Page 232

“And then there is the problem of destroying these new aircraft, which is compounded by the fact that I don’t know where they are, what they look like, or have even seen a picture of one of them.”

“They’re actually quite impressive aircraft,” Cranz said. “Von Wachtstein managed to arrange a tour through his mother-in-law, and he told me—”

“Ah, yes, Baron von Wachtstein,” von Deitzberg interrupted. “The lucky fellow doesn’t have to worry about what happens to him after the war, does he? As soon as he gets out of the POW cage, he just comes ‘home’ to his wife’s Argentine estancia.”

“That thought has occurred to me,” Cranz said.

“You were saying, Karl?”

“The aircraft, which von Wachtstein says are magnificent . . .”

“I wonder if that language falls into the category of defeatism,” von Deitzberg asked.

“I’d say it was a professional judgment,” Cranz said. “Ambassador von Lutzenberger told him to find out as much as he could about the airplanes.”

“Where did you say they are?”

“They’re based outside Buenos Aires, on an airfield near Morón that Frade built and then named after the late Oberst Frade. They’re under the guard of what I’ve come to think of as ‘Frade’s Private Army.’ They’re all former soldiers of the Oberst’s cavalry regiment.”

“We have some SS troopers here, don’t we?”

“The last time we sent SS troopers to deal with Frade, they vanished from the face of the earth,” Raschner said. “Leaving behind only a great deal of their blood in Frade’s country house.”

“Well, as I said, it may be necessary for me to remain here for some time.”

“And what if either Raschner or I am ordered home?” Cranz asked.

“Well, I’ll do my best, of course, to see that doesn’t happen.”

“But if it does?”

“If it does, then I wouldn’t be surprised if we had to ask ourselves what was really more important. Returning to God only knows what—the Eastern Front, perhaps—or staying here to prepare Operation Adler. I would tend to think the latter.”

“What about Frau von Tresmarck?” Raschner asked.

“She is at the moment in the Alvear Palace Hotel, where she tells me she is going to have a facial, a massage, and a hair-curling. Then she will go shopping—leaving a message to that effect with the hotel telephone operator. And then she will walk out onto Avenida Alvear and vanish from the face of the earth.”

“How did she get to the Alvear Palace?”

“Von Gradny-Sawz was kind enough to meet the ship from Montevideo. He put her into a taxi.”

“Von Gradny-Sawz?” Cranz asked. He was not able to mask his surprise.

Von Deitzberg nodded and said, “Von Gradny-Sawz will meet her somewhere on Avenida Alvear and take her to my flat in Belgrano, where she will become Señora Schenck.”

“What’s that all about?” Raschner blurted, quickly adding, “If I am permitted to ask.”

“Are you curious about von Gradny-Sawz’s role in all this, or about my new wife?”

“Both,” Cranz answered for him. He tried to temper the immediacy of his answer with a smile.

“Von Gradny-Sawz has been wondering for some time about where he will go should the unthinkable happen. He knows the Russians will seize his estates, either before or after hanging him. Or perhaps skinning him alive; they like aristocrats only a bit less than they like SS officers.

“He managed to get quite a bit of money and jewels out of Austria—e xcuse me, Ostmark—and has, so to speak, set up his own small, personal, Operation Phoenix. This, of course, came to my attention. I decided his knowledge of the culture and geography—and the people he has cultivated—here would be of great value to Operation Adler, and have conferred on him sort of an honorary membership in the SS.

“So far as Frau von Tresmarck is concerned: She knows all about the investments of the former confidential fund, both those von Tresmarck told us about and those that he didn’t.

“Since she has nothing to go back to in Germany, family or property, I thought perhaps she might consider helping herself to some of Operation Adler’s assets and disappearing. Obviously, I can’t take the risk of that happening. A man and a good-looking blonde traveling around together, buying property, that sort of thing, causes curiosity and talk. A man and his wife doing the same thing causes less.