"I want to wake up every morning for the rest of my life like this," she said.
"Liebchen!"
"God, I love you so much!"
He disentangled himself and stood up.
"I'll call you later," he said, and headed for the door. Then he stopped and went back to the bed, sat down, and put on the other jodhpur. As he did so, Ali-cia kissed the back of his neck.
There had always been a fantasy in Russia. Going back to civilization. Being warm. Bathing in unlimited hot water. Having all you wanted to eat, es-pecially beef and fresh vegetables. Having a young beautiful naked sweet-smelling woman in your bed. Even more fantastic than that. Having a young beautiful naked sweet-smelling woman in your bed because she was in love with you, not because it was a feather in her hat to wave in the faces of her peers around the Hotel am Zoo, or the Adlon, for having bedded a wearer of the Knight's Cross.
Well, you've had it all, Peter. The fantasy come true. But it's not what you thought it would be like, is it?
G?nther Loche was sitting in the living room
"Guten Morgen, Herr Freiherr Major," Loche said, standing up and coming almost to attention. He was a muscular, crew-cutted, blond, twenty-two-year-old, who was wearing a suit that seemed two sizes too small for him. An Ethnic German-he had been born in Argentina to German immigrant parents and was an Argentine citizen-he was employed by the German embassy as driver to the Military Attach‚, Oberst Karl-Heinz Gr?ner. Loche considered it a great honor to be of service to von Wachtstein, for Major von Wachtstein was everything he wanted to be. A very young major, a Luftwaffe fighter pilot, the recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, and, from what he'd seen, a smashing success with the ladies.
"Good morning, Loche," Peter said.
"I have taken the liberty of ordering coffee for the Herr Freiherr Major," G?nther said, pointing to a cup and saucer.
"Thank you very much," Peter said.
If you weren't so stupid, G?nther, I think I would loathe rather than pity you.
When Peter arrived at the Embassy, both Gr?ner and First Secretary Gradny-Sawz were waiting for him. Three days before, Gr?ner told him, a radio mes-sage from Berlin had alerted them that "a distinguished personage," not further identified, had departed Berlin aboard a Condor aircraft of Lufthansa, the Ger-man national airline, for Buenos Aires, "for liaison with the Ambassador." That morning there had been a second message, this one from the German Consulate in Cayenne in French Guiana, informing the Embassy that the Condor had de-parted Cayenne and could be expected to land in Buenos Aires at approxi-mately 1500 hours.
"Which causes all sorts of problems for me, of course," Gradny-Sawz, who was in charge of protocol, said importantly. "Whoever our distinguished visitor is, he's arriving in the midst of all the folderol the natives have laid on to bury Oberst Frade."
Gradny-Sawz was a tall, mildly handsome forty-five-year-old with a full head of luxuriant reddish-brown hair. The hair, he believed, was his Hungarian heritage. As he frequently told people, flashing one of his charming smiles, he was a German with roots in Hungary who happened to be born in Ostmark. (When Austria was absorbed into Germany in the Anschluss of 1938, it offi-cially became Ostmark.) He would usually manage to add that a Gradny-Sawz had been treading the marble-floored corridors of one embassy or another for almost two hundred years, first for the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now for the Thousand Year Reich.
"Yes," Peter said. "I can understand that."
"So, Peter," Gradny-Sawz said, "we've decided that you will meet the dis-tinguished personage at the airfield. Using Oberst Gr?ner's car and driver."
"Yes, Sir."
"In uniform, Peter," Gr?ner said.
"Yes, Sir."
"A complete uniform, meine lieber Hans," Gradny-Sawz added. "Modesty is a fine thing, but distinguished personages should be reminded that some of us who are waging war on the diplomatic front have also seen combat service."
That was a reference to von Wachtstein's Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. which he had received from the hands of the Fuhrer himself, and Gradny-Sawz's own Iron Cross First Class from service in the First World War.
Luftwaffe pilots and Wehrmacht infantry and panzer officers joked that the award of the Iron Cross First Class to well-born junior officers attached to the General Staff Corps was usually automatic if they had gone three months with-out contracting a social disease or making off with the mess funds.
"Yes, Sir."
"Oberst Gr?ner will arrange suitable accommodations for Herr Distin-guished Personage at the Alvear Plaza, to which you will carry him from the airport. I will suggest to the Ambassador that he entertain Herr Distinguished Personage at dinner, at which time it will be decided whether or not Herr Dis-tinguished Personage will accompany us to the Edificio Libertador for the offi-cial visit. You, my lieber Hans, are invited to the latter. Wearing your Knight's Cross. You are not invited to dine with the Ambassador."
"Yes, Sir."
"And I will stay here and try to coordinate everyone's schedule with the na-tives."
"Will you want me to send someone with you to handle the diplomatic pouches?" Gr?ner asked. "Or can you handle both?"
"I can handle both, Sir."