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The successful coup had moved General Rawson into the president’s office in the Casa Rosada and put Lauffer in the adjacent office, where he had become, again de facto if not de jure, chief of staff to the president.

“People will talk, Alejandro, if it comes out we’re meeting like this,” Nervo said.

Martín smiled, then chuckled, then, shaking his head, laughed heartily out loud.

“Was it that funny?” Nervo asked.

“Whenever I run into Don Cletus Frade, he offers that same tired joke,” Martín said. “Is Nolasco with you?”

“He’s parking the car. What the hell is going on here?”

“Why don’t you all go have a coffee?” Martín said to the men manning the telephones and the typewriters. They quickly got to their feet and left the room.

Deciding that Martín was going to wait for Nolasco before explaining what was going on, Nervo walked to the wall of maps and studied them. One of them—actually three, patched together—showed the national routes between where they were and San Martín de los Andes. Pins—Probably indicating some sort of checkpoints, Nervo decided—were stuck along the route.

There were maps, of different scales, of the highways leadi

ng to Buenos Aires, of the neighborhood of Belgrano in Buenos Aires, and of the area around Samborombón Bay, all stuck with pins.

Nervo turned to look at Martín, his eyebrows raised questioningly. At that moment, Nolasco entered the room. His face registered surprise when he saw Lauffer.

“Subinspector,” Lauffer said.

“Capitán.”

“I have been rehearsing my little speech about what you are about to hear,” Martín said. “And about asking you to give me your word it doesn’t leave this room. But I’ve decided not to ask that of you. You are all going to have to make that decision yourselves. What I’ve decided to do—as my friend Frade would say—is roll the dice and see what happens. Go ahead, Cortina.”

Cortina stood and walked toward the wall. Then he stopped. Lauffer had put his high-crowned uniform cap on the table. He held his riding crop—a standard accoutrement for a cavalry officer.

“May I?” Cortina asked.

Lauffer nodded.

Cortina walked to the map and pointed the riding crop at the map of Samborombón Bay.

“At approximately oh four-thirty today,” Cortina began, “the German submarine U-405 began to land, using rubber boats, two German SS officers and ten other ranks of the SS and a large wooden crate onto the beach at this point on Samborombón Bay.

“One of the SS officers we believe to be SS-Brigadeführer Manfred von Deitzberg, first deputy adjutant to the Reichsführer-SS Himmler. The identity of the other—junior—SS officer we do not know. We believe he is the officer in charge of the detail guarding the wooden crate.”

“Is that the same Von Whatsisname who was here before?” Nervo asked. “The German general?”

“Yes,” Martín replied, then added: “Santiago, this will go more quickly if you hold your questions until Cortina finishes.”

“Okay.”

“Waiting for them on the beach were Karl Cranz, ostensibly the commercial attaché of the German Embassy, who is an SS-obersturmbannführer; the deputy commercial counselor, Erich Raschner, who is an SS-SD-sturmbannführer; half a dozen Argentinos of German extraction; and a closed Chevrolet two-ton truck that is registered to Señor Gustav Loche, of Buenos Aires, who is the father of Günther Loche, who is employed by the German Embassy. Father and son were on the beach.

“Everyone was loaded onto the truck, which then drove to this point, near Dolores—about two kilometers from here—where von Deitzberg detrucked and got into a Mercedes sedan—diplomatic license tags—driven by the first secretary of the German Embassy, Anton von Gradny-Sawz. That car took off in the direction of Buenos Aires.

“Twenty minutes ago, the car passed this checkpoint”—Cortina pointed with the riding crop—“which leads us to suspect that it is headed for the petit-hotel at O’Higgins and José Hernández in Belgrano, which von Gradny-Sawz recently leased. We should know that for sure in an hour or two.

“The truck then proceeded to this point”—Cortina pointed again—“on the road to Tres Arroyos. There is a field there in which Company B of the 10th Mountain Regiment had bivouacked overnight while on a road march exercise. The SS officer and his men left Señor Loche’s truck and got into two trucks belonging to Company B.

“Cranz and Raschner conferred briefly with el Coronel Schmidt, commander of the 10th Mountain Regiment, and then everybody left. Herr Loche’s truck, carrying the Argentinos who had been on the beach, plus Cranz and Raschner, headed up National Route Two toward Buenos Aires—”

He paused and pointed at another map.

“—and twenty minutes ago passed this point. Thirty minutes ago, the Mountain Troop convoy passed this point—” He pointed at another map. “It seems logical to presume they are on their way home to San Martín de los Andes.”