But preventing Frade from becoming the next President of the Argentine Republic, Mart¡n believed, was the p
rimary cause of the assassination. For if the coup d'‚tat succeeded, that would have happened. The Germans did not want the President of Argentina to lead the nation away from its current status, which was Neutral, leaning heavily toward the Axis, to Neutral, leaning toward the Allies. Or worse: leading Argentina to a declaration of war against the Axis.
Six months before, the Germans, with reason, considered el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade a friend. He was a graduate of the German Kriegsschule-lit-erally, "War School." It was, roughly, the German military staff college, com-bining the American Command & General Staff College and the War College, and he was known to hate the United States in most of its aspects.
That changed within a matter of weeks, when the norteamericanos, in a brilliant ploy, dispatched to Argentina an Office of Strategic Services agent, who was, among other things, a Marine Corps aviation officer who had fought in the Pacific. More important, he was the son, estranged from infancy, of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade.
The Germans then made the tactical blunder of attempting to assassinate the son. The attempt failed, and the son went on to carry out his mission, the sinking of the Reine de la Mer.
For Frade, blood proved stronger than the political belief that the Germans were fighting a near holy war against godless communism. He not only assisted his son in the sinking of the Reine de la Mer--by making his airplane available to find the ship-he also used his influence to ensure their escape from the country if they were caught trying to destroy the Reine de la Mer-by obtain-ing, for instance, Argentine passports for the OSS team.
Probably as bad, from the German point of view: el Coronel Frade was quoted in both La Nation and La Prensa as believing the Allied statement- which the Germans of course denied-that Germans had imprisoned several hundred thousand Jews for use as slave laborers. In fact, he went on to state he was convinced that the number of Jews in concentration camps was well over a million.
When el Coronel Frade's sudden, unexpected, and well-known change of sides became apparent to the Germans, Mart¡n believed, the decision was made to assassinate him.
The death of Frade not only saddened Coronel Martin-he genuinely liked him-it brought with it serious problems. If, in the course of normal post-mortem activities-which would include going into el Coronel Frade's safe-deposit boxes and personal safes-the Operations Order fell into the wrong hands, the coup d'‚tat would fail and those involved would be exposed. People involved in a coup d'‚tat are either saviors of their country or traitors.
Mart¡n didn't think Castillo would actually stand all those involved against a wall, or even see that all of them would be tried by court-martial and sen-tenced to long prison terms. Just perhaps the dozen or so people of the inner cir-cle. But however short the list of the inner circle, one of the names there would certainly be Teniente Coronel Alejandro Bernardo Martin's.
Mart¡n forced this uncomfortable line of thought from his mind and turned to the business immediately at hand. He was too deeply involved now to get out, even if he went directly to Castillo and exposed everyone. And he knew he was simply incapable of doing that. It was a question of honor. He had made his choice, and he would have to live with it.
Although he had been in the intelligence and counterintelligence business long enough to know that nothing should surprise him, he was nevertheless sur-prised that the sweep for listening devices of the room where Minister of War Teniente General Pedro P. Ramirez was about to take dinner with el General Arturo Rawson had found nothing. That was the meaning of the blank sheet of pa-per in the envelope at the Centro Naval. And he was equally surprised that the Federal Police were showing no interest in the meeting itself-at least none he could detect. For it was Ramirez's responsibility to order the coup; and if the coup succeeded-now that Frade was dead-Rawson was likely to be the next Presidente of the Argentine republic.
It occurred to Mart¡n that perhaps the meeting had been called off, and for some reason this had not been brought to his attention. Or it could be that the Federal Police had not been able to place a microphone in the building. Getting caught doing so would have been very embarrassing. If he were the Federal Po-lice official charged with watching General Ramirez he would be very careful not to anger him: the coup d'‚tat might succeed.
With all that in mind, he decided to wait until Ramirez and Rawson actu-ally appeared. And so he read La Nation, and glanced frequently across the street at the Circulo Militar.
At 2130, Teniente General Pedro P. Ramirez arrived in his official car be-fore the ornate gates of the Circulo Militar, seconds after the private 1940 Packard 220 sedan of General Rawson.
General Ramirez, seated in the rear of the Mercedes with his aide-de-camp, Mayor Pedro V. Querro, graciously signaled Rawson's chauffeur to precede him through the gates of the imposing mansion. This caused General Ramirez's chauffeur-who was not used to giving way to other vehicles-to suddenly and heavily apply his brakes.
Mart¡n almost laughed out loud as Mayor Querro, a tiny, immaculate, in-tense man with a pencil-line mustache, a look of outrage on his face, abruptly slid off the slippery dark red leather seat onto the floor. General Ramirez fared better; he managed to keep his seat by bracing himself against the back of the front seat. Shaking his head in amused disbelief, Mart¡n neatly refolded his La Nation and, carrying the Harrod's paper sack containing the unneeded socks, started back for Avenida Florida and the Centro Naval.
[THREE]
Neither General Rawson nor his chauffeur was aware of General Ramirez's and Mayor Querro's difficulty retaining their seats and their dignity. The chauffeur dropped Rawson off at the entrance, then drove into the mansion's interior courtyard to park the Packard.
Rawson, a good-looking, silver-haired man in his fifties, with a precisely trimmed mustache, was wearing a well-cut, somewhat somber dark-blue busi-ness suit. He stood beside the entrance and waited for Ramirez and Querro, who were in uniform-green tunics with Sam Browne belts, pink riding breeches and highly polished riding boots. Except for their leather-brimmed caps, with their stiff, gilt-encrusted oversize crowns, Ramirez and Querro looked not un-like U.S. Army cavalry officers.
"Arturo," General Ramirez greeted him, touching his arm affectionately.
"Mi General," Rawson replied, nodding at Mayor Querro.
"You are getting a little chubby," Ramirez said. "We will have to find some-thing useful for you to do, take some of that off."
"I am, with a long list of exceptions, entirely at the General's service," Rawson said.
Ramirez laughed, and the three passed through doors held open for them by neatly uniformed porters.
Inside the building, at the foot of a curving flight of marble stairs, another porter (like most of the Circulo Militar's employees, a retired Army sergeant) stood by the Register in which members of the Circulo Militar were supposed to sign their names on their arrival.
Aware that neither General Ramirez nor General Rawson ever complied with that regulation-or with any other they found inconvenient-and that the Membership Committee would not say anything about their breach of that rule-or of any other rule-the porter inscribed their names in the Register.
"Where have you put el General?" Mayor Querro asked, somewhat arro-gantly, as Ramirez started up the stairs.
"In Two-B, mi Mayor," the porter said.
"With a little bit of luck, there will not be a gaggle of women next to us," Rawson said.