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Cranz got up, walked to the door, locked it, and then went back to the conference table.

“May I have another look at that, please?” Cranz asked.

Von Lutzenberger handed him the letter that had been inside the manila envelope, the only thing that the diplomatic pouch had held.

“Von Wachtstein knows nothing of this, right?” Cranz asked. “You didn’t let anything slip, Gradny-Sawz?”

“Of course not.”

“And Boltitz?” Cranz pursued.

“No, he doesn’t know anything about this. The only people who do are in this room, plus of course Raschner.”

“I want it kept that way,” Cranz said. “And your covert identity arrangements . . . Everything is in place?”

“Including, as of yesterday, a nice flat—two servants included—in a petit-hotel at O’Higgins 1950 in Belgrano.”

Cranz nodded and said: “So all that remains is to see Oberst Perón, to get those Mountain Troops to provide security on the beach, and to move the special shipment and the SS guard detail to San Martín de los Andes. The latter may pose a problem.”

“How so?”

“The incident at Frade’s house upset Oberst Perón,” Cranz said. “But I think I can deal with him.”

[THREE]

Apartamento 5B

Arenales 1623

Buenos Aires, Argentina

1750 24 September 1943

El Coronel Juan Domingo Perón was in uniform, but his tunic was unbuttoned and his tie pulled down, when he came out of his apartment onto the elevator landing. He was not smiling.

“Commercial Counselor” Karl Cranz was not surprised. The portero in the lobby of the building had told Cranz—as he obviously had been instructed to do—that Perón was not at home, and it had been necessary to slip him ten pesos—and, when that didn’t work, ultimately fifty—before he was willing to forget his instructions and telephone Perón’s apartment only when Cranz was on the elevator and it was too late to stop him.

“Mi coronel,” Cranz said as charmingly as he could, “please believe me when I say I would not intrude on your privacy were it not very im - portant.”

Perón did not reply to that directly. Instead, he said, “I didn’t know you knew where I lived, Cranz.”

“I went to the Frade house on Libertador, mi coronel. The housekeeper told me.”

That was not true. The housekeeper in the Frade mansion across from the racetrack on Avenida Libertador had—and only reluctantly—told him only that el Coronel Perón no longer lived in the mansion and that she had no idea where he had moved.

It had cost Raschner two days of effort and several hundred pesos to get the address, which came with the information that he was sharing his new quarters with his fourteen-year-old “niece.”

“That woman has a big mouth,” Perón said unpleasantly.

“Mi coronel, I have to have a few minutes of your time,” Cranz said.

“Why?”

“Another special shipment is about to arrive. We need your help.”

The news did not seem to please Perón.

“Wait,” he ordered curtly. He turned and went back into his apartment and closed the door.