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“You’re a little early, Gradny-Sawz,” von Deitzberg accused.

“I came as quickly as I could,” von Gradny-Sawz said. “There was a Condor flight at two this morning.”

This somewhat mystifying statement was explained when von Gradny-Sawz ceremoniously opened his briefcase, took an envelope from it, and handed the envelope to von Deitzberg.

He’s treating that like a message from God!

When he took the envelope and glanced at it, von Deitzberg saw why von Gradny-Sawz was impressed. On the front of the envelope it simply read DER REICHSFÜHRER-SS BERLIN. On the back, where the envelope was sealed, was Himmler’s handwritten signature, his method of ensuring that the envelope could not be opened undetected.

“This has been opened,” von Deitzberg accused.

“The ambassador opened it,” von Gradny-Sawz said, “and then sent me to deliver it to you.”

Von Deitzberg took the two sheets of paper on which the message had been typed and read them:

It had been von Deitzberg’s intention to return to bed when he had finished shaving. Now, without really thinking about it, he went to the chest of drawers where his linen was now stored, freshly washed after its bath in Samborombón Bay.

When he’d selected underwear, a shirt, and stockings, and started for the bathroom, von Gradny-Sawz asked, “Feeling a little better, are you? Good news from Berlin, I gather?”

Maria said, “Señor Schenck, you are supposed to do the garlic water before breakfast.”

“Get that goddamned garlic water out of here,” von Deitzberg snapped. “Get all of those lunatic remedies out of here.”

“Is something wrong?” von Gradny-Sawz asked.

“Go find a public telephone,” von Deitzberg ordered. “Call Cranz. Tell him to come here immediately. In a taxi, not an embassy car.”

“Something is wrong,” von Gradny-Sawz proclaimed.

Von Deitzberg thought: I am surrounded by idiots!

He ordered: “And when you’ve done that, station yourself at the door downstairs. If that lunatic Müller gets past you and up here, I’ll throw both of you out of the window!”

He turned to the maid. “Maria, after you throw all of that herbal junk away, go to the restaurant and get me some scrambled eggs—four scrambled eggs—toast, ham, and a pot of coffee.”

She looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

“My God, didn’t you hear me?”

Maria began to cry.

Von Gradny-Sawz gave von Deitzberg a dirty look, put his arm around Maria’s shoulders, and led her out of the room, speaking softly to her. Von Deitzberg went into the bathroom, took a cold shower, and then dressed.

When Maria returned with his scrambled eggs, von Deitzberg apologized to her for raising his voice and whatever else he had done to cause her to be uncomfortable.

While doing so, for the first time since they’d met, he looked at her as a female. He’d heard somewhere that Latin women—or was it Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese?—matured earlier than Aryans. It was apparently true so far as Maria was concerned. She had an entirely mature and quite attractive bosom.

He did not permit his thoughts to wander down that path.

My God, she’s fifteen!

Any mature man taking carnal advantage of a fifteen-year-old female child should be lashed at the stake first, and then castrated.

And Perón likes them even younger! That’s obscene!

Unfortunately, I don’t think I will ever be able to watch el Coronel Perón as he is lashed or castrated.

I have other plans for that degenerate sonofabitch!