Twisted Tango

By Richard J. Walter

Peter Benton arrives in Buenos Aires, Argentina in June 1945 to investigate possible fraud in the local office of a foreign film distributor. In Buenos Aires, he reunites with his partner from his days in the OSS, who has been posted to the U.S. embassy. His friend recruits him to spy on the most powerful figure in Argentina, Colonel Juan Pern, and his young mistress, Eva Duarte. Complicating the assignment is the simultaneous arrival of a former Germany army officer who is on a secret mission to deliver gold to Pern that will help pave the way for the re-birth of the Third Reich. Benton soon finds himself caught up in a dangerous game of high-stakes diplomacy, political intrigure, deceit, and betrayal, a game that not only puts his own life in danger but one that threatens the life of the young Argentine beauty with whom he falls in love. This story of suspense and romance is told against the realistic backdrop of a major turning point in the history of Argentina and its relations with the United States.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469709758

Richard J. Walter

Richard J. Walter is professor emeritus of History at Washington University in St. Louis. He has written scholarly books on the political and social history of Argentina and Chile and on relations between Peru and the United States. He is the author of a previously-published novel, Twisted Tango. He lives in St. Louis with his wife Susana. They have three children, nine grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter.

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Chapter One

Thursday, May 31, 1945—Centinela del Mar, Argentina—12:40 A.M.

Brad Taylor was cold, wet, and tired.

What was he doing, he thought to himself, five thousand miles away from home, sitting behind some scrub bushes trying to get some warmth and shelter as a wind-driven mist blew off the wave-flecked South Atlantic? Inland, the day had been pleasant enough, with temperatures in the low seventies. But as night had fallen, the temperature had dropped into the fifties and a damp fog had begun to penetrate through the extra layers of clothing he wore.

It was well past midnight and he was hunkered down some forty miles south of Mar del Plata, Argentina on what seemed a fool’s mission. From his perch, he could see waves break with a steady thud on the rocky beach below as he scanned the horizon for what he was told might appear a few hundred yards offshore. Just when it would appear was not known, but his boss, the head of the FBI unit at the United States Embassy in Buenos Aires, had ordered him to keep watch on this lonely stretch of coast and report back if he spotted anything. The intelligence that an important former Nazi officer might try to land, his boss had assured him, was solid.

Taylor had his doubts. This was the third fruitless night he had endured this lonely stretch of shoreline. He was one of a half dozen agents scattered up and down a hundred-miles of the coastline, mostly in places like his, isolated areas but with a roadway linking the beach to a main highway. The agents covered an area roughly fifty miles north and fifty miles south of the beach resort of Mar del Plata, where Taylor had checked into a small hotel earlier in the week. Mar del Plata, a bustling tourist attraction in the South American summer, a Mecca for well-to-do Argentines escaping the heat of the cities, was now almost deserted as fall began to give way to winter. The coastal areas where he and his fellow agents lay in hiding were even more desolate, with only the occasional fisherman showing up at dawn and a few scattered farms and their inhabitants along the access road.

There were not enough agents to man an around-the-clock operation in such remote locations. Therefore, their boss had gambled that whatever would happen would most likely happen at night when any landing had the best chances of going unobserved. Accordingly, the agents arrived at their posts just as the sun set and stayed on duty until dawn. They were supposed to remain out of sight and try to stay awake as best they could. Taylor had driven down from Mar del Plata in the late afternoon, hiding his car in a grove of trees and walking the mile or so to the spot above the beach where he was now waiting.

Taking a sip of now tepid tea from his thermos, Taylor hugged himself in a futile effort to stay warm. Despite his discomfort, Taylor knew that—even though it might not seem so at the moment—he was doing important work. Graduating from Georgetown Law School in 1940, he had immediately joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a field agent. The son of a policeman, he was inspired by the Bureau’s aggressive attack on organized crime and the firm leadership of Director Hoover. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he prepared to leave the FBI and join the military until his supervisor convinced him that he could do more to fight the Axis by staying in the Bureau. Working with British Intelligence, the FBI had carved out a special assignment, monitoring Axis espionage agents in Latin America. Attached to embassies throughout the hemisphere, agents like Taylor had been crucial in identifying and neutralizing German and Italian spies and their local supporters, contributing substantially to the war effort. Taylor, who had decent but not great Spanish language skills, had been assigned to various posts. He had begun in Mexico and had worked his way down to Argentina, where the greatest number of Axis agents and sympathizers were concentrated. While what he did was often tedious and dull, Taylor knew its rewards and felt proud of what he had been able to accomplish. If it just weren’t so damn wet and cold and he wasn’t so uncomfortable!

With the war in Europe over and victory in the Pacific seemingly inevitable, Taylor and his fellow agents thought they would soon be heading home after long years in the field—just like the GIs. But the powers-that-be in Washington remained concerned that fascism might reappear in the western hemisphere, even after the defeat of the Axis. They feared that many of the key figures in Hitler’s regime would try to escape to the remote regions of southern South America, where they could expect a warm greeting and shelter from their sympathizers.

And that was why he was risking pneumonia. The embassy had picked up information that suggested a high-ranking German officer—a Colonel Dieter von Strasser—was on his way to Argentina for refuge and that he would land sometime during the last week of May in a remote coastal region, probably by U-Boat, a dozen of which were currently unaccounted for and presumably ferrying passengers out of the way of the Allied roundup of Nazis. Just when and where the officer might land could not be determined, but the chances that it would be somewhere along the coast where Taylor and others were stationed were good. The intelligence also said that landing with von Strasser would be a large quantity of gold intended to pave the way for other Nazis and their ilk to follow.

