“Where is the Countess von Stauffenberg now? Claus’s widow, Nina?” von Wachtstein asked.
“We know only that she escaped both the SS mass execution of the prisoners in Alexanderplatz prison as the Russians drew close and the arrest of the prisoners still living by the Russians when they took the prison. We can only presume—”
“The von Stauffenbergs have a house in Zehlendorf,” von Wachtstein said. “Perhaps she is trying to get there.”
“Had a house, Herr Graf,” Gehlen said. “As I said before, all von Stauffenberg property—all the pro
perty of all the conspirators, including that of your late father, Herr Graf, was seized by the Third Reich.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“The property of the late Admiral Canaris was also seized,” Gehlen went on. “His house in Zehlendorf has been requisitioned by General White for the use of the OSS.”
“General White, von Wachtstein,” Mattingly offered, “is doing what he can to locate Countess von Stauffenberg and the baby. If they can be found, White will find them. When that happens, she will be taken to the Canaris house and placed under the protection of the OSS.”
“How is the OSS going to protect her?” Frade asked. “We have people in Berlin?”
“Did you see Master Sergeant Dunwiddie when we arrived here?” Mattingly said. “That huge black man they call ‘Tiny’? He was posting the guard.”
Frade nodded.
“He and eight of his men, most of them at least as large as Tiny, will be on the C-54 with me tomorrow,” Mattingly said. “Tiny is a very interesting man. His great-grandfather charged up San Juan Hill in Cuba with the Tenth Cavalry. Given the slightest chance, Tiny will tell you the Tenth made it up the hill before Colonel Teddy Roosevelt’s First Volunteer Cavalry did.”
Gehlen’s face showed that he could have done without the history lesson.
“Is there anything else you’d like to know, Herr Graf?” Gehlen asked.
Von Wachtstein seemed to be struggling to find his voice.
Finally, he did, and asked calmly, “General, do you know what
happened to the remains? I’d like to take my father’s body to Schloss Wachtstein.”
“Weren’t you listening, Herr Graf, when I told you that the Schloss—all of your land, all your holdings—have been seized?” Gehlen said. “Let me carry that a little further: When the Soviets took the castle—I presume you know it was being used as a recovery hospital for amputees—”
“I knew that, General. I was there.”
“—they executed the patients who had not been in condition to leave their beds and flee. The nurses and the doctors who had remained behind to treat them were sent to Russia. After, of course, the nurses had been repeatedly raped.”
“With respect, Herr General, my question was regarding the location of my father’s remains.”
“If you had been in the castle when the Russians took it, Herr Graf, and they learned who you were, you would have been hung by your ankles and your epidermis would have been cut from your body. Your skinned remains would have been left hanging so that the people in the village would get the message that the regime of the aristocracy was over and that the Red Army was in charge.”
“They actually skinned people alive?” Clete asked incredulously.
“SS officers and members of the nobility,” Mattingly said. “I’ve seen—what?—maybe twenty confirmed reports.”
“And my father’s remains, Herr General? What can you tell me?” von Wachtstein asked evenly.
“The best information I have, Herr Graf, is that they were taken to the Invalidenfriedhof cemetery and placed in an unmarked pit. They were then burned, some caustic added to speed decomposition, and then, when there were perhaps a hundred corpses in the pit, it was closed. The reasoning of the SS was that the more corpses in the grave, the harder it would be to identify any individual body if there was later an attempt at exhumation.”
After a long moment, von Wachtstein softly said, “Thank you, Herr General.”
There was silence in the room. People stared straight ahead, at their hands, at the ceiling, anywhere but at von Wachtstein.
Suddenly, Peter got to his feet and marched to the bar. He stood over it, supporting himself on both arms, his head lowered.
Frade got up and went toward him. Before he reached the bar, Dooley got up and followed him.