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“But you’re not going to tell me who?”

“I did,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “The Countess Batthyany.”

Fulmar’s eyebrows rose again.

“I think you will find her to be a rather remarkable woman,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “That has been my reaction to her, at least.”

Fifteen minutes later, when the train had left, the Gestapo agent telephoned his chief in Vienna and reported the presence of a Brigadeführer-SS from Berlin on board the train.

“I trust everything went smoothly?”

“Yes, of course.”

“They sometimes show up, you never know when or where.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t be so impressed, Franz. They piss and shit like the rest of us.”

Chapter FOUR

East Railway Station

Budapest, Hungary

1145 Hours 31 January 1943

When the Opel Admiral was found in the Official Cars Only parking area of the East Railway Station, it quite naturally caused a certain curiosity among the Gestapo agents assigned to the station.

For one thing, there were few Admirals around anywhere, and possession of one was a symbol of power and authority. This one, moreover, bore Berlin license plates, a CD (Corps Diplomatique) plate, and, affixed to the Berlin license tag where the tax sticker was supposed to go, a sticker signifying that taxes had been waived because the automobile was in the service of the German Reich, and specifically in the service of the SS-SD.

Obviously, whoever had parked the car was someone of high importance. The question was just who he was.

First things first. Josef Hamm, the raking Gestapo agent, ordered that the Hungarian railway police be “requested” to station a railway policeman to watch the car. If there was one thing known for sure, it was that, whoever the high official was, he would not be at all pleased to return to his car and find that someone had taken a key or a coin and run it along the fenders and doors.

There had been a good deal of that lately. A number of Hungarians took offense at the Hungarian-German alliance generally, and at the large—and growing—presence of German troops and SS in Budapest specifically, and expressed their displeasure in small, nasty ways.

Then Hamm called the security officer at the German embassy and asked who the car belonged to.

“It probably belongs to von Heurten-Mitnitz,” the security officer said. “That would explain the SD sticker, and he’s the type to have an Admiral.”

“Who’s von Heurten-Mitnitz?”

“Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz,” the security officer said. “He’s the new first secretary.”

“How does he rate an SD sticker?”

“Because when he’s bored with wearing striped pants, he can wear the uniform of a Brigadeführer SS-SD,” the security officer said. “You could say that von Heurten-Mitnitz is a very influential man. His brother is a great friend of the Führer. If you’d like, I can check the license-plate number of the teletype with Berlin.”

“How long would that take?”

“Thirty, forty minutes,” the security officer said.

“I’ll call you back in an hour,” Josef Hamm said. “Thank you, Karl.”

When he called back, Hamm was told that von Heurten-Mitnitz did not own the Admiral. It was owned by Standartenführer Johann Müller, of the SS-SD.

“Do you think he knows von Heurten-Mitnitz is driving it?”