“Finish what you were saying, Cletus, about this being step one,” Martín said.
“Well—and I’m just guessing—when Gehlen hears that these two made it here and that I’ve set them up—”
“They have names?” Nervo interrupted.
“The major is Alois Strübel. The sergeant major is Otto Niedermeyer. I went along with Strübel’s idea for new names. He’s now Möller and Niedermeyer’s Körtig. The Möllers have two children, a boy and a girl, ten or eleven, and the Körtigs have a boy about the same age. I’ve been told the women and children were killed in air raids; that German records show that they were. The men were supposedly killed on the Eastern Front.”
“Well,” Nervo said, “this Gehlen fellow could have arranged for the men to die that way. But the women and children . . . no one would question a Catholic hospital reporting the death of a mother and her child any more than Alejandro here would suspect that a nun had a kilo of flawless diamonds in her underwear. Holy Mother Church was involved in that, and in getting the women and children out of Germany.”
“Let Cletus finish what he was saying, Santiago,” Martín said.
Nervo gestured for Clete to go on.
“What I’m guessing is that when Gehlen learns everything went as promised—”
“How’s he going to learn that?” Nervo said.
“Möller had a coded message all prepared to do that.”
“And you sent this coded message?”
“No, I didn’t. I told him to give me his codebook, and that if I heard he’d sent any messages to anybody, I’d have him shot.”
Nervo glanced at Martín and said, “Our OSS friend really is a lot smarter than he looks, isn’t he, Alejandro? And I’ll bet he doesn’t get any friend of his involved in something that’ll probably get him shot.”
Martín looked at Frade. “Go on, Cletus.”
“Well, after we prove we did what we promised to do, it’s Gehlen’s turn to give us something of value. Presuming he does that, we get some more wives and children of Gehlen’s people out of Germany and over here.”
“Just the wives and children?”
“For now. The officers will come later.”
“What’s that all about?” Nervo asked.
“Again, I don’t know what I’m talking about here. Just guessing.”
“So guess,” General Nervo said.
“Most of these people are dedicated Nazis. I know for sure that Möller is. They are going to keep on fighting godless Communism and keeping their oath of personal loyalty to the Führer until the Russians are in Berlin.”
“Gehlen, too?” Martín asked.
“No. Not Gehlen. But please don’t ask me any more about that, Alejandro.”
“If I did, would you tell me?” Martín asked.
Nervo said: “Apropos of nothing whatever, Cletus, what comes to your mind when you hear the term ‘Valkyrie’?”
Jesus Christ, they know about that?
Well, Martín did tell me he had a BIS guy in the Argentine Embassy in Berlin he really wanted to keep there.
Sure they know.
“Blond, large-breasted Aryan women who fool around with the braver soldiers? Carry them off for carnal adventures on their horses?”
“Yeah, right,” Nervo said, chuckling. “The SS guy at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo doesn’t like Valkyries?”