Fighting to stay awake, Taylor found it increasingly difficult to concentrate. Looking constantly at the sea, he was almost hypnotized by the cresting waves, which, he speculated, would make any landing hazardous. The intermittent fog and mist hindered his visibility and his eyes were beginning to feel the sting of effort and fatigue. To give them a rest, he closed them for a minute and turned away from the sea to look over his shoulder behind him. Just as he did so, he suddenly saw the lights of two vehicles appear through the gloom. They were coming from the west on the rough, unpaved road that ran through a defile and led to the beach below. When they were about fifty yards away, Taylor could begin to make out their size and shape.

The one in front was a Ford sedan of fairly recent vintage. It was followed by a truck with a cab in front and a flat open back covered with a canvas tarp. Both were black, blending into the night. Gradually, they made their way off the road to the edge of the beach, gray boulders looming on either side.

Taylor dug into his knapsack and withdrew his army-issue binoculars. While the mist and fog partially obscured his view, he could see four men get out of the car and two from the truck. They all looked hefty, dressed in black leather jackets with their hats pulled down tightly over their ears.

As they made their way to the shoreline, he caught snatches of their conversation. From their pronounced accents, he knew that they were Argentines. Apparently confident that they were alone, they did nothing to hide their presence. Clustering in a group near the water’s edge, they focused their attention eastward. After a few minutes, Taylor could see them check their watches and nod their heads with what looked like satisfaction. Then, two of them produced flashlights and began signaling in unison in stop and start flashes.

By this time, Taylor’s pulse was racing and all signs of fatigue and skepticism had disappeared. He was now fully alert and barely felt the damp cold that had chilled him so thoroughly only minutes before. Of course, what he was seeing might be something totally innocent, but, given the conditions, that seemed highly unlikely. The behavior of the men below indicated that they fully expected to receive something or someone from the surging tide—and soon.

It now seemed certain that the embassy’s intelligence had been right. Taylor felt a thrill of excitement. Of all the agents posted along the coast, he was the lucky one to be in the right place at the right time!

He took a minute to check his watch, which showed ten after one. Not a minute later, he could see four of the six men on the beach head closer towards the water, which lapped at their feet. Almost on cue, the fog lifted and the clouds parted, letting in the moonlight. In the distance, like a whale breaking to the surface, the FBI man could make out the massive gray shape of a German submarine emerging from the choppy green water. He guessed that it was about one hundred yards from shore. From what he could tell, it was one of the new U-class snorkels that reportedly could cross the Atlantic without surfacing. At any rate, he knew that it was not one of the Allied fleet and that it was not here by accident. It had a mission and, given the circumstances, it had to be an important one.

Putting down his binoculars for a few seconds, he rubbed his eyes as if in disbelief at what he was witnessing. When he raised them again, he was able to see a large rubber raft propelled by several men riding the rough waves from the sub to the beach. Several times, atop the crest of the waves, it seemed ready to topple and overturn, but whether through the strength and skill of the men propelling it, or sheer luck, it finally landed on shore to be met by the six Spanish-speakers, who waded knee-deep into the water and pulled it safely to the beach.

By now, moonlight illuminated the entire scene and Taylor had a clear view of the drama being played out in front of him. Quickly, the men in the boat joined those on the beach, holding down the raft so that a tall, well-built figure could disembark. Once on shore, the tall man stood to one side, surveying the operation with his hands held akimbo on his hips in a posture of command. He appeared to view what was going on in front of him with interest but also with an air of some detachment. Taylor could not make out his features, but he did see a flash of blonde hair under a military-style cap. He couldn’t swear from a distance that it was indeed Colonel von Strasser, but from what he remembered of the photo he had been shown of the Nazi officer he was willing to bet that it was. And, given the circumstances, who else could it be?

Everyone except the man that Taylor assumed was von Strasser turned to unloading a series of heavy crates from the raft. Taylor counted a total six, each of which required at least two men to unload and only with considerable effort. Staggering under the weight, they carried their cargo from the raft to the nearby truck. The whole maneuver took about twenty minutes to complete. Once the boxes were loaded, the crew from the sub returned to the raft, leaving the tall blonde behind. Without as much as a wave goodbye, they launched themselves into the ocean and back to the waiting U-Boat. The man left behind—the presumed von Strasser—joined the Argentines who had received him and began to head toward the waiting sedan and truck. Along the way, however, he paused to turn and peer intently at the very spot where Taylor lay.

Taylor’s heart seemed to stop for a minute. Dressed in black and lying on his stomach behind some bushes, he felt secure in his position. Nonetheless, the man he suspected was von Strasser continued to stare in his direction. While he could not make out the words, Taylor could hear him talking to the reception committee and see him pointing and inclining his head towards his hiding place. Taylor couldn’t believe they had seen him, but he breathed a healthy sigh of relief when, after a few minutes, the men on the beach turned and resumed their march to their vehicles.

Once again he noted the time—now almost a quarter to two. Through his binoculars, he saw four of the Argentines return to the

Ford sedan while the blonde-haired man accompanied the remaining two to the cab of the truck, now laden down with the cargo from the raft. Starting their engines, they began to back off the beach and onto the road to the main highway.

His pulse racing, Taylor watched the two vehicles make their way through the defile and head out of sight. Now able to confirm what the embassy had suspected, he could hardly wait to report on what he had witnessed. The tall man from the submarine was undoubtedly the important German officer—Colonel Dieter von Strasser—he had been assigned to locate. And the six crates he had seen unloaded onto the beach and reloaded on the waiting truck he was sure contained the Nazi gold that von Strasser had brought with him.

Gathering his gear, he rose and began to walk hurriedly to where he had hidden his car. Anxious to get back to Mar del Plata and report to the embassy and concentrating on remembering all the details of what he had seen, Taylor was totally unprepared for what happened next. As he rounded a bend in the path back to his car, four men jumped him.

