Empire and Honor Page 4

  “Bernardo is very good at what he does,” Ramos said. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he knew about the passports. But do I know he told the people at the Circulo Militar? No, I don’t.”

  “And what is Nulder alleged to have done with a thousand blank passports?”

  “Made them available to Germans whom the Allies—and, if I have to point this out, Argentina is now one of the Allies—are looking for.”

  “Anyone who went to the Kriegsschule has friends in the German officer corps. Or have you turned your back on them, too, Eduardo?”

  “I turned my back on the Nazis, the SS, among my former Kriegsschule friends once I learned what they had done to the Jews and the Russian prisoners and the Gypsies, et cetera. Even before the SS murdered Jorge.”

  “How self-righteous of you.”

  “What these people believe, Juan Domingo, is that your man Nulder is not trying to rescue decent German officers from the Allies with these passports, but selling them a way to escape the righteous wrath of the Allies. For his personal enrichment, and possibly yours.”

  “And you’re accusing me of that?”

  “If I believed you were capable of that, I would be in the Circulo Militar planning when and where you were to be shot, not here trying to save your life. But they believe it.”

  “Just who are ‘they’? Do you know who’s involved in this plot to assassinate me?”

  “I—we—have our suspicions, but no proof.”

  “I presume that Martín is keeping an eye on those you and Farrell—and presumably Martín—suspect?”

  “Of course.”

  “Isn’t that a case of the fox protecting the chicken coop?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ramos said. “More important, Farrell doesn’t think so. Martín is an honorable officer.”

  Perón snorted.

  “Farrell is sometimes naïve,” he said. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Martín knows full well who wants to get me out of the way, and hasn’t arrested them because he hopes they succeed.”

  “That’s nonsense, Juan Domingo.”

  “Well, what’s your advice, Eduardo? What do I do, sit here waiting to be shot? Or for Farrell to arrest me?”

  “The latter. And, in the meantime, try to make peace with these officers.”

  “I thought nobody knew who they are?”

  “You know who they are,” Ramos said.

  “And how am I to make peace with them?”

  “For a beginning—you’re not going to like this . . .”

  “If it has to do with what I think you’re going to say, I won’t.”

  “Get rid of Rudy. Distance yourself from him. Publicly.”

  “I don’t turn my back on my friends, Eduardo. You should know that.”

  “And of course there is that other problem of yours,” Ramos went on. “I heard this myself from a general officer I’m sure is part of this—”

  “If you’re sure he’s part of this, why don’t you tell Martín, and have Martín arrest him for treason?”

  “I’m sure General Martín heard what I heard. I’m sure General Martín reported what he heard to the president—and since the officer in question has not been arrested, I think it’s obvious that the president doesn’t think arresting him at this time is wise.”

  “Why not?”

  “General Farrell does not want the officer corps split in two, and believes that arresting this officer—or any of the officers close to him—would do exactly that. How many times have you heard Edelmiro say that the one thing Argentina cannot afford is a civil war? He saw what happened in Spain, and it really affected him.”

  Perón considered that a moment, and then asked, thickly sarcastic, “Just what else did you hear this general officer whose arrest would likely plunge us into civil war say?”

  “‘If he’d only get rid of the blonde,’” Ramos quoted.

  “Presumably he was referring to Señorita Duarte?” Perón asked sarcastically.

  “Yes, I think he probably was,” Ramos said, also sarcastically. “For God’s sake, Juan Domingo, she’s twenty-five years younger than you are!”

  “Actually, twenty-four,” Perón corrected him. “And my relationship with the lady is none of anybody’s business.”

  “They think it is. They think it reflects badly on the honor and prestige of the officer corps. They think it is conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.”

  “And you, Eduardo, do you think my relationship with Señorita Duarte is conduct unbecoming?”

  “What I think isn’t germane. What they think is the point here.”

  “‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’?”

  “Something like that,” Ramos agreed. “Juan Domingo . . .”

