“Hurry back,” von Deitzberg said.
Ramón hurriedly—and walking unnaturally—left the sitting room.
“I wonder if he’s going to make it?” von Deitzberg asked rhetorically. “I tend to think not.”
“May I sit down?” von Tresmarck asked.
“I think that would be a very good idea,” von Deitzberg said. “What I think I’m going to do, Werner, is tell you what’s going to happen and have you explain it to Ramón.”
Von Tresmarck nodded.
“The operation is shut down,” von Deitzberg began. “There have been reverses in the war, as I’m sure you know, which have resulted in the unexpected transfers of some of the people involved. Others have fallen for the Fatherland. It doesn’t really matter why. Intelligent people, Werner, know when to quit.
“I have been sent here under an assumed identity—by U-boat, incidentally, to give you an idea of how important this is considered—to make sure the shutdown is conducted as efficiently and as quickly as possible. And, of course, to make sure that our investments are secure and will be available if—perhaps I should in honesty say ‘when’—they are needed.
“You are going to have to disappear f
rom Uruguay. There are a number of reasons for this, including the very real possibility that some of the Jews are liable to make trouble when it becomes apparent to them that their relatives are not going to be coming.
“It would be best for you to disappear, rather than return to the Fatherland. One of the ways for you to disappear would be to die in tragic if sordid circumstances. As I’m sure you are aware, Werner, it is not uncommon for homosexuals to have a falling-out, resulting in the death of both. And this was before I knew about Ramón.
“Frankly, that seemed at first to be the simplest solution to the problem. And even more so when I got here and learned that you had confided all the details of the operation not only to Frau von Tresmarck but—”
“I never told her a thing!” von Tresmarck blurted. “She’s a lying whore. . . .”
Von Deitzberg fired another round from the Luger into the bookcase.
“Inge, that may have frightened Ramón,” von Deitzberg said. “Make sure he doesn’t try to do anything foolish.”
Inge jumped quickly to her feet and almost ran out of the sitting room.
“As I was saying, Werner, removing you permanently from the scene seemed a quite logical and simple solution to the problem, especially after I learned you had told both Frau von Tresmarck and Ramón about the confidential special fund and its assets. That was not only very disloyal of you—after all, I’m the fellow who kept you out of Sachsenhausen by sending you here—but stupid.
“But another idea had occurred to me when I learned that—like rats leaving a sinking ship—the Froggers had deserted their post in Buenos Aires.
“I asked myself, What if Werner disappeared? What if he disappeared as soon as he learned I was back in South America? If you hadn’t been off with Ramón in Paraguay, I’m sure that someone in Buenos Aires would have told you I was here. And I wondered, What if Werner disappeared, taking all the confidential special fund assets with him?
“The downside to that would be that when I made that report, there are those who would say—in the presence of the Reichsführer-SS if they could arrange that—that they knew something like that would happen. ‘You simply cannot trust a homosexual; they think like women.’
“The upside to that would be—since you had absconded with them—no confidential special fund assets for me to account for.”
Von Tresmarck looked at von Deitzberg in utter confusion.
“You take my point, Werner?” von Deitzberg asked.
“I . . . uh . . . don’t think I quite understand, Herr Brig . . . Mein Herr.”
“It took Hauptsturmführer Forster about five seconds to appreciate the benefits of your disappearance in these circumstances: We not only need no longer to transfer large amounts of cash to Germany, but since you and the assets have disappeared, no one will be clamoring for their share of the real estate, et cetera, here. And that’s presuming any of them actually manage to get out of Germany and to South America. Are you beginning to understand, Werner?”
Von Tresmarck nodded.
“The plan hinges on your disappearance,” von Deitzberg said. “And the problem with that . . .”
“I can be out of here in a matter of hours,” von Tresmarck said.
“. . . is that I no longer trust you. And I should tell you that Forster suggests I am a fool for even considering letting you live. But I find myself doing just that. With the caveat that if I even suspect you are not doing exactly what I tell you to do, or that you again have, so to speak, decided to make decisions for yourself, I will have you and, of course, Ramón killed—then there is a way for you to stay alive.”
“Ramón had a little accident,” Inge announced sarcastically from the doorway.