Taylor had been correct in is belief that the man he suspected was von Strasser had not seen him. But, exerting supreme caution, the newly-arrived stranger had scouted the terrain for the most likely observation post. Then, when out of Taylor’s sight, he had ordered the caravan to stop and had sent the four men in the sedan to search the area, looking for anyone who might have been observing what had taken place on the beach. Even though the four Argentines thought such a possibility extremely unlikely, they were under strict orders to do whatever the blonde man told them to do.

Hearing Taylor make his way from his observation post, the four men had lain in wait. Caught totally by surprise, Taylor didn’t have a chance. Two of the men grabbed his arms, pinning them to his back while a third grabbed his forehead. A fourth efficiently cut his throat. As his life ended, Taylor carried with him to eternity any first-hand evidence of what he had seen and of how right the FBI’s intelligence had been. By the time the four men had carried his body to the truck for disposal later, all evidence of what had happened had been wiped clean. The two vehicles with their mysterious blonde passenger and his cargo then disappeared into the night.

Chapter Two

Friday, June 1, 1945—Buenos Aires—10:00 A.M.

Ray Johnson, head of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation special intelligence team for Southern South America based in Argentina’s capital city, Buenos Aires, lit up his second cigarette of the day and took a deep drag. He had picked up a new pack of an American brand from the kiosk on Calle Florida during his daily walk to the U.S. Consulate above the Bank of Boston at the intersection of Florida and Diagonal Roque Saenz Pena. Usually, he was able to get American brands at the embassy commissary at a reduced price, but they had run out and were not expecting a new shipment for another week. He shrugged and accepted this minor inconvenience with his usual stoicism.

He had been assigned to Buenos Aires only a few months earlier and until this morning had been enjoying his new posting. From the beginning of the war, he had accepted Director Hoover’s argument that protecting the southern flank of the U.S. from a potential Axis threat was important work. He had taken assignments throughout the hemisphere, but this was his first time in Buenos Aires, considered the main hub of most hemispheric counter-Axis activity. He liked the pace of life in this big, cosmopolitan city, untouched by the ravages and deprivations of the larger global conflict. Strolling along Florida, a pedestrian-only street running north and south through the heart of the city’s main commercial and governmental center, Johnson often took time to admire the expensive goods on display in shop window after shop window. Most of the portenos, those of the port city, as the locals were called, he passed along the way were elegantly dressed, reminding him of the fashionable streets of Paris and New York.

He also liked his office. Given his rank, he was allotted spacious quarters on the sixth floor, with a view up the broad Diagonal to the Plaza de la Republica and its famous monument, the Obelisco, constructed in 1936 to commemorate the first founding of the city four centuries earlier. Seen through his window, the Obelisco seemed a smaller version of the Washington Monument, which, back home at the Department of Justice, he could also see from his office window.

Today, however, these surroundings provided little comfort. Running his fingers through his thinning red hair, he fiddled nervously at his desk. He was confident that the information he had received two weeks earlier was sound. High-ranking Nazis had abandoned the now sunken ship and were heading for South America. British Intelligence had determined that a particularly important figure, a Colonel Dieter von Strasser, was slated to land in Argentina at the end of May with the exact date and location of his arrival uncertain. He was bringing with him, the British had told him, a large quantity of gold. Not only was von Strasser looking to save his own skin, he also planned to pave the way for others to follow. Friendly sources in the Argentine Foreign Ministry had confirmed this information. While the local government itself was run by pro-Axis military men, there were some civilian appointees who opposed official policy and had been sympathetic to the Allies throughout. While their numbers were small, they had been more than happy to supply Johnson and the embassy with whatever information they had that might prove useful. Acting on that information, Johnson had scattered six agents under his command along the likely landing spots north and south of Mar del Plata. So far, their daily calls to him had reported nothing unusual and he sensed that some of the agents were becoming bored and restless, concerned that they were chasing ghosts. But Johnson urged them to keep at it for at least a few more days.

What had Johnson particularly worried this morning, as he lit his third cigarette of the day off of the second, was the failure of one of his agents surveying the coast to contact him. Five of the six had called him that morning, but the sixth, Brad Taylor, one of his best agents, had not been heard from for almost two days. Taylor might have suffered some kind of accident, Johnson speculated, or had fallen sick. Or perhaps something more dire had happened to him. For the moment, however, there was not much Johnson could do about it. He considered having one of his other agents leave his post to check on Taylor but was afraid that would leave crucial sections of the coast unobserved. And, for the moment, he was too short of manpower to send anyone down from Buenos Aires to find out what had happened.

To add to what was becoming a growing knot in his stomach, he was supposed to report on a daily basis to the ambassador as soon as his agents checked in. The ambassador, a foreign-service professional who had arrived only eleven days earlier, had expressed doubts about the whole operation. The ambassador thought the FBI men would be better employed trying to keep an eye on the many pro-Nazi groups in Buenos Aires rather than engage in what might be a wild-goose chase two hundred miles to the south. He had only reluctantly agreed to the plan when Johnson had vouched for the quality of the information. Now that Taylor had apparently gone missing, his failure to report threatened to foul up the whole mission. Or, seen another way, his failure to check in might mean that he had actually encountered something, something that proved Johnson’s information had been on target.

The new ambassador, Spruille Braden, was as colorful as they came. Scion of a family that had made a fortune in copper mining in South America, he spoke flawless Spanish and knew the region as well or better than any U.S. diplomat. He had accompanied President Roosevelt on his wildly successful good-will visit to Buenos Aires in 1936 and had many excellent contacts both in Washington and in Argentina. Weighing almost three hundred pounds, he was nobody’s idea of a matinee idol. The local press had delighted in greeting his arrival with many caricatures, often with him wearing an outsized cowboy hat and swinging a lariat, suggesting a naive and out-of-control character. While there was some truth to the caricature, it belied his savvy, experience, and dogged commitment to furthering U.S. interests as he saw them.

