“Herr Oberstleutnant,” von Dattenberg interrupted.
Frade looked at him. He saw tears running down von Dattenberg’s cheeks.
“What?” Frade snapped.
“I will tell you, and may God forgive me, whatever it is you wish to know.”
“I really hope you mean that, von Dattenberg,” Frade said, after a long moment.
“I will tell you whatever you wish to know, Herr Oberstleutnant,” von Dattenberg repeated.
“Okay. Your immediate problem with me is that by asking you some of these questions I will be telling you things you have no right to know, and I can’t run the risk of you telling anyone what I have asked. I really don’t like killing people, but I will kill you without hesitation if I decide that is what has to be done to keep this information out of the wrong hands. You understand what I’m saying?”
Von Dattenberg nodded slowly. “I understand, Herr Oberstleutnant.”
“Clete, Willi’s given his word,” von Wachtstein said.
“Are we back to that German officer’s honor bullshit, Hansel?” Frade snapped.
“It was my German officer’s honor that forced me to warn you that there would be an attempt on your life,” von Wachtstein said softly.
Frade looked at him for a long moment.
“Touché, Hansel,” he said finally. “You really know how to go for the gut, don’t you?”
Von Wachtstein didn’t reply.
“What our mutual friend, Hansel, is talking about, Willi,” Frade explained, “is that shortly after he came to Argentina, he learned from Oberst Karl-Heinz Grüner—the SS guy at the German embassy—that, to send a message to my father and the Argentine army officer corps, assassins had been hired to whack me—”
“‘Whack’?” von Dattenberg parroted.
“Kill, assassinate, eliminate,” Frade clarified. “And, cutting to the chase, he warned me.”
“And you were able to stop them?” von Dattenberg asked.
“What he did, Fregattenkapitän,” General Martín said, “was kill both of the men sent to kill him.”
“But not before the bastards had cut the throat of Enrico’s sister, who was my housekeeper. Later, Oberst Grüner arranged the successful assassination of my father. Nice guy, Oberst Grüner. Enrico later put a seven-millimeter slug in his brain when Grüner was unloading stuff from a Spanish merchant ship onto the beach at Samborombón Bay.
“The reason I’m telling you all this, Willi—and the reason I’m calling you Willi—is that you just got a pass. Hansel has vouched for you—that makes you one of the good guys. In other words, after you finish answering my questions, I will not shoot you.”
“And you had planned to do that?”
“Let’s say I considered it one of my likely options.”
“One of the difficulties I have encountered in dealing with Colonel Frade, Fregattenkapitän,” Martín said, “is that I never really know if he means what he says.”
“Well, Willi, now that you’re suitably terrified, there’s a number of questions I have for you. Let’s start with the most important subject in which my government is interested. U-234.”
“Before I ask what’s your interest in U-234,” von Dattenberg said, and looked at von Wachtstein, “I will clarify that prior to surrendering my U-boot, I carried out orders to put ashore SS-Brigadeführer Ludwig Hoffmann and fifteen other SS officers with five wooden crates, contents unknown, in the San Matias Gulf.”
Frade noticed that his tone showed that he didn’t seem at all terrified. Not as he went on answering von Wachtstein’s and Frade’s and Martín’s detailed questions about the secret landing. And not as he almost conversationally finally said, “Now, what’s your interest in U-234?”
“I think the stories about large numbers of U-boats leaving Germany for Argentina in the last days of the war are bullshit,” Frade said. “But U-234 is different. Credible intelligence has been developed by the OSS that U-234 left the submarine pens in Norway bound for Japan carrying not only the to-be-expected cargo of Nazi officers and cash and diamonds, but also several German nuclear physicists and five hundred sixty kilograms of uranium oxide. Do you know what uranium oxide is, Willi?”
“It has something to do with your atomic bombs,” von Dattenberg said.
“It is the essential ingredient in nuclear weapons,” Frade said. “Did you know that the Germans had a program to make nuclear weapons?”