“Well, if it’s the same wedding I’m thinking of, perhaps I’ll see you there.”
“That would be nice, Bernardo.”
On the way back to his office, Bernardo had an unpleasant thought. The Military Attaché of the German Embassy, the late Coronel Karl-Heinz Grüner, had as a gesture of friendship given two Leica I-C cameras, together with a wide assortment of lenses and other accessories, to the Bureau of Internal Security. It was entirely possible that the former chief of the BIS, el Almirante Francisco de Montoya, had considered at least one of the camera sets as a personal gift and taken it with him when he had been retired.
When he reached the Edificio Libertador, he was greatly relieved to find both camera sets in a locked cabinet.
Within two hours, they had been set up at El Palomar.
[FOUR]
El Palomar Air Field
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1545 5 May 1943
“Mi Coronel,” the senior control tower operator said to el Coronel Bernardo Martín, Chief of the Ethical Standards Office of the Bureau of Internal Security, “the Lufthansa flight reports they are fifteen minutes from the field.”
“Muchas gracias,” Martín replied. He was wearing a brown tweed sports jacket, gray flannel trousers, and the necktie of St. George’s School, where he had received his secondary education (as had his father). He had been at the Monthly Old Boys Association Luncheon at Claridge’s Hotel before coming out to El Palomar.
The food, as usual, had been very nice, but it had been otherwise a sad occasion. He had known two (and possibly three) of the four Anglo-Argentine Old Boys who had died for King and Country during the past month.
He looked around the control tower, then out its plate-glass window. Everything was in place and ready. In the control tower itself was a Leica I-C 35mm camera, equipped with a telephoto lens and mounted on a tripod. A 1939 Ford panel truck was parked on the grass beside the tarmac where Lufthansa Flight 102 would soon be parked. A crew of workmen were standing by a ditch working on the electrical line that ran to the lights along the runway. Inside the truck, another photographer with another Leica I-C would photograph everyone coming down the stairs after it rolled up to the aircraft.
Fifteen minutes later, a very long, very slender, very graceful four-engine aircraft dropped out of the sky and lined up with the runway. The Focke-Wulf 200B Condor, first flown in 1937, was a twenty-six-seat passenger airplane, powered by four 870-HP BMW engines, and had been built for Lufthansa, the German airline. A military modification, the 200C, turned the aircraft into an armed, long-range reconnaissance plane/bomber.
To Martín, the Lufthansa Condor looked something like the American Douglas DC-3, particularly in the nose. It was painted black on the top of the fuselage, and off-white on the bottom. On the vertical stabilizer and on the rear of the fuselage were red swastikas, outlined in white.
It touched smoothly down, rolled to the end of the runway, then turned and taxied back to the terminal, where a ground crew waved it into a space near the 1939 Ford panel truck.
As it approached the terminal, a group of people came out of the terminal building. Martín recognized only two of them, First Secretary Anton Gradny-Sawz, and the acting Military Attaché, Major von Wachtstein. “Get those people waiting for the airplane,” Martín ordered.
“Sí, mi Coronel,” the photographer replied.
He hoped the photographer in the truck would have enough sense to also take their pictures.
Movable stairs were rolled up to the airplane, and in a moment the door opened and people began to descend.
At this point, Martín thought, both cameras will suffer mechanical problems. Meaning first that I won’t have pictures of these Nazis to distribute to my men or give to Milton Leibermann, and then that Milton will be justifiably suspicious when I tell him, sorry, we didn’t get any pictures.
The first down the stairs was a plump little man in his forties wearing a mussed black suit. He was carrying a leather briefcase.
That has to be Löwzer, the Deputy Foreign Minister.
Next was a tall, slim, well-dressed blond man.
Manfred von Deitzberg, Martín decided. Himmler’s adjutant? I wonder how Milton knew that? I also wonder how Milton knew these people were coming, and even when. Has he got someone in the German Embassy? Or was their arrival announced over RCA, and intercepted by the OSS, and they told him?
And am I going to tell General Obregon that this man is Himmler’s adjutant? He thinks Himmler is a great man.
Not now. Until I can verify that fact, it’s unsubstantiated. I can always say I either didn’t know or wasn’t sure, and therefore did not think I should include it in my report.
A middle-aged woman, followed by a man who was probably her husband, came down next.
Who the hell are they?
I’ll have the manifest. I can find out.