  “What?”

  “They have also heard that young Frade threw you out of his house on Libertador when he found you there with an even younger female.”

  “Cletus is going to these officers with tales like that?” Perón asked furiously.

  “I’m sure he didn’t. But you must have known that story would come out.”

  “Why should it come out? What happened between Cletus Frade and me—my God, I’m his godfather!—is personal, a family matter.”

  “And I’m sure your godson feels the same way.”

  “Then how did it reach these people if he didn’t run off at the mouth?”

  “When Jorge was murdered, Sergeant Major Rodríguez was driving his Horch. Rodríguez was badly wounded—”

  “I know that. What’s your point?”

  “—but survived. He took this to be divine intervention—that he was spared because God wanted him to protect Cletus. Rodríguez has never been far from Cletus since he was released from hospital. Cletus even takes him with him when he flies to Europe.”

  “So?”

  “Was Rodríguez there when Cletus asked you to leave the house on Libertador?”

  Perón’s expression answered for him.

  “What is it we say about suboficial mayors, Juan Domingo?” Ramos went on. “That ‘they gossip more than women at the village well’?”

  “Goddamn that old sonofabitch!”

  “You can’t condemn a dog for barking, Juan Domingo. It’s the nature of the beast.”

  “I have known Rodríguez since he was Teniente Frade’s batman!”

  “He didn’t even think he was doing anything wrong. He was having a glass of wine with some other old soldiers, and he knew what happened would be of interest to them. An hour later, that story was all over the barracks, two hours later all over Campo de Mayo, and within two days all over Argentina. It was not Rodríguez’s intention to harm you, Juan Domingo.”

  “You’re a good deal more forgiving than I am,” Perón snapped.

  “I hope that’s contagious, when you start asking yourself, ‘How dare Eduardo come here and talk to me the way he did?’”

  Perón looked at him for a long moment.

  “You were never very bright, Eduardo,” he said with a smile. “But you have been a good and loyal friend since our first day at the academy.”

  “Thank you, and please remember that.”

  “Is there anything else you have to say, Eduardo?”

  “Get rid of both Rudy Nulder and the blonde, Juan Domingo, and make sure that everybody in this building, the Circulo Militar, and at Campo de Mayo knows you have.”

  Perón’s face tightened.

  “What is it we said as children? ‘Don’t hold your breath’?”

  Ramos rose to his feet.

  They less-than-enthusiastically patted one another on the back, and then Ramos went to the office door and through it.

  [FOUR]

  Highway 252

  Three Kilometers North of Marburg an der Lahn

  The American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1300 6 October 1945

  The roadblock had been established primarily to look for former members of the Schutzstaffel—the infamous SS—and other Nazis in the
long lines of Germans fleeing what was now the Russian Zone of Occupation. The border between the two zones was about fifty kilometers northeast of the roadblock.

  The roadblock was operated by U.S. Army military policemen, twenty-four men supervised by a captain and a lieutenant. Three checkpoints had been established, each under an MP sergeant. A long line of refugees led to each.

  Each refugee was asked by an MP—whose proficiency in the German language ranged from fluent to almost nonexistent—for his or her Personalausweis—identity card—which was then carefully scrutinized.

  If the ID appeared genuine, the refugee was asked where he or she had come from, and where he or she was bound.

  In the case of females, especially women with children, the document check was perfunctory. The names were checked against a Wanted List. If there was no match, the women were permitted to continue down the highway—actually a two-lane cobblestone road—toward Marburg an der Lahn.

  Males of any age, but especially those of military age, were scrutinized far more carefully. Most of the MPs who spoke fluent German were Jewish, and some of them had barely escaped Nazi Germany with their lives. Many—perhaps most—had family members who had perished in the concentration camps. They were motivated to find Nazis trying to escape retribution.

