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“I think Cranz is going to kill me as soon as we’re back at El Palomar.”

“Why?” Boltitz asked softly.

“My skin crawled a while back,” von Wachtstein said. “I’m not sure whether he’s intentionally trying to make me afraid, or whether he’s really going to get rid of me on the general principle of covering his ass and making himself look good. So, better safe than sorry.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“If he killed me, he would have to explain tha

t he found out about me. That would get my father hung on a meat hook.”

“So would your killing him.”

Von Wachtstein nodded.

“The choice, Karl, is either two dead von Wachtsteins—which would mean the end of the bloodline—or one von Wachtstein left alive and one SS sonofabitch dead. And more of them dead later.”

“Hans, don’t do anything impetuously,” Boltitz said, then, really surprising von Wachtstein, added: “I will pray for you.” He raised his voice. “Now just stand on it to force the air out, von Wachtstein. Don’t jump; that will puncture the fabric.”

Cranz walked up a moment later.

“Is there a reason Schmidt’s men can’t stand on there?” he asked. “We should be getting back to El Palomar, von Wachtstein.”

“Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer.”

“That sounded good, von Wachtstein, but from this moment, I again am Commercial Attaché Cranz.”

Von Wachtstein nodded.

“We’ll see you back in Buenos Aires, Boltitz. Make it in the morning. I think we have all done enough for the day.”

[SIX]

It was a three-hundred-meter walk up an incline from the shoreline to where the Storch was parked beside the trucks. Cranz walked behind von Wachtstein, and all the way von Wachtstein was very much aware of how the Luger P-08 in the low pocket was banging against his leg.

Not because it was uncomfortable—that too, of course—but because he didn’t see how Cranz could not notice it.

As they approached the trucks, the first of them moved off, and by the time they got to the Storch, only two were left.

“Good!” Cranz said, and a moment later von Wachtstein took his meaning. One of the soldiers in blue coveralls was standing ten feet away from the Storch. Beside the soldier were two twenty-liter gasoline cans.

Herr Standartenführer wants to make sure we don’t run out of benzene on the way to Buenos Aires.

As von Wachtstein topped off the tanks, he was afraid the swinging bulge on his right leg would attract Cranz’s attention. It didn’t. Cranz was watching one of the last two trucks drive off.

The last, its doors open, was just about empty. This truck apparently would carry the rubber boats and what men remained. The others had carried off the half-dozen wooden crates and the rest of the soldiers, both those uniformed and those wearing the blue coveralls.

“Can you hurry that up a bit?” Cranz called to von Wachtstein.

“I just finished, Herr Sta . . . Cranz. We’re ready to go anytime you are.”

By the time they’d gotten into the Storch and taxied to the end of the landing strip, the last of the trucks was moving off. Aside from some tire and foot marks, there was nothing on the beach that would tell anyone what had happened here.

By the time the runway lights of El Palomar appeared, von Wachtstein was not nearly so afraid of being shot once Cranz was safely on the ground as he had been.

Cranz had spent almost the entire flight wallowing in the success of the operation, first thinking about it, then sharing his thoughts with von Wachtstein, as if seeking his confirmation:

“All things considered, von Wachtstein, I’d say that Oberst Schmidt did a fine job. Just about as good as a German officer could have done. Wouldn’t you say?”