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“Still, we have a saying that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that little green men from Mars aren’t after you with evil intent.”
A smile flickered briefly across Frogger’s lips.
“So we had the problem of what to do with people we have concerns about. Does Sergeant A, or Major B, feel his allegiance is to the Kremlin or the Pentagon? Since we have no proof, we can’t just shoot them, but on the other hand, we can’t just let them run free, which might pose a threat to national security.
“So what we do with them is send them to defend the Aleutian Islands, which I suppose could fairly be described as a concentration camp. No barbed wire or guard towers—much like Camp Clinton. Those sort of things are not needed. The only way to get to the Aleutian Islands is by ship or airplane. All we have to do is make sure that when a ship or airplane leaves the Aleutians no one’s on it who’s not supposed to be on it. Getting the picture?”
Frogger nodded curtly as he lit another cigarette.
“If we can’t come to some sort of agreement here, Colonel Frogger, you will be flown to the Aleutians and kept there until the war is over, when we will decide what to do with you.”
“That would bring us back to the Geneva Convention, wouldn’t it?” Frogger said, unmoved. “What you have described to me would be in violation of the convention.”
“Probably, it is. It also almost certainly violates our own constitution. But in wartime, winning is what counts, not the fine points of law. During our own Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus.”
He took a puff of his cigar, exhaled a gray-blue cloud, then went on:
“Now, let me tell you who I am. I’m an American. An intelligence officer. I’m half-Argentine. My father was not only a colonel in the Ejército Argentino, but active in politics. He was a graduate of your Kriegsschule, and until I finally opened his eyes to what scum are running Germany he was really hoping the Axis would win this war.
“What I’m doing in Argentina is—”
“Apparently kidnapping German diplomats and their wives,” Frogger blurted.
“—going to be hard for you to believe. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.”
Frogger’s eyes showed how likely that was going to be.
Frade continued: “With the possible exception of Hitler himself, and perhaps a handful of his intimates, a number of senior German officials—Martin Bormann, for one—realize that the war is lost. They have a contingency plan for this. It’s called Operation Phoenix. What they are trying to do is purchase sanctuary in South America, primarily in Argentina but in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil as well, to which the senior Nazis will escape and hide until such time as they can rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes.”
“You don’t really expect me to believe that.”
“I told you that you were going to have to take my word for it. And it gets even more sordid and unbelievable. A number of senior SS officers close to Himmler, although we don’t think he’s personally involved, saw a chance to make lots of money and took it.
“Jews in concentration camps can buy their way out. They are taken to the Spanish border, then given passports and passage on neutral ships to Argentina and Uruguay. The ransom money goes into the pockets of the SS officers involved. ”
Frogger shook his head in disbelief.
Frade went on: “When it came to the attention of the SS in Buenos Aires that I was investigating both Operation Phoenix and the ransoming operation, they decided to have me assassinated. An officer in the German embassy, a decent man, decided his officer’s honor would not permit him to stand silent while this happened. He warned me. When the people—local gangsters—came to assassinate me, I was ready for them and eliminated them. But not before they had slit the throat of my housekeeper.”
“You will forgive me, sir, for saying this sounds like the plot of a bad movie.”
“It does indeed. Is there a saying in German, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction’?”
Frogger snorted.
“The next thing the Germans decided was that the assassination of my father would serve two purposes. One, it would remove him from power, which was important, because following a planned coup he was to become president of Argentina, and having an Argentine president who was no longer pro-Nazi was unacceptable. And two, it would also, they believed, send a message to the Argentine officer corps that Germany would not hesitate to eliminate any officer who got in their way.
“That assassination was successful. My father was shot to death—two twelve-gauge, double-ought-buckshot loads to the head—and his driver, his former sergeant major, was severely wounded.”
They now locked eyes.
“The assassination of my father did not cow the Argentine officer corps. Almost to a man they were offended and angry. More important, they did everything but cheer when the German military attaché and the senior SS officer in the German embassy were shot to death while trying to unload from a U-boat crates of currency, gold, and other valuables intended to finance Operation Phoenix.”
“You shot them?” Frogger blurted.
“No. They were shot by my father’s former sergeant major—whose sister, by the way, was my housekeeper the assassins murdered—and another old sergeant who had served with my father.”
“Forgive me, but I get back to the bad movie plot,” Frogger said.