Braden had arrived at a time of continuing and deepening crisis. While other Latin American nations had joined the Allied cause after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Argentina had declared its neutrality in the conflict. Despite considerable U.S. pressure to accompany its neighbors in the war effort, the country retained its neutral position until it was clear that the Axis cause was doomed. Only then, late in the game, did it agree to break relations and declare war on Germany. At the same time, on the domestic front, a formerly obscure colonel who had participated in the overthrow of the last civilian government in June of 1943, Juan Peron, was maneuvering to absorb all state power in his own hands. He currently served as both vice president and minister of war. But his real base of support was from the nation’s large and growing working class, who had received and continued to receive benefits from Peron in his position as secretary of labor.

Braden had made clear from the beginning his dislike and distrust of Peron, whom he viewed as an Argentine version of a would-be Mussolini or Hitler. With the Allied defeat of fascism in Europe and impending victory in Asia, Braden was determined not to have totalitarianism crop up in South America. So he did what he could to warn Washington of what he saw as the growing danger Peron represented and went to work at once on the local scene to try to rally democratic forces to overcome their notorious factionalism and unite to confront the threat that the would-be-dictator posed. In this effort, he had begun to push the boundaries of the official non-intervention principles of Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy and to step on more than a few official toes.

Ray Johnson liked Braden, He appreciated his straightforward, no-nonsense approach to problems and his willingness to bend the rules to achieve the greater good. He also shared with him a strong aversion to fascism and an equally strong commitment to democracy. Johnson had spent time in Europe before the war and had seen close up the development of Hitler’s regime and had been appalled by its viciousness and intolerance as well as dismayed by the broader popular support that fascist regimes had been able to generate not only in Germany but also in other European countries. The war had revealed many of its odious features and he profoundly hoped that the Allied victory would signal the final end not only the fascist regimes but also of the ideology and its influence. Like the ambassador, he was determined to do what he could to prevent any Nazi exports to Argentina and to combat to the best of his ability any possibility that fascism would take root in the Americas.

The immediate problem, however, was to inform Braden of Taylor’s failure to report. Ordinarily, he communicated by phone, using a simple code to let the ambassador know that all the agents had contacted him. But the phones were more than likely tapped by the Argentines and Johnson wanted to meet Braden face-to-face to inform him of Taylor’s status and to discuss what to do next. To that end, he had his secretary call Braden’s office to set up the personal meeting. As he mulled over what he would say, his secretary informed him that the ambassador could see him right away. Johnson asked her to tell Ambassador Braden that he would be at the embassy in twenty minutes. He then grabbed his coat and hat and hustled down the stairs to the street below.

The embassy was about a mile away, on the exclusive Avenida Alvear, housed in a French-style mansion constructed by one of the fabulously wealthy Argentine oligarchs of the turn of the century. The oligarchy was composed of families who had made their fortunes through the ownership of vast amounts of land on the fabled Argentine pampas and who had benefited from the development of one of the world’s most productive agricultural economies. Their wealth had been such that when they descended on Paris prepared to buy up everything in sight, the French had coined the phrase Rich as an Argentine. The particular family who had previously owned the embassy building, however, had fallen on hard times and that had allowed the U.S. government to purchase the property at what, for the neighborhood, was a reasonable price.

On most occasions, Johnson would have enjoyed walking to the embassy, but with time pressing, he decided to take one of the ubiquitous taxicabs. Having no trouble in immediately hailing one headed in the right direction, he found himself deposited at the embassy door in less than ten minutes. Ushered through quickly by the guards, he made his way to the second floor to the ambassador’s suite of offices, checking in with Braden’s secretary, who notified her boss of his arrival. In a few seconds, Johnson heard Braden’s voice telling him to enter.

Seated behind his desk, covered with what appeared to be intelligence reports as well as several Argentine newspapers, the burly ambassador gestured for Johnson to take the seat opposite him. He immediately spotted the concerned look on the FBI official’s face and asked:

What’s wrong Ray? What’s happened?

Johnson got right to the point. One of our agents on the coast seems to be missing.

Which one?

Brad Taylor, one of our best, Johnson responded.

How do you know he’s missing? Braden asked with a rising note of concern in his voice.

Well, of the six we have out there, he is the only one who has not reported in over the past two days. It may be a communication foul-up, but I’m worried that it’s something worse.

Braden looked troubled and, to Johnson, tired and distracted. Despite his renowned strength and stamina, he seemed less energetic this morning.

The ambassador read Johnson’s mind.

I’m sorry Ray, he explained. "We had a long night. You know how these Argentines are. We were invited to dinner at the home of one of the Radical party’s leaders last night. I should have known better, but we need him on board if we’re to counter that hijo de puta Peron. Johnson flinched a bit at the ambassador using very undiplomatic language in describing Peron as a son of a bitch, but it was also one of the things he liked about Braden. The invitation was for nine, so, knowing how things work around here, we arrived a bit later, but even so were the first to arrive. We didn’t eat until midnight and didn’t get back to residence until about five this morning. Three hours of sleep just doesn’t get the job done for me at my age."

Johnson knew that Braden had also been the guest of honor at a luncheon banquet hosted by the local American business community the day before. Given the pace of social engagements that involved consumption of large amounts of food, the FBI chief doubted the ambassador would be losing weight anytime soon, no matter how hard he was working.

Braden sighed and shifted his considerable bulk. Rubbing his hands over his face, he went on: But enough about me. I share your worries about Taylor. You may be right that it is nothing more than a communications problem, or, echoing Johnson’s own thoughts,

Maybe he’s sick or had some kind of accident. But it also might be something more serious. Maybe he stumbled onto something and got caught.

