Not quite twenty minutes later, Clete and Dorotea had a second cup of coffee on the verandah as they waited for the mysterious American car with diplomatic license tags to appear.
It turned out to be a 1941 Chevrolet sedan. Captain Max Ashton was driving, and beside him in the front seat was a plump, balding, forty-nine-year-old who looked like a friendly shopkeeper. Clete knew who he was, and his curiosity was now in high gear.
Milton Leibermann was accredited to the Republic of Argentina as one of the five legal attachés of the United States embassy. It was technically a secret that he was also the special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Arge
ntine operations, and that all “legal attachés” were FBI agents.
In what Colonel Graham had described to Clete as yet another wonderfully Machiavellian move of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President had assured FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that the FBI was responsible for all intelligence and counterintelligence activities in the Western Hemisphere. The President had also told OSS Director William J. Donovan that Central and South America were of course included in the OSS’s worldwide responsibilities.
The result of this was that there were two U.S. intelligence agencies operating throughout Central and South America who regarded themselves as being in competition with each other and therefore had as little to do with each other as possible. And in Argentina—where Major Cletus Frade, chief of OSS Western Hemisphere Team 17, code name Team Turtle, did not trust the OSS Station Chief, Argentina, Lieutenant Commander Frederico Delojo, USN, as far as he could throw him—that meant there were three American intelligence agencies whose members did not talk to each other.
The exception to this was the relationship between Major Frade and Mr. Leibermann. There was a strong feeling of mutual admiration. Leibermann was a first-generation American who had learned his German and Yiddish from his parents and his Spanish from the Spanish-Harlem section of Manhattan.
He had developed contacts with the German and German-Jewish communities in Buenos Aires and elsewhere. Frade—with the caveat that Leibermann not pass it on to his FBI superiors—had told Leibermann about the operation the SS had ransoming concentration camp inmates. Leibermann had agreed to keep the secret, because he personally believed the OSS was better equipped to deal with the problem than was the FBI. The FBI’s expertise lay in solving crimes and ransoming operations of an entirely different nature.
Leibermann was the only person not in Team Turtle who knew that “Galahad, ” Frade’s man in the German embassy, was Major Hans-Peter Baron von Wachtstein. He had kept this secret, too, although, as the SAC in Buenos Aires, he had been tasked “as the highest priority” to find out who Galahad was.
Leibermann and Frade had agreed early on that the less they were seen together the better it would be for both. They maintained contact through Ashton and Pelosi, and the latter took care to see that their contacts took place not only inside the embassy but out of sight of Commander Delojo as well. It was not in either Frade’s or Leibermann’s interests that Delojo know of their association.
The last time Leibermann had been at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo was for the wedding of Clete and Dorotea. Frade was genuinely surprised to see Leibermann now, and concerned. Agents of the BIS knew who Leibermann was and kept him under pretty tight surveillance.
The mystery grew even more when instead of pulling into the parking area in front of the big house, Ashton stopped just long enough for Leibermann to get quickly out of the car, then drove away.
Leibermann trotted up the stairs and across the verandah—passing Clete and Dorotea—and went into the house.
Enrico picked up his shotgun and looked down the drive as if he expected someone to be chasing the Chevrolet.
“I think he’s headed for the hangar, Enrico,” Clete said. “Go down there and see if you can be useful.” Then, when he saw the look of reluctance on the old soldier’s face, he added: “Go! We’ll be all right. There’s a Thompson in the vestibule.”
When Clete and Dorotea went into the house, they found Leibermann in the vestibule.
“Where’s the resident BIS agent?” Leibermann asked.
“Delgano’s waiting for me at Campo de Mayo,” Clete said. “Where today, after dutifully cramming for it all last night, I take my pilot’s exam.”
“What he meant to say, Milton,” Doña Dorotea said, “was: ‘Good morning, Milton. How are you? Nice to see you. You’re looking well. Can we offer you a cup of coffee? Or some breakfast?’ ”
"What I meant to say is: ‘What’s the hell’s going on, Milt?’ ”
“At half past eight this morning, the commercial attaché of the German embassy appeared at my apartment door with his wife and surrendered,” Liebermann said. “They’re in the car with Ashton.”
"What do you mean, surrendered?” Clete asked.
“They’ve been recalled to Germany, and he doesn’t want to go. So he wants me to get them to Brazil, where he can get them interned.”
“He tell you why?” Clete asked, but before Leibermann could reply, he asked another question: “What’s their relationship to you?”
“Well, I’ve been trying to recruit them, but until this morning, when they showed up at my place, I had no idea that I’d even caught their attention.”
“Recruit them for what?”
Leibermann’s face showed he thought that was a really stupid question.
“Can you do that? Get them to Brazil?” Clete asked.
“Not without permission,”’ Leibermann said. “Which means I would have to ask the ambassador, who would ask your friend Commander Delojo . . .”
“Another stupid question: Why can’t they get themselves interned here?”