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“Turned himself?”
“At one time, the president of Argentina, who was not a very nice man, suspected there was a coup d’état under way which would see him replaced as president by Colonel Frade the elder. He charged Martín, then a lieutenant colonel, with stopping it.
“Martín, realizing that Colonel Frade would be a much better president than the incumbent, decided that his duty as an officer whose primary allegiance should be to his country could not follow these orders. So he turned and allied himself with Colonel Frade. The coup d’état was successful.”
“You don’t really expect me to believe that Colonel Frade’s father is the Argentine president?”
“I didn’t say he was. The Nazis had Colonel Frade assassinated. They didn’t want him to be the president. They are not nice people.”
“And yet you are protecting Nazis from justice,” Orlovsky said.
“That’s true. That was the price General Gehlen negotiated for his turning. He knew what the NKGB would do to his officers, and to their families, if they got their hands on them. And so do you, Konstantin. General Gehlen decided turning, and saving his officers and their families from the NKGB, was the honorable thing for him to do as an officer and a Christian. Even though he knew some of his officers were Nazis and deserved to be hung.”
Orlovsky didn’t reply as his eyes met Gehlen’s, and Gehlen nodded once.
Cronley went on: “Saving innocent wives and children from unpleasantness, even death, is the honorable thing to do if one has the choice, wouldn’t you agree, Major Orlovsky?”
“Treason is never honorable,” Orlovsky said, looking at Cronley.
“Sometimes treason is the only alternative to doing something truly dishonorable,” Gehlen said.
“Nothing is ever black or white,” Cronley said. “Do they say that in Russia, Konstantin?”
“Would you be offended if I told you I’m more than tired of hearing your perverse philosophy? You sound like nineteen-year-olds in the first year of university.”
“We used to say,” Mannberg offered, “when I was in the first year of university, that ‘perversion, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.’”
“When I was in my first year at my university,” Cronley said with a straight face, “I didn’t know what perversion was. We don’t have much of that sort of thing in Texas.”
All three shook their heads in disbelief.
“Moving right along,” Cronley said after a moment, “in the next two paragraphs Major Ashton tells us that he is leaving Mendoza—our operation there is literally on a mountaintop—to meet Colonel Frade when he arrives in Buenos Aires.
“The Jesuit priest is Father Welner. Although he didn’t say so, I suspect that General Martín will also be at the airfield when Colonel Frade arrives. He’ll have to be brought into this eventually, and sooner is usually better than later.”
No one said anything.
“So, I think in the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours, the Good Jesuit should be here to offer his wise counsel. He and Major Ashton. I hope.”
Again there was no response.
“So unless you have further questions, Konstantin?”
“None, thank you.”
Cronley raised his voice. “Sergeant Lewis! Have lunch served! And don’t forget the vodka for Major Orlovsky.”
Lunch was served. A bottle of beer and a bottle of vodka were placed before the Russian.
He ate his lunch.
He did not touch the vodka.
In the course of conversation, General Gehlen asked Orlovsky if he was familiar with the theory of Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke that no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Orlovsky said he was.
Gehlen said: “A friend of mine recently suggested that the roots of that theory can be found in von Moltke’s The Russo-Turkish Campaign in Europe, 1828–1829. Are you familiar with that, Major Orlovsky?”