That’s what I’m afraid of, Mr. Ambassador.

Well, Ray, you know I’ve had reservations about the entire operation from the beginning. We have too many pressing problems here in the capital to be assigning manpower to try to track what might well be a phantom Braden said with a scowl. Johnson was tempted to remind the ambassador that one of the arguments that he had used to convince Braden to approve the coastal surveillance was the possibility that Colonel von Strasser might turn the gold he transported over to none other than Colonel Juan Peron. If the FBI could somehow prevent that from occurring or, failing that, reveal the direct connection between the Nazis and Peron, that would make Braden’s task of undermining the Argentine strongman that much easier. But Johnson knew that Braden was fully aware of that possibility and reminding him of it at this point did not seem advisable.

Replacing his scowl with a look of concern, Braden went on: "But finding out what has happened to Taylor must have priority. If you don’t hear from him by the end of the day, send a couple of agents assigned to surveillance duties here down to the coast to investigate. We need to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible."

If you don’t mind Mr. Ambassador, Johnson responded, I’d like to go there myself. That way, we’ll only pull one agent off surveillance.

Braden seemed to understand: "Okay Ray, but don’t take too long. We need you back here in Buenos Aires. In the meantime, have your deputy—what’s his name … ?

Anderson, sir. Frank Anderson.

That’s right. Sorry Ray, but it’s taking me a while to get all the staff straight. At any rate, he continued, tell Anderson to take over until you get back. Also, you might want to see if you can get one of the Brits to go along. They’ve been pretty helpful so far and one more set of eyes couldn’t hurt.

Yes sir, Johnson replied. I know Miles Cavendish pretty well. He’s one of their Intelligence guys and seems as concerned as we are about ex-Nazis heading for Argentina.

As Johnson rose to leave, the ambassador heaved himself from his chair and came around his desk to escort the FBI head out of his office. Putting his hand on Johnson’s shoulder as they walked to the door, Braden said, Good luck to you Ray. Let’s hope we hear from Taylor and find out that this has all been an easily-explained snafu. But I have an uneasy feeling that it’s more serious. Johnson, his face grim, simply nodded his agreement. Whatever you find Ray, Braden added, Be sure to keep me posted.

Thank you Mister Ambassador, Johnson said. I certainly will.

Leaving Braden’s office, Johnson gave the ambassador’s secretary a curt nod and headed out the building to begin the search for his missing agent.

Chapter Three

Thursday, May 31, 1945—New York City—10:06 A.M.

Just a minute son, I need a word with you.

I was by now automatically suspicious whenever Clyde Jamieson adopted his paternal tone. After only a few weeks of working with him, his patterns and habits had become abundantly clear. The formal Mr. Benton meant he wanted me to do something he really had his doubts I could handle. Calling me by my first name, Pete, indicated that he could trust me with some minor chore, one that we could probably handle together like friends of long-term acquaintance. A simple Benton was a clear signal that I had slipped up somehow and he was concealing his fury at me by only the slimmest of margins. Son or My Boy was reserved for those occasions when he had something slightly distasteful for me to handle, something akin to taking out the garbage in a paper bag that leaked at the bottom. In the past, these tasks had ranged from carrying checks to various banks to cover bills past due to arranging a new apartment for the somewhat faded but still, to him at least, alluring mistress he had been keeping in modest comfort for many years—apparently with the happy consent of his wife, who seemed relieved not to have him all to herself.

Jamieson’s relationship with me was complicated. He had been a friend of my father’s from their days together at Andover and then at Princeton, where they retained their ties even though they belonged to different eating clubs. My father, Cyrus Benton, had then gone on to Columbia law school and a successful career as an expert in international business law. By the early 1940s, his expertise, and his undoubted ability, had made him indispensable to the powerful New York interests planning to establish preeminent positions in the postwar reconstruction efforts. The high fees these interests paid him provided our family with a spacious and well-furnished apartment on the West Side of Central Park and a summer home on Cape Cod.

Jamieson had not been so fortunate. At Princeton, he had majored in English literature and had taken an active interest in campus theatre where he established himself as an energetic if not abundantly talented character actor. A tendency to excess in food and drink came to affect his performances on the stage and in the classroom. He managed to graduate with a Gentlemen’s C, although, as I heard my father utter in the acerbic tone he often took, not always behaving like a gentleman. After graduation, Jamieson set forth on an acting career. The first years saw him achieve some measure of fame with roles in a few Broadway productions and Hollywood films. But the fondness for food and drink followed him into middle age, dooming him eventually to bit parts in the occasional stage play or radio serial. He still retained a deep and resonant voice, which he could modulate and manipulate with the skill of a musician. But increasingly it emanated from a bloated and dissipated body which only with great difficulty and considerable huffing and puffing could make its way up more than one flight of stairs. Our office was only on the second floor of a mid-town Manhattan building, but Jamieson invariably took the elevator.

Sometime in the late 1930s Jamieson had a crisis. I was away at college at the time and missed the graphic details, although my mother filled me in on the basics when I returned for Christmas vacation my sophomore year. A few years earlier, while he still had some of his looks and stage presence, Jamieson had married well into a Long Island family of some means. His wife, a shy and somewhat plain woman, but with a strong will and a healthy pocketbook, had taken him on as something of a reclamation project, hoping against all the evidence that Jamieson’s career might flourish with the proper emotional and financial backing. After a series of theatrical fiascos and humiliating public affairs, which dashed any hopes of Jamieson achieving any stature as an actor or making her marriage a happy one, she delivered an ultimatum; either find a steady job and a more discreet manner of indulging his tastes for other women, or she would leave him high, dry, and penniless.

