“Yes, of course it’s possible. You are really terribly naïve, Peter.”
“I suppose I am,” he said.
“On the other hand, among his other vices, he’s both a gambler and greedy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s going to be a lot more money in that special account, and he knows it. The more there is, the larger his share. If he went to Brazil, he would have to worry for the rest of his life that the SS would come after him. He may decide to gamble on going to Germany and chancing that his dossier didn’t fall into the wrong hands, and that he can credibly deny knowledge of what went wrong in Argentina. Do you think he had anything to do with what happened there?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The problem with that, of course, is that if he loses, I lose too. On the other hand, I have access to the special account, and can probably make it to Brazil—certainly, if you fly us there in your airplane—and be an even more convincing anti-Nazi than he would.”
“I had nothing to do with what happened on the beach—” Peter said.
“Which brings us back to ‘what did happen on the beach?’” she interrupted.
“—and if I took you to Brazil, my father would wind up in Sachsenhausen. I can’t do that, Inge.”
“No, of course not,” she said sarcastically. “I keep forgetting you are a gentleman of honor.”
“Your husband is too valuable to this ransom operation for anyone to decide he has to go, without damned good reason,” Peter said. “And if he doesn’t know anything about what happened on the beach, there is no good reason.”
“Possibly,” she said.
“I think your going to Brazil would be a mistake—at least until you know for certain he’s in some sort of trouble.”
“How would I know if he was in trouble, with him in Berlin and me here?”
“If someone tried to take control of the special account, or if you were told to come home.”
“Home? I don’t have a home, or a family, Peter, thanks to the Eighth United States Air Force,” she said.
“You can always go to Brazil later,” he said.
“This profound conversation is not what I had in mind when I climbed from my balcony to yours,” she said.
“It’s not? Well, what was on your mind, Inge?” he asked innocently.
She chuckled deep in her throat and walked to him. “You have no idea?” she asked.
“Not the foggiest.”
She put her hand under the towel around his waist. “The hell you don’t,” she cried triumphantly. “Or are you going to try to tell me it’s always in that condition?”
“Of course. I’m a Luftwaffe fighter pilot.”
She jerked the towel loose and let it fall to the floor. Then, shrugging out of the blue dressing gown, she dropped to her knees and took him in her mouth.
Peter had a sudden mental image of Alicia, and with a massive effort forced it from his mind.
If Inge even suspected someone like Alicia was in my life, she would already be in Brazil. As far as she’s concerned, I am the only friend she has in South America. And I probably am. If she went to Brazil, that would be the end of the only window we have onto this obscene ransoming operation. I have to keep her here.
What that means is that I am betraying two women at the same time.
Oh, you’re really an officer and a gentleman, Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein!
“Ouch!”