Page 92

“What about the assets in Uruguay?”

“You’re referring to the Confidential Special Fund?”

Hoffmann nodded.

“I can understand your interest,” Moreno said. “I still don’t have all the details, but this is what I know: SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg came here—aboard U-405, now that I think of it—in October 1943.

“I don’t know this—I’m a banker, not a member of the Sicherheitsdienst—but I have concluded his orders were to take charge of the assets of the Confidential Special Fund.”

Hoffmann said nothing.

“Herr Hoffmann, if I’m going to tell you what I know, or believe, you’re going to have to do the same,” Moreno said.

“Your information is correct,” Hoffmann said.

“The Confidential Special Fund was then controlled by Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck, the security officer of the German embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay.”

He paused and waited for Hoffmann to say something.

“It was,” Hoffmann said, after a pause.

“Anton von Gradny-Sawz, of the German embassy here, procured an Argentine identity document—a libreta de enrolamiento, same as I just got for you—for von Deitzberg in the name of Jorge Schenck. Von Deitzberg/Schenck then took the overnight steamer to Montevideo.

“His purpose was to see von Tresmarck, presumably to relieve him of the assets of the Confidential Special Fund. Frau Ingeborg von Tresmarck told him that her husband and his good friend Ramón Something were in Paraguay.”

“Von Tresmarck is a homosexual, Señor Moreno,” Hoffmann offered. “That is the reason he was sent to Uruguay to manage the Confidential Special Fund. Since his alternative was being sent to a konzentrationslager with a pink star pinned to his breast, I thought he would appreciate the benefits of doing nothing that would annoy me, or even arouse any suspicions on my part about his performance of his duties.”

That, Moreno thought, was intended to remind me how important Brigadeführer Hoffmann was in the Third Reich.

I don’t think he really understands that the Third Reich is finished and so is whatever authority he had.

“Yes, I knew that,” Moreno said. “Well, von Deitzberg waited until von Tresmarck and his friend returned from Uruguay, and then had him transfer title of all the assets of the Confidential Special Fund to him. Then he gave him a large sum of money—nearly the equivalent of a million U.S. dollars—and then strongly suggested that he and his friend Ramón disappear.

“Von Deitzberg returned to Buenos Aires. I later learned from our branch manager in Montevideo that the embassy had reported to the police that both—husband and wife—had disappeared. The police had no idea where von Tresmarck was, but they had learned that Frau von Tresmarck had taken the steamer to Buenos Aires the next night.

“The Buenos Aires authorities learned that Señora von Tresmarck had taken a room at the Alvear Palace Hotel. She had then gone shopping, leaving a message to that effect with the hotel switchboard. She never returned to the Alvear Palace, and has not been seen—at least as Frau von Tresmarck—since.

“However, a woman matching her description, and calling herself Señora Schenck, was seen two weeks later in San Martín de los Andes, in the company of Señor Jorge Schenck, el Coronel Juan D. Perón, and Señorita Evita Duarte. El Coronel Perón went there to purchase a small estancia in the name of Señorita Duarte.

“While they were there, Brigadeführer von Deitzberg was shot to death in the men’s room of the Rio Hermoso Hotel.

“Neither el Coronel Perón nor Señorita Duarte nor Señora Schenck was interrogated by the police about Señor Schenck’s murder. This was probably at the order of President Rawson, who was then in the area dealing with the problem of el Coronel Schmidt.”

“What problem was that?”

“Would you like to tell Herr Hoffmann, el Coronel?” Moreno asked. “Or should I?”

“You’d better be damned careful what you say!” Klausberger said.

That bluster wasn’t very convincing, Klausberger.

“Well, if I get anything wrong, please feel free to correct me,” Moreno said. “As I understand the situation, el Coronel Schmidt was leading his regiment to an estancia outside Mendoza owned by Cletus Frade. He believed that there was an illegal cache of arms on the estancia and two diplomats who had disappeared from the German embassy in Buenos Aires—”

“Traitors, Herr Brigadeführer,” Klausberger put in.

Hoffmann met his eyes and said, “You were the one, Herr Oberst, who suggested we no longer use my rank.”

Hoffmann turned back and said, “Please go on, Señor Moreno.”