It was at this point that Jamieson approached my father for help. Just why, I was never too sure. They did not move in the same social circles and although we lived only a few blocks from each other, I had no memory of Jamieson as a guest in our home. My father, too, was something of a prude, who valued self-discipline and self-control and who was not hesitant to express his negative opinion of those who did not possess these virtues. On the other hand, he also placed great store in another old-fashioned value—unwavering loyalty to family and friends. And, however much in the past it might have been, he and Jamieson had once been friends. He also hated waste, especially the waste of talent and ability. Jamieson, therefore, sensitive to my father’s nature, approached him with some certainty that he would receive the assistance he sought.

It so happened that my father had as a client an agency involved in the distribution of motion pictures abroad. The agency served as a kind of clearing house for the major studios and negotiated the release of their latest hits to markets in Europe and Latin America. At the time Mrs. Jamieson issued her ultimatum, the agency, Films for Foreign Distribution, Inc., or FFD, was looking for a local New York manager. My father, who had helped the agency resolve many a foreign legal tangle—and make a good deal of money—recommended Jamieson for the position.

In many ways, it was a good fit. Although he had acted in only a few films himself, Jamieson understood the movie business well. And his acquaintance with the world of the theater and entertainment, plus his own career, gave him credibility as a distributor. His Princeton degree, no matter how tainted, added to his credentials. Although he was a bit weak on the business side, my father argued and the agency’s owners agreed that others in the office could take care of the details. I’m not sure they were entirely convinced that Jamieson was the best choice, but my father was a powerful advocate and eventually they agreed to hire his old-school chum.

Jamieson’s office reflected his career. Along the walls were still shots of him in several productions that spanned the past decade or so, showing rather starkly the physical changes that had taken place. His desk was clear except for the obligatory picture of his wife—there were no children—and a class picture from Princeton that included him and my father, a reminder of the connection that had landed him his job. As always, he was dressed to the nines in an impeccable three-piece suit, his thick dark hair pasted down with some kind of lotion that gave it an oily shine. Beneath the veneer, however, I could see the broken veins in his eyes and nose that bore witness to his weaknesses.

As usual, he was a bit uncomfortable with me, not sure exactly how to deal with his benefactor’s son. I had been thrust on him rather unexpectedly. Returning from service in the war in Europe earlier in the year, my father had convinced me to apply for admission to his old law school at Columbia. I had dutifully filled in the applications and had been accepted for admission in the fall, not entirely sure at this point whether it was something I really wanted to do. Being at loose ends, my father had suggested I take a position as an administrative assistant—really, a glorified clerk—in the offices of the FFD until classes started. It would give me something to do, he argued, help me earn a little money and, keep me from moping about the apartment all day. A little business experience, he added, couldn’t hurt. Not discounting his undoubted good intentions, I also suspected that he could use me as a way to keep an eye on his old Princeton classmate and provide progress reports from time to time, although he was much too discreet and subtle to say so outright. I suspected, too, that Jamieson himself shared this same thought.

With his usual theatrical flourish, Jamieson invited me to a seat opposite him, purposely lower than his own so as to provide an advantage. To counter the ploy, I sat with my back straight on the seat’s edge and, given the two or three inches I had on Jamieson, was able to stare him more or less directly in the eye.

Pete, he began in his booming voice, we have a problem that you might be able to help us with. I noticed that I had moved from son to Pete, suggesting perhaps an interim stage where I would be asked to perform some chore that while not exactly menial would not be of great significance.

How’s your Spanish?

He knew very well that my Spanish was close to native fluency. As a youngster, I had sometimes traveled with my father as he did legal work in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, picking up a smattering of the local language as I did so. The whole family spent an entire summer on a cattle ranch in Venezuela owned by the Rockefellers. I had studied Spanish in the private prep school I had attended. When I had enrolled at Yale instead of Princeton, much to my father’s chagrin, I had majored in Romance Languages and History. With Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French firmly under command, along with a passing knowledge of German, I had graduated with honors in the spring of 1942.

While Jamieson was aware of this, what he and most others did not know was that even before graduation I had been recruited by one of my former professors to enroll in the Office of Strategic Services, more commonly known as the OSS, where I could put my language skills to best use in the war effort. I was assigned first to North Africa and then for most of the rest of my time abroad to Spain. There, I was active on a variety of fronts—spying on German agents, debriefing Allied pilots who had been downed in Axis territory but had made their way across the Pyrenees, and helping Jewish refugees as well as opponents of the Franco regime make their way to freedom. While I was not at the front lines, the duties involved plenty of danger, both from Axis agents and from their sympathizers in Spain. Leaving active service as the war neared its end, I was under orders not to talk about what I had done, much of which was unofficial and which if revealed might weaken out postwar diplomatic position. We had worked very hard to keep the Franco government neutral during the war and by mutual consent had kept our activities as clandestine as possible.

My father and mother had known from the beginning of my recruitment to be among the Shadow Warriors of the OSS. But they also agreed not to broadcast that fact since that information might reach the ears of German espionage agents in the United States and put my life and the lives of others in danger. This put a considerable strain on them, which I deeply regretted. When asked by friends and acquaintances what I was doing during a war where millions of our countrymen and women were in uniform, they were forced to respond rather vaguely that I was involved in diplomacy in Europe. After I returned I was under oath not to reveal even to my closest family members the specific details of what I had done. I feared that my father in particular might have chafed at these restrictions and perhaps was even a little disappointed that I had not been in uniform and closer to the action. But these fears were put to rest when he welcomed me home with obvious relief. And although he never said anything, I felt sure that he had used his many high-level contacts in the world of business and government to keep track of what I was involved in and, I hoped, took some pride in what I had been able to accomplish, even though most of it could not be made public.

Trying to hide my impatience, I responded to Jamieson’s inquiry as to my language abilities: It’s fine Clyde, as you well know.

Good. Very good. Just checking. Just checking.

So, what is this all about? I asked, by now a bit intrigued.

