“Once Schmidt had confiscated the arms cache, he apparently intended to stage a coup against President Rawson. Am I right so far, el Coronel Klausberger?”
Klausberger nodded curtly.
“Rawson, however, had learned of the plot. He and Señor Frade and some troops of the Húsares de Pueyrredón met the regiment on the highway. Schmidt attempted to place President Rawson under arrest, whereupon Frade shot Schmidt and at least one of the officers with him. The regiment was then placed under the command of its sergeant major and ordered to return to its barracks. Which it did. Did I get anything wrong, Klausberger, or leave anything out?”
Klausberger didn’t respond.
“What I believe happened,” Moreno went on, “was that President Rawson, on learning that el Coronel Perón was in San Martín, feared that Perón might be connected with Schmidt’s coup. I don’t think he was, but Rawson had no way to know. Permitting Perón to return immediately and quietly to Buenos Aires, and then pretending not to know he had been there, solved that problem.
“I have subsequently learned that Señora Schenck was awarded all of her late husband’s property—the Confidential Special Fund assets—by judges known to be friendly to el Coronel Perón and that, presumably as an expression of her gratitude, she subsequently transferred half of what she received to Señorita Duarte.”
“Who shot von Deitzberg?” Hoffmann asked.
“I really have no knowledge of that, but it probably has something to do with the German officers—members, I have heard, of the former Abwehr Ost—Frade is rumored to have brought here from Germany.”
“And what is that all about?” Hoffmann asked.
“I have no idea,” Moreno said. He looked at his wristwatch. “Well, I really have to go. And so do you, Klausberger. Can I offer you a ride?”
“No, thank you,” Klausberger said.
Moreno walked to each of them in turn, wordlessly shook hands, and then left the room, stopping only to help himself to the hors d’oeuvres on the table.
When he had been go
ne at least sixty seconds, Klausberger said, “I’d like to kill that Swiss bastard.”
“So would I,” Hoffmann said. “Even more, Herr Frade. He’s given us trouble ever since he came to Argentina. But we won’t take them out just yet. We still need Moreno, and I want to find out what Herr Frade is doing with General Gehlen’s Abwehr Ost people before we kill him.”
V
[ONE]
Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten
Maximilianstrasse 178
Munich, American Zone, Germany
1820 10 October 1945
There were two signs over the door to the off-the-lobby restaurant of the hotel. One read RESTAURANT MAXIMILIAN and the other OFFICERS’ OPEN MESS.
“Let’s get something to eat,” First Sergeant Tiny Dunwiddie said to Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr. as he pointed to it.
First sergeants are enlisted men and don’t get to eat in an officers’ mess. Cronley didn’t say anything, but his surprise registered on his face and Dunwiddie saw it.
“Not to worry, Lieutenant, sir. This place is loaded with CIC, and I can probably pass myself off as one of those special agents, like you, sir.”
A headwaiter led them to a table without questioning Dinwiddie’s right to be messing with his social betters.
A waiter appeared.
“Two glasses of your finest beer, if you please, Herr Ober,” Dunwiddie ordered in flawless German. “And then a menu.”
Then he made a pointing gesture to Cronley with the hand he had resting almost regally on the linen tablecloth.
Cronley followed the pointing to the next table, at which sat a spectacular—tall, very blond, and magnificently assembled—female and her escort, a plump young man, no older than twenty-one, who looked Jewish and was wearing pinks and greens with “civilian triangles” sewn to the lapels.