“Let me ask you, Santiago,” Martín said. “Do you—and you, Nolasco—believe what I told you of the disgusting operation in which Jews are permitted to buy their relatives freedom from German concentration camps—from German poison gas?”
Both men nodded.
“Cletus, is this man von Deitzberg in charge of that?” Martín asked. “Is that what he’s doing here?”
“That’s two questions. So far as I know, he’s the highest-ranking SS officer involved—and it’s an SS operation. I don’t know if Himmler is involved. I wouldn’t be surprised, but I don’t know. As to what von Deitzberg’s doing here, I’m sure both Operation Phoenix and the ransoming operation are involved, but there’s more, I’m sure. I just don’t know what.”
“That brings us to Herr von Gradny-Sawz, the first secretary of the German Embassy,” Martín said. “He is their liaison man with BIS in regard to the missing Froggers.”
“And to the Gendarmería Nacional,” Nervo said. “You have them, Major Frade, right?”
Clete didn’t reply.
“More than likely in one of two places,” Nervo went on. “Either on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo or—this is my gut feeling—at Estancia Don Guillermo in Mendoza. Specifically at your house—what’s it called?—Casa Montagna— in the mountains.”
That wasn’t a question. Not only does he know, but he was giving me the opportunity to lie about it.
“They’re at Casa Montagna,” Frade said.
“Good God! Another bloody complication!” Wattersly exclaimed.
“Excuse me?”
“Carry on with this, Alejandro,” Wattersly said. “I’ll pick this up later.”
“Well, as I was saying, von Gradny-Sawz invited me to lunch a couple of weeks ago at the ABC on Lavalle. During lunch, he just about asked for asylum, and told me that they—specifically el Señor Cranz, who is the commercial attaché at their embassy and, until von Deitzberg got off the U-boat, was the senior SS man in Argentina—intended to kidnap Señora Pamela de Mallín, Cletus’s mother-in-law, her son, and possibly Señor Mallín, and exchange them for the Froggers. He said something to the effect that he was ‘morally offended at the involvement of an innocent woman and her fifteen-year-old son in this sordid business.’ ”
“Alejandro, I put Pedro on that,” General Nervo said. “He had a talk with one of our more prominent kidnappers who said—and Pedro believes him—that neither he nor any of his friends had been approached, nor had he or they heard anything about kidnapping any of the Mallín family.”
“And you believe that, Comandante?” Wattersly asked.
Nolasco nodded. “The man I talked to, Coronel, depending on what the general tells the court, is facing either five years or twenty-five behind bars. He is motivated to be as cooperative as he possibly can. And while we’re on the subject, he volunteered the information that he’s reliably heard that the assassination community is reluctant to work for our German friends, especially when that is connected with Don Cletus. They prefer to deal with people who don’t shoot back . . . or at least don’t shoot back as well as Don Cletus and Rodríguez do.”
“Carrying that further,” General Nervo said. “The people I have in the German Embassy have heard nothing about this kidnapping plot either. So what’s it all about?”
Frade thought: So he has people in the German Embassy? Why don’t I believe that?
Someone in his position would almost be expected to have “people” in the German Embassy.
But for some gut reason, I don’t believe him. For one thing, it would be the last thing someone like him would volunteer without reason.
Martín shrugged and held both hands up.
“You’re saying there never was a plan to kidnap my mother-in-law?” Clete asked.
“We’re saying we don’t know,” General Nervo said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t take your people off any of them. It’s always easier to keep people than to get them back.”
“Returning to Señor von Gradny-Sawz,” Martín said. “Yesterday, he called to tell me that he had just spent several days with von Deitzberg, who was in Argentina covertly and using the identity of a deceased ethnic German-Argentine named Jorge Schenck; that von Deitzberg had told him that Hitler has personally ordered him to destroy South American Airways’ new aircraft—”
“I want to hear about that,” General Nervo said. “What the hell that whole thing is all about, as well as the plans to destroy the airplanes.”
“—I misspoke a moment ago. Von Gradny-Sawz said that Hitler had personally ordered Himmler to have von Deitzberg ‘deal with the airplanes.’ ”
“If you take that as being true,” Wattersly said. “And I find it difficult to believe that Herr Hitler even knows about South American Airways. He has a pretty full plate before him at the moment. But if that is the case, one must then assume that Hitler knows von Whatsisname is here. And if that is true, one must assume that von Whatsisname is up to something important.”
“Von Deitzberg,” Martín said somewhat impatiently. “SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg.”
“Thank you,” Wattersly said politely.