“I’ve been invited to the Carzino-Cormano estancia for the weekend. I’m sure he’ll be there.”
“Well, as we have had no word from Berlin, I think you should accept the invitation. Don’t go out there before I give you what I have.”
“No, Sir.”
“That will be all, Peter, thank you.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Peter made it as far as opening the door when von Lutzenberger called out to him, loud enough for Fräulein Hassell to hear.
He turned.
“I expect you to be in the Embassy during normal duty hours, von Wachtstein. If traffic is a problem, then leave your apartment earlier.”
“Jawohl, Excellency!”
[FOUR]
El Club De Belgrano
Barrancas Del Belgrano, Buenos Aires
1315 30 April 1943
The dark blue 1939 Dodge four-door sedan turned left off Avenida Libertador onto Calle José Fernandez and drove up its steep—for Buenos Aires—incline to the first corner. There the driver tried, and failed, to make a very sharp left turn into the drive of the Belgrano Club. He had to back up twice before he was lined up in the drive and the porter could open the gate.
If he had turned a block earlier and come down Arribeños, the passenger in the rear seat of the car thought, he could have done this a lot easier.
The Belgrano Club occupied most of a block in Barrancas del Belgrano, an upper-class district of Buenos Aires—a district that looked, its Deutsche-Argentinishe residents often commented, much like the Zehlendorf district of Berlin. Its tree-shaded streets were lined with large villas, and here and there a luxurious apartment building.
Once inside the compound, the driver (following the directions of his passenger) drove past the buildings housing the swimming pool and the restaurant, and finally stopped by the door to the men’s dressing room, near the tennis courts.
The driver jumped from behind the wheel, came to attention by the rear door, and pulled it open.
A tall, fair-haired, light-skinned man in his middle thirties, wearing a well-cut gray business suit and a snap-brim felt hat, stepped out and looked at the driver, then at his watch.
There is time.
“Manuel,” he said kindly. “A little less militarily, if you would. We’re in civilian clothing.”
“Sí, mi Coronel,” Sargento Manuel Lascano said, still at attention.
Though Sargento Lascano was also wearing a business suit, he had spent five of his twenty-three years in the Army, and almost all of that in the infantry, and almost all of that in remote provinces. Two weeks earlier (after selection by the man in the well-cut suit as the most promising among ten candidates), he had been transferred to the Edificio Libertador Headquarters of the Ejército Argentino (Argentine Army) for “special duty.”
The criteria for selection had been high intelligence, an absolutely clean service record, a stable marriage, a simple background, and, importantly, a reputation for keeping his mouth shut.
“And when we’re in civilian clothes, Manuel,” Coronel Bernardo Martín said, “please try to remember not to call me ‘coronel.’”
“Sí, Señor,” Sargento Lascano said.
“You’ll get used to it all, Manuel,” Martín said, meaning it. He had already decided that he had made the right choice in Sargento Lascano. Lascano didn’t know much about what was expected of him, but he wanted the promised—“if this works out, Sargento”—promotion to Warrant Officer, which meant he wanted to learn. So far, it hadn’t been necessary to tell him anything twice.
Teaching him, Martín thought, is like writing on a clean blackboard.
&
nbsp; “When you drop me off at a place like this,” Martín said, “try to find a parking place that leaves the door I went in visible. Try to be inconspicuous, but failing that, park where you have to, and if anyone questions you, show them your identification and tell them you’re on duty.”