  Any refugee who could not produce a Personalausweis, or whose identity seemed questionable, or whose name matched one on the Wanted List, was taken to a U.S. Army six-by-six truck and loaded aboard for further investigation by the CIC, the Army’s Counterintelligence Corps.

  A representative of the CIC sat in a jeep watching the proceedings. James D. Cronley Jr. was blond and blue-eyed, an enormous—six-one, two-twelve—twenty-one-year-old whose sole qualification for the CIC was that he spoke German fluently.

  Cronley had been commissioned into the Army of the United States as a second lieutenant of Cavalry seven months before, on his graduation from Texas A&M.

  —

  Just about as soon as the outcome of the war had been clear, there was concern in the Army about dealing with the capture and trial of Nazis as war criminals in a defeated Germany. It became obvious that the CIC was the best-qualified agency to deal with the problem. It was equally obvious that the CIC was not large enough to deal with their to-be-expanded duties. Further compounding—indeed, greatly compounding—the problem was the awareness on the part of senior officers that as soon as the war was over there would be a great hue and cry to “bring the boys home.”

  The chief of staff of the U.S. Army told the assistant chief of staff for Intelligence to take whatever steps necessary to deal with the problem.

  The result of this was that in his third week of the Basic Armor Officers Course at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr. was summoned from a course in Track & Bogie Maintenance to the Orderly Room of the Student Officer Company.

  He was told to report to the colonel now ensconced in the company commander’s office. Following the protocol, he knocked at the frame of the open door and was told to come in.

  He was already inside the office and saluting before he realized the order to come in had been issued in German.

  “How well do you speak German, Lieutenant?” a major standing beside and behind the full colonel asked, in German.

  “Pretty well, sir.”

  “Learned it from your mother, did you, son?” the colonel asked in German.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “From now on, speak German.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Oberst.”

  “Your mother is Wilhelmina Stauffer Cronley? And your father James D. Cronley Senior?”

  “Ja, das ist richtig, Herr Oberst.”

  “Who is A&M ’16, and president of Cronley Petroleum Company?” the colonel asked, now in English.

  “Ja, das ist richtig, Herr Oberst.”

  “Who won the Distinguished Service Cross with the Big Red One in France, and then volunteered for the Army of Occupation after the Armistice?” the major asked, in German.

  “Ja, das ist richtig, Herr Major.”

  “Where he met, wooed, and won over the lady who would become your mother?” the colonel asked.

  “Ja, das ist richtig, Herr Oberst.”

  “Tell me, Lieutenant, what do you know about the Counterintelligence Corps, the CIC?”

  “I don’t know anything about it, sir,” Cronley confessed in English.

  “Try saying that in German,” the colonel snapped, in German.

  Cronley did so.

  “Well, they’ll tell you all about it in Baltimore,” the colonel said, now in English.

  “Entschuldigen Sie, bitte, Herr Oberst?”

  “Congratulations, Lieutenant Cronley,” the colonel went on, in English. “Your application for transfer to the Counterintelligence Corps has been approved. Go pack your gear. And hurry up. We have a five-fifteen flight to Washington.”

  —

  Cronley was about halfway through the six-month Basic Course at the Counterintelligence Corps Center at Camp Holabird in Maryland when he was again summoned to an orderly room. There he was handed the credentials of a CIC special agent, issued a snub-nosed .38 Special Smith & Wesson revolver, and told, “Pack your gear, Cronley, you’re on the 1900 MATS flight to Frankfurt.”

  The major from the XXIInd CIC Detachment who met his plane was visibly disgusted when Jim Cronley outlined his military intelligence experience for him, but said, “Well, we’ll find something for you to do where you can cause only minimal damage.”

  Cronley was shocked at the near-total destruction of Frankfurt am Main, and just about as shocked when, after an hour’s drive in a requisitioned Opel Admiral sedan, they arrived in Marburg an der Lahn. The city seemed absolutely untouched—except for the population, which was incredibly drab and visibly malnourished—by the war.

