Ramirez shrugged.
"I'm open to a better suggestion," he said.
"He's close to Se¤ora Carzino-Cormano," Rawson said. "And he knows her relationship to his father."
"What I suggest is that we treat him as an honored guest who has suffered a terrible loss, and as soon as possible have Claudia talk to him. Does that make sense to you?"
"S¡, Se¤or, of course," Rawson said.
"I'll go see Claudia tonight," Ramirez said. "I know she's in Buenos Aires."
"If nothing else, perhaps Claudia can keep him away from the safe until af-ter we act," Rawson said, warming to the idea. "We don't need Outline Blue. We just, have to keep Castillo from laying his hands on it."
Ramirez grunted thoughtfully.
"But as Pedro pointed out, we cannot put Outline Blue into operation without the money. We're going to have to get into that safe," he said. "Blowing it open is a last resort. Which means we have to deal with the son. Agreed?"
"S¡, mi General." Rawson said.
"The possibility exists, Se¤or, that Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez has the combination," Querro said. "If he does, it would solve a lot of problems."
"As I understand it, he is in the hospital being guarded by the Polic¡a Fed-eral. Any conversation any of us might have with him would be recorded," Raw-son said.
"It's agreed, then," Ramirez said, "that we will deal with the son, through Claudia. Is that correct?"
Rawson nodded.
"And now I suggest, gentlemen," Ramirez said, closing the discussion, "that we have our dinner."
"S¡, mi General," Lauffer said, then walked to the door and pushed the but-ton that would summon the waiters.
Chapter Four
[ONE]
Avenida Pueyrred¢n 1706, Piso 10
Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina
0755 9 April 1943
While there were many things in Argentina Hans-Peter Freiherr (Baron) von Wachtstein had come to admire, from the food to-especially-the women, the Argentine concept of time was not among them. It was not a question of whether an Argentine would ever be on time, but instead, of how late an Ar-gentine was going to be, a period that ranged from a minimum of fifteen min-utes to an hour.
Argentines ascribed this character flaw to their Spanish heritage, but that was so much nonsense. Peter had been to Spain. He knew Spaniards regarded their timepieces as instruments of civilization rather than as decorations for the wall and/or jewelry for the wrist.
When this casual disregard for an agreed-upon schedule was tied in with another national character flaw, forgetfulness-such as forgetting the door key to the place where they were supposed to be long minutes before-Peter, nor-mally a placid, sometimes quite charming young man, tended to lose his tem-per.
In the situation at hand, his maid-a Paraguayan Amazon who outweighed him by at least thirty pounds-had agreed to daily present herself at his apart-ment at 0700, to prepare coffee according to the ratio of beans to water that he had laid out, to awaken him at 0715, and to have coffee, two soft-boiled eggs, rolls and/or bread, marmalade, and butter waiting for him when he came into the dining room at 0730.
He did not think it was too much to ask, and consequently was more than a little annoyed when his slumber was disturbed by the unpleasant grinding of the service-elevator door opening on his floor, followed almost immediately by the unpleasant clanging of the service-entrance doorbell. When he consulted his wristwatch, it indicated 07:54:45.
The facts spoke for themselves. She was not only fifty-four minutes late, again, but she had forgotten her key, again.
Peter, who was a blond, blue-eyed, compactly built twenty-four-year-old, jumped out of bed. Pausing only long enough to snatch a towel from where he had dropped it on the bedroom floor and wrap it around his waist-he slept naked-he walked quickly out of his bedroom.
The apartment was furnished with heavy, Germanic-looking furniture, rented, like the apartment itself, from an Ethnic German-Argentine family who were happy to make these available at a very reasonable price to a man like von Wachtstein. They considered this act a small contribution to the war effort and the Thousand Year Reich.
He walked quickly through the living room to the kitchen and finally reached the service-entrance door, rehearsing all the harsh and unkind things he was going to say to Se¤ora Dora.