"Tony, I don't trust Dave."
"Excuse me?"
"To stay at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, I mean."
"You want me to sit on him?"
"Can you get away from the Embassy?"
"Yeah. Delojo has apparently had a little talk with the Military Attach‚. Now he disappears when he sees me, instead of handing me shitty little details."
"Go to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and sit on Dave until I get back," Clete said.
"Right," Tony said. "Unless you want me to go with you and get the airplane?"
"I thought about that. But you're on a diplomatic passport...."
"Yeah," Tony said, then put out his hand. "Good luck, Clete. Don't do any-thing foolish."
[THREE]
The Embassy of the German Reich
Avenida Cordoba
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1025 14 April 1943
Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein had been in his small, high-ceilinged office-it was taller than it was wide, he once decided-no more than thirty seconds, just long enough to take off his jacket and start to put it on a hanger, when G?nther Loche came in.
"Good morning, Herr Major Freiherr," G?nther said cheerfully, placing a stack of newspapers and several magazines on Peter's somewhat battered desk. "Did the Major Freiherr have a pleasant flight from Montevideo this morning?"
Very nice, thank you for asking. Herr Standartenf?hrer Goltz had his balls in an uproar about flying back here in a hurry, so we flew over the water. I man-aged to make the engine backfire and splutter three times when we were out of sight of land, and if the Herr Standartenf?hrer didn't actually piss his pants, to look at the expression on his face, he came close.
"Very nice, thank you," Peter replied. "And you, G?nther, are disgustingly cheerful this morning. Been pulling wings off flies again, have you?"
"Excuse me, Herr Major?" G?nther asked, confusion all over his hand-some, if somewhat vacant, face.
Peter took pity on him.
"I said you seem very cheerful," Peter said. "Some good news?"
"Oberst Gr?ner told me he is looking into a scholarship for me, Herr Major Freiherr," G?nther said.
"Is that so? What kind of a scholarship?"
"Diesel-engine technology, Herr Freiherr Major. In the Fatherland. The Herr Oberst says that diesel engines are the wave of the future."
"In the Fatherland"?
"And when did you have this discussion with the Herr Oberst, G?nther?"
"This morning. He told me that Standartenf?hrer Goltz talked to him about it."
"Really?"
What the hell is this all about?