Before Cronley could begin to reply, von Wachtstein added: “Karl knows all about it.”
“You’re putting me on a hell of a spot,” Jimmy said.
“In other words, you don’t want to answer the question?”
“I don’t, but I will. I think Cletus wouldn’t like it, but would give you the benefit of the doubt, providing he knew your friends understand the rules.”
“Which are?” Dieter von und zu Aschenburg asked.
“That if you run at the mouth to anyone—anyone at all—about what he tells you—or you learn in some other way—Cletus will kill you, and if he doesn’t, I will.”
“Oddly enough,” von und zu Aschenburg said, thoughtfully, after a moment, “I think the lieutenant is perfectly serious.”
“I am,” Cronley said simply.
“Herr Oberstleutnant,” Boltitz said, looking at Dieter, “if Hansel decides to tell you, and you—as Lieutenant Cronley puts it—‘run at the mouth,’ and Cletus Frade doesn’t kill you both, or the lieutenant here doesn’t, I will.”
“Understood, Herr Kapitän zur See,” von und zu Aschenburg said.
“Understood, Herr Kapitän zur See,” Willi Grüner said.
“What did they call you?” Jimmy asked.
“I was at one time a Kriegsmarine officer, a kapitän zur see,” Boltitz said.
“Well, the decision having been made,” von Wachtstein said, “let’s take the plunge. Dieter, does the name Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen mean anything to you?”
“Abwehr Ost?”
Von Wachtstein nodded.
“Shortly before the war ended,” von Wachtstein began, “Gehlen went to Allen Dulles of the OSS. . . .”
—
“How much of this do the Soviets know?” von und zu Aschenburg asked five minutes later.
“Precisely how much, no one knows. But something certainly,” von Wachtstein replied. “We know they are sending the man who was running the KGB in Mexico to Argentina. We not only have to keep Operation Ost a secret from the Soviets but from the American people as well. The political damage to President Truman should it come out that he’s been smuggling German officers—much less Nazis—out of Germany into Argentina is something that just can’t be allowed to happen.”
“And you’re prepared to kill to do that?”
“We,” Cronley explained, “are prepared to kill to keep the Soviets from laying their hands on the former Abwehr Ost officers and men and their families we haven’t—yet—been able to get out of Eastern Europe and the Russian Zone of Germany.”
“That was stupid of me. I should have thought of that,” von und zu Aschenburg said. “That’s who the KGB’ll go after, especially the families. Good luck with that, Lieutenant.”
“And now to the situation in Argentina,” von Wachtstein said. “The last time I saw Cletus Frade he was taking off—in a hail of machine-gun fire—in a Lodestar from Oberst Jorge Frade airfield in Buenos Aires with Oberst Juan Domingo Perón aboard, trying to keep him from being assassinated.
“I don’t know where he was headed, probably to Mendoza, where he has an estancia. But he may have gone the other way, across the River Plate to Uruguay. The head of the Argentine Bureau of Internal Security, General Martín . . .”
—
Relating the story of the attempted assassination of Perón and all the possible ramifications of that—what had happened at the airport, the scenarios of what they might find when they landed, and the scenarios to deal with those scenarios—took almost twenty minutes.
“We’ll just have to see what happens when we get there,” von Wachtstein said finally. “My problem with all of this is Cletus Frade’s ability to get thrown down a latrine, only to emerge moments later puffing on one of his cigars, smiling, and smelling like a rose. I suppose I expect that to happen again now. And I know that’s not smart.” He paused, glanced at each man, then added, “No, I won’t take any questions because I don’t really have any answers.”
He paused again.
“We’re over France now. It’s a little over a thousand nautical miles to Lisbon, where we’ll take on fuel and have lunch. We cruise at just about three hundred knots, so we should be there in about three hours.