“Here, or in Buenos Aires? If he means Buenos Aires, he’s wrong. Grüner was in charge of security there. And if he didn’t trust even me enough to tell me what was going on, how could anyone else know about it?”
“Well, somebody told whoever shot at you where you were going to be,” she said.
“Well, it wasn’t me,” he said. “So I have nothing to worry about.”
“In Berlin they may decide they need somebody to blame. And if they decide on you, it won’t matter if you didn’t know anything about it or not.”
“Can we get off this subject?”
She looked into his eyes for a moment, then smiled. “For dessert, you can have a lime sherbet in what looks like an enormous cocktail glass. They pour champagne over the sherbet. It’s supposed to be an aphrodisiac,” she said.
“You think I need something like that?”
“Well, we’ll see, won’t we, darling? It can’t do any harm to be sure, can it?”
Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck was waiting for them, somewhat impatiently, in the sitting.
Will I now be spared servicing Inge?
“I was wondering where you were,” he said.
Does that mean that you were thinking we had taken off for Brazil?
“Peter insisted on taking me to dinner,” Inge said. “You said you would probably be late.”
“That was unnecessary, von Wachtstein,” he said. “We have a first-rate cook.”
“It was my pleasure, Herr Sturmbannführer,” Peter said.
“Inge, if you will excuse us, I have a little business to discuss with Peter.”
“Of course. If you don’t mind, either of you, I think I’ll go to bed. It’s been a busy day.”
“I asked the maid to pack for me,” he said. “Would you please check to make sure I have everything to last me two or three weeks?”
“Certainly,” Inge said.
“Excuse me, Herr Sturmbannführer,” Peter said. “We’ll be in the Storch. It will have to be a small case that you can hold on your lap during the flight.”
“Damn it,” von Tresmarck said, looking at Peter with annoyance. Then he went on. “In that case, Inge, you will have to repack my things. Put what’s absolutely necessary in the small black bag. And then pack everything else I might need for three weeks in a larger bag, or bags. It’s possible we won’t leave Buenos Aires immediately, and a messenger can bring them to me before we go.”
“All right,” Inge said agreeably.
“May I suggest, Herr Sturmbannführer,” Peter said, aware that he was enjoying discomfiting von Tresmarck, “that there are liable to be very stringent weight requirements on the Condor?”
“I’m very much aware of that, von Wachtstein,” von Tresmarck said, almost angrily. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
“Yes, of course, Herr Sturmbannführer,” Peter said.
“I’ll see you, of course, in the morning, Peter,” Inge said. “Good night.”
“Sleep well, Frau von Tresmarck,” Peter said, and bowed and clicked his heels.
Von Tresmarck waited until Inge had closed the door behind her, then touched Peter’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, Peter, but I don’t want to arrive in Berlin looking like a refugee.”
“I understand, Herr Sturmbannführer.”
“Do you think you could bring yourself to call me Werner?”