“Probably,” Clete said.
“You can touch me now, Cletus,” Dorotéa said. “I was going to let you anyway.” She took his hand and guided it to her belly.
“Sometimes he moves,” she said.
“‘He’?”
“God, I hope so,” she said. “Don’t you?”
VII
[ONE]
The Residence of the German Ambassador
1104 La Rambla
Carrasco, Uruguay
0845 2 May 1943
The Residence of the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Führer of the German Reich to the Republica Oriental del Uruguay was a three-story red-tile-roofed villa of indeterminate architecture set against a small hill overlooking the beach of the River Plate.
There was a small balcony outside the master suite of the house, where Ambassador Joachim Schulker, a stocky Bavarian in his late fifties, was having his morning coffee in his bathrobe. From there he could see the small black embassy Mercedes moving down La Rambla, the road that ran from the Port of Montevideo to Carrasco along the River Plate.
At the wheel was his secretary, Fräulein Gertrud Lerner, a buxom woman in her late thirties who wore her straw-blond hair in a bun at her neck. She had a small apartment in the Embassy itself, which was in downtown Montevideo, but also on La Rambla.
Ambassador Schulker watched with his coffee cup in hand as Fräulein Lerner nosed the Mercedes against the gate of the driveway, stepped out of the car, and, marching purposefully in her sturdy shoes, approached the door. Then he set his coffee cup on the railing and went to meet her.
His wife was still asleep as he passed through their bedroom to the corridor outside.
When he reached the foot of the stairs, Fräulein Lerner was standing in the foyer, just inside the front door.
“Good morning, Trude,” he said.
“There is an RCA radiogram, Excellency,” she said, and handed him a yellow envelope.
When she was about the business of the Reich, Trude thought informality was inappropriate.
“Thank you very much, Fraülein Lerner,” he said. “Will you wait just a moment, please?”
He tore open the envelope. It took him just a moment to confirm his suspicions about what the message would contain.
“That will be all, Fräulein Lerner, thank you very much.”
“Jawohl, Excellency!” she barked, and rendered the Nazi salute.
The Ambassador returned it, somewhat casually.
Fräulein Lerner turned and left the building, and drove back to the Embassy.
She was very proud that the Ambassador had enough respect for her ability and trustworthiness to ask her to serve as duty officer on weekends and holidays, a responsibility ordinarily given only to officers and seldom to administrative personnel.
And she had no idea that the appointment had been Ambassador Schulker’s solution to the interminable litanies of excuses about why the officers simply could not serve as duty officer this weekend, or over that holiday.
Ambassador Schulker closed the door, then went to the telephone on a small table in the foyer and dialed a number from memory.
It was answered by a female, speaking Spanish.