What do you know about Argentina?

More questions. Not too much. We never traveled to southern South America, so all I know is what I’ve heard and read. Argentina is famous for its beef; and, of course, the tango. I also knew that it was only late in the game that the military government there had finally declared war on the Axis. A few weeks ago, on a visit to Washington to deal with some paperwork severing my connection with the OSS, I had run into a college friend of mine working in the State Department. In passing, he had told that we had something of a vendetta against the Argentines, concerned about their pro-fascist tendencies. He had been involved in putting as much pressure as possible on Argentina to shift to our side, pressure that now seemed to be having an effect.

What’s this all about?

Jamieson paused to gather his thoughts. "Look Pete. We do a lot of business in Latin America. They might not always like our government’s policies down there, but they just love our films. He flashed a quick grin and gave a knowing wink. Argentina is our best market. The people there must go to the movies every night. We have a good manager of our Buenos Aires office—Ramon Perez."

At the mention of the name, Clyde wrinkled his brow and a look of mild distaste crossed his face. He’s worked with us for years. But over the past few months the head office has noticed a real decline in our profits, even though we’ve been sending them more films than ever. Something is not right and I was hoping you’d be willing to go down there and try to sort things out. You seem perfect for the job, what with your language skills and familiarity with the region.

It didn’t take me long to respond. I had not found working in the FFD office much of a challenge and was already feeling a bit restless. Still living at home with my parents at the age of twenty-six was beginning to wear on me. Having lost my college sweetheart to my 4-F best friend while I was in Spain had left me with no romantic attachments. A trip to a far-off and unknown land, for whatever purpose, was too attractive to pass up.

Clyde, that sounds great. When do I leave?

As soon as you can pack your bags. Our secretary has your travel arrangements already lined up. You can leave on the Pan American Clipper flight to Buenos Aires tomorrow. It’s the quickest way to go, but you probably still won’t arrive until late afternoon on Sunday, that is if all goes well—which, from my experience, it usually doesn’t.

That’s all right Clyde, I told him. I’m used to long flights.

As I got up to leave, thanking him for the opportunity, I saw a look of relief pass over his face. Whether this was because he had talked me into what might be a difficult assignment with relative ease or simply to have me out of his hair—and unable at least for a while to report to my father—I couldn’t tell. He was still enough of an actor to hide his real emotions. As things turned out, what I encountered in Argentina would be more complicated and difficult than either of us could have predicted.

Chapter Four

Friday, June 1, 1945—New York City—6:30 P.M.

My father and I had just finished our weekly squash game at the New York Athletic Club and were enjoying our traditional post-game drink in the comfortable wood-paneled lobby bar. Even though my father was in his early sixties, he was still in splendid physical condition and our games were always competitive. A bit rusty from not having played during my wartime service, I still managed to win most matches, but not without considerable effort.

To the casual passerby on Seventh Avenue glancing in at the bar, there seemed little physical difference between my father, Cyrus Benton, and me, his son Peter. Indeed, sometimes we were mistaken for brothers. We were of the same height, two inches over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and slim waists. We both had wavy black hair, parted on the right—although my father’s was showing flecks of gray—deep-set blue eyes, and square jaws. As was required at the club, we were both wearing jackets and ties. Our faces were flushed and our hair damp, the result of the recent exercise and an initial sampling of the Scotches we had ordered.

For as long as I could remember, my father had been a driven competitor and while he occasionally let up on his only son, the edge was always there. He could also be supremely self-confident and domineering, traits which helped him enormously in his career but were not always pleasant to deal with on a family level. From early on, I had engaged in minor rebellions like choosing Yale over Princeton in an effort to assert myself without engendering any irreparable break. I suspected that my father, while he would never admit it openly, approved of my independent streak. And, whatever our occasional disputes, I never doubted his love and his loyalty.

After some desultory small talk over family matters involving my younger sister, my only sibling, and the not quite respectable company she seemed to be keeping to the obvious disapproval of my parents, my father switched to the topic of the day.

While we had dressed in the locker room for our match, I had told my father the news that I would be leaving soon for Argentina. He seemed taken aback, but didn’t pursue the matter while we focused on our squash game. Now he got to it.

So Clyde is sending you off to Argentina., he said. I thought I detected both skepticism and concern in his voice.

Yeah Dad. He thinks the FFD manager there is engaged in some kind of funny business. We haven’t been earning the profits we think we should and Clyde wants someone to take a first-hand look at the situation.

My father considered that for a moment, his brow furrowed. I wonder why he is sending you rather than going himself.

Well, I’m handy—and I do speak the language—so why not?

He took a sip of his drink, set his glass down, and with a troubled look gave me an answer.

Look son. You know that I got Clyde his job as a favor to an old college classmate who was in a bad way. We both know the kind of man Clyde is. He said this with a sigh and shrug. One reason I recommended you for the job in his office was not only to give you something to do before you entered law school but also, frankly, to keep something of an eye on Clyde.

This revelation did not come as any great surprise and confirmed my earlier suspicions. But I didn’t want to let my father off the hook without some sort of rejoinder. Feigning more indignation that I felt, I said, Gee Dad. Thanks for letting me know that I was supposed to be a spy and an informer.

Now Peter, he said in a calming tone, Don’t get your nose out of joint. My plan was simply to have occasional conversations about your work and get a sense of how things were going with Clyde. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable or put you into the position of an eavesdropper.

Sensing that he had mollified my indignation with this explanation, he continued: Listen Peter. For the past several months I’ve been getting word from some of my business friends that Clyde has gone pretty far off the rails, running up some large gambling debts. Have you seen any sign of this?

Well no, I haven’t, I replied. And then in a bit of sarcasm that I immediately regretted, added, But of course I haven’t been snooping around the office or poking into his desk.