  He was quickly given the explanation.

  Philipps University in Marburg an der Lahn was famed as the site of Roentgen’s discovery of the X-ray, but it owed its survival to something else few people knew and even fewer talked about. Since before the Civil War, it had been where the War Department had sent intelligence officers for training.

  One such alumnus had been a brigadier general of the Eighth Air Force charged with selecting targets for aerial bombardment. When the time came to take out the Marburg railroad marshaling yards, the general had personally delivered the pre-raid briefing, ending it with the announcement that if one bomb fell anywhere but in the marshaling yards, the entire wing could expect to be transferred to the Aleutian Islands, where they could expect to remain literally on ice until after every other last swinging dick in the Air Forces had gone home.

  Another alumnus, this one a full colonel, had been the G-3 (Plans and Operations Officer) when the Ninth Army approached Marburg on its way to Kassel. He issued much the same threat. Anyone shooting at his university while taking Marburg would regret it.

  A third alumnus, another colonel, was named the first military governor of Marburg. He summoned the citizenry to the market square and began his speech in fluent Hessian German. “Meine Damen und Herren, while I regret the circumstances, it is wonderful to be back in the city of my university.”

  Cronley was at first nothing more than a translator. But he was smart, and an officer, so he was quickly given greater responsibilities. Keeping an eye on the MPs as they searched for fleeing Nazis seemed to be an ideal duty for him.

  He also quickly learned there were certain privileges associated with being in the CIC.

  He had the choice of wearing his uniform and insignia of rank or “civilian clothing.” This was defined as a rank-insignia-less uniform. Not only did he no longer have to display his gold second lieutenant’s bar—second lieutenants were a standing joke in the Army—but he could put away what the Army called “Shoes, low quarter” or “Boots, combat” and replace them with something more appropriate for a civilian from Texas: pointed-toe Western boots.

  And he had a choice of weapon. He had grown
up in Midland, Texas, around guns. He had a low opinion of the snub-nosed S&W .38 Special he had been issued. He replaced it with the standard Model 1911-A1 .45 ACP pistol, which he elected to carry in a holster slung low on a web belt across his hip.

  The first time Elsa von Wachtstein saw Lieutenant Jim Cronley, he was sitting slumped down in his jeep, his Western-booted left foot resting on the left fender extension. He had an overseas hat cocked on his head, and his .45 and holster were dangling from the jeep’s windshield. He was puffing on a long, black cigar.

  The first time Jim Cronley saw Elsa von Wachtstein, who was standing in line waiting to undergo MP scrutiny, he was uncomfortable. Her face was gray and her hair unkempt. She was wearing a fur-collared overcoat and had a battered suitcase strapped to her back. Her shoes were literally worn out. She was, he thought, probably fifty.

  Sonofabitch! That was once, when she was young, a damned good-looking woman.

  Occupied Germany was known to be a cornucopia of sexual pleasure for the victors. Women were literally available for a few cigarettes or a Hershey’s bar.

  Jim Cronley had not availed himself of the opportunity. He had wondered why, and decided it was because of his mother. She had been an impoverished German woman when she met his father.

  Still, he felt a little sorry for himself: I got laid a hell of a lot more often in Midland and College Station, by maybe a factor of 100-to-0, than I am getting laid here.

  Elsa von Wachtstein, aware that Cronley’s eyes were on her, and wondering idly who he was and what he was doing—he was obviously not a military policeman—handed her Personalausweis to an MP.

  “Coming from where, fräulein?” the MP asked in halting German.

  “I came from Pomerania,” she replied in English.

  The MP, surprised, looked at her closely.

  “Going where?” he asked.

  “Marburg,” Elsa said. “I have—at least, used to have—friends there.”

  “And if your friends ain’t there?” the MP asked, as he handed her Personalausweis to the sergeant who had the Wanted List.

  “Then on to Wetzlar or Giessen,” Elsa said. “I once had friends in both places.”