“I was wondering if you could give me the telephone number of the Guest House, Señora?”
“Is there anything I can do for you there, mi Capitán? I’m afraid the telephones here are all tied up. And in just a few minutes I will be returning to the house on Libertador myself. I would be happy…”
“Thank you, no, Señora. If you would just give me the number, please, Señora.”
“I will write it down for you,” Señora Pellano said.
As he came back into the foyer, Oberst Grüner was waiting for him.
“I was about to organize a search-and-rescue party for you, von Wachtstein,” Grüner said. “What were you doing in the kitchen?”
“Looking for someone, Herr Oberst.”
“For whom?”
Peter gestured across the foyer to where the Carzino-Cormano sisters were standing.
“For them. Or at least for the younger one. They come in pairs down here, I have just learned.”
“With a little bit of skill, I’m told, they can be separated,” Grüner said with a smile. “Which answers my second question for you.”
“Which was, Herr Oberst?”
“If you would like to come by my quarters for a light supper with myself and Frau Grüner.”
“Herr Oberst is most kind.”
“There is always something for you to eat at my quarters, Peter,” Grüner said. “But that fräulein is, I would judge, a rare opportunity. Good luck!”
“Thank you, Herr Oberst, for your understanding.”
He bowed and clicked his heels and walked away, toward Isabela and Alicia Carzino-Cormano.
A little gemütlich family gathering, Herr Oberst? A little Apfelstrudel mit Schlagobers, and a little glass of schnapps, while you await word that your thugs have murdered a very decent human being? Fuck you, Herr Oberst. Willi would understand what I’m doing.
“Mother said it’s all right if both of us go,” Alicia reported.
“How very gracious of you to join us, Señorita Isabela,” Peter said.
Shit!
[SEVEN]
Suite 701
The Alvear Palace Hotel
Buenos Aires
1705 19 December 1942
The odds are that my telephone is not tapped, Peter von Wachtstein thought as he waited for the hotel operator to connect him with the Frade Guest House. What reason would Grüner—or anyone else—have to tap it?
“Hola?” Cletus’s voice came on the line.
Not this phone line, but his! Grüner has a man—Comandante Habanzo, or something like that—in Argentine Internal Security. And Grüner has him thinking that Clete is an American agent, which means he almost certainly will have tapped Clete’s line. And if Grüner’s man hears about this conversation, then Grüner will hear about it!
Shit!