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It was one word: corruption.
He didn’t know for sure—although he had come up with a number of pretty good scenarios—how the businessmen or the government officials were enriching themselves illegally by traveling to Germany, or repatriating Argentines, but there was no question in his mind that they were.
He didn’t care.
Protection of the Argentine Republic was his business, not corruption. There had been corruption in Argentina from its beginnings. The army and the navy—usually—stood aloof from it, and generally military officers lived by a Code of Honor. Martín tried to.
The three priests on Flight 2230 were something else. He knew that the Jesuit answered to Father Welner, and at least one—probably both—of the others also did. What they were doing—arranging for Nazis and their families to find refuge in Argentina—was illegal, but the priests were serving Holy Mother Church, not enriching themselves personally.
Why the Vatican was spiriting Nazis—and Hungarian, French, Belgian, Norwegian, Danish, Austrian, and other collaborators with the Thousand-Year Reich—out of Europe so they could escape the justified wrath of the Allies wasn’t clear. Except that it had to do with the Vatican’s war against the Communists, who they believed were the Antichrist.
Just about everyone in Argentina was Roman Catholic and, if asked, would agree with Holy Mother Church that the Communists were the Antichrist. After all, that’s what the Pope had said.
But virtually none of his countrymen thought of the Antichrist as a real threat to Argentina. Russia was a long way away, and the Soviet Union didn’t even maintain diplomatic relations with the Argentine Republic. And besides, the Germans had really bloodied the Russian Bear’s nose. They would be too busy rebuilding their own country to even be thinking about turning Argentina into one more Soviet Socialist Republic.
Frade—and the reports he had received from a BIS officer he had had in the Argentine embassy in Berlin, and from the SAA pilots who worked for the BIS and had been to Germany—had convinced him that the Soviet Union posed a real and immediate threat to Argentina.
Martín knew enough about the Soviets to know how skillful they were in taking advantage of chaos. He didn’t think they had anything at all to do with the plot to assassinate Juan Domingo Perón, but if it succeeded or the stopping of it resulted in a civil war—that would really play into their hands.
And of course Martín knew all about OPERATION OST, Frade’s smuggling into Argentina—often assisted by the Vatican—former officers, some of them Nazis, of General Gehlen’s Abwehr Ost.
Frade had promised, and Martín believed him, to share his intelligence vis-à-vis the Soviets with him. Martín knew there was no other way he could get such intelligence. In this connection, Frade had told him that when he returned from his next flight to Berlin, he was going to have a good deal of intelligence to share with him.
“Conclusions to be logically drawn”—in the terminology of an intelligence analysis—from all he knew and believed were that his first priority was to keep Juan Domingo Perón alive. Failing to do so would result in chaos and possibly civil war.
For the moment, Cletus Frade had Perón safe in Mendoza.
If Flight 2230 did not depart for Germany, all the government officials, diplomats, businessmen, and priests would have to be permitted to leave Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade. And once they got back to wherever, they would report what they had seen at the airport.
The news that an attempt to assassinate Perón had been made would be all over Argentina within an hour. Martín realized he could not permit that to happen.
And he understood that he could not present the problem to General Farrell, asking for permission to do what he knew should be done. He knew what Farrell’s reaction to that would be: “Let’s not act in haste. Let’s see how this looks tomorrow.”
Martín thus saw it as his duty to do what he thought should be done, and to worry about President Farrell’s reaction to it later.
—
“Who are the four captains scheduled to make this flight, Peter?” Martín now asked.
Von Wachtstein recited their names.
God is with me, Martín decided, and ordered, “Get Captain Lopez in here, please.”
SAA Captain Paolo Lopez, like a half-dozen other SAA captains, was an officer of the Bureau of Internal Security.
Lopez appeared within minutes.
“How are you, mi General?” he asked.
Martín did not reply, but he addressed Lopez by his military rank.
“Major Lopez, you are aware that Captain Frade cannot take Flight 2230 to Berlin. My solution to that problem is to designate First Officer von Wachtstein as pilot-in-command. Do you have any problem with that?”
After a long moment, Lopez said, “No, mi General.”
“Advise the other pilots of my decision. It is not open for discussion. The only option they have is to go, or not go. In the latter case—don’t tell them this until they indicate what they are going to do—they will be confined in Hangar Two with the Horse Rifles until I decide what to do with them.”
“Sí, mi General.”