My father, thankfully, chose not to comment. What I’m getting at, he resumed, is this. There is the possibility that Clyde is on to what I had in mind by placing you in his office. I nodded in confirmation. He is probably trying to get you off his trail by sending you away for a while so he can try to cover his tracks. I nodded again. There is also the possibility that he is in cahoots with his man in Buenos Aires and they have been skimming funds together. He might be planning to shift the blame for his own excesses onto this other fellow. At any rate, there is probably more to all of this than meets the eye. Then, with a serious look, he warned, And I want you to watch out for yourself. From what I know, Argentina is a pretty turbulent place these days.

I appreciate the concern Dad, I said, But I think I can take care of myself. Things were pretty ‘turbulent’ in Spain but I got out of there in one piece.

I suppose you’re right. he admitted somewhat reluctantly. But I wanted to give you a heads-up before you left about what might be going on behind your back. Taking another swallow from his drink, the ice clinking against his glass, he added, I do have contacts in Buenos Aires and I’ll give you some letters of introduction to take with you. The new ambassador there, Spruille Braden, is an old Latin American hand and I have done some business with him in the past. He or somebody on his staff in the embassy should be able to help you out if it becomes necessary.

Thanks Dad. Let’s hope I don’t need any help. My guess is that the whole thing boils down to a case of the local manager getting a little greedy. Probably all he needs is a bit of a scare and a little talking to. I think I can handle that.

My father again looked at me skeptically but didn’t respond. I did not tell him that I had my own contact in Buenos Aires. My best friend and closest partner from the OSS, David Friedman, had been posted to Argentine earlier in the year and worked in the embassy as a junior political officer. I planned to telegraph him as soon as possible to let him know I was coming his way. Of course, my connection with David was supposed to remain confidential, so I said nothing about him to my father. In the end, it appeared, both father and son kept certain things secret from one another.

Chapter Five

Friday, June 1, 1945—Buenos Aires—10:30 A.M.

Ramon Perez thought he might be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. As he looked out the seventh-floor window of his office onto Calle Corrientes, the street that never sleeps, Buenos Aires’s version of Broadway, the yellow cable in his hands fluttered like a humming-bird. And, like a bird, he thought about stepping onto the window ledge, either to fly away or land in a heap on the street below. Once again he read it, hoping that this time the words might change magically before his eyes. But no, there they were, clear as day and in capital letters:

RAMON: OFFICE ASSISTANT PETER BENTON TO ARRIVE BA JUNE 3 ON PANAM 121. PLEASE MEET AT AIRPORT AND TRANSPORT TO HOTEL. IN BA TO CHECK THE BOOKS. BE ADVISED. BE CAREFUL. YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. JAMIESON

Well, he might BE ADVISED, but he certainly had no idea WHAT TO DO.

In many ways, Perez was the mirror image of his U.S. counterpart Jamieson. He was well-born, coming from one of Argentina’s elite families. The full name was Ramon Perez de Anchorena, his mother a daughter of one of the richest men in the country. His father, Ramon Perez, Senior, while not of quite the wealthy and distinguished background as his wife, had enough of a lineage to be acceptable to the Anchorenas and had proved himself a good match by successfully managing family interests in banking and real estate.

Ramon had been raised as a nino bien, a nice way of saying something of a spoiled brat. He was attended to by nursemaids, butlers, and chauffeurs, went to the best private schools, spent his summers on the family estancia, an extensive cattle ranch on the pampas, learned to box, fence, and play polo, enjoyed leisurely lunches at the ornate and exclusive Jockey Club on Calle Florida, and was sent on the European grand tour when he came of age at twenty-one.

Life had come easy for Ramon, but there were also expectations. The eldest of three sons, it was assumed that he would not only carry on the family name through the right marriage but also be prepared to inherit and manage efficiently the family fortune. These expectations, however, were not fulfilled. After several desultory years at the law school of the University of Buenos Aires, an obligatory rite of passage for sons of the elite, years that he spent mostly drinking, gambling, and womanizing, young Ramon dropped out of school to pursue what he considered his destiny, a career in acting. At the time, slim, dark-haired, and with fine, aristocratic features and a pleasant demeanor, he enjoyed some early success. He played various roles in the lively local theater scene of the 1920s and 1930s and often got good reviews. The favorable notices, however, were due more to his family name and influence than to any great talent.

Moving from the stage to participate in the country’s fledgling film industry, the story was much the same. He did appear in some supporting roles with the great popular idol of the time, tango singer and actor Carlos Gardel, who took a liking to him and promised him more prominent roles in the future. But when Gardel died tragically in a plane crash in Medelli’n, Colombia in 1935, he took with him any remote possibility of Ramon becoming a star.

Ramon’s family was less than pleased with his career choice and embarrassed by what they called his bohemian behavior, which included the occasional drunken public spectacle that made the pages of the Buenos Aires tabloid press. After a particularly notorious episode, featured on the front-page of Critica, the nation’s most widely-read and popular newspaper, a family conference made it clear that if Ramon did not change his ways, financial support would be limited if not withdrawn altogether. Ramon knew that he could not continue to live the life to which he had been accustomed—an elegant apartment in the exclusive Barrio Norte, fine clothes, food, and drink, opportunities to travel whenever he choose to wherever he chose, and, most importantly, the wherewithal to attract and entertain the city’s most beautiful women—without the family subsidy. Grudgingly, he agreed to change his ways.

Part of the bargain was to marry Dolores Ortiz de Basualdo, the daughter of another elite family. Love and affection were not part of the bargain. Dolores was both attractive and intelligent, features that on the surface, along with her family wealth, made her eminently desirable for any would-be suitor. But she was also known to possess a violent temper, one that flared up on a regular basis, making her a kind of human Mount Vesuvius, a trait that had discouraged all