those of the Wehr -macht, and had its headquarters in the Edificio Libertador in Buenos Aires, a magnificent structure built with the generous assistance of Germany.

While it was also true that the Argentine navy leaned toward the British (and to some degree, toward the Americans) and that there were large numbers of Jews in the country who hated Nazism and all it stood for, these problems could be dealt with.

Operation Phoenix was put into play even before the Stalingrad surrender.

I

[ONE]

Estancia Casa Chica

Near Tandil

Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

0805 11 August 1943

A white two-ton 1940 Ford truck with a refrigerator body followed a white 1938 Ford Fordor sedan down the unnumbered macadam road that branched off National Route Three to Tandil.

The truck body had a representation of a beef cow's head painted on it, together with the legend FRIGORIFICO MORON, and there was a smaller version of the corporate insignia on the doors of the car.

They were a common sight in the area, which bordered on the enormous Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, the patron of which did not know within five or six thousand exactly how many head of cattle grazed his fields. Nor did he know who operated the estancia's eight slaughterhouses, of which Frigorifico Moron had been one of the smallest, until recently, when Frigorifico Moron had been shut down to make room for the runways and hangars of South American Airways.

The car and the truck slowed and turned off the macadam road onto a narrower road of crushed stone, then stopped when they came to a sturdy closed gate, above which a sign read CASA CHICA.

A sturdy man in his fifties with a full, immaculately trimmed cavalryman's mustache got out of the car and walked toward the gate, holding in his hand a key to the massive padlock that secured the chains in the gate.

He had just twisted the key in the lock when a man on horseback trotted up, holding a rifle vertically, its butt resting on the saddle. Without speaking to him--which the man on horseback correctly interpreted to be a signal of disapproval; he knew he should have been at the gate before the man with the mustache reached it--the man returned to the Ford. He got in and waited for the peon to get off the horse and finish dealing with the chain and swing open the gate.